Don't judge a DVD by its cover: Shanghai Kiss

Just a quick post about a movie I watched the other day: Shanghai Kiss. I'm pretty sure I actually saw this in some stores and, judging by a big smiling Hayden Panettiere on the cover, dismissed it as being some dumb direct-to-DVD teen romance. But I was looking up Ken Leung on wikipedia (he plays Miles on Lost, which I've actually been catching up with...I'll write about that more in a later post though) and saw that he was actually the lead in this movie. Which, it turns out, is neither a star vehicle for Hayden Panettiere nor a teen romance. It's actually kind of an indie film about Chinese-American identity. I guess they figured that with Hayden being in Heroes putting her on the DVD cover could help sales but it kind of misrepresents the movie, and I feel like it could turn off a big portion of the audience that it should be targeted to.

Anyway, I actually really enjoyed this. There aren't too many films with a Asian-American male in the lead, and Ken Leung's sort of refreshingly different from the usual kind of Asian-American actors that are out there. It is sort of a romantic comedy, but it has some smart commentary on being Asian-American -- Ken Leung's character is an actor in LA who gets asked if he knows martial arts or speaks Chinese while auditioning for a toothpaste commercial. When he's in Shanghai, at first he feels like he's somewhere he finally belongs but is later accused of not knowing anything about being Chinese. It's really too bad this went straight to DVD and too bad that the marketing has probably deterred a lot of people who I think would enjoy it from checking it out.

Catching up on indie

Back in college I feel like I used to watch a lot of independent films, probably because they were pretty accessible with Cornell Cinema and cinemapolis in Ithaca and the Little Theatre up in Rochester when I was working for Kodak. Recently though, I've been slacking on that front, so over the holidays I borrowed a couple from the library.

The Squid and the Whale - Set in Brooklyn in the 80s, it's basically a study of divorce in a family with two sons. The father, Bernard, is a writer, college professor, and intellectual elitist, and Joan, the mother, has just embarked on her own literary career that's set to eclipse Bernard's. The divorce results in split loyalties in their two sons: the older son, Walt, pretty much idolizes Bernard and takes his side strongly in the divorce, while the younger son, Frank, would rather stay with his mother. After the divorce, Joan begins dating Frank's tennis instructor who calls everyone "brotha," Bernard invites one of his female students to stay in his spare room, and the sons kind of self-destruct. Walt starts acting more and more like his father and tries to pass off a Pink Floyd song as his own at a school talent show, and Frank acts out by smearing some not-so-pleasant substances around his school. The characters all seem crazy and the story seems like it's going nowhere but it's still a pretty good movie, thanks to some great acting and a lot of really funny lines. This is generally what indie movies do: they're serious and funny and ridiculous all rolled up into one. Not a lot happens but there's some great acting and writing here. By the way, the title refers to a display in New York City's Museum of Natural History (one of my favorite museums in the whole world) in which a huge squid and whale are frozen in battle.

Me and You and Everyone We Know - I'm kind of at a loss for words for how to describe this movie. The cast is a mix of loosely connected characters, all of which are quirkier than the last. There's Christine, the aspiring performance artist who drives an cab service for the elderly. There's Richard, the department store shoe salesman who's just separated from his wife. There are Richard's sons, who type up pictures made of punctuation marks and go to adult chatrooms. There's Sylvie, the 10-year-old girl who's collecting kitchen appliances for her "hope chest." There are Heather and Rebecca, two middle schools girls that are obsessed with sex and egg on a semi-creepy neighbor. A lot of pretty supremely cringe-worthy things happen in the movie, but it all manages to be sort of strangely sweet. I think it's helped out by the great score, composed by Michael Andrews, who also did the score for Donnie Darko.

DVD catch-up

Match Point: I haven't watched a lot of Woody Allen movies, not even the famous ones, so I can't speak at all to how this is similar or different from his other works. It was however, just a pretty weird movie. I'd read some reviews of the movie, and all of them were pretty cryptic about the end of the movie, which I will have to be also, and it definitely was kind of unexpected. It starts off normal enough, a former tennis player named Chris gets a job at a country club and befriends one of the members, who introduces him to his family, which includes a sister that falls for him instantly. Chris romances Chloe, and eventually marries her, but all the while has a thing for her brother's girlfriend, an American aspiring actress played by Scarlett Johanssen. I've liked Scarlett Johanssen in other movies, but in this one I couldn't really figure out her character so I don't know. In fact, I can't really figure out the entire movie. I think it was meant to be a little unsettling. Definitely not a forgettable one though.

