This is something of a find. Not a great film, but definately better than the tepid response it got here.
This is a revenge film; one might go so far as to say it’s a Park Chan-wook rip off. But not worthless and often quite good.
A barber is blackmailed by an old man. The guy also sleeps with his wife. Turns out he’s trying to be killed in order to collect on a life insurance policy because his daughter needs an operation.
Much like Park’s movies, the film is highly-stylized, usually to a positive effect. The biggest problem for me, and this is almost an epidemic in Korean film right now, is the violence, which was out of control and gratuitous. Koreans really get off on this stuff. Or at least the men do.
One funny sidelight are the press photos and movie posters for the film. Take a look at this one:
Not once in the film does this woman (played by Seong Hyeon Ah) appear with her hair like this. In fact her character, although kind of a slut, is quite prim and sleek. I suppose this is supposed to add some wild image to the film.
July 8, 2007
The Customer is Always Right
July 3, 2007
More Eckhart Tolle
I’ve been winding my way through the collection of Eckhart Tolle I downloaded. Wonderful stuff. I’ve been listening to one recently called Living a Life of Inner Peace and it’s straight up comedy. He’s got the audience roaring on the recording.
I did a search on Tolle, wondering if he was showing up in the media at all, and boy did I get a shock. Apparently Tolle, along with The Bible, was with Paris Hilton as she went into prison.
Thankfully, living in Korea allows me to avoid most of the hoopla surrounding Hilton, although I did notice they carried her exit from jail live on CNN World.
When seeing that she was reading Tolle I scanned a few other articles to see if maybe a transformation was taking place. Unfortunately all I could find were backhanded mentions of Tolle by gossip columnist vermin in regards to a subject they must cover 100% negatively.
I found one bit that said Hilton was moving away from New York to somewhere quiet. Interesting, I thought, until I found out she was moving to Beverly Hills. Oh well. I suppose in her world that might be like getting in touch with nature.
At any rate I love Tolle’s work to the extent that I’m not affected by who else is reading it. Although I will say I dislike the New Agey cover art his publishers seem unable to veer away from. Hopefully his dalliance with Paris will help get his message out.
July 1, 2007
Smile
I haven’t listened to the Beach Boys since I moved to Korea. Somehow, it just doesn’t fit into the mood. But I’ve been listening to a band called Panda Bear recently, and it’s a great representation of a contemporized and experimental nod to the late 60s early 70s Beach Boys. Something that so many musicians attempt to do, often with ridiculous results.
So I downloaded the version of “Brian Wilson’s Smile” that came out a few years ago. I remember reading some positive reviews at the time. It’s pretty horrible actually, as most of Brian Wilson’s post millenium `wheel out’ has been, but it did motivate me to download one of the many bootlegged versions of Smile that have come out over the years.
What an amazing piece of music. Definately one of my all time favorites, if I can call it an actual album. One of the few pieces of music that never fails to move me.
It’s got me going through a few of the other great albums…Sunflower and Surf’s Up.
Here’s one of my favorite’s from Smile…
06-cabin-essence.mp3
June 25, 2007
Brothers Karamazov
Brothers Karamazov. This is a book I’ve wanted to read for a long time, but quite honestly have been afraid to start. While doing some research about Blood Meridian I came across several comparisons between BM’s Judge Holden and Dostoevsky’s Grand Inquisitor as being amongst the great literary villains in history.
So I knew then I had to finally read it. I’m ripe for this sort of faith vs. reason contemplation and so I’m eating up the book.
Of course, as pictured above, The Grand Inquisitor stands on it’s own as a novel, but functions in the novel as a book within a book.
I’m not going to go on with my usual brief musings about Dostoevsky or The Brothers Karamazov. I’ll just leave it as I love it.
Although I will mention one thing running through my mind. A novel like B.K., will people still be reading it thousands of years from now? As we read the Bible or the Odyssey? Can this sort of book withstand a change of civilization? One would think so.
June 18, 2007
Breath
Is the title of Kim Gi-duk’s latest. I used to name Kim as my favorite filmmaker in Korea, until I started watching Hong Sang-soo’s films, which suit my tastes much more.
