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For some reason, I seem to have seen quite a few of Fran?ɬßois Ozon’s films. 5×2 was the first I managed to see in the theatre. I enjoyed it. It was a bit slow, but all of his films are; he lets his actors and the characters they play shine that way. The performances were very good. Despite this being five scenes about two people, however, Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi as Marion seemed to be the main character.

Ozon uses the “backwards” gimmick here - the scenes (which were kind of like five short films) are shown from last to first. The first of the five scenes shows a couple finalizing the details of their divorce. The first scene shows them at the beginning of showing romantic interest towards each other. He continues his style of using a lot of dialogue as his main technique for furthering the story. Despite the reflex to say “that’s lame”, it actually works. I found myself more interested in what happened before than I usually am about what’s going to happen next. But then again, since I’m seeing it later, I gues it does actually happen next, in a way. Uh oh, I’m talking in circles.

The latest from Fran?ɬßois Ozon, Le Temps qui reste, is one of the films that I am considering screening at the Toronto International Film Festival, which starts next week. It’ll be my first time there, and I’m excited!

Last night I watched Le Fils, directed by Belgium brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne. I thought it was excellent. It is a story about the power of forgiveness and I was genuinely touched. The entire film was shot with hand-held cameras, which mostly followed the main character, Olivier (played by Olivier Gourmet). It must have been an intense exercise for Gourmet, as his movements and body language need, and succeed, to tell us more about his character than the sparse dialogue. You can learn a lot about somebody by staring at their back. There also no music or sound effects.

The story is told slowly but the film does not lag. The interactions between characters is authentic. Their ways of doing and saying things carried the story and developed their characters, as opposed to what they were necessarily doing or saying. Gourmet was perfect as Olivier: he communicated a justifiably curious combination of creepy, contemplative, sad and damaged - I read somewhere that this role was created especially for him (perhaps that is why his given name and the character’s name are the same).

I really had no idea where it was going. At times I thought that he was kind of perverted in his way of looking at women, and then perverted in a different way as he follows around a teenaged boy. There were quite a few times when I thought that something bad was going to happen. I felt as confused as the fictional Olivier surely did. It was riveting and satisfyingly voyeuristic to watch. The story unfolded just slowly enough. The portrayals of a troubled youth and a troubled adult, and each of their questionable need to interact, were strong and real.

Happy Together was my first Wong Kar Wai film and I absolutely loved it. I had seen his name around a lot, and this was the first sent to me of his films that I have Zipped. It premiered at Cannes in 1997 and earned Wong the Best Director Award.

Apparently, Wong belongs to Hong Kong’s Second New Wave. Great, another “wave” for me to learn about. Anyway, the camera work was amazing. The actors were intense and riveting to watch. He switched a few times from black & white to color (I’d like to state my theory about why he did this, but I don’t want to be wrong). The picture was often grainy and bleak. There isn’t much story, but through the actors’ performances and his directing style, Wong gives us a stark and convincing portrayal of isolation, intimacy, disorientation and companionship.

I loved this movie and I can’t wait to see more. Oh, I just realized that I have also seen his contribution to BMW Film’s The Hire - a piece entitled The Follow.

I watch a lot of movies, but after watching Les quatres cents coups (The 400 Blows) (Fran?ɬßois Truffaut) last night, I realized that I still have a lot to learn. For example, I actually had to look up “New Wave French Cinema” to see what the big deal was about this film. I mean, I loved it, but I didn’t realize why it was so “influential”. It turns out that this was one of the first, and therefore definitive, films in the style of la Nouvelle Vague.

I thought this was a brilliant film. The characters, dialogue, improvisations, sound, long shots, etc. were all captivating and entirely fulfilling. I can’t remember what led me to add it to my Ziplist, but I’m very glad that I happened upon this first installment of “The Adventures Of Antoine Doinel“.

My friend Jay says that this is “the perfect Jason Chu movie”, but I don’t know what that means…

I’ve heard a lot about it, so I figured it was worth a trip to Bay Video to rent Koroshiya 1 (Ichi the Killer) (Takashi Miike). A few days ago I watched Gozu, and wanted to see what Miike’s most popular film was all about. All I knew to expect was a lot of graphic violence… and I definitely got it.

