Steven Rubio's Online Life

look back (kiyotaka oshiyama, 2024)

This is the sixth bonus film I have watched in "My Letterboxd Season Challenge 2024-25", a "33-week-long community challenge" where "you must watch one previously unseen film that fits the criteria of the theme for the week." This is the 10th annual challenge, and my sixth time participating (previous years can be found at "2019-20", "2020-21", "2021-22", "2022-23", and 2023-24). Bonus Week 6 is called "Letterboxd Top 250 Week":

As I'm sure many of you can relate, Letterboxd has personally enhanced my movie-loving experience and I am very grateful that it exists and for the kind of community it can create as with the Letterboxd Season Challenge that so many have taken part in over the decade. As Benjamin Milot pointed out when he created this theme as the first bonus challenge on LSC's 5th anniversary, Letterboxd itself is the ultimate host for LSC and we honor it by watching one of the movies currently on its Top 250 Narrative Feature Films list.

This bonus challenge is to watch a movie from Letterboxd's Official Top 250 Narrative Feature Films.

Kiyotaka Oshiyama makes his feature debut with this film, an anime adaptation of a manga by Tatsuki Fujimoto. It's a coming of age tale of two girls, both talented artists, who team up to create a manga that becomes popular. The film is gorgeous to look at, and the characters and their relationship to each other are appealing. The approach to the film is artful, but I fear it was too artful for me, who often struggles to follow complicated narratives (that's on me, not Oshiyama). In this case, the two girls grow up, and that part of the story is clear and interesting. Serious events occur, and the girls growth into adulthood is believable. But then there are what appear to be reverse time jumps that I didn't follow, and I was no longer sure if what I was seeing was all part of one fractured timeline or if in fact we were experiencing multiple times. Most people will probably get through this without any problems, despite my own confusion. In the meantime, it's beautifully drawn, with touching characters.

terror of mechagodzilla (ishirō honda, 1975)

This is the sixth film I have watched in "My Letterboxd Season Challenge 2024-25", a "33-week-long community challenge" where "you must watch one previously unseen film that fits the criteria of the theme for the week." This is the 10th annual challenge, and my sixth time participating (previous years can be found at "2019-20", "2020-21", "2021-22", "2022-23", and 2023-24). Week 6 is called "Strange Beasts Week":

An excerpt from "What is Kaiju?", an essay by Kenta McGrath:

"Although the origins of kaiju can be traced back to long before Godzilla and indeed, cinema itself, the fact remains that the rise of kaiju in popular culture occurred in tandem with the rise of the kaiju eiga ('Japanese monster movies'). But first, we must be attuned to the fact that the kaiju eiga spans decades, covers many aesthetic trends, and varies widely in its use (and non-use) of allegory and socio-political commentary. It is not static but, like Godzilla, always evolving and adapting, according to when, how, and why it is produced, and who is behind the wheel. As with any genre, it has produced formidable works that will stand the test of time, and forgettable efforts designed to do little more than cash in on what came before it.

"Where many saw only the strange, giant monster, others recognized the art and craft behind the strange, giant monster. More than anything else, it is the art of cinema—the combination of image and sound, the collaboration of artists and craftspeople, and the considered use of the resources at their disposal—that allowed the meanings and allegorical potential of kaiju to be articulated in the first place. Beasts, creatures, monsters, and yokai—strange, giant, or otherwise—never needed cinema; it is just one medium in which they have appeared and flourished. Meanwhile, discussing kaiju as separate from cinema seems to me a fruitless exercise. Without cinema, kaiju are relatively unremarkable—just another variation of monsters of which there have been many throughout history.

"From King Kong to Clifford the Big Red Dog, the world of kaiju is vast. For this week's challenge, let's focus on the films in David Haddon's What’s That Coming Over The Hill? - Kaiju Films list and bask in the spectacle that decades of gigantic strange beasts on film have wrought."

