The view from my window

Cafetasia (Greenwich Village)

The Greenwich Village incarnation (or is this the original location?) of Cafetasia is louder, busier and full of drunken teenagers celebrating their birthdays over a flaming ball of fried ice-cream to the sound of the obvious song blasted from speakers, and performed apparently by a chef who’s simultaneously singing Happy Birthday and chopping off his fingers while attempting to chop bamboo. Human meat or not though, the Pad Thai is absolutely orgasmic, with the noodles thinner than usual and a delish lemony flavor that goes surprisingly well with eggs, cashews, chicken and bean sprouts. And yes, the fried ice-cream. Yum. Though it takes two to eat them (not the size—the slipperiness). Same gratification, less calf muscle.

No $4-wine, alas (it’s $5). No bedbugs detected thus far.

CAFETASIA - restaurant

Cafetasia (East Village)
85 Avenue A
(bet E. 5th & 6th Street)
New York, NY 10009
Tel.212-260-8570

Sadly, there’s nothing bad I can say about Cafetasia. Not only is the food tasty and affordable and the drink list long and even more affordable but they give you little cards to collect stamps every time you spend $10. Six gets you a free meal. It reminds me some coffee shops. And rightly so, because even decor-wise Cafetasia aims at a fusion of a bostro / cafe with a trendy lounge (dim lights, little table, slick minimalism and the Asian (elements of bamboo motif and an elephant wallpaper). The food is as noveau-East-Asian as the slick decor. The pan Asian menu (how I hate thatlabel for some reason) offers many choices of small, large and really large dishes—all in a brain-numbing range of $4 - $14. The brunch menu is also available with treats like the crispy flounder with honey-teriyaki sauce ($9). (As for drinks, it’s the $4 house wine for me. And nope, it’s not a happy hour). Apparently a friend of mine has tried every single dish on the menu (and there’s plenty), and she claims every single one is good. That I still need to check. But I will surely be back to get those stamps. I still need to check out their Greenwich Village location to find something to complain about. Though, alas, unless I stumble into NYU students, I might not succeed.

The whole idea of 'Jackass 3D'

A friend of mine put it pretty plainly-- and I'll have to sign under this-- when she said: "I don't want to see balls fly at me."

You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger - review

There were supposed to be three profound moments, I think, in Woody Allen’s You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger. The first one when the writer, Roy, finds out that his friend is not dead but in a coma, the second when Naomi Watts realizes that she might have had a chance to have an affair with her boss, Antonio Banderas, if she had only made the right move at the right split of a moment, and the third and final, when Naomi Watts realizes that her own creation (her mother’s belief in a fortune-teller) has turned against her (when mother refuses her the loan because the psychic said the planets forbid it-- that's a spoiler btw. But it was just so predictable). All three were supposed to have that slight subtlety of Match Point, of tiny yet breath-taking moments—Chris Wilton‘s realization at night that he has to kill Scarlett Johansson; the flying ring bouncing off a ramp instead of falling into the river. But the first one was ridiculously predictable and cliché, the second one came out almost unnoticeable, and the third one somehow lacks an impact, for reasons I can’t quite pin down. There was also a vague theme of life being impossible to predict (a general joke involving the character of the fortune teller), thrown at a viewer in conclusion of the movie by the annoying and, for the most part, completely redundant voice-over. That also misfired and left me as a viewer empty-handed.

Overall, it doesn't take a fortune teller's skills to predict most of the twists of the movie. People who look for something better are punished by not finding it, relationships with gold diggers end up in unwanted pregnancies, plagiarism will be punished and good looking tall dark strangers always end up having an affair with your best girlfriend.

But Anthony Hopkins lost a lot of weight since The Wolfman.

