Glorious Things -

2011 Edition

Stand and Deliver, darlings, it’s that time once again.  As the baby new year has waddled its way towards us at lightning speed, it’s past time to do our annual rundown of the things we adored this annum past.

Movies

I Saw the Devil:  Director Kim Ji-woon’s cat and mouse tale of a psychotic serial killer who chose the wrong man’s woman is sick, twisted, scary and really funny in a darkly campy way that’ll make you feel bad for laughing.  In other words, all the reasons why we adore Korean cinema.

Shame:  Employing the minimalism that made his debut, Hunger, such a smash, director Steve McQueen spares the dialog and exposition, but somehow spins a mesmerising tale of a sexually addicted man for whom too much is never enough.

13 Assassins:  Prolific Japanese director Takashi Miike exhibits an atypical amount of restraint as he revitalises the samurai genre with this story of a handful of ronin who plot to assassinate a psychotic overlord. The flaming cows alone are worth the price of admission.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2:  This is the end, my beautiful friends.  Grim, looming and gothic as the towers of Hogwarts, the final chapter of the adaptations of J.K. Rowling’s masterworks is suitably monumental.  Director David Yates combines some of the cast’s greatest performances, breathtaking cinematography heartbreaking heroism and enough bombastic action to leave fans with a satisfying farewell to this beloved series.

Gantz: Perfect Answer:  Sadly this movie - one of the best summer flicks of the year - was seen by only a very few lucky people during New York’s Japan Cuts film festival. Ironically, this sequel’s predecessor was released earlier in the year and got no love from yours truly (as you can read here). Perfect Answer was the flip side of the coin; entertaining, exciting, full of comic book fun and really deserving a proper US release - but only as a subtitled version, please!

The Descendents:  Only the intelligent, acerbic wit of Alexander Payne (Election, Sideways) directing an excellent ensemble could perfectly capture this unusual story of a family dealing with the coma and ensuing demise of a philandering wife and mother with real humour and heart.

Milocrorze:  How does this brilliantly psychedelic, kaleidoscopic mind trip not have a distributor?  Premiering at last summer’s New York Asian Film Festival, director Yoshimasa Ishibashi’s fabulously stylish anthology of the male condition (With all three main characters played by Takayuki Yamada) is one of the most refreshingly original, aesthetically stunning movies of the year.  Come on, Japan, hand it over!

War Horse:  While not exactly what one might consider a film full of holiday cheer to have been released at Christmas, War Horse is nevertheless a cinematic glory.  This World War I epic, with its sweeping cinematography, excellent performances from experienced actors, newcomers and talented four-legged thespians alike and unrepentant sentimentality, is amongst Spielberg’s most stunning, heartfelt works.

Great Performances

Alan Rickman as Severus Snape:  I specifically mean Rickman as Snape.  Yes, I know I’ve said in my review of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Pt. 2 that Rickman deserves an Oscar for his heart-ripping final bow as the boarding school teacher who is not what he seems.  But for Rickman, that performance is the cherry on the cake of seven films’ worth of flawless turns as the oily poisons professor with a double doctorate in sarcasm and Harry-hating.  Had Rickman not invested so much in Snape from the first movie, long before the character’s path was clear, our viewing of these films and our farewell to them - and him - wouldn’t have meant nearly as much.

Saoirse Ronan in Hanna:  From the first time I clapped eyes on her in Atonement, I knew there was something preternatural about Ronan’s talent; something quite out of this world for a girl of barely thirteen.  Four years later, she is playing a spectacularly otherworldly creature; teaming up again with Atonement’s director, Joe Wright to portray a teenager raised in a frozen fortress of solitude to become the perfect assassin.  Selling every part of Hanna as the alien amongst the “civilised” herd, to the pubescent girl feeling the stirrings of young womanhood, to the determined, lethal ninja on a mission who discovers what exactly it means to take a life, Sersh killed it.

Choi Min-sik in I Saw the Devil:  After years away from the camera, the star who hammered Korean cinema into the mainstream with his performance as Oh Dae-su in Park Chan-wook’s Oldboy, returned to the screen in grand style with his performance as a serial killer in I Saw the Devil.  According to director Kim Ji-woon, the idea to make the film came from Choi, who chomps into the role of the insane ladykiller hunted by a vengeful secret service agent, playing all sides of the character; scary, pathetic and bitterly hilarious, like a lion released from a cage.