Breath is typical Kim; taking a few intriguing characters and bringing them together in an unconventional way. Breath isn’t his best by any stretch, but it’s still provocative, and with Kim’s propensity to shock always waiting in the background, it makes for good viewing.
Curiously Kim has cast a Chinese person (Chen Chang) as a main character in this film. It’s curious because Korean filmmakers don’t do it. He plays a prisoner on death row that starts getting odd visits from a woman seeking revenge on her cheating husband. But Chang doesn’t speak in the film, so his casting is evidentially an aesthetic one.
Didn’t know souffle means breath in French. As you can see the poster is from this year’s Cannes Film Festival. This speaks less to the quality of the film and more to the fact that Kim evidentally has a free pass into Cannes competition. Surely there are better Korean films than this to choose from.
There are some genuinely hilarious moments in the film, involving some musical numbers by the visiting woman, but overall there’s not much to the film. As usual Kim wants the viewer to draw their own conclusions…the difference being, these questions aren’t so interesting once you start thinking about them.
June 15, 2007
Iv’e been waiting for an opportinity to mention a blog by a friend of mine, in a sense, Newley.com serves as a model for my blog here. Checking Newley’s blog, for me, is a modern day equivellent of what I imagine walking into a general store on Main Street might have been like in yesteryear. You get a bit of news, a few laughs, and even if you’re in a hurry end up staying for 15 or 20 minutes. And you always walk out with a smile on your face.
Nothing sexy here. Nothing explosive or even all that opinionated (something I wanted to take from Newley but haven’t). Just stuff like his recent Snack Report where he runs down a list of new snack items at his local 7/11.
I’ve also found out a number of good Web sites and blogs I never would have run into via his site. One recent fave is globorati, which Newley writes for frequently these days.
June 12, 2007
One of the problems in finishing one of the best books you’ve ever read is that it’s hard to read others. I can’t finish and bascially don’t like The Jungle, and I started Devil in the White City, a fairly interesting piece of historical fiction about the Chicago World’s Fair in the late 1800s. But after reading Blood Meridian I just expect to be fully engaged at all times and it just doesn’t happen.
But I’ve at The Walmart Effect by Charles Fishman hanging around on MP3 for a while and have been more or less denying myself from listening to it until I finish The Jungle. But I couldn’t wait anymore.
What’s interesting about Wal-mart is the way it turns the tables on it’s suppliers; it’s such an empire with so many stores it can force companies to conform to it’s needs, often destroying companies in the process. Vlasic and Huffy are two examples that went bankrupt after increasing sales after hooking up with Wal-mart.
I’m almost done, and it’s not like Fishman is offering solutions, but he does mention, and I fully agree, is that people view capitialism as this untouchable entity, that it in order to be it cannot be touched. But the effect of Wal-mart proves otherwise. Products are getting shittier, less competition, not to mention the effect on actual people forced into poverty and so forth.
June 9, 2007
Camille Paglia
I had almost forgotten about Camille Paglia whose Sexual Personae changed my view of feminism (and women in general) when I read it six years ago.
I’d been meaning to search her online to see what she’s up to, but ended up finding a banner advertising “Sheeee’s Back” on a fantasy baseball Web site of all places. She’s been writing again at Salon.com for a few months now.
Paglia is a breath of fresh air. She unflinchingly critiques anything going on in the world, whether it be John Edwards, Anna Nicole Smith, educational reform, Ann Coulter, or the facial construction of Dick Cheney. But every opinion is absolutely her own. She’s describes herself as a Libertarian leaning Democrat, and her opinions, while they naturally challenge the current regime, are very critical of the lazy, comfortable leftist ideology that has enabled many of the current attrocities to happen.
For example she lauds the 2nd Amendment right to bear arms. She also thinks global warming is largely a lie and is especially critical of Al Gore’s attempt to use it as a platform.
Here’s one sample, a relavatory look at the Bush/Cheney relationship.
