So here’s Tommy’s list of the top ten films of 2009. No annotations, so you’ll just have to listen to the podcast to hear his thoughts. For just the list, jump in.

10. Mesrine: Killer Instinct

9. Red Cliff Part One

8. The Hurt Locker

7. Moon

6 . Zombieland

5. District 9

4. Star Trek

3. (500) Days of Summer

2. Up

1. The Wrestler

So our first year of podcasting has gone and ended on us and we finish as we began, with a list of the ten best films of 2009. Has it been a great year? ‘Great’ is so subjective, but it has been a fascinating one, a year which sees the film world on the cusp of huge change and transition, one which seemed filled with movies that represented some of the intrepid yet nervous spirit of the new, called it the ‘Obama Generation’. Anyway, please listen on and hear our favourites of the year, and look out in the coming week for our favourite films of the decade.

Download The Movie Overdose – Best of 2009

Zoe Saldana in Avatar

Hype for film technological breakthroughs is apparently still what leads us into the cinema these days… next to word-of-mouth, of course.  Fortunately for Avatar (2009), it has both – its opening weekend has easily smashed all existing box office records for a 3D film, and has its eyes on taking the top spot overall.  A strong opening weekend is perhaps to be expected, however, for a film that reputedly cost half a billion dollars to make and distribute.  Lumbering James Cameron behemoths like Terminator 2 (1991) or Titanic (1997) were also very profitable gambles in this respect – the former was effectively one long chase scene that demonstrated how the latest CGI could be mobilized to tap into white American male emotion, the latter a five-act tragedy that tapped into white American female emotion.  Cameron’s films are the kinds of films people see more than once:  they tug on enough emotional strings to produce occasional vertiginous feelings while keeping the visual effects rolling to catch your heart at the next turn in the plot.  His films are effective because they are affective, his plots predictable but oh-so “classic,” his high concepts putting even Steven Spielberg’s successes with Jaws (1975) and E.T. (1982) to shame.  Avatar is no exception.

So why didn’t this latest film, which was up my alley in terms of its sci-fi premise, colonial struggles and gratuitous deployment of mecha, bowl me over as it did countless cinema-goers?

Because I saw John Woo’s Red Cliff (2009) first.

******THE SPOILER BOUNDARY — YOU’VE BEEN WARNED ******

Chiling Lin in Red Cliff

“What?!” you exclaim. “But Avatar was so awesome!  All the special effects majors (save Pixar) put their heart and soul into it:  Digital Domain, Industrial Light and Magic, and Weta Digital.  It’s in 3D and looks gorgeous.  Sure, the plot is clichéd, but what plot isn’t?  It totally has a subversive message against colonialism and the exploitation of our Earth.  This is the future of filmaking.  You’re living in the past, man.”

Gentle reader, Avatar itself is definitively a construct of the past:  James Cameron actually wrote the treatment back in 1994, but shelved it until 2006 out of film-technological concerns.  This means that those who are making Dances of Wolves (1993), Pocahontas (1995) and *ahem* FernGully: The Last Rainforest (1992, see also 20th Century Fox, Avatar’s distributor) comparisons with the film hit the nail on the head:  Avatar has much more to do with those “going native” narratives than, say, the postcolonial violence depicted in District 9 (2009).  It lives and breathes the multiculturalism of the early 90s, rather than the stale air of globalization and colonial legacies of asymmetrical exploitation in places like South Africa, Israel/Palestine or Pakistan.  As an “adult fairytale,” it offers an almost suffocating sense of nostalgia for the days when we audiences were just starting to think about things like the environment and social inequalities of race/class/gender in terms of mainstream action.

Despite the principal emphasis of all reviewers on the film as an “effects achievement,” I find its major successes to be located in its subtext rather than its revolutionary 3D stereoscopic cameras, etc.  Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) as a believably stubborn handicapped marine.  Three strong women characters – Saldana’s Neytiri, Sigourney Weaver’s Grace and Michelle Rodriguez’ Trudy – give the viewers a variety of models of positive femininity.  Neytiri even manages to save our hero protagonist’s life twice at the end, though the other two women have to die in “exchange.”  The map the Colonel (Stephen Lang) puts on the wall of the gathering tribes reminded me of the animated map at the beginning of Fritz Hippler’s Nazi propaganda film Feldzug in Polen (1940), in which the gathering Nav’i armies seem like a bacteria or disease encroaching on the borders of “civilization.”  The implication that the neural network established throughout Pandora was in many ways more advanced than the artificial networks generated by man is a pleasant and original fantasy in our Internet era.

All of this subtlety (which I assume emerged because there were many intelligent people working on this project) proved fragile, however, against the blubber-filled weight of the film’s Hollywood exportable aesthetics and the Campbellian three-act screenplay.  Complex institutions such as colonizing empires are reduced to simplistic, one-dimensional characters: the greedy project organizer (Giovanni Ribisi — capitalism/corporations), the bloodthirsty colonel (military) and the aloof xenologist (science).  The viewers are delivered the biotopia with the exotic landscapes and species without being in the dubious position of conqueror/explorer (since Jake Sully feels bad and changes sides).  And most importantly, the resistance strategies offered by the film are reduced to A) global solidarity among the Nav’i tribes, B) heroic sacrifice by noble savages with their bows and arrows, C) the hero happens to be *sigh* the Chosen One and D) Pandora puts nature itself as a weapon at the heroes’ disposal.  Aptly put, we are given the feeling of resistance to imperialism without being given any of the methods, beyond the magic of Hollywood.

Why Red Cliff is Better

Red Cliff is a better film than Avatar because it is a bountiful wealth of said resistance methods (though – fear not! – John Woo loved Avatar).  Woo’s first directorial effort in China since Hard Boiled (1992) tells the famous Romance of the Three Kingdoms historical epic through the eyes of two of its master strategist heroes – Zhou Yu (Tony Leung Chiu Wai) and Zhuge Liang (Takeshi Kaneshiro) – as they lead a desperate battle against the invading armies of the fearless Cao Cao (Fengyi Zhang).  At a fifth of Avatar’s reported price-tag ($80 million), the film was nevertheless the most expensive Asian film to date and not the least bit short (runtime 238 min., cut down to 148 min. for international release) to boot.  Budget spent in Avatar on obscenely high-tech effects was deployed toward armies of hundreds of extras and several expensive-looking fight sequences.  Nevertheless, Red Cliff’s visuals in 2D look equally stunning as Avatar’s in 3D.  This is to say – using Peter Wuss’ PKS model – the films stand toe-to-toe with each other in terms of perception-leading structures, which leave us with narrative-leading and stereotype-leading structures to differentiate the films (Don’t get me started on stereotypes in Avatar).  Whereas Avatar insists on narrative-leading structures that produce affect against the backdrop of unreflected war imagery (i.e., destruction of home-tree, the final air battle sequence, etc.), Red Cliff seeks narrative-leading structures that both engage the intellect and produce affect against war itself.