The Duchess - Review

Pray you, name three movies made by Saul Dibb, the director of The Duchess. As far as you are little likely to succeed in that, you wouldn’t have problems mentioning a fairly recent costume biopic retrosepcting on a life of a prominent female figure. Reevaluating the importance of historical girl power had become a trend at the turn of this century, particularly if the subjects happened to be sporting tent-sized dresses and sky-high wigs. From Kate Blanchet playing Elisabeth I in Elisabeth and its sequel, to the utterly post-feminist damsel played by Kirsten Dunst in Marie Antoinette— the lives of our historical role models (or anti-heroines) have been re-shot with women as the centerpieces, not Hollywood-like glamorous add-ons. Or at least that was the goal.
In that line, and with the amalgam of 18th century salon drama, sex, treason and coyness of a modern 5th Avenue girl, came this zeitgeist-filled picture with Keira Knightley, who plays Georgiana, the Duches of Devonshire, and gracefully digs her character out from underneath layers of lace, muslin and bows. After all, Georgiana Cavendish (born Spencer) was a beautiful socialite, a Whig party activist, a pre-feminism post-feminist-- who did not shy from expressing herself through fashion-- and the ancestor of the unfortunate Lady Diana Spencer, the Princess of Wales. And even if the plot bares poorly covered resemblance to the life of Lady D., what comes across much more evidently than even the motif of lost freedom (which the filmmakers managed to suffocate with a sea of tulle) is a simple message: we need to pity our fore-mothers, no matter the blood color. As women, they went through hell.
With the consumerism-oriented post-feminism and Sex and the City culture came a need for films about glamorous role models of the past. These women are no longer pale attachments to male protagonists, fainting damsels or tableaux vivants—they are flesh-and-bone heroines living lives of contemporary women… centuries ago. Particularly, Elisabeth, Marie Antoinette and now the Duchess of Devonshire (with Lady D. in mind) became examples for slowly self-educating audiences-- those most glittering examples, of course—of how high-born women were, and in some cases, still are, prisoners of their situation, but also of how tough and cool they were.
The Duchess brings an eye-popping image of 18th century England, but not a perfect picture. As life would back then, the movie plot drives the heroine through her procreation-oriented early marriage with a much older and grouchy Duke of Devonshire, William (Ralph Fiennes), who manages to simultaneously pressure his young wife for a male heir, disappoint her with his strictly “practical” view of marital sex, and exercise --as a real spoiled middle-aged aristocrat-- relations with other women, not even bothering to hide that fact. Soon a classical marriage triangle (including common meals) throws unhappy Georgiana into the arms of her romance-man, Lord Gray (Dominic Cooper), a Prime-Minister-to-be. Meanwhile, after producing (to Duke’s rage) two daughters, Georgiana finally gives birth to the anticipated male heir. Seemingly free now, she comes to realize that her children, the thing that was supposed to free her from her husband’s tyranny, are the very reason for her coming lifetime bondage. Another feminizing production underlines shyly that babies are a bother.
