I've been meaning to watch Ari Folman's Vals Im Bashir, or, in English, Waltz with Bashir, since I heard it was nominated for an Oscar. The poster was the first thing that captivated me - I thought it looked stunning. The story also seemed interesting - a psychological biographical journey - but it was soon added to the long list of films I wanted to watch. My friend showed me a site dedicated to movie-watching (I always download movies, much to the dismay of my one friend who complains that my computer cannot handle it), and I decided to test it by searching up some films. Well, Waltz with Bashir was one of them, and I finally watched it. I'm glad I didn't watch it when I first heard about it in 2008/09 - I don't think I would have been able to appreciate it.
The film begins with Ari Folman, who served in the Israel Defense Forces when he was nineteen during the Lebanon War, listening to the nightmare his friend from his service time in the army has been having in which twenty-six dogs are chasing him. Ari Folman realises that he doesn't remember anything from the time he spent in the war - and so begins a journey to discover his hidden memory.
I would like to explain the Lebanon War in greater detail, but I find the film does a good job of explaining what happens. It is also linked to the emotional dismay Ari Folman (yes, the director of the film) feels in the end, so I'd say, unless you already know about the 1982 war, wait until afterward to really look into it. I'll give the basic details though. Basically, the 1982 Lebanon War started when Israel's ambassador to the United Kingdom, Shlomo Argov, was nearly assassinated by the Abu Nidal Organisation, a military splinter group led by Abu Nidal, a Palestinian political leader. We already know Palestine and Israel are in awful terms with each other, but how does Lebanon tie in? Syria had a quite an influence over Lebanon, and Israel, along with expelling the Palestine Liberation Organisation and having a pro-Israel Christian government led by Bashir (or Bachir) Gemayel established in Lebanon (thank you, Wikipedia), believed that in destroying this influence, Israel would benefit with peace. However, we can already guess that that it didn't go too well considering Israel has not seen peace since it got its independence in 1948. I shan't say anymore since the film goes into greater detail, and I wouldn't want to ruin it!
Let me start off by saying that I thought the animation was really, really cool. While you get the impression that the film has been rotoscoped (that is, taking real footage and drawing over it - as seen partly in the film Heavy Metal), it hasn't. Instead, another technique was used consisting of classic animation and Adobe Flash cutouts. Either way, it looks pretty realistic and the drawing is wonderful. I loved the intense shadows and some scenes just look beautiful - as seen on the cover of the film. I'm a big fan of animation, and this film takes a unique, wonderful spin on it. Also, this is a biographical film, and yet it's animated. I find that pretty amazing too. It still conveys the message it wants to send, and I even think the animation allows a lot of scenes in it to not be too cheesy, had it been made with real people. While CGI has improved immensely, the film was made four years ago and CGI can be hard to get right. I'm glad an animated film was made - it was as aesthetically appealing as the film was moving!
... Yes, the film was moving. The story is grim and is really depressing, but it's well done. We get interviews with different people who either were part of the war or documenting it. It gives such a human touch to it, minus the fact that it is about Ari Folman's journey. We get to hear about the war from different perspectives and it really helps intensify the story.
I'd give this film seven point eight stars on ten. It was really very beautiful and the story was interesting, but I found some stories a bit lacking. I also would have enjoyed Ari Folman's discovery a bit more - I find, once he remembers everything, we just skim over his reaction. That bothered me a bit... Otherwise, it was an interesting, and different, film. Recommended if you enjoy war films.
While I enjoy reading about history, especially in relation to militia and military warfare, I can't say I know much about the history of the world. In high school, we principally followed national history, and not even to that degree. My last year, we did look more into the history of the world, but the two subjects I remember really well from that class were a basic explanation on the war in Vietnam and the civil war in Syria, and that's only because they were the two subjects I did a project on. I know about the big wars - WWI and WWII - but it really saddens me that I never had the opportunity to study them in high school. Hopefully in my future academic endeavours I will finally take the time to study them, but as of yet, I'm relying on the occasional novel and film. In comes Lu Chuan's Nánjīng! Nánjīng!, or as its known in English-speaking parts of the world, City of Life and Death. The film is about the Battle of Nanjing and the after effects. The film stars (last name first) Gao Yuanyuan, Fan Wei, Qin Lan, Liu Ye, and Nakaizumi Hideo. I'll offer more an explanation on what was happening that resulted in the Battle of Nanjing, but take what I say with a grain of salt because I'll be simplifying what I read in articles on Wikipedia. My apologies beforehand for any mistakes or over-simplified explanations I provide.