I’m pretty desensitized to violence, but every once in a while I find myself putting my hands in front of my face and peering through my fingers. That happened once in this movie (the last time it happened was, embarassingly, in Ginger Snaps). So, yeah, There’s a lot of graphic violence, but it was great! It was also a nice little psychological thriller.

Miike’s style is very slick. I love Tarantino’s Kill Bill Vol. 1 (I hated Vol. 2) and it was interesting to see where he got some of his visuals from.

Gozu. Hmm. The only other Takashi Miike film that I’ve seen is ?É‚Äùdishon (Audition) (1999), and they are both pretty screwed up.

Miike cites David Lynch as one of his influences, and I can totally see it - what’s interesting is that I don’t like Lynch, but so far I do like Miike. Anyway, I read the essay on the DVD after watching the film, and there was no way that I would have been able to identify all of the references he makes throughout it. For example, I’d never actually heard the term yakuza, but now I know that I’ve seen a bunch of these such Japanese gangster movies. I ‘m also not familiar with the many Buddhist references that appeared throughout the film.

It was fun to watch. Creepy, but not scary. It seemed to be very tongue-in-cheek in regards to genre and style. It’s always nice to see a director having fun while making a movie. One of the first pieces of dialogue is a character saying something like, “Don’t take anything that I’m going to say seriously.” I think that was Miike telling us, through one of his characters: to sit back and relax, and allow him to have his fun.

After many years of recommendations, I finally sat down and watched Wonder Boys (Curtis Hanson). I don’t really have much to say about it, except that I liked it. I didn’t find the character development to be exceptionally deep, but there was definitely enough to give the actors something to work with (which they did). Anyway, it was a dark comedy/coming-of-age story that was pretty enjoyable to watch.

I laughed out loud a few times. Tobey Maguire’s character was both pathetic and comical. Michael Douglas’ was quirky and messed-up, and it was morbidly fun to watch his circumstances go from bad to worse (I would have liked to know a bit more about his book, “The Arsonist’s Daughter”, though). Katie Holmes’ part was thankfully small. Also, I think this is the first Robert Downey Jr. movie that I have ever seen, except for Natural Born Killers, which I have blocked from memory.

I saw War Of The Worlds (Steven Spielberg) on its opening weekend. Thinking back, the only think I can remember about the movie is the Ben Sherman jacket that Justin Chatwin was wearing. Oh, and that it was bad.

This movie sucked. I’m not sure how I came across this one on Zip, but ?ɂǨ cause d’un gar?ɬßon (You’ll Get Over It) (Fabrice Cazeneuve) should never have been on my list. It was really boring and full of ridiculously clich?ɬ© dialogue. I can’t believe I even sat through the whole thing. Thank God for the FF button. The subtitles are imprinted on the picture, so unfortunately I didn’t miss any of the idiotic dialogue.

I saw Me and You and Everyone We Know (Miranda July) at the Bayview Village Alliance Atlantis theatre last weekend. I was curious about it after reading the cover article in this year’s spring issue of Filmmaker Magazine. I’d never heard of July, but apparently some people have…? Anyway, it was supposed to be a big deal that she wrote, directed and starred in this movie, so I thought it was worth checking out. It received an “orginality of vision” prize at Sundance, and the Camera d’Or (best first-time feature film) and Critics’ Prize at Cannes. I also wanted to see it because I’d heard that it was controversial, and I’m definitely a sucker for that.

This movie is another one of those “watch how random peoples’ lives intersect”, which I think she manages to pull off (unlike other recent movies such as Heights, which was borderline silly). At first I didn’t know what to think, but as I’ve thought about it off and on over the past week, I have come to feel quite warmly about it. The characters are extremely different from each other, but seem quite real. She deals frankly with issues like love, death, sexual curiousity, innocence and isolation, but doesn’t come across as being exploitative or inappropriate.

She also follows through with her film’s title. Every character in this neighborhood is linked and, knowingly or not, they form a symbiotic community. We see her characters seeking to learn about themselves and the world by pushing their way into personal interactions that may be outside of their normal range. It is both inspiring and frightening, though, when you think about where some of those interactions can lead - but that’s real life, right?