Best subtitle of the week: Love someone or something makes pains on one heart by oneself
When I watched Il Mare a few summers ago, it was during a whirlwind of weekend movie marathons at our university one summer. I dutifully showed up every Saturday, during which PhD girl, or as I dubbed her, freaky K-film fangirl, gave short lectures that were taken straight from her dissertation notes.
I liked the doctoral candidate babbling meaninglessly about just how much she loved the film. I felt like I was getting back in touch with my roots. My Korean got better that summer, and I even watched an entire soap opera, Romance in Paris, in spite of the fact that it was dreadful and improbable and kind of disgusted me for its histrionics.
This is the kind of entertainment I seek out most, in spite of my disgust. So I enjoyed, really enjoyed watching Il Mare, even if it had the most improbable plot of two lovers who were kept apart for the fact that they were always two years apart. Okay, so I’m not explaining this very well. So it happens like this:
A very very very pretty girl (Jun Ji-Hyun) moves into a house. The house is on a long, angular, winding pier, leading out to the sea, thus the title. The house is a gorgeous architectural wonder, a house on stilts, surrounded on all sides by water, made of light, unpretentious wood, nothing ostentatious. The spot of color in all this is the very ornate red mailbox, which is central to this strange budding relationship. I’m constructing this from memory, so if I don’t remember a private scene correctly where the girl is picking her toes thirty minutes into the film or the guy is julienning vegetables for his salad with canned juicy mandarin orange wedges and sesame dressing, I’m sorry. I watched this two years ago. I don’t even remember the last movie I watched; it’s a toss-up between The Notorious Betty Page or Kinky Boots. Or was it actually American Dreamz?
Was I supposed to admit I saw that? It’s the defining moment of the end of Mandy Moore’s career. I, Tiresias, the blind prophet, thus proclaim that the shining star that was Mandy Moore’s brilliant B-movie teen-queen career is about to come to a crashing halt, in spite of the fact that she was on Entourage and Scrubs, in spite of her greatest role thus far in Saved!, in spite of her graceful response to Wilmer Valderrama’s tell-all interview with Howard Stern, during which he bragged about his schlong and about how he wooed Mandy Moore right out of her virginal cocoon and transformed her into the love machine that she is now. Otherwise, would she have lasted so long with Andy Roddick? And what about the way she carries herself, so confident and wordly and mature, now with Zach Braff? Yes, Wilmer, I wish I could be a part of your harem, but like that bland, blank moron Chris Klein, you probably won't date anyone who’s less than an eight … and I’m sadly quite entrenched in the one-to-zero range (haven’t you noticed droll rhymes with troll?), yet you would say this in a more charming, self-effacing way so as to appear less of a pig … yes, you, with that charming from-the-border accent you’ve got. Yes, you, I mean you, Fez.
Jun Ji-Hyun is probably an eight, a nine if she stays forever in her early twenties in that fleshly, pink-flushed prettiness that is as yet untinged by pores and crashing metabolism and long nights staring down discount Boone’s Farm and waking up dehydrated after hitting the bong every time Buffy slays another night beastie on another Buffy marathon night, though because of your highly inebriated state while participating in this slightly shameful pastime, you don’t ever have to admit your love for this cheesy crap and so when people come up to you wanting to talk about their favorite Spike episode, you can, because you were so blitzed, pretend you’ve never seen even a single episode and walk away pure of heart.
So a very very very pretty girl moves out of this house on the sea and so leaves a letter in the mailbox for the next tenant. The man (Lee Jang-Jae) who picks up the letter lived in the house before the girl, and in fact was the first tenant. They exchange bemused letters for a while, driven by curiosity and the loneliness that perhaps one feels upon moving to a house on the sea, and then by the realization that they are able to speak in the now, even though they are separated by two years in time.
It’s a very confusing time-travel concept and it’s that same age-old concept of two star-crossed lovers who get fucked over because they were always on the opposite sides of the train platform.
I don’t know why I keep getting sidetracked. I was reminded of the movie very recently during one of my heavy tv sessions, this time the WB network, probably watching The Gilmore Girls or something, and because my tv love is so great, I find that I’m glued to my seat during the commercials as well.
So next thing I know, Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock are in my face. The running question: What do you do when you’re separated by two years in time?
