Iro's One Movie a Day Thread

It's called discovering our own tastes. I have a very good notion of my tastes in music, I hardly listen to stuff I don't love. In movies and TV things are more complicated.

I like animation, fantasy/science fiction, cuteness and heavy drama but it's hard to find well executed stuff that combines all of that (Nausicaa, Kaiba, Haibane Renmei and PMMM do, which is the reason why they are in my top 10), when it does it instantly scores 5/5. But most of the time a masterpiece of a genre I usually dislike is better than mediocre example of a genre I like.

I find impressive that he watched like 360 movies in 5 months and a couple weeks and managed to find the time to write a lot about each movie. I cannot write much when I write about art but I am concise though I wrote only 35 reviews in animation over a 60 day period though only half of the movies I watched in the past months have been animated.

Though almost all the dialogue from Ghost in the Shell and it's sequel is taken directly from Shirow's manga. Though the movies are way more serious and maintain great emotional distance from the characters while the manga is more conventional.

I also dislike the use of CGI in modern anime though this is from 2008, Aldonoah Zero (2014) manages to integrate CGI robots with hand drawn backgrounds and characters in a much more natural fashion.

I would recommend Urusei Yatsura 2 (1984), it is regarded by Japanese animation critics his best film. Also it's more conventional and features a more well developed human side, Sky Crawlers is a very cold movie (and consciously so). As well as Patlabor (1989).

The movie is a critique of the anime fandom because the fans of anime are like eternal children who live in a fantasy world and the kildren symbolize the fans. Still it's among my top 5-6 favorite Oshii movies. He is one of the top 4 great anime directors, alongside Miyazaki, Takahata and HIdeaki Anno.

#366 - The Limits of Control
Jim Jarmusch, 2009



A man travels to Spain in order to carry out a mysterious mission.

Depending on your point of view, The Limits of Control is either Jim Jarmusch's purest distillation of his personal filmmaking style or it is him indulging his worst tendencies and descending into self-parody...or it could be both. You never know with a guy like him. In any case, it's yet another instance of Jarmusch bringing his directorial idiosyncrasies to a well-established genre. At first, it's not exactly clear which genre he's aiming for - I'm inclined to say "spy" due to the constant usage of code-phrases and exchanging of information as a well-dressed man travels through a foreign location. However, there is a heavy implication that the stoic protagonist (Isaach de Bankolé) is nothing more than an assassin, which is enough to remind me of Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai and I was hoping that Jarmusch wasn't about to repeat himself too much. Repetition does seem to be the key word when it comes to describing The Limits of Control. Many lines of dialogue are repeated over and over (if I had a dollar every time someone asked de Bankolé's character if he didn't speak Spanish...) and there soon emerges a pattern as he moves from contact to contact, swapping mission-relevant matchboxes and ordered two espressos each time. It gets to the point where a sort of groove is established and your appreciation of the film will depend on how much you can tolerate being stuck in said groove.

To accentuate (or at least compensate for) the extremely slow and deliberate repetition at the heart of what could generously be called the narrative, Jarmusch packs out the film with recognisable actors like John Hurt, Tilda Swinton, and Bill Murray. Other characters barely share the screen with de Bankolé for more than one scene and they mainly exchange more cryptic dialogue with him, which is lent slightly more gravitas as a result. I also credit Jarmusch with once again being able to give the film a great soundtrack, with an eclectic mix of classical, flamenco guitar, and - easily my favourite part - droning guitar music courtesy of bands like Boris and Earth. Those latter bands in particular make for the ideal backing to many lengthy scenes involving de Bankolé in transit across the picturesque Spanish landscape. It's perhaps a bit too idiosyncratic to be a genuinely entertaining film, but once you get into the right headset then it becomes a fairly fascinating experience. I don't recommend it to anyone who isn't at least considerably familiar with the works of Jarmusch or any other directors who think of slowness and inaction as a conscious filmmaking choice more so than an unintentional flaw. If that sounds like your deal, then you'll probably get something out of this.

