Save the Green Planet!

by writer/director Joon-Hwan Jang

This South Korean comedy/horror/sci-fi/drama/thriller is wack. It's colorful. It's got aliens. You want severed limbs in neon goo? It's got those too. Like the pages of some violent and exotic comic brought to life on screen, it leaves you wondering where the line between culture shock and balls-out crazy is.

At it's heart it is a story of abandonment and loss. It's a lesson about abandonment and loss. Don't abandon people who have suffered great loss. It's a dangerous act - comparable to walking a tightrope. Look out. It could already be too late.

Brandon picked this movie and it apparently did not look to him as if it would contain any graphic violence...he showed us the preview to prove his point. It had zany music and quick MTV style editing that included a shot of someone holding an axe above his head while aiming at bound man's ankle, laid out on a block of wood. Yeah. Well I guess he assumed that a potential limb severing could also go in a non-graphic direction. Like, it could have ended in a dance number or something.

Speaking of dance numbers, Bree and I started discussing movie options that would inflict as much viewing pain on the horror lovers as on-screen torture inflicts on us. Bree envisioned something with Harry Connick Jr. while I marveled at how many dance movies there are that have the word "step" in the title, that I have not yet seen.

Well the horror lovers got very defensive and threatened to walk out and all sorts of drama. We have three more "pick a movie you haven't seen but want to" selections before we have to land on a new theme. I hope we come up with something amiable or I my have to SAVE THE THURSDAY BLIND MOVIE NIGHT.

CQ

Truly a film made for film students, CQ is a introspective daydream in the life of a cinematic hopefull who gets stuck producing a commercial ending for someone else's film by day while he wades through the shambles of his personal work by night. The writer/director Roman Coppola toys with reconciling the "Hollywood ending" with the stringent artistic standards of the purist filmmaker. When it boils right down to it the 'experienced' Italian producer, Enzo sums it up. 'There are two kinds of movies: those with an ending, and those that don't have an ending.'

My own biased ruminations aside, it unquestionably explores the winsome designs behind the adaptation of inspiration. It is an eye opening roundabout for story tellers and dissectors, and a feast of mise-en-scene for those others just along for the ride.

This was my pick! It's reception was... warm at best, which made me like it much harder and more defiantly. Lacking somewhat in self-confidence, I brought a chocolate cake to this screening to dampen any negativity that might crop up. That seemed to work pretty well. Also the stuff. This movie is so chock full of stuff that I want - from TV sets to whole apartments, and especially the campy sci-fi wardrobe.