Okay, here are my thoughts of the movie. It is the perfect movie for Zhang Ziyi, becuase like its lead actress it is beautiful to look at, but has no substance. Lecter said in here that it could end up as this years Cold Mountain and indeed both movies have some things in common. The center of both movies is a love story that never gets off the ground. I couldn't buy Jude Laws and Nicole Kidmans eternal love since they only met for a short while and I never bought the affection the 9-year-old girl (later to be played by Ziyi Zhand) for the 30+ years older Ken Watanabe. He bought her an ice and now she sets her goal in life to marry him? Come on!
It is only one of several flaws the script suffers. I never read the book, so I can only judge the movie by itself. The title suggested to me that this movie would give an insiders perspective of asian culture and especially the mysterious life of a geisha. Indeed the first voiceover only fortifies it when a woman tells us that there are a lot of mystery around geisha and without them they couldn't exist (suggesting this is what the movie will do). However the whole thing seems nothing more than an outsiders look at geisha. You never get many insights into the japanese culture or social system. It was deeply flawed to have this movie directed by an american since a japanes director would have had much more insight. Another dumb decision is to have all the actors speak in broken english. Shoot the god damn thing in japanese with englisch subtitles, or don't shoot it at all. Which leads us to another critical point. The actors. There is not ONE outstanding performance in this thought-to-be ensemble piece. Michelle Yeoh fares best, probably because she was the only one who actually understood her dialogue. Most of the others seemed to have to concentrate on their english spelling so much, that they forgot to inject life into their performance. Especially Ziyi Zhang is a total disappointment.
There are a few things to like though. Visually it is a treat, the scenes after the americans took over control of Japan were really good since they were a deep cut into japanese culture and it is interesting to compare the life before and after. Furthermore despite it flaws the movie never drags, the movie didn't feel longer than it's 2 1/2 hour runtime.
But the negatives clearly outweigh the positives in this one. And whoever gave one of the actors - in an effort to bed Ziyi Zhang - the actual line "Would you like to see my Kimono collection" should never get a writing gig again. Nothing else clarifies how western the look at this asian world is and that is the main problem of the movie. Major Oscar nominations would be a shame...

One thing I'm disappointed about this whole focus on their broken English accent is that in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, a film everybody knows I love dearly, one main complaint from Chinese viewers is Chow Yun-Fat spoke with thick Mandarin accent since his native language is Cantonese, but U.S. and other English-speaking critics couldn't pick it up because they don't know the language, and everything sounded perfectly fine with them.

If the actresses had spoken in Japanese, it will be broken Japanese because that's not their native language either, but I'm sure the reception would then be so much better because it would be in foreign language, and it sounds exotic, and nobody would know it's broken except for native speakers.

That's why I'm going to look past the language issue, since I had no problem with Chow speaking with bad Chinese accent.

Levy, can you tell us all about Gong Li?

<curls up, readies for the warmth>

You are probably right about that. In germany the version will be dubbed anyway, all actors will "speak" perfect german, so in my magazine review the language problem won't really be an issue, nevertheless it annoyed me (especially since it is pretty hard for someone like me, who doesn't have english as his native language. I consider my english rather okay, but I had trouble understanding some of the lines). Overall it wasn't the main problem with the movie anyway, there are lots of problems enough left...

I side with Berardinelli on this one. She can do better, I was rather unimpressed...

was she hot at least?

The problem I have with it, is for example in the voice-over Ziyo Zhang sounds like she just being read lines and that she doesn;t truly unedrtsand what sheis saying, I don't feel any emotion, whereas later in the trialer her english is better and she more in character.

Oftent imes cators won't get accents righ tin a iflm,t hat I can ignore, bt if they don't know the language and it hampers their ability to act hta is a problem. We all know Zhang Ziyi can act, and well, I just think the lanuguage issue could be a problem. Hoenstly though its impossible for me ot tell till i see the movie how much it will brohter me. To decide beforehand that its abd or that it doesn't matter makes no sense to me. I am going to see the film, and thne decide if the language barrier is an issue. Actors int he past have overcome language barriers, it can be done.

Iknow Chow Yun Fat did not bother you, but there are others who disagree. I think we'll see the same thing with Geisha.

often hard to tell under the geisha make-up. she was pretty wasted most of the time as well

This is what I was afraid of *sigh*

Since ht book was english, it was a given it would beshot in english by an American. Ultimately the weak stry comes directly from the book, but her falling in love with Wanatabe, welli n the book I felt it was more of a side story, the book is about her becoming a Geisha, but I knew the filmw ould bring the weak love story to the forefront.