“I detest Cheney for having led the country into this disastrous, wasteful war, whose repercussions will be felt for generations here and in the Mideast. I know absolutely nothing about Cheney’s family background, but I would bet on some ambivalent dynamic in his past with masculine authority figures, whom he internalized and carries around as a visibly heavy burden but whose oppression produced his sarcastic sneer, his one facial mannerism….”
“The relationship between Cheney and George W. Bush is also perplexing. Despite the nearness in their ages, Cheney acts like Bush’s father (no coincidence since Cheney served in George H.W. Bush’s administration). There’s something creepy about how Cheney, after heading the candidate search, insinuated himself into the vice presidency. He locked onto Bush like a limpet, using the more extroverted and physically dynamic president as his proxy. Bush’s independent judgment was paralyzed, as if by snakebite. It’s an unsavory, toxic relationship, a vampiric pseudo-marriage…”
She goes on to say she feels sorry for Bush, and describes him as a “tragic figure,” which is something I’ve always felt myself. That his presidency had some promise (mostly having to do with his affable persona), but he fell in with the wrong crowd.
Her opinions surprise. What a revelation! A columnist whose opinion you don’t know before you read what she has to say. Who would have thought?
Really looking forward to reading more.
June 7, 2007
Louis Theroux and The Most Hated Family in America
I’m not sure how I found the documentary The Most Hated Family in America, but the tagline was somewhat irresistible, even though I’ve been trying to avoid the topic of religion recently.
TMHFIA centers on the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas, who are notorious for picketing the funerals of soldiers in Iraq with neon signs that say “God Hates Fags.”
Especially since the documentary is a production of BBC2, I initially thought the church was a bit of an easy target. An open and shut case. Obviously its message is outlandish and abhorrent.
But Theroux skips the obvious points and gets to the human side of the church (which is primarily one family). He hangs out with them, gets to know them and tries to get to the bottom of their motives and personal narratives.
I don’t want to go off the deep end here, because I’ve only seen the one piece, but this guy appears to be some kind of journalistic genius. Totally unassuming, frank, and very centered. Not once does he try to go for the jugular…and in many ways the family comes off quite well, which, considering what the church is, is no small feat.
Television journalism has become so despised that its manifested a celebrity whose entire shtick aims to blur the line between journalism fiction and reality (at the expense of both the subject and the viewer). But Theroux is a breath of fresh air. He keeps his ego out of the picture and trusts the viewer to draw their own conclusions.
The Bridge
I’d heard about this documentary last summer when I was in the states and had wanted to see it for some time. I finally had the chance last night.
But I can’t recommend watching The Bridge. It’s unforgettable, yes. It’s interesting, yes. Do people need to see others committing suicide by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge? I don’t think so.
But the film ignites a great discussion related to YouTube and others of its kind. Personally, I’m not one of those who watched the video of Nick Berg being beheaded, just as I didn’t like to see the Faces of Death movies when I was sleeping over at friend’s houses. I avoid this stuff as a rule because it contributes nothing to me.
The Bridge is not a comment on suicide. It simply watches and interviews those touched by incidents related to the film. It is interesting and moving. The fact that so many people have committed suicide in such a beautiful location is fascinating.
It raises a lot of interesting questions. How does suicide is fit into a society? Do you have the right to end your own life? 30,000 people have committed suicide in Japan every year for the past decade. How is their view of suicide come to be so different to that of Westerners?
But The Bridge doesn’t address any of this. It titillates by showing tourists walking on the bridge, and juxtaposing that with people who almost jump, and those who finally do jump. To no surprise the final jumper is an eye-catching tall, rocker guy with hair down to his butt, shown anguishing throughout the entire film. In the end he stands on the railing and impressively falls end over end toward his watery grave.
I was left, first and foremost, missing my birth city of San Francisco, but also feeling unsettled about the film in general. I realize this was not because of suicide itself, which I believe is often times a very Nobel and brave choice to make, but because I felt a little manipulated. The director has no visible opinion here, so what are we left with? A Golden Gate Bridge enthusiast? A meditation on suicide in contemporary society? Or is it a voyeuristic reel of people plummeting to their deaths? I have to say it’s the latter. Is there anything wrong with that? Maybe not. Did the director take the easy way out? Absolutely.