Between 1894 and 1895, China was defeated by Japan in the first Sino-Japanese War under the Qing Dynasty, the last imperial dynasty to exist in China. China was forced to hand over territory claims it had in Korea to Japan. China was left struggling with interal rebellion and foreign imperialism, while Japan rose in strength due to its great progress in modernization. Over the course of the next thirty or so years, China abandonded the imperialistic view and the Republic of China was formed. However, many conflicts, including World War I and the Japanese, once again, imposing on the country, as well as internal rebellion, led to it being in a not-so-well-off state. Japan saw opportunity to expand into China as it was rich in raw goods, so, in 1931, Japan invaded Manchuria (Northeast China) and "small" fights continued over the course of six years. It was in 1937 that Japanese and Chinese forces started a full-scale battle in the are of the Marco Polo bridge (a bridge that was an important route to Beijing). Beijing and Tianjin were seized by Japanese forces, and this is when most historians would say the Second Sino-Japanese War started. Nearing the end of 1937, Japan took over Nanjing, the capital of the Republic of China at the time (which it would be until the Republic of China became the People's Republic of China in 1945). This brought on what is referred to as the Nanjing Massacre in China and the Nanjing Incident in Japan. This is where the film starts off, so let us begin a new paragraph where I will now talk about the film. Hopefully that explanation wasn't too far off from the reality...
The film starts with Lu Jianxiong (Liu Ye) and several other Chinese soldiers attempt to stop deserting troops from leaving Nanjing, only to be captured by the Japanese army, including superior private (eventually promoted to sergeant) Kadokawa Masao (Nakaizumi Hideo), which has come to capture Nanjing. Most of these soldiers are executed, though two, Shunzi (Zhao Yisui) and a young boy (Liu Bin) survive. They displace to the Nanjing Safety Zone, which was helped run by John Rabe (John Paisley), a Nazi German. However, the zone becomes a hellish place over the course of the year of the Nanjing Massacre.
I guess I should include this in the history area, but anyway... If you were like me and wondering why a Nazi was helping China when, in World War II, Nazi Germany sided with Japan, this happens pre-WWII and at the time, China was receiving support from Germany, the United States, and Russia. Kind of strange when you think about what followed two years later... Anyway, I can't say if the film followed a completely accurate view on the war, but it definitely captures the fear and violence that happened. Whether it be with the constant humilation of both the men and women, the meaningless killing of innocent civilians... It's definitely not an up-lifting film, but I thought it did a wonderful job getting the story across to even a noob historian like me. While many people sent death threats to Lu Chuan for portraying a sympathetic Japanese (Nakaizumi Himeo's character), I thought it provided a good view as well. I'm probably being naive in assuming that not everyone could be that bad, but whenever I see a film that bashes one side, I always feel a little guilty... Not to say what the Japanese did is excusable, but I'm sure not everyone took pleasure in killing men, women, and children and defiling their corpses.
The film does not skimp out on the horrible details, however, and it can be quite shocking to watch. When you realise how rape and the killing of the innocent is a leading factor in the Nanjing Massacre, and even in all warfare, it makes you feel sick. City of Life and Death demonstrates the sacrifices people went through to save the ones they loved, and it's heart breaking to think that just because of the country they born in meant they were to be punished for something they had nothing to do with. Sorry for generalising...
I'd give the film seven point nine stars on ten. I thought the cinematography was stunning, and I thought the characters were very real. It was always a little strange hearing German and English in the film on occasion, but I thought it was amazing that they incorporated that in as well. Even the fact that the film was, let's say, half Chinese half Japanese. Considering it was a film made a Chinese man, I thought it was great that both sides were portrayed. Anyway, the film was very well done, as shocking as it was, and if you're looking to watch a good historical war film, I'd definitely recommend this one.
