[The post below is a featured post on the front page of The Huffington Post.]
By Jason Apuzzo.“There’s been an awakening. Have you felt it?” – Supreme Leader Snoke, in Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
Supreme Leader Snoke wasn’t kidding. In 2015, the Force not only awakened – it drank a whole pot of coffee, scored two touchdowns in the Cotton Bowl, and entered the New Hampshire primary, all before noon. Saturday Night Live even wants the Force to host the show this weekend – but the Force is apparently too busy interviewing for the Eagles’ head coaching job.
Let’s face it, Star Wars and the Force are back in a fist-pumping, Rocky Balboa-kind of way. Interestingly, Star Wars‘ only competition at the box office this past year was Jurassic World – another movie coming from a franchise that otherwise seemed to be enjoying its retirement, sipping guaro somewhere out on Isla Nublar.
The question is: how are these venerable film series still lighting it up at the box office, so many years on? And is there some vital secret about the entertainment legacy of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg – some clue to the amazing, ongoing appeal of their work – that in all the chatter on the Internet we still might’ve missed?
To recap, 2015 was truly a huge, record-smashing year at the movies – #1 all-time, unadjusted for inflation – and the surreal, gravity-defying numbers are still rolling in. Both Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Jurassic World are now among the top 4 grossing movies of all time – with The Force Awakens suddenly becoming the highest earning domestic film ever. Even adjusted for inflation (a more rigorous standard), both films will end up among the top 25 films of all time. That’s apparently even including Taylor Swift videos and Geico commercials.
How unusual is this sort of one-two punch at the box office? Over the past 50 years, only four times (1965, 1973, 1994, 2015) have two films cracked the top 25-adjusted list coming out of the same year. So clearly there’s something going on here.
From “Jurassic World.”
As most people know, the original Star Wars (released in 1977) and Jurassic Park (released in 1993) were gigantic, sci-fi bookends to an era in popular entertainment largely dominated by Lucas and Spielberg. Working separately or together (as in the Indiana Jones films), the two directors forced a tectonic shift in Hollywood’s business strategy away from making movies to please grouchy East Coast critics and Oscar voters to producing fan-friendly, sci-fi and fantasy fare for teenagers and kids. The industry hasn’t looked back since.
What’s surprising, though, is how popular their signature film series still are. The explanation for this is both simple and complicated.
By Joe Bendel. At twenty-seven, Taeko Okajima ought to be too young for a midlife crisis, but she carries a lot of baggage from her difficult childhood. However, she might finally start to work through her issues when she lugs her “fifth grade self” along on her vacation to the countryside. Although it was a Japanese box office hit in 1991, Isao Takahata’s animated memory play remained the one Studio Ghibli film that was never theatrically distributed in North America. Fortunately, GKIDS has rectified this frustrating situation with a proper release of Takahata’s straight-up masterpiece Only Yesterday which continues it special two-week, twenty-fifth anniversary release in New York, at the IFC Center.
Okajima’s desire to vacation in the country can be immediately attributed to the frustrations of her childhood. As she boards the train taking her out of Tokyo, she remembers with bitterness being the only member of her fifth grade class who did not have a country getaway lined-up for summer break. Her parents seemed to have two specialties, berating her for her low marks in mathematics and dashing her dreams. However, young Okajima is not the perfect picture of innocence either. In fact, the memories that will be most difficult to work through involve her guilt for mistreating less popular classmates.
In contrast, her time spent with her bother-in-law’s rugged country relations is quite pleasant for Okajima. She genuinely enjoys harvesting the safflowers, a blooming thistle whose pigments are used for cosmetics and dyes. She and Toshio (the second cousin of her sister’s husband) hit it off particularly well. There could even be something more than friendship between them, but it is not clear Okajima’s head is ready for it.
You do not see very many films, live action or animated, that are as emotionally complex as Only Yesterday. While the 1966 flashbacks were based on a successful manga, Takahata developed the original 1980s wrap-arounds, which really take on a life of their own. In fact, seeing the psychological ripple effects years later make the childhood sequences far richer. Consequently, when Takahata delivers the massive payoff, it happens in the eighties.