Georgiana, like Marie Antoinette, is pressured for a male heir, and the daughters to whom they both give birth are overlooked and despised—not unlike their mothers. Elisabeth is pressured to marry for the same reasons (and, of course, she refuses). These movies go beyond the costume / biographic genre. They become most of all dramas. And, despite the humor and certain satirical qualities, they are not free from pathos. As impish as she is, Marie Antoinette admits at one point “Letting everyone down would be my greatest unhappiness.” And the talk is, of course, about producing a baby boy—the main duty of the Queen of France. However popular she is among the crowds, however rich, however fashionable, however low bow the admirers, the baby remains the bottom line for all three women. And only one of them manages to change that.
So all that keeps them alive is the society and fashion. As far as the consciously pop-cultural Marie Antoinette was supposed to serve as a sort of pastiche of consumer culture and evoke modern notion with contemporary music and many “modern-chic” customs (like having a gay hair dresser), the other biopics are also somehow different from what we learned in history classes or saw in early movies. And that’s not only because of, say, Blanchet’s face which we know from contemporary tabloids. It’s the focus of the entire plot and its intrusiveness into private lives of those alienated women that is new. It tells the story from their point of view.
But Dibb attempted a larger sweep on the question of freedom, into which he incorporated not only women, or aristocratic women, but the entire aristocracy. “How happy they are to be so free,” proclaims Georgiana’s husband dreamily, watching their children playing in the gardens. This complex character—showed once raping his wife, another time saying “I love you in the way I understand love”—is in Dibb’s mind in the cage together with Georgiana. He is under pressure for a male heir because of his high status. And however much praise Fiennes deserves for creating a believably ambiguous villain, the character’s motivation and our sympathy towards him remain questionable.
The motif of freedom jumps at the viewers quite chunkily at many more occasions. The film opens with young Georgina playing with her friends in the vast, green gardens of her family estate—a pretty uncovered allusion to youthful independence, to which the previously described scene is an obvious allusion. In the end, Georgiana plays at the gardens of the Devonshire manor with her children—both, the house and children being symbols of her bondage, and the scene an antithesis of the opening. However, to be fair, at the end, no one can be really free in that colonial empire. At least according to Dibb. The talk of American colonies and the fight for independence reoccurs constantly (giving Georgiana a chance to deliver her key line: “One cannot be moderately dead, or moderately in love. Or moderately free.”) Neither Georgina nor William, nor Lady Beth (Hayley Atwell)—the other woman-- nor anyone else of the aristocracy, can allow themselves to lead their lives as they wish, when facing the rigid and inhumane societal system. They are all prisoners. A pseudo communist manifesto? Perhaps. But why in a movie that was already well focused on women? The Duchess tries to grasp too much and chokes on its sweep of moralizing, and revealing things that are pretty much known for at least a century.
That being said, the brief moments of Georgiana’s happiness give occasion for spectacular costuming show-off. Indeed, the zeitgeist in The Duchess is absolutely present, even despite the way-too-modern air brought by Keira Knightley. (A fresh breeze might be a desired thing in most movies, but not in era-specific productions-- this is exactly the case with Marie Antoinette as well). And, luckily, despite the fact that The Duchess—as opposed to Marie Antoinette-- was not shot by a woman director , both were made with a closely woman-centered, understanding attitude, which attitude makes them a completely different breeds of the costume genre than flicks like 300 or The Last Samurai.