It was back in grade six when I heard my first metal song - apart from the so called "metal" I've heard on the radio. It was Dream Theater's Learning to Live, and yeah, it is a pretty tame song by metal standards, but it opened up a new genre of music I had never heard before. I listened to Dream Theater, Death, Necrophagist, Dragonforce, Children of Bodom, Sonata Arctica - anything really - except for nu metal, which I continue to look down upon (it's just a grudge now). My friend helped expose me to the more extreme bands I really enjoy now because her older brother listened to metal as well. I remember him showing us a adult cartoon show called Metalocalypse at the time, but, being a young kid paired with the violent nature of the show, made me never look into it. I've gone through different phases of music since then - electronica and classical especially - and while I listened to Austrian Death Machine every so often, I felt I had left my metal roots behind. I met someone recently who listens to Sonata Arctica, and it made me take out the mp3 CD I have of their songs. Needless to say, it brought back my metal craving. It also reminded me of that show I had heard of all those years ago - Brendon Small and Tommy Blacha's metal epic. I realise this is a show, not a movie, but I originally made this blog thinking I'd only review movies because I had another place where I wrote about shows I watched. It has since been deleted, so I present you this brutal classic today! [/end of anecdote]
John Lennon claimed the Beatles were bigger than Jesus - but Dethklok is bigger than them both. Fans would gladly throw themselves into the pits of Hell to get a chance to go to a concert (and they do, quite literally, sometimes), millions upon millions of people wait for every upcoming album, and it is quite possible that, if the death metal band commanded for mass suicide, it would happen. In fact, Dethklok is so popular that it has the seventh biggest economy on the planet. You would think this band would thus consist of a group of hard-working, competent, intelligent, and kind individuals. Well, you thought wrong.
Frontman Nathan Explosion (voiced by Brendon Small) is the vocalist and lyricist of the band - who growls regardless if he's singing or not. He originally grew up in Florida, USA and never got his high school diploma. Nonetheless, he doesn't always appear as intellectually inept as the rest of the band, but most of the time he's displaying some sense of stupidity and obvious insensitivity. It only goes downhill from here, folks!
Skwisgaar Skwigelf (also voiced by Brendon Small) is the lead guitarist of the group who originally comes from Sweden. While he looks typically Swedish - tall, blond, blue-eyed - he possesses the gift of God when he plays guitar. He is often considered the fastest and best guitarist in the world, and he always seems to have a guitar on him. He's also the best womanizer, I would say, in the world. When the band toured in Finland one year, Skwisgaar approximates he banged 500 women. What a feat for one man... Or should I say god?
On rhythm guitar, we have Toki Wartooth (voiced by Tommy Blacha). While he is not acknowledged by the band to be a very good member in contributing to the band's overall wealth and music, he's definitely the sweetest, most innocent, and most childish out of the group. He hails from Norway where he was abused as a child. In consequence to this abuse, he is extremely well built. While he is often jealous of Skwisgaar being in the limelight as lead guitarist, the two form a bond as they both possess "superior Scandanavian intellect". He was the only member to not have been part of the original line-up of Dethklok. Toki also adds "s" to the ends of a lot of words... Legitimately curious - is that a Norwegian thing?
Pickles (voiced by Brendon Small) the drummer comes from Wisconsin, USA, and, man, does he like to drink! ... As well as do recreational drugs en masse. Pickles definitely possesses great talent, having been in another successful band before Dethklok. Not to mention he's always inebriated and intoxicated and yet still manages to put on a killer show for the band. However, his family still looks down on him and instead focuses their attention on his sly brother. Let's all give Pickles some love, shall we?
