The 4-Week Subtitle Sensation!

Orright all? What’s occurring?

Here at Rach’s Media Opinions we have an event. It’s huge. Massive, even. On Tuesday night, my best mate is going away with her folks for 4 weeks . Granted I’d give the left testicle of God to go with her (Mauritius *sob*), but I can’t, so instead I’m house-sitting their 2 (that’s right, TWO) flat-screen televisions.



Consolation prize, yes, but I’m making the most of it. How am I going to spend my magical 4 weeks of magical TV alone time? I’m havin a foreign movie marathon, that’s how!

See, the thing with watching a subtitled movie is that you can’t really walk around or do too much else. That makes it difficult to watch them in a share house where people keep asking you to do shit. I’ve had a number of foreign films in my collection waiting for a moment where I could dedicate my uninterrupted attention, and I’m finally getting the chance!

Currently in my collection:

• Thirst
• JSA
• Nosferatu (technically silent, but you still have to pay attention)
• Audition
• Dead or Alive
• Fudoh
• Les Diaboliques

Already on my list (but don’t own):

• Let The Right One In
• The Chaser
• The Returner
• Inside
• Salo
• Full Metal Yakuza
• I’m a Cyborg but that’s OK
• Battle Royale
• Versus
• Cure
• Memories of Murder

I need more. That’s only 18. I NEED MOOOOOOOORE!!!!

I want 28 that I can get hold of. 1 a day (though that’s not necessarily how they’ll be watched). So I need a massive bunch of suggestions just in case my rental stores don’t have copies (stoopid Perth).


HELP!!!!

del.icio.us Tags: Movies,subtitles,towatchpile,4-week Subtitle Sensation

District 9 vs Avatar – Best Visual Effects

I know, I know, another Oscar post lamenting the popularity of Avatar. But I watched District 9 again last night and 2 cents jumped into my hand so I’m giving it to you whether you like it or not.

Look, as I’ve said before, I really did enjoy Avatar. It was a fun movie and the special effects were fabulous. For $300 million USD they’d fucking want to be! But here’s the thing. District 9 had a budget of $30 million USD, and the effects were as good, if not better. See where I’m going here?

The effects of District 9 were grittier and more realistic, and they demonstrated the quality that could be accomplished without a Cameron-sized budget. It’s not like the aliens only appeared in shadows, and it’s not like the aliens and humans never interact. You also can’t tell me that the cost was because the horizon needed to be generated, because District 9 has a dirty, great, big spaceship in the horizon for most shots!

But the other night, during my re-watch, I realised something that I believe puts District 9 over the edge. The lighting. One of the most difficult things to do right in graphics is lighting. Most filmmakers try to avoid well lit shots that involve CG. The reason is that if you don’t have the light source coming from exactly the right place, the shot looks fake. Basically, you shouldn’t be able to do shots like this without a budget higher than some countries GDP:

Alas, the likelihood of District 9 beating Avatar in the Best Visual Effects category is about as likely as it winning Best Picture. *Sigh* I know. Give it up.

del.icio.us Tags: Avatar,District 9,effects,graphics,Oscars,Best Visual Effects,awards,lighting

Happy Birthday to 3 Fabulous Fellas!

Everybody knows it was George Romero's birthday on 4th Feb (yesterday).

Happy Birthday!

Did you know it is H.R. Giger's birthday today ?? Me either! My friend at The Glass Walking Stick told me!

Happy Birthday!

And lastly, just for shits and giggles, it was Heavenztrash from In Nervous Convulsions birthday yesterday as well :)

Happy Birthday!

(not actual photo :P)

A Horror Weekend!

In more ways than one! Jeeby heebies, kids! What a weekend! I'm totally zombied on this Monday-est of mornings, so you'll have to excuse the typos, the ramblings and the tangents while I attempt to tell my story.

I'll start on Friday. What did I do on Friday? That's not a hypothetical question guys, I can't feckin remember...
Hmm. Watched Star Gate SG1 season 2 I think. It wasn't exciting. Maybe I shouldn't have started there...

OK. Saturday.
What did I do in the morning? God I'm tired.