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Iro's Top 100 Movies v3.0

#367 - The Wolverine
James Mangold, 2013



Wolverine, who is living in seclusion following the events of X-Men: The Last Stand, is invited to go to Japan and say farewell to an old acquaintance.

Ever since I started the One Movie a Day Review Thread, I have gotten a sizeable number of posts asking me not just why I apparently dislike so many well-regarded films but also why I go out of my way to watch films that don't even look that good in the first place. I guess it's because, despite the raging cynicism that permeates this thread, I do occasionally have hope that there will be some fun to be found even in the unlikeliest of places. I have also been largely unreceptive to most comic-book/superhero movies, especially the last couple of X-Men movies that I've reviewed here. One of those films was X-Men Origins: Wolverine, an attempt to give Hugh Jackman's steel-clawed anti-hero a standalone feature of his own that somehow managed to be an even greater mess of a film than X-Men: The Last Stand. 2013's The Wolverine marks the second attempt at giving Wolverine a solo round, and while it's an improvement on those last two films that I mentioned, that doesn't say much.

The Wolverine takes place in Japan for much of its running time and only features a couple of mutants aside from its eponymous protagonist, which does suggest that the film is trying to distance itself from the rest of the franchise. This becomes readily apparent when the scenes that actually do acknowledge the continuity (often through Wolverine's visions where he is haunted by a deceased loved one) come across as clunky at best. Instead, the film is mostly content to just give Wolverine a spin-off adventure with a whole new cast of characters and a plot involving an elderly industrialist and an assassination plot against his granddaughter. From there, it turns into an escort mission for the reluctant hero as he fights against Yakuza here, ninjas there, and the occasional mutant adversary. There are some decent moments here and there - the fight that takes place on the roof of a bullet train is at least exciting enough to make up for its implausibility - but it's sadly a bit underweight without much dramatic heft. Aside from Wolverine getting besieged by guilt-tripping hallucinations and also getting hit with something that neuters his healing powers, there's also a somewhat interesting conflict driven by patriarchal villains and their attempts to solidify their empire by any means necessary. Of course, this is all buried under a film that isn't so much a superhero movie as it is a cat-and-mouse conspiracy thriller that just so happens to feature a hairy immortal with steel claws, but not quite as interesting as that sounds.

#368 - Cobra
George P. Cosmatos, 1986



A loose-cannon cop is charged with protecting a witness who can identify a gang of murderous bikers.

The header image tells you everything you need about this movie in the space of a couple of seconds. Sylvester Stallone looks like the living, breathing stereotype of a rogue 1980s cop in his leather jacket, mirrored sunglasses, and black gloves - and here he is sitting in his apartment using a pair of scissors to cut up a slice of frozen pizza. That perfectly sums up Cobra, a combination of Stallone at the peak of his status as an iconic action hero teaming up with the notorious dreck-meisters at Cannon Films. Coming off the success of reactionary anti-Commie action flicks like Rambo: First Blood Part II and Rocky IV, Stallone turns his capacity for righteous violence towards inner-city Los Angeles in this extremely half-baked Dirty Harry rip-off scripted by the Best Original Screenplay winner himself. What distinguishes it as a Dirty Harry ripoff more so than a generic "cowboy cop" kind of movie is that, in addition to the opening "monologue over close-up of a pistol" scene knocking off the same one from Magnum Force, there are even two Dirty Harry cast members in supporting roles. Even if you have no familiarity with that Eastwood film whatsoever, there's no mistaking just what kind of ride you're going on with this film.

