Donald Richie: 1924-2013

Donald Richie is the reason that Westerners know directors like Ozu and Kurosawa in the manner that we do. He passed away in Tokyo today. The New York Times piece is also worth a look.

He recorded the lion's share of the truly great commentaries on Japanese movies, including one I listened to recently for A Story of Floating Weeds, a true masterpiece that is often overshadowed by its color sound remake. His book OZU is, for many, the starting point for Western analysis of Japanese cinema.

I cite David Bordwell's Ozu and the Poetics of Cinema as my primary source text for Discovering Ozu, but I would not be writing the series without Richie's work, which is repeatedly cited by Bordwell throughout Poetics. Discovering Ozu is designed to be an evolving, dynamic series, which will be (and already has been) updated over time.

My friend Ryan (of CriterionCast) very generously sent me a copy of Richie's book a while back, an act of generosity that was a direct motivator for overhauling and re-working what was Cinema Ozu (now deprecated) into Discovering Ozu.

I had no delusions of ever getting to talk to Richie, let alone interview him, since I've been aware he was ailing for some time now. Like Ozu, I know his work from a distance. I may delve further into it. He lived a very interesting life. From first experiencing Japan in the army during post-WWII 1947, be went on to become the leading Western authority on Japanese culture by way of cinema.

I had already planned an appendix article on Richie some time soon, but now...I need to spend more time on it.

The photo of Ozu featured on the cover of Richie's OZU

Akira Kurosawa in the classic, director-pointing-a-camera pose

Daily Grab 72: McDoakes

The original Hard-Luck Kid, as portrayed by the great George O'Hanlon.

Juan of the Dead Wins Goya

Independent Cuban cinema is a thing now. Cuban zombie movies are a thing now too, thanks to Juan of the Dead, a movie that is much more than "a Shaun of the Dead ripoff in Spanish". It's got political commentary built in, features uniquely Cuban humor, and is pretty fun all-around.

Now, it's won a Goya Award, Spain's Academy Award.

Daily Grab 71: Kihachi

A grab I didn't use in tomorrow's Discovering Ozu 7: The Kihachi Cycle. Takeshi Sakamoto cameos in A Mother Should Be Loved.

Daily Grab 70: The Call

One of the best parts of Argo's runaway success is found in John Goodman's wonderful portrayal of real-life makeup genius John Chambers (Star Trek: TOS and the Planet of the Apes series among many others). His role in saving those American diplomats can't be oversold, and it's a lovely bonus that more of the masses will now know who he is beyond knowing just his work.

Daily Grab 69: Trafficking

The next installment of Soderberghopolis should be up in the morning. The director's three-movie run from 2000-2001 represents the period of greatest mainstream and financial success that he's had in his allegedly-soon-to-end career.

Traffic is a great example of Soderbergh's pseudonymous photography of his own movies as camera sage Peter Andrews, who generally receives "Photographed by" credits.

It'd be less than completist if I didn't do some sort of Appendix article about his cinematographic style, right?

Daily Grab 68: Scorpion Balancing

Roger Deakins recently won the ASC award for Cinematography, and the popular (and righteous) hope is that he'll finally win a long-deserved Oscar for Skyfall. What he does is one of the many under-recognized, delicate, and important jobs in cinema.

If you don't follow cinematographers or Deakins and need reference, here are nine movies that he's lit/shot/improved by touching: The Shawshank Redemption, Fargo, Kundun, O Brother Where Art Thou, The Man Who Wasn't There, No Country for Old Men, The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford, The Reader, and True Grit.

These are also the nine movies for which he was nominated (and didn't win) the Academy Award for Best Cinematography. There are loads of other great examples of his work listed on his IMDb page.

Daily Grab 67: Agent of Change

Skyfall is very, very good, and is also the perfect Bond feature to roll out in commemorating the film franchise's Diamond Jubilee. It is not a perfect movie, nor one without weird flaws (also a Bond trademark), but following Quantum of Solace, I get why people act like it's the greatest thing in the history of action cinema.

Criterion Adds 7 Ozu, 2 Soderbergh, and Loads More to Hulu Plus

My pal Ryan at CriterionCast compiled a complete list of all 42 titles just added to the Criterion channel on Hulu Plus today. Go check them all out. Since there's some direct relevance to the completist series I've been running, here's a look at why nine of them are a big deal to me:

Coincidentally, the two Soderbergh movies were featured in the most recent installment of Soderberghopolis (Schizopolis and Gray's Anatomy).

