I don’t do Sunday afternoons well.  Have I ever mentioned that? “Long, Dark Tea-Time of the Soul” comes close to how hopelessly awful I feel every Sunday afternoon is by sheer dint of it being Sunday afternoon.

Sunday afternoons find me flipping aimlessly through websites, TV shows, social media, books and DVDs looking for something to draw my attention. Yesterday, for some reason, re-runs of Bulletproof Monk weren’t doing it for me (thanks for trying, Showtime) and there was no rugby to be had. When I used my magic powers to turn up some entertainment, what rose to the top of the pile was the 2008 remake of  the live-action movie based on Yoshida Akimi’s manga Sakura no Sono, (which was reviewed here on Okazu by Yuri no Boke’s Katherine H in 2011.)

I hit “play” expecting to be unmoved. Well I couldn’t have been wronger. The movie is sort of a nod to the manga and to the 1990 movie, without letting them get in the way.

Yuki Momo (played by Fukuda Saki) is a concert violinist in training and she is clearly very good. But not good enough according to her teacher – and her attitude (which appears to be that she enjoys playing) has to be crushed immediately. So the teacher tells her she’s a failure and ought to just quit. So, Momo quits.

Momo’s older sister Anzu (who is getting married shortly, like Atsuko’s sister in the manga) and their parents pull strings to get Momo into Ouka Girl’s Academy, a stuffy old institution with ridiculous rules and traditions. Momo is less than enthused and starts to get a reputation immediately. She’s reluctantly shown around by class rep Akaboshi (Terashima Saki), who is apparently stuffy herself, but Momo can see that she’s crushing on the school prince, tall, athletic Ogasawara Aoi (Anne Watanabe.)

When Momo sneaks into the old schoolhouse (which is scheduled to  be destroyed,) she comes across a script for a play version of Chekov’s “The Cherry Orchard” adapted by her teacher, Ms. Sakano. When she asks about it, Ms. Sakano says that it was never performed, and that the school will never let it be. Of course we find out why – a girl in the drama club became pregnant and killed herself. The play was banned, but the rest of the drama club went on strike and blocked themselves in a room in the school to get the school to let them perform the play. The head of the drama club at the time was Ms. Sakano, and Momo’s sister Anzu was in the club.

But now Momo finds herself in the role of director of the play, with a cast of schoolmates who want to try, at least. Aoi is taking the lead female role to embrace her feminine side. But when a girl in the club fears she’s become pregnant, she lies about going to the hospital to her father, instead telling him she was practicing for the play. He calls the school and the jig is up.

The Vice-Principal confronts Momo, banning the play and threatening any girl who performs with rejection from the junior college. Momo has a great line about the banning of the play having *nothing* to do with the play, and how the traditions of the school are more important than the students. The Vice-Principal counters with a good line of her own – that the school’s traditions are not created by the students and if they do not wish to follow the school rules, they are welcome to take the school uniform off and leave.

The play is forbidden by the Vice Principal, but the girls sneak together off campus to practice anyway. When Sakano-sensei discovers them, she becomes their coach and they decide they’ll perform it off campus. The scene where they all agree to do it anyway was great – each actress quoting lines from the play, partially out of context, but not entirely. The words were applicable, if not really meant that way.

Once again the school learns of the play and this time Ms. Sakano argues for the performance. The Vice-Principal agrees, but demands that it be performed on campus, at the school anniversary. We learn that she was the Drama Club advisor 11 years ago.

The movie comes to an end as the girls head off to perform The Cherry Orchard.

This movie was a massive modernization of the original story. The girls are thoroughly 21st century. The idea that Midori may be pregnant is not shocking, but worrying. Momo does not have a boyfriend, but in the first scene, she plays after a young man on violin at the trial, and later meets him playing sax on the street. He says he’s given up violin because he never could be as good as her. He keeps in touch with her and invites her to see his band. This was a great scene, as she helps him with his song and the singer, Rimi (played by Ueto Aya) gives her a thumbs up. She gets some positive reinforcement and later Shu asks her to join the band – and him – in Tokyo. Momo thanks him but says no. She’s decided to graduate from Ouka, and then decide what she’ll do with herself. I loved how this scene held no pressure for Momo, nor promise of a dream, just a possibility she was at leisure to pursue.