Terror of Mechagodzilla has some historical significance in the franchise. It's a sequel to Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla. It marked a return for director Ishirō Honda, who had directed the very first Godzilla movie, as well as six subsequent films with the iconic monster prior to Terror of Mechagodzilla. It was his last film as a director, but he wasn't done in the industry ... he worked on five late films with Akira Kurosawa.

Sadly, Terror isn't a very good movie. It's nice in that it avoids the appeals to kids that had marred many Godzilla movies ... it's a movie for adults, with adult characters. And if you like kaiju battles, the final sequence between Godzilla, Mechagodzilla, and Titanosaurus is fun. Criterion thought enough of this one to include it in their 15-film box set of Godzilla movies.

from up on poppy hill (goro miyazaki, 2011)

This is the third film I have watched in "My Letterboxd Season Challenge 2024-25", a "33-week-long community challenge" where "you must watch one previously unseen film that fits the criteria of the theme for the week." This is the 10th annual challenge, and my sixth time participating (previous years can be found at "2019-20", "2020-21", "2021-22", "2022-23", and 2023-24). Week 3 is called "Nicecore Week":

After the stress of last week, let's go the other direction and take it easy with a nice film. Specifically Nicecore, a term I first heard several years ago associated with the release of Paddington 2. “If you’re kind and polite, the world will be right," says the titular bear. In the rather unkind political reality during which the term arose, people looked to the movies for "radical kindness". Although these films are "nice", they can still hold emotional depth, conflict, and complexity. This list is a helpful reference, from Winnie the Pooh to Totoro too.

This week let's celebrate all kinds of kindness and watch a previously unseen Nicecore film.

This is the second film directed by Goro Miyazaki, son of the great Hayao (who co-wrote the script). Compared to some of the classic Ghibli movies, From Up on Poppy Hill is relatively straightforward, missing much of the flights of fantasy associated with Goro's father. It tells the story of teenage love in 1963 Japan, with specific ties to the history of the time. This works fine, so maybe it's on me, but I kept waiting for supernatural beings to turn up, if not Totoro, at least some soot bunnies. The plot, about young romance and coming-of-age family life, captures our attention, and there's really nothing wrong with the movie. It just wasn't quite what I wanted.

That's no one's fault but my own, and your mileage may vary. It is a very good movie. Also, being set in 1963 Japan, it includes a nostalgic memory from my own youth. In 1963, a Japanese pop hit, "Ue o Muite Arukō", was released in the United States under the title "Sukiyaki", where it reached #1 on the charts.

Many years later, my niece gave herself a birthday party where she asked each of us to present something special, not a gift but something creative. I printed out the words to "Ue o Muite Arukō", downloaded a karaoke version and adjusted the pitch to fit my vocal range, and for the party, I sang the song, reading the lyrics off the page. Afterwards, the crowd was split between those who said "I didn't know he could sing" and those who said "I didn't know he spoke Japanese".

I'm not the only American who remembers that song. Bob Dylan played it in Japan in 1986:

film fatales #202: trouble every day (claire denis, 2001)

Claire Denis (Beau Travail, 35 Shots of Rum) is a favorite director of mine, and I looked forward to Trouble Every Day, but I was aware that it is not as acclaimed as her other movies (it has the lowest Metascore, 40, of any film she has directed). I think that low Metascore is understandable, and Trouble Every Day isn't up to her best. But it's an interesting attempt to make an arty erotic horror movie ... I'm thinking of Park Chan-wook's Thirst, which is a better movie than Trouble Every Day but has a similar blend of sex and gore shown with arty excellence.

Trouble Every Day seems like it is going to be a vampire movie, but it turns into something different, which allows for subtexts that don't necessarily match those of vampire pictures. Denis shows a connection between erotic attraction and cannibalism that is unexpected. It's thought-provoking, but I'm not convinced it goes deeper than the basic connection. Once you get what Denis is doing, there's not much else to say about that connection, leaving an arty horror movie that isn't all that great.

