Seeing Pacific Rim one more time

a) I went to see Specific Spam or Pacific Rim or what ever it might be called back on July 17th and again today. Don't ask me what it's called, I don't need to remember. I was able to make out a little bit more of what was going on in the film piercing through the veil of duplicity between of the square jawed caucasian men chosen to play robot pilots. This time my mind was able to grab onto the situation of who I was looking at from time to time this time. Yes, I want to see a sequel.

b) This time I realised that while I thought that the lead character's brother was his twin brother played by the same actor, this was not actually so, I had forgotten by the end of the film that the lead character had an elder brother at the beginning of the movie who was played by man of similar colouring but looked different enough to differentiate between them and I recalled this time the face of the man playing the brother from the previous viewing.  However it is happening now in my's brain that the two actors' facess are merging into one again.

c) I still wonder though if when the lead actor has a fight with the young Australian man, if for some shots they had the actors switch clothes just to confuse the audience for milliseconds. 

d) When the lead actor wears his robot piloting helmet, his features become slightly distorted by the glass and it is then that his face for various seconds reminded me of Tom Wopat from the Dukes of Hazard TV series

Rinko Kikuchi in Pacific Rim

The Wolverine

a) I recall seeing the new Wolverine movie today, and apart from the CGI bear at the beginning that probably should have belonged to a Müller rice commercial, I liked the movie very much and thought it was wonderfully stylish, I liked the Japanese setting, the two main Japanese women in it and the Samurai robot suit in the movie. 

b) There probably is not much to be said about the story other than I couldn't really find a way to pick at it seeing what it was as a movie. Probably the end was a little bit too comic bookish but who cares about some of the things that seem problematic, they were easily looked over by myself. How it might compare to the comic books might be a completely different matter if this particular story has its source there but  I certainly haven't read the comic books indeed and don't seem to have developed any interest since seeing this film. 

actress Rila Fukushima

c) It seems that the actress Rila Fukushima who was in the film had done little else before this film as an actress so I am not going to start looking out for films that have starred her in the past killing people with swords,  but if she had, I would be collecting all the blu-rays. 

d) The mutant villain of the film didn't interest me in the slightest but the metal suit of the other villain did interest me and it could be anyone in the metal suit, I wasn't interested in the person that was within. The Silver Samurai character's suit design probably was quite wonderful and maybe a bigger thing ought to have been made out of it.

e) It might be too insulting to the film to have any real intellectual view about it.

f) The very lovely Miss Tryon informed me that the sight of Hugh Jackman in the poster wandering around without a shirt on or anything on top inspired her to want to knit a "woolly pulloverine" for him . 

actress Rila Fukushima

 

Sarah Polley's shape shifting documentary

(written 14th August) I managed to finally see the Sarah Polley film "Stories We Tell" and was very glad to have been part of the cinema audience for this film

I managed to see the documentary film Stories We Tell directed by Sarah Polley. I write this as I don't know what to say about the film other than I have seen it, I witnessed the movie. I admit that I didn't go to see the film to learn about Diane Polley so much but to find out something that was to cause a shift in Sarah Polley's life and indeed find out about who Diane Polley was on the way which I believe I have succeeded in and also found out who the rest of Sarah's are.

It was a strange scenario perhaps, all these years having been a fan of Sarah Polley since her appearance in The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, , having seen episodes of  The Road To Avon Lea, and watched her in Atom Egoyan's movies such Exotica and especially The Sweet Hereafter in which she provides songs to enchant her fans with her silvery voice. She has become a film director. But now we find her peeling away the origins of her life

What was first of all a film about people such as her family recounting their memories of her mother

Coming to find this out probably changes for a while everything one might have thought about Sarah Polley who she was in terms of her roots but she remains as the daughter of Michael Polley since he was the one who brought her up, and the news about Harry Gulkin being her biological father seemed to have brought Sarah Polley back together with Michael Polley as some distancing had been going on over time. And indeed Michael remains philosophical and accepts what had gone on in the past without regrets. In the film Harry Gulkin wanted to release a book about his relationship with Diane Polley which Sarah appears to stop in its tracks from being released. He also wanted the documentary to only be about his story of his love affair with Diane Polley and Sarah would not accept this since it was a documentary about everyone's perspectives.