CLONE WARS

Once again Lucasfilm throws us right into the midst of robotic-human-creature battles, this time with the use of dazzling, light saber and laser filled digital animation. And the question that everybody stifles inside is: how much more can Dave Filoni achieve with an animated movie?

This time the faithful saga maniacs have to set their minds in a slightly different dimension and prepare to accept the animated incarnations of their screen idols. Perhaps acknowledging the potential shock this shift might bring, Filoni opens Clone Wars with a mishmash of a special-effects-filled, droid-populated battlefield and stuffs the opening scenes with a nutshell of familiar Star Wars elements, bombarding the close-to-palpitation audience with leitmotifs; from the famous stellar opening to slogans like “dark side of the force,” “the welfare of the Republic” and “Jedi do not run.” But even those lines heard from the hard-to-associate, angular-faced (beautifully drawn) characters miss the purpose when there are no significant plot lines. It’s a tough task to develop the same saga ambience using animation and not disappoint the expectations of the light sword waving audience; and Clone Wars grows to those expectations through the first 15-20 minutes of the 98-minute film, until, finally, Lucas’ spirit shows in an array of meshy political intrigues, secret missions, spying and diplomacy, which finally kicks off with its good ol’ Star War-ish je ne sais quoi.

The never ending struggle of the good guys, the Grand Army of the Galactic Republic with equally unvanquishable separatists and their army of quarter-brain droids unfolds with indispensible Obi-Wan Kenobi (James Arnold Taylor, who lends a tone of a second generation Brit mixed with a blasé psychoanalyst), Yoda (Tom Kane), the Clones and the utterly diplomatic senator Amidala (who looks amazingly like Natalie Portman, even though played by Catherine Taber). Clone Wars also introduces a young Jedi apprentice- Ahsoka Tano, (Ashley Eckstein), aka Snips, an adorably ardent Padawan who goes into a breathtaking fight side by side with the invincible, heroic and frat-boy-faced Anakin Skywalker (Matt Lanter); compensating her lack of experience with youthful enthusiasm and overly mature sarcasm. Together, they struggle to save the day and the Republic by rescuing the kidnapped son of Jabba the Hutt. They also face dark side of the force embodied in villainess Asajj Ventress (Nika Futterman) and her master, the obscure Count Dooku (Christopher Lee).

Though the clashes between the hardass General Skywalker and his young Padawan have a great potential for humorous lines, only in few cases do those exchanges offer the desirable amount of wit. Instead, the absent-minded droids are the main source of humor and cause the audience spontaneous bursts of laughter. Meanwhile, Anakin and Ahsoka provide a gender accent which is not absent throughout the movie (that including Jabba’s cross-dressing uncle). The moment Skywalker and his apprentice manage to rescue Jabba’s son (who is only a baby and almost dies throughout the film), the eternal problem appears—who takes care of the baby? And though after almost 90 years, Hollywood is finally slowly starting to apply certain rules of gender correctness, the issue is still present, even among the Jedi.

“Great, you woke up the baby,” scorns Ahsoka after Skywalker performs a breathtaking swirl with their spaceship pursued by separatist ships.

“I’m kind of busy here,” he hisses back, while trying to shoot down the enemy.

What’s interesting, the main conflict of the film is a result of nothing else but a lack of diplomatic communication among the planets. Hint hint. But when Skywalker and the entire Republic is in trouble due to a miscommunication, it takes senator Amidala-- apparently most skillful diplomat and the only one thinking in terms of realist politics-- to come up with the “let’s talk this over” initiative in 2/3 of the film. Well, it wouldn’t be the American way if there was discussions instead of heroic action (plus, it would be quite boring), so when Amidala goes on a UN-like mission in order to save her beau Skywalker, khem, and the Republic; she has to get caught right away and be rescued by Marines of the Republican army. For purely cinematic reasons, it makes more sense to get into war and perfect the skill of light-swordsmanship instead of the skill of negotiating and understanding your enemy. But Clone Wars will never raise savvy politicians. Just saying.

I was particularly excited about the Asajj’s character, who, nota bene is created in a purely Disneyesque style of an evil woman—with her tall and extremely skinny silhouette and a weird skin color; and who particularly brings to mind a character once voted the most scary villain in Disney productions—the witch from Sleeping Beauty. Sadly, the gloomy villainess is only a tool in the hands of her big-fish patriarchal boss, Count Dooku; and the sword fights are restricted in general, in the name of more robotic/spaceship skirmishes.

To prove that there is nothing that digital animation cannot do these day, the makers “shoot” Clone Wars like a movie. Not only does the “camera” show the characters from different directions and semi-circulates around them, which could be assigned solely to the 3D video game techniques; but the movie applies high and low angles of perception (for example, if Master Yoda comes on the screen, everything is shown from a low angle). Plus, the animators obviously indulge in what costs huge amounts of money and effort in real life-- bombastic special effects, marches of gigantic war machines, breathtaking space battles and Jedi fly-jumping with the audience’s perspective fallowing from behind their backs. The way in which the “camera” quests through the battlefields (or battle-spaces) in long “tracking shots” gives an exciting notion of 3D reality and participation in the sci-fi disorder and Star Wars reel. Though, as I said, the sluggishly developing and a bit cliché plot might not catch you right away, the visual aspect will.

