Three Reviews31 March 2008
KurosawaFest, Phase II
Due to various circumstances I was only able to get in two movies from the second stage of KurosawaFest. Still, in the interest of closure from last week here are the six-word synopses.
The Bad Sleep Well – Revenge: best served with much exposition.
Yojimbo – Pay in advance, you’re dead anyway.
Rather disappointed to have missed the rest of this phase of the Fest. However, the curator has lent me the DVDs of Ikiru, Red Beard and Kagemusha so I can have a private remedial course.
The fourteen films I did manage to see were very enlightening, I must say. It’s really a different thing when you see a huge chunk of a single director’s work in one go. And Kurosawa’s work holds up really well under close scrutiny. Chris pointed out that parts of the preceeding HerzogFest was really uneven at times, but not so with Kurosawa. Even when the particular story in question was not as strong as others (compare, say, The Lower Depths with Seven Samurai) there was always something interesting going on stylistically at least. And then with regularly-occurring mind-blowing touches.
Obviously Kurosawa is already well-cemented in his legendary status, but I think that almost takes away from how accessible and enjoyable his catalog is. For a genius, he really had no pretentions. More people should be watching these movies, and — I can’t emphasize this enough — NOT remaking them.
International Poster Exhibition at the Cultural Center
I mostly wanted to go to this to steal ideas. There was a lot of amazing old stuff on display. It’s always a great thing to see an original Mucha in person. But really? I don’t think you could get enough old posters on display in the GAR hall to actually make me feel justified in having paid $15. And also? Who, actually, is playing $1000 and well upwards for these things? If it was just the Belle Epoque stuff stuff going for that much I’d understand, but things from the 60s were going for this much and more. It would be nice to think what it would be like to be able to drop that kind of cash on posters, but I just don’t see it happening. Especially when I can just make my own.
Teeth
First maybe I should mention that seeing this movie was Brenda’s idea.
Granted, a movie about vagina dentata sounds gross, perverted, exploitative and really just bad, but Teeth would really only qualify for the first two adjectives. To be fair, it is not at all hard to imagine the triple-X hardcore version of this movie, but that is not what this is. Which is not to say it isn’t graphic in its way (and actually in a way it’s less graphic in a certain way than I was expecting), but there’s more going on than the explicit depictions of castration anxiety. So call this a guarded recommendation if you think you’re down with seeing a few dismembered members.
Also, of course, there’s a mySpace page for the main character. I hope the actress in question, Jess Weixler, gets some more work as it was her portrayal largely that saved this movie from being nothing but Freudian gross out. If only she can only avoid getting typecast in murderous vagina roles from here on out.
Anyone want to take bets on when I get my first Google hit for ‘murderous vagina’?
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