Truly, Madly, Deeply (Anthony Minghella, 1991)

This film is almost a one-woman show by Juliet Stevenson and as such it's powerful and touching. The lesson is that if a person alive has to give up the dead, the dead also has to give up the living one day. And the ultimately universal (so it seems) imagination to posit the dead's realm to somewhere above the clouds presents the only convincing moment of this rather whimsical story.

Ali G Indahouse (Mark Mylod, 2002)

Dahouse here is the House of Parliament, and Ali G is a member of the parliament. Very funny, but it doesn't have that charm of his TV interviews. Jokes are mostly sexual and they are very old fashioned. What makes it so funny, then? The whole film is a parody of a self-parodying, commercialised culture of American hiphop and gangsta rap. What's the point? The success lies in transpositionand nothing else. Occasional references to homosexuality is rather disgusting.

Ali G, innit.

This is a series of interviews conducted by Ali G, a character impersonated by Sacha Baron Cohen. Splendid craziness. Or as he says, Wicked! A series of impossibly stupid questions to a variety of people who seriously answer them; the whole thing is so British. Here lies my future locution. Boyakasha!

The Serpent and the Rainbow (Wes Craven, 1987)

This is at best a second-rate horror and it's quite abominable but it has it's uncomparable merit, too. It's a magnificent Haitian tourism film. The voodoo is there, the notorious Tonton Macoutes is there; the historical backdrop of the fall of the Duvalier regime is authentic. The story is about an American anthropologist's nightmarish experience of being buried alive in his quest for the secret of the zombie. Little if any film has treated this real phenomenon in a more plausible fashion. An interesting film, hence. Cathy Tyson (of Neil Jordan's Mona Lisa) plays an important role here, but not as attractive. The guy who played the role of the anthropologist is simply tepid.

I want to see Haiti in a more realistic way.

The Best of Not the 9 O'clock News Vol. II

I'm drunk. This is the vintage performance of Rowan Atkinson from the early 1980s. Excessively funny. The only thing I can say at this moment is: glad not to have been born in the UK! Their sense of humour is outrageous. Well, but I have to admit that I've missed a lot by not knowing this hysterical BBC program as a young college boy...

Seven Periods with Mr Gormsby (Danny Mulheron, 2005)

This is a TV series: 7 episodes of 25 minute-long. It's about an old teacher at a Cathoric all-boy school somewhere in rural New Zealand. He is highly politically INcorrect and utters every imaginable abominable lines; racist, sexist, no-consideration-for-others, old-fart school. But by and by his remarkable honesty becomes gripping. Students, verbally and physically abused, become very attracted to him through many fatal incidents. My Gomsby now proves himself to be the most memorable teacher for the bottom layer of the student body, which consists largely of island boys (not only the Maoris, but the Samoan, Tongan, and other Pacific islanders). The last five minutes of the final episode is simply moving.

A strange country New Zealand is. It is now on its way to create a truly multicultural society. And in that, somebody like Mr Gomsby can be paradoxically refreshing and can offer a core of crystallization, so to speak!

Twister (Jan de Bont, 1996)

Tornado is an essential component of American imagination. This film follows a team of scientists who try to establish an early (15 minute) warning system when the tornado hits. The film stinks at many occasions, but there are moments of brilliance. We are so accustomed to hold natural phenomena in awe that when the scenes of demolition by the wind is deployed in front of our eyes we stay focused, we marvel at them. An interesting film. But I could have wished for more.

Se7en (David Fincher, 1995)

The film depicts a serial-killer whose staging is based on the seven sins: gluttony, greed, sloth, envy, wrath, pride, lust. The tension builds up rather slowly, and the artificial nature of the murderer's protting makes everything look forced. Its gruesome scenes are often disgusting. What is lacking from this film is a sense of humour that in Fincher's later work Fight Club occupies a special place. It's a strong stuff, I admit, but if asked if I liked it or not, my answer is very predictable.

The Man Who Wasn't There (The Coen Brothers, 2001)

Another thorough masterpiece from the Coens. Not a dull moment throughout. It's quite amazing how they can sustain the tension from the beginning to the end, with all the unexpected turns at every possible corner. The modern-day Hitchcock they are. The film's white and black imagery is superb. A triumph.

Walk the Line (James Mangold, 2005)

This is a biography film of Johnny Cash, focusing on his obsessive love toward the fellow singer June Carter. Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon are both good, but the story is extremely boring. If we put the name "Johnny Cash" between parenthesis, this would be a downright failure. We never know whence the obsession comes from. And Johnny the singer's charisma is hardly perceptible, although Joaquin is doing a very good job of impersonating. As for Elvis and Roy Orbison, we didn't really know who they were.

I would have appreciated better if the film focused on Johnny's musical tension with Bob Dylan.

The Day After Tomorrow (Roland Emmerich, 2004)

The whole of Manhattan under the ice. Wow. This is exactly the kind of vision I had when I was fifteen (about Tokyo)... And very well rendered thanks to today's digital image-generating machinery. The story is absurd, of course, and I don't really buy the possibility of minus 150 degree ultra-cold air mass descending within minutes. Can it really happen? Can it? And the wolves are quite dissapointing for somebody who live under the totem of the wolf. Still, this is a fairly enjoyable film and the message comes through very clearly. America, stop wasting the planet's resources! This from a German director. I'm glad.

Stuck on You (The Farrelly brothers, 2003)

How risky it is to produce a film with a pair of conjoined twins as its central characters. But again, the Farrellys made a film that is fun, touching, lovable, and unforgettable. I can't really locate where the charm comes from. But it's there, with a lot of laughter and occasional simple tears. Magical.

A lovely book!

My new book of translation is now published in Tokyo: Aimee Bender's first novel, An Invisible Sign of My Own (2000). The cover is adorned with a lovely drawing by Midori Yamada. It fits the novel's story miraculously well, although drawn completely independent of the novel. The book looks really pretty. It's a strong work. The rest is up to you, possible readers!

Harold and Maude (Hal Ashby, 1971)

It's funny how we form a certain preconception by a series of hearsays about a film we haven't watched. This is a classic from my junior-high days and surely I have heard talks about it. I knew it was a love story of a peculiar kind; and I thought somehow it was set in the UK.

Watching this for the first time now, soon I find out this is in the States. On the East coast somewhere; but the scenery looks Irish or Scottish. A very good film as long as you don't psychologize or psychoanalyze it. No explanation grasps the rich overtone of the film and its strong undercurrent.

"I should like to change into a sunflower, most of all," says Maude. Approaching eighty and she's vivacious. I can't help but think of a million sunflowers near Oamaru, New Zealand. Cat Stevens' songs are quite nice, too. At one point we learn that she has multi-digit nunmbers tatooed on her forearm and this tells about her past in a Nazi concentration camp. No further explanation is given. Sadness remains.

Just like Being There, this is also a wintry film although filled with moments of laughter. I just learned (I had overlooked) that Sean Penn had dedicated his first film as director, The Indian Runner, to Hal Ashby. This makes me think that living in America, one's heart can only be wintry.

The Craft (Andrew Fleming, 1996)

Witchcraft is a science of the four elements and the power of nature within. The film begins with this in mind and it's pleasing to a certain point. There are some brilliant scenes: e.g. the beach and Nancy's walking on the water. But the finishing 25 minutes or so are strictly unattractive. The uses of snakes, rats, and bugs all contribute nicely to weaken the film's charm (wow, this is a magic-related word, "charm"!).