There are scenes of Keanu and Sandra retrieving mail from the same mailbox. The house is a house right on the edge of a body of water.
The movie is called The Lake House.
Upon seeing this, I, Tiresias, the blind prophet, jumped up out of the seat and threw objects at my tv screen.
The Lake House, an adaptation of Il Mare, opens on June 16. The trailer fails to mention (and I wonder why) the fact that Hollywood has been sore bankrupt for the past I don’t know how many years and have since started stealing story lines from Asian films. What I admire about Korean films, what actually surprised me the first time I saw one, was how the story lines didn’t quite fit a genre. Sure, this movie was a romance, but it was a sort of visual poem, something that moved me more than the standard boy and girl staring out across a great expanse while love and yearning rippled through them like an insistent dream. No, it wasn’t no fucking Sleepless in Seattle, and no, Keanu and Sandra don’t quite repulse me in the same way that Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan do, but see my point here?
A second viewing in preparation for seeing The Lake House brought to mind the small touches of humor that I’d forgotten in the first viewing, her job as a voice actor for a children’s puppet show, the dog that also follows them in their time loops, the utter ludicrousness of her having a job for which the voice is prized, not looks … and upon seeing how pretty she is among the not-so-attractive voice actors, and how her voice isn’t such a prize and if I exhibited her lack of timbre and presence in a voice-acting gig, I would have been sacked within the hour. But maybe her very attractiveness was the reason she was kept on.
So if this were a realistic film, aside from the time-travel thing, why the hell wasn’t she snapped up by a recording studio to make her own BoA-imitation album and be groomed to become the next BoA, or rather, the next K-pop Britney? Why wasn’t Laneige knocking on her door to hawk their new line of moisturizers? Why wasn’t the soy yogurt company wanting her for their midday commercials?
The Keanu and Sandra fart bomb’s not coming out until June 16, but I figure I’ll make it easier on everyone and proclaim that—wait, let me make this official: I, Tiresias, predict that The Lake House will indeed be a big ole fart bomb and will not live up to the graceful lovely confusion of Il Mare.
They’re cute though, in spite of everything. I mean, was I the only person who watched Much Ado About Nothing for the second time just to see Keanu run through corridors doing his best to impersonate Very Bad Evil Villain?
I liked the doctoral candidate babbling meaninglessly about just how much she loved the film. I felt like I was getting back in touch with my roots. My Korean got better that summer, and I even watched an entire soap opera, Romance in Paris, in spite of the fact that it was dreadful and improbable and kind of disgusted me for its histrionics.
This is the kind of entertainment I seek out most, in spite of my disgust. So I enjoyed, really enjoyed watching Il Mare, even if it had the most improbable plot of two lovers who were kept apart for the fact that they were always two years apart. Okay, so I’m not explaining this very well. So it happens like this:
A very very very pretty girl (Jun Ji-Hyun) moves into a house. The house is on a long, angular, winding pier, leading out to the sea, thus the title. The house is a gorgeous architectural wonder, a house on stilts, surrounded on all sides by water, made of light, unpretentious wood, nothing ostentatious. The spot of color in all this is the very ornate red mailbox, which is central to this strange budding relationship. I’m constructing this from memory, so if I don’t remember a private scene correctly where the girl is picking her toes thirty minutes into the film or the guy is julienning vegetables for his salad with canned juicy mandarin orange wedges and sesame dressing, I’m sorry. I watched this two years ago. I don’t even remember the last movie I watched; it’s a toss-up between The Notorious Betty Page or Kinky Boots. Or was it actually American Dreamz?
Was I supposed to admit I saw that? It’s the defining moment of the end of Mandy Moore’s career. I, Tiresias, the blind prophet, thus proclaim that the shining star that was Mandy Moore’s brilliant B-movie teen-queen career is about to come to a crashing halt, in spite of the fact that she was on Entourage and Scrubs, in spite of her greatest role thus far in Saved!, in spite of her graceful response to Wilmer Valderrama’s tell-all interview with Howard Stern, during which he bragged about his schlong and about how he wooed Mandy Moore right out of her virginal cocoon and transformed her into the love machine that she is now. Otherwise, would she have lasted so long with Andy Roddick? And what about the way she carries herself, so confident and wordly and mature, now with Zach Braff? Yes, Wilmer, I wish I could be a part of your harem, but like that bland, blank moron Chris Klein, you probably won't date anyone who’s less than an eight … and I’m sadly quite entrenched in the one-to-zero range (haven’t you noticed droll rhymes with troll?), yet you would say this in a more charming, self-effacing way so as to appear less of a pig … yes, you, with that charming from-the-border accent you’ve got. Yes, you, I mean you, Fez.