Yes, Red Cliff is an anti-war movie in a way that Avatar cannot possibly be.  Significant screen-time is spent discussing strategy for many decisive battles, and such discussions lead directly into intellectual engagement with the battle sequences:  how does one beat an overwhelming enemy?  What formations are to be used?  Why will atmospheric conditions shift the conflict one way and not another?  Like Howard Hawks before him, Woo concentrates his films on professionals who are forced into the greatest professional challenge of their lives.  Whereas Avatar persists with visually articulated moralizing discourses about native populations and environmental exploitation, Red Cliff takes discourse of oppressor/oppressed as a given and instead preoccupies itself with the material waging of war.  The anti-war message is imparted by Tony Leung’s beautifully tragic facial expressions as he watches his strategies work.  Rather than reducing all characters to multi-dimensional heroes and one-dimensional villains who are justified in killing each other over their respective moral principles, all of the violence crossing the screen in Red Cliff comes with a moral price tag.  Clashes of civilizations transform into precisely the relationship of symbiotic violence portrayed in the hunting rituals of the Nav’i (that is then abandoned in favor of the action movie/revenge motif).  Resistance is not mythical and leap-of-faith efforts, but intellectual work.

All of this ranting and raving is, of course, intended to get you to see Red Cliff, or at least think about it as you fork over $14 for your 3D ticket.  If you’re seeing Avatar for its fantastic visuals, then by all means go and enjoy the colors.  But if you’re looking for a solid story that offers a moral perspective on current events, China has beaten the USA/UK/New Zealand conglomerate at a fifth the price.

A scene of majesty and dignity from Red Cliff as Lin Chiling approaches Zhang Fengyi's headquarters.

(Magnet) Tony Leung, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Chang Chen, Zhao Wei, Hu Jun, Zhang Fenyi, Lin Chiling, Shido Nakamura, You Yong, Ba Sen Zha Bu, Hou Yong, Philip Hersh (voice), Jiang Tong, Song Jia, Tong Dawei. Directed by John Woo

Chinese history is a rich and varied one, which sadly remains largely unknown in the West. One of the great events in the history of China is the Battle of Red Cliff, which took place in 209 AD during the Han Dynasty.

Cao Cao (Fenyi) is the ruthless and ambitious Prime Minister of the Han Dynasty. He has quelled rebel warlords in Northern China, successfully reuniting territory that had been fractured under years of ineffectual rule. He is the de facto ruler of China; even the Emperor quails before him. He has turned his sights to the South and two warlords who he feels are a threat to his agenda – the usurpation of the thrown for himself.

Liu Bei (Yu Yong) has been spectacularly unsuccessful as a warlord, losing battle after battle. Sun Quan is an ambitious but inexperienced ruler whose advisors have constantly counseled against battle, leading to a wide perception that Sun Quan is a coward. Cao Cao is unimpressed with either; he snorts derisively “When a loser joins forces with a coward, what can be accomplished?” at the thought of the alliance between the two squabbling Southerners.

In truth, the alliance between the two falls into his plans perfectly, giving him the excuse to invade the South. In a skirmish against Liu Bei, Liu Bei’s army is decimated, although in fairness he leaves them on the battlefield long enough to protect the civilian population of the area to flee, at the cost of his wife who dies during the conflict. Bei, knowing he cannot stand against the vast army of Cao Cao (which is said to number over 800,000) alone, sends his military strategist Zhuge Liang (Kaneshiro) to entreat Sun Quan to join forces. As expected, Sun Quan’s ministers are advising him to surrender. Liang however decides on a different route of persuasion; he wins the heart and mind of Zhou Yu (Leung), the mightiest warrior in the South and something of a mentor to Sun Quan. Zhou Yu is also married to Xiao Qiao (Chiling), a renowned beauty whom Cao Cao has had a crush on for many years.

Zhuge Liang and Zhou Yu bond over a mutual love of music and the alliance is joined. The two armies encamp at a place called Red Cliff near the Yangtze River. In the meantime, Cao Cao’s flotilla approaches. Destiny awaits the victor and China one way or another will never be the same.

Director John Woo made his reputation directing action films in Hong Kong back in the ‘80s and early ‘90s before departing for a celebrated career in Hollywood, which includes such titles as Mission: Impossible II, Face Off and Broken Arrow. He has rarely attempted period dramas before and certainly none on this scale, but he pulls it off like he’s channeling Cecil B. deMille. The most expensive movie produced in Asia to date, it has been a monster hit in China, released a la Kill Bill in two parts.

The battle sequences are absolutely amazing. Soldiers march in formations with shields interlocked to protect from arrows which rain down from the sky in a downpour of death. Fire is used in spectacular fashion, rolling across ships and men in waves. Visually, this is eye candy of the highest order.

The friendship of Zhou Yu and Zhuge Liang are at the center of the story and Kaneshiro and Leung have chemistry that works – call it “bromistry” if you like. They seem to genuinely like each other and that shows onscreen. Chiling makes a marvelous Helen of Troy sort, beautiful, alluring and graceful – I can see where Cao Cao might invade for her sake (as is implied).

Western audiences may have difficulty keeping all the characters straight – there are a whole lot of them and their names can be similar. Woo says he based the movie on the more historically accurate “Records of Three Kingdoms” (a document written in the 3^rd century chronicling events beginning with the battle) rather than the popular 14^th century Chinese novel “Romance of the Three Kingdoms” which is more familiar to the Chinese people and helped make the battle a major part of Chinese folklore, not unlike how Homer’s “Odyssey” did the same for the siege of Troy in the West.

