“Pom Poko” is an utterly original and incredibly odd animated film that’s really not just a fantasy fable, but more of a commentary on society. The raccoons here are more or less their own worst enemies and they can’t even realize it. Rather than focusing on preserving their land, keeping their family from over-populating, and remembering their priorities they’re more concerned with eating, sleeping, and once they grab a hold of a television, they’re more concerned with what’s on than with what’s going on.
Tag Archives: Ghosts
Ringu (Ring) (1998)
Hideo Nakata influenced many a people, from the directors in Asia whom created all sorts of ghost films deriving from “Ringu’s” element with ghosts that are able to come in to our world through electronic devices, to what’s become the norm for Japanese ghosts: the pale girl with long damp black hair. I’m not as big a fan as others when it comes to Japanese horror, but I appreciate half of what we’re introduced to, and “Ringu” is one of those films I appreciate. I just had to see this, basically since I ended up really liking the remake, “The Ring”. Yes, I’m one of those few who enjoyed it. Either way, Nakata’s direction is something that I found to be the most impressive aspect of “Ringu” because the man knows how to mount tension and then alleviate it with a stunning shot to the arm that works.
Comparing "The Haunting" 1963 and 1999: The Superior and the Inferior
There’s that old term that sometimes less is more. Filmmakers subscribe to that theory–well some filmmakers, I mean Michael Bay never met a special effect he didn’t like, and of course there’s porn, but back in the golden age, less was more. With the flick of an eyebrow Greta Garbo made men swoon, with the revealing seductive smile and the flash of a shoulder Rita Hayworth made men literally shiver in their seats. Back then, less was more, and more times than none, back in the golden age of film, many filmmakers thought that less was more. I’m for that theory that sometimes our imagination can do more than an actual picture can do, because nothing can match our own sick imaginations. These days in horror films it’s hard to find a film that subscribes to that theory, let alone be able to exercise it and pull it off.
Constantine (2005)
While I was interested in watching “Constantine”, I didn’t really get what I was expecting. I never once read a comic of “Hellblazer”, but I know the general gist of it, and despite my disappointment with the miscasting of Reeves and the loose adaptation, I did get more than I bargained for. Constantine was essentially a story that takes place in the UK, but despite the Americanization, it ends up becoming a really solid adult thriller in the end. Constantine is a demon fighter who has been diagnosed with cancer and is now seeking to buy his way in to heaven, and through that journey, director Francis Lawrence who is shockingly a music video director, surprisingly gives some grade A direction for what is rightly a stylish yet very murky supernatural thriller.
White Noise (2005)
What a disappointment this was. This had its occasional highs and lows, and when it went low, it went down low to the ground with such an atmosphere of a TV movie when it shouldn’t have been. It constantly shuffles back and forth between sleek horror to watered down thriller again and again and I just lost patience with it, especially with its slow pacing which was just so frustrating. Nothing really goes on for quite a while pretty often and this never manages to keep our attention to what is happening and gets very boring in certain scenes. With such an original concept, its sad to see that very little originality is present.
The Amityville Horror (2005)
This does have some great elements that is a gleaming example of what this movie could have and should have been per the generous rating. Admittedly, I’m a real fan of Ryan Reynolds. He was good in that crap “Van Wilder”, and he was my favorite aspect of “Blade: Trinity”. He’s a genuinely good actor who has the ability to become one of the many huge over-exposed actors of the time. Reynolds gives a good performance and was convincing, and he’s really menacing when he begins going nuts. There’s a particularly great scene when he’s chopping wood and he’s making his stepson hold the wood and it’s so well directed and edited I was thinking “that’s how this movie should have been!”: tense, gritty, creepy, and just plain character-based.
The Grudge (2004)
The remake of “Ju-On” now called (sigh) “The Grudge” is the perfect example of faulty westernization in which the translated work suffers in the translation and completely misses the point of the original. The original had the surprise ending which makes you re-assert your thoughts on the characters, while the remake has the “You thought the monster was dead, but its not!” ending that I yawned at.