Review: Manhattan (1979)

The Easie Precis: Straightforward love triangle sort of story. Really, though, the focal point is the city of New York, beautifully shot in black and white. I could watch this movie, on mute, for three days straight and it still wouldn't lose any charm.

Compatible Movies: Ummm, something by Antonioni?.. La Notte (1961)

The "for what it's trying to be" score: 90%

Watch the Trailer? Sure. Watch it here.

A Little More Detail...
The story in this movie is typical Woody Allen: a sort of love-quartet type situation involving affairs and unrequited love, etc. Although I'm sure it's been analysed to death, I choose to take this movie as pretty shallow. There's some interesting dialogue and thoughts running through the movie, and some good jokes, but really I think it's just simply telling a story with some beautiful imagery to go along with it.

What's it About?
New Yorkers. New York. Pointless philosophical debates. Pseudo-Intellectuals. Older men with younger women - or, should I say, the value of realizing true love without giving into society's demands.

Best Viewing Company: By yourself

Movie Review: Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter

The Easie Precis: Follow a young woman's obsession to another world. See her disconnection from reality, from this foreign world.

Compatible Movies: Not that it's anything like it, but Fargo goes with this pretty well!

The "for what it's trying to be" score: 65%

Watch the Trailer? Yes, you can watch here.

A Little More Detail...
This film is about a young Japanese woman who becomes obsessed with finding the treasure (a bag of money) that is fictitiously buried in the 1996 film Fargo. She travels from Japan to the town in question.

The film is quite slow-moving, but in being so, really underlines Kumiko's disconnect from the world. It helps you empathise and feel that nasty notion of obsession where everything else in life is terribly mundane and represents time that just has to be killed until one can return to the only "important" thing.

This film does not have the feel of adventure I would have expected. In this way, it does present a more real picture, however, because the audience does not share Kumiko's obsession, this lack of excitement and adventure makes it very difficult to sink too deeply into the film.  For this reason, the film presents as quite harsh and flat - deflated - at times.

There are some quite memorable visuals and solid performances all around.

What's it About?
Japan, Minnesota, Country Folk, Cold, Snow, Ice and a Duvet cover

Best Viewing Company: Any situation with no distractions - is quite slow and does not contain much dialogue