CINEMANIA:

Digging Even Deeper into the Vault

Warm Water Under a Red Bridge (2001, Japan, Shohei Imamura) AKA Golden Showers Fill My Eyes

A delightfully warm, life-embracing and most whimsical of films by master filmmaker Shohei Imamura . Imamura’s attraction to life’s fringe-dwellers is again on evidence, as his central characters are Yosuke (Koji Yakusho is here to Imamura what the puppy-eyed Tony Leung is to Wong Kar-Wai, a mournful and yearning template of angst), a sad-eyed midlife crisis waiting to happen, and Saeko (the fearless Misa Shimizu), the object of his desire a font of joy with a most peculiar way of expressing her pleasure.

Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004, USA, Michael Moore) AKA Burn Baby Burn

I could take up valuable time and space complaining about how Moore kinda punted this here attempt to eviscerate George II, but I’m more distressed by the way the media and critics have been piling on the man for being "unfair" to their beloved President.

Deeper into the Vaults

Here are a couple more from the video files. As always, links to the longer Apollo Guide reviews when they are published.

Steven Soderbergh’s Schizopolis (1996, USA, Steven Soderbergh)

Apollo Score: 66/100 AKA sex, lies and scientology

Steven Soderbergh’s Schizopolis is the director’s return to the indie-minded roots that inspired his most interesting early works, such as the Palm d’Or winning sex, lies and videotape. Schizopolis is a curious film indeed.

Into the Vaults

All righty, I ain’t dead, I’ve just been doing a lotta DVD reviewing for Apollo Guide. Here are a few of the titles I’ve tackled. When the full reviews are up at Apollo, I’ll post the appropriate links.

Death in Venice (1971, Italy, Luchino Visconti) AKA Ode on a Grecian God

Strangely beautiful film inspired by Thomas Mann’s highly-respected novel, itself loosely based on the life of the same Gustav Mahler whose exquisite 3rd and 5th symphonies grace the film’s soundtrack.

Baseball Bin Berry Berry good to Me

Well, the whole family went to a baseball game in the Emerald City last weekend, which for once looked like it wouldn’t live up to its rep as the wettest city in North America. In fact, we were greeted by a startlingly clear blue-sky and mid-80s pool-lounging weather, which lasted exactly one day.

Sex and the Single Gunslinger

Movies featured in this here essay: Sergio Leone's spaghetti western trilogy, A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

There’s something deliciously ripe going on in director Sergio Leone’s deservedly popular spaghetti western trilogy, featuring A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. These stylized studies of frontier brutality are orgies of more than simply violence.