The Terminal

I've wanted to see "The Terminal" for years, and today finally I did after watching "Tuesdays with Morrie".

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Terminal
  

I borrowed the DVD from my little brother too, and Thanks bro! :)

BTW, I'm wondering how Tom Hanks studied that eastern European (Russian like?) language.

Tuesdays With Morrie

In the end of last year, my little brother recommended that I would see this movie, and I borrowed several DVDs including that during the new year vacation.

Although I couldn't have made time to watch it for these months because of my daughter things :o, finally I did. :)

Tuesdays with Morrie

• http://imdb.com/title/tt0207805/
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuesdays_With_Morrie

The story reminded me of several stories/films those of:

• Goodby, Mr. Chips
• Something for Joey

If you know any of the above films, you might notice that the second one has almost no resemblance with Tuesdays with Morrie. I agree with that.
But, that comes from the memory of late my father actually.
One day, when I was a 9 or 10 years old kid, he called me and we watched a TV program together. That was "Something for Joey." :)

It's a story of a college football player, John, and his little brother, Joey, who got leukemia.

In those days, I and my little brother were always quarrelling, so my father wanted me to learn or feel something from the film especially because I'm the elder.

Now, it's more than 7 years since my father past away, and it's too late to talk about that with him. But, still it's a good memory of my father.

Bubble Fiction: Boom or Bust

I watched "Bubble Fiction: Boom or Bust" on TV.
Its Japanese title is "バブルへGO!!" and was on screen last year.
It's a kind of time trip story and the details can be found in the following pages.
Anyway, it's like "Back to the Future" in a sense.

• Wikipedia English Page
• Wikipedia Japanese Page

What I felt first was a typical time travel paradox issue.
Like the case of "Back to the Future" where Doc also kept the original before-the-history-change memory, heroine's father who sent her to 17 years ago kept his memory. It's strange, but it's OK because the film is just an entertainment film.

BTW, I like this actress co-starring as a TV report in the film. :)

Little Miss Sunshine

Today, I went to watch a movie almost two years interval, "Little Miss Shushine."
I like Granpa. :)

Director: Jonathan Dayton, Valerie Faris
Cast: Abigail Breslin, Greg Kinnear, Paul Dano, Alan Arkin, Toni Collette, Steve Carell

http://imdb.com/title/tt0449059/

http://www.foxsearchlight.com/littlemisssunshine/

Windstruck

I watched a Korean film, "Windstruck".
Its Japanese title is "Bokuno Kanojo wo Shokai Shimasu", and in English
that means "I'd like to introduce my girlfriend". The English title comes
from a beautiful scene in the film and I think the choice is also a good idea.
(Can anyone tell me what the original Korean title means?)

The heroine is a cute and veeeery daring policewoman. :o) You will see
a tragic incident in film, but the story is on the whole romantic and
a bit comical. I assure you that you can go home with happy
impressions.

BTW, the actress, Jeon Ji-Hyeon, is the same with "My Sassy Girl"
which made a hit about 3 years ago.

I think it's not just a coincidence that the character of the heroine
of "My Sassy Girl" is a bit similar to the one of "Windstruck". At
least in Japan, she is popular only through her films for now
different from other Asian countries, and thus she seems to have
acquired something strange impression like Audrey Tautou who played
"Amelie from Montmartre" and "He Loves Me... He Loves Me Not".
I hope she can get more good impressions like other Korean actresses in Japan.

Dark Blue World

I have several DVDs I've not watched yet.

As I had no appointments in this week end, I wached "Dark Blue World".
It's a story of two fighter pilot and a woman during the second world
war, and in a sense, it's a sad story with a lot of air combat scenes.
Some people might feel it like "Perl Harbor" or "Top Gun", but the
film has a bit different atmosphere from them.

One thing interesting about this film is that in Japan it's
distributed by the studio GHIBLI which is well known as
Hayao Miyazaki's studio. Perhaps, it looks like strange that GHIBLI do
that, but it's well known that Miyazaki loves very much weapons and
stories about them specially the ones before WW2. In this sense, we
could say that Mamoru Oshii has a similarity with Mr. Miyazaki. :o)

I think it undoubted that both of them influcenced a lot of media
creators in the world like Wachowski brothers. But, I'm not sure if

they share the same preferences with Miyazaki and Oshii.

Perhaps, this can be one of the peculiar aspects of Japanese animation
creators. :o)

Spanish Apartment

I watched "Spanish Apartment" on Saturday.

I have to admit that I went there because I wanted to see Audrey
Tautou of Amelie again, and that's all at first. It turned out that
Tautou was a supporting role, but the movie still is worth
watching. :)

The protagonist of the film is a french graduate student who goes to
Barcelona to study Spanish Economics leaving his girl friend in
Paris. (Tautou played the girl.) There in Spain he shared a room with
6 student come from various countries including Germany, UK, Italy and
Belgium or so.

When he set for his one year stay in Spain, he was a bit
faceless. But, after his various experiences with his room mates in
Spain, he remembered his dream, what we wanted to be, from his
childhood, and he broke out of his shell.

His colleagues are also nice and funny. :)
In a sense, there is Europe.
Sometimes quarreling, sometimes having parties.

I wish in Asia we could have such good international friendly
relationship. (Perhaps, Japan is the only exception in Asia? :o)

INNOCENCE

I watched "INNOCENCE" by Mamoru Oshii yesterday.
I'm not sure if there are readers of this blog, but
still I'd like to asｋ reader's impression of the film.

Its visual effect is really really fascinating. In this
sense, the film is great. Better than even compared
to "LAST EXILE" which was available recently
in Japan.

But what about the story?
Is it a love story?
Or, a speculative story about near future society? Presumably both.

But from the latter point of view, I'm not satisfied by
the plot and conclusion. Although I cannot disclose
the conclusion, but if you watched the seventh
story of S.A.C. at least, we might share the same idea about the difference
between a human and a machine. I'm still feeling
there might have been another kind of truth about
the murder by a doll in the prolog of the movie.

Meanwhile, there were many empty seats around
me. I wonder "INNOCENCE" also might be accepted
better in USA than in Japan like "Ghost in the Shell".