Being a witness to this film almost brings one into being entangled with something of the unspoken confusion that must have gone on as everyone finds a way to reassemble their lives which led to the breakup of the marriages of Sarah Polley and her two sisters now half sisters.

Diane Polley who died when she was eleven, the story turns around when she discovers that her mother seemed to have had an affair with another man at one point when the marriage had grown week and so it seemed that this man would have been her father so that meant the man that she grew up believing was her father Michael Polley was no longer biologically so. She soon discovers who her biological father is, Harry Gulkin a film maker / writer of Russian Jewish background, and finds the similarities between them that might be genetic or indeed coincidence, and so then comparing herself to half sister by her biological father she finds the origin of her gummy smile and her half sister is someone she is able to get on with..

The oddity of what went on in the documentary can only be fully appreciated by watching the whole thing rather than reading a review by myself and my fragmented perception of the movie, and one is brought faced to face with these different people brought together in a film because of a curious situation regarding this globally relevant young woman from Canada. One might continue to ponder over the whole thing, and it might just be a thing that can take place in the lives of many people and soon the truth may surface but also as a documentary, it's curious how the project transformed from one thing to another along the way and revealed curious aspects normally unrevealable about the film maker herself not intended to be brought to the surface but only comes through in the ironic remarks made by her family.

Sarah Polley indeed never fails to continue to make a major contribution to the collective consciousness by digging deep within to reveal a precious stone that is herself, and also those around her.

Fever Dream goes Antiviral

leading from

Dreams That Become Films

a) The Fever Dream. Brandon Cronenberg started to write the script for Anti Viral back in 2004 during the time he was in film school. He came down with a bout of flu which led to a fever and fever dreams. He began obsessing over sickness, the physical side of it, the fact that he had something infecting the cells in his body that came from the cells of another person's body, and how that was really a hugely intimate thing if you look at it that way.

b) Development from the Dream. Afterwards he started thinking about a character who might be able to see disease in the same way, as something desirable, he would a celebrity obsessed fan who might for instance want Angelina Jolie’s cold as a way of feeling physically connected to her. It then developed into an interesting metaphor and a plot formed the basis of a platform to discuss celebrity obsession and the celebrity culture. The ideas formed his first year project at film school and in his fourth year a scene from that script found its way into his short film Broken Tulip.

 

Source quotes

1. Brandon Cronenberg: I started writing the script in 2004 and I was incredibly sick, and had a bad fever, and I was kind of delirious in bed, and obsessing over sickness and the physical side of sickness, the fact I had something in my body, in my cells that had come from another person's cells and afterwards I started trying to think about a character who might be able to see disease in that way and I thought of a celebrity obsessed fan, and it kind of developed into an interesting metaphor and a sort of a plot formed to discuss celebrity obsession and the celebrity culture (Hollywood Reporter http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96nIdliPeGo)
2. Brandon Cronenberg: I was extremely sick and I had this semi-conscious fever dream and when I kind of sobered up afterwards I thought that people might actually enjoy that connection if they looked at it the right way (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=xqlC0nM4Xt0#at=128) 
3. NYTimes: How did you get the idea for “Antiviral”?
   Brandon Cronenberg: It started off with me being pretty sick at film school in 2004. I had the flu and was wrestling with this semiconscious fever dream. I started getting obsessed with the fact that I had something physically in my body that had come from someone else’s body. Afterward I was trying to think of a character who would see disease as something intimate. And so I thought of a celebrity-obsessed fan who might want Angelina Jolie’s cold as a way of feeling physically connected to them. (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/07/movies/brandon-cronenberg-on-his-film-antiviral.html?_r=0)
4. OOO: What was your inspiration for this film?
   Brandon Cronenberg: I was extremely sick when I started writing it in in 2004, and I had this really bad flu and started having this semi-conscious fever dream where I was obsessing over the physicality of my illness and the fact that I had something in my body and in my cells that had come from someone else’s body, and how that was really a hugely intimate thing if you look at it that way. (http://www.outofordermag.com/2012/11/antiviral-interview-with-brandon-cronenberg/)
5. THE GENESIS OF ANTIVIRAL
   During his first year as a film student at Ryerson University, the 24 - year - old Brandon Cronenberg developed a serious case of the flu. The illness proved to be the perfect Petridish for the incubation of Antiviral.“During a feverish dream, I became obsessed with the physicality of illness, by the fact that what was infecting my body and my cells
   had come from someone else,” the director recalls. “It’s a weirdly intimate connection. I began to understand how someone, like an ardent fan, might see this kind of connection to the object of their fascination as desirable. The intimacy of that link seemed like a good platform to explore celebrity obsession. These ideas were the basis for a script that was my first year school project. In my fourth year, a scene from that script became my short Broken Tulips.” (http://0101.nccdn.net/1_5/23d/004/318/ANTIVIRAL---PRESS-KIT.pdf)

