Iro's One Movie a Day Thread

#448 - Only God Forgives
Nicolas Winding Refn, 2013



An American criminal living in Bangkok is forced to go on a quest for revenge after his brother is murdered.

If you thought that Drive was a disappointingly slow and ponderous film underneath its seemingly action-packed premise about an expert getaway driver, then avoid this film at all costs. Ostensibly, it's a revenge film about a man (Ryan Gosling) getting revenge for his murdered brother, but of course it's more complicated than that. Said brother was a remorseless degenerate who raped and murdered a teenage girl and was then brutally murdered by the girl's father at the behest of a mysterious man (Vithaya Pansringarm), who then proceeds to mutilate said father for killing someone. Things only get more complicated when Gosling's mother (Kristin Scott Thomas) flies into Thailand and wants nothing more than revenge for her dead son, belittling and manipulating Gosling until he does what she wants.

As you may have gleaned from the previous paragraph, Only God Forgives is a fundamentally unpleasant film with its extremely grey sense of morality that makes virtually all its characters not only too unsympathetic to root for but also too poorly-developed to even halfway care about. Gosling takes the same type of dispassionate yet violent character he played in Drive and exaggerates that character's flaws past the point of good definition, while Thomas makes for one of the most downright despicable characters I've seen in recent memory. It gets to the point where Pansringarm, who is probably the closest thing the film has to a main antagonist (though it's debatable where his character falls on the morality scale) ends up being the most interesting character to watch even as he engages in his own inscrutable acts of extreme violence. Despite being on the lighter side of 90 minutes, the film also drags extremely hard even by Refn's idiosyncratic standards due to its extremely thin vengeance narrative feeling for a movie-length afterthought that is padded by plenty of drawn-out sequences involving Pansringarm. On the other hand, the film's main saving grace ends up being Refn's trademark visual style that emphasises static shots filled with high contrasts and bright colours, soaking almost every frame in lurid neons. While it's entirely possible that I may have missed the point of the film (writing this out certainly makes me think that it's got some strengths that I may not have properly appreciated), that doesn't exactly excuse how dull and reprehensible it manages to be for the most part. Knowing Refn, that's probably the point, but as far as points go, it's one I guess I'd rather miss.

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Iro's Top 100 Movies v3.0

As much as I like Drive, I think Refn is a director who's not for me.

Yeah, he's definitely not for everyone, but despite being let down by this one I still want to see more of his stuff. Drive and Bronson alone have generated considerable goodwill, but time will tell if it lasts.

#449 - Judge Dredd
Danny Cannon, 1995



In a futuristic dystopia where people live in gigantic cities that are governed by law enforcers known as "judges", one such judge ends up being wrongfully accused of murder.

It would be remiss of me to ignore the rather unforgiving reputation that hangs over Judge Dredd like a noxious smog, especially since I already managed to watch 2012's Dredd a couple of times and genuinely enjoyed it thanks to its rather simplistic Die Hard-style plot that got played for maximum effect. Judge Dredd, on the other hand, involves a slightly more complicated tale where the titular judge (Sylvester Stallone) is framed for murdering a journalist that openly criticised his particularly violent brand of justice. Thus begins the epic fight to escape from custody, prove his innocence and take down the people responsible, chief among them being a criminally insane former judge (Armand Assante) who has escaped from prison and is getting ready to take over the city. It's a lean enough plot and might have worked if the circumstances were different - unfortunately the execution is extremely shoddy. Having Stallone play the protagonist seems like a bad idea as his thick accent makes it hard to take his hard-bitten character seriously (it's pretty bad when his first line of dialogue is the character's iconic catchphrase and he delivers it like...this.) Even so, he still doesn't ham it up quite as badly as Assante does nor does he match up to notably superior actors like Jürgen Prochnow or Max von Sydow. Having Rob Schneider get thrown into the mix as a comic-relief sidekick (guaranteeing him a lot of screen-time in the process) is also a major misfire since he's the least funny thing about the movie, while Diane Lane doesn't fare much better as Dredd's partner.