With all the state-of-the-art techniques, Clone Wars joins the ranks of made-in-Hollywood animated masterpieces that have been invading the market for a few years with a power of a digital tsunami; and becomes the season’s main competitor of Wall-e. Will the Star Wars-mania become a stronger publicity factor than sympathy for an “adorable” robot and bring the film the grandeur of such recent productions as Academy Award winning Ratatouille? Though I doubt Clone Wars would get much of the Academy’s appreciation, what really matters is the internal Star Wars affairs world and trillions of fans who constitute a never-critical audience and a piggy-bank that Lucasfilm can always rely on. Star Wars’ magic works, and though death reigns throughout the PG-Rated film in various forms (from death on the battlefield to triple decapitation), the 75% kids audience and the 20% parents audience in the New York advance screening (during New York International Children's Film festival) was nothing but delighted.

Upcoming NYC Film Festivals

[disclaimer: written for clubplanet]
http://www.clubplanet.com/Articles/2272/Upcoming-NYC-Film-Festivals

When summer in the city comes to an end, New Yorkers celebrate two things: no more ice-cream truck symphonies, and a wave of film festivals. So you should stop splurging on bikini and summer dresses and start filling the piggy bank. Or should you? Off-Hollywood films don’t make you pay through nose (one multiplex ticket equals two to three tequila shots—not worth it). Some of these festivals are already winding down, and some are just starting to generate buzz. Do

Outdoor Cinema 2008

When: Wednesdays thru August 27
Where: Socrates Sculpture Park
3205 Vernon Blvd
Long Island City, NY 11106
Facts: Weather permitting / Free admission

Not only does The Museum of the Moving Image screen the best movies in Queens; it also constitutes the cutest cultural landmark in Astoria. They’ve partnered up with another Astoria high-brow hot-spot— Socrates Sculpture Park, offering an outer-borough alternative to Bryant Park. Among this year’s highlights are Fellini’s 8 ½, Academy award-nominated Persopolis, and international horror hit The Host from South Korea. As if that wasn’t enough for a scintillating night, the organizers invited a number of bands and performers who will entertain the audience with live music before the screenings. All that under the bare sky.
Click here for more info on Outdoor Cinema 2008, Queens NY

Japanese Screen Classics: In Honor of Madame Kawakita

When: July 30 – Aug 14
Where: Walter Reade Theater @ Lincoln Center
70 Lincoln Center Plz
New York, NY 10023
212-875-5600
Facts: General Admission:
$11 public
$8 senior
$7 Film Society member & student (w/ID), child (6-12, accompanied by an adult).

Lincoln Center probably organizes more festivals in a year than all the other venues in New York. Since 2008 they’ve hosted the Romanian Film Festival and a string of movies all made in 1968. This time, Walter Reade Theatre spoils us with some retro Japanese movies, including the brain children of the world cinema mogul, Akira Kurosawa- like one of his most memorable works, Rashomon; or Nagisa Oshima’s Boy. The festival consists of 24 masterworks by eight directors: Akira Kurosawa, Nagisa Oshima, Kaneto Shindo, Shohei Imamura, Sumiko Haneda, Kon Ichikawa, Yoki Yamada, and Seijun Suzuki—all of whom were at some point awarded with the Kawakita award.
Click here for more info on Japanese Screen Classics, New York NY

Korean Film Festival

When: Thursday, August 21, 2008
Where: The New York Times Building
TheTimesCenter
242 West 41st St.
New York, NY
Facts: $30 Advance/$35 At the Door
(The Korea Society members, $25)

The Korean Society in New York has visibly taken off, as evinced by the number of film festivals they launch. Their 2008 film festival presents 14 titles of features (they also plan a festival of shorts soon), including Chang Youn-hyun’s Hwang Jin-Yi, Jeon Yoon-soo’s Le Grand Chef and Jeon Soo-il’s With a Girl of Black Soil. Don’t miss the after-party with director Chang Youn-hyun and actor Yoo Ji-tae (Hwang Jin-Yi, Oldboy, Nightmare). Korean cinema is doing better than ever. Who knows, maybe the Bollywood factor is shifting North.
Click here for more info on The Korean Film Festival, New York NY

Latinbeat 2008

When: Sep 5 – 25
Where: Walter Reade Theater @ Lincoln Center
70 Lincoln Center Plz
New York, NY 10023
212-875-5600
Facts: General Admission:
$11 public
$8 senior
$7 Film Society member & student (w/ID), child (6-12, accompanied by an adult).

