Movie mini-reviews: Let the Right One In, Trainman (Densha Otoko), The Hangover
I will never get back the last 1 hour and 40 minutes I spent watching The Hangover, so I figured I will relieve my feelings and at the same time write about things that give me joy. ^^;;;
Let the Right One In
On my flight to Hong Kong three weeks ago, I flew on Singapore Airlines. I was coincidentally talking with artemidora about Yuletide before I left, and I vaguely remembered her mentioning this vampire movie to me that she wrote for for Yuletide fic. And lo, Singapore Airline's movie selection is wondrous, and was showing Let the Right One In, a movie about a bullied young boy Oskar, and how he befriends Eli, who turns out to be a vampire.
Love and revenge and quietly creepy and just the right amount of gore. It's in Norwegian with English subtitles, and mood of the movie is kinda beautiful. It's a lovely mix of the feelings of friendship, blossoming first love, dealing with bullies, sweetly sociopathic behavior, coming of age, and vampires. Eheh. The ending hit me kind of the way I felt at the end of The Talented Mr. Ripley, not that I'm sure that quite makes a helpful reference for anyone else. :P
I completely recommend this movie, and also the fic that artemidora wrote for Yuletide once you've had a chance to watch it, What Eli and Oskar Do on Their (First) Summer Vacation. \o/ ♥
Trainman (Densha Otoko 電車男)
I watched this one on the flight back, because I had heard of it a while back, and had seen a copy of the translated novel at the bookstore. I need to go find and read it now. Train Man is based on a supposedly true story posted on the 2chan message forum/community by a Japanese otaku (geek) who is socially inexperienced, spends all his time in Akihabara (the anime and electronics area of Tokyo) who has never had a girlfriend.
He's on a subway when a drunken man gets on and harasses the female passengers, and though Train Man is shy and nervous he is the only one to act and try to stop the man long enough for the other passengers to get a conductor. Everyone else tries to ignore the disturbance. Afterwards the female passengers thank him for his intervention and ask for his information, and one passenger sends him a very nice gift. Train Man posts this to the boards asking for advice, and he gets the courage to call her back. The movie follows his trials and tribulations trying to be himself and also get a date, how members of the forum help him with advice from where to take her on dates to how to dress and conversation tips.
Some secondhand embarrassment because Train Man is super awkward, but I found the side characters who are users on the boards to be pretty adorable. Overall I found the whole movie adorable, and though if I were the woman finding out about the help-via-chatroom thing afterwards that might be kind of awkward, honestly I can empathize with the finding help via friends and even anonymous strangers on the internet. I value my relationships with my fandom friends as much as my offline friends, and it's all about the human connection, how even these anonymous strangers become friends and cheerleaders, and gather courage and hope from the struggles of Train Man. I can be a socially awkward geek at times all the time, so I gotta say, this movie is really human and strikes a chord with me. Watch it, it's adorable! And apparently Eita is the recluse with the bunny!
The Hangover
Okay, this movie I watched tonight because my group for ASL class wants to re-enact scenes from it for our final skit, and I had never watched it. So one of my groupmates is a sweetie and lent it to me.
So I watched The Hangover so I would understand what was going on when we picked scenes for our skit.
Doug is getting married, so his two best friends Phil (pretty boy/bad boy teacher) and Stuart (worrywart dentist with controlling girlfriend) and his brother-in-law-to-be Alan (kind of...off, the kind of outrageous character that Zach Galifianakis plays in that Due Date road trip movie with RDJ that I saw trailers for during Inception) take him to Las Vegas for a bachelor party. They wake up the next morning to find that they've lost the groom and have utterly no memories of what happened the night before. The movie basically follows the three as they try to retrace their steps from one 'hijink' to another to try to find Doug.
Honestly, The Hangover is not the style of comedy that I like (well, most US comedy isn't). The situations are supposed to be funny, and I suppose they are in a schadenfreude kind of way. But really, I didn't find any of the characters barring the stripper remotely sympathetic. She was sweet and owned her sexy, and had a cute kid, and tried to be helpful. Everyone else was kind of a hipster-ish over the top stereotype that I guess was supposed to be funny in a "hey we know this is racist or whatever-ist but we're doing this ironically and if you don't find this funny you're taking things too seriously" and just...completely not my cup of tea. In the I-could-feel-my-IQ-points-dropping-as-I-watched kind of way. The cops and their taser demo was kind of super-horrifying to me.
Just another sense that I don't get mainstream US culture despite being born and growing up here, I guess. Because as my classmate was handing me the dvd, several other classmates saw it and gushed about how funny it was and how they really liked it. Anyhow we're just going to do a couple of scenes from the beginning and a slideshow at the very end, so it shouldn't be too bad.
