Japanese Story (2003)

Starring: Toni Collette, Gotaro Tsunashima, Matthew Dyktynski
Directed by: Sue Brooks
 
"Japanese Story" adalah drama romantis yang lezat.  Sebuah alternatif dari romantisme versi Hollywood, dan sebuah perjalanan yang menyenangkan dalam satu sisi emosi manusia. Cinta.
 
Sandy (Collette) dan Tachibana Hiromitsu (Tsunashima) adalah dua orang asing yang benar-benar terasing yang harus bersama-sama ketika Sandy ditugaskan untuk menjadi guide Hiromitsu untuk melakukan survei terhadap perusahaan penambangan milik ayahnya di sepanjang gurun Australia. Penyatuan dua manusia yang berbeda akar budaya membuat masing-masing melihat yang lain melalui lensa stereotip sempit yang kemudian malah justru menghalangi kompleksitas dan potensi masing-masing.
 
"Japanese Story" adalah satu lagi contoh culture-clash yang ditampilkan dan dieksploitasi oleh media film. Perhatikan bagaimana di awal-awal cerita Hiromitsu bercerita ke kolega-nya mengenai apa dan bagaimana Sandy menurut dia (which of course, very inacurate) di depan Sandy sendiri yang praktis tidak paham sedikitpun karena Hiromitsu bercerita dengan memakai bahasa ibunya (Jepang).
 
But then, you'll know where the story shall lead you. Ketika Sandy dan Hiromitsu berada di sebuah situasi yang sulit, timbullah percikan asmara di antara mereka berdua. Sue Brooks menggambarkan percikan ini juga melalui sebuah dialog unik mengenai beda antara  'Dessert' dan 'Desert' dan permainan mata antara kedua tokoh ini sampai pada adegan intim yang pelan, tak banyak berkata, dan to-the-point-I-M-O.
 
Cerita kemudian berbelok tajam. Dan dari sinilah, kualitas Collette sebagai aktris sangat luar biasa ketika dia digambarkan sebagai seorang yang sinis (terhadap Hiromitsu), berbunga-bunga sampai ke kesimpulan yang ditampilkan di akhir film. Di sini, kita bisa lihat esensi "Japanese Story" sebagai eksplorasi terhadap perasaan manusia yang ditimbulkan oleh sebuah emosi bernama Cinta. It's a nice one.
 

 
Rating: *** / **** - Lagi bahagia, nonton film, akhir-akhir ini bagus semua. 2001: A Space Odyssey, Elizabeth, Girl with a Pearl Earring, sekarang Japanese Story. More reviews to come.

1st Anniversary

Since July 18th, 2003 beginning with the movie "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines", 70 reviews has been written and published in the internet throughout various web-pages (Yahoo! Movies, and Screening Log).
 
Henceforth today, July 18th, 2004 was marked a full year (52 weeks) my reviews writing has been going on. With 70 movies reviewed in that time-span, roughly one movie is reviewed in a week.

Girl with a Pearl Earring (2003)

Starring: Scarlett Johansson, Colin Firth, Cillian Murphy, Essie Davis, Alakina Mann
Directed By: Peter Webber
 
Saya suka sekali sama film ini. Semua aspek dari film ini menurut saya 'nyeni' sekali. Mulai dari shot-nya, environment, dan terutama cast-nya yang benar-benar sempurna dari Johansson, Firth, Murphy, sampai ke peran-peran yang tidak signifikan. Jelas buat saya, ini adalah salah satu dari film terbaik yang rilis tahun 2003.
 
Inti cerita dari film ini diambil dari sebuah novel bertitel sama. Sebuah imajinasi seorang penulis mengenai kisah yang melatar-belakangi lukisan berjudul "Girl with a Pearl Earring" yang diluksi Johannes Vermeer  sekitar abad ke-17.
 
Cerita di film ini berfokus pada Griet (Johansson), gadis berusia 17 tahun yang harus sudah men-support kehidupan ekonomi keluarganya, dan kemudian bekerja sebagai maid di rumah seorang pelukis Johannes Vermeer (Firth). The rest is pretty much guessable, Griet segera menunjukkan kualitas-nya bukan hanya sebagai maid namun juga sebagai apresiator seni, ketika kemudian dia meminta izin kepada nyonya besarnya untuk membersihkan jendela studio Vermeer karena ia takut akan mengubah tata pencahayaan di studio tersebut.
 
Vermeer pun segera melihat kulaitas Griet ini sehingga kemudian dia secara personal meminta Griet untuk membantu dalam menyelesaikan karya-karya seninya yang tentu saja akan menyulut kecurigaan sang nyonya besar yang berpuncak pada 'pearl earring'. Selain itu terdapat juga character-clash yang dibawa oleh mertua Vermeer yang selalu ingin putrinya tetap ada di kalangan elit, patron Vermeer yang lebih tertarik pada model dari pada sebuah lukisan sendiri tapi cukup apresiatif terhadap seni itu sendiri, kesemuanya menghasilkan chemistry yang enak antar karakternya yang meski lebih banyak ditampilkan lewat gambar daripada dialog tetap punya kharismanya masing-masing.
 
