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Saddletank
Miyazaki's Best Friend
Registration Date: 09.28.06
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| Perfect Blue - SPOILER WARNING! |       |
Saw this for the first time last week and watched it again last night more carefully. The first time I thought the artwork and especially the cutting was very slick, very fast paced, making the action really shift along in high gear. It's one of those movies where very quickly you forget you are watching anime and it feels like live action. But there is some horrible jerkiness in the characters movements, especially in the opening "introduction" scene where groups of people are discussing Cham in the park. There are other scenes, usually quiet ones where the character cels look misaligned and jumpy. Perhaps this is deliberate but to me it looked odd. However the first viewing left me just plain confused. What the heck happened at the end? I couldn't work it out at all.
The second time I watched it was on my PC and I was able to freeze frame slo-mo back and forwards and really find out what was going on in each scene. Several things made me start to dislike this movie. First the amount of girls panties in it. Sounds daft but there are loads of shots where you see gussets and bums and so on, I think there must be about 10 times this happens. It's not necessary and is pandering to the slightly sweaty pervy brigade I think, it lowers the tone of the movie from stylish psychological slasher thriller to just plain mucky. Second - too many nude shots. Again this is lowering the film to the mucky end of the market. Maybe the writers were doing this deliberately to depict the innocent Mima's descent from squeaky clean pop idol towards something else but this message could have been put across without so many bare breasts, if anything keeping the nudity less graphical may have added to the sinister aspect of the characters introduction to the porn industry.
Was there a hentai artist working on this film? If so he should stick to what he knows.
Third and worst - again what the heck was with that ending? There we no less that three main 'problems' Mima had: her own paranoia/inability to tell reality from her TV role; the stalker and finally Rumi - it looks like all of them were contributing to her slide into madness but the co-incidence of all three things going on side by side is just silly, it would never happen. If all the problems could have been tied down to just one cause then it would have been superb and would have made sense - but three co-incidental sets of events? No. Were Rumi and the stalker working together? I don't think so - stalkers like that are loners with few friends let alone people they trust well enough to plot someone's downfall with. The movie ending was too pat and too cute, I hate these happy endings to psychological thrillers, they feel so fake. The movie should either have ended when she was on the analysts couch in the TV studio and her TV show character was found to be schizoid - that would have been explanation enough. Or the movie should have ended when she and Rumi were knocked down by the truck. That way the viewer would have been left wondering what happened and did she die or survive - was she nuts or sane? Was it TV or real? That would have made for a stronger film.
The nudity etc lowers the film from the level of great thriller to so-so quality but the ending really ruins it. Pity as the start and middle and even the climactic fight against the stalker promised so much.
Could have been an 8/10 but I'd give it a 6/10. Watch it if you get a kick from nudity and lots of blood spattered everywhere but otherwise I don't understand what all the rave reviews are about.
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Post last edited by Saddletank on 11.17.2006, 08:40 PM.
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 11.17.2006, 08:39 PM |
   
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Loscil
Baron
Registration Date: 08.06.06
Location: The Sun Bear's Den
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YO!
got it, aint watched it yet..
Ill post my opinion then 
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| 11.18.2006, 05:31 AM |
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Saddletank
Miyazaki's Best Friend
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Ah, sorry, don't read the above then coz it'll ruin it for you.
Oh, and BTW, don't watch it with your parents in the room, there's a simulated rape scene in there which they definitely won't like.
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Isakaya High School Roleplaying Info
"An old man like me stands no chance fighting against a high school girl in her underwear" - Oshino Meme, Nekomonogatari (Kuro)
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| 11.18.2006, 10:27 AM |
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Loscil
Baron
Registration Date: 08.06.06
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YO!
okidoki, I never watch anime with my parents first time round...
i always watch it soon after I get it, my dad (not really my mum) watches them sometimes, if he feels like it..
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| 11.18.2006, 01:21 PM |
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Roarkiller
Your Daddy-O
Registration Date: 06.03.03
Location: Home, resting...
Posts: 6077 |
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Last I remembered, there wasn't a single nude scene in the movie.
On bums and boobs, she's an idol. D00d, how often do you see an actress/idol NOT in revealing clothes? Or maybe they were in scenes I don't remember, eh.
Anyway, on the "problems" you mentioned, here's the explanation (since they were all crystal clear to me): Mima was already having a paranoia problem, what with all the things happening to her, convincing her that someone is not only stalking her, that person is drop dead OBSESSED with her, to the point where she couldn't tell reality from imagination anymore (this is actually pretty true in cases of paranoia, depression and other forms of mental breakdowns). The third final problem, you're right; stalkers work alone. But Rumi, being the over-obsessed fan AND Mima's manager, she has access to her schedules, apartment, AND the ability to control other obsessed fans ad get them to work for her. It's a scary combination.
That's the way I see it, but hey, don't take my word for it. I saw it, what, two/three years ago? And only once too, so I don't really remember much. I need to watch a movie twice for them to register completely in my memory.