Yuri? Yes. When Anzu brings Momo to the school, Anzu sees Sakano-sensei and runs up to her, immediately casting herself in the position of underclassman with a huge crush. It was a nice bit of acting. Later, in a somewhat less well-acted bit, Anzu tells Momo that her feelings were love. “I would have left school for her.” But it was never to be. When Anzu comes to the school for the play, she and Kayo have a moment in the old school building, where they talk about the past. The scene really stood out as it was played by the both of them as if they were on a stage. Each step was scripted for the audience –  not natural at all. Then the girls all come in, bouncy energy and natural motion, and the moment is gone. It was touches like that that really made the movie work for me.

In the final moments before the end of the movie, Aoi discovers Akaboshi, nervous, alone, and withdrawing. Aoi reaches out and draws her into a gentle embrace. “A charm to relax you,” she says, and Akaboshi holds her and relaxes. Momo sees this, smiling gently for them and only interrupts when she is forced to by the others approaching.

There is one final gag, which was ridiculous, but it helped the movie end on a non-allegorical note, which I appreciated. ^_^

Ratings:

Story – 8
Characters – 9
Yuri – 3
Service – 1 on principle
Cinematography – 7 No lingering fetishy shots of landscape, sakura as symbol or fleeting maidenhood or any other gag-making allegory. Clear, clean shots that complimented the generally excellent acting.

Overall – 9

As I said, I had no expectations from this movie – if anything, I expected it to be kind of sucky, but I enjoyed every moment of it. It made my Sunday afternoon fly by!

Today is a “something completely different” kind of day. Yesterday, I watched a movie so special that I wanted to tell you about it right away. Zsa Zsa Zaturnnah Ze Moveeh is like everything you’ve ever seen, only better. ^_^

Ada is a transsexual living in Manila. After her boyfriend takes her money and dumps her, she decides to move to a small town to leave her bad memories behind. With her best friend Didi and her her niece Aruba she opens up a salon, where she tries very hard to not fall for the local hunk, Dodong.

And then she’s hit in the head with a pink meteorite. Didi convinces her to swallow it to gain power (she saw it in a comic book) so Ada does…and transforms into the superheroine Zaturnnah, played wonderfully by Zsa Zsa Padillah, who matches her body language to Ada’s and boy can she sing!

Did I mention this was a musical? Oh yes. It is.

Ada is played by BB Gandanghari – formerly known as Rustom Padilla, a hunky lead actor who, in 2009, came out as transsexual and changed her name. She’s utterly fantastic in every way as Ada. Sensibly, Ada wants to avoid having her heart broken again, and  is convinced that Dodong is only in love with Zaturnnah. In the meantime, as Zaturnnah, she’s busy saving her village from threats like giant frogs, zombies and aliens.

The movie was fun and all, right up to the aliens, where it was catapulted into my personal list of “thank the gods I am alive to see this.” The alien queen, Queen Femina, is obviously a Psychotic Lesbian – with a properly tragic backstory. She and her Amazonistas were…I’m running out of superlatives for this movie. Let’s just say if they made figurines of Queeen Femina and her Amazonistas, I would *so* own them.

Didi is a perfect sidekick – she reads comics, so she *gets* what it’s all about and makes sure Zaturnnah has a suitable costume (and one for herself.) Plus she’s got “comedic sidekick” written all over her. She’s a frickin’ hoot.

You’re probably wondering if Ada and Dodong get together. Of course they do (!) and it was an adorable end scene, with all the townspeople singing and dancing and fireworks and flowers and hearts everywhere. Totally “Awwwwwww….”

I found you the full trailer. Watch and enjoy.

Ratings:

Overall – 9

This movie is, apparently, based on a wildly popular Filipino graphic novel of the same name (which looks spectacular, too.) If any of my readers from the Phillipines have read it, please let us know how it is!

Many, many thanks to Donna for finding this. You are the Master of movies. I loved it. ^_^

Funeral Parade of Roses (薔薇の葬列) is part documentary, part art film and part dramatic narrative, following the gay and drug cultures of late 1960’s – early 1970’s Japan.

Like any movie that is trying to be so many things at once, it’s only partially successful at any of them.

The “gay” part follows Leda and Eddie, two gay crossdressers who work as hostesses at an okama bar. Leda is the owner’s regular, his wife in effect, and Eddie is his piece on the side. Leda rants about Eddie at home and Eddie stresses about Leda in the car. The owner is kind of an asshole, so I don’t feel bad for him. There’s a bittersweet story in between the melodrama here, one about love and betrayal and is exactly why so many LGBTQ people today are fighting to be able to have legal, social and financial recognition for their relationships.