The acting is variable. Béatrice Dalle (Betty Blue) brings her idiosyncratic presence to her scenes, but Vincent Gallo is too low-key ... he struggles with what he has become, but his struggle isn't moving because Gallo is inert. There is also a big plot hole at the beginning (not that horror doesn't often have plot holes): Gallo plays a recently-married man who, we assume, has become intimate with his new wife, but given what we learn of him in the movie, it's impossible for his wife not to have noticed long before. It's hard to suspend disbelief in this case.

Despite that Metascore, the film is #793 on the They Shoot Pictures, Don't They list of the top 1000 films of all time, #103 on the 21st century list.

the tale of the princess kaguya (isao takahata, 2013)

It's true, when I read "Studio Ghibli", I tend to think "Hayao Miyazaki". But Studio Ghibli was founded by Miyazaki, producer Toshio Suzuki, and Isao Takahata. Over the years, Takahata was involved in some of the studio's greatest films: Grave of the Fireflies, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, Kiki's Delivery Service, Only Yesterday, and others. One thing that separates Takahata from people like Miyazaki is that he performs many different roles in the movies ... he was even the musical director for Kiki. The Tale of the Princess Kaguya was his final film before his death. The problem for me is that I don't know enough about the process of creating animated movies, so it's not clear to me what role Takahata plays in Kaguya. He is the director and co-writer, but to the best of my knowledge, he doesn't do the animation. I'd be happy to be better informed about this, but Takahata appears to be a titan of animated films without being himself an animator.

Which doesn't really matter ... The Tale of the Princess Kaguya is a beautiful film, no matter who we credit. Takahata seems to be the guiding vision behind the film. It has the look of animated watercolors ... it doesn't really look like any other film that comes to mind. The story is based on an old Japanese story about a bamboo cutter. It is filled with fantastical elements, yet the story is straightforward. It is currently #350 on the They Shoot Pictures, Don't They list of the top 1000 films of the 21st century (which had its most recent update on February 1). Nominated for an Oscar as Best Animated Feature (the winner was Big Hero 6).

I watched the English dub, with Chloë Grace Moretz as the Princess. She is fine. I don't want to be a broken record, but this movie really is beautiful, and wonderful to watch.

red beard (akira kurosawa, 1965)

Highly acclaimed film from a highly acclaimed director, #784 on the They Shoot Pictures, Don't They list of the top 1000 films of all time. I think Kurosawa is one of our greatest directors, but Red Beard was not one of my favorites.

While it is a period piece starring Toshiro Mifune, it's not what you expect. The period is Japan in the 1800s, and Mifune plays a doctor at a rural hospital clinic for the poor. This is an intriguing concept for a Kurosawa movie, but it's more than three hours, and it feels endless. It's episodic, and the most interesting material comes in the last hour, after an intermission. Which if you do the math means there are two hours of setup to get to the good stuff. Obviously, its elevated reputation tells you that many people disagree with me. I wish the first two hours had been cut in half (at least), and I found the film hard to get through.

Kurosawa and cinematographers Asakazu Nakai and Takao Saito make effective use of light and shadow ... the film looks powerful. But it's no classic.

geezer cinema: the boy and the heron (hayao miyazaki, 2023)

My 11th Miyazaki movie, and I still haven't seen one that was bad ... well, I wasn't a big fan of his first (The Castle of Cagliostro), but it's all been smooth sailing since. While each of his movies are distinctive, I repeat myself when I write about them, because his movies are recognizably his ... they are different from each other, yet unmistakably Miyazaki. It's not that he's an example of the old auteur theory; he doesn't repeat little bits of work that call back to earlier movies. To give an example of what I mean, many (most? all?) of his films include little creatures which tend to be adorable, tend to get in the way, tend to charm the audience ... but they are different each time. There's the black blobs in Howl's Moving Castle (which, now that I think of it, aren't particularly small or adorable), the white thingies with heads that crack sideways in Princess Mononoke, and my favorites, the soot thingies from Spirited Away. Totoro is enormous, of course, but he's a lot like those little creatures. And, to quote myself, Hollywood is capable of creating special effects that cause your jaw to drop, but Miyazaki creates special effects out of his brain. I spent a lot of The Boy and the Heron imagining the kind of person who could create such a movie.

