Tag: Netflix Queue

One of the first movies I bought off of iTunes was an Oscar nominée for short live action film of 2006, Cashback. While it didn’t win the Oscar, it became fixture on my iPhone for the simple fact that for a long time it was the only movie I had. Not until I figured out how to rip anime torrents did I have something else to watch.

I’ve watched the short film many times, and when I got Netflix I noticed that there was a full length feature similarly titled. How could I not notice. That damn one sheet with the topless girl on it kept popping up as a Netflix recommendation. I wasn’t so sure that it was the same movie, but I eventually added it to my queue. After several months it has finally popped to the front.

Cashback, the feature, expands on the story from the short. Ben Willis is working the night shift at the local grocery. He’s working his way through art college. It gives him the opportunity to stop time and draw the lady patrons naked. But it wasn’t all that. The back story included his breakup with his girlfriend, causing him insomnia, forcing him to take the night job to keep from being up all night, and falling in love with his co-worker.

Yup. It was a love story.

It was also a story about the work place. His supermarket was filled with the standard characters — an extreme stunt biker, the biker’s obnoxious hanger on, and the manager a la Michael Scott except into football. While he doesn’t hate his work or co-workers his passion for art makes him an outsider. He’s got ambition and while he gets over his breakup, he’ll make some money at work.

That’s about it. I really don’t have much to say except for boobies. Yeah, it wasn’t so bad as a film, but it really didn’t go beyond the short. I think that it could’ve been better if it focused more on his time stopping power. But it did have a wonderful moment: after being caught kissing his ex by his co-worker, whom he likes, he spends days in stop motion time trying to figure out how to win her back. All he knows is that he has to get her back, because he loves her. He shows it in an art show which I found somewhat creepy, but I don’t know – do girls dig that? Well, at least it had that moment in the movie.

One last note, did Trainspotting influence every British movie or what?

3 of 5 stars.

Departures (Okuribito) was the 2009 Oscar winner for best foreign picture. I was browsing my Netflix recommendations to fill out my queue to the “recommended” six movies when I saw this. I remember wanting to watch it after reading the blurbs for the movie as I prepared the ballots for my Oscar pool, so I added it to my queue. This may have been several weeks ago since it takes me at least three weeks to watch one DVD received from Netflix. Luckily, I had this DVD for a couple of days before watching it. I am glad I did because it was a nice movie. I’m not sure if it was the better of the five nominees, but I was moved by it.

Departures is about a cellist who has to move back home to the country from Tokyo after the orchestra he played in disbanded. He moves into the house his mother left for him when she died. The one which was his father’s coffee house, but turned into a corner bar after his father left his family. He moves back with his wife who dutifully followed him but is inwardly disappointed in this setback.

In his hometown, he searches for a job and the only one he finds is that of a casketeer (?), they prepare the bodies of the recently departed before their funeral. It is not a very respectable career as he finds his friends and his wife embarrassed for him. Yet, as he goes about learning the customs, he finds an inner peace that allows him accept it and an inner strength that to prosper at it. His wife doesn’t and she leaves him only to return if he decides to find a new job. His boss convinces him that he was meant to be a casketeer (?). He finds, through the acceptance of the job, what it means to live.

This movie shows the dignity that is extended to the recently deceased in the meticulous preparation of the body. This is expressed through the casketeer (?) trying to make the body beautiful for their families. The lowly work is elevated once the casketeer (?) goes through the elaborate ritual. The families who enlist their services are grateful to them because it makes their last goodbyes just a bit better. The respect shown to the bodies is reflected back at them for the work that they do.

Reconciliation happens for the couple when she comes back to their house to tell him she’s pregnant. She begins to accept her husbands job as she sees that he is suited for it and that it is a dignified career. She finally accepts his work when he must prepare the body of his estranged father. She grew to love him all over again watching the ceremonial preparations of the body. It makes him human and a man.

The death of his father allows him to put to rest his past. He doesn’t at first want to go, because he doesn’t remember his father, but his wife and his co-workers cajole him to go. There he finds that although they never saw each other for over thirty years, his father still had thoughts of him in his heart. He prepares his body, his wife loves him, and they share this moment for them and for their future.

I’ll admit that I shed a few tears in this movie. Watching it brought back memories of the days leading up to my father’s funeral. Dignity is extended to the dead and it is acceptable to know and celebrate them. When we can accept it, we can accept death as a part of living. It is paying respect to the dead that we can go on living for the future. It is for the past, a way for looking towards the future, and an acceptance of our present.

4 of 5 stars.