As for the film's action aesthetic, well, it's very much rooted in both the '90s and the sensibilities that accompany your typical Stallone action film. The film spends much of its time bouncing between two extremely familiar settings - that of a fairly standard used-future metropolis where ordinary skyscrapers easily dwarf the Statue of Liberty plus the endless desert that exists outside the city walls and is populated by atavistic cannibals. Some decent production design is involved, but it is generally applied in such a hopelessly generic way that the film made me wish I was watching Demolition Man instead - at least some thought went into developing that world to be at least slightly different from all the usual grim, dark future worlds. Judge Dredd is a considerably awful movie that's good for the odd spot of cheese thanks to its mix of good and not-so-good actors (Rob Schneider is neither) but the action generally fails to be entertaining even by the standards of pulpy '90s sci-fi movies. Even if I hadn't already seen Dredd, I'd still think this was by and large a waste of time that is only intermittently entertaining and only ever in a bad way. For crimes against cinema, the sentence is...

I never tried Judge Dredd despite my love for action films. I doubt I ever will.

I saw this at the cinema when it came out and it was just as bad at the time of release. I've seen it once since then as well as a couple of partial watches and there's so little to redeem it that it doesn't even have that 90's "of its time/action" feel to recommend it. I don't know if Rob Schneider has ever been worse, but sadly, I suspect he has. And on numerous occasions, too.

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5-time MoFo Award winner.

I have only ever seen one Schneider solo movie all the way through (The Animal, which cracked the "top" 20 on my worst movies list) and have been bits of others, but they don't seem to be any good. I remember some feature in a MAD magazine from about a decade or so ago that was titled "50 Bad Things That Hollywood Keeps Doing" or something and it floated the idea that Adam Sandler keeps producing solo Schneider movies simply to make his own movies look better by comparison. While it's clearly a joke, one has to wonder if there is any truth to it.

#450 - Love Story
Arthur Hiller, 1970



A rich boy and a poor girl fall in love with each other.

I considered making my logline for Love Story consist of four simple words - "A story about love", but then realised that I should save the smart-assery for the review proper. If anything, the fact that it is bluntly called Love Story speaks volumes as to just much of a generic and unimaginative piece of work it is. One could argue that said bluntness is supposed to be reflective of a New Hollywood sensibility that wants to do away with the flowery pretensions of ordinary romantic titles but the film underneath ultimately doesn't seem to reflect that sensibility. Love Story starts off with the opening scene that spoils what will happen in the end for no good reason whatsoever before flashing back to the start to introduce us to the story's leads (Ryan O'Neal and Ali MacGraw) as they meet up with one another during their time at college and start off as a constantly bickering odd couple from two very different backgrounds. In case the title wasn't a big enough giveaway, eventually they realise just how much they do love each other and proceed to get married, damn the consequences.

I'm not sure how accountable I can hold Love Story for the many imitators that copied its apparently very successful formula (I did watch The Notebook recently, which does seem to owe an awful lot of inspiration with its own class-divide told-in-flashback romance), but even on its own terms it's just so dry and lacking in personality that I have a bit of trouble understanding how it became a hit in the first place. O'Neal and MacGraw are both at the point where acting wooden would be an improvement, as their attempts to trade pointed banter are not only unremarkable in and of themselves but also seem slightly preferable compared to the greeting-card platitudes they share with one another as the film progresses and the obstacles between them grow greater and greater. Love Story is as boring and generic a romantic drama as you're likely to find, and I can't forgive it for its lacklustre attempt to build charm and sympathy through having its charisma-free leads make pointed barbs about one another for half the film before professing an undying love for another throughout the rest of the film.

have you seen Splendor in the Grass? i would like to see your review of that one. it's one of my favorite movies in this vein, and it's pretty well done and honestly leaves plenty to talk about. i've never seen Love Story though

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letterboxd

What a coincidence. Sadly, I didn't like it all that much.

haha oh. i think i remember that review actually, it sounds vaguely familiar.

oh well!

I'm a bit disappointed you didn't like Don't Look Now more. I think it's a tremendous film.
It is a very visual film which you recognise, but there's a real connection between the pain and malaise in their marriage and the decay of the buildings. I don't know if you've been there but Venice is a place of immense riches, but massive disintegration, and Don't Look Now I think gets that atmosphere beautifully. Visiting at the right time, without crowds of tourists you can end up in dead end streets and under dark, dank bridges, exactly like the chase at the end. After seeing it on release at the cinema back in '73 I never wanted to visit Venice it seemed such a doomed place. Scared the wits out of me that film did - the ending struck me and my mate absolutely dumb at the time. It's an all time classic in my book

I think Don't Look Now will never have the same effect on someone seeing it now to someone watching it in when it first came out, it's just been parodied too many times.