In keeping with Cannon Films' modus operandi during the 1980s, Cobra is a cheap, bloody film that's not far removed from the typical Death Wish sequel in that it features its violent protagonist (here an officer of the law instead of a vigilante) going up against one-dimensional villains whose only goals are bloodshed and carnage (though at least here it's explained that they want to create a new world order based on survival of the fittest - yeah). The protagonist contends with authority figures whose attitudes towards his actions are either ones of vicious condemnation or world-weary enabling and nothing in between. Also, there's a token female character (Brigitte Nielsen) who also ends up being a love interest for the protagonist and whose continued presence in the film is justified by her being a survivor and witness of an attack by the villainous gang at the heart of the film (led by Brian Thompson, an actor of very debatable ability who bears more than a little resemblance to a certain Austrian bodybuilder-turned-actor). It's a flimsy enough justification for a series of violent action sequences full of driving, shooting, stabbing, exploding, burning, and running. Not even the sparse characterisation offered towards Cobra does much to endear him to an audience, to say nothing of the lack of depth to the rest of the cast. At least the extremely lurid Cannon style of action movie means that it's got enough schlocky charm to save it from being totally awful, but I still have trouble deciding if I've outgrown films like this or if this one is just really bad.

This is exactly the kind of film I was talking about when I said you were watching films which aren't even trying to give you what you're looking for. Not that I mind, a good review of a bad film is usually far more entertaining than a good review of a good film, but there sometimes feels like there's a frustration or weariness to your reviews of these films which has me wondering why you bother.

Naturally I like Cobra. Quite a lot. I did a commentary for this with SC and during that he told me of an extended or extreme cut of the film. I'd love for that to be released.

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The last time you brought that up, I asked (somewhat rhetorically) "What am I looking for?" I think I want to like these cult '80s movies for whatever reason but then I end up watching them and being underwhelmed as a result, hence why I suspect I'm just not that interested in them any more. I did note in my review for Harry Brown that I was getting bored with run-of-the-mill vigilante movies, which Harry Brown ended up being despite promising to have a bit more substance thanks to the pedigree of its actors, but it's really not much different to this underneath its modern-day grime.

That being said, what makes a good review of a bad film? Is it one that champions the film's few redeeming features (even if it is little more than unintentional comedy) or is it one that gleefully tears a movie to pieces over its shortcomings? Is it one that does both? Though I was sure to pick apart some of Cobra's more noticeable "qualities" (the weirdness of the header image, the shameless Dirty Harry references, the incredible lack of depth or charm, Brian Thompson), it was a fundamentally shallow film that relays the loose-cannon narrative in a way that's too dull and familiar to be engaging but not straight-faced enough to be sufficiently entertaining. Cobra's whole "lone wolf" thing doesn't really work - while it does result in a memorably weird moment with the pizza that I described as perfectly capturing the essence of the film (in both a good and bad way), it's something of an anomaly underneath an otherwise dry portrayal of a tiresome archetype. There wasn't much to talk about in the way of truly engaging or entertaining action either, hence why I skimmed over it with a laundry list of what kind of things you could expect. In hindsight, maybe the finale inside a steel mill was a high point, but it did ultimately feel like too little, too late.

Anyway, regarding why I bother - like I said in my review for The Wolverine, I still have some hope that whatever I watch will surprise me or at least play to my expectations in a sufficiently entertaining manner. Cobra didn't do either of those things, though it wasn't awful enough to warrant a lower rating ( is kind of my "dull" rating, reserved for films that aren't especially awful but aren't good enough to deserve even a mediocre rating). I guess that's where the frustration comes from, then - because these films never actually do what I want them to, and not in a good way.

Then maybe Guap was right. Maybe you don't know your tastes in the way that I thought you did. From the last couple of pages I'd have said xXx, Cobra, Across the Wide Missouri, Godzilla, JP3, The Incredible Hulk, Bad Boys II and maybe Soylent Green would've all been films I'd have confidently told you to skip. Obviously I didn't know, but I'd have been confident. Your last sentence seems to be very telling. That's exactly how I feel you're feeling in your reviews. My problem is that I don't/didn't understand why you expected anything else. For the most part, genre pictures are generic. It's what they do, it's why they exist and it's what's expected of them. It's why some people don't like them and it's why many of those who do don't like it when they do something different.

As for a good review of a bad film, it depends on what you like in a review. Though you didn't like Cobra, I liked the way you wrote the review. Like a few other films we've identified over the years, what you don't like about it is why I like it. Neither is wrong or right, it's just different tastes. BTW, I remember reading that Cobra was built from the bones of the Beverley Hills Cop film that Sly was supposed to star in before he bailed and Eddie Murphy got the gig and 'funnied' it up.

