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tacosauce0707
Reviews
Wait Until Dark (1967)
Deliciously Terrifying
never have i ever seen a movie so thrilling that i have actually dreaded finishing it because i was having so much fun. there isn't a single part in the entire movie where you feel like you can take a second to look down at the bucket of popcorn and grab a handful because you know that as soon as you do you will miss something important and you wouldn't want to do that. right from the beginning with the airport scene the audience is given a sort of creepy feeling about what is going on and we cheer for the woman because she is portrayed similarly to a julia roberts in pretty woman (a prostitute trying to get away from her demanding pimp). although its clear that this person has never been the woman's friend and they will certainly never will. the entire premise of hepburn's blindness is amazing. i heard that they had to give her special contact lenses because her eyes were too intense for a blind person. isn't that mind-blowing? everything took off smoothly and the whole flight was without turbulence. although the landing was a tad jolty it left the viewer satisfied non the less. even when it seems as though hepburn's character is about to get killed she manages to get out of the situation smoothly. despite our crestfallen feelings of her surely impending doom after seeing her struggling to pick up a few household cutlery, she manages to prove not only to us but also to her husband that she can be a champion blind.
Ikinai (1998)
All around powerhouse movie
this movie was nothing less than a roller coaster ride. since the beginning the audience is introduced to the situation and the macabre desire for whats-his-name to collect the insurance money. the rest of the extravagantly plotted movie is mitsuki slowly but surely making discoveries about the passengers. as an American there were several times in which i was completely confused as to what it was that was funny about a group of people wanting to kill themselves and many other obvious jokes along the way that left me feeling like a fifth wheel or as if these were inside jokes. (which if you think about it they are, you almost have to be Japanese to understand them i suppose). but not all of them. there are some really hysterical screwball comedy as in when they are at the traditional dinner and they all one by one get up on the stage and present their own special talents or lack thereof. perhaps to show the incompetence of these people to be successes in the real world and therefore showing what was the cause of their downfall? the ending was absolute masterpiece. they begin to play a word game to try and calm down a passenger who has overdosed on a tranquilizer or something thereof and commenced to have a seizure. through the game, the audience and all the passengers are illuminated to the fact that the "tour-guide" is actually pregnant. maybe the reason why she wants to kill herself: she sees herself unfit to be a mother or perhaps she cant afford a baby? anyway the banterings from mitsuki toward the passenger's consciences (i think thats how you spell it) finally hit a nerve with the announcement of the childbearing and the driver decides to abort the mission just in the nick of time as the bus hits the railing on the side of the road. all are saved but whats-his-name decides to get off and kill himself. however, mitsuki gives him an origami crane. the moment is tense as the tour bus leaves him behind and the camera makes it seem as though nadaka or whatever his name is has has harakiri-ed himself. then the news announce that the bus was in a collision with a eighteen wheeler and everyone aboard. then at the same time. it is shown that nadaka has not killed himself but rather he threw the crane down in exasperation to deciding not to kill himself. the audience is torn between exhilaration of nadaka keeping his life, grief of the other passengers dying (especially the innocent mitsuki), and the guiltily funny irony that the passengers died anyway and nadaka was the one to live. all in all this movie was truly amazing and it is just a darn shame that movies of this kind aren't made in Hollywood. although i don't think they can since suicide is seen differently in the American culture. on another note **i apologize for the length of my user comment**