Tag Archives: 5/5

#245- Akira

Quick recap: In Neo Tokyo,A teenage motorcycle club fights the government, who have taken their friend and turned him into a dangerous psychopath.

In_Marge_We_Trust_65

Teenage biker gangs are the worst

Fun (?) fact: The film takes place in 2019, as Neo Tokyo is set to host the Summer Olympics. As ultimate proof the IOC all secretly love anime, Tokyo is actually hosting the Summer Olympics in 2020. Either that, or they know the world will be ending very soon.

4691732-kanye+akira

My thoughts: 5 minutes into Akira and my only thoughts were, ‘what the hell am I watching?’ and ‘Can I just watch this forever?’. To say this was an amazing experience is an understatement. As I drove home after the movie (I watched it at the Drafthouse) all I could think was that this movie changed my life somehow, even though I can’t explain in what way.

I’m not by any stretch of the imagination an ‘anime’ fan, although I did once buy the Cowboy Bebop Blue album because I was going through an especially bad breakup. After watching Akira, I GET it. Something this complex can’t be told through traditional means and anime is perfect for weaving in ridiculous plot points with achingly human experiences. I’m intentionally vague about the plot because there are just so many layers there. I went in thinking this was going to be some fluffy guy film about racing motorcycles and found that it was so much more.

Everything in Akira is over the top- the music, the plot, and especially the visuals. I can not believe this was made in 1988 because there are many shots that seem impossible without the aid of computer graphics. There were several really creepy scenes, which, as mentioned above, I won’t get into, but it gave me nightmares later on. I’m also a wimp, so take that into account. I have no idea if this movie is for everyone, but if you are in the least bit interested in anime, this is a hell of a way to get acquainted with the genre.

Akira-1-060915-615x319

Final review: 5/5

Up next: Foolish Wives

Leave a comment

#243-E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial

Quick recap:

url

I remember another gentle visitor from the heavens. Who came to earth… and then died… only to be brought back to life again. And his name was: E.T., the extra-terrestrial. I love that little guy.

Fun (?) fact: E.T. is actually a plant-like creature and neither female or male

tumblr_n6znyn4jEx1seo8n9o1_500

This might be my new favorite reaction gif

My thoughts: This movie has been a favorite of mine for as long as I can remember. Back when VCRs were hella expensive, Three-year-old Me would carry around the VHS tape everywhere I went on the off chance someone would feel sorry for me and let me watch it. It wasn’t until I ended up in the hospital when I was 5, that I finally got my hands on a VCR proving that a) sometimes you have to go to extremes to get what you want  and b) Chicken Pox is no laughing matter.

I’ve sat through E.T a handful of times as an adult and each time I’m amazed by how much the movie still affects me. I choked up as always during the scene when E.T and Elliott are in the bathroom dying, but there was this added layer to the movie where I identified more with the mom than I have in other viewings. It was almost as if I was watching something for the first time, noticing what the mom is going through as she deals with a separation on top of taking care of three kids, one of whom brings in an alien that almost kills him. It’s a lot to take in and though she doesn’t always handle things perfectly, she sees the bond Elliott and E.T have and she respects it, even though the consequences are so serious.

On paper, this movie looks like it would be a major train wreck. This kind of cutesy-buddy story about an alien and boy just doesn’t work most of the time, as evidenced by the many copycats that came after *ahem* Mac and Me. But throw in Spielberg and John Williams and you are at least heading in the right direction. There are so many iconic scenes in this movie- the bikes flying in the air, E.T and his glowing finger, and the score is still my favorite from everything Williams has done. I don’t know how an adult might react to viewing this film for the first time, although I can predict that it would probably be negative. The film itself is shot through the perspective of a young boy because it is a movie meant for children. It meant so much to me as a kid and I carried those lessons with me through adulthood.

Final review: 5/5

Up next: The Last Wave

 

Leave a comment

#241-Good Bye Lenin!

