Leglessbird Movie Guide

Hard Candy (buy from Amazon)

Drama, USA, 2005

Director: David Slade

My rating: 3
Key actors/actresses:
Patrick Wilson ... Jeff Kohlver
Ellen Page ... Hayley Stark
Story:
Hayler is a supposedly 14-year old girl who has been lured by a grown-up photographer Jeff via internet chat room. But don't worry about Hayler, because Jeff is into a big surprise, he soon find out Hayler is a hard candy. His nightmare has just begun, he cannot even imagine what lies ahead...

My review:
Quite a powerful and interesting plot, full of twists and turns, even shocking at points. Splendid acting from Ellen Page.

Drama, Japan, 2005

Director: Isshin Inudou

My rating: 3
Key actors/actresses:
J? Odagiri ... Haruhiko
Kou Shibasaki ... Saori Yoshida
Min Tanaka ... Himiko

Story:
Saori's father is a gay man who once owned a very popular bar/restaurant call Himiko. Himiko is dying of cancer, he is spending his final days in a house full of his gay friends including his current lover the young Haruhiko. Haruhiko has asked Saori to come and work as a maid in the house and also to see her father (though she has never forgiven her father for leaving her and her mother behind). At first, she felt very awkward among the gay men who are all interesting characters, soon she become accustom to them...

My review:
Unusual and creative story, especially, for the suggested scene that Saori and Haruhiko may have slept together which makes the relationship more complicated.

L'Enfer (Bof) (buy from Amazon)

Type, Country, Year: Drama, France, 2005

Director: Danis Tanovic

My rating: 3
Key actors/actresses:

Emmanuelle B?art ... Sophie
Karin Viard ... C?line
Marie Gillain ... Anne
Guillaume Canet ... S?bastien
Jacques Gamblin ... Pierre
Story:
Three sisters live separate lives and all have their own problems. Sophie's husband is having an affair, Celine is approached by a man and she is not sure about his intention, Anne is in love with a married man - her professor who has a wife and a daughter. Their mother is paralysed after an accident that also caused the death of their father who was accused of a terrible crime...

My review:
Clearly a disfunc family. Sadly even when their mother learned about the truth, she still has no regret of her wrong accusation of a gross understanding, as a result, the family is broken and the daughters have suffered since. A sad movie and one doesn't feel good watching it.

"Hell" is supposedly to be one of stories that Krzysztof Kieslowski wanted to make, namely, "Heaven", "Earth" and "Hell".

Through out the movie there are signs of Kieslowski, such as the old lady pushing a bottle into the recycling bin (such scene also appeared in Blue, White, Red and Double life of Veronica).

Filipino Philippine Tagalog DVD You Are The One (buy from Amazon)
Romantic Comedy, Philippine, 2006

Director: Cathy Garcia-Molina

My rating: 3
Key actors/actresses:
Toni Gonzaga ... Sally Malasmas
Sam Milby ... Will Derby/Vernard Garcia

Story:
Sally lives and works in Manila while her parents and elder sister live in USA. Her family wants her to join them in USA, she is not so sure but she applies anyway because her mother is not well and needed to be taken care of. At the US embassay, her application was rejected by the US officer Will, who is young and handsome. While she has a crush on this young man, she also hates him for rejecting her application. She has her chance of revenge, Will was adopted by US parents and he needs to look up some information on his biological parents, he ends up at the department where Sally works and she plays tricks on him at first. Eventually, she actually goes out of her way to help him and the two of them starts on a journey to look for Will's real parents and romance is in the air, but things are never so smooth as it first seems...

My review:
I got this DVD as a gift from a friend in Philippines. It is very funny and entertaining, old fashion clean fun (well, most of the time anyway), with a warm touch.

Be With You (Ima, Ai ni Yukimasu) - DTS (buy from Amazon)

Japanese 2004
Director: Nobuhiro Doi

My rating: 4
Key actors/actresses:
Yuko Takeuchi ... Mio
Shido Nakamura ... Takumi
Akashi Takei ... Yuji

Story:
Takumi lives with his 6-year old son Yuji in a small quite town. His wife Mio passed away not so long ago, when she died she promised that she would return in the next rainy season. So Yuji prays that rainy season will come sooner. One day, Takumi and Yuji were taking a walk in the country side and saw a woman that resembled Mio but she had no recollection whatsoever as told who she was. As she lived and cared for Takumi and Yuji, she learned about her relationship with Takumi and fell in love with him all over again, and also her love towards her son. While she heard from Takumi his side of their love story, she discovered a diary that she left for herself that told her side of the same romantic story, their feelings were definitely mutual. But rainy season is coming to an end...

My review:
A nice simple touching story of an ordinary family. Nothing too extraordinary, but that's why I like it also, moving, down to earth and good acting.

Dis-moi oui (buy from Amazon)
French 1995
Director: Alexandre Arcady

My rating: 4
Key actors/actresses:
Jean-Hugues Anglade ... St?phane
Julia Maraval ... Eva

Nadia Far?s ... Florence
Claude Rich ... Professeur Villiers
Val?rie Kaprisky ... Nathalie

Story:
A young 12-year old patient is in love with her pediatric doctor, she expresses her affection and he cannot accept because she is too young and she is his patient. The young girl is in need of a critical neuro-operation, would she survive? Would she win over her doctor?

