No such thing as old news here, Reiner. :)
>This is going to be a confused post. 90% of what John says is not
>only Right, but factually correct. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the movie.
>Why?
No confusion in my reading. While my personal experience of the movie was
negative, I make no claims about being
any sort of arbiter of good taste. (Would do me no good even if I did). It's
the sort of movie likely to attract the
radar of our hobby. Several folk I've talked to really like the movie, and
I understand its done reasonably well in Japan.
Analysing it, I think my reaction came because my expectations were too high. Kurasawa aside, if I analysed one of my samurai genre favourites - say 'Baby Carriage at the River Styx' by the same criteria I applied to Last Samurai, I might convince myself it had major shortcomings as well.
Maybe. Here's an excuse to watch 'em all again. :)
My cultural antennae are moderately finely tuned, and one of the joys of Japanese film, to me, is that I can immerse myself in the bits I don't understand, and be fascinated *because* I don't understand them. Obviously, LS couldn't deliver on this. I don't think I ever really recovered from the ersatz Japanese and blue tinted New Zealand landscapes. I thought I'd ordered unagi, but ended up with California roll. I don't think the Hallmark bushido helped either, I mean I'm still recovering from the Matrix sequels. It *did* get better (then worse, then better), but I was distinctly suborbital on suspension of disbelief.
I can certainly agree with these following comments of yours:
>--No Bad Japanese. This was not Kill Bill. I mean bad like English in
>dubbed-Hong-Kong-movies is really bad, only not funny.
Missed Kill Bill at the cinema. Waiting for DVD. it also seems to be a 'zero-five' (love it or hate it) kind of film.
->-Looked nice.
I never got over the blue-tint landscape and anachronistic medieval armour. But yes, standards were generally high.
>--Yes there was a love interest - but no love scene. Victory!
Yes, that was beautifully done. Not done. Whatever.
--Cruise is upstaged by Watanabe.
Umm yes, now that I think about it. Lingering closeups notwithstanding. Magnolia is still his best performance by a country mile.
>--The battles and fights show real suffering (although this is
>clearly not Private Ryan). An improvement over Hollywood's usual
>soft-porn violence.
I remember thinking about this during the movie. Yeah, points for effort there, even though, lets face it the violence/swordplay is what most of us came to see. Both LS and LOTR:ROTK make romance of war, but ROTK in particular struck me as not glorifying combat. LS was a bit more ambivalent, but did restrain itself.
I'd also add a point for Zimmer's soundtrack, and the Silent Bob joke, no matter how out of genre.
>Actually, the movie had more merit than this. What I liked was the
>idea that you stick with a cause if you think it is right, even if it
>means you get utterly destroyed. Maybe it was something I read into
>the movie rather than something that was developed. It certainly
>wasn't fully developed, and it was co-opted heavily in the ending.
>"What cause?" was also not examined carefully. But I hadn't
>expected Hollywood to understand this part of Japan; in Hollywood, it
>is OK to be ornery and stubborn - a maverick or whatever - but in
>the end you *win*.
I'm still out on the movie's moral core. I found it confused, primarily because of the East meets West clash of values, and the selective appropriation of these values by Nathan. Cruise lacks the gravitas to carry much of the deeper stuff, though they may be there bubbling beneath the surface. What's the message to the American audience, given the recent warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan? Does the film reflect any of that? Frankly, I've no idea, but its got me thinking.
Oh God, they're making 'Troy'. Do I have a bad feeling about this?
Cheers
John
It's a Man Ray kind of sky.
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