One big blunder I think is Sarah's rival Nancy's background. If she comes from such a poor, white trash background, how can she attend a very expensive-looking Cathoric prep school?

All the actresses are too aged to be high-schoolers, too. Rachel True, the black girl, is beautiful, but at the time of this film's production she was 29 or 30. Well. The movie is the ultimate witchcraft, ain't it?

Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (Gus Van Sant, 1993)

So ambitious, so boring. It could have been a great film, if not for the word-heavy screenplay and the irrelevant narration (by the novel's author). I haven't read the novel but I get a glimpse that it must be fun to read. Then, by trying to follow the novel's development too closely, the film failed to find its own undisturbed pace. It lacks proper percussions, so to speak.

But as in many of Van Sant's films, outdoor sceneries are fascinating. Uma Thurman is also a great material, visually striking, if not exactly pretty. This film contributes well to the myth of the west. Of course, all the land we conceive in our heads are just images mediated to the bottom. And this west has its own charm.

I, Robot (Alex Proyas, 2004)

Directed by an Egypsian, this film is set in 2035 AD and Chicago is a hyperopolis then. I have never been an SF fan and I don't have any sensibility whatsoever toward things robotic. Starting from the famous Asimov's three laws that govern robots, the story is cebtered around the latest model robots revolution against humans and the struggles against them of a cop (himself a quasi-cyborg) performed by Will Smith. The US us attacked by the robots led by VIKI (the central machinic nervous system) because the US threatens other countries and pollutes the planet more than anybody else; how sensible. VIKI is finally disabled by Will Smith, but the aftertaste of this human triumph is not altogether good.


In fact, the film is somewhat groomy. The main purpose of robotics--to develop someTHING to replace human labout--seems to me to be a very decadent direction.

Hitch (Andy Tennant, 2005)

This is a very well-written story with just what you can expect from Will Smith. I have been a fan of him as much as I am a fan of Eddie Murphy (who is of my own generation) and basically I am trying to learn my English locutions from them more than from anybody else. The fresh prince (whom my son used to respect when he was six) is alive and well, here as a very probable improbable profession of the date doctor.

Eva Mendes (as Sara) is gorgeous and very Cubana.

A matchmaker who is so clumsy about her own affair is basically an Emma story (we have Clueless) but in this the transposition (female to male, white English to black American) is thorough, unexpected and funny. Another good piece from the director of Sweet Home Alabama!

Being There (Hal Ashby, 1979)

This is one of the most popular films in my undergraduate years but I haven't had a chance to take it in. Now I watched it. It's very funny. More than Peter Sellers himself, the dying man Ben is an awesome actor. Shirley Mac Laine masturbating is quite funny, too. The film is wintry and tranquil. It's a pure fantasy, isn't it, but I am led to think how in the world did the original author Kosinski want to write such a fantasy and did Peter Sellers want to impersonate the character at the end of his life.

Innocence of a retarded person is a very strong myth. In this Chance is akin to, for example, Sean Penn's Sam in I am Sam, among others. A genealogy of innocence is to be undertaken.

Sweet Home Alabama (Andy Tennant, 2002)

An incredible story of a fat liar Southern belle faithfully loved by two too-good-to-be-true guys and gets away with it. It's silly, of course, but curiously enjoyable.

Apart from the fun this film offers, I am moved by the simple fact that it's about Alabama. Back in the early 1980s I was an exchange student at Troy State University, Troy, Alabama. Nostalgia has a great shaping power for one's sense of identity, and on viewing this film I am constantly taken back to my own Alabama days! C'est larmoyant, à vrai dire!

Reese Witherspoon's accent as Melanie is authentic as she's from Louisiana. The same is true for the husband Jake (Josh Lucas who is from Arkansas).

Geez, it's been a quarter of a century... I wish I could go visit Troy, Montgomery, and other towns I knew!

In the film Southern nationalism is so thick, and the presence of blacks is so limited. That's Alabama, too.

The Royal Tenenbaums (Wes Anderson, 2001)

Finally. And e uma beleza! (It's a beauty!). So funny, so well conceived, so well staged, so well performed. And yet, and yet, it can't compete in my mind with the wakening freshness of Bottle Rocket. Whatever. All the characters in RT, including dogs and the falcon, are interesting.

I sensed for the first time in this film an affinity with Jean-Pierre Jeunet, not only for the story telling and the cinematography, but also for a subtle attitude toward life, or toward the depiction of human lives. Will have to think about it.

New York Stories (1989)

This is an omnibus film by three well-established directors, playing out each one's tune to their hearts' content. Nice combination.

Martin Scorsese's Life Lessons shows Rosanna Arquette at her best time (contemporaneous I think with lovely Desparately Seeking Susan).

I heard people criticizing Coppla's Life Without Zoe as child-oriented and damaging to the other two, but no, I think this is a wonderful piece of urban fantasy that captures a certain core feel of New York-ness.

Woody Allen's Oedipus Wrecks is so crazy and hilarious that makes me want to watch more of his films, when I have been out of touch with his work for such a long time. This apparition of the Jewish mother in the Manhattan sky really kills me.

Jewish sense of humour... what is it? I am even reminded of Aimee Bender's joyful short story "Mazipan" for its absurdity. Will come back to it when time comes.

Bend It Like Beckham (Gurinder Chadha, 2002)

Hilarious, exciting, charming, and touching. I think I'll write an essay comparing this with another fascinating Indian girl movie, Anita & Me. It's filled with vivacity and humour, and it makes us curious about the life that's behind the African-Indian immigrants in the UK.

I enjoy so much the parallel scenes of the wedding and the football match. Such colorful cultural displays on both sides! Then I am brought to think upon it.

I will probably never get to know an Indian family like this and I will probably never attend their wedding. So what I enjoy on the screen (their dances, songs, proxemics, mannerisms, cuisine, etc.) are really all representation of representations. Still I get pleasure out of them. Is this all in vain?

I don't think so. To have a glimpse of a culture, even in a highly mediated form, is not bad at all. It's entertainment in the best sense. It's up to you how you make use of the knowledge you receive from it. To a good cause? If possible. To be lost in oblivion? If inevitable.

But education usually is never free from such and such representations working wholly, in their unarticulated totality, on you. Hmmm. Do we ever learn anything about the actual world from a film?

Good Will Hunting (Gus Van sant, 1997)

A good, beautiful film, but the story is little plausible. I don't feel any traces of insights into math or psychology. It's just every schoolboy's image of what mathematics and psychology are. And a heavy dose of psychologism, too. Explanation is something we need last, preferably out of the screen.

Apart from that this film captures the images (illusions, maybe) of the Boston/Cambridge area nicely and it's a different kind of campus movie. Especially beautiful is the scene when Will sits on the riverside after telling the girl goodbye and the sky is blue and there are a lot of white clouds. This is the kind of shot we need. Very understated. Very nicely done.

The Jerk (Carl Reiner, 1979)

This is Steve Martin's film-starring debut, I am told. It's silly and funny but not so dumb as Dumb and Dumber; in fact, in this strain of non-sensical comedy Steve Martin is mostly surpassed by Jim Carrey. But the beauty of this film lies in its starting point; that the white guy is actually an adopted son in a poor Mississippi black family!

