Of Swords and Parasols

Mildly bored at work so posting about more viewing, though I AM about to pull out my book when I'm finished.

Finally sat down over the last week or so and watched 3 Akira Kurosawa movies, Yojimbo, Sanjuro, and Rashomon. All three were quite good, though I think I more respect than like Rashomon.  Though, if I could watch it without the "ok, lets see why just using this kind of storytelling gets everything praised to high heaven"(yes Hero, I'm looking at you) mentality it might be a different story(also, the woman's eyebrows scared me, historically accurate or not)  Yojimbo and Sanjuro were a little more my thing, and are essentially Kurosawa saying "romantic or nostalgic or not, people were really stupid back then" and so very, very many of the characters in various samurai things I've read and seen are based on Sanjuro himself.  While Yojimbo(such an oft copied plot) is the better movie, Sanjuro had my favorite moment with the three, with the two women coming up with a decent plan, then getting all caught up in the romantic imagery, while Sanjuro traces a flower painted on the wall to try and keep himself from yelling at them for being stupid.  I also loved the enemy soldier they captured, who ended up being Sanjuro's biggest supporter.  The blood in both movies is also rather comical...it looks like milk in Yojimbo, and is rather...fountainlike...in Sanjuro.

I'm also 6 episodes into Bones.  I don't obsessively love it like I do Monk and Veronica Mars(much less Remington Steele) but more along the lines of "Really like and will be sad if it's cancelled" like Numb3rs.  But, good lines, more technology than I like in my mysteries, but in the end it the brain and not the computer that solves things, so I'm satisfied.  Bones and Booth have pretty good chemistry, though Booth's girlfriend is odd.  Not odd as in the character, but odd as in the inclusion of Tessa is being handled very awkwardly  and seems to blatantly be there as an excuse to not have Bones and Booth hook up yet.  That said, I latched on to the entire cast pretty quickly, which is surprising for me...I usually only latch on to one or two characters initially, and the rest more and more as time goes by.  It was a bit surprising with Booth(the only one resembling normal) as I never really latched on to Angel in Buffy until around mid season 3(though...he's lost his extra weight that made Angel so mockable as he was a picky vampire who was gaining pounds in later seasons)  Like

alexandral

I went on a slight movie binge earlier this week, and likely will fairly soon again(that backlog got large-ish recently)

 (6) Blood Rain: this is a Korean movie set in the 1800s, about the investigation into a serial killer who is killing informers who accused a former town official of being a christian(apparently a crime at the time) and is killingt hem in the same methods, in order, that the official's family was killed, to try to force him to confess.  It was good and pretty interesting, and I wish I'd paid more attention while I watched it, because it also had what is likely the most graphic death I've seen in a movie, and had animals dying on scene...by that, I mean that we actually see chickens' heads getting chopped off.  Good as it was, I don't think I could rewatch it.

(7-9) Breakfast at Tiffany's, Sabrina, and Roman Holiday: No sooner did I get the Audrey Hepburn boxed set than I started watching it.  All the movies more than lived up to their classic status, though each had  several moments where I had the remind myself that these movies are the reason that the cliches exist.  I liked Breakfast at Tiffany's quite a lot, but I hope it never gets remade.  Why?  Because it's a movie about a call girl and a kept man growing up and falling in love with each other.  Here it's great, but modern moviemakers would feel compelled to make it wallow in angst and depression and have them go on about how wretched they are and how they should better themselves and there'd be a kidd given up for adoption or a miscarriage or...*shudders and moves on*  As much as I love the Ford/Ormond/Kinnear version of Sabrina, I happily admit that this one is far superior.  While I think Ford and Ormond are the closest among modern actors who could have pulled off the role, there's really no comparing to Audrey or Bogey.  That said, while I liked Holden just fine, I preferred Kinnear's David to his...Kinnear came across more as immature and in fascinated shock at Sabrina's return, whereas Holden feels more like a cad.  I also missed one of my favorite moments from the remake, when Sabrina first comes home and David is still trying to figure out who she is, and Linus, without even actually stopping to look at her, recognizes her at a glance and blithely goes "Hello Sabrina" and ruins her fun.  I think my favorite of the set, though, was Roman Holiday, though I may change my mind if I rewatch it and Sabrina in a month or two.  It was wonderfully straightforward and refreshing, and not only does Gregory peck get to originate the most reused scene and speech of all big secret/revenge fiction, but it has what's probably one of the best straightforward, don't-tack-on-a-happy-ending-just-to-have-one movie endings this side of Casablanca.

(10) Death Note: The Movie I already talked about the other day.

(11) Brother Beat:  This one is a live action japanese drama about three brothers, now in their early twenties, who were raised by their single mother after their father's death 15 years earlier.  Since their mother,despite trying hard, is effectively useless, theoldest brother, Tatsuya, takes on the role of both mother and father.  The series is excellent, but has the misfortune of being almost completely overlooked by the dorama community, as it aired during the asme season of Nobuta wo Produce(excellent) and 1 Litre of Tears(I'm told it's also excellent, but I have no intentions of everwatching it, even if it does have Fujiki Naohito, whose name I can never spell correctly)

12) Prince Valiant: The Complete Collection: Vol 1: Prince Valiant is one of those properties I've wanted to check out in any form for a long time, but never had the chance to, until now.  It held up quite well, though not quite as well as Gargoyles *shakes fist at the sheer criminality of there being no official DVDs for the second half of season 2* and instead of trying to redo Arthurian mythos, it uses it as a backdrop of young people aspiring to be knights of the round table, and only touches on a few pieces of the actual mythology, which is something a lot of Arthurian tales could learn from. *stares at certain movies that, while very good on their own merits, don't hold up as retellings of King Arthur*  Some of the later episodes(which I believe are early season 2 episodes) are a little too heavy handed in their messages, but I liked it quite a bit and will definately be adding the second set to my collection, when I can.

Currently Watching: Cowboy Bebop(anime, fun but a little too much "style over substance" so far) and Magicians of Love(taiwanese live action series, insnely fun and over the top and I should take a break, but can't seem to)  goal for the week is the rest of those 2(including CB movie) and the oter 2 Audrey Hepburn movies in my backlog.