Michael Fassbender in Shame:  Yeah, he’s naked in it.  A lot.  And no, it’s not a strain on the eyes, either.  But prurient thoughts aside, Fassbender’s portrayal of a man in the grips of sexual addiction requires a curious out-of-body experience to enable the viewer to separate what a handsome fella he is from the depths of degradation Fassbender must reach in this role.  This character lives in a swamp; in the muck of nameless, emotionless, mechanical rutting that will never ease his soul.  It’s a world where nothing is pretty.  His attractiveness only seems a perversion, enabling him to get his fix that much easier.  Fassbender shows us a man who thinks he’s in control and like every addict, is only fooling himself.

George Clooney in The Descendants:  Oh Mr. Clooney, my adoration is well documented.  Watching him play dashing heroes, caddish roués and romantic men on the make over the years couldn’t have prepared me for George as a middle-aged dad who discovers his wife’s affair as she lies in a coma.  In ill-fitting island wear, Clooney’s workaholic schlub must manage sudden single-parenthood to two precocious girls, the responsibility of a family inheritance and how to say goodbye to an erring wife.  Clooney makes the unlikely role his, putting the emotion and unexpected humor of the film across perfectly.

Kenichi Matsuyama in Norwegian Wood: (Yeah, I know Norwegian Wood is our first review of 2012, but this performance is worthy of time-travel.)  Matsuyama has been in our sights since his turn as a likestruck student with a crush in our beloved Linda Linda Linda, to his star-making turn as “L” in the Death Note live action films, to his “immortal” turn in the Gantz sci-fi films.  What a departure Norwegian Wood is for Matsuyama.  It’s like watching the actor grow up onscreen as he plays the college student whose world is turned upside-down by a friend’s suicide and his subsequent entanglement with his pal’s unstable guilt-ridden girlfriend.  It takes a steady hand to manage the romantic storms abounding in this adaptation of Haruki Murakami’s masterpiece, but Matsuyama achieves it.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt in 50/50:  How can a 27-year-old man discovering he has cancer be remotely funny?  In 50/50’s whipsmart script, the absurdity of the very diagnosis and the ridiculousness of the well-meaning actions of those around the afflicted make for some serious comedy.  In this fictionalised account of a true story, Gordon-Levitt adds to his ever-expanding CV of amazing performances by conveying every aspect of his character’s rage, hopelessness and surrealistic humour to create one of the most life-affirming movies about cancer in recent memory.

Arthur from Beginners, Uggie from The Artist and Joey from War Horse –

Three delightful reasons why there should be a new category at the Oscars for Best (four-legged) Animal Performer.  Considering Arthur (played by Cosmo) as the Greek chorus to Ewan McGregor’s journey through loss, Uggie as Jack, a down-and-out silent film star’s partner and only friend, and Joey, who helplessly witnesses and suffers the pointless destruction of war (Actually, there were fourteen Joeys, would one get the statue while the others got extra oats?); I don’t think I could choose from the three scene-stealers.

Stuf

Interviewing Tsui Hark:  The king of Wuxia has spoken! -- And he spoke to me!!! The director who created a genre and launched the careers of so many names in Hong Kong films into superstardom (Like that Jet Li fella and the excellent Brigitte Lin) generously chatted with this acolyte about his incredible cinematic history and Wuxia’s stereoscopic future.

Going live with X Japan’s Yoshiki on Sirius XM:  Our first, but certainly not last video report featured the Asia’s biggest rock star, bar none.  We got to meet and chat with the fabulous Yoshiki of X Japan on the occasion of the launch of his monthly radio show on Sirius XM and were dazzled by his charm, honesty and pure Visual Kei glamour. See?

The Wizarding World of Harry Potter:  We covered the release of the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Pt. 2 DVD in Universal Studios, Orlando and were absolutely confunded by its fabulosity.  Hogwarts motion simulators, the discovery of Butterbeer and the entire Harry Potter trip -- what well-mannered frivolity.  Click here to go our Happenings page to see tons more pics.  Click here to read our press conference and exclusive interviews with folks like Rupert Grint, Jason Isaacs, David Yates, Warwick Davis, the Phelps Twins and more.

