Director: Kirsten Sheridan Screenplay: Nick Castle and James V. Hart Story: Paul Castro and Nick Castle
A story about passion for music and a boy trying to find his parents.
It seemed to me that the ones who made this movie knew music but didn't control the art of cinema nearly as well. Partly the casting had failed in my opinion, Freddie Ashmore seems to be in every single movie these days, this would have needed a fresher face, and I thought Robin Williams was an odd choice for the role he played. I liked Jonathan Rhys Meyers, but Keri Russel didn't really wow me.
The movie started promisingly, but continued uneven and the story didn't progress the way it ought to have, it seemed to be jumping back and forth. Some of the events weren't in sync with the later events, for example in the beginning when we see Evan Taylor, later known as August Rush in the movie, played by Freddie Ashmore answering truthfully even under pressure and a threath and later he acts against this feature. What??!! Why did they show us him being almost stupidly brave and answering the absolute truth if later he would act so differently in a similar situation?
As Evan finds his parents by listening and have them listening his music it was illelogical that when he randomly ran into his father and played guitar with him that the boy did not recognise him. I guess they just wanted that kind of scene where the viewer can be screaming against the screen: "HE IS YOUR FATHER!!!! ARGHHHHHH!!!"
The music was occasionally poorly adjusted to the film - or other way around. The cutting of the film wasn't great in parts either.
Then... Music... Even though I enjoyed the classical music part more than the pop and others, it was good that the film showed that talent in music is more than just about melody and classical instruments, like sense of rhythm.
Well, all in all, an alright movie, not my favorite, but didn't hate it either. Will I watch it again? Probably not, but wouldn't mind it if somebody suggested it.
Lately I've been having some problems with my blogs... So I created a new blog, a family one and this one will concentrate only on movies from now on. Sorry for the inconvenience.
Ok, I really am not an anime-girl or a j-pop person or anything. But Kenshin rocks! Well if you thought that was lame, watch this one below. I'm sorry but he's just so much cooler as a hitokiri, that's why I love the OVAs.
It's actually little nostalgic to watch these, my friend intoduced this series for me when I was a youngster. Since then I have converted few people in it too. Don't hate me now for liking this. The interesting thing is the split between hitokiri (manslayer) and rurouni (wanderer). And of course the past.
When I was about 9 years old, they showed a series of Ealing Studios movies on TV. Especially after the Man in the White Suit (1951) I was in love. With Alec Guinness. Yes, the guy in Star Wars, but remember I haven't watched Star Wars. Anyways for few months I cried myself to sleep for being born too late (again).
One of my friend knew about this crush when I lent her the Ladykillers (1955). After watching the movie she gave it back to me and laughed cruelly. Well, maybe I can't blame her.
Would you go out with this man?
Anyway, I told her to download the Man In The White Suit. After that she was ready to found a fan club with me. Instead we named our magazine sirALEC and left the fan club for some other loonies. I'm still planning on naming one of my boys Sidney after the character Guinness played in the movie. But don't tell Dan. He's already suspecting something after I put Fitzwilliam on the table.
Make-up can do a lot, but just Alec Guinness can go even further. Maybe his performance as Lady Agatha in Kind Hearts and Coronets wasn't as femininely convincing as Buster Keaton's in the Play House (1921) but he is truly a man of million faces. His face is rather plain looking so it is easily "transformed".
What a freak of nature. Gotta love him.
The extend of this skill is seen in Kind Hearts and Coronets where Guinness plays eight different roles and gets murdered with English calmness and black humour in seven of them. Luckily one of them suffers a natural death.
THE MAN IN THE WHITE SUIT trailer
It's got it all! Textile factories! Chemistry! Working class accents! Old man in fur! Laundry lady! ...Romance!
I must say the scene in the end is pretty impressing. If you've seen the movie you know what scene I'm talking about.
HIROSHIMA mon amour (1959) Directed by Alain Resnais
Emmanuele Riva and Eiji Okada
Quotes translated by Mandi
I was reading about new releases on DVDs from the paper somewhere in fall 2006 and noticed Hiroshima Mon Amour. I hadn't heard about it yet, and I couldn't find it in the film books my dad had, books that were called Films Bigger Than Live. Few months later I went to the library, and there it was on the shelf, waiting for me. I picked it up out of curiosity and well, I also thought it would be good practice for my French. It intrigued me from the very start. The first time I watched it through I was unbelievably touched by it. It was an incredible experience for me and I was completely blown away how accurately it could describe people, motions, situations. The dialogue was amazingly clever. But every time I watched it again, I was amazed by different things. The dialogue, the filming, the cutting, the music... It touched me so deeply, that I felt almost shocked. Almost every time I watch it I cry again for its mere ability to describe things I've tried so hard so many times so perfectly. I cry again for its ability to make me realise and understand. I was shocked that one could do so much and so accurately with cinema. This was without a doubt A Film Bigger Than Life for me.