The Western release was culled down from nearly four and a half hours of the two Chinese volumes into a two and a half hour epic. I started to get restless with about 20 minutes to go in the movie; it is a little long trying to set the stage for the events but quite frankly once it gets into the battle scenes (which are wall to wall starting with the second act), the movie hums along at a blistering pace.

Those who miss movies like Ben-Hur and Lawrence of Arabia will be sated with this. Beautifully shot with the Chinese eye for gracefulness and color, the movie appeals on a great many levels. There are some very humorous sequences (such as Zhuge Liang’s ingenious method of acquiring arrows) and some romantic ones between Zhou Yu and Xiao Qiao. Still, this is the kind of movie that will thrill you even if you have a distaste for subtitles.

REASONS TO GO: This is the kind of epic that is rarely made these days. The battle sequences are nothing short of astonishing and reason enough to see the movie by themselves. Leung and Kaneshiro make appealing leads.

REASONS TO STAY: It can be difficult to tell one character apart from another given Western unfamiliarity with Chinese names and the fairly large set of major characters. The movie is about 20 minutes too long.

FAMILY VALUES: There’s a good deal of battlefield bloodiness.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The Chinese Army lent over 100,000 soldiers to work as extras in the battle scenes.

HOME OR THEATER: While this might be hard to find in theaters, do seek it out – given the epic scale it deserves the presentation that a big screen affords.

FINAL RATING: 8/10

TOMORROW: Invictus

Oh John Woo.

Once the greatest Hong Kong director in decades churning out masterpieces like The Killer and Hard Boiled he was lured away to Hollywood where he thought international stardom would come.  It did of course, but at a cost.  Soon he discovered that the kind of violence shown in his works were tied by rules in the west and, add to that, a Chinese director making Chinese films in the style of American movies was a stroke of genius, a Chinese director making Amerinca movies in the style of American movies quite frankly proved to be shit.  With the exception of Face Off (no damn you it’s a work of art) he created flop after flop (with even the successful films being utterly embarrassing - MI:2 I’m looking at you) and it was no surprise when he packed his bags and returned home.

So Red Cliff eh?  What do we have here?  Well on first glance it seems like another visual and heart breaking stunner in the vein of Crouching Tiger, Hero or House of the Flying Daggers.  But whilst the afore mentioned films were poetic sombre and dream like this is… well… this is John fucking Woo baby!

Expect to see explosions, slow motion, people jumping from horses whilst (oh yes) firing their bow and arrows.  Expect to see some enjoyable plot twists an utterly evil bad guy (starting a war so he can seduce a for’s wife) and finally, expect to see a dual wielding hero.  DO NOT expect to see John Travolta or Nic Cage.

Unfortunately usual Woo cohort Chow Yun Fat dropped out in pre production (due to contractual disagreements with the suits) but was replaced by the always awesoem  Tony Leung and he plays the part with the same charm that you’d expect from the absent Hard Boiled star.

Red Cliff itself is a visual explosion.  Huge numbers of extras on screen reinforces its ‘epic’ intentions and the score and sound effects are sub bass woofer awesome.  The acting is top notch and, though the plot is complex (the western version of the film is two feature length parts combined into one) it’s consistently intriguing and the direction relentless.  However John Woo’s first Chinese film since 1992 falls just short of being a masterpiece.

Red Cliff is at times rather confusing.  Very similar names make large sections of conversation seem like we’re talking about one person to learn later we were discussing another.  The nature of battle, unless you’re having two men running at each other whilst sticking to the same side of the screen, is always a bit hard to follow and, as this makes up 70 percent of the movie and consists of tens of thousands of soldiers hacking at each other, Red Cliff’s epic battles often wash over you.

Regardless it’s hard not to love this film.  It’s both an ancient China epic and a John Woo movie… and even better – this crazy combination actually works.

4 out of 5

Invictus

Morgan Freeman & Matt Damon in Invictus

The Princess and the Frog

Anika Noni Rose & Bruno Campos in The Princess and the Frog

Zac Efron & Claire Danes

Me and Orson Welles

Zac Efron & Claire Danes in Me and Orson Welles

Up in the Air

George Clooney & Vera Farmiga in Up in the Air

Everybody’s Fine

Robert De Niro & Drew Barrymore in Everybody’s Fine

Brothers

Tobey Maguire & Jake Gyllenhaal in Brothers

Transylmania

Jennifer Lyons & Oren Skoog in Transylmania

The Maid

Catalina Saavedra & Mariana Loyola in The Maid

Red Cliff

Tony Leung & Takeshi Kaneshiro in Red Cliff

Ninja Assassin

Rain & Naomie Harris in Ninja Assassin

The Road

Viggo Mortensen & Kodi Smit-McPhee in The Road

Fantastic Mr. Fox

George Clooney & Meryl Streep in Fantastic Mr. Fox

Old Dogs

John Travolta & Robin Williams in Old Dogs

The Twilight Saga: New Moon

Kristen Stewart & Robert Pattinson in The Twilight Saga: New Moon

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans

Nicolas Cage & Eva Mendes in Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans

The Messenger

Ben Foster & Woody Harrelson in The Messenger

The Blind Side

Sandra Bullock & Tim McGraw in The Blind Side

INVICTUS

(Warner Brothers) Matt Damon, Morgan Freeman, Tony Kgoroge, Patrick Mofokeng, Matt Stern, Julian Lewis Jones, Adjoa Andoh, Marguerite Wheatley. Directed by Clint Eastwood

After the election of Nelson Mandela, the newly elected President of South Africa faced a Herculean task of reuniting a country divided upon racial lines for so long. He recognized the bonding power and sport and picked the national rugby team as a means of bringing both black and white together. This true story is the latest Oscar contender for director Clint Eastwood.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Rating: PG (for brief strong language)

The Princess and the Frog

(Disney) Featuring the voices of Anika Noni Rose, Terrence Howard, John Goodman, Oprah Winfrey. The latest animated film from Disney is a reworking of the fairy tale that has a frog that is a prince. Set in turn of the century New Orleans, this is the first Disney film to feature an African-American princess and features music from Oscar-winning composer Randy Newman.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Rating: G