Of course, Only Yesterday looks absolutely gorgeous. Studio Ghibli’s affinity for safflower fields hardly needs explaining for their fans. The figures are also rendered with unusual sensitivity, particularly 1980s Taeko and Toshio. If you do not quickly take a shine to them, you must be one grumpy old goat. Yet, what really stands out in the film is Takahata’s confident patience to let dialogue fully play out. Early in the film, Toshio and Okajima have a long conversation while he drives her to the farm from the station. It deceptively sounds like small talk, but it really establishes both their characters, as well as the film’s major themes. Frankly, they are just worth listening to.
From “Only Yesterday.”
For the English dub, GKIDS scored a bit of a coup with the casting of Daisy Ridley, currently seen in something called The Force Awakes, as the voice of twenty-seven year old Okajima. However, Japanese pop singer Miki Imai is so perfect in the role, it is still worth opting for the subtitled original version (which the IFC Center is also running for the film’s screenings after 8:00 pm).
Some animation fans consider Only Yesterday a watershed for its mature and realistic portrayal of a woman in adulthood. That may well be so, but it is such a human and humane film, just about everyone ought to be able to relate to it. A wonderful example of studio Ghibli’s artistry, Only Yesterday continues its special, worth-the-wait engagement at the IFC Center, with a national release later scheduled for February 26th.
By Joe Bendel. As part of his 2009 fiscal reform package, Ahmadinejad offered a subsidy of roughly fifteen dollars to all Iranians, but somehow supporters of his political party seemed to be the only one who got it. It doesn’t mean anything to Arineh and Nobahar, since their relatives will be claiming theirs. However, it will make it impossible to withdraw money on the night of the mass deposit. That will be dashed inconvenient when their night on the town takes a surreal turn in Ali Ahmadzadeh’s indescribably weird Atomic Heart, which screens during the 2016 Palm Springs International Film Festival.
Arineh and Nobahar much prefer western style toilets—and who can blame them. They will wax poetic about them, claiming they were in fact an Iranian invention. However, their riffing often sounds like it holds a doth-protest-too-much sarcasm. Regardless, they probably wouldn’t be in a film that wears its Pink Floyd references on its sleeve, if they were not somewhat progressively inclined. They certainly aren’t getting anything from Ahmadinejad and they understand only too well why their friend Kami is immigrating to Australia. Unfortunately, shortly after picking him up from the side of the road, Arineh has a minor fender-bender.
Typically, these matters are resolved on the streets of Tehran with a quick cash payment. Of course, that is not an option tonight, thanks to the big “welfare” payout, as Arineh mockingly calls it. However, a stranger comes along, who eventually pays off the other driver, after snarkily observing for a while. As strangers go, he is particularly strange—and intense. He has no car of his own, but wherever the two women go, he mysteriously appears. They are in his debt and he is not about to let them forget it, but he will beat the long way around the bush before explaining how he intends to collect. First, he will introduce them to his old friend Saddam Hussein, who is supposedly still alive, living in hiding in his favorite city in the world: Tehran.
Whether demonic, extraterrestrial, psychotic, or some combination of the three, the stranger is one of the smoothest, slickest, creepiest characters you will ever want to meet on film. Mohammad Reza Golzar (former guitarist for the Persian pop band Arian) calls and raises every Tarantino movie ever with his sinisterly charismatic, pop-culture reference-dropping monologues. He is absolutely electric. Atomic Heart will leave most viewers reeling – and he is a major reason why.
From “Atomic Heart.”
On the flip side, Mehrdad Sedighiyan is almost impossibly laid back as the laconic Kami, but quite memorably so. In between, Taraneh Alidoosti and Pegah Ahangarani bicker and banter together in perfect synch. It is obvious they are smart, but frustrated by life, choosing aimless mediocrity, because why not?
The irony in Atomic Heart is massive, perhaps even cosmic. Ahmadzadeh gives us reasons to believe and doubt the stranger really is some kind of being from beyond and the world is on the brink of an apocalypse. Then again, it probably often feels that way in Tehran. One of the oddest, most wonderfully unsettling films to come out of Iran in recent years, Atomic Heart screens this Saturday (1/9) and Sunday (1/10), as part of this year’s PSIFF.
By Joe Bendel. A mystery in Paris sounds romantic, but this one is anything but. Sang-ho could desperately use the help of an Inspector Maigret, but he is very much on his own in the cold, foreign city. He will guide us through the gutters and prostitutes’ working corners in Jeon Soo-il’s A Korean in Paris, which screens during the 2016 Palm Springs International Film Festival.
