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Nineball posted:As an aside, if you're interested in any kind of Japanese cinema bonus rounds, I would very, very much recommend Yasujiro Ozu as a contrast with Kurosawa in particular. Especially if you're just willing to fit in The Record of a Tenement Gentleman,Tokyo Story, or Floating Weeds in, as those are considered his most renowned films. I've seen most of Kurosawa's work but I've had a bunch of Ozu stuff sitting in my Hulu queue for a while and haven't gotten into it yet. Whats the best place to start? Tokyo Story?
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Aug 18, 2015 14:49
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jivjov posted:The disparity is honestly why I'm doing both at once. I don't want to be consuming a never-ending stream of one style. I hear you, and I can understand wanting to mix things up. I think you'll be surprised by how much Kurosawa did that on his own though, I know I was. For instance he did Ikiru in 1952, then Seven Samurai in 54, then Throne of Blood in 57. Three very different films.
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Aug 18, 2015 15:21
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Yea Kurosawa is the rare director that seemed to improve with age. Ran is in my top-3 favorite films of his and he made it fairly late in the game.
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Aug 27, 2015 18:06
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LORD OF BUTT posted:Ran. Like I said, we've got a good while. I'd give anything for three or four more color films by Kurosawa, its a shame he started working with it so late in his career.
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Mar 8, 2016 20:22
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MonsieurChoc posted:God, I loving love Kagemusha. Can't wait to re-watch that, my copy of the Criterion blu ray just arrived yesterday. I saw it a few years ago but I think this blu ray will probably look a lot better than the version I had then.
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Mar 8, 2016 20:37
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The only downside to seeing Ran in a theatre is you can't lower the volume when that court jester character screeches at a frequency only dogs should be able to hear.
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Mar 18, 2016 17:18
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Rat Flavoured Rats posted:I went to see Ran in it's recently-restored 4K glory this weekend. It was my first Kurosawa since seeing Rashomon and Seven Samurai as part of a Uni Course about 8 years ago. Still absolutely blown away by it and really looking forward to seeing the discussion of it in this thread once it gets around to it. I imagine those battle scenes with the guys running around with the different color armor were amazing on the big screen. Hell, right from the first frame it probably knocks you back in your seat.
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Apr 12, 2016 02:17
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jivjov posted:Not sure if I'll get to movie watching today...there was a big storm last night which revealed a leak in my roof. Gotta make some phone calls and hopefully get that taken care of. Speaking only for myself here, but I don't think you need to explain this kind of thing. We realize you have a life outside of watching these movies. I appreciate the write-ups you're doing regardless of how long you need to take in between doing them.
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Apr 27, 2016 15:51
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jivjov posted:How strange it is to go back to black and white after seeing how colorful Ran was. I love vivid colors in film and Ran and Kagemusha really make me wish Kurosawa had been able to do more work in color.
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Apr 27, 2016 19:44
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Random Stranger posted:I feel like Kurosawa was working from a more technicolor ideal with his color films. They can look very striking, but they're lit and designed very artificially. Obviously it can look very good, but it's not something that I'd want in everything. That's why I think it would have been really interesting to see a wider range of Kurosawa films in color. For instance, if he had done a gritty crime story ala High & Low, but in color. I doubt he'd have gone for the same aesthetic as Ran, I'm sure the colors would have been a little more muted and realistic. But maybe not, and that would still be something I'd want to see.
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Apr 27, 2016 19:59
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I thought Miike did a really excellent job in reproducing the "getting the team together" part when he did 13 Assassins. That part of the movie really feels like a straight-up remake of Seven Samurai.
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Apr 28, 2016 16:54
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I'm jealous so I'm going to watch The Good, the Bad, and The Ugly on blu ray to make myself feel better.
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Jun 18, 2016 16:55
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jivjov posted:Well; that has been part of it. This movie is so aggressive of a remake that I am having difficulty giving it my full attention at times. Watching you fail miserably is a good side activity. Yea, the beginning especially is scene for scene almost identical to Seven Samurai. It has some great characters, but Magnificent Seven is probably my least favorite of what people usually consider the all-time great Westerns. Its no Leone, that's for drat sure.
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Jun 22, 2016 00:14
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The actual plot of Hidden Fortress is not all that similar to Star Wars, aside from a rag-tag group of people thrown together by circumstance, smuggling a princess through enemy territory. Its definitely not a 1 to 1 comparison on a plot level though. What Lucas really took from it most, which he has spoken about often in interviews, is telling a big adventure story from the point of view of the lowest characters. The same story told a different way could have focused a lot more on the princess and Mifune in the first third of the film, and really we don't ever get much detail about how and why they are in the desperate situation they're in. Much in the same way we only get bits and pieces of info about the rise of the Empire and what came before it, the focus of the story is always on people who are typically on the periphery of these huge world changing events. That's why its really dumb when you hear people talk about the droids in Star Wars as if they operate under some sort of Asimov hard sci-fi rules. They play the role of the lowest peasants and slaves, and its a very human role that is basically the core of the entire story.
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Jul 13, 2016 16:35
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Looking forward to the next write-up. I watched them recently when I heard you'd be reviewing them. I'd never seen Mifune in anything non-Kurosawa but unsurprisingly he was excellent in this trilogy.