Steve Martin's hair is prematurely gray. (He was barely in his mid-thirties at this moment.) Next time I'll watch this with Bulgarian subtitle (not that I can read and understand it).

Finding Forrester (Gus Van Sant, 2000)

A fine story told with integrity, precision, and elegance. Nothing is more touching than an unlikely friendship; movies have proved this over and over again. This is another triumph of the film that it is a medium destined for friendship.

The song used at the ending, a solo by the late Israel Kawakawiwo'ole (Brudda Iz) is beautiful. This makes me take up the ukulele once again.

Windtalkers (John Woo, 2002)

A great film about the futility of the war. And that set in the most futile of all the futile combats--that in Saipan. How many people got killed there on both sides? The violent depiction of this film can only be realistic. A rare moment of beauty is when one of the Navajo men and a white guy play together an improvised melody; one with the Navajo bamboo (?) flute, that strongly resembles the Japanese shakuhachi, and the harmonica. The Navajo language being one of the subjects is very well represented (probably for the first time in film history) and the Navajo values are rightly featured. Nicolas Cage is great.

Saipan is no joke. Many aspects of the contemporary US foreign policy are determined by the US's trans-Pacific relationship with Japan in the last century. The US, or at least a part thereof, never hesitates to demonize and kill the enemy. They overkill. Overly destroy. And they claim justice. Japan may have done something similar, too. The island of Saipan even today need a work of serious spiritual apaisement. I don't doubt the director's serious anti-war intent, but movies are funny. There must have been those who shouted "Kill the Japs" among the film's innocent spectators.

It's fun to watch that Nicolas Cage speaks fair Japanese in this film. It's strange that this film shows no African American among the marine.

Strange coincidence

If you licked something really cold, your tongue would stick to it. You see it in Dumb and Dumber (on the ski lift). Then again in Slap Her, She's French! when the little Geneviève licks the ice-ass of a cow. Of course there must be many who have watched these two films and remarked this little bit of coincidence. But why in the world should I watch them consecutively? This is a strange coincidence without any meaning in it...

Kingpin (The Farrelly Brothers, 1996)

Another nice comedy from the Farrellys. It makes bowling look so much fun (just like The Big Lebowski) and Amish look so interesting (just like The Eyewitness). Bill Murray has a pattern now about his paternity problems. It's so weird that director after director bring up this association. Deformity, deficiency, and love are the three words to describe what the Farrellys are after.

Shallow Hal (The Farrelly Brothers, 2001)

"Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder," says old wisdom. What if you pushed this logic to the extreme? This film is the result, it's a thought experiment. It's fun and in parts touching. Their recurrent theme of the physically handicapped (either by birth or by life history or by accident) is given a full voice and representation. How far do you go, you wonder. But they know how to wrap it up nicely, too. I liked it. But to say that Gwyneth Paltrow is very pretty already contradicts the story's spirit.

Slap Her, She's French! (Melanie Mayron, 2002)

It's a good comedy around the war of meanness between two high school girls, one Texan, and the other a French foreign student. All possible stereotypes are cleverly exploited to make you laugh. Then by and by you'll notice something's fishy about this "French" girl... She's got a French accent, all right, but she says "sophistique" (sophist-like) for "sophistiqué" and "Entendez-vous" pour "Attendez" (on the phone). And as it turns out, she's... Good enough to spend an hour and a half. It's very convincing, too, that such a story can take place only in Texas! (The only other state I can imagine it happening is Wisconsin...)

Dumb & Dumber (The Farrelly Brothers, 1994)

Finally I watched this classic... Good but a bit primitive compared to the refinement of There's Something About Mary. The parakeet incident--selling a dead parakeet to a blind boy--is downright outrageous to my real-life standard, but then I don't know why I feel such a repulsion against this one point. In their other films the humours they show with handicapped people are not this crude. Well, in other moments in my life I would have taken it otherwise. All I can say for sure is after this the Farrelly brothers get better and better.

Reality Bites (Ben Stiller, 1994)

I like Ben Stiller, I really do. I also like Wynona Ryder (especially in Jarmush's Night on the Planet) and Ethan Hawke (especially in Snow Falling on Cedars). BUT. This is a terrible film. The story stinks. There is no sense at all about the flow of music. It's haphazard at best. Dialogues can be interesting and they may serve as a valuable source of information on how American brats spoke in the 1990s, but they lack in organization. The use of the video is also too tentative. This doesn't have the kind of integrity that a decent film has. Danny de Veto (one of the producers) must have been very UNHAPPY to see this. Of course, Ben Stiller has grown up since then. But, boy, this is a terrible film.

Utu (Geoff Murphy, 1983)

Should there be a justifiable "national" movie anywhere in this world, this is it. In the bloody history of numerous murders between Pakehas and Maoris, this film offers one clear message; that a Maori warrior cannot be sentenced by the military court of law. In the final instance, his execution is retrieved into the realm of traditional ceremonial honouring beyond simple, individualist revenges. It moves you in a strange way by showing how the land of these islands were conquered within the western space of law and how such a space of judgment itself is in contention even today.

I watched this first time at the U of Hawaii in 1987 where I was a graduate student in anthropology. My friend Akihiro Kalama Inoue reminded me of this recently. After almost twenty years, it is my joy to be able to watch this again to commemorate the Waitangi Day, which was yesterday. This is a must for everyone even remotely interested in the history of this country: Aotearoa-New Zealand.

The River Wild (Curtis Hanson, 1994)

At first I thought this was a family-adventure-comedy, but it was not. It was a thriller and the storyline was rather horrendous. As soon as the dog dissapeared, we knew it would appear again, and as soon as the good ranger appeared, we knew he would somehow be eliminated in a brutal way. And the ranger was Native American, too.

Maryl Streep shows a good command of the raft and the breath-taking power of the water makes this an interesting film. Is this the Snake river? I've got to go there.

Dirty Pretty Things (Stephen Frears, 2002)

A kidney sells for 10 grands in London. And the sellers are illegal immigrants who yearn for a passport, and the money goes to those who stand in-between. The underground business of human organs preys on the weakest, the invisible, the silent.

This is a love story of two illegal immigrants, a Nigelian man and a Turkish woman, who work at the Baltik Hotel. Audrey Tautou is the Turkish girl and she is rather convincing. Not a bad film and it's doing a good job of focusing on friendship among the weak. "Good at chess usually means bad at life." Rings true.

Adaptation. (Spike Jonze, 2002)

To the extremity of self-referentiality... only some Japanese I-Novelists and Charlie Kaufman can come up with something like this.

I keep wondering, how the author Susan Orlean thinks about all this, with Meryl Streep playing her and all? The final scene with flowers is very strong and fulfills the writing seminar instructor Mckee's theory in the story. I particularly like the way the time is manipulated. You can easily think of it, but it's another story to actually put it into practice.

Awesome in many ways. It can be demanding on the side of the viewers without much reward for it. Still, a very interesting and hilarious work.

Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (Beeban Kidron, 2004)

A reasonablly good and enjoyable film, but the use of Thailand is typically derogating. Renee Zellweger will be remembered as Bridget in our afterlives, but I prefer her in the pre-Bridge days. Sorry to be so frank.