Tristan + Isolde: This got pretty mixed reviews but I'm a sucker for period films and you know, I really liked it. I wasn't very familiar with the story of Tristan and Isolde besides the fact that it's an opera, but it's basically a forbidden lovers story on a pretty grand scale. Tristan is a great knight and adopted son of the to-be king of a united England, and Isolde is the daughter of the Irish king who intends to take over England. Tristan lands in Ireland after being presumed dead and is secretly nursed back to health by Isolde. He later returns to England, where he takes on the challenge of winning a wife for his adopted father, Marke. He wins, of course, only to find out that the wife he won is none other than Isolde. You can guess where this is all going. I liked the love triangle, because there was really no evil party and all three held respect for the others. Sophia Myles was excellent as Isolde, and James Franco didn't say much but they definitely had a lot of chemistry. I'm also a fan of Rufus Sewell and he was great as Marke. The look of the film and all the battle scenes were nicely done too. I really don't know why so many critics didn't like this. I mean, it wasn't extraordinary filmmaking or anything but the story is classic and I thought it was pretty engrossing and believable. I've seen a lot worse...

DVD roundup

King Kong: I'll admit it, I've never watched the original: all I knew was a big gorilla on the top of the Empire State Building and somehow a blonde chick was involved. But when Peter Jackson of LOTR decided to remake it, I decided to pay attention. Unfortunately I didn't get to watch it on the big screen but yay for Netflix. Anyway, as expected, it was an exceptionally well made film, but somehow I didn't really like it as much as I thought. I guess I'm just not into big animals or something, though King Kong fighting a T-Rex is pretty much one of the coolest things ever. Plus Peter Jackson definitely knows how to do scary. The spiders were positively terrifying and those were by far the scariest natives EVER. It's a fun movie, but it kind of lacked the emotional power of LOTR for me, despite the whole beauty and the best thing.

Junebug: Amy Adams picked up an Oscar nod out of nowhere for this movie so I picked it up. It's a quirky indie movie, which I usually love, and I did like this one, but I have to agree that a disproportionate amount of that like is due entirely to Amy Adams. The movie has a meet-the-parents premise: George is the husband taking his new wife, Madeline, home to meet his family in North Carolina, which includes a sullen brother (played by Ryan Atwood himself, Benjamin McKenzie) Johnny, and his nine-months-pregnant wife, Ashley (Amy Adams). Ashley is almost impossibly sunny and positive and upbeat but it's completely genuine and not fake at all. Her character really carries the movie, but the rest of the cast is competent as well. Embeth Davitz plays Madeline as sophisticated but eager to have George's family like her. Alessandro Nivola plays George as aloof but slightly uncomfortable at being back home. And Ben McKenzie portays Johnny as generally angry and unpleasant but his hints of happiness at work and moments of affection for his wife keep him human. I don't want to give the ending away, but it was really excellent. The only thin that I really didn't like about this movie were the strange silent transitions that were just sequences of still outdoor or indoor scenes. Yeah just a little too much quirk there.

DVD roundup

Some movies I've watched on DVD (not so) recently:

Brokeback Mountain: I think the reason I didn't enjoy this movie as much as I thought I might was because it was just hyped up too much. Yes, it was a very beautiful movie, with amazing mountain backdrops. Yes, the acting was superb, even though I had to rewind and re-listen to half of Heath Ledger's lines because I was having trouble understanding him. And yes, the story was pretty touching. But I don't know, in the end, for me, it was just very good but not particularly great. Oh, and I couldn't get over how horrible Anne Hathaway's hairdos/wigs were. I guess that was the era, but man.

