Monday, August 15, 2005

She's hooked on the silver screen

Last week, I was a doing a lot of cinema-watching. Partial thanks go to El Brucé since he got me into a couple of free press screenings for two very good samurai movies. Tuesday morning's movie was 'Kill!'. It's based on the same book that 'Sanjuro' came from so it's Tatsuya Nakadai as a free-lance ex-samurai with a three-days growth, slacking his way from town to town. It's fast and funny and looks ridiculously great in inky black and white. It even features a scene out of 'Monty Python' with Nakadai pounding two shells together to fake the sound of hoofbeats. Worked for me. It's at the Film Forum in a couple of weeks, go see it.

Wednesday's movie was 'Samurai Rebellion'. It was also good but a different experience. It was very capital-S serious and mighty slow, but it was a good B/W print and it starred Toshiro Mifune, Mr. Intensity. It's also at Film Forum soon, go see it if you like samurai, Mifune, B/W, and blood-splattered rice screens.

On Friday I went to see 'Grizzly Man', the latest film by Werner Herzog. Awesome movie. It's about ex-surfer dude Timothy Treadwell who thought he had a special connection with Alaskan grizzly bears and lived among them for thirteen summers, until his luck ran out. It may seem like an obvioius point, but stay away from the cute, furry, huge, smelly bears. Just leave them alone unless you want to end up ripped apart and your remains filling four garbage bags. Nature may seem beautiful and peaceful but as Herzog says, it only reminds him of 'chaos...and murder'.

And a couple of weeks ago, I saw 'Last Days', Gus Van Sant's depiction of a Kurt-esque Cobain-ish rock star. Three things: it looked great, sounded great. Yes, there is the guy-on-guy sex scene (it is a Van Sant film, after all). Since it's a 'fictionalized' account of 'Kurt's' last days alive, it's a shame they didn't have him binging on a drug that makes you interesting and talkative.

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