Boyz 'N the Hood and Happy Together

John Singleton's 1991 "Boyz 'N the Hood" is leaving Netflix Instant next week. It was one of the first, if not the first, film to deal explicitly with gang violence. The most fascinating aspect of the film is its ability to humanize all characters involved. In this sense it succeeds much like how "The Wire" by David Simon succeeds. Murderers, drug dealers, and gang members are all seen as essentially human, not one-dimensional "bad guys." It has a two part structure wherein it depicts how three different kids grow up and respond differently to the surrounding hood. The dynamic between Cuba Gooding Jr., Ice Cube, and Morris Chestnut make up the most memorable scenes. Lawrence Fishburne plays Gooding Jr.'s character's---Tre's---father. In the beginning, a young Tre gets into a fight at school. He is sent home to his single mother. Tre is an intelligent boy but disrespects his peers as well as adults. His mother decides to send him to his father (who lives in the hood). She hopes Tre will learn valuable life lessons from him. The first part of the film, then, explores Tre growing up with his father in the hood and meeting young Doughboy and Doughboy's half-brother, young Ricky. The second part of the film explores how they've all dealt with the things that happened over the course of about seven or eight years in the hood. Doughboy is played by the awesome Ice Cube, and Ricky is played by Morris Chestnut. It shouldn't be missed. It really is too bad it's only streaming until the end of the month.

Wong Kar-Wai's 1997 "Happy Together," lensed by the best, Christopher Doyle, is one of my favorites from the 90s as well as from this director/DoP combo. It's filmed in color and in black & white. Every scene is magnificent. Christopher Doyle dances around and, at times, seemingly with actors Tony Leung and Leslie Cheung. Each shot is playfully experimental. The film tells the story about how the two characters attempt to renew their relationship by traveling to Argentina. As with many of Wong Kar-Wai's films, place, time, and small details (such as what the characters are wearing) are of the utmost importance. One can't be texting while watching. It has been recognized as one of the first films to depict explicitly a homosexual relationship (long before the overrated yet worthwhile experience by Ang Lee's "Brokeback Mountain"; in my film viewing experience, Asian directors have been much more open to such subjects). The two characters are played brilliantly by Leung (one of the best actors working today; his eyes are so sad!) and Cheung. The plot, if you can call it that, is much more melancholy and loose than "Chungking Express," and it actually feels more akin to "In the Mood for Love" even though stylistically this and the former are more alike. It reminds me of something Samuel Beckett, Jean-Paul Sartre, or maybe one of the Beatniks would have wrote. It's loose but it meditates on heavy and interesting aspects of all our lives such as love, loneliness, friendship, and letting go. The film has staying power. It will surely continue to haunt after just a single viewing. This is something very important to me when judging a film, and it is something most, if not all, of Wong Kar-Wai's films have. So, if you haven't already, be sure to check it out on Netflix Instant along with other films currently available by the contemporary master. Also: be on the lookout for his film, "Grandmaster," coming to theaters this year!

Audition; Forbidden Games; Neighboring Sounds

Leaving Netflix Instant next week is Takashi Miike's 1999 "Audition." It starts out as a modern Yasujiro Ozu movie might start. A man has been single for seven years. So, it's time to remarry, so says his son. But then the movie takes a turn very late in the game when we realize his new interest is a psycho killer. It's called "Audition" because the man meets this psycho killer in a mock audition for a TV show. The end is pretty graphic even by today's standards and will imprint the Japanese word for "deeper" into your memory for ever. Nevertheless it's very artfully done and the last few sequences even become interestingly surreal, in a dark Lynchian sort of way, as the protagonist lies on the floor drugged. I found it interesting as well that at the same time we find the protagonist's actions unacceptable (auditioning for a girlfriend) we also feel really bad for him (because he's not that typical guy) when she starts her graphic ritual in the last 30mins. In fact, it's interesting that we can even sympathize with her! This isn't typically the case in horror films of the same kind. Anyway, give it a whirl, if you have the guts to spare! This isn't the sort of movie that is typically my cup o' tea, but I was pleasantly surprised by how good it was. But be warned: apparently, horror fanatics Eli Roth and Rob Zombie even had trouble viewing it.

No this isn't that movie that left George-Michael from "Arrested Development" thinking: "I like the way they think." Far from it. Rene Clement's 1952, extremely depressing war movie "Forbidden Games" does not involve kissing cousins. The film tells the story of two youngsters and how they react and interact in the setting of the Battle of France in 1940. The little girl loses her family, including her dog, in a German air attack. She holds and weeps for her dead parents and dog. She's left all alone. Then some adults pick her up off the bombed road. Their reaction to the dead dog: chuck it over the bridge. She runs to pick up her dog out of the river. Then somehow (I can't quite remember how) she finds her way to an out-of-the-way country house where she meets an older boy who helps her bury her dead dog. But the dog is buried all alone. So the two vow to bury other dead critters to keep it company. This is how the two cope during these hard times. Like I said it's quite depressing. To boot, there isn't a single adult who is likeable. The children not only are in a country at war, they're also constantly at war with the adult members of the little boy's family. It might sound as if it's pure melodrama (kind country folk take in an orphan). But it's not that at all. Nothing sentimental oozes from this film. Rather it's just a painstaking look at the behaviors of two innocent children ravaged by war. It's better for that, but it also makes it hard to watch in some respects. Check it out on Netflix Instant.

Newly available on Netflix Instant is a 2012 Brazilian film, "Neighboring Sounds" by Kleber Mendonça Filho. This movie is interesting, but I'm not sure exactly what to think of it quite yet. The setting: an apartment complex and surrounding homes. The characters: a group of security guards, the manager of the complex (his family and new girlfriend), and a family that resides in the complex. The camera just sort of objectively observes different slices of the lives of these three groups of individuals. There's not a whole lot tying them together, at least not at first. But it's also not purely observational/behaviorist cinema. Every once in awhile something surreal crops up and jolts you out of your calm absorbing state of mind into a state of mind where you consider the question, "Am I watching a horror movie?" Sometimes it works, I think. Other times, I'm less sure. I would've liked more consistency (inner lives of these folks or just behaviors, pick one), but I think the fact that I have thought about this movie a few days after initially watching it implies that it's worth watching. And indeed, I would be interested in finding out what others think.