Proof: Another movie with Jake Gyllenhaal. Have I mentioned that I really like Jake Gyllenhaal? The funny thing about this movie is that when I saw the previews for it, I assumed that Jake Gyllenhaal was playing kind of a younger man to Gwyneth Paltrow, maybe because he's played that role in a couple of other movies already, and well, he is younger. But in the movie, he's only supposed to be a year younger than Gwyneth Paltrow's character. Anyway, I really liked this movie. The background music was wonderful, and it really helped set the mood of the film: complex but flowing, skipping from past to present and back without warning but coming together nicely in the end (kind of like math itself, ooh). All the acting was really excellent, and it wasn't pretentious at all (like other math movies A Beautiful Mind and Good Will Hunting, in my opinion).

Hustle & Flow: Really really good. Terrence Howard's awesome in this, really awesome, and the whole movie is just very heartfelt and engaging and surprisingly easy to relate to, despite the fact that it's about a pimp trying to make it as a rapper. I also enjoyed the music, even though I'm no fan of hip hop in general. These kinds of movies always seem to surprise me. I mean, I also really liked 8 Mile, haha. Definitely worth seeing.

Wedding Crashers: I kind of hated this movie. I'm generally a fan of Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson and Will Ferrell and Ben Stiller and the kinds of movies that they make, but this one just didn't do it for me. I liked the guys and Rachel McAdams and all that, but it just wasn't kooky enough or something. I got bored about halfway through and really had to force myself to watch the whole thing, especially since it was kind of obvious how things were going to end up.

DVD update

Rundown of some movies I've watched on DVD recently:

March of the Penguins: I heard some teenaged guys talking about this at Blockbuster the other day and one of them was going on about how it's basically just a National Geographic special and how he doesn't see how it could be so great. I mean, that is partly true. But what sets this apart is the quality of filmmaking. I don't really enjoy nature stuff on TV because no matter how interesting the subject matter, the presentation is dry. In March of the Penguins, Morgan Freeman's warm narration is terrific and the music is wonderful. Plus those penguins are just so damn cute.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: Just incredibly incredibly weird. The source material (and Roald Dahl in general) is weird to begin with, but leave it up to Tim Burton to make it even weirder. The Oompa Loompas (all played by one actor) really creeped me out, Johnny Depp's Willy Wonka was also pretty creepy, and all the other children were, well, creepy too. I suppose this all helped in making Charlie and his family all the more normal and sympathetic, which they definitely were, but man, everything was still so creepy. I was never really a fan of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory either, so I guess I just prefer Roald Dahl's stuff remaining on the page with their little line sketch illustrations.

Crash: A little too consciously controversial and serious for my taste I think. The large ensemble cast does a good job and the stories are told well, but everything was so dramatic and I was kind of meh about the storylines intersecting in the way that they did. And man, the movie made me seriously not want to ever live in LA. I mean, I shouldn't be one to talk since I'm from New York, but LA was really not presented in a very good light.

Hitch: I'm usually a sucker for romantic comedies but somehow this one didn't hold my attention very well. The actors all did a relatively good job and parts of it were funny and sweet but in general it was a little too long and a little too predictable. Yes, I know all romantic comedies are predictable, but the conflict separating the main couples wasn't convincing or interesting enough and at some points I was just really bored...

DVD roundup part III

Collateral: I've made my dislike and recently, disrespect, of Tom Cruise clear in the past. I mean, I have liked quite a few of his movies (Top Gun, Mission Impossible, Minority Report) but I've always just been irked by his persona in general, which seems to invariably takes over all the characters he plays. In this movie, though, that tendency was perfect. Vincent, the character he plays, is genuinely scary and a little insane, just like Tom Cruise! And strangely I think that he looks even better as an older man with the silver hair and such. Jamie Foxx was also excellent and I thought the entire movie was really good.

Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle: I'd heard from so many people how funny this movie was, so maybe my expectations were just too high. Yeah, parts of it were really funny and it was refreshing to have Korean- and Indian-Americans in the lead roles playing their actual ethnicities, but I guess that in the end, this just isn't my kind of humor. Plus I've always found White Castle to be kind of gross.

Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason: The first Bridget Jones is one my favorite movies of all time and I'm a HUGE HUGE Colin Firth fan, but I was reluctant to watch the sequel because of bad reviews. But it really wasn't that bad. The second book is definitely much weaker than the original and the movie follows suit. It's a lot sillier and there isn't much of a plot at all, but the characters are just as loveable and well, Mark Darcy just makes me happy. Oh, and you MUST watch the DVD extra that has Bridget Jones interviewing Colin Firth. It's awesome.