Red Cliff

(Magnet) Tony Leung, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Chang Chen, Zhao Wei. Acclaimed action John Woo returns to his homeland for his first film there in more than a decade, taking on an epic historic battle nearly two thousand years ago that shaped the history of China and would mark the end of the Han Dynasty. More than a million soldiers took part in the battle and Woo’s recreation of it would be the most expensive film ever made in Asia – and also the most popular.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Rating: R (for sequences of epic warfare)

Up in the Air

(Paramount) George Clooney, Vera Farmiga, Jason Bateman, Anna Kendrick. In this new film by the director of Juno and Thank You for Smoking, Clooney portrays a corporate hatchet man, a consultant hired by big companies to inform employees they’ve been let go. He loves his life on the road and detests being home but changes and cutbacks at his firm may force him to return to home permanently just as he is approaching a frequent flyer milestone. This will be opening wide on Christmas Day but is opening on a limited basis in select theaters this week.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Rating: R (for language and some sexual content)

Reality

I figured a blog after a month was sufficient suspense for the world.  Summarized below are some of my experiences, assembled from the hazy recesses of my memory.

November 9, 2009: The 20th anniversary of socialism’s unexpected collapse saw Kat and I standing in front of the Brandenburg Gate in the rainy cold from about 5:30 p.m. until about 9:30 p.m., during which time most of what we could see was umbrellas.  Much of the crowd consisted of slightly drunk tourists. The orchestra played a handful of depressing modernist tunes and then the Berliner Luft song, which some people really liked. Then all the world leaders got up and gave trite speeches that amounted to more-or-less the same thing. Lech Walesa got up and struck down part of the “domino wall” they built, but got injured a split second later.  By that point, Kat was wet and freezing, so we tried to go home – to no avail! They had blocked off our subway exit, and they had barricades on every street.  Freedom without walls, my behind!  So we carefully wound our way to Friedrichstrasse to take the S-Bahn home.  The next day, I asked the Berliners at my school what their evening was like: they stayed at home and watched the events on television.

Far less mediocre was the retreat for the HFF Potsdam-Babelsberg retreat to Eberswalde.  The purpose of the retreat was ostensibly to party hard and plan sehsüchte, our student film festival in Potsdam-Babelsberg and the largest of its kind in Europe.  Needless to say, I think we did more of the former than the latter, which gave me a serious headache complex on Saturday.  Despite the aching pains from between my ears, I managed to see the absolutely stunning Brandenburg countryside, which reminded of me of Adventures of Werner Holt or I Was 19 (always DEFA films with me).

The following Friday, our sehsüchte team met at the Kino Arsenal for four hours with, oh, none other than the top figures of the Berlinale.  This seems like a once-in-a-lifetime sort of opportunity for me, so I feel like a thorough description is in order.  We first spoke with Dieter Kosslick, director of the entire festival, about financing the Berlinale via the KVB (Kulturveranstaltung des Bundes Berlin) and how one must maintain financial control to survive as an institution.  He then described the Berlinale under Moritz de Hadeln (1980-2001) as organized like a “Stalinist hierarchy” (ouch!) and bid that we spread responsibility for our festival evenly amongst ourselves.  Some fun facts about the Berlinale I learned:  from about 5,700 films submitted, only 350 are accepted for the festival (and the submission fee is non-refundable, naturally); no films between 30 and 60 minutes in length are eligible; there are over 800 official festival guests, but 21,000 accreditations given out … including those for over 4,000 journalists; the Berlinale will be converting to a full HD festival, meaning everything will be projected within 3-4 years as JPEG2000.  Then we spoke with Thomas Hailer (Program Manager), Karin Hoffinger (Program/International Relations), André Stever (Film Materials), Maryanne Redpath (Generation – kids program), Christina Szápáry (Event Management), Susanne Willadt (Accreditation) and Frauke Greiner (Press), all one after the other and regarding what their job looks like, etc.  The chief concern that they seem to have in dealing with the Hollywood majors – but also independents – these days is with piracy, namely that the festival screening copy doesn’t fall onto the Internet somehow.  These days, they have orange, satellite-controlled hard-drives that control when movies can be projected from the data held within.  Crazy stuff.

From the Berlinale meeting, I ran over to Kino Babylon on Rosa Luxembourg Platz to attend the DEFA-Stiftung Award Ceremony as the representative of the DEFA Film Library.  There, I saw everybody from the Who’s Who of GDR cinema there – Erika Richter, Wolfgang Kohlhaase, Andreas Voigt, Ralf Schenk – the list just keeps going.  The awards ceremony itself was rather dry – though the great German-language film journal Revolver deservedly won an award – but included a never-before-seen hilarious short about robbers breaking into a symphony orchestra house using the timing of the music being played in the hall itself.  Afterward, I got a chance to have a long conversation with Stefan Kolditz about his father Gottfried, and other topics, and then hit an excellent Vietnamese restaurant down the street with Kat.

On Saturday morning (11/21), we had brunch in Prenzlauer Berg with screenplay author Katharina Reschke and her partner Oliver Schuette, both of whom taught at Grinnell College for a stint.  The weather was so nice that the whole population of Prenzlauer Berg seemed to be outside to enjoy the sun.  Then we followed the brunch with preparations for a dinner with Luisa Greenfield and Ming Tsao, which was both tasty and highly polemic.

The following Tuesday was the release party of HFF teaching assistant Tobias Ebbrecht’s book DDR erinnern – vergessen.  Okay, so it wasn’t so much a party as it was a roundtable discussion between Tobias, Ralf Forster, Peter Badel and Helke Misselwitz about making documentaries in the GDR.  I think the takeaway points were that they missed the kind of cohesive teamwork one found in film production under socialism, and that whatever anyone says about their work, they made films and those films are well-archived for future generations.

That Wednesday night, Moderat (Modeselektor + Apparat + Pfadfinderei) were throwing their last concert ever in the Astra Kulturhaus in Berlin … and I had to go!  I managed to get my ticket at a discount thanks to some generous scalpers, and then joined the 2,000+ throng of excited Berliners willing to sweat their way through the evening.  What a concert too – they played three encores, even though they’d run out of material!