Sang-ho originally came to Paris on his honeymoon with Yeon-hwa, but when he stepped away to buy cigarettes, she was abducted, presumably by some sort of sex trafficking racket. Just how the affluent Sang-ho was reduced to sleeping in the street is never explained in blow-by-blow terms, but here he is nonetheless. Sang-ho regularly haunts areas where Asian prostitutes congregate, solely in the hopes someone will recognize a laminated picture of Yeon-hwa.
Apparently, it has “just” been a few year’s since Yeon-hwa’s disappearance, but today’s Sang-ho looks like a completely different person than the man seen in flashbacks with her. The time on the street and his extreme alienation from French society have caused his social skills to deteriorate along with his body. As a result, he is rather confused when Chang, a French Korean prostitute, reaches out with an offer of platonic friendship. Despite his lingering doubts, Sang-ho keeps plugging away, falling deeper into the abyss.
From “A Korean in Paris.”
Actually, it is even more depressing than that. A Korean in Paris is no An American in Paris. It makes The Lower Depths look like The Sound of Music. However, it is quite a fine film. There is something quite remarkable about Cho Jae-hyeon’s minimalist performance as Sang-ho. He is almost completely closed-off and soul-dead, yet something about him feels primed to explode. At times, Mi-kwan Lock’s Chang is even more frightfully vulnerable and exposed, but the frustrated humanity she conveys is just devastating. Based on her turn, the French-born, Madagascar-raised Lock should be a rising international star to contend with.
Jeon and cinematographer Kim Sung-tai capture some fantastic images, proving that the back alleys of Paris are nearly as cinematic as its landmarks. The film can be painfully deliberate and revealing, but the work of Cho and Lock is absolutely riveting. While not exactly optimistic by any stretch, Jeon incorporates enough Good Samaritan characters to leave the audience some remaining shreds of faith in human nature. Recommended for those who appreciate a bit of mystery and a truckload of uncompromising naturalism, A Korean in Paris screens this Saturday (1/9) and Sunday (1/10), as part of this year’s PSIFF.
By Joe Bendel. Apparently, Sarah Fording is majoring in bad karma. For her thesis project, she has the bright idea to invite her friends for a weekend at her prof’s cabin, where she will film them experiencing the scares she has pre-planned. Right, because what could go wrong? Of course, she has some unexpected help in James Simpson’s Definition of Fear, which screens during the 2016 Idyllwild International Festival of Cinema.
With her closed circuit cameras in place, Fording arrives with her pals Victoria Burns, Frankie Toms, and Rachel Moore. Mostly Fording has prepared recorded bumps in the night and the like. However, Burns goes off script when she insists she saw a menacing psycho-stalker in the woods. Oh, that’s just Oddle, the handyman Fording assures everyone. Nonetheless, the weirdness starts to pile up, so the women logically seek answers from a Ouija Board. Soon they are in touch with the spirit of “Mary,” who freaks them out even worse.
Definition has the distinction of being the American movie premiere of Sri Lankan Bollywood star Jacqueline Fernandez, so probably millions more viewers will take it in than your average indie horror film. Somewhat fortunately, the film is actually rather good for what it is. Simpson cranks up the dread steadily and surely and the initial Ouija sessions are impressively tense. Yet, as is par for the spooky movie course, the women ultimately turn into gimpy quarterbacks who stay in the pocket way to long. When Mary tells them to “GO” they should be out the door, no more questions asked.
From “Definition of Fear.”
Despite a few such shortcomings endemic to the genre, the attractive cast handles the supernatural business rather well. It is her showcase and Fernandez does indeed make quite an impression during Fording’s sultry scenes of possession (regular genre viewers will definitely want to see more of her). As the “sensitive” Burns, Katherine Barrell seems genuinely terrified. Blythe Hubbard’s Moore is refreshingly down-to-earth and relatively proactive, while Mercedes Papalia shows pleasantly surprising range as Toms.
The fab four all hold up their end, but none of their characters seem like logical candidates to be the “final girl,” if you know the rules—not that anyone will object. Still, they mostly keep it clean, despite a game of Truth or Dare. It is a far cry from this year’s It Follows, but if you dig old dark house movies, it is certainly entertaining. Recommended for horror and Bollywood fans, Definition of Fear screens Saturday (1/9) at the Idyllwild International Festival of Cinema.