Wimbledon: I think it's time for me admit that romantic comedies are probably my favorite genre of movie in general. I will watch pretty much any romantic comedy on the planet, so long as it doesn't star Jessica Biel or Ashton Kutcher or any of the other actors on my hate list. Anyway, I was attracted to this one especially because I actually like watching tennis quite a bit (though I can't play for my life, as with all other sports). I think the producers did a pretty good job at capturing the feel of Wimbledon, and I liked the characters a lot. I hadn't seen Paul Bettany in any other movies besides A Knight's Tale (he was really funny in that though) but I think I'm a fan now. Kirsten Dunst wasn't as annoying as she was in the Spider-Man movies, and both of them were pretty believable as tennis pros. The storyline was really just pure fantasy but it was fun and cute anyway.

dvd: babysitters club, the movie

Oh man, so growing up I was a huuuuuuge fan of all teen series. Sweet Valley (University, High, Twins, Kids), Nancy Drew (especially the Super Editions with the Hardy Boys), Satin Slippers, Boxcar Children, The Bobsey Twins, The Saddle Club, The Fabulous Five, Sleepover Friends, the list is endless.... And leading up to the first one I ever got introduced to back in 2nd grade, the books that started it all... The Babysitters Club! So anyway, when I saw that a coworker of mine had the movie on DVD, I became that eager pre-teen kid I was and borrowed it from her enthusiastically.

Okay, yeah it was a fun trip down memory lane. The actresses in the movie were all really well-suited for their parts. Rachel Leigh Cook as Mary-Anne Spears? Perfect. Larisa Oleynik (best known as Bianca in 10 Things I Hate About You) was probably the best actress of all the kid actresses, playing Dawn Schafer. It was kinda funny seeing the guy from My Girl 2 as Logan Bruno, and the Brian Keller from Saved by the Bell: the New Class as a random exchange student guy named Luca.

But man, other than that fun trip down memory lane? The movie was kinda lame. I couldn't stop cracking up about the things that were SUCH a big deal. Perhaps I am now a little too old for this. I mean considering Mallory was 11.5 years old. Dude, I'm twice her age! This is a movie I should've watched 10 years ago. Maybe it would've been better then. Maybe.

Anyway, not recommended as a movie to watch unless you really do want to take a stroll down memory lane. Cuz they mentioned a lot of little details from the book. Like Jackie Rodowsky, the walking disaster. The Kid Kits. Etc.

another DVD rundown

My local library is awesome.

City of God: A Portuguese-language film set in the slums of Rio de Janeiro in the 60s and 70s. I really liked this movie a lot. It showed all the harsh realities of living in the so-called "City of God" with both heart and humor but also unforgivingly. The violence depicted is really shocking, because pretty much everyone involved is just a kid, but the narrator, Rocket, is an aspiring photographer and more of an observer of than an active participant in the violence and street wars, and his story provides a somewhat hopeful outlook.

Spirited Away: My first Hayao Miyazaki film. I know that everyone says that he does the best animation anywhere, so maybe I'm just not that big of a fan of animation in general. I liked the movie, it was very imaginative and the animation itself was great, but in my mind it's not going to overtake any of my Disney favorites (i.e. Beauty and the Beast and the Lion King). I guess it's just a matter of preference.

Real Women Have Curves: In almost every review I read of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, America Ferrara (Carmen)'s performance in her first movie was mentioned, so I decided to check it out because I was in need of a chick flick. This one had a little more substance than the average chick flick though...it's about a Mexican-American girl who wants to go to college but instead has to work in her sister's garment factory due to obligations to her family. As the title suggests, all the women in this movie have curves, and there are a few scenes where that's brought up, but the rest is more classic coming-of-age stuff. It was nice to watch a movie in which all the characters are played by wonderfully average and non-Hollywood actors.

