Gamera vs. Guiron

Here's another review from my 6-th Grader, Ian!

Gamera vs. Guiron is perfect.

The monsters are fake looking, which is great. I like fake looking monsters. So if you like cheesy movies featuring giant monster battles in which the monsters are so fake looking they’re actually cute, then this movie is for you. If you’re a kaiju fanatic, you’ll love this. If you’re not? Well, naturally, being a kaiju fanatic, I wouldn’t know what the average Joe would think about it. This movie is meant for kaiju fanatics. If you’re not one, I wouldn’t be surprised if you didn’t like this flick. The movie itself is good, but the DVD cut out one of the best fight scenes: The one where Guiron chops up Spacegyoas (who is just like Gyoas, except white) into pieces using his knife head. This isn’t a big deal however, because you can find the entire battle on youtube, or go on Netflix instant to watch the Mystery Science Theater 3,000 version. They make fun of the battle of course, though. 

I really liked this one. it was just plain terrific! =^D

The Earrings of Madame de...

The Earrings of Madame de… is a relationship movie for people who don’t like relationship movies, a fashion movie for people who don’t like fashion movies.  Why?  Because it’s so good that it doesn’t matter what kind of movies you like: The Earrings of Madame de… will captivate you.

The premise is a twist on ­Daniel Deronda.  A young woman pawns some jewelry after losing big at the roulette wheel.  Complications ensue.  Where Daniel Deronda goes on to use the jewelry as a catalyst for growth and redemption, The Earrings of Madame de… uses it to drive a tragedy.  And oh, what a tragedy.

Master director Max Ophüls (born, coincidentally enough, in my ancestral home of Saarbrücken) sets his tragedy in the Geneva of the late 1800s.  His characters, mostly aristocrats, adhere to the social mores of then-contemporary France, in which one married for business and one loved whom one chose, so long as the love remained discreet.  This may seem off-putting.  After all, who wants to spend two hours ogling the lifestyles of the aristocrats of yesteryear?  It works, however, because it allows Ophüls to do two things: create a world of lavish sets, beautiful costumes, and extraordinary jewelry, and show how the rules of that world can bind and constrict and kill. 

It also works because we care about the members of the film’s love triangle.  Danielle Darrieux (now 96 years old and credited in the remarkable Persepolis), Charles Boyer, and Vittorio De Sica (director of the hilarious Divorce, Italian Style), bring humanity to their roles as Madame de…, General de…, and the Great Love of Madame de…’s life, respectively.  We see through their wealth and their pretensions to the real, needy people beneath their exteriors, and we feel for them.  Director Ophüls and cinematographer Christian Matras brings them to life through a high-gloss, high-beauty black and white photography that would count as realism if the world were just a bit more poetic. 

The Earrings of Madame de… is beautiful to look at and heartbreaking to watch, and entirely successful in every way.  I loved it.