Blind Shaft
Submitted by jim on Fri, 12/10/2004 - 13:13
Tags:
One of the questions for Manohla Dargis regards "the most overlooked film of this year". Her answer:
...a lean, mean Chinese film about a couple of grifters called "Blind Shaft," from writer and director Li Yang. Brutal and nail-bitingly compelling, this hard-boiled treasure is now out on DVD. Writing about the film in this paper, Elvis Mitchell said, "'Blind Shaft' deftly swings to a spartan, engrossing climax, and the final twists spell out what the murderers are made of and the setting responsible for creating them. It is a true piece of film magic." I second that opinion.
Check out that Tomatometer, and then rush on over to Netflix. I say we all boost it to the top of our queues and see what everybody thinks.
It's a likable film. I dug it as a re-tread of a familiar story with its own cultural insights/aspects; the main characters are all very good, especially the younger grifter. Worth watching.
Oxymoronically, I thought it was a good film that I found rather dull. That makes it a classification nightmare for me. I'll have to think about how I'm going to write that one up, along with the other titles that are backing up in my "to be reviewed" queue. Maybe I'll feel differently by the time I get around to reviewing it.
Sorry, Manhola, I wasn't impressed. Saw what it wanted and where it was coming from quite early in, and the detached naturalism that the director chose only worked at cross purposes to the gritty narrative. Thanks but no thanks.
Ah, too bad! I'll post when I see it too. Probably won't be until the week before X-mas though.
Cool! I love well-reviewed movies I've never heard about. :-)
Just stumbled onto another. I'd never heard of it, anyway.
RT: 95% (61 revoews)
IMDB: 8.2 (469 votes)
Not sure when it'll be Netflixable.
You are going to love Ms. Dargis. She's so cool that she registers in Kelvin. She's virtuosic in her prose and encyclopedic in her critical perspective... gosh! I guess I just love her. I can't recall a blown review of hers, she hits for power and average and she feasts, absolutely feasts, upon bad pitching.
Plus she seems to have a fetishistic interest in the male anatomy. This has been observed in the rigid, frigid Polar Express . It was a year and a half ago that she put homoeroticism squarely front and center (and rear) in her review of Spiderman:
"…volleying through the air and, most usefully, ejaculating long, white streams of webbing from his wrists. As with every adolescent, the live-action version of Marvel's bug-boy has sticky fingers and a world of deeply repressed desires.
....
"Spider-Man hasn't aged all that well. There's that getup for starters, a one-piece stretchy number… His spider-ass bobs in the air like a buoy in stormy waters, but is that really what we're supposed to be thinking about when we watch Maguire flex his superhero moves? (And if that is what we're meant to be thinking about, then why is the spider-package as humble as that of a Ken doll?)"
But what is most impressive about her is the activist inclusionary aesthetic that she brings to her writings. (Sorry, I couldn't think of any other way to say it.) Her championing of Asian films (as well as independent, foreign language, lesbian, minority... you get the point) is completely within her artistic vision. She doesn't suffer from an excess of "Hong Kongism" and how can you not love someone who puts Babe: Pig in the City , Flowers of Shanghai , The Power of Kangwon Province and There's Something About Mary in the same Top Ten list?
She had me at 5*s for The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring .
Okay, she also has a labial fetish. Good for her.
Oh yes, I'm hooked. Manohla and Broog are my top critics these days.
I'm sure you've seen this. It is why I luuuv her.
Actually, I hadn't seen it, thanks! Brilliant.
I listened to Broog ululate and I cowered in fear and enjoyment. I found myself wishing for longer, more in depth, reviews from it before I am crushed beneath its booted tentacle. But maybe space pressure is the cause of the diamonds that Broog does manage to squeeze out. I don't think I shall ever read a better review of Shrek 2 as long as I live my meaningless, puny life.
Reading this year's Critic v. Critic in Slate linked me back to last year's CvC. I'd forgotten (if indeed I'd every read) how Manohla cleared the room of the Gang of Four Other Reviewers.
There are labels that I wish I'd come up with "Meg Ryan's trout lips",
attitudes that I share "I would much rather watch a movie about a brilliant poet who put her head in an oven than sit through another movie about a heart-of-gold, ass-of-alabaster prostitute (unless the prostitute movie was a better work of art), but what a choice-we're either suicidal or whores?",
phrases that awe "I do love the idea the idea of a smackdown between your Patriarchal Repressive Mockery and my Sassy Feminist Ire, even if the latter sounds like a bad shampoo"
and
perspective that I admire "[I] feel kind of bad, but that's part of being a movie critic, right? Honestly embracing your pleasure even when it makes you feel like scum".
She finishes me off with the best summation on the QT that I've ever read. "Tarantino's genius is for dialogue, for situational black comedy, for violence, and for something more intangible-he makes his movies and "the movies" seem exciting. There is something about a Tarantino film that feels really electric-waiting for one of his movies to start reminds me of being at a rock concert and waiting for the guitarist to let out the first lick. And because Tarantino does love movies, he wants us to feel that love as strongly as he does-he works hard for our pleasure."
It might be worth a (re)read.