Over the past week I've been able to watch a lot of movies and a lot of really great ones too. I've been consistent on part of my night time routine being watching a new movie, and there's been a few days where I've watched other movies with Beck or the fam.
The first section of movies were Japanese movies that weren't Kurosawa. The first was Double Suicide by Masashiro Shinoda that was a film adaptation of a bunraku, a puppet play in Japan, and it was fine but nothing great. On the other hand I finally watch House (1977) by Nobuhiko Obayashi which was amazing. I gave it a 5/5 instantly and it ended up changing my top 4 and replacing The Cremator. It was perfectly explain by Beck when he said "it's like old Japanese TV Ads, but if it were a horror movie", which I think sums it up pretty well. It was about a group of friends going to her aunt's house and the house ends up being haunted and bad things happen. It was funny and really entertaining, not so much scary but also it was made in 1977 sooo..... One of my favorites instantly though. My new top 4 are Ikiru, Howl's Moving Castle, High and Low and House (1977), meaning officially all of my top 4 are Japanese films. Another that I watched with Beck and Cailey was Princess Mononoke, by Miyazaki Hayao, and it was really great. Last cel animated film ever and broke the record for most expensive Japanese film (overtaking Ran by Kurosawa) and well worth it, I gave it a 4.5/5.
Another section I watched was American movies, which had one mid and three amazing films. On July 16th we went to Regal and watched The Odyssey in IMAX, which was really loud but super amazing. I gave it a 4.5/5 and all in the family either loved it or still thought highly of it. Overall a great adaptation and I'll need to watch it normally to see the differences. Others I watched this week included The Revenant as mentioned in the previous post, a true story about a guy left for dead who found the people who left him and killed them. It was different than the true story and added more motivation and him targeting a single person instead of the real story where he killed two who left him to die, but still great. A pretty mid movie I watched with Beck was Texas Chain Saw Massacre, there wasn't much to it and a lot a lot of screaming, but Leatherface is still one of the most iconic and one of my favorite designs for a horror character, based on Ed Gein. Probably my favorite in the American section that I watched was American Psycho, specifically I watched the uncut version which didn't add a whole ton, the word hole and two more scenes of his killings. Overall a really great movie, and confused me a bunch with the ending, a 4.5/5 for me. Christian Bale played Patrick Bateman perfectly. I've wanted to read the book for awhile and might pick it up soon, eventually... I'm not great at reading and Cailey well proved her point by reading a 300 page book in one day when I barely finished one in a week lol.
Finally the last section, I watched was a few Kurosawa films this week; Dreams, Madadayo, Rashomon and Sanshiro Sugata. Dreams was easily my favorite and it is simply nine dreams Kurosawa had throughout his life and he just directed them. My dreams are no where near as interesting as his lol. I enjoyed it a lot and gave it a 5/5. Madadayo is what you say when you're not ready in hide and seek in Japan and it is used by a teacher who was holding on and being helpful in Japan during the war after retiring and losing a lot. He starts a Madadayo party and celebrates every year he can hold on. Overall it was a really good movie and a good sentiment and perfect theme for Kurosawa's final film, I gave it a 4/5. Rashomon was about the murder of a husband and rape of his wife and four different people are telling their perspectives about what they saw, a wood cutter (played by my favorite, Shimura Takashi), a burglar (played by another top actor of mine, Mifune Toshiro), the wife and the husband (through a medium cause he's dead). I overall loved the story and perspectives and how they changed and it ends with the wood cutter giving a priest faith in humanity after the trial revealed hidden secret desires, bias and lies in everyone's story. I also loved how you are given all perspectives and led to guess what you think the true story is as it's never directly stated who is telling the truth, I gave it a 4.5/5. The final one I watched was Sanshiro Sugata, his first film which he filmed during WWII (we wasn't conscripted because a doctor deemed him unfit to serve), and he ended up making and releasing this during the war. Sadly a section of about 10 minutes was removed and destroyed because of censorship in Japan after WWII, but some sections were recovered from the original release. It was essentially Karate Kid but in Japan and black and white. Enjoyable and a good start to his career, I gave it a 4/5.
Beck and Cailey both want to watch It's a Wonderful Life, so I've been waiting on them but it's difficult to line up all three schedules, but if we don't figure it out by Monday night I'll make sure I watch it so I can talk to Grandma Arrington about it. Other movies I'm excited for and plan to watch this week are Harakiri with Beck and Jacks, Wolf Children with Cailey maybe, Modern Times by Charlie Chaplin, Silence of the Lambs, and a lot of Kurosawa; The BAD Sleep Well, Rhapsody in August, The Hidden Fortress, Sanjuro, Dersou Uzala, Red Beard and Sanshiro Sugata 2.
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