Friday Japan Awesomeness: Zatoichi

After a week of awfulness in Japan, it's high time to celebrate its opposite, and to my mind, nothing is more gleeful than the last scene in actor/director Takeshi Kitano's 2003 adaptation of the Zatoichi story. The bulk of the film is dark, moody, and violent, with an excellent score by Keiichi Suzuki and flashes of brilliant humor. But this scene is where the curtain falls on everything that came before and the clogging/tap dancing begins (things really get started after the minute mark). It was after watching this scene that I decided to pursue a career in tap dancing. (I've made some bad decisions.)

Ultimately the scene ends up being a curtain call of sorts, as the main characters file in and join the dance. You may wonder why two of the characters morph into children at one point. It's a good question! You'll just have to watch the movie to find out. It's pretty much a masterpiece so it will be time well spent. Plus it's got Tadanobu Sato in it, and he is handsome, even when he's rocking the samurai updo.

Scenes of Our Lives: Slaves of New York

This film inexplicably got panned upon its release in 1989, though God knows why because it's hilarious. I guess the country's film critics were too busy fawning over Driving Miss Daisy.

Anyway, based on Tama Janowitz's story collection of the same name, the film follows the goings on in the downtown NYC art scene in the 1980s and stars Bernadette Peters as a down-on-her-luck hat maker with a self-absorbed artist boyfriend named Stash. How can you pan a movie about Bernadette Peters as a down-on-her-luck hat maker? It just doesn't make any sense. Anyway, there are cool cameos from Steve Buscemi, Mercedes Ruehl, and Stanley Tucci, and Tama Janowitz even shows up with her big '80s hair in two scenes.

The above snippet features a performance of "Say Hi to Your Guy" performed by Johann Carlo in a bathtub. She should be a big star but isn't. Also sad.

Fun fact: the film was directed by James Ivory the year after he did A Room With a View.

Put this in your Netflix queue immediately.

Scenes of Our Lives: Muriel's Wedding

In this week's Scene we travel to a magical place in Bali where dirty double-crossing bitches get what they deserve courtesy of your one true friend and then you get to dress up like Agnetha and Anni-frid from Abba and then those same dirty bitches get in a bar brawl while you're busy winning a lip-syncing contest. Just like in my dreams.

Scenes of Our Lives: 9 to 5

Dolly Parton, the President of Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, recently played here at Radio City Music Hall, and I missed it because I was getting my annual nose job. Obviously, I was very sad, because God knows how long Dolly's gonna keep teasing that wig. I was able to console myself, though, with my DVD of 9 to 5, the Sexist, Egotistical, Lying, Hypocritical, Bigot Edition. This is the third best movie ever made, and there are plenty of scenes to choose from, but my choice for number 1 scene is the one where Doralee tears Mr. Hart a new one. (This one is second only to the one where, during a strategizing session about what to do about Mr. Hart, who they've kidnapped, Doralee suggests "Well, I say we hire a couple a wranglers to go upstairs and beat the shit out of him.") The video above includes both. Your welcome.

Also, see below for photo evidence of me being in very close proximity to Ms. President, separated only by a sheet of glass and a million other fans standing out in front of the Best Buy on 5th Ave a few years ago.

Scenes of Our Lives: Notes on a Scandal

This movie was based on the novel What Was She Thinking? Notes on a Scandal by Zoe Heller, which you should read immediately. I didn't read it until after seeing the movie and becoming obsessed with it (I've always been a sucker for movies about bitter old women. See also: Tatie Danielle). The book and the movie are different from each other in several significant ways, but both are dark, dreary, depressing, and fun as hell.

In this scene, Judi Dench's Barbara Covet (great name!), who has developed an irrational obsession with a fellow teacher of hers, Sheba Hart (Cate Blanchette), and has convinced herself that they are special friends (with all the lesbian possibilities that that implies), is confronted by Sheba after Sheba discovers Barbara's diary and reads it. Sheba, who is hiding out in Barbara's apartment because she's just been found out to be screwing around with one of her high school students (an affair that Barbara knew about and used to her advantage), is going slightly mad, as the Siouxsie eye make-up indicates.

This scene has everything you could ever want in five minutes of cinema: a panda-eyed blonde tearing apart an apartment, a cougar fight between the two scenery-chewing female leads, a reference to Virginia Woolf, someone being called a "bitter old virgin," the British paparazzi, and a bleary-eyed pathos. We're talking Joan Crawford vs. Bette Davis territory. (By the way, this blog post is totally gay.)