The crystal at the heart of Shivers

leading from

Dreams That Become Films
and also
David Cronenberg  and Alien
(At the Alien Explorations Blog)

a) The Dream
David Cronenberg's film "Shivers" started with a dream in which two people were lying together in bed at night and the man wakes up, looks over to the woman and sees her mouth open and out of the mouth comes a spider and walks out of her mouth, goes around the house and goes back into her mouth, into her body.. It wasn't a horrific dream, it was just "Oh yeah. the spider that lives in her mouth" and it just lived there. During the day the woman herself would know nothing about it.

b) Reflection
He thought to himself in reflection, "My God, that image is really giving a physical presence to the idea that things go on within us which are strange and disturbing."Also, it seemed the spider in some way gave her life when she was awake.

c) Further development
Embodying that in an insect or creature was really the unique thing about the dream, but he couldn't actually do a spider because it's really hard to make a creature like that with legs that worked, so it became a slug like parasite. And that image was really the crystal around which the rest of the film Shivers formed.

Source quotes

1. David Cronenberg: Shivers did start with a dream I had about a spider that emerged from a woman's mouth at night while she slept. The dream was very casual. It wasn't a horrific dream at all. It was just , "Oh yeah, the spider that lives in her mouth." It seemed the creature just lived there, inside her. It would come out at night, go around the house and go back into her mouth. Back into her body. During the day she knew nothing about it. Afterwards, on reflection, I thought, "My God, that image is really giving a physical presence to the idea that things go on within us which are strange and disturbing. " Also, it seemed the spider in some way gave her life when she was awake. Embodying that in an insect or creature was really the unique thing about the dream. That was really the crystal at the centre of what became Shivers.  (Cronenberg on Cronenberg by Chris Rodley, original hard back edition p43, 1992) 
2. David Cronenberg: It was basically an image that I had, and I can't remember whether I dreamed it or read it somewhere but it was two people lying in a bed at night and the man wakes up, looks over to the woman and sees her mouth open and out of that mouth comes a spider and walks out of her mouth, and that image was really the crystal around which the rest of the film Shivers formed. I couldn't actually do a spider because it's really hard to make those legs move especially on a low budget, so it became a parasite. (Film Four interview, 2001  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUdyX71jFYA)

