Superman and Kumar

Sometimes, when you watch a movie for the umpteenth time, you see things you missed. I get a movie channel, and they love showing certain movies over and over. One, in particular, is Superman Returns. The film is both deeper and shallower than the origin, missing out on nuances like Clark growing up in Smallville, and NYC as a personality.

Remember Luthor's henchmen? Probably not. You remember the lady with the yippy dog. Why does Lex have her around? They don't appear to be romantically involved.

But no, I'm talking about the guys. There's one guy in his group played by one Kal Penn. Yeah, he's Kumar from Harold and Kumar fame. He's gone on to do House. He barely has any speaking lines, but there must have been some arrangement to show him a little more than any of the other guys.

Why does Lex have henchmen anyway? How do you advertise such a position? This stuff doesn't make sense.

I suppose Kal Penn isn't such a household name that he can simply get lead roles. If he wants to be in Superman, he has to do (very) small roles like this. He may have really, really wanted to be in Superman, just like some people want to be in Star Trek.

Oh yeah. There's a new Raiders movie coming out. Harrison Ford is how old? But that's the magic of movies. If there's interest, someone will make it. It's been over 20 years since the last Raiders film. Still, Spielberg is a clever guy (wow, they managed to get Karen Allen back), so he'll probably give us some wows.

The Host

The most eagerly anticipated Korean film is arriving in US theaters starting March 9.

And what film would that exactly be?

The Host is Bong Joon-ho's latest. Bong directed a film called Memories of Murder about a serial killer that was never caught. Ostensibly about the incompetent country police and the smart city cop, it eventually delves into how fear grips the countryside, and how the police, unable to find the killer, start harassing anyone and everyone because of the need to have someone be responsible.

The Host would seem to be a completely different direction for Bong, who is making what amounts to be a monster movie a la Godzilla, served up Korean style. However, early reviews suggest that Bong may have created something worth watching.

We'll see how Bong's third effort (the second apparently didn't make it to the States) turns out.

Oscar Time

Everyone says Oscar has a short memory, which means Academy members tend to pick films that feature in December, and as such, good movies, those with a chance for Oscar, are often released late in the year.

That means, a bunch of good movies are out for the watching. Among the ones I want to see are: Letters from Iwo Jima, Clint Eastwood's companion piece to the mostly forgotten Flags of Our Fathers, telling the story of Japanese soldiers told to defend Iwo Jima to their deaths. The Queen, about Queen Elizabeth's reaction to Lady Diana's untimely death.

Curse of the Golden Flower, a court melodrama, by Zhang Yimou, set in radiant colors, with Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung replaced by Chow Yun Fat and Gong Li. Volver by Spanish bad boy turned patriach, Pedro Almodovar. Pan's Labyrinth by Guillermo del Toro, about a girl's fantasy during wartime. Children of Men, a variation on Handmaid's Tale about a society where no children have been born, until one day, a pregnant woman is found, directed by Alfonse Cuaron(!).

I still haven't caught a few films I wanted to see: The Fountain, which had mixed reviews, Shortbus, which came in and out of theaters, and The Departed, Martin Scorsese's take on Hong Kong thriller, Infernal Affairs.

I'm sure I'll only catch a few of these, but at least, there are a few films I'd like to see, which was better than a few months ago, when I didn't care to see much.

On Movie Reviews

Mike D'Angelo, screenwriter wannabe and movie critic be, has a blog. He hasn't written in it for six months or so. But he's written in it recently.

He wants to retool his blog to write notes about movies in bullet form, a la Powerpoint. This was a mini-epiphany. Mini because we live in a society that exaggerates everything to excess (worst. pain. ever.) until the uttering of such excesses is simply for grand humor.

The reason for the trumpet heralding moment?

I realize I wasn't cut out for movie critic-dom some time ago. I lack deep insight into film. I lack compelling writing skills. I lack grammatical acumen. However, I have some sense of what make a good review, and where my shortcomings are.

I find, after all this time, that I summarize the film, which is the lazy man's way to write reviews, and yet, shortly after watching a film, I feel compelled to summarize. So easy to do, don't you know.

But bullet points. Ah, just a few key ideas. Impressions. That's all I need.

So I'll give it a try.

Hmm, it looks like I was wrong about Eastwood's Flags of Our Fathers, part 1 of his two part movie describing the two sides of Iwo Jima. Perhaps I was too hasty concluding he'd be able to pull off the dual story line.

The next film I'm looking forward too is the retina burning Curse of the Golden Flower. Zhang Yimou has long abandoned his tales of historical drama for historical action. Hero begat House of Flying Daggers which has now begat Curse of the Golden Flower. Visually stunning, it's likely to be an old fashioned tale of double-cross and plotting, packed with plenty of wu-shu, wire-fu, kick ass, and colors that sear on the screen.

For now, that's all I need.