Finally, we have the useless bassist, William Murderface (voiced by Tommy Blacha). My god, this character gets on my nerves. He's ignorant, evil, just an overall bad person, and always seems to be complaining about something - especially how he's under-rated in the band. It's not like he doesn't deserve it - he barely contributes to the band. He witnessed the murder-suicide of his parents as a baby, but claims it has not scarred him. He speaks with a prominent lisp and is the worst looking member of the band of which he is continuously reminded by the public and the members of Dethklok. Nonetheless, he wishes for some love. At least he has Toki to share his under-achievements!
Charles Foster Offdensen (voiced by Brendon Small) is the manager of the band Dethklok - though he is much more. He's also their legal counsel and chief financial advisor, as well as one of the only people who can stand being around them for more than five minutes to discuss legal matters. He's dedicated his life to protecting the band and does all he can for them. He's extremely talented - being an incredible fencer - and acts as a father figure for the band on occasion. How does he do it?
There are many other re-occuring characters, such as Dick Knubbler, Dr. Rockzo (who is just as annoying as Murderface - and he does cocaine), for example, but there is one group I should talk about - the Tribunal. They are a secret organisation - an Illuminati, if you will - who is constantly monitoring Dethklok. They are always discussing the dangers that can come from Dethklok's actions and become more important as the series goes on. They can be considered one of the leading antagonists to the band. They consist of Senator Stampingston (voiced by Mark Hamill (STAR WARS!!!)), General Crozier (voiced by Victor Brandt), Cardinal Ravenwood (also voiced by Victor Brandt), who dies early on, Vater Orlaag (voiced by Malcolm McDowell (A Clockwork Orange!)), and, most mysteriously of all, Mr. Salacia (voiced by Mark Hamill). I suggest not looking up the characters on Wikipedia - some things can be ruined!
The animation is not the best, but it did get better, thank goodness. You can definitely see a difference in animation quality from season one and two to season three and four. It's not an artistic masterpiece, but seriously, I don't think I've ever seen an adult cartoon that did have realistic portrayals of people and really good animation. Most of the time it's cardboard cutouts, but anyway, if you watched the show, it wouldn't be for the animation. It would be for the content. And man, is the content vulgar. While some swears are beeped out with pitch harmonics (I wish that happened in real life!), you know exactly what they're saying. The situations that arise too, including, but not limited to, pedophilia, alcoholism, drug abuse, sex, and just plain gorey predicaments, make it a pretty crazy show. I'm not usually a fan of this shows - they're usually dumb and the only humour available is fart-joke humour really. In fact, this is the only adult cartoon I've ever watched in full, besides early Simpsons work. I find Robot Chicken, Family Guy, and all that really too dumb for me. This one still has that, but because it has some intelligent moments, likeable characters (do not look up Toki and Skwisgaar on google with the safety off), and really awesome and original music, I quickly became addicted. If you also like metal, you can appreciate the show as well. It's a culture thing, and even though I'm not a full-on metalhead, I can still sit back and see the culture flowing from it and see myself in there. It's hilarious and well-done, and I totally dig it... six... feet under. That's brutal.
I'd give the show seven point eight stars on ten. Thank god the animation gets better, but it's not as good as it could be. It also has a lot of bad humour and it's, well, an adult swim show. But it has something particular about it, and I'm glad it's lasted this long. In fact, a fifth season is in the works. Besides season three, the episodes are only eleven or so minutes long, which is also a reasonable length, especially for me when I wanted to watch an episode (or three) before going to bed. I highly recommend the show if you like metal - most particularly if you like death or anything more "dark" than power metal - but if you don't really and like rock, give it a try. It's c-c-c-c-awesome!
Martin McDonagh's In Bruges is definitely a film I would recommend. It has a perfect blend of dark humour and clean-cut humour, plus it has Ralph Fiennes and Brendan Gleeson in it! If you only know those two because of the Harry Potter franchise, shame on you - they've been in way better movies. Anyway, a friend of mine really wanted to see the new film Seven Psychopaths, so I went to see it with him. When I realised it was a Martin McDonagh film, which was only after I watched the film, the film made a lot more sense to me. I watched it on opening night which was almost a month ago, so bare with me on this review. I just want to review a film, and it was between this and Silent Hill. I suppose you can understand why I chose this one.