I am more interested in the director's name. Beeban? Where is he from? He seems to have directed a decade ago the TV movie Oranges are Not the Only Fruits, which of course is based on Jeanette Winterson's novel. I have to check it out.

Me, Myself & Irene (The Farrelly brothers, 2000)

This film has got a great tempo and an incredibly good selection of songs. All the possible finesse is put into making the story flow. Jim Carrey is simply incomparable. And Renee Zellweger shows her subtle facial dramaturgy in perfection. Not particularly beautiful, she's so charming. Three kids are fine, too, and the appearance of the black dwarf and the too-white albino (like the Winter brothers) are also an integral part of the directors' will to fight against the general discrimination toward "unusual" looking people. By any standard, this is a great film, if I'm not totally in sync with their sexual jokes! Most of all, this is the first time I took interest in that big small state (or whatever): Rhode Island!

Falling Down (Joel Schumacher, 1993)

Very strong performances from Michael Douglas and Robert Duvall. Begins with a slight racial overtone, which is then absorbed into the main character's psychopathology. It makes the story more convincing but less interesting. You feel as if at a certain point the social dissapeared and the individual surfaced, even with that brief description of the pro-nazi shop owner. Finally the man's fall is blamed on the society in a rather tepid way. However, the sequences of the last ten minutes or so are very fine, if a little unnaturally contrived. I didn't know Trevino could be an Italian name. I didn't know that Italians would move to Venice beach!

Loser (Amy Heckerling, 2000)

A cute little love romance at NYU, but a little on the drab side considering this is from Amy Heckerling, the master filmmaker with that incredible Clueless and, much earlier,that lovely Fast time at Ridgemond High on her cv. But some details are so good; like the episode with a new-born kitten or the fight in the library. I mean, these could have been totally different if taken by another filmmaker less thoughtful. On the other hand, the final scene is but a fantasy only a mid-twentieth century American could love.

One Hour Photo (Mark Romanek, 2002)

This is a fear materialized--the kind of fear we all slightly feel toward the shopping mall photo labs. The time of stalkers, indeed. And when they try to be too intimate, we can't but be defensive. But our photos are in their hands, all exposed, vulnerable, defenseless... like a child.

Robin Williams is super again as a psycho (as we have seen in Insomnia), gentle and calm, with hidden violence and weird obsessions. It's very American, very sick. And near the end we learn what is behind the protagonist's personal history; a sexually abused childhood for which photography played a cruel role.

It's well thought, well executed, but this psychological explanation rather puts me off. But then, the director Romanek did have a social message. With more and more family photos taken digitally, the high-speed photo processing is almost a history. We don't know what's taking place behind our social facade. Who's taking advantage of whom, manipulating images.

It's gluesome to think about, but this film is already a kind of testimony to a culture outliving its destiny.

A Room for Romeo Brass (Shane Meadows, 1999)

Set in Nottingham, this is a story of friendship between two 12-year old neighbouring boys. One is Gavin, white, a little crippled, the other is Romeo, of mixed-blood with a white mother, a pretty white elder sister, and an estranged white father. To the end you are left wondering about Romeo's paternity and the reason for the film's title. You get no clues anywhere. The film is equally focused on both Gavin and Romeo.

There is this very strange guy who at first helps the boys then has a crush on Romeo's sister. The guy's got no chance and turns violent. He is a self-contained bully, essentially, and finally gets what he deserves from Romeo's father. You are left wondering again--this time murmuring: So what is this film all about?

It maybe about the kind of violence, physical and metaphysical, a 12 year-old goes through everyday in rural England. But the story is too blurred and the developpment is rather dull. And yet, and yet, the film has a peculiar kind of charm.

I'll have to watch it all over again to know anything about Romeo's position in the family.

Anita and Me (Metin Hseyin, 2002)

A lovely, lovely film. The story is set in 1972 and about the friendship of a young second-generation Indian girl (Meena) with a pretty blond English girl (Anita) in a small rural town called Tollington.

The difficulties and envies encountered by your regular immigrant adolescent are all there. But what makes this story so special is the situation of the local girl on the host side of the divide. Anita's family has fallen apart, there is not much future for her, all the social mobility denied in advance. For a diligent, smart, and hard-working immigrant family, Meena and the parents are entitled for upward mobility and they do achieve their goals. On the other hand, the poor local whites are left behind, knowing not what to do in the face of changes, and the situation is epitomized in Anita's life, who just stands there watching when the "Paki-bashing" boyfriend and his gangs kick an Indian man to death.

Well. After all this, Meena's feelings toward Anita is rather incomprehensible. Her attachment is too strong. That makes the story weak, after all. Yet there are many fine moments in the film and it's worth viewing repeatedly to learn the dialect of the mining region (I really had hard time following it).

"Stupid bloody wogs" is what a nice English lady says to Meena and her mother. I also learned that girlfriends call each other "wench."

The Milagro Beanfield War (Robert Redford, 1988)

This along with Local Hero is one of my all-time favourites. I watched it in Hawaii in 1988 and then visited New Mexico for the first time in 1989... My southwest days began.

Looking back, this is a great film, very well-conceived, well-sustained, and well-finished. I love every bit of it. And the visual is marvelous.

Ruben Blades and Christopher Walken are both still youngish. They are in their early forties. Now that I have passed their ages at this stage, I can't watch this film without a kind of nostalgia.

The impression that remains is that of the wind. It's the wind that tells the truth. See the sequence in which copies of the local newspaper, La Voz, are blown away to reach people.

The beauty of the tierra encantada is quite breath-taking.

Jumanji (Joe Johnston, 1995)

Watching this I thought the tempo was rather slow, but the children with whom I was watching this didn't mind that a bit and actually they seemed to enjoy the development.

It's a fantasy, all right, but the rules of the game are not very clear. From one segment to the other, a game needs to get a complete break. The game Jumanji doesn't have it and the "presences" from previous moves all remain somewhere. This is strange.

The old hunter near the end loses his state-of-the-art shotgun before disappearing himself. This is very weird, as the gun is from this reality and not the game's world.

Whatever. The idea is fun.

Mr. Spin

Went downtown today and there was the inaugural Harbour Festival going on. Quite by chanc we passed by a street performer named Mr. Spin from Adelaide. An incredible juggler and mono-cycle rider with an excentric laughter. We enjoyed his show so much that I ended up paying him 20 dollars to support him on the road. He gave us a DVD of his performance.

You can learn more about him by visiting the site: http://www.mrspin.net/

Then we went to see the show by a Chinese acrobat troupe at Sky City. This was so appropriate to commemorate the Chinese new year's day which was today. The performances were quite good, the talk by the MC quite dull, and everything was inbued with a sort of lethargy.

My son said he saw today the difference between individualism and totalitalianism. Well, yes, both performances were good, but we will remember Mr. Spin much better than the Chinese group.

At night saw fireworks from the north shore.

Ferris Bueller's Day Off (John Hughes, 1986)

Good to see you again, Ferris. After almost twenty years, I remembered a lot of its scenes. Which means I must have liked it in 1986 and I think I did. On this second viewing, however, the funniest scene is the ending school-bus sequence. The story's got a great rythm to unfold itself, but no character is really sympathetic or attractive. This is such a succesful role for Matthew Broderick that even today when I see him I call him Ferris, the older. Not bad, though.

