Thai film–well, Thai director, ultrahip Japanese star (and cameo from Takashi Miike), played out in English, Thai, and Japanese. Shot beautifully by Christopher Doyle, which made me half-expect another Wong Kar Wai knock-off, but director Pen-Ek Ratanaruang has his own absurdist approach to narrative and imagery despite some nods toward WKW’s obsessions. Like so many films of the last few years (or narrative, always?), the movie plays around with issues of life & death, coincidence and meaning, romance, violence. Japanese expat protagonist Kenji (Asano Tadanobu) seeks to off himself at the beginning of the film–but, he takes pains to note, not for reasons most people commit suicide, although he never names the explicit reasons. Instead he gets mixed up with a local woman Noi (Sinitta Boonyasak) and… well, there’s a couple murders, an accident, a jealous boyfriend, Yakuza. But things never heat up, never boil over into plottedness.

Instead, the film seems willfully even derisively dismissive of explicit reasons. “Big” things occur offscreen, out of frame, or just out of the narrative; there’s a sly humor to the displacement of expectations, replacing our focus on the subtle interplay of the two lead characters. And they’re a joy to watch. The film’s enthralling.

This documentary from Steve James came out a few years ago, and I remembered seeing the trailer, but missing the film. Finally saw it last night, and it’s an outstanding piece of personal filmmaking that addresses the nature of documentary and objectivism. It also closely examines justice, faith, love, family, personal responsibility and the failings that come with being human. (A character in the film laments that she might have been able to help more, if she just wan’t so human.)

Steve James directed Hoop Dreams, and of course I thought that was a great film, even though I couldn’t relate too much to basketball playing prodigies in a big city. Stevie on the other hand was nearly filmed in my backyard. (more…)

an interesting article from slate on how hollywood movies really make their money. turns out that the theater box office contributes less than 20% of the money made on movies. dvd is where it is at, and with dvd sales up it isn’t always the movies that did best at the box-office that sell the most dvds. but no, this doesn’t mean that smaller movies have a more democratic shot at a second life:

For merchandisers like Wal-Mart, DVDs are a means to lure consumers, who may buy other products, into the store. The box-office numbers are of little relevance (especially since it’s teenagers who create huge opening weekends, and they cannot afford to buy more profitable goods like plasma TVs). Instead of box-office results, merchandisers look for movies with stars such as Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, or Arnold Schwarzenegger, who have traction with their highly desired older customers.

i guess the fact that it took “after hours” so long to come to dvd means that scorcese’s audience doesn’t buy plasma tv’s either.

Has anyone seen “Rescue Me”? We talked tv some time ago, and no one ever mentioned this — his show about firefighters. We caught an episode last night, and … it’s good. I had been a fan of his short-lived “The Job,” where he played the same character but as a cop, and that show too is often superb, ‘though pitched more directly as a comedy. “Rescue” seems (from one episode) to have a broader set of objectives, pushing dark comedy but also some of the bleaker portrayals of working-class men destroying themselves which Leary tackled in the film “Monument Ave” some time back.

I ordered it from Netflix, but I’m curious if others have any opinions.

Why doesn’t someone make a movie about Andrew?

Just kidding. But since many here know that particular Quiet American, I thought I’d point out that he got a Jazz Pick of the Week in this week’s LA Weekly.

you can read it here:
http://www.laweekly.com/calendar/picks/index.php

In the paper there’s a picture of Andrew - looking quiet - but it’s not on the web, because I am lazy. And not particularly good at my job.