Jun Ji-Hyun is probably an eight, a nine if she stays forever in her early twenties in that fleshly, pink-flushed prettiness that is as yet untinged by pores and crashing metabolism and long nights staring down discount Boone’s Farm and waking up dehydrated after hitting the bong every time Buffy slays another night beastie on another Buffy marathon night, though because of your highly inebriated state while participating in this slightly shameful pastime, you don’t ever have to admit your love for this cheesy crap and so when people come up to you wanting to talk about their favorite Spike episode, you can, because you were so blitzed, pretend you’ve never seen even a single episode and walk away pure of heart.
So a very very very pretty girl moves out of this house on the sea and so leaves a letter in the mailbox for the next tenant. The man (Lee Jang-Jae) who picks up the letter lived in the house before the girl, and in fact was the first tenant. They exchange bemused letters for a while, driven by curiosity and the loneliness that perhaps one feels upon moving to a house on the sea, and then by the realization that they are able to speak in the now, even though they are separated by two years in time.
It’s a very confusing time-travel concept and it’s that same age-old concept of two star-crossed lovers who get fucked over because they were always on the opposite sides of the train platform.
I don’t know why I keep getting sidetracked. I was reminded of the movie very recently during one of my heavy tv sessions, this time the WB network, probably watching The Gilmore Girls or something, and because my tv love is so great, I find that I’m glued to my seat during the commercials as well.
So next thing I know, Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock are in my face. The running question: What do you do when you’re separated by two years in time?
There are scenes of Keanu and Sandra retrieving mail from the same mailbox. The house is a house right on the edge of a body of water.
The movie is called The Lake House.
Upon seeing this, I, Tiresias, the blind prophet, jumped up out of the seat and threw objects at my tv screen.
The Lake House, an adaptation of Il Mare, opens on June 16. The trailer fails to mention (and I wonder why) the fact that Hollywood has been sore bankrupt for the past I don’t know how many years and have since started stealing story lines from Asian films. What I admire about Korean films, what actually surprised me the first time I saw one, was how the story lines didn’t quite fit a genre. Sure, this movie was a romance, but it was a sort of visual poem, something that moved me more than the standard boy and girl staring out across a great expanse while love and yearning rippled through them like an insistent dream. No, it wasn’t no fucking Sleepless in Seattle, and no, Keanu and Sandra don’t quite repulse me in the same way that Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan do, but see my point here?
A second viewing in preparation for seeing The Lake House brought to mind the small touches of humor that I’d forgotten in the first viewing, her job as a voice actor for a children’s puppet show, the dog that also follows them in their time loops, the utter ludicrousness of her having a job for which the voice is prized, not looks … and upon seeing how pretty she is among the not-so-attractive voice actors, and how her voice isn’t such a prize and if I exhibited her lack of timbre and presence in a voice-acting gig, I would have been sacked within the hour. But maybe her very attractiveness was the reason she was kept on.
So if this were a realistic film, aside from the time-travel thing, why the hell wasn’t she snapped up by a recording studio to make her own BoA-imitation album and be groomed to become the next BoA, or rather, the next K-pop Britney? Why wasn’t Laneige knocking on her door to hawk their new line of moisturizers? Why wasn’t the soy yogurt company wanting her for their midday commercials?
The Keanu and Sandra fart bomb’s not coming out until June 16, but I figure I’ll make it easier on everyone and proclaim that—wait, let me make this official: I, Tiresias, predict that The Lake House will indeed be a big ole fart bomb and will not live up to the graceful lovely confusion of Il Mare.
They’re cute though, in spite of everything. I mean, was I the only person who watched Much Ado About Nothing for the second time just to see Keanu run through corridors doing his best to impersonate Very Bad Evil Villain?
posted by hobos in space @ 12:52 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home