Watching The Boy and the Heron, I found myself regularly in awe. I kept moving my head to see everything (and we weren't even watching the IMAX version).

And perhaps the most telling aspect of the movie, at least in terms of my appreciation for Miyazaki's work, is that while I loved it just as much as the above indicates, I think if I made a ranked list of his movies, The Boy and the Heron would be, oh, fifth-highest at best. I think any of his movies would be good as a starting point for new viewers (maybe not The Castle of Cagliostro), but I suppose Totoro is the most iconic way into Miyazaki's world. I still think Mononoke and Spirited Away are his best, but I'm just splitting hairs. Hayao Miyazaki is one of the greatest film makers of all time.

geezer cinema: godzilla minus one (takashi yamazaki, 2023)

Depending on who's counting, there are close to 40 Godzilla movies at this point. I've now seen 11 or 12 of them. Before Minus One, I considered the 2014 version directed by Gareth Edwards to be the best. Now, I can't decide. So I'll break it down and say that Godzilla Minus One is the best Japanese Godzilla movie ever.

You can't have a good Godzilla movie without a well-made monster, and Minus One pulls that off and then some. Many (most?) Godzilla movies include other monsters with whom Godzilla fights or, occasionally, teams up with. Minus One returns to the 1954 original: there are no other monsters. I would argue that there are two keys that make Minus One such a fine movie (not just a fine Godzilla movie). One is that Yamazaki takes us back in time. Minus One begins in 1945, at the end of World War II. This returns us to the concept of Godzilla as a manifestation of the horrors of post-atomic bomb Japan. There is no explicit connection between Godzilla and Hiroshima/Nagasaki, but later in the film, Godzilla mutates to a much larger size because of U.S. nuclear tests. Also, when Japan asks for help, the Americans decline, saying they don't want to upset the tenuous relations with the Soviet Union.

The second key is the human characters. You don't realize until you see Minus One just how unimportant humans are in most monster movies. They are there to further the plot or to speechify explanations of what is happening. But Yamazaki gives us characters of depth, gives them arcs that are believable and that we care about. It's not that this part of Minus One is great ... good, sure, but this is still Godzilla we're talking about. But good character arcs are so rare in a movie like this that we get involved in their actions. When the character drama takes center stage, you don't wonder what Godzilla is doing ... you want to know how those characters are doing.

This results in perhaps the biggest surprise of the entire movie. When Godzilla Minus One comes to an end, there's not a dry eye in the house. And it's not because we feel sorry for the big fella ... there is nothing likable about this Godzilla. No, it's the people who elicit an emotional reaction that is earned, not cheap. That as much as anything is why I place Godzilla Minus One at the top of the Godzilla list.

revisiting the 9s: red cliff (john woo, 2008)

[This is the nineteenth in a series that will probably be VERY intermittent, if I remember to post at all. I've long known that while I have given my share of 10-out-of-10 ratings for movies over the years, in almost every case, those movies are fairly old. So I got this idea to go back and revisit movies of relatively recent vintage that I gave a rating of 9, to see if time and perspective convinced me to bump that rating up to 10.]

In 2008, I wrote about Red Cliff, "John Woo returns to China, makes two-part historical epic, regains his Mojo. I haven't had time to really think about this movie yet ... what it 'means.' But it's a marvelous thing to watch, with some fascinating battle scenes." More to the point, I wrote the following about Red Cliff II the next year:

There are two essential items going on here, the strategy preparing for battle, and the battle itself (as I recall, it was much the same in Part One). I’m not a fan of “war strategy” movies, but this stuff is fascinating. It takes place in the early 3rd century, so the weapons aren’t very advanced. But they are put to ingenious uses, and the overall strategies on both sides are interesting mostly because of the point/counterpoint feel. The leaders on both sides know how war is “supposed” to be fought, and there’s a bit of game theory going on, as first one side and then another attempts to figure out how the other will vary from the norm, so that they can themselves vary in a useful manner. The result would please the A-Team’s Hannibal … as you watch in admiration, you think “I love it when a plan comes together.” The final battle sequence is as good as any you’ve seen. The only problem is that we’re getting aesthetic pleasure from the deaths of tens of thousands of people, and while there are brief moments when we’re reminded of the deceased, for the most part our reaction is more “Wow!” than “poor fellow.” This was true in Woo’s HK action films, of course, but the scale here is far beyond that of a movie like Hard Boiled. Still, watching Woo put all the pieces together in such a way that the audience can clearly follow the action mirrors the way the warlords put the pieces of their plans together.