Yes, so I am alive! The movies I did recommend are worth spending a little time on, I think, and I am going hunting for the Densha Otoko novel once I have time to go to the library. At some point I will do a post about my trip to China for my cousin's wedding, and have pictures. Here's hoping that will actually be before New Year's, haha. Love to all you darlings! ♥
Let the Right One In
On my flight to Hong Kong three weeks ago, I flew on Singapore Airlines. I was coincidentally talking with artemidora about Yuletide before I left, and I vaguely remembered her mentioning this vampire movie to me that she wrote for for Yuletide fic. And lo, Singapore Airline's movie selection is wondrous, and was showing Let the Right One In, a movie about a bullied young boy Oskar, and how he befriends Eli, who turns out to be a vampire.
Love and revenge and quietly creepy and just the right amount of gore. It's in Norwegian with English subtitles, and mood of the movie is kinda beautiful. It's a lovely mix of the feelings of friendship, blossoming first love, dealing with bullies, sweetly sociopathic behavior, coming of age, and vampires. Eheh. The ending hit me kind of the way I felt at the end of The Talented Mr. Ripley, not that I'm sure that quite makes a helpful reference for anyone else. :P
I completely recommend this movie, and also the fic that artemidora wrote for Yuletide once you've had a chance to watch it, What Eli and Oskar Do on Their (First) Summer Vacation. \o/ ♥
Trainman (Densha Otoko 電車男)
I watched this one on the flight back, because I had heard of it a while back, and had seen a copy of the translated novel at the bookstore. I need to go find and read it now. Train Man is based on a supposedly true story posted on the 2chan message forum/community by a Japanese otaku (geek) who is socially inexperienced, spends all his time in Akihabara (the anime and electronics area of Tokyo) who has never had a girlfriend.
He's on a subway when a drunken man gets on and harasses the female passengers, and though Train Man is shy and nervous he is the only one to act and try to stop the man long enough for the other passengers to get a conductor. Everyone else tries to ignore the disturbance. Afterwards the female passengers thank him for his intervention and ask for his information, and one passenger sends him a very nice gift. Train Man posts this to the boards asking for advice, and he gets the courage to call her back. The movie follows his trials and tribulations trying to be himself and also get a date, how members of the forum help him with advice from where to take her on dates to how to dress and conversation tips.
Some secondhand embarrassment because Train Man is super awkward, but I found the side characters who are users on the boards to be pretty adorable. Overall I found the whole movie adorable, and though if I were the woman finding out about the help-via-chatroom thing afterwards that might be kind of awkward, honestly I can empathize with the finding help via friends and even anonymous strangers on the internet. I value my relationships with my fandom friends as much as my offline friends, and it's all about the human connection, how even these anonymous strangers become friends and cheerleaders, and gather courage and hope from the struggles of Train Man. I can be a socially awkward geek at times all the time, so I gotta say, this movie is really human and strikes a chord with me. Watch it, it's adorable! And apparently Eita is the recluse with the bunny!
The Hangover
Okay, this movie I watched tonight because my group for ASL class wants to re-enact scenes from it for our final skit, and I had never watched it. So one of my groupmates is a sweetie and lent it to me.
So I watched The Hangover so I would understand what was going on when we picked scenes for our skit.
Doug is getting married, so his two best friends Phil (pretty boy/bad boy teacher) and Stuart (worrywart dentist with controlling girlfriend) and his brother-in-law-to-be Alan (kind of...off, the kind of outrageous character that Zach Galifianakis plays in that Due Date road trip movie with RDJ that I saw trailers for during Inception) take him to Las Vegas for a bachelor party. They wake up the next morning to find that they've lost the groom and have utterly no memories of what happened the night before. The movie basically follows the three as they try to retrace their steps from one 'hijink' to another to try to find Doug.
Honestly, The Hangover is not the style of comedy that I like (well, most US comedy isn't). The situations are supposed to be funny, and I suppose they are in a schadenfreude kind of way. But really, I didn't find any of the characters barring the stripper remotely sympathetic. She was sweet and owned her sexy, and had a cute kid, and tried to be helpful. Everyone else was kind of a hipster-ish over the top stereotype that I guess was supposed to be funny in a "hey we know this is racist or whatever-ist but we're doing this ironically and if you don't find this funny you're taking things too seriously" and just...completely not my cup of tea. In the I-could-feel-my-IQ-points-dropping-as-I-watched kind of way. The cops and their taser demo was kind of super-horrifying to me.
Just another sense that I don't get mainstream US culture despite being born and growing up here, I guess. Because as my classmate was handing me the dvd, several other classmates saw it and gushed about how funny it was and how they really liked it. Anyhow we're just going to do a couple of scenes from the beginning and a slideshow at the very end, so it shouldn't be too bad.
Yes, so I am alive! The movies I did recommend are worth spending a little time on, I think, and I am going hunting for the Densha Otoko novel once I have time to go to the library. At some point I will do a post about my trip to China for my cousin's wedding, and have pictures. Here's hoping that will actually be before New Year's, haha. Love to all you darlings! ♥