On Saturday, the Medienwissenschaft students and I were charged with the interesting task of standing by the 3D cinema in the Zoo Palast and ask the incoming patrons why they chose to pay more for the 3D version of A Christmas Carol than simply see the 2D version.  Confronting random Germans with a questionnaire as a foreigner was certainly awkward, but somehow enjoyable.

For Thanksgiving, Kat and I actually decided to take the night off from cooking (which we do with great frequency) and went to the Ypsilon, a Greek restaurant around the corner.  We had fried cheese and mussels to our heart’s content, and it was a lovely time overall.  On Black Friday, we headed to Ming and Luisa’s for a film night – Jean-Pierre Gorin’s Poto and Cabengo (1980) and Jean-Luc Godard’s France/tour/detour/deux/enfants (1977) – about children.  It seemed appropriate to depart said film screening and head to the 80s Night/Terror wave Party held near Jannowitz Brücke.  Awesome music (Soft Cell, New Order and all those folks) swept us away, though we were rather impressed by the fact that Germans tend to dance as if they were in their own isolated bubble/little world… as opposed to the American “bump n’ grind” style that plagues us all.

To counteract the Goth and Terror of the previous evening, we attended the Thanksgiving at the American Church in Berlin.  Even if given the opportunity to do it again, I wouldn’t.  The event was logistically poorly organized (over 1.5 hours waited to get our food… and they ran out of many things), expensive and not at all filled with English-speakers, as it turned out.  The weekend was much improved by a visit to the Jewish Museum the following day:  the exhibits were extensively researched and completely fascinating in every way.  One might say that the architecture of the building itself speaks volumes.

I saw Volker Koepp, another DEFA documentarist, at a Humboldt University talk.  Students tried to tell him his films were obscure and needed to be better advertised, to which he responded that he was both a prolific and internationally recognized filmmaker.  It made all the work on his and others’ behalf at the DEFA Film Library seem worth it right there and then.

One side effect of the awful Thanksgiving was that it alerted us to a FREE opportunity to see the inside of the Berliner Dom:  an English/German Christmas service, complete with singing.  The Berliner Dom is certainly a monument to Protestantism if I’d ever seen one, with statues of Protestant resisters such as Luther looking patriarchally down upon the parishioners.

My first visit to the Filmmuseum Potsdam Sammlungen department yielded a wealth of information on Gottfried Kolditz – so much that I had to make another trip there the following week.  Creepily enough, I think I read his last diary entry before he died, and he died a few months before I was born. Hm?

The Berliner Staatsoper became an agenda item, so we found ourselves watching a thoroughly modern performance of Johann Strauss’ Die Fledermaus from the 4th row after paying very little.  I was glad for this fact, because I felt like the modern staging screwed with the fantasy elements inherent in the masquerade ball, though I liked (as always) the jail guard Frosch in the third Act, especially as a former GDR flunkie.

That Friday night saw Kat and I attending the weekly shindig held at the Another Country bookstore in Kreuzberg, an English-language bookstore known by every English-speaking expatriate in the city.  We spent an embarrassingly long time glued to the projector screen, watching the second season of The Restaurant, a “coaching” genre reality show from the UK where Raymond Blanc and other judges evaluate pairs of amateur restauranteurs making a go of it.  Beautifully shot and definitely intended for foodies, there were enough characters to sustain long-term interest.

And this week it rained a lot, we held a baking party on Thursday, and Kat and I ordered our tickets to go to Prague for Christmas.

Summary finished, folks.  Was it digestible?  Can I be “digested?”  Yum!

Fantasy

Let me preface this by saying I’ve seen far more movies than this over the past month, but too many titles are swirling around in my head to thoroughly document it in this forum.  THIS is a small selection of some notables:

Dreams that Money Can Buy (dir. Hans Richter, USA 1948)

Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray, Ferdinand Léger, Hans Richter … the great modernists of the early 20th Century went ahead and made a film.  A work of surrealism that keeps its tongue firmly in cheek, Dreams that Money Can Buy is about a guy who can sell people dreams out of this dark apartment.  Hilarity and trippy sequences ensue.

Red Cliff (dir. John Woo, China 2009)

The best film of the year, hands-down.  A condensed 138 minute version of the four-hour epic based on the Romance of the Three Kingdoms literature, Red Cliff is (despite any cuts) John Woo’s finest cinematic achievement.  Ask me more and I’ll tell you.

Every once in a while, a movie comes along that takes the visual depiction of battle to a new level (Braveheart, Saving Private Ryan).  John Woo’s epic film, Red Cliff, does just that. Based on the actual Battle of Red Cliffs (see the Red Cliff Wiki here) that took place in the winter 208 CE, the film depicts the conflict between northern Chinese Prime Minister Cao Cao, and a coalition of southern forces led by Liu Bei and Sun Quan. While fact and fiction undoubtedly blur, the film is based on Records of Three Kingdoms, which provides a more historical view of the epic battle than that depicted in the novel, Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Its American distributor is Magnolia Pictures who kindly sent me a review copy last week.

This film demands your full attention. It depicts both land-based and naval warfare in an age when weapons included sword and shield, bow and arrow, spear, and fire bombs. Woo went BIG in imagery and battle size. Cao Cao was reported to have brought 800,000 soldiers to invade the south on twently thousand ships so Woo used Army soldiers to supplement extras. Animators did the rest. Those interested in the animation techniques used in creation of the film will find interesting Bill Desowitz’s article “The Battle of Red Cliff — John Woo Style!,” on the Animation World Network here. Pay particular attention to the Tortoise Shell Formation battle (below), one of the highlights of the film.

Turtle Formation Battle Scene

Animator’s also created the immense fleet of ships on which Cao Cao transported his army south. The climatic naval battle is beyond anything I’ve seen on film. Your attention is also required because the film, made in Mandarin, uses English subtitles that are occasionally difficult to see.

Red Cliff Trailer from Magnolia Pictures

Wildly popular in China since its 2008 release, Red Cliff is now available to American audiences in select theaters and through video on demand (VOD) in a abridged format (the original film is in two parts and runs over four hours).

The cast, while perhaps less familiar to American audiences, includes some of the most popular actors on the planet.