Cars is not a good movie, but it's a fine enough movie for its target audience - 3-8 year old boys whose parents will spend a lot of money on the related merchandise. I must have seen that film (and the ridiculous but very well animated sequel) more than 20 times.

Well, it was a repeat viewing and has a notorious ending, of course it's not going to hold up all that well (to be fair, I believe I gave it a the first time that I saw it). I imagine seeing it in theatres when nothing else quite like it existed would be far preferable to catching it on TV with commercial breaks, too.

#451 - Akira
Katsuhiro Ôtomo, 1988



Decades after a mysterious explosion devastates Tokyo and triggers World War III, a teenage delinquent's chance encounter with a government test subject leads to him developing psychic powers.

Animé has gotten a lot more advanced and fluid in the decades since Akira's release (and the fact that this particular viewing was of a 35mm print complete with noticeable scratches meant that there were probably no Special Edition touchups), but that doesn't stop it from still being a visual extravaganza. Sure, its depiction of the futuristic Neo Tokyo may take considerable inspiration from Blade Runner with its urban landscape bathed in gloomy darkness and neon lights (that's also set in the year 2019, no less), but Ôtomo takes advantage of the medium's freedom to expand upon his source of inspiration and recreate it on a scale that befits the action-packed narrative.

The narrative, which is complex enough to take more than one viewing to fully absorb, is a fundamentally simple one about a pair of teenage bikers named Kaneda and Tetsuo. Kaneda is the arrogant and snarky leader of the gang whereas Tetsuo is a withdrawn, embittered member with a lifetime of emotional damage and resentment. This ties into the plot when he almost runs over a withered-looking young boy. It turns out that the boy is a test subject for a government experiment on telekinesis, and his encounter with Tetsuo triggers the latter's own latent psychic abilities. There are plenty of other plots and characters thrown in for good measure such as Kaneda falling in with a group of saboteurs because he's attracted to their sole female member or a no-nonsense Army colonel who must contend with dangerously curious scientists and incompetent politicians, which all play their part in pushing the story along and serving as different facets of the film's fantastic take on post-war Japan and the devastating events that still affect the country's cultural identity. As a result, the world they inhabit feels very well-realised over the course of two visually captivating hours. It's not like there's anything especially black-and-white above most of the film's morality save for the occasional greedy executive or excessively violent gang member. Kaneda makes for an especially flawed hero thanks to his generally self-interested behaviour influencing any possible heroism he may possess, whereas Tetsuo's newfound powers are put to work against the world that has kept him down for his entire life regardless of how justified his actions are.

While the plot and characters do contain considerable thematic resonance to the point where I seem to pick up on something new each time I watch (and I've watched Akira a lot), the film's greatest strengths is as an extremely immersive cinematic experience. The film creates an amazingly detailed and arresting futuristic setting that covers grimy industrial areas and labyrinthine government facilities, all of which back up some great sequences. The opening feud between Kaneda's gang and a rival gang (resulting in the iconic shot from the header image) is filled with streaking tail-lights and fiery explosions, while the film's eventual escalation into psychokinetic acts of destruction is definitely astounding. That's without going into the stuff that doesn't pull from the regular sci-fi/disaster playbooks, such as Tetsuo's hellish hallucinations of giant toys that bleed milk or watching the world (and himself) crumble to pieces. When the line between nightmare and reality gives way as a result of the infamously grotesque and mind-bending finale, you know you've watched something outstanding. Credit also has to go to the Geinoh Yamashirogumi score, which has only the slightest nods to stereotypically synthesiser-filled sci-fi scores as it builds most of its score around chants, choirs, percussion, and pipes. Though they all amount to variations on the same theme, the execution for each particular track distinguishes them all with aplomb.

