My Own Private Idaho

I honestly don’t know what to say about My Own Private Idaho. It was boring for me and there wasn’t any build up. It was the same from beginning to end with the ending being predictable. The only thing that was interesting for me was the fact that the main character was narcoleptic, which is unique, because I haven’t seen any movie like that. Heck, I didn’t even know what narcolepsy was until I watched this movie.

Mike Waters was a narcoleptic. He could involuntarily fall asleep anytime and anywhere regardless if he’s in the middle of the road or in the middle of his job. It comes to him during stressful moments. The vision he sees are of his mother and of a house where I assume they previously lived. This may mean [I’m assuming] that he didn’t have this condition since birth and it only started after a major stressful moment [probably when his mother left them] wherein he completely broke down to the point that he started being narcoleptic. During stressful moments, he would go back to a place of solitude and peace to calm down, which is why he sees his mother. I liked this part of the movie. Maybe I would’ve liked it more if the focus was more on his narcoleptic condition and his family instead of it focusing on his job and friends, especially Scott Favor.

Another thing I realized with narcolepsy was that it is actually very dangerous. Someone can take advantage of Mike and steal his things. Fortunately, his best friend Scott was always there whenever he needed him. He always took care of Mike when he passed out, which is probably why he fell in love with him and wanted to be with him. Since Mike was abandoned by his mother and was left to live with his alcoholic father, which is another cliche story I must say, he yearns to be with someone who he knew he could trust and count on. He wanted to be with someone who could for once show him some TLC–tender loving care.

Overall, again, it was a boring movie for me. If you make Mike a regular guy without being narcoleptic still living in poverty with a rich best friend with both of them still doing shenanigans, it would be cliche and mediocre at best. It doesn’t help the fact that Mike came from a toxic environment growing up with abandonment issues and daddy issues– it made the film more cliche. Even his confession to Scott wasn’t unique nor different regardless if it was to the same sex or not, it was still predictable. The only good and interesting that came out of this movie was Mike’s narcolepsy. It was the only part of the film that I thoroughly liked.

Futureless Things

At first glance, I’d say Futureless Things is just a simple film. There’s nothing interesting or unique about it. It’s more of like a documentary about the day to day work and encounters of different workers in a convenience store during their shifts with a really sad ending about the owner. However, if I look closely and actually focus on the subtle imagery and themes, I’d realize there’s more to it. This was hard for me because after researching about the film, it turns out most of the themes in the film were about Korean culture. So, since I’m not Korean, it wasn’t easy to get.

The main characters in the film were the clerks working for the convenience store. It is very much likely that these characters are the ones being referred to by the title as “Futureless Things”. It could be a reach but it could mean that these workers are used merely as objects or tools by the companies that own these convenience stores to work for them. They could easily be replaced by someone else who needs the job, which could explain the ‘futureless’ part. Some of the characters are even shown in the film looking or applying for other jobs, or are clearly yearning for something else and not a job as a clerk. For example, there was a guy who was practicing for his acting auditions.

Of all places, why is it set in a convenience store and not somewhere else? This is interesting because all throughout the movie, the location never changed. If the goal of the cast was to set the scene wherein everyone with different beliefs, hopes, and dreams come together to collectively present the varying culture in Korea, then a convenience store is the perfect place. Anyone and everyone can come in and out of a convenience store.

A lot of themes or issues in Korea are also presented in the film. Some of them are racism, language/(il)literacy, plastic surgery, and religious diversity. A girl, who used to live in North Korea but is now a South Korean citizen, was working as a clerk in the convenience store peacefully until one rude customer noticed her thick North Korean accent. She was harassed sexually and verbally by the said customer. He only left when she threatened to call the police. Another clerk was also presented as someone who didn’t know how to speak English. He tried so hard learning and practicing it with the customers who only found it offensive or rude. Plastic surgery was also shown through an Arabic-looking woman with a bandage on her nose. She, then, showed the clerk a picture of a South Korean girl that she wants to look like. Lastly, there was a guy who tried every single religious practice there is just to get lucky in the lottery scratch and win game. After he left, a guy who wanted to introduce the ‘right’ Jesus arrived, and then, another guy who only talked about Philosophy and nothing else.

Futureless Things was honestly a very interesting movie for me. Regardless if I understood the flow of the whole movie or the connection of each and every one of the scenes or characters, I still enjoyed focusing on the different underlying themes and issues related to the Korean culture. I’m hoping a movie like this will be made again but about the Filipino culture if there’s none yet.

Trainspotting

Since our government’s planning to get rid of all drugs [and users] in the country through extra-judicial killings, Trainspotting can help change their perspective. They believe that they could just scare the users into stopping. They don’t take into account that addiction is a disease and curing it without getting any help is close to impossible. This film shows how hard it really is to quit especially when you’re already hooked.

Trainspotting shows the journey of a group of friends who are mostly addicted to heroin with some trying to be sober. However, unlike other crime movies focusing on drugs, it focuses more on the experiences and encounters of the users themselves. The scenes are from the perception of a user, specifically Mark Renton’s.

What I liked most about this movie is the fact that it made me learn a thing or two. Unlike Schizopolis or Shin Godzilla, I actually found out the specific events an addict goes through during the addiction and after, during the process of going sober. In the movie, Renton had to go through disturbing and tragic events before he sobered up for real. He had to witness a baby’s death, go to jail, and overdose on drugs before his parents locked him in his room to force him to sober up. Of all those scenes, the most upsetting scene that I still can’t get out of my mind is the one where he was locked up in his room. He was in remission so I understood that he felt uncomfortable and was probably in pain. Although, I wasn’t expecting the hallucinations. It’s already hard enough that these addicts find being in remission literally painful, but it also makes them go crazy because of all the things they see. What did Renton see? He saw his friend’s dead baby, crawling towards him…on the ceiling.