Tape: I'm actually not sure why I even borrowed this in the first place...I guess I have a thing for Ethan Hawke in Richard Linklater movies. This was one of those concept films...there are only three characters and it all takes place inside of a motel room. The three actors (Ethan Hawke, Uma Thurman, and Robert Sean Leonard) are all very good and the dialogue was also excellent, and you don't lose interest even though there's not much to look at onscreen. The intrigue is supposed to be in how these three people all remember an event in their past differently. I did feel like some of it was strangely over-the-top, but overall it was pretty interesting.

rewatching Dark Angel season 1

I really loved this show when it first aired, and watching it again, I think I love it even more. There just hasn't been anything on TV quite like it since. The premise is very movie-like, which isn't suprising since the show was created by James Cameron. The two main components of the show work amazingly well together: first, a future United States as a rundown third-world country, and second, a group of escaped genetically-enhanced soldiers trying to keep their cover but also make some kind of life for themselves. Seattle made for the perfect gloomy setting, and the sets and locations were amazing.

I suppose a lot of people would say that the acting wasn't too great on this show and I'm not really going to disagree...there was a lot of slang that ended up sounding forced and kind of ridiculous, but I kind of just got used to it. I personally really liked Max, and I thought Jessica Alba did a pretty good job at blending Max's tough, kick-ass exterior with justifiably tortured inner self. She had a strong presence and had no problems carrying the show. And I loved Logan. (Haha, what is it with me and characters named Logan?) Plus he and Max had really good chemistry.

What really makes or breaks a superhero type storyline for me, though, is the villain. And Season 1's villain, Lydecker, was just the way I like villains, complex and almost relatable. While you could feel and understand Max's hatred toward the man, it was obvious that he almost thought of and cared about the X5s as his children.

Max's friends rounded out the cast. Her first roommate Kendra, was pretty annoying and I'm glad that the writers phased her out. Normal was hilarious, and in my opinion Valarie Rae Miller put on the most natural performance of the entire cast as Original Cindy.

The special effects and fights were all incredible too...a lot of the scenes looked like a movie, and I've read that the budgets were indicative of that too.

Oh, and the best thing about this DVD set? The really great commentary by Jessica Alba and Michael Weatherly on the season finale. I love commentaries! This one seemed especially honest, as they didn't hide their unhappiness with the second season, and also made mention of their real-life relationship, even though I don't think they were still together at the time of recording.

People are constantly comparing this show to Buffy, but I think that's kind of unfair, because they have really different feels. I think it basically boils down to the fact that Buffy was fantasy while Dark Angel is stauchly science-fiction...as in these things could actually happen. Sigh, I miss sci-fi on TV.

rewatching My So-Called Life

I'd been dying to watch this show again for years...I kept intending to buy it on DVD but then once I finally decided to get it, it was out of print and used copies were selling for ridiculous amounts of money. Finally this year it occurred to me that the Cornell library might have them, they did! So I borrowed them and have spent the last week watching all 19 incredible episodes.

Buffy is still my favorite show of all time, because I was so invested in it for so many years, but damn, My So-Called Life is now coming in a really really close second.

I don't even know where to start with describing it. It doesn't have some great innovative premise, there aren't any hooks or twists, no formula to follow...it was just simply honest and real stories with great acting. Unlike a lot of other teen shows, it never reaches soap opera territory, and most of it actually takes place at school. And the cast isn't just a bunch of pretty actors who are too old to be playing teenagers. A lot of hard issues were brought up, like drugs, alcohol, sex, homosexuality, homelessness...but none of it felt like an afterschool special.

Everyone thought it was such a shame that ABC cancelled it after only one season, even though it was critically acclaimed by pretty much everyone and Claire Danes won a Golden Globe for it, but now I'm kind of glad that's how it worked out. Too many shows wait until they go downhill to end, and the bad seasons always taint the memory of the good ones. With My So-Called Life, it's really just perfect as it is.

Take this quote: "It just seems like...you agree to have a certin personality or something. For no reason. Just to make things easier for everyone. But when you think about it...I mean, how do you know it's even you?" How amazing is that? That's pretty much how I've feeling for like, the past 10 years.

Although I have to say, while I sympathized with Angela a lot, I'm not really that similar to her. I was never that introspective or emotional, I never had a ridiculous obsessive crush, and I never had the guts to get out of my element and hang out with a different crowd. Though maybe I guess I wish that I had. The truth is that I think the character I related to the most was Brian Krakow.

