Oooh. It’s been a minute since I’ve seen that logo…
I got this bluray because I rewatched Smoke/Blue In The Face recently, and that reminded me that I’ve never really gotten into Wayne Wang’s movies — he was another one of those 80s hot shit indie directors that’s basically been forgotten now.
Weird. I mean, the aspect ratio. It’s aaaalmost 16:9, but no movies are shot in 16:9. And indeed imdb says 1.85:1, but it’s been cut down slightly for this bluray.
And the subtitles are weird! There are three of them! One translates from Cantonese to English, but whenever they’re talking in English, there’s nothing. The third subtitles the English, but when there’s Cantonese, it just says [speaking in Cantonese]. And I have no idea what the second does, but it’s not useful, either.
Because when they’re speaking in English, it needs subtitles, and when they’re speaking in Cantonese, it really needs subtitles.
Why do everybody in this movie have a perm?
I’ve never been upstairs in an airplane… do those even exist anymore? They do! Hm, I wanna do that once in my life… The -8 is allegedly the newest iteration (but it’s more than a decade old).
Yeah… Arthouse. There really was a separate genre of films in the 80s, wasn’t there? Movies that were shown in the local cinematheques all over the world: Think Jim Jarmusch, Wim Wenders, Peter Greenaway… Which was a separate “market” from the experimental movie market: Indie movies that are pretty conventional, really, but appeal to a slightly different market than the mainstream one.
I used to go to the cinematheque here all the time in the late 80s/early 90s, but I haven’t been in decades. I wonder what they’re showing now?
Oh! Lots of movies for children… and Goodfellas? OK. Cube!? That’s a horror movie… There’s a Woody Allen movie, which I’d guess would be there. And Cleo from 5 to 7, which is a stone cold classic. Heh, Ghost Dog — Jim Jarmusch, and Do The Right Thing — the Spike Lee movie people like.
Yeah, no. It’s old movies — 40 years older or more — and commercial movies. Doesn’t seem like they are showing new, interesting movies at all, which is a huge change from what it was like in the 80s. I guess those movies go on the festival circuit now, before being bought by Criterion for streaming?
Aaanyway. I really enjoyed this movie. I kept smiling the entire time. But it’s really… I’m not really gripped? So it’s really a kinda ⚃ movie? But I just really enjoyed letting it wash over me, so let’s go with:
Dim Sum: A Little Bit of HeartDim Sum. Wayne Wang. 1985. ⚄
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