Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence | Cinema Parrot Disco

Quickly posting this so I can start posting my May & June reviews. Saw some good ones! Already posted all the below movie reviews…

MOVIES WATCHED IN APRIL (ranked best to worst):

Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence – 9/10
Assault On Precinct 13 – 8.5/10
Lawrence Of Arabia – 8/10
Wild Strawberries – 8/10
The Circus – 7.5/10
The Gold Rush – 7.5/10
Suzume – 7.5/10
The Holy Mountain – 7.5/10
The Zone Of Interest – 7.5/10
Lake Mungo – 7.5/10
The Greatest Hits – 7/10
Wish – 7/10
Toni Erdmann – 6.5/10
Música – 6.5/10
Strawberry Mansion – 5.5/10

Movies Rewatched In April:

Barbie – 8.5/10
Donnie Darko – 8/10

Documentary:

Koyaanisqatsi

BOOKS, TV, MUSIC, MISCELLANEOUS IN APRIL

TV SHOWS

Superstore: S3 – Still enjoying this. Will definitely finish watching them all. Already sad that I don’t know what the next sitcom is that both my daughter & I will enjoy… (And there will never be another Community!)

Grey’s Anatomy: S20 E1-5 – Yep. Still watching. Why would I stop now after 20 years?! Honestly don’t mind the newest batch of characters, at least. Sometimes the new interns have really sucked.

Baby Reindeer: S1 – What the hell was this?! This was kind of traumatising. Did he really go through all that?! Just very sad for all involved. Thought it was going to be a dark comedy but it was just… Dark… Poor guy. Good show, though, I guess. Just not my type of thing.

Fallout: S1 E1 – Ummm. I wasn’t feeling the first episode so didn’t continue. And, wow, way more violent than I was expecting!! Did like the vibe of the bits with that bug-eyed girl from Yellowjackets – those bits reminded me a lot of the only good part of that weird A Boy And His Dog movie. Would’ve liked more of that but then they had two other storylines going on that didn’t interest me at all. I dunno – is it worth ever continuing?

Curb Your Enthusiasm: S1 E1-3 – Continued from the start after accidentally watching an episode from later years. Like what I’ve seen but feeling no need to binge these or something. If I’m in the mood, maybe I’ll stick one on.

Saturday Night Live: The Ryan Gosling episode – I’ve not watched SNL since the early to mid-90s. Also, it wasn’t available to watch at all in the U.K. when I moved here 23 years ago but it didn’t look like I was missing much anyway. Well, it’s been available here for quite a while now (I think) but I never bothered with it until seeing Ryan Gosling dressed up like Beavis on Twitter (I’ll never call it X). So I watched the whole episode. Loved that skit! The whole episode was pretty good. Maybe I’ll watch them more regularly again?

MUSIC

Justice – Hyperdrama: Need to listen to this a bit more to form an opinion but have enjoyed having the album on while working. Justice are (is?!) great – I remember when it was thought that Justice were maybe actually Daft Punk under a different name. I like Justice a lot, as did my husband. So I was happy but also very sad when I noticed that they had a new album out. My husband would have been very excited about it & would have listened to this album a lot by now. I wish I could share it with him & hear his opinion on it. Something new breaks my heart every day.

BOOKS

The Picture House Murders by Fiona Veitch Smith – This was quite a lightweight but fun mystery. Did I buy it simply because the setting for the crime was a movie theater? Yes, I did. It’s about a woman who takes over her uncle’s detective agency in 1929. I see it’s a series, as I expected it probably would be. Would be fun to follow the character as she solves various mysteries. But, for me, it’s not really my type of thing so unlikely I’ll read any more. Could see these making a good TV series, though, and could also see these books definitely having a fan base. – 3/5

BLOG PLANS FOR THE COMING MONTH

As always, just trying to catch up on things here…

Upcoming Movies I Want To See:

LOVED Inside Out 2! 🙂 And I see Deadpool & Wolverine tickets are already on sale. Looking forward to that one (and my daughter especially is – she’s a big fan of both characters & of all the X-Men & Deadpool films). And I’m excited for the Quiet Place prequel. Oh! And not gonna lie – I can’t wait for Despicable Me 4 as well.

Here’s that absolutely gorgeous piece of music from Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence:

https://youtu.be/1OZDaRhHHyM?feature=shared

Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (戦場のメリークリスマス, Senjō no Merī Kurisumasu) (1983)

Directed by Nagisa Ōshima

Based on The Seed and the Sower 1963 novel by Sir Laurens van der Post

Starring: David Bowie, Tom Conti, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Takeshi Kitano, Jack Thompson

Music by Ryuichi Sakamoto

Plot Synopsis: (via IMDb)
During WWII, a British colonel tries to bridge the cultural divides between a British POW and the Japanese camp commander in order to avoid bloodshed.

My Opinion:

This is a fantastic, beautiful, heartbreaking film. Instant five stars on Letterboxd & a new favorite for me. Why is this not talked about as much as other war movies? And how had I not yet seen this when I ADORE David Bowie & the theme has long been an all-time favorite piece of music?! Ryuichi Sakamoto’s score is a masterpiece. As is this film, which I didn’t expect to live up to the music. But it did.

I’ll start with Sakamoto, who I didn’t at first know had also starred in this film as well as composing the music. What a genius – multi-talented people amaze me. He had such a great chemistry here with Bowie. The tension was palpable. And Bowie was brilliant in this, too. I’m a big fan of his but admit that music was his biggest talent and his acting was, at times, a bit dodgy (but I don’t care as I think charisma is more important). This is easily his best performance, besides a couple of moments when the acting was a TINY bit off. I admit it. But it didn’t at all take away from the overall film. The characters were so well-developed & the film left me feeling devastated in that way in which the very best war films can affect you. I always say I don’t like this genre but I’ve seen all the best examples and, when war films are good, they’re VERY good. I’ve ranked this very high in my list of war films.

Am I the only one who assumed for years that Bowie was Mr. Lawrence?? Tom Conti is absolutely brilliant in this role & it’s a shame I think he’s maybe a bit overshadowed just because everyone knows that two big musical geniuses star in this. I certainly only wanted to watch this in the first place because of Bowie & Sakamoto but Conti is the proper “actor” here & he’s amazing. Can’t believe I’ve seen him in very few other films besides this one. Was also very interested in seeing Takeshi Kitano in this (love Battle Royale). He has a much bigger & more important role in this than I was expecting. He’s great playing a more complex character than he at first seems.

This film very much focuses just on the relationships formed within this prisoner of war camp, so you don’t see big action scenes. Maybe that’s why you hear less about this one as war movies portraying the violence of battle are so popular, but I preferred the focus being strictly on the characters with war being the backdrop. Felt very personal. I know plenty of others have done this brilliantly too, such as The Great Escape & Stalag 17 (also love those), but expect seeing even less of an actual war going on if you watch this one. This is the type of film I love. Strong characters, gorgeous score, and haunting scenes that stayed with me long after the movie finished. Brilliant film.

Easily my favorite film watched this year. Can’t see anything knocking this out of first place (but I’m trying to watch as many worthy films as I can this year).

My Rating: 9/10