"I have always cried over the fate of Hiroshima." "No. What there was for you to cry over for?" A human being suffers so they would not forget. After remembering they had forgot they suffer because they had forgot they had suffered. Sounds complicated and it is. What does Hiroshima mean for us who did not know it until it was destroyed, whose hometown it wasn't or just part of their country? And what does it mean especially for western countries? The end of the war. Peace. Museums. Documentaries. Efforts made for not forgetting. And fear of forgetting, fear of indifference. "The whole world was rejoicing. And you were rejoicing with the whole world." And who were the monsters of the World War II? The Germans and the Japanese (the woman had a German lover during the occupation of France). The woman has been to the museums, seen the reconstructed photographs and films, all the effort of creating a perfect illusion of what happened 14 years ago. "Just like there is illusions in love that you can never forget... I believed I could never forget Hiroshima, just like love." At the same time, the shuddering clips of the bomb's victims and destruction change into clips of reconstruction, cenotaphs, a tourist tour bus. Nature forgets too, little by little it grows grass back, River Ota flows just like it used to... The woman, actress, is shooting a film in Hiroshima. The film is about peace for "what else could you film in Hiroshima?" Just as she cannot think of her hometown Nevers, France, without the one she loved there. The man wants to know everything about Nevers and the woman insists on knowing why. "I'm just getting to know you. And from thousands of things that have had an affect on your life I chose Nevers. -- I almost lost you there. The risk of not ever coming across with you. Somehow I understood that there you began to be the person you are now."
***
Well this is all I want to say about this movie, watch it yourself and figure out the rest, I don't want to spoil it. But after you've seen it, I'd love to talk about it with you. Just one thing... Hotel New Hiroshima.
La Marseillaise: little Japanese kids dressed in traditional "fighting outfits" (?) and marching.
ps. if I were to choose one movie or a piece of art this would be it. definently.
Since my dad has always had an excellent and refined taste in cinema and the education programme started rather early on us kids I have come to love the silent comedies instead of Disney classics and the fine work of Mr Fellini instead of Jim Carrie's. Well Dad didn't always see which movies are suitable for our age no matter how classic they otherwise were. Here's the top 3:
#3 Steven Spielberg: Jaws (Tappajahai, 1975)
One Wednesday, when I was about six and Mum was on a business trip or something and we were having a nice little walk with Dad and my older brother Dad said to us: "Kids, if you behave well and go to bath like good kids without a fight (Wednesdays were our bath days) we'll watch a good movie tonight from telly." We were all "YAY!" cause we innocently loved movies and especially if it were something Dad suggested we watched cause with him we always watched those exciting old thrillers or the ones with two funny men carrying a piano or building a house... We went to bath like good kids and so the excitement started! First few minutes and already two teens were dead! Blood spilling! A nice dog dies too! Maybe Dad glanced briefly to my direction and saw my eyes filled with terror but anyhow after a while he said: "Maybe we shouldn't watch this movie after all." He turned off the tv right when the dead body came towards the camera under the water in a surprising manner so for about five years I thought that the killer shark was like a weird human mutant. And since I didn't see the ending the shark never died for me and it haunted me for months! After that it was a pain in the butt to try to get me to go to bath.
Hmmm... Wild Strawberries... It's a very good, rather straightforward film... Best of Bergman... Probably the kids will like it. Well it turned out that before the understandable parts there was this pretty abstract dream scene that was really creepy... Check it out yourself.
#1 Charles Laughton: The Night of the Hunter (Räsynukke, 1955)
It's so hard to write anything about this. But I'm not the only one, I've heard of others saying this was the single most terrifying movie they had seen when they were kids. It is one of the best movies I have ever seen. I was able to watch it like 10 years after the horrifying experience when I saw it as a kid. The whole time I was panicking and this movie still gives me the biggest creeps. I would have been fine seeing this movie when I was ready for it. But having seen it so young I identified myself really strongly with the children who were chased by the awful man and that was all I could think about. The experience was distressing, disturbing, agonizing... There isn't enough words in my English vocabulary to describe it. I think I remembered forever the evil man screaming to the little girl: "Tell me or I'll tear your arm off!!" Excellent work of acting, Robert Mitchum. Too bad I can't enjoy it in any other of your films cause you will always be reverend Harry Powell.