Ultra-cool hits like Amores Perros and Pan’s Labyrinth still resonate in the head of every dedicated cinephile. Latinbeat 2008 gathers all the watchable gems from south of the border, creating a mishmash of 28 diverse titles from high- and low-profile directors; including Latin America's newest cinematic force, Chile. The big names also include many new and popular Puerto Rican directors, as well as an adaptation of the work of Brazilian writer Machado de Assis.

4TH ANNUAL NEW YORK CITY
SHORT FILM FESTIVAL

When: September 19-20
Where: Leonard Nimoy Thalia at Symphony Space
2537 Broadway
New York, NY 10025
212-316-4962

Shorts are good for those of little patience, but not the best choice for a date night. Still, you shouldn’t miss the eclectic selection prepared at one of the most popular film festivals in the metro area. Created by filmmakers David Barba, James Pellerito and Jennifer Pellerito, NYC Shorts features international and home productions that include almost all genres: drama, comedy, documentary, lgbt, student, foreign language, children's and animation. All the films are G Rated and supposed to be kid-friendly. Some of the production countries are United States, Canada, Australia, Spain, Switzerland, the UK, Italy, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Ireland, Mexico, Brazil, China, India and Japan, so start learning some languages (I never trust the subtitles) and prepare for a multi-cultural patchwork of images. This year's slate of 31 titles (divided among two Wednesday evening programs, two Friday evening programs, and a Saturday morning children's program) are packed to the brim with intriguing, insightful stories.
Click here for more info on the 4th Annual NYC Short Film Festival, New York NY

Manhattan Short Film Festival

When: September 28
Where: Spring Street
326 Spring Street
New York, New York
Facts: Free and ppen to the public

Don’t be fooled by the name: the Manhattan Short Film Festival is not a uniquely NYC treat. The screenings are now scattered all around Europe, South and North America and Australia. It all started 10 years ago when founder Nicholas Mason projected 14 short films onto the side of a truck parked on a downtown Manhattan street. A year after that, the official Manhattan Short film Festival kicked off at Union Square. Ditching the celebrity-studded jury that used to choose the winner, the festival organizers passed that privilege to the people in 2004. The festival is open for film submissions, so don’t expect a Hollywood-level selection. Expect more—open-mindedness, creativity and exploration of new ideas and cinematic techniques.
Click here for more info on The Manhattan Short Film Festival, New York NY

Coney Island Film Festival

When: September 26-28
Where: Sideshows By The Seashore
They may tear down the amusement park, but nothing will kill the invincible spirit of Coney Island, as proved by their local film festival. Take that, industrialists. Traditionally, the CIFF features a variety of different styles of moviemaking, including both narrative and documentary shorts, features, experimental films, animation and music videos. This year adds an experiment of a new silent movie to that teeming assortment. Part of the proceeds will contribute to the non-profit arts organization, Coney Island USA. The festival’s infamous opening night extravaganza features live performance and burlesque. Talk about off-off-Hollywood.
Click here for more info on The Coney Island Film Festival, Brooklyn NY

46th New York Film Festival

When: September 26 - October 12, 2008
Where: Ziegfeld Theatre
141 W 54th St
New York, NY 10019
(212) 307-1862

Facts: Premiering the best in cinema from around the world.

Get ready for 17 days of top-shelf cinema from world-recognized film moguls as well as up-and-coming artists. The mother of NYC film festivals opens with a movie by Laurent Cantet, The Class (Entre les murs)— the Palme d’Or winner for Best Picture at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Make sure to also check out the documentary Realm of Oshima by the legendary French director and philosopher Guy Debord .
Click here for more info on the New York Film Festival, New York NY

Why should you watch old Romanian movies?

No good reason really. Except for the fact that they are playing at Lincoln Center and that they are a peace of really good, old-school cinematography (read: film as art)—unlike anything that came out of Hollywood in the span of last 10 years (read: as long as I can remember).