Local Hero (Bill Forsyth, 1983)

This is one of my all-time favorites. I've watched it several times, but once again, it gives me an ineffable joy. How can I explain its charm? The story is very understated, no character stands out as very attractive, not much happens, the sense of humor is too subtle, but the overall effects are simply captivating. Mark Knopfler's music is perfect. When I die, it will be the tune I'd like to listen to for the last time on this earth! Scotland, ah, Scotland. It's like nowhere on the planet. A true sense of the extraordinary in the ordinary.

Housekeeping is another striking masterpiece from Bill Forsyth. But I can't find his trace in this millenium; what is he doing? Is he doing well? I hope he will come back to produce another great film in that vein.

The Piano (Jane Campion, 1993)

Up to a certain point I was rather uninterested, as the passion depicted seemed too far-fetched. It looked as if made upon a preconceived notion that "passion is something like this, see?" and it was not convincing. It looked more like a demographic problem; a woman versus two men. What happens next is predictable. Only things that kept my interests were the episodes with the Maori (infuriated by a play of Bluebeard) and the fabulous Anna Paquin.

But then toward the end, for the last thirty minutes or so, the film showed its true color; violent, engaging, enraging, shocking. The burial of the piano in the ocean has something truly extraordinary in it. And the ending sequence has a sense of humour that's commendable. It's not a laugh-out-loud humour, you know, but something that saves the film's otherwise gloomy possible ending.

And the land of Aotearoa is beautifully conceived. Looking back from Holy Smoke!, the woman's urination is pretty funny. Is it a bit of an obsession for Jane?

A strong, powerful work. A classic.

Holy Smoke (Jane Campion, 1999)

Many interesting details, a great sense of color, an intriguin setting, but the overall story is simply not that interesting. A couple of excentric people following their own passions that leave us indifferent. They are both curiously devoid of any interiority, which is only born by the sense of the social. Maybe it depicts well the shallowness of the people who falls for the cult of any kind. The most memorable moment is when Kate Winslet pees standing, naked, in the desert. That's also a turning point in their relationship. From one cult to the other.

Charlie & the Chocolate Factory (Tim Burton, 2005)

Today 19 January 2006 the DVD went on sale, I bought it and watched it. It's a very pleasurable film, full of Tim Burton flavor, but it doesn't match Mel Stuart's 1971 classic Willy Wonka with Gene Wilder. The surrealistic is simply replaced by kitsch, and the incredible musical scores are replaced by nice but tame new songs.

Especially dissapointing is the Oompa-Loompa. After the shocking visual presence of the 1971 version, well, nobody can win. The ending is rather preaching (this, according to my son, is not even in the original novel). The world of pure imagination is rendered into a world of morality. Jonny Depp is a sane schoolboy compared to Gene Wilder's wild, lunatic, extravagant Wonka.

I mean, this is a good film in itself. And yet, the 1971 Wonka is simply unbeatable. I'd watch the Wonka over and over again. Charlie? Well, maybe in five years.

Insomnia (Christopher Nolan, 2002)

With Al Pacino and Robin Williams doing their all-out performances, the film can't fail to ignite. And the backdrop is Alaska's sheer beauty! Hilary Swank also is doing her job. Pacino is a veteran detective who suffers from insomnia in Alaska's white nights, named DORMER, which of course is ironical as it comes from the French word DORMEUR, "sleeper". This is s remake of a Norwegian film I am told and I would like to watch it, too, but this very high level of achievement by Nolan is probably well beyond the original.

Alaska is haunting. All I dreamt back in Alabama was going to Alaska...

Around the Bend (Jordan Roberts, 2004)

Convenience rules. When great-grandpa Henry (Michael Cane) dies in a KFC restaurant, it's only after he has written all the necessary instructions for his son and grandson to follow. He has even taken into consideration the death of his bulldog, Sky, on the following day after his master's death. Just before Henry's death his long lost son Turner (Christopher Walken) miraculously comes back. Following Henry's instructions for scattering his ashes (mixed with those of Sky) through Arizona and New Mexico, Turner and his son (abandoned as a baby and raised by the granpa) seek reconciliation. When the truth is finally revealed, Turner dies. Dogs come and go in and out of the picture. The kid also comes and goes, very conveniently. What kind of screenplay is this?

The land of enchantment, Nuevo Mexico, offers its eternal, sheer beauty. The location is around Los Lunas, my mentor Rudolfo Anaya's landscape. The music could have been better. In fact, that's already an understatement.

Christopher Walken is great, of course, but there is nothing beyond that in this film. It's hard to believe this film won the "Jury award" at 2004 Montreal World Film Festival. The film runs a little over 80 minutes. Its length or lack theoreof is surely a virtue.

Starsky and Hutch (Todd Philips, 2004)

I was not a big fan of the TV drama Starsky and Hutch, so I wouldn't have watched this if it were not for the leading team: Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson. Now, after watching it, I find these guys funny as ever. It was worth watching. The bad guy is Jewish and Starsky I suspect is Jewish (because of his strong attachment to his late mother). Snoop Dog is doing great, too, with that strange look. At the end the "real" Sta & Hutch appear. Nicely done.

Possum (Brad McGann, 1996)

This is Brad McGann's short film (15 minutes) about a boy and his younger sister growing up in central Otago (although not specified). The younger sister, Kid, can't speak. She only utters a series of animal sounds. She eats like an animal, behaves like a beast. Until one day she is found dead in a forest, trapped and bleeding. Stunning, powerful short. The boy wishes her back one day and keeps his window open at night. This imagination is as sinister as any, and as powerful as any. The film is permeated by the force of nature. Plants, animals, night... An unforgettable piece.

In My Father's Den (Brad McGann, 2004)

Paternity, paternity. As the title suggests this is its theme, but with a surprising reversal. It's a tragedy yet the ending is carefully arranged to give a little soothing effect. The whole picture is beautifully done. Desolate central Otago (I think the town is Roxburgh) is scaringly beautiful (a little like Arizona but much colder). This film surely tells about the kiwi spirit--excentric, gloomy, independent, filled with yearning for other places of the world, reticent, and ultimately sad.

The Station Agent (Tom McCarthy, 2003)

Talk about friendship. The most incongruous threesome (a dwarf train aficionado, a talkative Cuban hotdog vendor, and a middle-aged woman painter who can't get over her son's death) turn out to be the purest of friends. Added to the threesome are a lonely black school girl and a little silly librarian. The center of gravity here is Fin, the dwarf guy, and his deserted train depot. Somewhere in New Jersy. It's surprisingly fresh and heart-warming. The ending is brilliant.

Diarios de motocicleta (Walter Salles, 2004)

Looking at Alberto's face (the real Alberto's) at the end all the emotions intertwining history and the young man's dream come to fill you to the edge of the overflowing river, and you realize how powerful a journey the past 110 minutes or so have been. Following the chronology of the carnet de voyage, the film starts rather flatly. They it begins to accumulate intensity once they cross the border into Chile. From there, it's non-stop. They have to abandon the motorcycle at a point, but who cares, the voyage continues and so does the diary. Into an uncertain future.

America, the Americas. One common destiny. And that destiny, brought about by Europe's expansionism of the past five centuries, is what we of the other parts of the world also share in common.