Scarlett Johansson sangat mempesona, she's more enchanting here than her previous matured-act (consider that she's only 18 yrs old) in Lost in Translation. Dia hampir-hampir tidak pernah ngomong, tapi mimik mukanya, gerak-geriknya, juga shot-shot yang mengelilinginya. Perhatikan bagaimana jelas bahagia terlihat di gerik-nya ketika Vermeer memintanya untuk menjadi asisten pribadinya, atau ketika ia face-to-face dengan Colin Firth ketika mencari pose yang pas untuk lukisan, atau terisolirnya dia dari dunia tuan-nya lewat shot-shot yang digambarkan oleh kritikus New York Times seperti shot-shot yang dihasilkan mahasiswa semester satu jurusan pembuat Film, penuh simbolisasi tapi tidak berjiwa (katanya). Saya sendiri tidak setuju, this particular movie was among the best cinematography i've ever witnessed.
 

 
Rating: ***1/2 / **** - This movie is an art in its entirety

Dean Koontz: Hideaway

Dean Koontz adalah salah satu penulis fiksi dengan genre pilihan horor. Hideaway merupakan novel kedua dari Koontz yang saya baca.

Perkenalan pertama saya dengan Dean Koontz berawal dari novel The Eyes of Darkness yang terus terang sangat mengecewakan. Mengingat The Eyes.. adalah termasuk salah satu dari karya pertamanya, wajar kalau misalnya memang ternyata hasilnya tidak sebagus karya-karya-nya berikutnya.

Hideaway dibuka dengan suguhan konsep fiksi ilmiah mengenai resucitation -- spell-nya mungkin rada-rada salah --, sebuah minat baru di bidang kedokteran yang memungkinkan seorang yang secara fisik sudah meninggal dihidupkan kembali. Cukup menarik riset yang disajikan Koontz di sini.

Alkisah, seorang pasien bernama Hatchford Harrison bersama istrinya Lindsay Harrison mengalami kecelakaan. Di kecelakaan itu, Hatch (Hatchford) meninggal karena beku (mereka jatuh di sebuah sungai pada malam musim dingin yang super dingin) sebuah kondisi di mana Dr. Jonas Nyebern, kepala tim medis ahli di bidang resucitation akan merasa yakin Hatch bisa dihidupkan kembali. Dan benar, dengan memecahkan rekor 'mati terlama' -- kalau tidak salah ingat, 76 menit meninggal -- Hatch berhasil dihidupkan kembali.

Namun, hal ini berakibat di Hatch secara metafisis dimana dia sekarang memiliki semacam koneksi, koneksi psikologis dengan seseorang yang memungkinkan Hatch untuk mendapat 'vision' dengan melihat melalui mata orang tersebut.

Dan kemudian, cerita berlanjut dengan sangat seru ketika perlahan-lahan Koontz membuka tabir yang menutupi hubungan antara kedua orang, Hatch dan seseorang ini.

Perpaduan yang menarik dan enak antara fiksi ilmiah, horor, dan komedi membuat novel ini jauh di atas The Eyes of Darkness. Koontz menceritakan Hideaway dengan perspektif -- personal favorite -- multi-angeled, multi-events yang membuatnya memaksa untuk selalu diikuti. Karakter-karakter-nya juga cukup manusiawi, tidak ada sedikit masalahpun buat saya untuk masuk ke dalam cerita. Dia juga menyinggung fiksi ilmiah dengan cerdas, horor yang mencekam, diselingi komedi yang menggelitik, dan sedikit unsur teologi Kristen yang diungkap ketika Hatch berkonfrontasi dengan seseorang ini di akhir cerita. Satu hal yang mungkin kurang adalah tidak dijelaskannya unsur kekuatan Hatch sendiri yang membuat dia bisa ber'komunikasi' dengan seseorang ini. Tapi, kekuatan seseorang (night-vision, cat-like agility) cukup dijelaskan meski sedikit, paling tidak tidak dibiarkan lantas tergeletak di kegelapan. Well, somethings are better left untold in this kind of novel. The same goes for movies.



One of the best horror novel I've ever read.

Unworthy Screener Week

A week after Screened The Day After Tomorrow at the local theater, I went and ran on several (seven, to be exact) movies for the week of hence, I rather not give a full review on each and every movie but instead, collecting all in this post until I figured it out how to archive my reviews.

But, instead of all seven cramped in this post, I made a special post to Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) on separate page since i thought that this movie required more than just a paragraf of appreciation.



It began with Sir Anthony Hopkins' The Human Stain (2003). It told about a denial by Coleman Silk (Hopkins) a classic professor that after a certain incident that audience should easily spotted was completely not intentional, he recieved an accusation of being a racist and hence result in releasing his job. By this early incident, the audience then learn that Coleman Silk though white is the color of his skin, was an Afro-American to begin with and he had tried to escape that past by passing as white since he was in school.

