Foxes do it: Evolutionary reasons for sluttiness
As a feminist I get so tired of hearing the same old biological, overdetermined, psuedo-evolutionary scientific reasons for why females of the species are faithful nuturers and men must stick their junk in every warm hole within reasonable proximity. Even though several studies on mammals and all other species have found an astonishing number of exceptions to this “rule”, within human discourse this convenient excuse is thrown around and not questioned when applied to males general lack of sexual self control. And here’s yet another study from Yahoo! science news about female foxes who sleep around in order to increase the genetic viability of their offspring. Indeed, it makes sense for several members of the animal kingdom of both sexes to make as much nookie as possible for this same reason. Unless one is talking about penguins or other animals where extreme devotion to a single partner IS required to propagate the species, it would seem as if female sexual passivity isn’t as overwhelmingly represented in mother nature as we once thought. So there!
Film legend Ingmar Bergman passes away
The brilliant Swedish director who gave us the indelible image of a shrouded grim reaper playing chess with a forlorn knight, has quietly met his own fate at the age 89. Ingmar Bergman, the winner of four Oscars and director of over 50 films, reportedly passed away in his sleep of natural causes. Although I hear the iconic Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries are often cited as fan favorites, I have always been particularly moved by Through A Glass Darkly, and The Virgin Spring. I have yet to see his later works such as Persona and Fanny and Alexander, but now they shoot to the top of my Netflix. First Vonnegut and now Bergman…the world can’t afford to lose any more great artists.
For an in depth obituary on Bergman http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070730/people_nm/sweden_bergman_dc_5
My 2007 New York Asian Film Festival Reviews
You can also check out this review and many of my other reviews at www.cinemattraction.com
The New York Asian Film Festival is back with all the vengeance of a 10-story mutant lizard rampaging Tokyo. This year’s featured films ranged from the serious (existential nightmares and futuristic prisons) to the silly (killer hair extentions and penis guns). At the IFC Center, lucky viewers won prize giveaways of hentai DVDs, books and signed posters. NYAFF premiered new films and re-releases from recognized talents such as Takashi Miike, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Shinya Tsukamoto and Park Chan-wook, as well as newcomers trying to make a name for themselves in an international market.
Zebraman
Takashi Miike/Japan 2004
If it weren’t for the NYAFF, I might have never gotten to chance to use the adjectives delightful, touching, or family-friendly to describe a film by extreme director Takashi Miike. Zebraman is one of two Miike festival entries (the other is Big Bang Love, Juvenile A). Miike’s excursions into mainstream family films proves he is not only insanely prolific but incredibly versatile. Yakuza regular Sho Aikawa is Shin’ichi Ichikawa, an unpopular teacher who can’t get respect from his students or his dispondent family. Ichikawa escapes his daily troubles via his fanboy obsession with Zebraman, a superhero from a canceled TV show. At night, he sews a makeshift Zebraman costume and practices the character’s signature moves in the mirror. When a paralyzed transfer student shares the same obsession, Ichikawa finds a reason to finally put on the costume and fight crime – just in time to thwart an invasion by gooey green aliens.
Zebraman manages to be melodramatic, funny and sentimental while maintaining an edginess and addressing themes consistent with most of Miike’s other work. Ichikawa’s family is plagued with the same problems as the dysfunctional clan in the ultra-controversial Visitor Q, including adultery, teenage prostitution and school bullying. Although here, those issues are only briefly alluded to with all the depth of an afterschool special. Instead of exploring difference through criminal outsiders or Chinese immigrants, Zebraman uses a disabled child as a catalyst for unifying Ichikawa’s family and ultimately bringing all of Japan together behind a new hero.
Aikawa gives an endearing performance as the hero who is realistically baffled by the sudden acquisition of his powers and the overall absurdity of the situation. Special effects are charmingly low-tech with visual and editing effects mimicing the cheesy superhero TV shows of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Zebraman may be one of Miike’s lesser works, but it is a diverting film that is more accessible than his recent esoteric pieces.