The film makes me want to hit the road, to the high hills of Machu Pichu. One day, yes. But before that I have to revisit all my anchoring points in the America latina I knew when I was 25... São Paulo, Santiago, Buenos Aires and Caracas. I will. I hope. So that I can continue to hope, not to despair.

A Life Less Ordinary (Danny Boyle, 1997)

Immediately following Trainspotting, this is another delightful comedy by Danny Boyle. I liked it so much probably partly because I have a soft spot for both Ewan McGregor and Cameron Diaz (more for the latter than the former, of course). Holly Hunter in this film is an immediate continuation from Raising Arizona, it seems. And the final clay animation sequence is so cute. It's Danny's merit to have found a Scotland-like landscape in Colorado (this is my guess). It's stunningly beautiful. A filmmaker is a person who knows how to turn a landscape into a distant place. Four thumbs up, and I'm on my back!

Elizabeth (Shekhar Kapur, 1998)

It's funny but I learned a lot about the politico-religious history of England from this film. How in fact sovereignty needs to be sanctioned by religious authority is a matter to be considered. What is also very intriguing is the way they switch between English and French in the 16th century. And all this put into a filmic text by an India-born director? Cinema is a strange, funny art.

Mallrats (Kevin Smith, 1995)

A terrible, terrible story of the incredibly deranged American consumerist youths, and I like it very much. It's all the more fun when you learn that the director is "Silent Bob" in the film... What kind of twisted, weird imagination he has... not unlike the woman producer/writer (what's her name) of superb Drop Dead Gorgeous. Dialogues are really enjoyable. Very shallow, but they ring true, and meticulously Americanized in every possible way. Shopping malls, the world's least desirable habitat for humanity. Yet there are a bunch of people for whom this is the most comfortable place on earth. They are brainless, pathetic, and a lot like you and me.

The Cat in the Hat (Bo Welch, 2003)

Superb sets and the sense for color make this a thoroughly enjoyable silly tale. Dr. Seuss coming together with Wayne's World with Wonka-like dreamy townscape... a sheer joy at moments. When the cat smiles widely there appears Wayne... hilarious! They should have asked Garth to make a cameo appearance!

Rushmore (Wes Anderson, 1998)

Bravo! The best film ever made set in high schools. Funny and full of emotions. It's quite interesting that Cousteau is already an obsession in this--as if to announce The Life Aquatic. Wes Anderson along with the Coen brothers are my kind of American filmmakers. How fortunate of us to have the likes of them as contemporaries!

City of Ghosts (Matt Dillon, 2002)

An impressive film set in Cambodia by the DIRECTOR Matt Dillon (his first), with James Caan and Gerard Depardieu, among others. The music is very nice and atmospheric. The song at the end is Joni Mitchel's Both Sides Now sung in Cambodian and it's very good. All in all, exoticism is rampant and the dark side of Cambodian history is conveniently exploited (see the episode around landmines). The father-son relationship and romances are all very shallow. The scenery is gorgeous, but you are left to wonder: what's the point? Unconscious repetition of colonialism is at times too much. Good actors, great locations, but the film doesn't quite live up to it.

Hide and Seek (John Polson, 2005)

Coming from the director of that curiously absurd, colorful, and impressive Siam Sunset, this is rather a dissapointment. With De Niro and Dakota Fanning nicely doing their job, this could have been better if not for such a messy screenplay. The main plot comes through well enough. We are led to believe that the daughter suffers from dual personality. Then the moment of reversal comes and we learn, with enough shock effect, that it's the father who is dual. Both roles are played superbly; Dakota Fanning especially is stunning.

Still, the daughter's overall reaction to her father's dark side (Charlie) is not very convincing. Even less so is the episodes of the neighbors who just interferes as cheap mystification.

Regrettably, not in the same league as Night Shyamalan. I'd love to see another film more in the vein of Siam Sunset!

Fight Club (David Fincher, 1999)

Astounding. Truly awesome. I can't blame myself enough for not having watched this earlier. The film can well be titled "The Pursuit of Happiness." This is to my knowledge the clearest filmic statement against consumerism made within the essentially consumerist framework of the cinema. I will come back to this film in detail one day.

Bottle Rocket (Wes Anderson, 1996)

This is a curiously charming crime comedy centered around the themes of innocence and silliness. The combination is of course disasterous, but heart-warming in many ways. Many little laughs guaranteed. It's like watching a school of half-witted dolphins doing their antics in sub-tropical waters. Only the setting is either Texas or Oklahoma, and distinctively American.

River's Edge (Tim Hunter, 1986)

Chilling and so American. First, because of the conflicts of ideologies. Each person is so idealist, clinging to one's own frame of mind, seeing no reality, making the world outside into one's self-righteous picture, following one's ideologic. Second, because of the immense presence of the river. This is the most real, the essence of the material world.

Kids' delinquency is disgusting and the portraits of broken families are regular staples for America, the sad. Not much hope or future in this culture. Dennis Hopper is superb in his portraiyal of SANE insanity. He is retrospective, believing in the need for a princile named hope. Only his hope is never held in common.

This is another 'dead body' film and it's strange it coincided with Stand by Me in 1986. Kids still talked about the fear of Russia then. How historical it now seems!

The only thing that makes you relieved in the film is that at the end 12-year-old Tim didn't shoot his brother Matt. It could have been worse, you know.

Excess Baggage (Marco Brambilla, 1997)

Apart from the cars' Washington license plates and Benicio del Toro's strange accent, this is a rather ordinary film. Christopher Walken is just regular, and Alicia Silverstone gives an impression of being a little chubby. This is surprising that it's only been two years since that marvelous Emma retelling, CLUELESS. Basically I enjoy any film. But this could have been better with a little something. Spices. Or some scenes with more water. Yes, some more splashes would have been fun.

Zoolander (Ben Stiller, 2001)

Ben Stiller directs and acts the main role in this funny film with a plot around a super model and the fashion industry. It's funny all right, but leaves us with a sense of doubt. The hero talks as if he cared about the sweat shop exploited by the fashion world in the third world countries. But the making of this film contributes to any change at all? Underpriviledged kids do appear at the end of the film, made happy apparently by the hero's good deed, but that is very little convincing. The assasination plan of the prime minister of Malaysia fails, but the very mentioning of the name Malaysia makes me uneasy. Is this kind of gag compatible with a tongue-in-cheek intention of activism? A subtle taste of disgust sticks to my tongue.

Flatliners (Joel Schumacher, 1990)

The story is nothing more than teenager's daydream (or nightmare) about the near-death experience, but the film is successful with three gorgeous actors: Kiefer Sutherland, Kevin Bacon, and Julia Fiona Roberts. Julia Roberts in 1990 is the Julia Roberts of Pretty Womanand at the peak of her beauty. All of them are haunted by their own past guilt and seek atonements. In this probably the film strays away from what the young medical students wanted. The focus on what lies beyond becomes a given story for eneryone. But none of us want any instruction on the matter of life and death from the film, so maybe it's good for all of us. Enjoyable. But can't take it seriously.

Duplex (Danny De Vito, 2003)

This is a very funny comedy set in New York, starring Drew Barrymore and Ben Stiller, directed by Danny De Vito. I didn't even know that Danny De Vito was directing, but this turned out to be actually quite good. The only problem is that each time I see Drew Barrymore's face I remember her as a child in E.T. and The Firestarter. The beginning sequence is cartoon and nicely done, too (like a movie in the mid-1960s).

