Pigeon Army
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Joined: 29/1/2006
From: Pixar HQ, George Lucas' Office.
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156. Honogurai mizu no soko kara (Dark Water) (2002, Nakata, JPN) – 3.5/5
Dark Water marks it out as a much more successful horror than Nakata's Ringu in the early stages of the film, establishing early and easily the characters and their relationships and putting the initial focus on them, rather than on the background of the ghost story. Hitomi Kuroki is solid as Yoshimi Matsubara, a devoted mother to her six-year-old, Ikuko (played by the adorable Rio Kanno) who is threatened with losing her in a custody battle with her unlikable husband. Unlike Reiko in Ring, who barely shows any kind of depth in her relationship with anyone and spends the majority of the time waffling on about the 'video curse', Yoshimi is a woman with wholly human concerns and a very tangible personality, and it's that that makes Dark Water infinitely more unnerving than Nakata's big breakthrough. It also helps that the film is less of a mystery and more of a straightforward ghost story, and Nakata uses his run-down apartment building setting to great effect, Yoshimi's apartment acting as a bright island in the encroaching darkness. The film suffers from an unnecessary epilogue, some misguided scare sequences (the punching of the water tank a key offender), and Kuroki's tendency to overplay the creepiness of a sequence with hysterics, but it's still an interesting and creepy horror with some brilliant touches.
160. Toki o kakeru shôjo (The Girl Who Leapt Through Time) (2006, Hosoda, JPN) - 3.5/5
A disclaimer: as I found out too late to avoid it, the version that I saw was a dub. It wasn't a particularly bad dub, but the voice actors were kind of generic in their effervescence and, like all dubs, you get the feeling that a lot of the lines were added for the dub in case any viewers are unable to work out what's going on on screen without the characters narrating their every move. Nevertheless, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time starts off as a funny and interesting slice of magical realism, with flighty, impulsive protagonist Makoto using her newfound ability to time travel to avoid making tough decisions and generally get what she wants. The narrative arc seems set up to have everyone learn important life lessons and come out of this richer for the experience - and honestly, after the bizarre and overblown third act, I would kind of preferred the more predictable, less melodramatic approach. Unfortunately, the good-natured humour, the endearing slapstick comedy, the subtle coming-of-age storytelling and the refreshingly undramatic approach to high school life is sidelined in order to give the science fiction elements of the story a massive place and to kick up to 11 a high school romance that had, up until then, been developing rather naturally (in the context of the story). Combined with animation that frequently flicks between sloppy and beautiful, and The Girl Who Leapt Through Time is a film with oodles of promise that it mostly lives up to, which makes its slide into melodrama all the more disappointing.
240. Carrie (1976, De Palma, USA) – 2/5
The most disappointing thing about Carrie is how much better it probably would have been if somebody had seen fit to get a director in who was actually subtle about his work. Say a lot of things about De Palma, he has never been a particularly subtle director - and that's really what Carrie cries out for, De Palma's camp aesthetic undermining the quiet and compelling central performance by Sissy Spacek. Spacek is excellent as Carrie, playing her as a one step forward, two steps back kind of girl - as she slowly begins to assert herself, it's clear she's not comfortable doing so, and she slowly draws out Carrie's development of self-confidence, only for it to be cruelly smacked back down during the infamous prom sequence. Everything else around Spacek, however, is loud, cheesy, and badly-developed. Piper Laurie's performance as Carrie's dogmatic mother belongs in another film, De Palma's direction is intrusive and filled with sudden movements (he loves his zooms) and inappropriate touches, the music is frequently mixed louder than the dialogue, and the whole story seems badly-paced, jerking along without any goal other than reaching the prom scene. The prom scene is, admittedly, quite well done (though it could've done without the split-screen), with its garish neon colours and slow build to the feverish peak, but it's not enough to save what is, essentially, a blunt, misjudged film.
SHORT FILMS
04. Wallace & Gromit in the Wrong Trousers (1993, Park, UK) – 4.5/5
Stone-cold classic. Wallace gets on my nerves a little during the first half (but then, he always does, and that's mainly because he works so well as a horribly blinkered British man who never sees more than one step ahead), but Feathers McGraw is a perfect villain and Gromit is, as always, brilliant. The heist sequence and the train chase are always exceptional, and it has the funniest moment in any Wallace & Gromit film (from memory), involving a rolling pin and a pistol.
08. The Cat Concerto (1947, Hanna & Barbera, USA) - 4/5
The Tom & Jerry shorts are always good for ten minutes of harmless slapstick fun, and here is no different. The Cat Concerto, though, has the added bonus of an exceptional score - Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 in C Sharp Minor is exquisite, and fits the increasingly violent, energetic tone of the short perfectly. However, the fucking mouse wins, and Jerry was always the worst, with his bloody eyelashes and faux innocence.
09. Begone Dull Care (1949, Lambert & McLaren, CAN) - 4/5
Basically a glorified music video, Begone Dull Care is exceptional partly because of the care that went into making it, and partly because of how well the techniques used fit the music. It's a frequently dizzying, entertaining short whose scratches and paint splotches fit the music exquisitely, and the music's pretty damn good, too.
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