While watching the Jets/Colts AFL championship tilt, I have some time to jot down some thoughts on this film. Usually, I would write a review for a movie that had moved me, good or bad. I liked Linda! Linda! Linda!, but not moved enough. I’m writing this just to ponder some of the comments I have read on the internet about the movie.

Comments about it being slow and boring. Hmm. What they are most likely criticizing is the static nature of the shots in the movie. The director, Nobuhiro Yamashita< eschews the normal medium shot-close up-reaction cross-cutting. What he does do is just set up the scene in a medium shot and let's it roll. In fact, I wanted to see the interaction between the characters: their reactions or their emotions, but was hardy treated to it close up. I can see that this static set up can make the movie seem slow, less dynamic, but it can't be boring. It's about girls doing rock and roll that can't be boring! Linda! Linda! Linda! is about rocking out. The movie’s plot is about a music club (K-ON!) upon loosing members still wants to participate in the fall school festival. They’re search gets them a lead singer, the Korean exchange student, who’s comprehension of Japanese gets her into hilariously awkward situations. They’ve got three days to come together as a band. The rest shows them practicing and going about their high school lives: preparing for the school festival, warding off love confessions, etc. It’s a fine movie culminating in the rocking cover of The Blue Hearts, “Linda Linda,” the namesake. It’s a movie that inspires the awesome episode of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, “Live Alive!” K-ON! also seems to be inspired by it. 4 of 5 stars.

Considering I have had this DVD in posession for two months, I'm gonna have to provide a summary review just to cleanse it from my conscience. I shouldn't hold onto my netflix for this long, but I still want to watch the DVD. My problem is to hold onto it for so long. I should find room in my entertainment time for watching netflix. There's got to be a way to find the time in between reading manga, surfing the internet, watching torrented anime, watching television, reading, and sleeping. I mean I don't need to sleep much.Anyhow, I had Sunshine, Danny Boyle's sci-fi thriller, at home for longer than I wanted. I watched it last night.The plot: Earth, in the future, is threatened by the dying light of its sun. They send a scientific team to jumpstart the star. The movie follows the second attempt to save the Earth.Surprisingly, to me, that Boyle chose to direct a science fiction flick. I didn't think he had it in him as his style seems unsuited for the genre. Off course, he's able to make the film successful because the science fiction genre adapts well. Maybe Boyle at the helm makes this movie slightly more interesting.Like all save-the-world flicks, the mission's crew are on a one way ride. Not all will survive, and when they start falling, they start to be picked off one-by-one. It is how they meet their grisly fate that is interesting. Do they know it's a one way ticket? Do they care for saving themselves or the earth? Do they realize the enormity of the responsibility in their mission? And does that scare them or enable them?One thing about space, it makes you aware of how alone man or mankind is in the universe. This makes you think too much and adapt religion or scientific skepticism. Is the universe awe inspiring because of god or is it awe inspiring because of the physics of it all? Space makes dying a lonely thing.As I watched the movie, my palms were sweating. Something about the cramp crew quarters, the heat from the sun, and the spooks. I could actually understand the desperation. Finish the mission. Don't let anything get in the way.If you send religious minded people, expect them to flip out when confronted with the universe. Crazy. Don't send these people. They'll end up wearing Nikes, packed onto bunk beds, sleeping the eternal sleep under black sheets. They'll also expect the grim ending to be in concurrance with god's plan and ruin the mission.It ended up a good flick for waiting two months to watch. Worth the long wait, but I have to stop doing that.3 of 5 stars.

I didn’t plan on blogging the movies I saw today, but a scene in Amélie was directly copied in Ghanjani. It’s kind of weird to notice these things. Similar to Julius Caesar from yesterday. Is it coincidence?

The scene: The girl helps out a blind man.

She spots him lonely on the curb. Then she goes to help him. Takes him by the hand. Leads him to his destination all the while describing what she sees. She gives a running commentary on life being led around them.

In both movies, it signifies something important in the girl. In Ghanjani the girl is carefree, and shows her kindness as helping towards others: it comes naturally. In Amélie, the girl needs to become carefree and she slowly comes out of her shell.

Qué un shell!! Audrey Tautou is plain cuteness personified like an anime girl come to life. Moe in French.

Amélie is a charming movie. Love and the search for love will always be fun to watch. When the girl is as cute as Tautou it’s even more charming. When her character is as shy as that, I’m easily charmed. Reminds me of all the quiet, shy anime girls I so dig. (Mio! Yakomo!) You just want her to find that love. The search is darn cute as well. Find the man. Give him clues. Show him you love him. It’s as easy as that. Where’s my quiet anime French girl in my life.

3 of 5 stars.