None of the seven Ozu movies added were previously available in the US in any form.

Among them, two are not available on disc even in the UK as part of the nearly-comprehensive BFI Ozu Collection (An Inn in Tokyo, Record of a Tenement Gentleman), one is set for release in March as part of their Gangster set (That Night's Wife), two are in the UK Student Comedies set (The Lady and The Beard, Where Now Are the Dreams of Youth?), and the other two are included as extras on the Late Autumn and Early Summer Blu-rays (A Mother Should Be Loved, What Did the Lady Forget?).

This is great news, and makes it even easier to get into the work of Ozu without tracking down loads of expensive discs. As always, info bricks for each film will be updated to reflect this news.

Daily Grab 66: The Con

Another Asian home video release from this week that I recommend highly is Hur Jin-ho's adaptation of Dangerous Liaisons, which sets the story in 1930s Shanghai. It's a Chinese production with a Korean director and male lead opposite two major Chinese actresses.

An historical aside: China is just on the verge of war with Japan over the The Manchurian Incident, an event that is examined briefly at the beginning of the sixth installment of Discovering Ozu.

The production design and cinematography are gorgeous, and the performances are stellar all around. The Blu-ray runs $20 and it's also rentable on iTunes at the standard $3/$5 SD/HD rate.

 

Daily Grab 65: The Plan

I went nuts for The Thieves when I saw it last year, to the point that I promoted and hosted a Tugg On-Demand screening of it here in Austin. The trailer makes it look like an Ocean's Eleven (2001) ripoff, but it isn't, setting aside the fact that they borrow some music and style cues for the heist portion of the movie. About 80 minutes in, it spins into a Hong Kong action caper.

The Thieves was the biggest box office hit in South Korea's history, it has a Korean/Hong Kong hybrid cast to die for, and it's probably not on the radar of most. It's one of my go-to blind recommendations at the moment.

It's now on Blu-ray for a mere $13 (the cost of a single ticket to the movies in many areas), and you can rent it in iTunes now as well ($3/$5 for SD/HD).

Daily Grab 64: Trials and Tribulations

I hosted a pair of Q&A's today at the Dallas SciFi Expo.

Avery Brooks and the pair of Cindy Morgan and Bruce Boxleitner could not have been more generous, unique, and fun. Those discussions will appear in consecutive episodes of Screen Time as soon as I have the audio.

Daily Grab 63: Thimblebell

This is yet another clean, crisp, and vibrant HD mastering of a Disney classic. Mulan is on Blu this spring, Little Mermaid in the fall, and Jungle Book is quietly announced in the Pan booklet as coming in Spring 2014.

Daily Grab 62: Askance

Fox has been one of the unsung heroes of Blu-ray, in that they make them look appropriately grainy, but clean. The right mix has come easier of late, it seems, but it's all too easy to scrub too much detail out of an image.

It's impossible for us to get too much Preminger on Blu-ray too quickly.

BFI's Ozu Gangster Collection: full specs announced

I've had this preordered from Amazon UK for a while, but they've finally released the full specs on it, as seen on the Amazon page.

All three full features (Walk Cheerfully, That Night's Wife, and Dragnet Girl) and the surviving fragment of A Straightforward Boy get newly-recorded scores, along with another 10-minute chunk of Tony Rayns' 2010 Ozu: Emotion and Poetry lecture. I wish they'd just put the whole thing on a future Ozu release. New essays are included as on other BFI Ozu Collection releases.

I've been long-brewing a Discovering Ozu article that looks at all the home video releases out there. Most of the surviving movies are out now, with a rumor that a new HD restoration of The End of Summer might be happening.

I wish there were a profitable way for Criterion to release a four or five-movie Ozu Blu-ray set. Oh well.

Daily Grab 61: Hulk Pawn in Game of Life

From the animated movie version of Planet Hulk, in honor of this week's soon-to-post Comic Shack #25, "Taste the Hulk Rainbow". In it, my friend John Gholson and I discuss the multitude of ways to get into reading the Jade Giant in all his green and purple glory.