Dec 24, 2014

28th Dec 2014; Woody Allen's THE PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO


THE PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO
1985 / USA / 82 mins
5.45pm/ 28th Dec 2014 /  Perks Mini Theater / Coimbatore


The best thing about the movie is the way Woody Allen uses it to toy with the very essence of reality and fantasy. The woman- Cecilia -  in the movie is played by Mia Farrow as a sweet, rather baffled small-town waitress whose big, shiftless lug of a husband bats her around. She is a good candidate for the magic of the movies. Up on the screen, sophisticated people have cocktails and plan trips down the Nile and are recognized by the doormen in nightclubs.

 
Everything about Cecilia (Mia Farrow) is tinged with melancholy, including the time - the depressed 1930's - and the place, a drab little New Jersey town where even the sunlight looks gray. 
One day, after going through a bad patch at the diner and with her husband Monk, she is sitting in the Jewel Theater, watching something called ''The Purple Rose of Cairo'' for the umpteenth time, when the film's handsome, four-square juvenile, a pith-helmeted character named Tom Baxter (Jeff Daniels), steps down from the screen and into Cecilia's life.
 ''The Purple Rose of Cairo'' is pure enchantment. It's a sweet, lyrically funny, multi- layered work. The movie is so intelligent. No one in the whole movie speaks with more complexity than your average 1930s movie hero—but the movie is filled with wit and invention, and Allen trusts us to find the ironies, relish the contradictions, and figure things out for ourselves. While we do that, he makes us laugh and he makes us think, and when you get right down to it, forget about the fantasies; those are two of the most exciting things that could happen to anybody in a movie. (Source: Internet)

 

Woody Allen

Woody Allen is one of the most well known and respected names in the movie industry. His career of being a writer, director, actor and producer spans over 30 years and still thrives.Woody Allen was born on December 1, 1935 in Brooklyn, New York, As a young boy, he became intrigued with magic tricks and playing the clarinet, two hobbies that he continues today.Allen broke into show business at 15 years when he started writing jokes for a local paper, receiving $200 a week. He later moved on to write jokes for talk shows

Woody's theoretical directorial debut was in What's Up, Tiger Lily? (1966); a Japanese spy flick.  His real directorial debut came the next year in the mockumentary "Take the Money and Run." He has written, directed and, more often than not, starred in about a film a year ever since, while simultaneously writing more than a dozen plays and several books of comedy.

While best known for his romantic comedies Annie Hall (1977) and Manhattan (1979), Woody has made many transitions in his films throughout the years, transitioning from his "early, funny ones" of "Bananas," "Love and Death" and "Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex But Were Afraid To Ask;" to his more storied and romantic comedies of "Annie Hall," "Manhattan" and "Hannah and Her Sisters;" to the Bergmanesque films of "Stardust Memories" and "Interiors;" and then on to the more recent, but varied works of "Crimes and Misdemeanors," "Husbands and Wives," "Mighty Aphrodite," "Celebrity" and "Deconstructing Harry;" and finally to his film of the last decade, which vary from the light comedy of "Scoop," to the self-destructive darkness of "Match Point" and, most recently, to the cinematically beautiful tale of "Vicky Cristina Barcelona." Although his stories and style have changed over the years, he is regarded as one of the best filmmakers of our time because of his views on art and his mastery of filmmaking.


Dec 5, 2014

7th Dec 2014; Koreeda's Like Father, Like Son


Like Father, Like Son
A film by  Hirokazu Koreeda
2013 / Japan / 121 mins
5.45pm/Peks Mini Theater

 In contemporary Japan, the echoes of old Japanese gender culture lingers like a ghost, with the added layers of corporate pressure, sometime self imposed. But Hirokazu Kore-eda's focus here is on the theme of fatherhood, coupled with the theme of parenthood as a biological or nurturing drive.

The film begins with a clean palate, straight lines, neat apartment and absence of chaos as the Nonomaya nuclear family skates through life, balanced on the edge of workaholism. Ryota Nonomya (Masaharu Fukuyama) is a talented architect with a large firm, his wife Midori (Machiko Ono) in captivity as the mother at home, their 6 year old son Keita (Keita Ninomya) content in the safety of their comforts.

We meet that other family, the Saikis, a happily disheveled  shopkeeper (a devoted father) and his take away food shop waitress wife. They have three kids, the 6 year old Ryusei (Shogen Hwang) the eldest. This movie deals with an important  settlement happening between these two families. The contrast between the families' lifestyles and paternal attitudes plays on the dilemma facing them. Sensitively performed and directed, Like Father, Like Son is a series of acutely observed insights into its themes and its social setting, as well as a close study of human nature faced with some complex issues that go to the heart of our natural genetic urges.

The film won the Cannes Jury Prize and was nominated for Best Picture by the Japanese Academy, among a raft of awards and nominations including several from the Asia Pacific Screen Awards held on the Gold Coast.  
(Source: Internet)



Hirokazu Koreeda

Japanese auteur Hirokazu Kore-eda was born in Tokyo in 1962. Originally intended to be a novelist, but after graduating from Waseda University in 1987 went on to become an assistant director at TV Man Union. Sneaked off set to film Lessons from a Calf (1991) is first feature, Maboroshi no hikari (1995), based on a Teru Miyamoto novel and drawn from his own experiences whilst filming _August Without Him (1994), won jury prizes at Venice and Chicago. The main themes of his oeuvre include memory and loss, death and loss, and the intersection of documentary and fictional narratives. 

In a short period of time, Hirozaku Koreeda has gained a solid reputation as one of the most significant figures of contemporary Japanese cinema. His oeuvre is currently comprised of eight films including his television documentary work with TV Man Union, Inc. and his narrative films (After Life, Maborosi) which reflect the contemplative style and pacing of such luminaries as Hou Hsiao-Hsien and Tsai Ming-liang. He has become a cinematographic tightrope walker who almost unnoticeably switches between fictitious and real territories, between narration and invention, the private and the public.