#369 - The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
Stephen Norrington, 2003



At the turn of the 20th century, a handful of adventurous characters taken from various works of Victorian literature are recruited in order to fight against a masked terrorist.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen has a lot going against it. Made in 2003 (not the best year for comic-book movies, as this thread will attest), it was reportedly so bad that not only did source author Alan Moore denounce it and all other subsequent cinematic adaptations of his work but the troubled production also made director Norrington and leading man Sean Connery retire from the film business completely. As with Watchmen and V For Vendetta (which I liked and disliked respectively), I had read the source material beforehand (or at least the first two volumes included in the Omnibus edition - still haven't finished the text in the back) and had enjoyed its premise where characters from various works of primarily speculative fiction crossed paths and got into all sorts of adventures, plus Moore was willing to indulge the same cynicism he showed towards superheroes in Watchmen by making the "heroes" of his piece incredibly flawed and sometimes despicable (most notoriously the Invisible Man being a serial rapist). The film version neuters its source considerably in order to chase a PG-13 rating and there is quite a lot wrong with it, but all things considered I actually sort of liked The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen despite its many shortcomings.

Trying to pack in the assembly of its team does take a bit of time, especially when there are two new characters thrown into the mix (along with Allan Quatermain, Mina Murray (née Harker), the Invisible Man, Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde, and Captain Nemo). While Dorian Gray makes for a reasonable enough choice, Tom Sawyer stands out like a sore thumb thanks to not only his status as a token American in a British adventure movie but also thanks to his forced "surrogate son" relationship with Quatermain and him being one of several male characters who have some romantic and/or sexual interest in Murray. The characterisation is a bit haphazard - Quatermain and Nemo are played reasonably well by Connery and Naseeruddin Shah respectively (and to a lesser extent Jason Flemyng does alright playing both Jekyll and Hyde given the rather goofy way in which the film frames the duo's struggle against one another), but the other actors don't leave much in the way of favourable impressions as their internal conflicts and relationships are glossed over in favour of steampunk spectacle. It's a shame because that was what really made the comics work so well (though it was no slouch when it came to action). But no, this is 2003, and all that year's available comic-book nuance got used up while making Hulk.

That wouldn't be such a problem if the film had some decent action, but it's not hard to see just how badly the effects have aged over the past decade or so. CGI-heavy sequences such as a city being levelled or every appearance of Nemo's submarine don't hold up, but the film's attempts to use practical effects aren't much better. The most notable example is the transformation of Jekyll into Hyde (and vice versa), which is accomplished through a series of prosthetics where cuts are disguised by flashes and a lot of moving around on both sides of the camera, resulting in some bad-looking work. While I'll give the film some credit for attempting to adapt as much of the comic into a two-hour film as possible through a brand-new story that mixes and matches elements of the two volumes I mentioned earlier, it sacrifices a lot of the source's most charming elements and fails to compensate for them adequately. In its own way, it's a good companion piece to Hulk in that it was something of a failure in its own right but definitely laid some groundwork for Marvel's much more popular and acclaimed works. While a lot of the film feels like a mess of problems that can't quite cohere in a way that makes sense, there are bits and pieces that hint at a good film and that is why I can't bring myself to truly hate it. I have a small measure of hope that it will get the reboot it deserves, but time will tell on that front.

This film had potential and I like Norrington's previous effort, Blade.

#370 - The Terminal
Steven Spielberg, 2004



A government coup d'etat in a fictional European country results in a legal complication that effectively traps one of its citizens in an American airport.

