Watch any of these excellent movies and tell me what you think about it.  

 

 

 The Mission

Sweeping and visually resplendent The Mission is a powerful action epic about a man of the sword (Robert DeNiro) and a man of the cloth (Jeremy Irons) who unite to shield a South American Indian tribe from brutal subjugation by 18th-century colonial empires. It reunites key talents behind The Killing Fields: co-producer David Puttnam director Roland Joffe and cinematographer Chris Menges. Winner of the 1986 Cannes Film Festival Best Picture Award the film earned seven Academy AwardO nominations* (including Best Picture) and won a Best Cinematography OscarO. Robert Bolt's throughtful screenplay and Ennio Morricone's rich score won Golden Globe Awards. The Mission is screen storytelling that weaves a haunting spell.Running Time: 125 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA UPC: 085392349722

 

Evita- After more than a decade of false starts and several potential directors, the popular Andrew Lloyd Webber/Tim Rice musical finally made it to the big screen with Alan Parker (The Commitments) at the helm and Madonna in the coveted title role of Argentina's first lady, Eva Perón. A triumph of production design, costuming, cinematography, and epic-scale pageantry, the film follows the rise of Eva Perón to the level of supreme social and political celebrity in the 1940s. Like Madonna, Perón was a material girl (she was only 33 when she died); she was instrumental in the political success of her husband, Juan Perón (Jonathan Pryce). But Eva was also a supremely tragic figure whose life was essentially hollow at its core despite the lavish benefits of her nearly goddess-like status. The film has a similar quality--it's visually astonishing but emotionally distant, and benefits greatly from the singing commentary of Ché (Antonio Banderas), who serves as a passionate chorus to guide the viewer through the elaborate parade of history.

 

The Last Emperor- You remember the saga: taken from his mother at the age of three, Pu Yi is brought into the enclosed walls of the Forbidden City to replace the real emperor. There he becomes a pampered prisoner and hollow symbol of an older monarchy that has since given way to a ruthless, 20th century republic. With his pining loyalists beheaded or kept at bay by armed soldiers outside the City's walls, Pu Yi is tutored by an English gentleman (Peter O'Toole) and wed to a kindred spirit (Joan Chen). Eventually cast from his gated paradise, Pu Yi (wonderfully portrayed in adulthood by John Lone) becomes, by turns, a playboy, a dupe to the Japanese, and a victim of China's cultural reforms and re-education programs. This longer cut largely top-loads the film with greater reason to feel compassion for the emperor, with his often wordless sense-adventure in the mysteries that could only be known to one little boy plunged into indecipherable alien decorum, robbed of self-determination and common sense by his infinite privilege. Added scenes (including some in the political rehabilitation camp where Pu Yi is held for a decade) fill out not so much added facts as density of experience. This improved The Last Emperor is richer in soul and a pronounced sense of Bertolucci actually directing this film in the most personal and profound sense.

 

Tokyo Story- An elderly couple go to visit their children in Tokyo, but the children mostly don't have time for them. They learn to accept how things have come out. Not much of a story on the surface, but the strength of the movie is the vivid portrayal of the family, the fine acting, and the emotions brought up for the viewer. If you have children--or parents--you will be deeply moved.

 

Ran- (Warning- A bit bloody and violent- Rated R in the 1970’s) As critic Roger Ebert observed in his original review of Ran, this epic tragedy might have been attempted by a younger director, but only the Japanese master Akira Kurosawa, who made the film at age 75, could bring the requisite experience and maturity to this stunning interpretation of Shakespeare's King Lear. It's a film for the ages--one of the few genuine screen masterpieces--and arguably serves as an artistic summation of the great director's career. In this version of the Shakespeare tragedy, the king is a 16th-century warlord (Tatsuya Nakadai as Lord Hidetora) who decides to retire and divide his kingdom evenly among his three sons. When one son defiantly objects out of loyalty to his father and warns of inevitable sibling rivalry, he is banished and the kingdom is awarded to his compliant siblings. The loyal son's fears are valid: a duplicitous power struggle ensues and the aging warlord witnesses a maelstrom of horrifying death and destruction. Although the film is slow to establish its story, it's clear that Kurosawa, who planned and painstakingly designed the production for 10 years before filming began, was charting a meticulous and tightly formalized dramatic strategy. As familial tensions rise and betrayal sends Lord Hidetora into the throes of escalating madness, Ran (the title is the Japanese character for "chaos" or "rebellion") reaches a fever pitch through epic battles and a fortress assault that is simply one of the most amazing sequences on film.