This picture has captured the creepy atmosphere of the movie and I can hear the deep voice singing "Leaning... leaning..."
Before we get going with my blog I have to talk about my all time favorite: Buster Keaton. And be fore I'll go on and on about his magnificent existence and how I was born hundred years too late I must put these awesome pictures from one issue of the sirALEC-magazine.
This was the cover of the issue: Buster Keaton collage.
From the pic below you probably won't be able to make out what reads there so let me help you (it's in finnish though).
CHARLES CHAPLIN VS. BUSTER KEATON Sinisessä kulmassa otteluun valmistautuu mykän ajan elokuvien hellyttävin hahmo, kaikkien rakastama kulkuri. Punaisessa kulmassa ottelun haastaja, kovan elämän ahavoittama, pohjalla käynyt ja sieltä noussut kivikasvoinen feenikslintu.
C: Peter von Bagh kelpuuttaa minut elokuvakirjansa kanteen. K: Sinä teet elokuvia kriitikoille, minä ajatteleville ihmisille. C: Minun elokuvani ovat sekä katsojien ja kriitikoiden suosikkeja.! Sinun eivät yleensä ole kumpaakaan. K: Minä uskalsin tehdä kokeellisempaa elokuvaa, kuten meta-elokuvaa ja käytin hyödykseni uutta tekniikkaa. C: Minä uskalsin kritisoida sotaa, johon Yhdysvallat ei vielä halunnut osallistua. K: Minä puolustin intiaanien oikeuksia elokuvassa The Paleface.
Yhtäkkiä rinkiin ilmestyy mystinen hahmo, joka sanoo:
Minun elokuvassani käytettiin ensimmäistä kertaa oikeaa mustaa, eikä naamaltaan mustaksi maalattua valkoista.
Kuka on tämä mystinen henkilö? Naamion riisuttuaan huomaamme hänen olevan "komea poika", Harold Lloyd. Omana aikanaan suosituimmalla ja menestyneimmällä elokuvatähdellä ei ole mitään asiaa tähän kilpailuun, joten tuomari potkaisee hänet ulos kehästä. Lloydin antaman tauon turvin Chaplin kokoaa voimansa uuteen iskuun.
C: Minä saan ihmiset itkemään mm. elokuvillani Kaupungin valot ja Poika. K: Minä en kerää hahmollani sääliä, sillä se pilaa komedian substanssin. C: Minä en keskittynytkään pelkästään komediaan, vaan yhteiskunnallisesti vaikuttavaan ja itsensä tiedostavaan elokuvaan. K: No, mitä merkittävää sinä yrität sanoa kirppusirkuksen tirehtöörinä? C: Kirppusirkushan on illuusio, johon ihmiset haluavat uskoa. Se on metafora demokraattiselle vääristymälle.
Chaplinin puheenvuoron aikana Keaton on pistänyt kädet korvilleen ja alkanut laulaa Piippolan vaaria. Tuomari erottaa riitapukarit toisistaan ja antaa Keatonille tauon. Kolmannen erän Keaton aloittaa henkilökohtaisilla loukkauksilla.
K: Senkin itserakas apina! C: Minä olen liian intellektuelli tällaiseen keskusteluun.
Keaton vetäytyy hetkeksi miettimään taktiikkaansa uudelleen.
K: Minä tarvitsen vain hammasharjani. C: Entäpä kaikki kartanosi? K: No, lopuksi asuin kuitenkin asuntovaunussa alkoholisoiduttuani ja jouduttuani MGM:lle. C: No, minä jouduin maanpakoon kommunistivainoista johtuen. K: Minut unohdettiin pitkäksi aikaa. C: Minä olen britti.
These arguments we wrote for the magazine never really resulted anywhere. Interesting fact about these two: Chaplin actually did copy some of Keaton's gags. Keaton was amazing, the guy had so many good gag ideas, especially I recommend to check out the short silent comedy called The Scare Crow (1920, here's a link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eayNF2XTzHQ).
Guess what was one of those moments that I realised that I had found the right person to spend my life with? A long time ago, I was having dinner at my friends' house (Dan was also present) and me and my friend were talking about Pride and Prejudice BBC miniseries and.. well.. Colin Firth. We had just looked it up in imdb that he's divorced and 42 years old! So Dan was like that's old! New rule: 30 or under! Pick from there! And I just mentioned that Colin Firth wasn't even my record! I use to wanted to marry a dead guy! Buster Keaton! And Dan just said: "Oh that I understand. Hän on aika söpö." I was just what you know who he is.... But Buster Keaton is "aika söpö" (quite cute).