Beyond The Candelabra

1. I went to see the "Beyond The Candelabra" film which is a Liberace biopic starring Michael Douglas and Matt Damon, directed by Steven Soderbergh, and it was because it was a Soderbergh movie that I took the plunge to go and see it. 
2. I probably enjoyed seeing Liberace on TV 35 plus years plus ago. 
3. So the film seemed very good indeed and a great performance by Michael Douglas. Liberace was almost quite a nice person in this film considering the bizarre life style he seemed to have led. There isn't really much that he can say about the movie thought other than it was quite an eye opener, interesting and bizarre, guided in a noticeable cunning Soderbergh perspective where he manages to take things to some extreme while remaining tasteful enough. 
4. The subject matter wasn't really my sort of thing, but I couldn't miss Michael Douglas film performance that would surely go down in cinema history . It was a time for me to explore my own open mindedness about subject matter in film. Indeed the film involved men in a gay relationship having intimate scenes. Since Michael Douglas and Matt Damon were able to deal with it and Steven Soderbergh was there directing it, I decided that there was no way I couldn't sit down and accept it as a normality.
5. I wondered if I was going to see something similar to the movie Interview With A Vampire and in some ways there was something going on there that reminded me of what was going on in that film, there were some strange characters wondering around in the film and there was an appearance by Scott Bakula and I didn't realise it was him until the credits at the end named the character that he played, but it appeared to be about some people's real lives and I couldn't allow my mind to play with the whole story looking for bastardised impressions because it appeared to be seriously about people's lives and whatever ended their relationship was a serious enough matter and there was the fact that these people did really care for one another.  Liberace will be accepted as the person he was and be forever loved by the public, or at least, the version of him played by Michael Douglas.
6. At the end, Liberace is revealed to be a gravity defying cloaked being and after all it was him who had Matt Damon's character transformed into a Patrick Swayze lookalike there in an attempt to make him look more like Liberace and the transformation process  he had to undergo to merge in with Liberace's obsessional landscape got him addicted to drugs given to him for weight loss purposes, Soderbergh enjoyed giving up closeups of the labels, an echo from the movie Side Effects. There are some things that I am not supposed to understand. 
7. As Liberace phones Matt Damon's character up from his death bed, I was reminded of the voice of one of the talking hallucinations such as the Talking Asshole Bug or even the Mugwump from Cronenberg's film Naked Lunch but still they were almost benevolent despite those who got too involved too closely getting lost in further uncertainties.

Pacific something or other...

 

1. I have put all memory of the second half of the title out of my mind, it may well be presented in the poster here but that is as far as it goes.
2. I tend to think of the title as really being "Specific Spam".
3. Hugely enjoyable film with giant robots and monsters fighting in 3D. Idris Elba and Rinko Kikuchi will stand out in memories but who the main male hero was will soon be forgotten, don't ask me the actor's name, let alone the character he plays. 
4. The scientists were irritating characters and finally the monsters became too many indistinguishable from one another in the last 15 mins, but exactly who is trying tell them apart? 
5. Idris Elba's character helps to save the Earth from alien invasions roughly in the same way as he did in Prometheus indeed. Obviously that's type casting for you. 
6. The white men who were piloting the robots all seemed to look the same to me, it took me a while to work out who was supposed to be who, there was a scene where one of the Australian men gets into a fight with the main male character in the movie because the man wouldn't apologise to the Japanese woman and I couldn't remember after a while whether it was the Australian father or son who looked almost the same age anyway and then I deduced that it must have been the son but I began to realise what the son looked like towards the end of the film but could not remember exactly if he was the person involved in the fight
7. But this was the cinema experience that I was promised, it lived up to the hype and it didn't really matter how much of the cast were killed off and were then forgotten.  The plot was more like some scenario conjured up by a child playing with robots and monsters but it was Del Toro playing with robots and monsters as if he were a child and with all the enthusiasm that one might have hoped as a child he would have had. The visual humour was appreciated such as the point where they discover of a toy robot in the sand of the beach and the moment when a Newton's cradle is set off.
8. Despite being attracted to the concept, naturally this sort of movie wasn't going to go down well with me right from the beginning, there would be irritations about some of the characters but it went down well enough considering, I didn't really appreciate the Hellboy film to want to go and see the sequel, maybe I ought to take a look at it one day. 
9. I look forwards to buying it on blu-ray.
10. I would like a poster of Rinko Kikuchi in her robot piloting outfit and will imagine her sitting on my knee.