 

Dreams-Produced with assistance from George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, Dreams is an omnibus of eight short stories and parables that spell enchantment at every turn. The opening story, "Sun Under the Rain," emerges from director Akira Kurosawa's personal memories, as a child (whose house is modeled after Kurosawa's childhood home in Koishikawa) witnesses a fox's wedding ceremony in a magical forest. The Garden of Eden motif continues in "The Peach Orchard," while Lucas's ILM special effects group shines in the glorious "Crows" segment, in which an art admirer finds himself living within the paintings of Van Gogh (played with concentrated energy by Kurosawa enthusiast Martin Scorsese). In the idyllic closing fable, "The Village of the Watermills," a centenarian claims that "people nowadays have forgotten that they are also part of nature." The equally wise Kurosawa reinforces the old man's claim through these vivid but ultimately life-affirming tableaux.  

 

 

Empire of the Sun- This very underrated film poignantly follows the World War II adventures of young Jim (a brilliant Christian Bale), caught in the throes of the fall of China. What if you once had everything and lost it all in an afternoon? What if you were only 12? Bale's transformation, from pampered British ruling-class child to an imprisoned, desperate, nearly feral boy, is nothing short of stunning. Also stunning are exceptional sets, cinematography, and music (the last courtesy of John Williams) that enhance author J.G. Ballard's and screenwriter Tom Stoppard's depiction of another, less familiar casualty of war.

 

Chac: The Rain God- A cult film from the 1970's that was lost for years and now newly restored, Chac: The Rain God is based on ritual and legends from the Popul Vuh, as well as Tzeltal and Mayan folk stories. This magnificently photographed film, shot in the Chiapas region of Mexico by director Rolando Klein, focuses on a small village during a terrible drought. Desperate for relief, thirteen men set out on a quest to save their people from starvation. They seek a solitary Diviner who lives in the mountains and knows the ways of the Ancients; they hope that he can summon Chac, the Rain God. A dazzling portrait of a Native American spiritual quest, Chac is a visionary masterpiece as powerful and revolutionary as Walkabout, El Topo, and Aguirre, The Wrath of God.

In the Time of the Butterflies-(Warning-Rated PG-13)- In the Time of the Butterflies tells the real-life story of the Mirabal sisters, courageous revolutionaries known covertly as las Mariposas ("the Butterflies"). The sisters' years of dissent during the Trujillo dictatorship in the Dominican Republic led to their eventual murder in 1960, a brutal crime that signaled the beginning of the end for Trujillo. Told through the eyes of Minerva Mirabal (Salma Hayek), the story follows a somewhat predictable plot line as the sisters progress rapidly from naive to idealistic to victimized and on to resolved as they become leaders in an elaborate plot to assassinate the dictator. As with so many biographical depictions on film, even though this one is based on a highly acclaimed novel by Julia Alvarez, the narrative shifts from past to present are clumsy and excessively sepia-toned; the script delivers its life-was-better-before-sequence with little to no grace before quickly connecting the dots of history. Nevertheless, Edward James Olmos, as Trujillo, does a remarkable job of conveying the unique mixture of political intuition and ruthlessness needed to maintain a dictatorship for 30 years, while Hayek delivers a spirited lead performance.

Mr. Baseball-M (warning- nasty language, pg-13). BASEBALL is a film of paradoxes. Written and filmed as a "light, sports comedy" it truly has a heartwarming core as human and universal as some of Capra's finest. At the plot level, you have the paradox of baseball, a fine old American game, as it is played in Japan - turned around, with American values cast off and Japanese values imprinted upon the game. (Some of the superficial "sports comedy" results from Jack's uncomprehending disbelief at how "basa-boru" is played in Japan.) You also have a lead character who's presented as an over-the-hill, aging baseball star, but who is actually quite immature - pro ball allowed him to postpone growing up. And you have a lead character who is rudely resistant to the changes in his life that are being forced upon him, refusing to accept the curveball that life has given him, in the midst of a new country, a new manager, a new team, and a new girlfriend, who have all welcomed him and try to accept him. Sound like heavy stuff? Not really. It's a charming "clash of cultures" comedy that takes place on the national, sports, romantic, and professional levels. But if you watch it sensitively enough, you will also find a great story about a man who has to abandon his immaturity and grow up way too late in life (causing some amount of personal pain), and finds success in places he never expected it. I love the story, but I also have great respect for Selleck's performance; he bares his tush (literally) to portray an ugly American, insulting people and throwing tantrums in public, then lets us inside this character to understand his dismay. It also doesn't hurt if you're a big fan of Takakura Ken like I am. MR. BASEBALL is a surprising "loss of innocence" tale.

