Review: Letters from Iwo Jima

Flags of Our Fathers was good, but it wasn’t great. So when Clint Eastwood’s film Letters from Iwo Jima — the follow-up to Flags — started getting Oscar accolades, I was a bit wary. After all, Iwo Jima was being billed as Flags from the Japanese perspective, and as promising as that may have sounded, the mediocrity of the first film kept lingering in my head. So I’m quite happy to report that not only did Letters from Iwo Jima live up to the hype, but it is easily Eastwood’s best film of his directing career. And that’s definitely saying a lot.

The story is based on a series of letters from Japanese soldiers stationed at Iwo Jima right before the American invasion, and unlike Flags, it is not a story about bravado and showmanship. Instead, Letters from Iwo Jima is more about the relationships between soldiers and their past lives. Ken Watanabe does a fantastic job as the commanding officer, but it is the unknown (at least to most North American audiences) Japanese actors that shine as soldiers resigned to the fact that they will die protecting a barren island with no real resources. And while Eastwood’s knack for over-telling a story might seep in from time to time, these actors keep the audience grounded enough that they leave the theater sufficiently touched.

Letters from Iwo Jima may not be better than Pan’s Labyrinth or The Departed, but it is clearly a triumph in Eastwood’s career and is one of the best films of 2006.

Why I Weally Want a Wii

Excuse me for the poorly worded title. In fact, I would have called this post, “Why Nintendo Should Be Paying Rannie for Spreading Wii Love All Around This City And Making Wii Converts Out of Even People Like Me Who Don’t Play Video Games,” but it just seemed like overkill. So we’ll stick to the silly alliteration.

I have fallen in love with the Nintendo Wii. In fact, I love the console so much so that I’m thinking of purchasing one myself. Just for context: the last video game console I bought for myself was the original Nintendo Entertainment System. Yup, the one with Duck Hunt. I’m that old school. The thing about the Wii is that — unlike most video game systems — you don’t need to have particularly agile thumbs to use it, and it is much more social and active than the typical console. Perfect for someone like me who happens to have fat thumbs and no hand-eye coordination, and tends to get fidgety really quickly. The Wii truly is a revolution in gaming technology.

Ever since purchasing his own Wii, Rannie has been going around the city and hosting Wii parties and introducing everyone in Toronto to the greatness that is the Nintendo Wii. And from what I’ve heard from everyone I’ve ever met that has been to a Wii party, the idea is a marketing success: everyone seems to want to buy one now. So what I’m saying here is that Nintendo should start paying Rannie for his efforts; or at least, give him a cover spot on the next issue of Nintendo Power.

I had the chance to go to a Wii party at the Whippersnapper gallery last week, where there were five Wii, several controllers, projection screens, and a slew of good food. And it was there I fell in love with the Wii. I’m thinking of buying myself a Wii as my own birthday gift to myself later this month, but I’m waiting to see how my immigration stuff clears up first.

For those of you that haven’t had the chance to play the Wii yet, make every effort to do so. You will be wowed.

Review: The Proposition

Seeing David Gulpilil in a movie just makes me smile. Even if he’s just playing a bit part like he does in The Proposition. Of course, having the prolific aboriginal actor in the movie isn’t the only smart move David Hillcoat makes, and I’m happy to say that The Proposition not only does justice to a pretty astute script by Nick Cave, but exceeds any expectations I may have had for it.

Essentially the story of an outlaw who has been spared in order to kill his own brother, The Proposition has all the hallmarks of a great film: excellent acting, a fantastic script, a compelling story, and superior editing and directing. The sparse dialog and the sparseness of the Australian outback readily complement each other, and the physical horrors that the film portrays quite impressively expresses the harshness of the life of the early Australian settler. But the true genius of The Proposition is not in the story elements, but in the cinematography. Benoit Delhomme crafts every scene as if he was taking a photograph, with exquisite attention to perspective, color, and depth of field. Indeed, any frame from this film could be extracted and turned into an award winning photo, and it is for this reason alone that The Proposition skyrockets into my list of top films of the year.