Zhang Feng-Yi (Prime Minister Cao Cao)
Tony Leung Chiu-Wai (Strategist and warrior Zhou Yu (Ye))
Takeshi Kaneshiro (Shu strategist Zhuge Liang)
Yong You (Liu Bei)
Chang Chen (Sun Quan)
Vicky Zhao Wei (Wu princess Sun Shang Xiang)
Lin Chi-Ling (Zhou Yu’s wife, Xiao Qiao)
Shido Nakamura (Gan Xing) [also appeared in Letters from Iwo Jima]
Hu Jun (Zao Yun)

HIGHLY RECOMMEND

Ha-so

Jonah started me thinking about this yesterday due to the presence of that overblown shitfest Hero on his list of Asian films of the decade.  Which can be found here, and is up to his usual high standards. Go and read it.

While I do have to agree with some of them, others (fucking Hero) wouldn’t get within a thousand miles of mine, and as he challenged me to put up or shut up, here’s my top 10 of the decade:

*edit* Firstly, I’m kicking off with this- it got it’s UK release in 2000, but was apparently 1999 so is borderline for selection-

Audition (2000)

If you really must do Torture Porn (and believe me, I’d rather you didn’t) then this is how you do it. I normally don’t like Miike, because I think he just does twisted for the sake of being twisted, but when he gets it right, this is the result. Nightmare inducing stuff in a grim and depressing but all to realistic setting. Some great performances and a slow burn pace help this film lacerate your cortex and I guarantee that it will stay with you long after you turn it off.

“Kiri-kiri-kiri” indeed and a warning to all the lonely fuckers out there about the dangers of online dating- you could end up in a burlap sack with no feet, no tongue and needles sticking out of places that needles really aren’t meant to go.

Now, the list proper:

10) The Good, The Bad and The Weird (2009)

An Asian version of a spaghetti western. Which is appropriate considering that Pasta is from the Orient. TGTBATW is a madcap adventure film following the chase by the three titular characters haring around Mongolia after a treasure map. Great fun, smashing action, a few genuine moments of comedy and worth a look by anyone.

Furthermore, the cinematography and score are marvelous. It may owe more than a passing nod to Sergio Leone, but I just don’t care.

If that’s not enough, I’ve just discovered that the lead actors did their own stunts (several of which are extremely risky) which I think just adds to the coolness.

9) Chocolate (2008)

Alright, alright, I know it may be a 2 dimensional moronic plot, and I know that superficial is it’s middle name, but fuck me can she move, and don’t pretend it isn’t funny watching an autistic girl beat people up.

I mean, come on, if you don’t enjoy this then there isn’t a chance that you’re ever going to enjoy martial arts cinema. Extended scenes of ultra-violence married to possibly the stupidest excuse for fighting that I think I’ve ever seen. Breathtaking choreography and damned good fun.

8 ) Infernal Affairs (2004)

Fuck Scorcese, Nicholson, and Maaaaaat Daaaaaaaaamon.

This is the real deal, and the didn’t get within a thousand miles of capturing the awesomeness- tense, taut stuff underpinned by several superb performances (notably Tony Leung) and the ending simply destroys the rubbish nonsense cobbled together in the Boston atrocity.

Infernal Affairs is a mob film of the highest calibre, and worth a place on almost any list.

7) The Host (2006)

A good shout by Jonah, this one. The Host is a thoroughly enjoyable monster movie, with a clever subtext about mass paranoia in the face of the unknown.

Alright, the main character may be a retard, and the whole family may have special skills to help them kill the beast, but fuck it, I don’t care. This film is worth it’s place on the list just for the scene with the monster exploding out of the river and ravaging the poeple on the bank- exciting, kinetic, clear- and miracle of miracles, they held the camera steady.

Top drawer.

6)Oldboy (2003)

Again, another one from Jonah’s list, but personally, I think it’s the weakest of the 3 Vengeance films- I love the trilogy so much I’m including all of them.

Having said that, Chan Wook Park’s middle film is still a mighty grand guignol of concentrated nastiness and the scene where he eats the live octopus makes me feel ill even writing about it.

The best news I heard in yonks was when this slipped through Spielberg’s fingers. He would have ruined it.

And no, for the record, training in a room for 15 years on your own does not give you a coat of invulnerability. You will, in fact, get your arse kicked.

5) Lady Vengeance (2005)

Park didn’t have any difficult 3rd album problems with this one. A storming film- although probably the least complex of the vengeance films, given that the villain clearly deserves it, and the heroine is clearly in the right.

However, having said that, the prison scenes are simply superb charting Gu-eum-ja’s rise up the convict heirarchy to “witch”, and the vengeance sequence itself is downright harrowing.

Beautifully shot, wonderfully scored and about as poetic as a movie about revenge can be. This is how you do vengeance, Tarantino, you talentless fuck.

4) Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance(2002)

Well, I’m nothing if not predictable. However, this is my favourite of the Vengeance trilogy. I actually thought about adding this to my overall top 10, but damn it, there’s other films out there that I like more.

This is, I think, the most complicated of the Vengeance films- it doesn’t take a moral stance at all. I mean, sure, Ryu may have been robbed for a kidney and fired for no reason by President Park but Park isn’t a stereotypical fat cat capitalist bastard. Ryu makes an utter pig’s ear of his extortion plan and the Jacobean everybody croaks ending can be seen coming a mile away.

I read somewhere that the original idea was to fade to black and white half way through the film- what a great idea. Pity they didn’t do it.

I find it a real shame  that this film is largely forgotten due to the profile of it’s successor, but for me this is one of the finest films of the decade.

3) Red Cliff (2008)

See, John Woo hasn’t lost it. America clearly doesn’t suit him, and his massive historical epic is simply fucking magnificent.

Multi-layered stuff, visually stunning, deep, moving and gripping. Of course, my opinion may be coloured by the fact that I knew next to nothing about this period of Chinese History.

The ubiquitous Tony Leung once again excells, but he’s hardly alone. Watch and marvel at a master’s return to form.

But for fuck’s sake see the full length Red Cliff- avoid the truncated American version.Why they insist on doing this is a fucking mystery to me.

2) Daisy (2006)

This makes my best of the decade list, so I’m not going in to too much detail here. Needless to say, it’s another Korean masterclass. Inexplicaly, and disgracefully, this hasn’t had a UK release, so I can’t tell you to see it (unless you feel like downloading it, or some other such naughtiness, but you wouldn’t do that, would you?) but I can recommend it in the strongest possible terms.