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quote:
Originally posted by fenkashi
Screw your opinions, they are not relevant ^^.
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| 11.18.2006, 10:53 PM |
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Little Tanuki
Ohmu
Registration Date: 10.01.06
Location:
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Oooh, yeah. That movie's bizarre, eh. (It's been a while since I saw it but I always thought if it was a live action movie than there'd probably be lots of people studying it at uni.
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Suteki na sono na no
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| 11.19.2006, 03:05 AM |
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Saddletank
Miyazaki's Best Friend
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quote:
Originally posted by Roarkiller
Last I remembered, there wasn't a single nude scene in the movie.
Correct, but I didn't say there was. The nudity is all in 'stills' either in the photo shoot scene or on the photographers home cinema set up when he's murdered.
Nice try in clarifying the Rumi/stalker link RK but I just don't buy it, sorry. Who the hell butched up the stalkers body after Mima killed him? And why? Duh, makes no sense. Sure Rumi maybe moved the body to spook Mima even more but there was nothing to gain in chopping it about (and no time either).
IMHO the nudity just isn't necessary to advance the plot or deepen the character.
As to the underwear, I'm coming to realise this is something of an anime trademark, Evangelion is chock full of it for example and is maybe one reason why anime-haters think it's mucky and not arty. And in that particular argument I agree with them, all the teen boy fetish stuff I can really do without.
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Isakaya High School Roleplaying Info
"An old man like me stands no chance fighting against a high school girl in her underwear" - Oshino Meme, Nekomonogatari (Kuro)
Post last edited by Saddletank on 11.19.2006, 01:45 PM.
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| 11.19.2006, 09:30 AM |
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Loscil
Baron
Registration Date: 08.06.06
Location: The Sun Bear's Den
Posts: 4394 |
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YO!
Saw the movie now, I actually really liked it.
Thought it was a fast paced, well made thriller.
I also think that the ending is more complicated than what you say..
it might all be linked:
as I recall it, you never saw the stalker posting things on the website, only writing mails to "pop-idol" mima..
This is a bit far-fetched, but what if mima´s room was made by Rumi, which allowed her to manipulate the Mr. Me-Mania. When he died (how did Rumi know he was dead?) Rumi attacked Mima herself..
The internal turmoil that mima had for leaving the music business, combined with her paranoia after seeing "mima´s room" caused her hallucinations...
In the Perfect Blue extras, they mention that Rumi tried to relive succes through Rumi after her own failure in the entertainment busines. What arr they referring to?
I got confused when "mima" killed the screen-writer, and then found the blood-stained clothes in her closet; what actually happened there?
so, thats my take, if that makes sense, it might clear up a few things Martin..
btw: rumi and especially Me-Mania looked like a fish...
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| 11.19.2006, 06:29 PM |
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Saddletank
Miyazaki's Best Friend
Registration Date: 09.28.06
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quote:
Originally posted by JRR
I got confused when "mima" killed the screen-writer, and then found the blood-stained clothes in her closet; what actually happened there?
Did she murder him? That's what the movie seems to be telling us. (Although the scene you are thinking of was the photographer, not the screenwriter).
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Isakaya High School Roleplaying Info
"An old man like me stands no chance fighting against a high school girl in her underwear" - Oshino Meme, Nekomonogatari (Kuro)
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| 11.19.2006, 08:18 PM |
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Loscil
Baron
Registration Date: 08.06.06
Location: The Sun Bear's Den
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YEAh..
youre right..
ps: I didnt find the nudity disturbing..
You are right it could have been done without nudity, eg: the scene were she gets naked for the photograoher could have been made howing a growing pile of her clothes on the floor symbolising her getting naked or something like that.
Still, I did not find it disturbing or annyoing..
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| 11.20.2006, 05:12 PM |
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Ramah
Calcifer
Registration Date: 11.05.06
Location:
Posts: 140 |
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Been about four or five years since I watched this so I cannot really recall enough details to comment on the plot twists etc. I remember I enjoyed it though.
I remember the static photo of her posing where you see a little of her pubic hair and rather than seem pervy, it seemed to me to add to the shock of her fall along with the rape scene she films.
One scene I do remember that was an absolute classic for me was where Rumi was chasing (or being chased by, can't quite recall) Mima near the end and her angelical image is bounding along and then you see the reflection in the window of what she really looks like - fat, struggling to run and panting like she's just run 20 miles -  I loved that image.
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Royal: I'm very sorry for your loss. Your mother was a terribly attractive woman.
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| 11.20.2006, 08:42 PM |
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Saddletank
Miyazaki's Best Friend
Registration Date: 09.28.06
Location: On your case
Posts: 10069 |
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Oh, yeah, it has it's good bits... just some bad bits too 
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Isakaya High School Roleplaying Info
"An old man like me stands no chance fighting against a high school girl in her underwear" - Oshino Meme, Nekomonogatari (Kuro)
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| 11.21.2006, 06:26 PM |
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