Quick recap: After his mother emerges from a coma, a young man tries to keep her from learning that her beloved country of East Germany has collapsed, out of fear that the news will kill her.

good-bye-lenin-o

Fun (?) fact: The story is loosely based on the last couple of years of VI Lenin’s life. Josef Stalin was afraid that excitement could caused serious health problems so he censored all media about the political issues of the time.

goodbye-lenin

My thoughts: Good Bye Lenin was all over the place for me: I laughed, I cried, I drank Coke. Seriously though, the Coke advertising was ridiculous. Was there some Coca-Cola invasion I missed learning about in History? I know that Texas can be sort of hit and miss about important facts children should know, but you would think this would be the sort of thing I would’ve paid attention to.

All joking aside, watching Good Bye Lenin made me realize how little I knew about the fall of East Germany and how complicated the whole thing was. I know about the wall and I could probably name some important figures, but what I never thought about were the people. Not just the fact that families could finally be reunited but how hard it must have been to transition to a democracy after having little to no choice before. These kinds of governments are awful, of course, but they provide a sense of familiarity and calmness, whereas a Westernized country is overwhelming. It made sense why the son, Alex,would try to shield his mother from all of it because he was having a hard time on his own.

Alex’s love for his mother was to me the most important part of the film. There were several funny scenes about the lengths he took to keep his mother from knowing about the fall of her country- from paying boys to sing Socialist songs, to creating fake news reports so his mother could watch tv. It was all done out of a fierce protection, but it was also done as protection from his own feelings. His mother was everything to him, but she also represented safety. In turn, I think Alex’s mother knew the country had changed long before he told her (which he never actually did. He created a fake story about East Germany letting West Germans in because they hated capitalism) but she too loved him so much that she let him continue the charade. The ending, which I won’t give away, was also beautiful and really tied the whole film together.

Final review: 5/5

Up next: One Upon a Time in China

 

Leave a comment

#239-Memento

Quick recap: A man without the ability to form short term memories hunts for his wife’s killer.

giphy

Fun (?) fact: There aren’t many fun facts that don’t give away the mystery, so I’ll go with a personal one I just realized: Natalie and Teddy in Memento played Trinity and Cypher in The Matrix.

memento_natalie

Someone should do a mashup of Memento and The Matrix where Neo can’t form new memories and the entire movie is spent reminding him that he is The One.

My thoughts: While searching for images from Memento, I fell down a rabbit hole of memento mori blogs. In case you don’t know, memento mori is/was the practice of photographing people after they die. It was most popular in the Victorian Age, a time when people didn’t have Instagram and pictures took 15-20 minutes to take. It turns out that most memento mori pictures are fakes or are people who just closed their eyes at the worst possible moment. I’ve taken some really bad photos in my lifetime and it mortifies me to think someone would find it 100 years later and think I was dead because I looked so bad.

096a0aafc06d8fd53548d8dd01e8a46c

‘I hope I don’t end up on Tumblr for this picture’

And now on to my actual review of Memento– I liked it. I knew I would like it because it’s been one of my favorite movies since it came out, but it especially pleased me that it has aged well. The movie is shot backwards, so the first scene you see is chronologically the last, which sounds gimmicky but totally works. Plus, Memento is directed by Christopher Nolan so if anyone can pull this off, it’s him. My favorite thing about this movie is that when you watch a scene, it’s incredibly confusing and your opinions of people change constantly, but then you watch the next scene (or chronologically prior scene) and a little more context comes to light. It’s a puzzle within a puzzle and it’s just as complicated as I remember.

Watching Memento this round, I found myself drawn to the concept of memory. It’s basic knowledge at this point to know that memory is faulty and too heavily relied on at times. But there’s this darker side, which I won’t get into because it would spoil the movie, that memory is what we want it to be. It can be manipulated. And as much as I’d like to be honest with myself, there are just some things I’d rather not remember. So as reprehensible parts of Memento are, I’m guilty of doing the same thing- whether it’s deleting a song off of Spotify because it reminds me of someone or deleting an entry in my journal I don’t want to look at again. At the same time, memory is you, the good and the bad side of it. And when your memory is gone, who are you, really?

77272-1-large-b419916277911583

Final review: 5/5. A lot of people loved this movie when it came out and if it’s been awhile since you have seen it, go watch it again. It gets better with time.

Up next: Run Lola Run

2 Comments