Coleman then tries to deal with the injustice of the accusation by writing about it, and he eventually made friend to a novelist, Nathan Zuckerman (Sinese) and stumbled into a young woman who also tried to escape the past (as but nowhere near Coleman's past), Faunia (Kidman).

The interesting, and maybe the most touching part of this movie was when it told about the young Coleman, and his first girl-friend who happened to be white. Whilst, the chemistry between Coleman and Faunia was easily disposable from the screen. Rating: ** / ****

After passable drama, The Human Stain I went into three successive teenage flick, How To Deal (2003), Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen (2004), and Chasing Liberty (2004). All three of which receive uniformly one rating out of four.

My nightmare began with Mandy Moore's How to Deal who told of her quest to find one true love as she doesn't believe in love when she witnesses the love around her had failed to reach its goal, a broken marriage of her parents, her pregnant bestfriend, and a misconception of her sister's wedding that seemed always ruined it. It's enough if not exaggerating reason for her to not believe in love. But then it should all going to change when she met this guy. And blah blah blah you'll know the rest.

Okay, I hate romantic movie especially which played by teen and intended to the teenage audience.

Next, it wasn't getting better with Lindsay Lohan's Confessions of bla-bla. It says that Lohan should and would be an actress, because that was her destiny. And as she adjusting to the remote live in New Jersey on contrary to her sparkling previous life in New York, she met -- you can easily guessed it -- a true friend, and a group of b*tch which always -- mark my word, always -- consists of three b*tch with one ultimately ugly, rich, but surely knew how to draw attention to herself, and pompous leader b*tch. You know the rest, the good always win, and the bad get the worst of herself.

Chasing Liberty. O yes, i was chasing my own liberty by counting down the clock and tried to comfort myself through this flick. And it's official now that I do hate Mandy Moore. Chasing Liberty is about Liberty -- U.S Secret Service's code-name to the first daughter -- who tried to ran from his father's oppressing authority as she had a rather hard time adjusting her teenage life with her high-school life, with boyfriend and all with Secret Services all around her. At one family official-visit to the Czech Republic tough, she met one particular man and quickly both on their rendezvous voyage throughout Europe. One thing that Liberty didn't aware of that the man was an agent himself, and on one spot of the movie, when they had fell in love to one another, Liberty found out about his lies and so-on, so-on, so-on, with a happy-ending.

And finally, thankfully my nightmare had ended.

There's two more movies that I intended to write about in this segment. Both of them I think was a comedy -- black comedy -- as it involves killing, horror, and rather mysterious non-sense plotting. Those two were Bubba-Ho Tep (2003) and The Big Empty (2003).

Bubba-Ho Tep is a pure imagination told in a mix of horror and comedy. It told about Bubba-Ho Tep an ancient Egypt soul sucker in his voyage sucking soul out of elderly person that live on a resthouse somewhere in Texas by the reason of their fragility thus become an easier prey to Bubba than regular person.

The hero in this twisted dark-tale was Elvis Presley (Bruce Campbell) and John F. Kennedy (Ossie Davies) both of which is a living-legend in their dusk of life in this resthouse. Yes, Elvis and JFK was not dead in this tale, and they had the reason and the humor of why, contrary to the popular beliefs they're old and yet breathe the living air instead of dead and lying six feet under.

However, the humor was so thin that nearly all scenes only managed a few chuckles instead of a brim laugh, and the horror.. well, Bubba Ho-Tep was far from the popular definition of frightening-thing. All in all, I'm so glad that I'm back on track, to movies that required rather more thought than happy-happy-joy-joy-teenage-club movies that instead thrust me into the abyss of nightmare. Rating: **1/2 / ****

The Big Empty is well... empty. I'm not saying that the emptiness in the term of lack-of-quality sort of things. The movie was very enjoyable, the plot was flowing in easiness yet in a perfect pacing as it told the journey of John Parsons (Jon Favreau) to deliver a mysterious blue suitcase to the even more mysterious man, Cowboy (Sean Bean) in a remote desert city of Baker. And as he stumbles into a motel where he supposed to meet this Cowboy man, he met adorable bartender, Stella (Darryl Hannah) with her daughter Ruthie, (lovingly-beautiful-adorable-ultra-cute Rachael Leigh Cook), her menacing-useless-jealous boyfriend (Adam Beach), and ultimately, the Cowboy himself who led the plot with all of the chemistries into a vast desert set with flock of people in blue dress with blue suitcases.

What emptiness you said? well, I still wondering what the message this movie tried to deliver with its conclusion that apparently involving aliens and alien-kidnapping but ultimately offers nothing. Sad, cos I rather enjoyed the first minutes of this movie. But fortunately to this movie, that I love to see Rachael Leigh Cook and it rather lifted this movie and save it on the edge of the ravine that led to impenetrable dark abyss of junkie film. Rating: *1/2 / **** Some say that this movie is a mix between David Lynch and The X-Files. Well, make sense since nobody -- as far as I know -- understand David Lynch's message in his movies.