The Rise of K-pop:  Nothing has taken the American music scene quite as unawares as the previously-inconceivable reality of a revue of Korean pop music acts selling out the first show in the newly refurbished Madison Square Garden in a mere twenty minutes.  This with ticket prices ranging from $204.50 to $44.50 – in this economy!  The SMTown Live tour brought out the big guns in their roster, including Super Junior (above), Girls’ Generation (below), SHINee, TVXQ! and longtime star, BoA, who sang, danced, looked fabulous and packed the place to the rafters with screaming fans of all races and ages.  Mind you, at the time, only one of these acts had ever released an album in English. 

Finally validated by Billboard’s inclusion of a new chart specifically for K-pop, the western world is finally catching on to what Asians (and some ahead of the curve Westerners) have known for years.  With their inescapably groovacious rhythms, perfectly tuned vocals (hem-hem), picture-perfect faces and flawless production, there’ll be more to come from Korea -- maybe someone should warn Stephen Colbert?  When the going gets tough, sometimes the tough just want to dance.

tokidoki x Barbie:  With her pearly pink page boy, proto-punk off-the-shoulder top, miniskirt, walking the canine Cactus Friend, Bastardino, on a leash, the collaboration between the toy world’s most glamourous gal and the Euro-Anime mash-up style of Tokidoki’s artist Simone Legno seemed a cool and timely match.  Tokidoki’s spins on the Hello Kitty empire, a Sephora makeup line, Onitsuka Tiger sneakers and Metro PCS phones have launched the brand into the mainstream.  However, thanks to some fake, knee-jerk outrage by incredibly dull parents with nothing better to do, the gorgeous Tokidoki body art that adorns Barbie’s shapely frame became a target for controversy and instantly the doll disappeared off the shelves and landed on Ebay. Thank you uncultured, reactionary parents of America for wrapping your precious offspring in cotton wool up to their eyeballs and making it impossible for LMD to get her hands on a Tokidoki Barbie for Christmas!  The last half of this entry should go under…

Fail and Fail and Fail

I Don’t Know How She Does It:  What do you get for the young mother who has everything?  A beautiful townhouse in Boston.  A loving, supportive husband whose career is on the upswing.  Two cute kids who go to a great school.  Supportive in-laws who dote on their grandkids.  A nanny who adores her charges.  A great job that she’s going from strength to strength in, and a handsome new business partner who thinks she’s the bee’s knees.  Why you hand her a great big guilt complex, of course.  This misguided, insulting, dated fiasco explains why, even with all the advantages, women simply can’t have it all.

Battle L.A.:  A noisy, brainless attempt at jingoism that panders to the truly stupid.  An alien invasion movie where you can’t make out what the aliens look like and some of the worst production values this side of an Ed Wood movie. We declare this the Winner of the 2011 Cloverfield Award for pointless overdose of nausea-inducing shakycam.

Sanctum:  This collection of awful acting, dumb premise, laughably bad script and predictable, clichéd action should’ve been buried in a giant cavern.  Wanna see a good movie about a guy getting out of a hole in the ground?  Go rent 127 Hours.

Fast Forward

Here’s some trailers fresh off our YouTube Channel of some of the 2012 titles we’re looking forward to.

Steven Soderbergh's Haywire

Underworld Awakening

Zhang Yimou's The Flowers of War

Studio Ghibli's The Secret World of Arrietty

The Hunger Games

Wrath of the Titans

The Dictator with Sacha Baron Cohen

Men in Black 3

Ridley Scott's Prometheus

Disney/Pixar's Brave

The Dark Knight Rises

And way off into December, Peter Jackson's The Hobbit, Pt. 1

And for The New

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What a scanty little year it’s been.  Not one of our favourites, but we feel it in our fifth eye that 2012 will made of much more glamourous stuff and we’ll be here to report on all the ensuing Fabulosity.  Stay tuned, kiddos!

 ~ L.M.D.

Jan. 13th, 2012