The Chronicles of Narnia (Andrew Adamson, 2005)

Watched this with children. Very enjoyable film from the Auckland-born director (whose Shreks we loved) but also very Disney-like. You never see lions, polar bears, and beavers at the same time, do you? Yes, maybe in one location: the zoological garden! So this is a story based upon "zoo-logic," by which is meant that all the heterogeneous components are juxtaposed. Whatever. Tilda Swinton's witch is very attractive. The scenery is gorgeous.

The Road to Wellville (Alan Parker, 1994)

A very funny satire from Alan Parker on the cult of health at the time of Horace Fletcher and others. I don't know how much of this Dr. Kellog (Anthony Hopkins) character owes to a real person, whoever that is. But it captures a certain thread of American history in a very shrewed way. Interesting addition to the filmography of the master filmmaker.

Lock, Stock, & Two Smoking Barrels (Guy Ritchie, 1998)

A gang comedy (but with a lot of bloody massacre in it) set in East-end London. To me it's fun for the language and accents of the characters. The story is as futile as any of bad Luc Besson's. "One of the most entertaining movies ever made," says THE SUN. You get the general idea. Some people may laugh out loud, for sure. The ending is cute and light-hearted, but only after those murderous gang activities. Bad guys are all killed. In fact, they exterminate each other, as if by some divine intervention. A team of rather stupid young fellows survive. A lone wolf kind of gang guy, with his little son, gets all the money (he in fact is the least repugnant of the bad guys). So the story goes, the good is at last rewarded, the bad ruthlessly punished. There is this bar owner who reminds me of somebody I know. He looks like Sting. And in fact he IS Sting. He seems to be in his most natural milieu.

Memento (Christopher Nolan, 2000)

I've heard so much about this film and finally I watch it, and it's way beyond my expectation. What a grim adventure of a story-telling! The reversal at the beginning flows seemlessly into the past. The man doesn't have any short-term memory. He thinks he keeps his long-term memory. But for him there is no telling if the memory is true or false, and as it turns out it's all his construction, rationalizing his behaviour. Inscription of letters, written words, are used to keep things in order. But what if the inscription itself is falsified? No écriture is ever reliable, even if it's on your own body.

Somebody like Severo Sarduy, or Roland Barthes himself, should have watched this. They would have cheered.

Meet the Parents (Jay Roach, 2000)

Everything-goes-wrong story played out by two great comic actors--Ben Stiller and Roberto de Niro. It seems that the role of Stiller was first intended for Jim Carrey; that would have been great, too. It was a laugh out loud for the whole family.

Scarcity/scared-city

Looking at some of my recent students' lives after they graduated from the college, I am led to think about the relationship between the job and lifestyle. Incredibly cynical climate of monetaristic winners/losers dichotomy is rampant. Seeing my former students ending up as seriously underpayed, disposable temps on the fringe of the non-repentant, habitually-heavy consummer society is chilling. Andrew Ross's 1998 book REAL LOVE: IN PURSUIT OF CULTURAL JUSTICE might help me realigning my thoughts. The book is a collection of essays written over the period under the Clinton administration. Having lived in the US for most of the 1990s, I have overlooked many scorching issues. I need some retrospective inputs.

It is no coincidence that the rise of claims for cultural justice has occured at a time when a pro-scarcity climate of austerity is also being established. The result is a widely shared perception that this is one form of justice we cannot afford. It is time to debunk this cynical perception, oppose its punitive consequences, and urge that we meet the next challenges of history in the spirit of the culture-and-class coalitions that have too often eluded us. (5)

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Michel Gondry, 2004)

A stunning masterpiece. The idea is built upon the locatability theory of memory, which is directly opposed to the holographic paradigm, and I don't think man can ever do anything even close to it. Still, it is very intriguing. By the end one is uttely confused about the events' chronology. Where was the beginning? Libido doesn't know nor care about time.

Envy (Barry Levinson, 2004)

A good comedy from the director of GOOD MORNING, VIETNAM. Ben Stiller and Jack Black join up as a funny buddy team, with Cambridge-educated, daughter-of-a-Hungarian-psychoanalyist Rachel Weisz and a very unattractive Christopher Walken as supporting casts. The main focus of the plot is an invention called 'Vapoorize' that makes dogs' turd evaporate in no time. How can it be? Well, absurdity is part of the story. I enjoyed it.

In general, I don't get used to things. (Mary Ann Caws)

In Japanese there is a phrase "shishuku suru," which means "to consider someone as one's mentor without actually having met this person." In this sense Mary Ann Caws, the foremost surreslism scholar, has been my such "secretly designated" mentor. Her memoir TO THE BOATHOUSE (2004) is a lovable autobiography of a super-intelligent yet shy and clumsy Southern girl's quest for the miraculous in the ordinary. Sincere, simple, and often elegant.

One thing I found out is that she consumes too much sugar! (Of course, to a certain extent, sugar high helps when one works intently in one's writing. In the long run it's bad for your health, though.) But here is a great quote:

I often start the day with a spoonful of ginger marmalade, preserves, really. The morning glory makes a fence of blue as I trundle my way to my office to write, after biking back from breakfast. I go past the guard, always smiling, past the yellow flowers tall in a massive vase: when I stop to sniff them, the other passerby stare. I suppose they are used to flowers. In general, I don't get used to things. (144)

Not getting used to things. This is the most elaborated definition of homo aestheticus!

It's Always Something Else (Walter Benjamin)

"It is an error to search Benjamin's work for stability in terminology. Nothing works devoid of context, performance. These are texts that must always be read anew, less for the referents they seem to preserve than for their Darstellung: here lives, works, theories, terms, are saved only like phenomena in ideas, only like stars in a constellation. Almost to the point, as Benjamin says of allegory, that all that is used to signify, 'the signifying props' in his writing, inevitably point 'to something else.' 'Any person, any thing, any relationship can mean absolutely anything else.'

Carol Jacobs, In the Language of Walter Benjamin, 7.

Postindustrial ruins

Here is what Cheryl Lester, a Faulkner specialist focusing on the Great Migration, has to say about the urban landscapes of her mind:

Like the sculptor Mark di Suvero, I developed a libidinal attraction to the corroded, crumbling, and demolished steel, brick, asphalt, and concrete I grew up with in Detroit, Los Angeles, and Buffalo. For these ruins are monuments to the disorientingly rapid shifts in the constitution of place characteristic of American industrial and postindustrial culture. (Philip Weinstein, ed., The Cambridge Companion to William Faulkner, 126)

His trilingual education (George Steiner)

This is what George Steiner writes about his early linguistic education:

A minha educaçao foi completamente trilingue, num contexto sempre poliglota. A minha radiosa mamã costumava começar uma frase numa língua e acabá-la noutra. (Errata: Revisões de uma vida, 22)

His Jewish family was from Vienna, his father had a deep sympathy with Disraeli, and they chose to live in Paris. Hence, German, English, and French.

But what is more interesting is his vision of literary scholarship (or simply reading and writing) as a sort of "secular Talmud." Under a heavy influence from his father, the boy seems to have taken it for granted that to read is to memorize is to comment upon, and to read a text is also to read its commentaries by his predecessors.