Saturday Afternoon.
This I remember. I went to a friends house to help her move in. Now, this is fine. Helping friends move is always pretty tiring, but it has to be done (at least, it does if you ever want help for the same thing). So I did what I could, followed instructions and stayed on my feet for most of the arvo. We left around 6.20pm because I had to get changed.

To go to a concert of The Horrors.

Yep. I helped a friend move house before going to a live gig. Clever huh? I've also just realised that a lot of people reading this may have thought that "A Horror Weekend" may have meant that I spent a weekend watching horror films...
Hee! Ha ha ha! *Giggle* *Giggle* *Snort* *Sigh* Sux to be be you :P

Back to the gig.
It took place in a venue called The Amplifier Bar, which is a shite venue but seemed to suit the crowd. I felt old but that's no surprise. I managed to remember how to dress appropriately, but my hair wasn't big enough. Stretched ears and an eyebrow piercing made up for that though so I was able to conform nicely to the "total non-conformists".
 Alright, I'm taking the piss out of the crowd (and myself) but I promise that I won't be doing the same for the bands.

The support act was called Fabulous Diamonds. They were great! They're a duo from Melbourne I'd really like to hear more of. Repeating drumbeats with echoing vocals and electric organ melodies, I could have listened to them for a lot longer.

After an intro that was ridiculously long (seriously guys, that's not the way to rile up Perth audiences), The Horrors finally came out and started kicking everyone's arse. It was a really great gig, the sound was good (although the vocals could have been louder), the performance was great, and the crowd was happy. Two numbers that stood out for me were Scarlet Fields and Primary Colours. They didn't play "She is the New Thing" or "Jack the Ripper", but you can't have everything, can you? I was just happy to be in a place where I could dance around to music I actually like!

It was also a relief to hear Faris Badwan sing and know that his vocals are actually him and not some machine. There are too many "musicians" around nowadays that started in the studio. These guys are the real deal, thank God! Furthermore, Rhys Webb and Tom Cowan would swap instruments between them (bass and synthesizer) depending on the song (and album it came from).
Speaking of Tom Cowan, what a creepy mofo. Kinda glad he's found his outlet, if you know what I mean...

Once the concert was over, it turned out my weekend of horror was not complete. You see, me and my best mate volunteered to take care of the children of the friends who were moving, just to give them some space. So I wake up, deaf mind you, that concert was loud, jump out of bed and trundle back to the house I'd left the day before.

To keep the 3 kids occupied and hopefully tire them out, we decide to take them to the pools. 4 hours of swimming, eating, swimming and 1 exploding nappy later, do you think it was the kids who were tired? Hells no! It was the 2 adults skulling coke and coffee in a desperate attempt to outlast the children! It didn't work. I'm totally shattered. I don't even have the energy to yawn.

On the plus side, I just found out that The Big Pink are touring at the end of Feb, and Henry Rollins is doing a spoken word gig in May :D

I am Officially LAMB #435

Hey all!
I know I've been a little slack on my blog this week, but there's 2 reasons (excuses) for it.
Firstly, Monday I went to Raggamuffin, a Reggae music festival. Fantastic music but got stoned just by standing in the crowd. Ended up with the munchies by the time I got home! No where near a computer all day.
Secondly, Tuesday was Australia Day. It's un-Australian to do anything that can be considered work on Australia unless you don't have a choice (i.e. those serving food to the rest of Australia who can't be shagged cooking).
Those are my defenses and I'm sticking to them.


But on the "good news" front, I have officially been welcomed as a member of LAMB (Large Association of Movie Blogs). I am LAMB #435. Check my post out here.

Vote! Vote! Vote!

Here in Australia voting is compulsory, and so it is here too:




Do it now!

Mega ToWatchPile Update Part San (3) - Vengeance!

Alright guys, this is a wicked long post, but I've decided I don't want to break it up. It's a review of Chan-Wook Park's Vengeance trilogy, which I've just finished watching for the #towatchpile. I watched them completely out of order but I'm a little glad I did. Finishing on Mr Vengeance was a good way to go in my opinion, but I'll get to that. Let me start at the beginning. Once upon a time I decided to ask bloggers to suggest movies that they believe must be watched. I received quite a few suggestions, enough for me to add a button to the side of my blog.