I did indeed rate Red Cliff 9/10, which is why it's in this series. I gave the second film a 10/10, and I'm not sure why I thought it was the better of the two films ... they are equals. In fact, in some ways they are exactly equals: in America, the films were combined into a shorter version (also called Red Cliff), and I'm pretty sure Woo thought of them as two parts of the same movie. I have never seen the shorter version. This time around, I was taken by the acting. I've seen Tony Leung in 12 movies ... I've never given one of his pictures less than 7/10, and I've given my top 10/10 rating to four of them. Chow Yun-Fat was the HK actor who first got my attention, but over the years, I think Tony Leung Chiu-wai may have overtaken him. Heck, he might be my favorite actor of all time from any country. (I re-watched both movies back-to-back over the past two days.)

revisiting the 9s: good night, and good luck (george clooney, 2005)

[This is the eighteenth in a series that will probably be VERY intermittent, if I remember to post at all. I've long known that while I have given my share of 10-out-of-10 ratings for movies over the years, in almost every case, those movies are fairly old. So I got this idea to go back and revisit movies of relatively recent vintage that I gave a rating of 9, to see if time and perspective convinced me to bump that rating up to 10.]

In 2006, I wrote about Good Night, and Good Luck:

George Clooney has crafted a concise account of a specific moment in time, kept the attention of the audience while dealing with material that could easily have been drab, made several important decisions as a director that greatly enhance the movie (the black and white look, the apparent accuracy of the depiction of newsrooms in the 50s, getting David Strathairn to play Ed Murrow), and brought it all home in less than 100 minutes. The focus of the film is remarkable, in subject matter (it's not about the entire career of Murrow, or of McCarthy for that matter, but only about the period when they crossed swords) and in settings (most of the film takes place in cramped quarters inside a news studio).

And Clooney's underlying argument, that today's press doesn't do its job, that today's Joe McCarthys are not called on their lunacy, that in fact today's Joe McCarthys are as often as not members of the media themselves, is a good one.

And yet (and how many films are there where I don't ever say "and yet"?) ... the precision, the conciseness, the focus, means that the film's vision of Edward R. Murrow is too narrow. There's too much hero worshiping, and Murrow's career was more complicated than what we see in this film. This makes the movie, in retrospect, seem a bit untrustworthy.

And while Clooney mostly makes smart moves as a director, his decision to include musical interludes is a bad one. The interludes are fine in and of themselves, and they might even work in a more surreal film. But here, with Clooney striving for the maximum in authenticity, it's just odd and confusing to see Dianne Reeves singing sultry tunes somewhere in the CBS studios.

The movie is nominated for six Oscars, and they are a mixed bunch. Best Picture? Possibly. Best Director? Also possible. Best Actor? Why not? Best Cinematography and Art Direction? It really shines in these areas, even if I'm not quite sure what "art direction" means. Best Screenplay? Here, I'd have to disagree ... much of the best dialogue in the film is taken directly from transcripts from Murrow's television shows, and I can't see honoring such a process with a Best Screenplay award (maybe if it was in the "previously published" section instead of the "written directly for the screen" section).

I don't have a lot to add, except that I think I was a bit hard on the film, meaning if it had come out in the 1950s, I would have already given it a 10. I complained about the music interludes, but this time, they seemed right. I still think Best Screenplay is a bit of a stretch, except everything in the film, real footage and speeches and "acted" material, is blended perfectly. Good Night, and Good Luck is an exceptional film.