Eu devia aprender a ler, interiorizar a palavra e o comentário, na esperança, conquanto fortuita, de que um dia pudesse acrescentar a esse comentário, à sobrevivência do texto, mais uma nesga de luz. (23)

An European child destined to be a critic!

Hegel vs. Dostoevski

The more totalizing the theory, the greater the resentment that will be mobilized against it. This was the fate of the original 'end of history.' Hegel's dialectic, although conversant with slaves as well as masters, had no answer to resentment. The nihilistic passion of the Dostoevskian underground man shattered the crystal palace of Hegelian rationality. (Eric Gans)

The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou (Wes Anderson, 2004)

A delightful comedy, partly inspired by the life of Jacques-Yves Cousteau (or is it?), with a funny scientist-adventurer and his crew. Seu Jorge sings David Bowie's songs in Brazilian Portuguese through out, and this gives the film an ineffable Carioca quality. It's not particularly a great comedy, but is very enjoyable.

Bill Murray here portraits a father with dubious paternity; isn't Jarmush's new film, in which Bill Murray is the antagonist, also about such a theme? Strange resonance. Or is it a common fantasy of men in their mid-fifties?

This Unbearable Slowness

A great quote from Rosario Ferre in Steven Kellman's The Translingual Imagination:

"English makes me slow down. I have to think over what I'm going to say twice, maybe three times--which is often healthy because I can't put my foot, or rather my pen, in my mouth so easily. I can't be trigger-happy in English because words take too much effort."

I don't even have a trigger here. Darn it!

The World Island

Have you ever thought of Eurasia/Africa as one big island?

"In DEMOCRATIC IDEALS Mackinder defines the 'World-Island' as 'the joint continent of Europe, Asia, and Africa.'

(Reuben Ellis, VERTICAL MARGINS)

Howard on Sontag

Here is what Richard Howard had to say about Susan Sontag:

"And ever since THE BENEFACTOR, even her means of fictive characterization has been THIS means, epigram or aphorism; concision is her antidote to what Hegel calls THE PROSE OF THE WORLD, her saving grace in a medium that is damned for its mendacity."

Hence Sontag's preference for Barthes, Canetti, Ciora, Pavese, Artaud, and even John Cage...

What Becomes of the Broken Hearted? (Ian Mune, 1999)

Until told by a friend I didn't know there was a sequal to Once Were Warriors (1994). Then yesterday I found at a local store this at a very "bon marche" price of $9.99! I bought it, I watched it, and I was moved.

Jake's selfish machismo completely shattered at the end of Once Were Warriors, after five years he hasn't changed much. But there are moments he begins to show changes. He is supported by other, more round-minded guys. Pig huntung in the mountain becomes a sort of initiation. Then at the end, he is rescued by a mysterious gang denier within the band of the gang. For the sake of fatherhood that is depicted ultimately in a very positive image.

What I like best about this is its ending. Abrupt, but well calculated. Very understating. Logically speaking, no future is bright for them, still we are left with an impression of hope. Anybody who liked OWW should watch this as well.

Birdy (Alan Parker, 1984)

War traumatizes. But even before any war begins, an individual's combat with the societal has been going on. Birdy relives his past in his own bird-like silence. Al talks Birdy out of his private silence in the way that only an adolescence buddy can. All the little episodes (especially those involving animals) revisited point at a way to recovery. With its sense of helplessness, this is a great work of art. Alan Parker's deeply compassionate creative power at its best. VIVA ALAN PARKER!

Drugstore Cowboy (Gus Van Santo, 1989)

This is a great study about fear--the fear of having to do routine things and the unpredictability pertaining to the daily life. Drug addicts want assurance from the promised land of the predictable, and the chemial never fails. Their use of drugs is a flight from contingency, hazard, of life. It's thoroughly an anti-adventure.

William Burroughs here is superbly crazy and very true to his own life.

The song that goes "Poor me, Israelite" has an enigmatic charm in it. (It's by Desmond Dekker and the Aces, the band of which I know absolutely nothing.)

I was imagining the director Gus Van Santo was Dutch, or something. But no, actually he is from Kentucky, of all places. (Then Burroughs is from Lawrence, Kansas.)

"Pressures of everyday life like having to tie their shoes," says Bob (Matt Dillon). The sentence epitomizes his state of mind.

Boyz n the Hood (John Singleton, 1991)

One can't help but associating this with such films as Colors, another LA movie, or the Brazilian Cidade de Deus. Of the three this is the most 'humanist,' with an explicit message at the end: increase the peace.

'Either they don't know or don't show or don't care about what's going on in the hood.' True, and the US still suffers, dies, and kills (home or abroad) as a negative legacy of the slavery.

Another 'must see' work regarding racially mosaiced US cities.

Higher Learning (John Singleton, 1995)

Another powerful piece by John Singleton on an absurd racial war on a fictive campus named after the first European invader of the Americas: Columbus. Tensions accummulate and the development of the story line is rather predictible, yet it's rivetting and it involves the audience straightforwardly into the agenda of the film: UNLEARN AMERICA. This is the kind of film that's a must-see on any contemporary campus, regardless of its location. An admirable work.

Five Easy Pieces (Bob Rafelson, 1970)

Full of flavours of the period 1970; but I can't believe it was a commercial success when first released in that year. The whole film is a series of stage plays that pretend to be popular existentialist yet overly so. The theme of dropping out of a prodigal son from a highbrow middle-class milieu could have been attractive to a certain group of people of a certain period, but looking back this moral side seems tepid. Of course Jack Nicholson is 100 percent Jack Nicholson; he can't be anybody else. The great merit of the film is its road movie aspect that unfortunately is not fully pursued. Two women hitchhikers are interesting, the lansdscapes of northern California (near Arcata?) into the Oregon dunes area are quite nice (could have been better, though). To me this could be made over into a much better version now. It may worth trying. And still I don't know what "five easy pieces" mean. Does he play the piano five times in the film? No, I think he played only three times, but I may be wrong.

Barton Fink (The Coen Brothers, 1991)

What a nightmare. Despite its facade, we need not think it's got something profound. The sequences follow the logic of the dream--inconsequential. No hidden meanings,etc. We simply don't know what happened and we will never know. Enjoyable throughout, but not to the degree of later masterpieces such as The Big Lebowski or The Hudsucker Proxy, nor the earlier joyous Raising Arizona.

Sweet Sixteen (Ken Loach, 2002)

My main interest in this film was its heavy Scottish accent. I couldn't have understood it without subtitles. The story is too sad to recapitulate. What is this class thing and addiction that are going on? Everything's so futile. Only in the UK could a story be so hopeless. Ken Loach's films are to be discussed in detail in the future. For now, we remain depressed.

The Big Lebowski (The Coen Brothers, 1998)

How can they make a film so funny and delightful? This makes you want to go bowling immediately! And I specify, 10 pin bowling. If not, the game doesn't mean the same thing here in NZ...

Hudsucker Proxy (The Coen Brothers, 1994)

This film really blew my mind. It's an unutterable masterpiece! The final 15 minutes or so is sheer Coen magic. A totally different time running, mythical, comic, and sublime. Tim Robbins is very funny and so is Jennifer Jason Leigh. Wow. Just keep watching it over and over again!