Hello, good reader, and welcome to my blog of movie reviews. I'm a bit of a film geek, and in this blog I'm going to post a weekly blurb-review of a classic (of which, most of the time, there will be no very good reason for me to have taken this long to see) or generally considered "art house" film and a more contemporary one; usually in stark juxtaposition to the earlier film, quality-wise.

If you are unfortunate enough to have stumbled in here by mistake (probably), I won't be offended if you leave; this is mainly just a personal blog to give my critical writing skills a much-needed honing. If, for whatever reason, you came here on purpose (unlikely), then please feel free to watch whatever movie I've reviewed and complain about my opinion. Also, read the "movie-a-day" or "movie-a-week" columns on Ain’t-it-cool-news; they were the main inspiration for this blog (that, and forcing myself to watch more classic movies).

This week:

"Hiroshima Mon Amour" (1959, directed by Alain Resnais)

Boy, does Resnais have a knack for imagery that kicks you straight in the teeth. Following quickly on the heels of his classic documentary short "Night and Fog", comes a very unorthodox love story between a French actress and an ex-WWII Japanese soldier. The film begins with a series of haunting, nebulous images of Hiroshima architecture, the two lovers embracing, bombed-out landscape, etc, which, taking advantage of the peotic lull, quickly segues into a brutal reel of post-"Little Boy" bomb victims. Like the unflinching concentration camp images from "Night and Fog", Resnais lets you know immediately that this will not be a comfortable film; I'm not ashamed to say I looked away more than once.

The man and woman, referred to only as that, share a sexy night together. The man, played by an amazing Eiji Okada, who, reportedly, did not know any French (he learned basic words and spoke the rest phonetically), falls immediately in love with her and asks her to stay with him in Hiroshima. What follows is an account of the woman's first true love (I will not reveal his identity here; it plays as a particularly poignant surprise) and why she cannot allow herself to love this new man.

Resnais and writer Margeurite Duras show immense depth of characterization, allowing the characters to be completely abnormal, especially for the time, and yet completely understood. A love story between a woman, who lived in France during the Nazi occupation, and a Japanese WWII solider must have been quite a shock when the film was first released and, apparently, was extremely controversial, especially in Resnais’ native France.

The last act of the film gets a little too stilted for its own good (I had difficulty telling who was doing what and where and why at a few points), but, generally, the narrative flows smoothly. Throughout, Resnais subtly criticizes the West’s decision to drop the bomb, but, other than in the opening scene, never makes the implication too obvious. “Hiroshima mon Amour” suggests a better world through diversity, and has a cultural clairvoyance very rarely seen in films today, let alone in the 1950’s.

And...

G.I. Joe (2009, directed by Stephen Sommers)

Like Resnais, Sommers suggests a better world through diversity: the Joe’s are no longer ‘real American heroes’, but a multi-cultural band of do-gooder badasses. Unlike Resnais, that’s about the only good thing you can say about the movie. Sommers has taken “G.I. Joe’s” cartoon roots to heart and made a film that can barely even be referred to as that. It’s a cacophonous clusterfuck of loud noises and embarrassingly crappy action scenes. An action set-piece that takes place in Paris mirrors the opening scene of “Team America” so closely that part of me has to believe that it was at least marginally satirical. Channing Tatum, kind-of-OK in this year’s “Fighting”, provides no charisma whatsoever in the lead, and is backed up by an equally adept cast, the only standout of whom is Joseph Gordon-Levitt, the only cast member to get suitably hammy.

Sommers brand of human-faces, CGI-everything else, ensures that the movie captures the essence of its cartoon forefather; in other words, the 8-to-13 year-old demographic is sure to love this, but, unless you had serious love for the cartoon as a youngster, almost no one else will. It’s marginally more watchable than Sommers’ own “Van Helsing” from 2004, if for no other reason than because I care a whole lot more about Universal movie monsters than a pro-war children’s cartoon. One can only hope that Sommers' realizes now that no one on the damn planet takes him seriously.