A genuine tragedy with a spellbinding action ending. However, it isn’t the action that keeps you in this- pleasant as it is when it comes. Let me put it this way, Mrs. Jarv cried buckets from about the half way point of this film (and she sat down to watch it grumbling about “more fucking hitmen nonsense”), and she has lent my DVD out all over London. Luckily for her, it hasn’t been damaged.

Daisy is a magical, delightful film that manages to pull a genuine emotional response from the most cynical of viewers.

1) Battle Royale (2001)

Not just my favourite Asian film of the decade, but one of my favourite films of all-time. A blood soaked Lord of the Flies done Japanese style.Another one that I’m not going to go into too much detail about, because it also makes my top 10 of the decade.

Beat Takeshi is on awesome form as teacher Kitano, but the real stars of the piece are the kids- and how they managed to make me give a fuck about almost all of the characters (with the exception of sociopath Kiriyama) is wondrous.

Battle Royale is a tour de force of cinematic violence, even if it was unjustly banned in about 4 countries. However, having said that, what elevates it above the herd is the clever little touches- Kitano’s daughter, for example, is voiced by the sister of lead actress Noriko, thus making her voice somewhat familiar and adding another unnerving edge to Kitano’s obsession.

One more thing, is it wrong to want Mitsuko to win?

That’s my top 10 list, but these are films I considered for it, but didn’t add so I’m giving them all honorouble mentions:

Ong Bak, Ip Man, I’m a Cyborg but I’m Ok, Dumplings, Assembly, Kung Fu Hustle, Invisible Target, Protege, A bittersweet life, The Eye (fuck you all), The Twilight Samurai, Warlords, Mongol, Tale of 2 Sisters and The Clone Returns Home. Brotherhood of  War

Now, Finally, a big FUCK YOU to the worst Asian Film of the decade, and a contender for most offensive sequel of all time:

Battle Royale 2: Requiem

Keeping both the colon and the word Requiem in good stead, this is an utter disgrace. This is the film that holds down it’s predecessor and then takes a massive dump on it. Vile, incomprehensible, loathsome, over the top without being entertaining and Fukusaku Jr needs a thorough bitchslap for defiling his father’s superb original.

Pah, I hate this rubbish.

On that slightly depressing note, I’m off. However, I will return with Best European Films next, then Best American, before doing my definitive top 10 (now that I’ve come to terms with the fact that Avatar isn’t going to be on it).

Ciao

Jarv

PS- I’d also like to thank Hawaiin Organ Donor for turning me on to a lot of this stuff- he can usually be found lurking at Aint it Bale news, and is the nicest miserable bugger I know. Cheers mate.

Michelle Yeoh

by Devindra Hardawar – SlashFilm.com

It doesn’t look like John Woo will be returning to Hollywood anytime soon. After a string of not-so-great Western films, Woo returned to China and delivered the massive two-part epic Red Cliff. I’ve only seen the first film of the Chinese release (haven’t yet seen the condensed most other countries got), and while it certainly isn’t perfect, it towers above anything Woo delivered while in Hollywood. Now we have a first look at his next project, Jianyu Jianghu (also known for now as Rain of Swords In The Pugilistic World), which stars Michelle Yeoh.

John Woo

Woo will be co-directing the film with Su Chao-Bin (Silk, Better Than Sex). They’ll be joined by longtime producer bud Terrence Chang. The cast also includes Chang Chen, Kelly Lin, and Barbie Hsu.

There’s no official English title yet, but I suspect they’ll run with something similar to Rain of Swords. It’s apparently a wuxia film that’s been designed to bring Michelle Yeoh back into the spotlight. Basically, we can expect it to be more like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon than Red Cliff.

The film tells the tale of a retired assassin (Yeoh) who is forced out of her quiet life when her former assassin group comes searching for her. They’re after the remains of the Bodhidharma, which Yeoh’s character is attempting to bring to its proper resting place. To complicate matters, Yeoh’s character learns that her husband is also the son of a man she had previously killed, and that he may also be out for revenge.

Kelly Lin

It will be Chao-bin’s first wuxia project, and he has mentioned in interviews that he’ll be attempting to do something new in the genre—despite the seemingly trite premise. I’ll also be interested to see what Woo does with a straight-up wuxia film.

Amazon Specials!

Director: John Woo

After spending much time in Hollywood (where he completed such pictures as “Face/Off” and “Mission Impossible II”), director John Woo has returned to Asia with his first feature since the early 1990s. The film, “Red Cliff”, claimed the box office championship that “Titanic” formally held in China. With soaring cameras, bodyparts hurled, and Woo’s trademark doves fluttering in close up, “Red Cliff” further elaborates on Woo’s enormous skills as a director of action.

Set near the end of the Han Dynasty in 208 AD, the movie introduces us to the fearsome General Cao Cao (Zhang Fengyi), a man deadset on ruling all territories. His first battle is with southern defectors, led by Liu Bei (You Yong) and Sun Quan (Chang Chen). An alliance is soon formed with Zhou Yu (Tony Leung) after a visit by southern strategist Zhuge Liang (Takeshi Kaneshiro), as the two bond with a good-old fashioned third century jam session.

The climactic battle is of a monumental scale – fire is thrown, fortresses are demolished, and hundreds (maybe thousands) of extras are multiplied to hundreds of thousands with digital effects. As impressive as this war is, however, perhaps Woo was too invested in this filmmaking challenge. The first battle of the film is a glorious one – innovative swordplay, impressive battle formations – whereas the last is a familiar spectacle of dark hellfire. Oddly enough, only in the final conflict did I begin to feel the two and a half hour runtime (condensed from a five hour cut released in two-parts elsewhere).

I have not seen the original cut of the film, but this American cut certainly peaks my curiosity to see how much further the characters are developed in the Asian cut. The performers, particularly Tong Leung and Zhang Fengyi, are all excellent. Despite their efforts, however, many of the faces are blurred by the film’s frenetic, rushed pace.

The film is largely wall-to-wall war, but beyond the spectacle of the battlefield the film takes pleasure in showcasing the era’s militaristic strategies. In one of the film’s most successful episodes, Cao Cao’s army sends dead bodies to their opposition in a cruel form of chemical warfare.