It doesn’t matter if you have never heard about directors like Liviu Ciulei, Lucian Pintilie, Dan Pita, Mircea Daneliuc or Alexandru Tatos. Each film screened at the Walter Reade Theater is accompanied by a short intro from a specialist(s). The main organizer, Richard Pena, made sure to provide people ranging from film scholars to actual filmmakers who would not-so-briefly introduce the genesis and key concepts, and sometimes even answer questions after the screening.

The festival-- entitled Shining Through a Long, Dark Night and patronized by the Film Society in collaboration with the Romanian Cultural Institute in New York-- ends tonight with the screening of The Death of Mr. Lazarescu. Luckily, a brand new series of old movies hits Walter Reade Theater only two days later—1968- AN INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE (April 29 – May 14) will bring back the most revolutionary year of the 20th century with newsreels, documentaries, shorts and features from all over the world (including U.S.).

http://www.filmlinc.com/wrt/onsale/romanian08/program.html

Sunday at Six /Duminica la ora 6
Lucian Pintilie, Romania, 1965; 102m

Sequences / Secvente
Alexandru Tatos, Romania, 1982; 98m

Of Yurei, cheese and Japanese horror movies in the U.S.

I’m a sucker for the Japanese horror movies. The thing is, if not the Japanese market, the scary movie genre would die out completely in the U.S. Or else, it would just suck.

Since all the possible stories about people possessed by Satan were already exploited, most of them multiple times, the scary movies’ producers in Hollywood seem to fall into panic and turn to more and more awkward ideas, including killer plants.

It was once the case that the cheesier a horror movie got, the more popular it was (thanks to which school we have such gems as Frogs, Redneck Zombies, The Attack of Killer Iguanas, and The Femalien series). The scariest thing is that nowadays the cheesy movies are advertised as really scary.

It seems that the easiest way to make a relatively successful American horror movie now is not to give up the ghost, but to steal it from the Japanese.

That is the case with the newest release, Shutter, but also several previous remakes which gained relative popularity in the U.S., such as The Ring, The Grudge, Dark Water, Pulse or One Missed Call.

Those who know at least a little about the East Asian spiritual culture will probably understand why all of the originals are better. Still, I will try to compare the Japanese movies with their American doubles.

First, though, some characteristic features of a Japanese horror movie for those who might have problems distinguishing such. Each of the following motives occurred in all three movies: The Ring, The Grudge and The Shutter; as well as in most of the others—
• The grudge- the reason why the ghost is killing is always because it was hurt by someone when alive, or killed brutally
• Crawling- the ghosts crawl. It makes them appear more dead. Who ever invented the flying ghosts anyway?
• Female protagonist- who solves the mystery and encounters the scariest contacts with the ghost
• Her man- who never ends up happily
• The unbeatable ghost - in none of the movies the ghost actually leaves. It either remains with its main victim, or hints its presence in a way inspiring a great sequel

Now, the main differences between these and the American counterparts, and the reasons why the latter suck:
• The female protagonist is blond—even when it’s Sarah Michelle Gellar, it just doesn’t seem right
• Americans are not scary—not that the Japanese are, but American actors, at least those playing in the American versions of these movies look like a happy meal advertisement. The women are too cheerleader-ishly pretty and the guys are either too good looking for horror movies at all, or they have played in Dawson’s Creek, which just feels awkward
• The gloomy paranoia of spiritual reality in Japanese movies is replaced by corny Hollywood “scary effects” like the pickaboo technique or gory characterizations
• Americans make stupid jokes—for a simple example: the guy comforting his woman after she thought she hit a Japanese girl with a car—
Guy: Even if there was a girl on that road, I’m sure she’s sitting right now on her bed, eating ice-cream
Girl: Do they even have ice-cream in Japan?
Guy: They do, but they’re made of fish
[both laugh]

It’s just dumb…