This was probably his guilt eating him up. He felt bad because their addiction was the reason why the mother of the baby neglected and stopped taking care of the baby even though they were all staying in one place all the time. When the baby was crawling towards him, he kept screaming. He was scared of the baby. This may be a reach but it is also possible that he was scared of getting addicted again because he knows that this is what it could lead to.

Overall, I liked the movie and it could even be my favorite out of all the movies we watched in class. Not only did I learn a thing or two about drug addiction, I also found it relevant to our country’s situation nowadays. In addition to that, it also showed how sobriety is always possible as long as you want it for yourself, commit to it, and surround yourself with people who you know will help you in reaching that goal.

Shin Godzilla

Growing up I never watched any of the famous Godzilla movies even though I know there are a lot of them. Yet, I still know what they are about. Every time someone mentions “Godzilla”, I would automatically interpret it in my mind that they’re talking about a movie wherein a monster who will attack a city. How do I know this? It’s probably because Godzilla is one of those popular and mainstream movies like Star Wars, Harry Potter, and MCU’s Avengers in our generation. Regardless if you’ve actually watched any of these movies from beginning to end, you would know the gist of the stories or who the main characters are. So, when I read in the syllabus that we’re watching Godzilla, I didn’t research about unlike for the other films.

When the film was shown in class, I was honestly disappointed and shocked. No, the disappointment wasn’t because my guess was wrong about the monster being in the movie. Shin Godzilla is, of course, mainly about a monster who attacked the cities of Japan and was fought off by the Japanese armies. I was disappointed because of how the monster looked like. Considering that it’s a 2016 film and the technological advancements in film are at peak in this decade, it is just right that I’m disappointed about it because it looked like a monster from a Godzilla movies in the early 90s. I mean look at the monster from this film…

and compare it with the looks of this monster from the 2014 film, Godzilla.

Other than the looks of Godzilla, everything else was mediocre or even less. The plot was the typical city-is-under-attack-by-a-monster structure: A monster is accidentally created because of some experiment or chemicals. It attacks the cities and puts everyone in danger, and some important character unfortunately dies from it. In this case, the prime minister was killed and a replacement was needed immediately. The hunk or good looking actor in the film is usually the one who saves everyone in the end and he usually has a pretty girl beside him all throughout the movie that may or may not be his love interest. Although this is obviously mediocre, I wasn’t disappointed because it was what I was expecting from a Godzilla movie. If it was different and had something unique to offer, it would’ve been popular in social media and I would’ve heard about it one or way or another but I haven’t. It wasn’t good. It was okay.

After watching that movie, I don’t think I’ll choose to watch other Godzilla movies in the future just like how I haven’t in the past. I still don’t find it interesting because it’s still the same plot in every movie. The only things they change are the setting or country, actors and actresses for the film, and the look of Godzilla. So, if someone asks me if they should watch Shin Godzilla, I’ll just say they will be wasting their time for me [no offense].

Schizopolis

Schizopolis is an absurd and confusing film. From its characters to its scenes, the movie is entirely ridiculous. You would think you get what’s happening at specific times during some scenes but then it just surprises you by making the scenes completely different and unrelated the next. If that’s the goal of Steven Soderbergh for his 1996 comedy film, then he succeeded.

The opening scene shows Soderbergh informing the audience that if they do not understand the movie, it’s probably their fault. From then on, I knew this was going to be different. I expected a lot from it because of that opening scene and it didn’t disappoint. Since the movie as a whole didn’t make sense, I was forced to focus on the imagery or symbolism of the individual aspects such as the scenes, dialogues, and the characters just to understand and get something from the film.

Confusing as the film is, the scenes are surprisingly telling the same story but in different perspectives, wherein they are divided into Acts [1, 2, and 3]. Fletcher is introduced as the main characer. As he progresses through his day, other characters are introduced such as his colleagues at work and his family when he went home at the end of the day. His day at work is the literal definition of boring. It started to look like a documentary of what it is like to have a typical corporate job by having a boss that overworks the employees by demanding a lot and is not always easily satisfied, colleagues that are annoying and are trying to undermine each other almost all the time just to get a rank higher, and tasks that are mediocre and repetetive which don’t seem like they are for the greater good of anything. When Fletcher goes home, his dialogue with his wife were all descriptions of the phrases and sentences couples usually tell each other. This depicts how their relationship, and maybe most couple nowadays, don’t communicate to a deeper level anymore. As the film progresses, this is confirmed when his wife cheated on him with the excuse that she feels like Fletcher doesn’t talk to her about things anymore. Another main character in the film is Elmo Oxygen. During his first few scenes, he is seen acting on camera wherein his dialogue with the housewives are all gibberish. All of their dialogues are made up by random words that are just strung together making them completely illogical and nonsensical. Their actions during the scenes are understandable but the dialogue isn’t. When Elmo Oxygen switched to another project, his dialogues are now understandable but not his actions. Up until now, I still don’t understand what he was trying to do in all those scenes or what they were supposed to mean unlike Fletcher’s scenes. The third main character is the guy Fletcher’s wife cheated on him with. Dr. Jeffrey Korchek is a dentist who falls in love with every single girl she meets as his patients. The film becomes more ridiculous when Fletcher started acting as Korcheck, and it becomes more confusing when I realized they are played by the same actor–Steven Soderbergh.

Overall, I loved every second of Schizopolis. I still don’t know what the scenes, characters, or the whole movie is about, yes, but I’m not complaining. It is entertaining and it is not a waste of time probably because it is unique. As this is the first movie shown to us by our professor in class, it made me wonder if all the films we have to watch are as ludicrous and mind-boggling as this. If that’s the case, I cannot wait to see more.