Yeah, he was a dork. He could be insensitive and he was always saying the wrong things and his crush on Angela despite the way she treated him was pretty pathetic. But the one episode where he did the voiceovers? "There's something about my life. It's just automatically true that nothing actually happens." It's just this ridiculous feeling that you know what you could be doing to change your situation, to make your life better, but for some reason you just can't.

A few more comments:
-- The opening credits. I usually never watch opening credits because they're uninteresting, but I just loved these. The music, the scenes all taken from the pilot...haha, I watched them every single time, even if I watched a few episodes in one sitting.
-- The fashion. Early nineties, I guess, but there was SO MUCH PLAID FLANNEL. The strangest outfit I thought was definitely the plaid pj-type shorts over tights that Angela wore every once in awhile.
-- The girl's bathroom. They spent sooo much time in the bathroom at school. There was never anyone hanging out in the bathroom at my high school...
-- Jordan Catalano. Definitely hot, but I didn't feel like he was that crush-worthy. All that leaning and closing his eyes was almost comical and we didn't get to see nearly enough of what he was thinking.
-- The last episode tied things up relatively nicely, except for Rayanne and Angela's friendship. That's the one thing that I'm going to have to fanwank...they got over it and become friends again.

rewatching Felicity season 1

The last time I watched this was during its original airing on the WB in 1998...when I was a sophomore in high school. And now I'm a senior in college. Isn't that insane? Anyway, it's kind of amazing how my perspective has changed. And I mean, why wouldn't it have? Back then I was younger than these characters, had no idea what college was like, was just discovering Manhattan myself, and had never experienced any kind of relationship drama...not even through my friends. Now, I'm older than these characters, I'm three months away from being done with college, I've been living in the hick towns of Ithaca and Rochester for the past three and a half years, and well, now I know people whose lives are straight out of Dawson's Creek.

And of course I know how everything turns out, having seen the ending of the series.

Anyway, so back then, I thought Felicity was a total psycho, for following Ben across the country, for giving up pre-med, for meddling in everyone's affairs, for most of her over-emotional reactions to everything. I didn't like Ben because I felt like he always had that annoying smile and he seemed so indecisive, and I liked Noel because he was thoughtful and sensitive. I loved Julie's character even though I still thought of Amy Jo Johnson as the pink Power Ranger. And well, I thought that was what college was like. That college kids all had massive drama and lots of issues and everything was a big deal.

And now? I strangely sympathize with Felicity. I mean, I think that going to New York was the right risk she needed, but doing it for Ben was still ridiculous. And I actually admire that she was willing to drop a practical career to go after a not-so-practical dream. I mean, she ends up going back to medicine, and her art detour probably cost a heck of a lot of money, but at least she got to see, I don't know, what it would be like. As for Ben and Noel? Reversed. I like Ben. His character was actually pretty appropriate for his age...18-year-old guys have no idea what they want. And Noel is just too...sensitive, I guess. So I'm definitely not into Felicity and Noel as a couple. But I'm not into Felicity and Ben either, because I still really like Julie and I like Julie and Ben together.

As for the college stuff...the show makes me miss New York. I know I didn't want to stay in the city for college, it was a conscious choice I made. But gosh, I hate Ithaca. I hate living here. And it's probably magnified by the fact that I read way too many NYC blogs, but gosh, I really wish I could have a chance to live there again. And college? This is probably just my fault because apparently I'm an expert at having pretty much no drama (or friends or boyfriends...) in my life, but wow, things in Felicity-world are so emotional. There was more crying in the first episode than I did all of last semester (which is the only semester I cried at all during my entire college career).

Oh, and there is WAY too much of that "pretty and sad" acoustic guitar background music.

But I like it. It just has this nice quiet feel to it. So different from everything I'm watching now. Roswell used to have that feeling to it, too. Well first half of first season anyway (before it went downhill, see previous posts on this topic).

Wow, I'm am really plowing through this DVD set. I LOVE TV DVD SETS!

Edited to add:
Oh, I either didn't fully watch or I don't remember very well the second, third, and fourth seasons, but I do know that I didn't like them as much. And for the record, there was no Tess/Oliver/Lauren problem. As stupid as this sounds, I think that Felicity cutting her hair was part of the problem.