6/14/26 (Sun)
This 2019 Brazilian film is classified offputtingly as “Weird Western”, but the generally positive reviews lured me to it. I had assumed vaguely that the title referred to salted cod (bacalhau), but it actually means either a nocturnal bird (nightjar or nighthawk) or, according to one source, “the last chance to make it home at night”. Either is pretty obscure in the context of the film. I must be missing something.
6/13/26 (Sat)
A film deserving of its exclamation point. Harold Lloyd was hugely successful in his day and is often mentioned as the third great silent comedian along with Charles Chaplin and Buster Keaton, both of whom he outgrossed in theaters. The still of him in this film dangling precariously from a skyscraper clock may be the most iconic image of the entire silent era. But somehow his reputation has not lasted to their extent; I’m sure many people assume that the man on the clock is Chaplin. Visually he is not as distinctive with that spiffy college look and could blend easily into the background. So I figured it was about time to catch up with him and see what the praise is all about.
6/9/26 (Tues)
Jackie Chan conceived, co-wrote and directed this 1985 film after his unhappy experience with The Protector, the misconceived vehicle that was supposed to have been his US breakthrough. The producers in that film were trying to fit him into typical US action star mode, clearly not understanding his unique brand of choreographed comedy action. So he took matters into his own hand – to spectacular results.
6/6/26 (Sat)
John Ford’s 1956 classic features John Wayne as a complex character whose obsessive hatred of the Comanche tribe recalls his self-destructive pursuit of revenge on his own disciple in Red River. The roots of his loathing are signaled in a gravestone revealing that his mother was murdered by the tribe – but the equally fanatical Scar, the head of the tribe, recalls that his children were killed by the white settlers. The cycle of vengeance thus continues unbroken.
5/31/26 (Sun)
Wong Kar-wai’s 2013 tribute to Ip Man (葉問), the legendary grandmaster and propagator of the Wing Chun (詠春) style of kung fu, which he brought from mainland China to Hong Kong. His most famous student was Bruce Lee, securing his legacy for future generations. His eventful life is fascinating and has been the subject of numerous films, this being the most high-minded. The story is rather disjointed, but I found out later that I was watching the severely cut US version (108 min vs. original’s 130 min – not to mention a separate European cut at 123 min). Even in the shortened version, it’s clear that Wong was aiming for a more intellectual approach to a kung fu film, perhaps analogous to the concept-minded Wing Chun style itself.
12/19/21 (Sun)
Ozu’s 1959 film was supposed to be a remake of his 1932 silent classic I Was Born, But…, but the only resemblance was the presence of two young brothers rebelling against their parents (hunger strike in earlier film vs. vow of silence here). One of the last films he ever made, it still feels fresh and fun.
5/12/26 (Tues)
A typical poor-girl-meets-rich-boy-with-snobby-family tale dressed in Singaporean guise. Continue reading
7/12/26 (Sun), Taichung National Theater (Taiwan)
Company, Sondheim’s sardonic look at marriage, has been turned into 42nd Street in this bright, splashy version by Japanese director Amon Miyamoto – and it (more or less) works.
By sheer coincidence, I arrived in Taiwan for rehearsals of my stage version of Tsai Ming-liang’s visionary 1997 The Hole to learn that the film is just now being given its first theatrical release in the US. I’m not sure what prompted the move after nearly thirty years, but I’m taking that as a good sign for my rendering. While Tsai may never have imagined that his nightmarish scenario would occur in his lifetime, the experience of an actual global pandemic certainly gives us a new perspective on the material. Here is my review.
5/8/26 (Fri), Broadway
Mark Rosenblatt’s play is set around the time of Israel’s incursion into Beirut in 1982. Roald Dahl, the British author of Charlie & the Chocolate Factory and Matilda fame, has made some extreme anti-Israel comments in a book review that border uncomfortably on anti-Semitism. (The real-life situation was even worse: it appears that editors of the actual review substituted “Israelis” for “Jews” in some cases to tone down the hate.) His UK and US publishers, both Jewish, are afraid that the ensuing brouhaha will affect sales of his new book, and the latter, the fictional Jessie Stone, who Dahl insists pointedly on calling “Stein”, has flown in from New York to convince him to retract, modify or apologize for the remarks. She objects to his blaming the entire Jewish people for the actions of a government over which they have no control.
Dahl, however, is unrepentant, insisting conversely that she apologize for the brutality of a regime that claims to represent the Jewish “race”. The UK publisher, a Holocaust survivor, considers himself more British than Jewish and tries to avoid conflict, only to be accused by Dahl of being a “house Jew”, while Dahl’s long-time girlfriend does her best to keep his temper in line. Dahl appears to become more sympathetic when he learns that the US publisher, like himself, has a mentally challenged child. But his nice side doesn’t last long, his hatred of the Jews (“Even a stinker like Hitler didn’t just pick on them for no reason” – a real-life quote) overwhelming even his feelings for his girlfriend in a horrific final-curtain betrayal.
Continue reading5/2/26 (Sat)
Takumi Furukawa wrote and directed this highly successful 1956 adaptation of Ishihara Shintaro’s sensational best-seller of one year earlier, which gave the movement its Sun Tribe name.
The plot is not much different from the subsequent Sun Tribe masterpiece Crazed Fruit, also based on an Ishihara novel. As I commented there, the film
“features a group of bored rich 20-year-olds, who grew up in the shadow of defeat with no memory of Japan’s pre-war past and no sense of a future. They spend their time idling away their days in sailboats, nightclubs and cars in a bid to fight off tedium, devoted mainly to gambling, drinking, picking fights, dancing and especially hunting women, albeit just for momentary pleasure (including orgies) rather than anything as permanent as romance.”
However, Season, at least in its film version, is less focused than the later work. It tries too hard in its nihilism to a point that doesn’t make sense. The lead’s rejection of the main female character may have seemed cool on paper but is not realistic as presented, especially when she tells him she’s pregnant. I’m sure the idea is that he’s wedded to his all-embracing apathy – a protest against the passion that drove the previous generation to war – to an extent that destroys him and others around him. That is, the willful disengagement of the Sun Tribe generation is no better than the blind nationalism that preceded it. A powerful theme, suggesting that the young are as caught up unthinkingly in a national mood as their parents were. But the main character seems to be striking an attitude rather than feeling it. The film needs a more credible story to work, which Ishihara achieved in the later Fruit.
Continue reading5/2/26 (Sat)
Ieki Miyoji’s 1963 elegiac work follows several dozen kids evacuated from Tokyo to safer areas away from their families during the war, based on an actual record of children moved from a Tokyo elementary school. The filmmakers were themselves familiar with such experiences and have clearly recreated this with heart. The setting is a village in the Kanto region in what we now know were the final months of the war.
Continue reading
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