Even for someone who currently has two separate Spielberg films in his top 10, it's hard for me to muster a lot of excitement about the bulk of his filmography. Going by reputation, The Terminal was always going to be a tough sell, though it did have an intriguing high concept in its tale of Tom Hanks' beleaguered protagonist being caught in an extremely unlikely situation where a coup in his country of origin means his passport is not only unrecognised by the U.S. government and forbidding him from setting foot on American soil but also keeping him from returning home, so naturally his only recourse is to set up shop inside the airport terminal he arrived in in the first place. Thus begins a two-hour dramedy about a heavily accented but fairly likeable fool bumbling his way through the adversity offered by bureaucratic antagonists, the circumstances involving trying to live in an airport, and also his stumbling romantic sub-plot involving a stewardess (Catherine Zeta-Jones).

Unfortunately, The Terminal wastes its rather solid premise on the kind of mawkish shenanigans that characterise Spielberg at his worst. Hanks plays a Gump-like character who is defined by his being a foreigner rather than having a low IQ, whose generally blithe demeanour in the face of his absurd situation isn't always played for laughs, which is probably just as well considering how lacklustre the jokes tend to be. There are a couple of pratfalls, as well as his attempts to fashion a new living situation out of the limited resources at his disposal and his obliviousness to how much the airport supervisor (Stanley Tucci, who gives what's probably the best performance in the film) wants to palm him off on anyone else. There's also the ragtag collection of characters that work at the airport and serve as understanding foils for Hanks' situation. While it's got some noticeable technical flair thanks to frequent Spielberg collaborator Janusz Kaminski providing some rather fluid camera movements, but that only draws attention to how much the film trades on lightweight humour and some rather bland sentiments (even when the reason for Hanks' visit to New York is revealed, it doesn't quite land as well as it should). That's without getting into the romantic sub-plot featuring Zeta-Jones, which is just as by-the-numbers as everything else in this movie. Despite that, I didn't hate it or anything, but it's still more or less every major flaw with Spielberg-as-storyteller distilled into an overly long dramedy that compromises a subtly unnerving premise for the sake of being the bad kind of crowd-pleaser.

Ok note to self, must come more often as catching up can take a while when you watch a movie a day

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#371 - The Manchurian Candidate
John Frankenheimer, 1962



After a group of American soldiers return home from the Korean War, one of them starts to realise that another one of his number was actually brainwashed to be a sleeper agent.

While relatively conventional compared to Frankenheimer's later film Seconds, The Manchurian Candidate covers similar ground in being yet another example of a thriller that is primed to point out the insidious nature of both communism and McCarthyism with only the slightest elements of science-fiction thrown in to justify its storyline and expounding upon its themes. It displays Frankenheimer's capacity for creating somewhat disorienting yet captivating visuals early on with a sequence where the American platoon is being brainwashed by a cabal of communist leaders, which rapidly flits back and forth between the platoon's perception of what is happening and what is happening in reality. This much is realised by the film's nominal hero (Frank Sinatra), who keeps having horrid flashbacks to the procedure and remembering how the team's leader (Laurence Harvey) was effectively made into an unquestioning killing machine. Of course, by the time he realises that Harvey has already been commemorated as a war hero and is being primed for some sort of mission involving political intrigue.

The stark monochromatic photography does well to drain the film of any kind of warmth, even in situations where it seems like it would demand it such as the development of separate romantic relationships for both Sinatra and Harvey. The film is also pretty sparing when it comes to the use of music, letting the frankness of the imagery speak for itself - and speak for itself it does, as Harvey's actions do become more disturbing, especially when it is clear just how much his own mother (Angela Lansbury) is manipulating him even without the use of brainwashing. She definitely becomes a defining presence in an otherwise male-dominated film (even Janet Leigh's presence as Sinatra's companion seems rather inconsequential), though it's not like Sinatra and Harvey don't put in sufficiently wide-ranging performances of their own. Though some aspects date the film in all the wrong ways (Henry Silva playing a North Korean? Riiiiight), it's still a sufficiently compelling film that still proves striking and relevant even now.

I really like this movie I own it

I love that film. Angela Landsbury is superb and dominates every scene she's in. It may be a bit of a lazy description, but it really is a very Lady Macbeth like showing. She's the best thing in the film and that's saying something.