I try not to throw around the phrase "all-time favourite" lightly because I'd rather not run the risk of re-watching such a film and feeling disappointed, but Akira has more than earned it in the decade or so since I first watched it. As of writing, I've seen it in theatres four times (which is tied for my current personal best - for now) and countless more times on DVD. Its narrative density and unsettling subject matter that invokes many horrors of the body and mind are factors that may alienate some viewers, but if you're willing to brave such a proposition then you'll definitely come away with something worthwhile. I've been going back to it again and again and have written at length about some of its most interesting factors (as I mentioned, its allegory for the attitudes of post-WWII Japan is a rather elaborate and multi-faceted one even while it serves as window dressing for graphic catastrophe) and it's a film that I still find consistently rewarding.



Addendum: I feel like I should address the different types of dialogue tracks that can accompany this film. Most of my viewings have involved the 2001 Pioneer English dub, which sticks to the original Japanese script pretty closely (though the idiom doesn't translate into English perfectly, but thats a minor flaw considering the talent on display). The 1989 Streamline English dub plays fast and loose with the dialogue and is objectively the weaker of the two English dubs but the rough quality and comical turns of phrase (plus the legendary Cam Clarke playing Kaneda as a snot-nosed surfer type) at least guarantee some amusement, which is good since it's the version that tends to accompany film prints and thus provides lots of laughs in a theatrical context. Of course, you can always avoid both and stick to the original Japanese with subtitles.

Wow. You've got 481 reviews tagged and that's one of just 11 that you've given a perfect rating.

Yeah, but those are old reviews. I think nowadays Grindhouse would get a and both No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood would both get (though that's not that significant a step down). Besides, you know how I do things these days.

i forget why i made this connection prior, but once you really think about it, like, every movie and book that's ever taken place in Venice is always something with unpleasantness, darkness, or malaise. but you're definitely right that Don't Look Now does a damn good job capturing that.

I'm jelly!

#452 - Ghost in the Shell
Mamoru Oshii, 1995



In a future where fully artifical humans exist, a counter-terrorist cell does battle with a mysterious hacker that is capable of manipulating human beings.

I really have to respect Ghost in the Shell for continuing to be just as complex and puzzling each time I watch it (I believe this particular viewing is at least the third in the space of a decade). It clocks in on the lighter side of 90 minutes, but it packs a lot into that time that admittedly makes it feel overly long. At least it does so in a way that at least feels challenging rather than irritating. It does work off a somewhat simple premise at first - the lines between human and machine are blurring further and further in the future, with plenty of humans having at least some mechanical modifications to their person. Some citizens are even full-blown artificial humans - the titular "ghost in the shell" refers to what could best be considered an artificial human's soul and whether or not such a thing truly exists. Questions about the perception of reality and the nature of humanity are what provide considerable weight to the film's main plot, which concerns the members of a counter-terrorist department known as Section 9 initially trying to foil some duplicitious diplomats before being drawn into a conflict with a mysterious hacker known simply as "the Puppet Master", who is good enough to actually hack into people's brains and control their minds.

For the most part, Ghost in the Shell earns its reputation as a classic within the field of animé. In addition to the incredibly detailed character models (which is emphasised during the credits sequence where protagonist Kusanagi is created), credit must go to the elaborate depictions of a futuristic Tokyo range from glossy penthouses to rainswept slums. There are plenty of scenes that take the time to show off the scenery and effects more so than advance the plot, so it's a testament to the artwork's quality that these moments don't feel boring. The plot does ultimately feel rather secondary to a lot of what's going on here, as characters are frequently given to conversations that elaborate upon the film's preoccupation with souls and whatnot. There are a few well-executed action sequences thrown in for good measure, but they are far enough apart to mean that this should not be remotely considered an action film. The problem with prioritising lengthy philosophical discussions over plot is that when the two eventually start to bleed together as the film progresses (most notably in the climax), it can end up being just mind-numbing after a while. That's the kind of thing that can prove especially alienating and may cause people to write off Ghost in the Shell as pretentious navel-gazing, but I like that coming back to this movie never truly feels boring no matter how slow and ponderous it may get. That same slow, ponderous nature may be what ultimately stops me from considering it a major classic, but otherwise it's a magnificient-looking piece of work with a solid core that is definitely an essential for anyone looking to see animation in general reach its full potential.