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Reviews
Japan Japan (2007)
you Have to see it! very refreshing and original.
OK. first of all. i ask people to ignore the other comment since the person who wrote it said that he knew nothing about the movie before going to see it. beware. the film is very "unique". it is not for everyone. im not really surprised that people can really REALLY hate this movie. i saw it at a film festival in montréal and i felt kinda bad for the old couple sitting right next to me. it's very upfront (i.e. you can see excerpts of gay porn).
anyways, i don't wanna say much about it but i really liked how the film was made. its like a mash-up of all sorts of different styles. (i.e. at one point, you only see quoted white text on a black background.)(another part of the movie feels like a music video)(another part uses Google Earth and synchronizes the zoom-ins and zoom-outs to a song playing in the background).
it doesn't really respect any "structure". it goes from one medium to another. it's kinda amateur. it kinda looks like something you can do with iMovie. (it sometimes looks and feels like the movie Tarnation...minus the "real" drama).
all of these factors usually end up making a kinda hard-to-follow and "unfluid" movie. but in this case, it doesn't. all of the little effects the director uses in the movie aren't useless. instead of making it look like some sort of student-exercise, the effects end up helping the movie by making it better, fresher and funnier.
the aesthetics and the ambiance of the movie also reminds me of the music and the artwork of the sri-lankan singer/artist, M.I.A. (especially her Kala album): a mix of different styles and recycled bits that kinda look like it was made from scrap but ends up sounding/looking so refreshing/original/contemporary.
Linda Linda Linda (2005)
wow.
please ignore the other comment . this movie is simple and effective. i saw it during the festival du nouveau cinema in montreal. i just randomly picked it even if the synopsis didn't seem that interesting...
set in japan, its about 4 teenage girls who form a rock band so that they can play a song at their school festival. the characters are well developed. the images are reallllly nice.(a la jim jarmusch) its like a teen movie made for people who don't usually like teen movies. the pace is a bit slower than usual teen movies but its much more mature and still ends up being funny.
plus, the soundtrack, by james iha (ex-smashingpumpkins), is quite good
go see it. or rent it or whatever.