Interspersed between art film scenes which can only be described as “Man Ray, they ain’t” are scenes of the group that are making those films led by a guy they call Guevara, and the drugs and parties they participate in. These scenes are campy because really, there’s no other way to film semi-nude drunken/stoned dancing in their underwear scenes that aren’t plain old sad.

These scenes are further cut by “documentary” sequences in which the film crew asks inane questions of the okama boys, or the drug users. These questions invariably made this viewer cringe. “So,” the interviewer asks Leda, “you don’t see women as sexually attractive?” or asks one of Guevara’s group, “What happens when you smoke marijuana?” I cringed for the same reason I cringe when I’m forced to watch a show on Ancient Egypt on Discovery and the narrator talks about everything in that tone of obsequious amazement. (We have a shorthand phrase for that kind of ingenuous astonishment – “Were they here….or did they come?” which was an actual phrase used at the sound and light show at Chichen Itza. It was used as a kind of chorus, and made us laugh every time they said it.)

Everything between Leda and Eddie comes to a head when they have an extremely silly fight, made even sillier by goofy carnival music. (I was rooting for Leda. Eddie was a jerk.) Another counterculture element is added in the form of a Eddie participating in a porn movie shoot and scenes from Eddie’s youth that are taken right out of a pulp novel. The end to the story was likewise full of pulp-y horror and melodrama, and post-story art film moralizing.

The DVD comes with a pretty thick pamphlet that will tell you everything I just said, but do it with film crit admiration, hyperbole and a digression into Pink films and lots of references to filmmaker’s names, which I won’t.

The links to the title on Amazon go to the Region 2 version with subtitles. I don’t suppose that should present too many obstacles to modern viewers, but FYI. The R2 has been localized for a British English speaking audience, which provided me with a little bit of extra pleasure to imagine the British audience for this movie.

The movie itself is paced excruciatingly slowly, with that slow, death-trance music that so many Japanese movies seem to favor. (See my reviews of Blue and Kakera for similar complaints.) The background for the movie is the student protest-torn Japanese political and social landscape, which represents both a counterculture – and the roots of the political landscape that now exists in Japan in mainstream culture.

I can’t say I learned anything from this movie I didn’t know, or couldn’t guess, but then, I was actually alive during these years. For an audience twenty years younger than me, the bits at the gay bar might be a bit of a lesson about a world long before they were born.

Overall – 6

My very sincere thanks to James Welker for his sponsorship of today’s review – it was an interesting experience!

Well I just finished watching Kakera, a live-action adaptation of Sakurazawa Erika’s Love Vibes manga. In a word, it was abysmal.

The original was a short romance between two women, each who have other attachments they need to clear up before they can get together comfortably. The main conflict comes from Mako’s discomfort with “being gay,” when she is still in a “I’m not gay, I just love you” mindset…and the issue of her boyfriend who feels that he’s allowed to leave her, but when she leaves him for another woman, gets angry. You know, pretty normal stuff. If you are interested, you can read my review of the Love Vibes manga from back in 2004.

The original ended on a high point, maybe a little idealistically, as Mika and Mako go running off together hand in hand.

The movie pretty much squeezes the life out of the original story, and fills the gaps with the movie equivalent of formaldehyde, giving it body without making it look truly alive, and leaving behind an unpleasant smell.

Mako, the cheerful, average girl with an average boyfriend has been turned into a total wet rag, Haru. Mika, the energetic bisexual now becomes Riko, a sculptor of prosthetic body parts who lives at home and is…strange.

The idea that Riko could find *anything* appealing about Haru is hard to swallow for most of the movie. And when they do kiss, it’s that typical Japanese no-movement, no-reaction dry lip pressing that just makes me want to stab something. Every time you almost sort of start to like one or both of the characters for a second, or the movie shows some sign of life, an awkward, unpleasant and usually depressing scene is inserted that stops the momentum and ruins the mood.

In an interview, the director proudly says she rewrote about 80% of the original story. All I can say is that she has some serious issues, if this was written with her life experiences in mind. (Thanks to Katherine H for the link to the interview. It explained a lot.)

What really just kills this movie dead is that it utterly craps all over the happy ending of the manga. Forget running off hand in hand. I won’t tell you what happens, because it’ll just piss you off.

Ratings:

UGH

This is exactly how not to do a live-action adaptation of a manga.