Nightmare Detective
Shinya Tsukamoto/Japan 2006
Director Shinya Tsukamoto burst onto the scene with the surreal postmodern cyborg fantasy Tetsuo, the Iron Man in 1989. Nightmare Detective is reportedly his most mainstream and biggest budget film to date, yet Tskuamoto appears to have not compromised on the subject matter or his trademark disturbing imagery. The titular detective (Ryuhei Matsuda) possesses the reluctant ability to enter into other people’s dreams. His talent is shared by the mysterious “0” (Tsukamoto himself), who connects with suicidal people over the phone then murders them the same night through their nightmares. Intense police detective Keiko Kirishima (popstar Hitomi in her acting debut) is the first to recognize that the gruesome deaths aren’t suicides and enlists the nightmare detective’s help in tracking down “0”.
Nightmare Detective is a cerebral slasher film equally concerned with grand guignol death scenes as it is with exploring the existentialist aspects of living in postmodern Japan. Everyone in this film is latently suicidal, lonely and damaged to the point of being broken. “O” is decidedly more ambitious than the typical serial killer. He has an apocalyptic wish to destroy the world and kill everyone in it. Tsukamoto as “O” is memorably creepy and one wonders if he shares the bleak worldview espoused by his character, since his direction captures a gloomy, industrial urban Japan devoid of color or joy. Androgynous star Matsuda is compelling to watch in his various stages of anguish but Hitomi’s performance unfortunately wavers between comatose and ridiculously overwrought. The constant bombardment of images and jerky POV camera make the final confrontation slightly confusing. However, Nightmare Detective’s frightening visuals and depressing assessment of modern life stay with the viewer long after the film ends, and is a respectable addition to Tsukamoto’s body of work.
Retribution
Kiyoshi Kurosawa/Japan 2006
In his fifth collaboration with director Kiyoshi Kurosawa, actor Koji Yakusho portrays a world-weary cop once again in Retribution. Police Det. Noboru Yoshioka (Yakusho) must investigate the murder of an unidentified woman in a red dress, whose body was found drowned in a puddle of saltwater at an abandoned construction site. Yoshioka keeps finding clues that point back to him and that’s only the beginning of his problems. Other murders with similar M.O.s occur causing his young partner to grow increasingly suspicious, the ghost of the woman in red is haunting him, and his mysterious girlfriend disappears for days at a time. Yoshioka is immediately established as a morally ambiguous character who regularly roughs up suspects and drinks too much. Through revelations in the case Yoshioka confronts transgressions in his own past, which in turn reveals clues about a possible motive for the crimes.
Kurosawa is known for taking mainstream genres and innovating them with his uniquely philosophical viewpoint. In Cure and Pulse he was able to transform typical a crime thriller and a horror film into meditations on alienation in modern life. However, Retribution has one too many horror clichés, throwing in everything from the avenging girl ghost with spooky black hair to the tainted land/burial ground imagery with some traditional jump scares thrown in for good measure. Judging from his last stinker, Loft, Kurosawa increasingly confuses profundity with turgid pacing and overly contrived plots. The retribution meted out to the guilty parties (and there are hundreds of them) is certainly disproportionate to the “crime” which, actually, is never fully explained. And, although the ending is presented as a twist, it is fairly obvious from early in the film how this aspect of Yoshioka’s troubled life will turn out. Retribution has frightening moments and is surprisingly funny in parts, but ultimately it feels like scenes that have been cut and pasted from Kurosawa’s older and better work. Despite the fact that Yakusho has played similar parts in similar films by the same director, it is only his somber performance that feels fresh in this film.
Bush thumbs his nose at us, spares “scooter” Libby jail term
What is happening to our checks and balances? First Bush gets his VP’s crony out of the clink , then Cheney pretty much refuses to comply with an executive order on the handling of national security secrets.
<——— the smirky face of a guy (Libby) who knows his friends in high places will always bail him out
The Washington Post is doing a fabulous series on the Dick Cheney shadow presidency, exploring to what extent the VP has created new powers for himself, abused his position in office, and expanded the definition of torture to strain the Geneva conventions. It is hair-raising stuff but he isn’t exactly being discreet about throwing his weight around. So where is the outrage? Presidents have been impeached for less. Seriously.