“Red Cliff” is big, loud, and a lot of fun. The last battle perhaps hogs too big of a portion of the American cut of the film, but nevertheless Woo has undoubtedly made an epic on a scale that we don’t often see.

Woo-whee: Red Cliff

Movies I reviewed for the Herald this week.

Fantastic Mr. Fox. “Very much a Wes Anderson movie.”

Red Cliff. “Savoring the military strategies involved.”

The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans. “To quote a different Cage performance, rockin’ good news.”

Ninja Assassin. “Nobody said being a ninja assassin would be easy.”

Old Dogs. “A food fight with a gorilla as a movie high point.”

The Messenger. “Completely believable as an Army lifer.”

The Yes Men Fix the World. “Never lose track of their serious point.”

Also, Indiewire has gathered a bunch of online critics, including me. It’s here.

This movie stars Tony Leung, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Zhang Fengyi, Chang Chen, Hu Jun, Lin Chi-ling and Zhao Wei . The movie is directed by John Woo. 
The movie is based on the famous Red Cliff Battle in Ancient China.  It is a about Tea Ceremony, great martial arts sequences and picturesque view of China. It is subtitled.  I really don’t like the movie. If you want to watch a lot of cool kung-fu fighting scenes this is your movie. If you want to watch the arial views of China this is your movie. The plot is very thin.
 Here it goes. An ambitious general Cao Cao wants to crush two kingdoms. He urged the Emperor to give him an army. Since the Emperor is inexperience he agreed. The movie starts.  First he has an easy victory with an ill prepared warlord Liu Bei. This warlord is more concerned with having his people evacuate plus he his soldiers are severely outnumbered.  Next he gathered his navy and calvary troops to attack another warlord’s kingdom ( Sun Quan). It was however revealed that General Cao Cao has the hots for the tea pouring wife of  Zhou Yu’s  (Sun Quan’s  Viceroy) wife. He plans to steal her from him.
Meanwhile Liu Bei made an alliance with a reluctant Sun Quan . General Cao Cao started his sneaky attack to Sun Quan’s kingdom using his cavalry. However he is thwarted by the alliance and a good military strategist planner Kongming. He took the defeat in stride and launch the navy attack. This time the military strategist put Sun Quan’s sister to spy on General Cao Cao’s plan.  Of course, General Cao Cao was defeated.
This is the whole movie. I wish the movie have explored more in the relationship and character development. It must have been sacrificed because I only saw the US edited version of  150 minutes; originally this movie 280 minutes long.  My rating for this movie is C. It just pass for this version.

John Woo’s latest, the overblown, action-packed historical epic, Red Cliff, gets reviewed here.

Well what movies should you see this weekend? I’ll tell you, but I have come to fear this weekend for a long time now and it is finally here. So let me tell you what you should see, skip or wait to rent this weekend.

The Twilight Saga: New Moon (Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner) When Bella’s blood is shed at her birthday celebration, Edward’s intense reaction to the event causes his parents to pull up stakes and leave Forks, Washington for the sake of the young lovers. Heartbroken, Bella finds a form of comfort in reckless living, as well as an even-closer friendship with Jacob Black (Lautner). Danger in different forms awaits. I’ll get this one out of the way first as painfully as possible. With a grand total of a 26%, and most likely falling, approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, this film is a dud. It is plain and simple a money eater like Transformers ROTF. Just pure crap bottled up to appear before the masses to try and please a whole, but ultimately cause conflict and make people easy targets to make fun of. You all say, oh the books were better, then stick with the book and stop letting people make crappy movies. SKIP IT

Planet 51 (Dwayne Johnson, Seann William Scott, Jessica Biel) The inhabitants of Planet 51 live in fear of alien invasion. Their paranoia is realized when astronaut Chuck Baker (voice of Dwayne Johnson) arrives from Earth. Befriended by a young resident, he has to avoid capture in order to recover his spaceship and try to return home. Created by videogame experts, this cheesy animation comedy about the role reversal of alien life is just……ugh don’t see this movie……SKIP IT (even your kids will know better)

The Blind Side (Quinton Aaron, Sandra Bullock, Tim McGraw) A disadvantaged teenager is taken in by a conservative family who see tremendous promise in the young man. Despite certain obstacles, the attention and inspiration he receives helps him mature into an athletically and academically successful NFL prospect.  From the director of the Rookie, I’m sure this guy knows how to push dramatized sports athletes. With Sandra Bullock, this film will surely pull numbers, but do people really care that much about this? It looks heartfelt, touching, could be a decent story of hardship and proving you’re better than what people think, but it doesn’t really bring something new that can’t already be predicted. Rent it

Red Cliff [limited] (Tony Leung Chiu Wai, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Fengyi Zhang) Set during the end of China’s Han Dynasty, two rivaling warlords make a pact to turn their respective armies against a power hungry general bent on taking over their kingdoms. From director John Woo (Face/Off, MI:2, Hostage) this film looks very vibrant and well done. This dynasty war epic looks interesting and has a good story behind it. The critics seem to agree with a 87% approval rating. See It

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans [limited] (Nicolas Cage, Eva Mendes, Russell M. Haeuser) Terence McDonagh (Cage) is a drug- and gambling-addled detective in post-Katrina New Orleans investigating the killing of five Senegalese immigrants. I know what you are thinking……Nick Cage……well I was thinking the same thing until I saw the trailer. With a fresh rating on RT and high praises from film festivals claiming this is Cage’s best performance in a long time, this may be a film to see. The story looks intriguing and Nick Cage isn’t toooo bad. See it, try it out

Haz click en la imagen para verla al detalle

Tras de varios años de estar produciendo dentro del cine occidental, John Woo vuelve a tomar en sus manos una producción asiática, en donde reconstruirá una de las más célebres batallas de la China antigua. Chi Bi es una cinta en donde lo épico le gana a la fidelidad histórica, alimentándose más a la leyenda del momento que al rigor académico. Curiosamente, esto la hace increíblemente disfrutable. Aunque es una producción 100 % china, llama la atención encontrar actores japoneses dentro del elenco, pero que en realidad la hace mucho más atractiva. No sabemos aún si llegaremos a verla en América Latina, pero no perdamos las esperanzas.