September 2009 Archives

What a hoot!

Never thought soccer was a good subject for movies. And the people who made Shaolin Soccer (2001) don't think so either. That's half the humour. This film takes the piss out of how sport movies take the sport and hence themselves too seriously. Trust me, see Oliver Stone's Any Given Sunday, then contrast it with Bull Durham (personal opinion: any form of seriousness in sport is too serious, except maybe Hoosiers).

The humour of equating the wisdom of soccer with the disciplines of the Shaolin monk results in a richness of irony that would justify this film in itself. But, Shaolin Soccer's lightness of touch and deft approach to endless funny soccer game situations turns this film into a very fast and anti-furious comedy of exception.

But then as if that isn't enough, this fulfills itself as a total feel good flick with all its likeable characters and charming outrageousness (the Bruce Lee impersonating goalkeeper is my favourite). And the real miracle? The whole feel-good nature doesn't feel forced or contrived or even remotely insincere. Even the feel goodness is not to be taken seriously.

Yes, the people who made this (principally writer, director, star and Hong Kong comedy legend Stephen Chow who I also praised for his take on Monkey some time back) actually did want you to feel good, not just have your money. This is not Hollywood. And just like not Hollywood, they understand the proper use of their materials. This is a special effects rich film but it's all for the fun of the movie. The marvelous miming and CGI ball play make it the best effects I've seen used for comic effect and thus the best I've seen in a comedy. And these hoopy effects, in conjunction with the execution and performance by all involved, makes this perhaps one of my favourite feel good movies.

Like I said, it's a hoot.

But I strongly encourage you to not easily settle for watching the english dub but to seek out the uncut Cantonese version, cause it's the best way to get ya hoot on.

Book trailers are still a developing art form and only very recently been worth something to check out at all. Two particular trailers did get my attention.

First is for Scott Westerfeld's young adult steampunker Leviathan...

... and the second is Thomas Pynchon's Inherent Vice (which I'm currently reading) which has Pynchon himself sounding like The Dude.

 Here's a selection of book trailers I thought worth a bit of a look see.

And this last trailer has a lot I find irritating and it feels more like it is meant to run on loop in some bookchain, but the pop-surrealist (Ryden doll style) art work for this edition of Wizard of Oz makes it worth the look.

A western from Thailand!?! Absolutely. And we need more of them. This one, Tears of the Black Tiger (2000), is a Romeo & Juliet tragedy where a handsome cowboy outlaw laments lost innocence and the woman that symbolises it. But move over any plodding sentimentality, this is an all action take broader than just a loving western parody/tribute.

Packaged, at times, like a Broadway version of Oklahoma - except that under these painted skies are psychopath bandits and slick dressed gunslingers - Tears of the Black Tiger runs through every decade of Hollywood in style and culture from silent melodramas to thirties gangsters to Jimmy Dean teen angst to modern blow it up hero spectaculars.

Though the best moments for me were the periods of pastel expressionism and realist moments of Thai peasantry, it is all done with a knowing love of cinema and its history. But this chameleon attitude and sense of story-telling universality only reinforces this as a Thailand tale.

And the juxtapositions are everything. There is a scene where two drunken Asian cowboys, share blood in shooter glasses and laugh and dance, blood spilling from there mouths, waving their guns, all done within an ancient Buddhist temple. There's the ride of the posse - horses, guns, boots and cowboy hats - amidst classic Thailand scenery - shootouts in rainforests.

  And then there's the line by the suffering heroine, "In this life I'll never love another." Sure, a normal line in any melodramtic theatre, especially in a boy/girl western. But in a land of reincarnation it takes on a different meaning quite intended. The line works humorously and straight.

The whole film works humorously and straight. Even the Asian answer to Johnny Depp successfully plays both clown and a man to be feared. Even when six shooters meet German lugers meet tommy-guns meets grenade launchers, the film's continual shift from earnestness to eloquence to raw emotion allow it to pull off tributes to John Ford, Sergio Leone, John Woo and Rogers & Hammerstein. And even with the touches of stylised uber-violence the story and the souls lost within remain something rather touching to behold.

Based on the classic novel by Colin Thiele, about a boy raising pelican chicks in the Coorong wetlands of South Australia, Storm Boy in 1976 became a landmark film in Australia's outreach to the international cinema scene. In 1977 it won AFI Best Film and established two Australian cinema legends, David Gulpilil and Mr. Percival.

Gulpilil went on to become one of Australia's most respected actors, but Mr. Percival, though quite young at the time, left the stage to raise a family with his partner Alto. Mr Percival fathered seven chicks, a most repectable batch. He retired in '88 to Adelaide Zoo and though he suffered from arthritis he led a quiet life, liked by his keepers, till old age took him at 33. A memorial is being considered and I would think so too.

So lets look back on a special time with Mr. Percival, one that remains significant in Australian film history. If this is your first encounter with this gentle and most natural performer, I ask you, how can you not look at pelicans quite the same way.

Now let us now raise a glass of sardines to the memory of Mr. Percival.