Then one day the wunderbar @MattSuzaka of Chuck Norris Ate my Baby found the call for suggestions and took it upon himself to pave the way to the road to great films. And yea, he didst provide a list. And on that list was Chan-Wook Park's Oldboy. And the Rach didst watch the film and didst cry out!
"YEA! What the fuck was that???"
All did rejoice for Rach was on the path to movie salvation.
And a voice came from the @Heavenztrash (see what I did there?).
"You know its part of a trilogy?"
And Rach understood her journey had only just begun.

Note to self: if you break out into biblical verse, it is time to go to bed.

So, now we skip forward a month and I've finally seen the other two films. I'm going to get this out of the way first. There's an ongoing discussion on the the webbynets about which film from the trilogy is the best. Well, I genuinely feel that the films all benefit greatly when considering them together, but I'm gonna add my 2 cents to the minority and say that I preferred Sympathy for Mr Vengeance. My reasons will become clear later in the review, so lets get started.

The trilogy, for those who haven't seen it, is all about vengeance. I'm not going do a synopsis for each, it's basically three different stories that all focus on different reasons for vengeance, as well as the different ways the vengeance is obtained. There's also three different types of endings, but I'll leave that for a special "spoiler" paragraph.

These films are what I like to call "slow burn" movies (see my review of Grace), and Chan-Wook Park is the slow-burn master. It's not that he "keeps you guessing", movies that keep "keep you guessing" have a use-by date. Instead, he creates a tension with such subtlety that you have no idea it's happening until the cat knocks something over and your heart stops. You find yourself watching the next film with trepidation because you realize how involved you're going to get, and what that's going to do to you after it's finished. In each case the movies leave your mind ticking over at a hundred miles. I replayed parts of each film over and over in my head, savoring it and the genius behind it.

In this age of large, blue monkeys and their flying lizard friends, 3D, explosions, effects, and every other trick designed to make you forget that movies are supposed to have a plot, the use of artistic techniques like slowly draining the color from a film (Sympathy for Lady Vengeance) or minimizing background music to allow moments of genuinely awkward silence (Sympathy for Mr Vengeance) seem almost new. A breath of fresh air, if you will. I also have to mention the clever use of comedy found in the trilogy. It's a very clever way to control tension levels.

 **SPOILER ALERT**

You've been warned.
The different types of vengeance shown in the trilogy. What can I say? I'm going to go through it in the order I watched it. The ending to Oldboy has already been listed as my favorite ZOMG moment in film. It's such a grey-area ending! In the same way that Oh Dae-Su is manipulated to fall for Mi-do, we are manipulated to sympathize with Oh Dae-Su. Hence the ZOMG reaction.

Sympathy for Lady Vengeance is very straight forward by comparison, though it would definitely have its haters. It seems to suggest that vengeance can be curative, and that there is a place for it. What I love though, is that the ending is bittersweet. The families know that they still have to live with what they have done.

Sympathy for Mr Vengeance. Phew. Bleak is the word. This movie is about vengeance out of honor more than vengeance out of any real hatred. And that makes it all the more painful to watch. When Park Dong-jin tells Ryu that he's a nice enough fella but he has to kill him anyway, it's heartbreaking.

**END OF SPOILER SECTION**

So why do I prefer Sympathy for Mr Vengeance? Well, technically I don't, I prefer to think of the trilogy as a whole, but there are a number of reasons. Firstly, the ending. I'm one of the people who prefers Empire Strikes Back because of the bleak ending. I prefer an ending to be clever more than happy. Secondly, it was the best example of a slow-burn film out of the three. So much messiness, slowly, slowly building the tension, giving you wallowing time. This is not a film for an impatient person. And lastly its the way sympathy for Ryu is built through juxtaposing the uncomfortable silences with noisy events that he can't hear.

In short, I loved Oldboy and Lady Vengeance, but Sympathy for Mr Vengeance was one of the smartest works of art I've seen.

So, I've put Thirst on my list, what other Chan-Wook Park films do I need to see?