Marty (Colin Farrell) is an aspiring script writer who wishes to write a movie about seven psychopaths. However, while he does have a few strong stories in the bag, he's lacking in the amount of psychopaths in his story. Billy (Sam Rockwell), his good, but crooked, friend, decides to help him out, along with Hans (Christopher Walken), a mysterious man who loves his cravat. However, a real-life psychopath, Charlie (Woody Harrelson) falls upon the three when his precious dog is kidnapped by Billy, and hilarity ensues.
If I had to describe the movie in one word, it would be... lacking. Yet, in the end, it doesn't really lack anything. The film revolves around Marty and his story, yet it doesn't exactly because there are so many subplots about the psychopaths. It's strange because we might be given five minutes about the story of a psychopath, and then, that's the end. I realise it's only about the writing process, but it's strange because we're given that time to connect with a psychopath, and poof, they disappear from the plot. While some come back later, most appear and disappear just as quickly. The film has so many characters, yet doesn't go in depth of all of them... Which I guess is sometimes the point, but other times, it isn't. This review is getting to be as confusing as the film. Okay, let's break this down...
The main plot is a good and funny one. Marty recounts funny stories for the psychopaths in his story, or he is told funny stories about them. I won't give any away (I really would like to, though) because it's these stories that make the movie so funny. However, while there are seven psychopaths in the film, some are only stories that Marty comes up with, but some are real life people. For example, Woody Harrelson's character is a real-life psychopath. While it is assumed that Marty later includes him in his screenplay, we're still introduced to him as a real psychopath. And, as I said, we just assume that Marty later includes him. It's never said, "Hey, Charlie will be one of the psychopaths." He's labelled a psychopath by the film, so we just assume he's part of the story. It's strange when a second earlier, we're told about a fake psychopath, who is also labelled. It seemed a bit... random, but I guess I can't really complain because we do meet each psychopath. It just felt weird to me.
I would also go ahead and say that each psychopath has a mini-subplot of their own. This leads to so many subplots that it almost gets confusing. The fact is, there is a tangent for each one, which leads to five minutes of explaining a man's story. While some psychopaths return, some are named and disappear forever. It makes you wonder whether or not Marty actually had seven psychopaths in his screenplay, or if there were actually less. This is another element that bothered me. While you don't have to follow up with each psychopath in great detail, it leaves the viewer feeling a little lost when we're given a psychopath and then they're gone forever.
... Which leads me to characters. Marty, Billy, Hans, and Charlie are the main characters. Charlie is maybe more of a secondary character, but he becomes more important. However, there are so many tertiary characters that come in as psychopaths. The problem is, they're tertiary characters, but they're given the spotlight for a while for a short while to explain their story in some of the cases. This makes it really confusing, and, as I said, I felt ripped off when I'd learn about a psychopath and then they disappeared for the rest of the movie. Some are forgivable, but if you watch the film, you'll understand what I mean. It seemed like there were too many characters that couldn't be explained. I think they could have incorporated them in better, especially when they would be given screen time of a minute or two.
I've been complaining, but I can go ahead and say the acting was phenomenal. Have you seen the actors in this film? Two of them have been nominated for an Oscar (one of them, Christopher Walken, even won it) and the others have been nominated for other awards or are just good actors in general. I can't really speak of Colin Farrell that much since I've only seen him in In Bruges, but I thought he was great in that movie. In this film, he does just as good a job. He has such a good shocked reaction and face. Sam Rockwell also does a great job in his role. Woody Harrelson and Christopher Walken, well, it's a given that they'd both deliver at least enjoyable roles. The acting from the rest of the group is good too, maybe even more so, so we definitely get a well rounded group of actors and actresses who know what they're doing. This means you can definitely enjoy the film, even if the plot is confusing and random at times.
I complained about the film, and I mean, it really was pretty spastic at times, but I still enjoyed it. I'll give it seven point seven on ten. It has really funny parts, but it can be slow and weird at some points. However, the acting and good humour make it worthy of at least checking out, though I'd say wait until it comes out on DVD (it's still playing in one theatre near my house, so I'm going to assume it's still out!).