Gandhi- Sir Richard Attenborough's 1982 multiple-Oscar winner (including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor for Ben Kingsley) is an engrossing, reverential look at the life of Mohandas K. Gandhi, who introduced the doctrine of nonviolent resistance to the colonized people of India and who ultimately gained the nation its independence. Kingsley is magnificent as Gandhi as he changes over the course of the three-hour film from an insignificant lawyer to an international leader and symbol. Strong on history (the historic division between India and Pakistan, still a huge problem today, can be seen in its formative stages here) as well as character and ideas, this is a fine film. (Not really a part of the curriculum, but this is too good to not include)

 

 

Rhapsody in August (1991)

Legendary auteur Akira Kurosawa directs a tale about four Japanese youngsters who visit their elderly grandmother -- a woman who's never forgotten the horrors caused by the bombing of Nagasaki during World War II. She tells her grandchildren about these horrors (which included the death of her husband). Her understandable long-held prejudice against Americans gets put to the test when her Japanese-American nephew visits them.

 

 

The Last Samurai (Warning-Rated R for violence)  2003-While Japan undergoes tumultuous transition to a more Westernized society in 1876-77, The Last Samurai gives epic sweep to an intimate story of cultures at a crossroads. In America, tormented Civil War veteran Capt. Nathan Algren (Tom Cruise) is coerced by a mercenary officer (Tony Goldwyn) to train the Japanese Emperor's troops in the use of modern weaponry. Opposing this "progress" is a rebellion of samurai warriors, holding fast to their traditions of honor despite strategic disadvantage. As a captive of the samurai leader (Ken Watanabe), Algren learns, appreciates, and adopts the samurai code, switching sides for a climactic battle that will put everyone's honor to the ultimate test. All of which makes director Edward Zwick's noble epic eminently worthwhile, even if its Hollywood trappings (including an all-too-conventional ending) prevent it from being the masterpiece that Zwick and screenwriter John Logan clearly wanted it to be. Instead, The Last Samurai is an elegant mainstream adventure, impressive in all aspects of its production. It may not engage the emotions as effectively as Logan's script for Gladiator, but like Cruise's character, it finds its own quality of honor.

 

Picture Bride 1995 (pg-13) The first feature by Hawaii-born filmmaker Kayo Hatta, 1995's Picture Bride takes us into unexplored story territory in its tale of a young Japanese woman (Youki Kudoh of Jim Jarmusch's Mystery Train) who leaves her home in 1918 to become the mail-order wife of a sugar plantation laborer (Akira Takayama) in Honolulu. Her first shock is discovering that her husband is actually 20 years older than his photograph; after that, life just becomes hard as the intensity and dangers of plantation work eclipse all joy. Hatta achieves an admirable authenticity in her portrait of the island community and the ghosts it (literally) harbors; she also gives us a strong sense of racial and class divisions that crackle like live wires through Oahu's booming industries at the start of the century. Tamlyn Tomita is excellent as the woman who becomes Kudoh's closest ally and friend in this new world, and the late Toshirô Mifune has a memorable, small part as a traveling narrator of silent films. This is an original, fascinating, and touching work.

 

 

 

(Blurbs are from www.amazon.com)

American Pastime

This film premiered Sunday at the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival. While there have been a number of excellent documentaries on this subject, this is the first commercial film I have seen which has the potential for such broad appeal with American audiences. The director has assembled a wonderful cast of actors--both veterans and new, young actors. Gary Cole gives a subtle, but authentic performance as the military supervisor of the camp. Excellent supporting roles by Seth Sakai,Sarah Drew,Judy Ongg and Susanna Thompson add to the vitality of this ensemble. Newcomers Aaron Yoo and Leonardo Nam as the Namuro brothers are impressive. Not enough good things can be said about the Japanese veteran actor, Masatoshi Nakamura, who plays the father of the Namuro family. It is a dynamic performance and his character is the strength of this story. Shot on location in Utah, the film delivers a hard look at the Topaz internment camp and the realities of the daily lives of the interns and their captors. The mixture of period archival footage frames the story for the audience whose knowledge of the subject is minimal. Using baseball and jazz as a narrative device, this is a film the children and grandchildren of the World War II generation need to see. (blurb from imd