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Jul 13, 2016 20:11
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I wonder how many people in the world have seen both TMNT 2: Secret of the Ooze, and an Ozu film. Probably not too many.
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Sep 8, 2016 01:32
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Prepare to be blown away by Ran, and probably Kagemusha too. I say this all the time but I really wish we had 3 or 4 more Kurosawa films in color, he did things with it that very few other directors have done.
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Sep 15, 2016 15:33
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ozza posted:I'm now a few films into colour Kurosawa and - wow. I did not expect such vibrancy and joy from Kurosawa (though reading a bit about his training as an artist and tendency to storyboard through painting it makes sense). Kagemusha, which was the most recent film I watched, in particular was visually amazing. The story itself I found ultimately underwhelming and the battle scenes nigh-on incomprehensible, but boy did it showcase a bold, bright, ingenious use of colour. It's been said before, but I wish he'd been making colour films from much earlier in his career - it really is a different (and elevated) experience, and obviously something he was intuitively good at. If you haven't seen Ran yet, do so immediately. Its a better story than Kagemusha in my opinion and every bit as visually impressive. Probably more so.
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Sep 20, 2016 14:37
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jivjov posted:So here I was about to restart my film reviewing...only to find out that the Criterion Collection got pulled from Hulu a couple weeks ago Its a huge bummer. I'm in the middle of a move, but once I'm situated I'm definitely going to figure out a way to get FilmStruck. Right now I stream everything with a PS4 but maybe I'll grab one of those Amazon Fire sticks. Personally I'd recommend dropping Hulu unless there's some T.V. shows there you can't live without. Without Criterion its pretty poo poo as a movie service. Then just use that money to pay for Filmstruck. I've already spent $8 on two films that I could have seen for free on Hulu a month ago. There was just too much on my queue, I had no chance at getting through it all before the deadline. Basebf555 fucked around with this message at 18:08 on Nov 30, 2016 |
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Nov 30, 2016 18:06
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Any more specific news on a PS4 app?
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Dec 1, 2016 17:19
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There's something about Kurosawa's films that make me want to rewatch them every time I hear someone talk about them. Ran isn't a short movie, I've seen it 4 or 5 times now, and yet I find myself itching to see it again after reading ozza's reactions to it. I guess its the images themselves, they're so strong and memorable that I can keep coming back to them again and again and they never lose their power.
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Dec 5, 2016 16:19
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jivjov posted:The Hidden Fortress I expect you'll come away a bit disappointed, which seems to happen with most people. Not in Hidden Fortress as a film, it's fantastic, but there really isn't a 1 to 1 relationship between it and Star Wars anywhere outside of the opening scenes. It's not like you can sit there just calling out Star Wars references in scene after scene. There's probably just as much Hidden Fortress in something like Raiders of the Lost Ark, Spielberg and Lucas have talked about how much the way Kurosawa shot action scenes influenced them.
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Mar 6, 2018 15:25
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Hidden Fortress really is endlessly rewatchable, much like I think you'll find with Yojimbo and Sanjuro. His later films like Ran and Kagemusha, while masterpieces in their own right, are longer and more complex, and therefore tougher to rewatch. I really have to be in that Kurosawa mood to invest the time for something like Ran, whereas Hidden Fortress is a throw on anytime kind of movie. I like putting it on when I'm in and out of the kitchen, I catch a scene here, maybe miss one while I stir the pot, it's a fun film to watch casually.
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May 23, 2018 18:51
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:It's really wild that Japan's greatest living director simply couldn't get money to make movies in his twilight years. I was reading the booklet that comes with the Kagemusha Criterion, and one of the writers mentioned how Kurosawa was fired/replaced on Tora! Tora! Tora! I never really knew about that, how Kurosawa's career was already on thin ice and then that was very close to a death blow because it solidified his reputation as being difficult to work with and unwilling to work within normal production constraints. But the only reason it was ever an issue in the first place is Japan's weird fixation on his films being "too western". If Japanese critics didn't have that particular hang-up then Kurosawa probably would've continued to make masterpieces there throughout the 70's.
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May 29, 2018 15:35
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Now we're into the good stuff(I know, I know, it's all good stuff). I'm probably gonna watch along with you for these, I hardly need another excuse to rewatch Yojimbo and Fistful of Dollars. I don't think you'll be disappointed by Sanjuro. Maybe it's not quite as good as Yojimbo overall but it makes up for it with a fantastic ending.
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Apr 9, 2019 15:28
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Re-watched Yojimbo last night and one thing that I really took notice of this time due to jivjov's comments was the score. It really does a lot to support the overall weirdness going on in the film. Like, opening the movie with a dog trotting down the street with a severed hand in it's mouth would probably lose some of it's intended absurdity with a more traditional score accompanying it. And it fits perfectly with Mifune's performance, as he's not exactly playing the traditional stoic samurai character, he's meant to be a bit strange.
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Apr 10, 2019 16:14
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Go ahead and besmirch The Magnificent Seven all you want. I think it's extremely overrated.
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Apr 11, 2019 21:25
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