My review:
I watched this movie in 1997 and I happened to be working on a business consulting project for a medical company that sells the apparatus for the neuro-operation described in the film, what a coincidence.

Interesting plot and funny story. Quite enjoyable.

Japanese 2004
Director: Isao Yukisada

My rating: 5
Key actors/actresses:
Takao Osawa ... Sakutaro Matsumoto
Kou Shibasaki ... Ritsuko Fujimura
Masami Nagasawa ... Aki Hirose
Mirai Moriyama ... Sakutaro Matsumoto (High School)
Tsutomu Yamazaki ... Shigezou Matsumoto
Kankur? Kud? ... Ryunosuke Ooki
Kanji Tsuda ... Johnny
Issei Takahashi ... Ryunosuke (high school student)
Rio Kanno ... Ritsuko (girl)
Tetta Sugimoto ... Aki's Father
Katsutaka Furuhata ... Johnny (high school)

Story:
"I thought I might be using a lifetime's happiness in a moment. I was that happy and she was that beautiful."

In 1987, a beautiful story about two 17-year old classmates, Aki and Saku who fell in love during one summer and how they soon realized Aki has leukemia and died during Autumn of the same year.

17 years later, Saku has not forgotten Aki for a single moment, he still carries her ashes with him, he re-tell their story to a woman that he loves today on how he and Aki met and spent time together until Aki's final moment and her dying wish was to see the blue sky of a place in Central Australia where the aboriginals believe to be the centre of the world and people who rest there after they die, their spirit will flow from there into another world and be reborn.

My review:
Simply a beautiful story, I love this TV-drama and the adapted version of the movie both based on the same best-selling book of the same name "Sekai no Chuushin de, Ai wo Sakebu". A pure romantic love that happens during teenage years with a sad ending of death of incurable diseases, though the idea is not new, this story will still touch your heart.

Le Papillon (Original French Version) (buy from Amazon)

French 2002
Director: Philippe Muyl

My rating: 4
Key actors/actresses:
Michel Serrault .... Julien
Claire Bouanich .... Elsa
Nade Dieu .... Elsa's Mother

Story:
Julien is a retired old man whose hobby is butterfly (Le Papillon) with his own butterfly room and plenty of samples. Elsa is a 9 year old girl with her single mother who has to work all the time and cannot spend much time with her daughter. They just moved to the same building where Julien lives. When Elsa overheard about Jilien's trip to search for the beautiful and rare butterfly called "Isabella", she secretly hides in his car and wants to follow him. Julien initially wants to turn her in to the police, but later decides to let her goes along to this butterfly journey...

My review:
A very nice touching story, the old man and little girl have a lot to learn from each other. Through the journey of searching for the butterfly, they are enlightened...

Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (buy from Amazon)

This is a documentary on the story of Enron, how the company has once risen to the 5th largest company in USA and then fell to become one of the biggest corporate scandals in history. Greed and arrogant have completely clouded the minds of the chair, CEO, CFO, executives and its traders to pursue highly profit at the expenses of the public by using fraudulent and creative accounting. Its fall also brought down one of the biggest accounting firms.

Before Sunset (buy from Amazon)
Type: Romantic, USA 2004

Director: Richard Linklater

My rating: 5
Key actors/actresses:
Ethan Hawke - Jesse
Julie Delpy - Celine

Story:
This is the sequel to the romantic movie "Before Sunrise" where Jesse, an American guy who lived in Texas and Celine, a French girl who lived in Paris had the encounter of their life, when they met 9 years ago on a train and agreed to spend a day together in Vienna. They formed such an intense and irresistable bonding that they promise each other that they will meet again in 6 months in Vienna. However, they only met again 9 years later in Paris. What happened in the 6 month after their first encounter, why didn't they see each other again until now? How do you pick up a conversation again after not seeing someone for such a long period of time. So what's next? Are they still made for each other, the soulmate that they had hoped for 9 years ago?

My review:
Absolutely love this sequel as well, the acting, the script, the scenary and most important of all, the mood and feeling that it brings. Couldn't think of a more perfect ending than the one shown.

Ehtan and Julie played their role really well. The plentiful and natural dialogue make the audience feel they have re-ignited their intense connection as in the first movie, and that they have never forgotten each other for a day. It was tragic that they were unable to meet up during that 9 years because they didn't want to exchange contant information not even their last name, they don't want to just call or write to each other a little while and then the relationship will fade away, but as a result, once they have missed their rendervous in Vienna, they had no way of finding each other until Jesse published a book on their 1-night affair 9 years ago. All their possible romantic feelings were all injected and preserved in that 1-night, they were unable to feel and be happy with anyone else. Imagine such torture of not being able to feel love except with a person that you are uable to locate and then the joy of seeing the person again by chance. What sort of intense emotion is unleashed as a result?

Please also see Doris's review.