I liked The Terminal, but I had some of the same problems you did with it. Mostly the length and the romantic subplot, for want of a better phrase. I'd give it maybe a box more (certainly half a box more) than you, but I feel that probably is just a rating thing. From your review, I feel that I liked it more than you did but, by the time it ended, we were in a similar place.

Since I do first-time ratings out of four, it'd make sense to add a full box onto all the ratings I give.

#372 - The Big Heat
Fritz Lang, 1953



A detective investigating a colleague's suicide is drawn into a dangerous situation involving a collection of unsavoury underworld figures.

The Big Heat is a lean little film noir that, though it is rather enjoyable, doesn't leave a consistent favourable impression as a film with its reputation should. It starts off with an intriguing enough mystery as Glenn Ford's detective sergeant investigates the suicide of another officer - though it would seem to be an open-and-shut case, his probing investigation starts to lead to the bodies piling up and damage being done (especially to himself), but he soldiers on regardless, earning the interest of the moll (Gloria Grahame) of one of the gangsters (Lee Marvin) that he's pursuing. While The Big Heat doesn't exactly do anything wrong, it might actually suffer from decades' worth of imitators that do neuter the impact of this one considerably. Ford plays a familiar character type as an honest cop who pursues his suspect despite the apathy and corruption of his fellow officers plus the sheer brutality of the criminals he goes up against. As things progressively get worse and more personal, he loses touch with his calm demeanour and starts to become Marvin plays his usual salty self, becoming notorious for his thuggish inflicting of pain and disfigurement on any woman who irks him; this extends to Grahame as his long-suffering girlfriend, whose involvement with Ford's investigation and treatment by Marvin prompts her to do an about-face and become a more interesting character than Ford's fairly by-the-book character (both in terms of professional ethics and character development).

With a veteran director like Lang at the helm, The Big Heat has some good visuals but is ultimately stymied by its genre trappings. The second half is some solid work, but you do have to wade through the fairly pedestrian police procedural that is the first half in order to get to the truly fascinating elements. It's got some decent visuals and the odd piece of good dialogue, but there's not enough here to make me think it's anything more than alright (on its own terms, at least). I'm probably due for a re-watch at some point, but right now I'm inclined to think of it as the barest of essential viewing.

#373 - Being There
Hal Ashby, 1979



A middle-aged gardener with a developmental disorder is forced to leave the estate he's lived on for his entire life and ends up in the home of an elderly businessman.

Credit where credit's due, Hal Ashby knows how to offer a decent iteration on some familiar tropes, whether it's the "manic pixie dream girl" in Harold and Maude or the "one night on the town" of The Last Detail. Being There plays on the whole "supposedly ingenious fool" trope, with Peter Sellers playing said fool with considerable aplomb. Sellers made a career of being able to inhabit all sorts of humourous characters even in films that were starkly serious, and while Being There does have a fundamentally comical premise, it doesn't go for broad laughs so much as a pointed melancholy even in its most obviously funny moments (such as Sellers' encounter with a street gang or the various reactions to his assertion that he "likes to watch" television). Of course, it's a credit to this film that, despite its apparent comedic nature and lack of spontaneous laughter, it still doesn't feel like a failure. In fact, it's far from it.

While Sellers definitely delivers a performance that more than compensates for the character's familiar developments (it's not hard to feel like he was robbed of an Oscar), credit has to go to the rest of the cast. Melvyn Douglas plays the elderly businessman who takes Sellers in following an accident and admires his tendency towards being straightforward and honest, seeing it as an opportunity to reflect on his own shortcomings and immediate goals, which do involve meeting the president (Jack Warden). Shirley MacLaine is stellar as always playing Douglas's wife who has a number of conflicting feelings about Douglas that are only exacerbated or challenged by Sellers' arrival into their lives. A few other character actors (most noticeably The Thing alumni David Clennon and Richard Dysart as an attorney and doctor respectively). Being There may not exactly deliver hearty laughs and it's disappointing how the film's final image has become iconic to the point that it'd practically spoiled, but it is the kind of warm yet bittersweet film that I've come to expect from Ashby.

I really like Being There. It was one of the films I was putting out there for the 70's countdown.