Weekend Viewing

I've managed to get in a few films this weekend ahead of what looks to be a busy Sunday. The films were a mixed bag for the most part.

First up is Goyokin, which is i believe the third collaboration between director Hideo Gosha and actor Tatsuya Nakadai. I love samurai films in general, and Tatsuya Nakadai specifically, so i figured this would be a good film for me. I liked it, but i was surprised that i didn't enjoy it as much as the last Samurai Gosha film i watched, Three Outlaw Samurai. The film wasn't bad, i just assumed that since this one was more recent and included Nakadai, that it would have been a little better. It probably didn't help that the US DVD from Tokyo Shock that i own appears to be a less than stellar copy of the film.

Next up was a just released on Blu-ray western featuring Mads Mikkelsen called The Salvation. I'll watch pretty much anything if it has Mikkelsen in it, so when i saw this was being released I picked it up right away. Unfortunately, i found it be a fairly uninspired western, which had WAY too much CGI in it for my liking. There was a scene that had a fire the size of a large bonfire in it, where the entire fire portion was CGI. Is it really cheaper to CG some fire, rather than just lighting an actual fire? Did the director think it looked just as good as real fire? I found it puzzling, and it certainly detracted from the film. Mikkelsen was great as always, but in the end the film was a bit of a waste of his considerable talents.

Last up was actually a film in a theatre. I don't go the theatre as often as I'd like for a variety of reasons, but it's always nice when i get chance. Tonight the wife and I snuck out to catch Phoenix. Phoenix reminded me a little bit of one of my favorite recent films, Ida, in the sense that it dealt with the period after the end of World War II, and explored the difficulties of people who survived (especially Jews) trying to put things back together and find their place in the world (The style of the film is not similar to Ida of course, just the general topic). While it's not something that blew me away like Ida did, it was a well done and fascinating look at that period, with a tremendous performance put in by Nina Hoss, who i had recently seen act for the first time in Anton Corbijn's A Most Wanted Man. If Phoenix is playing in an art house type theatre near you, i certainly recommend it.