Oh well, I'll if I have time, i will see it anyway.

This year's Phantom of the Opera?

Oh, I don't mean that all have to look past the language issue. If it detracts and deters your enjoyment, it's perfectly reasonable to drop it a grade level. Levy had some very good points in his reviews. It's not the case for some of the other reviews I read. They pounded on the issue like there is no tomorrow, and the whole article is just full of hatred. It feels like reading Chinese Internet blogs instead of a professional review.

I have always liked reading James Berardinelli's reviews, and his thought about Memoirs just convinces myself more why I think that way. He pointed out the flaws, but also said there are a lot to recommend. Giving the film a half-star like Slant did seems absurd to me. It's also a reason why I think Cream of the Crop's average will be higher. Those are more professional and abel to analyze the film without much subjective feeling. Some are still not going to like the film, and that's perfectly fine, but like Levy's review, at least you read about valid concerns instead of just pure bashing.

Say what?

EW gave it a C+ (58 on metacritic): http://www.ew.com/ew/article/review/movie/0,6115,1138534_1_0_,00.html. Oh well.

But the difference is that Chow Yun-Fat is speaking Mandarin in a Chinese movie. That's more akin to Jude Law's horrible American accent in I Heart Huckabees.

The difference I see is that these are Chinese actors filming a movie about Japan but speaking in a tounge that isn't native to the environment in which the film was being shot.

I think the issue is a bit different. It's more akin to Eric Bana being Australian and shooting Munich for an American audience, and having a bad accent (I don't knwo if he does, just an example).

Hehe, I reckon this is another (somewhat) comparison to Cold Mountain. I remember many lamenting Kidman's southern accent in Cold Mountain.

I really did think the positive reviews would start funneling in eventually...

I'm wondering if th issues is just a bad accent though like Kidman's in Cold Mountain (which I didn't really pick up by the way, but many others said it was poor...then again I don't hear Southern accents every day) and doesn't really take much away from the performance itself.

Or wether it's just a language barrier that keeps the actors from doing their best because they're too busy focusing on the words they're saying.

Perfect example of the second case is Penelope Cruz....great actress...has yet to put on a great performance in an English role.

Another fresh review is added, from comingsoon.net (7.5/10):

http://comingsoon.net/news/reviewsnews.php?id=12279

L.A. Weekly' review has been added to metacritic with a score of 70.

Two more negative reviews at RT's all-review page but haven't been moved to the front and counted yet. That brings the negative total to 11. I officially admit I have a hard time seeing it turn around now. Just no enthusiasm except for a selected few.

Yup. And if it is not on NBR's Top 10 list, it is officially out, I think.

If it is out, the line-up I see then is Good Night, and Good Luck, Munich, The New World, Walk the Line and Crash/Match Point/Brokeback Mountain.

I'd say it's been out for awhile now, and still will be NBR or no. At this point I'm fairly certain Walk the Line, Munich, Brokeback Mountain and King Kong all have nominations locked up. There's one slot left, and it's pretty damn wide open.

I don't see how you can say it's been out "for a while now". If you want to pad yourself on the back on foreseeing this coming, then go ahead, but objectively, saying it's out before this week was foolish. It's one film that requires the smallest critic support as it would have been a lock if the reviews were in 75-80%, while most others need 80-90%. Unfortunately, it couldn't pull it off.

With NBR delaying until Monday, its influence has been reduced dramatically. BFCA announcement on Sunday could signal the officially end for Memoirs, as I could foresee it not nominated for BFCA's top 10, something I thought would be impossible a few days considering they even reserved a space for Phantom of the Opera with a score of 80 last year.

Good call on my bad phrasing, I would say though that when it's reviews were at 40% it certainly didn't seem like the film had much of a chance. I'd say that it was extremely close to out of a shot at a nomination from maybe four days ago on. Not much time in the grand scheme of things, but quite awhile on the boards.

No problem. I'm just a little more emotionally involved and have the tendency to overreact sometimes.

The marketing campaign is still pumping pretty hard, so maybe this could turn into another Jarhead and savage something at box office. I don't expect it to hold well after new year without award support, but it could do some damage in the first three weeks from limited release to nationwide. With a $85M production tag, it will still have to wait quite a while before turning a profit.

It opens on 1,000+ theaters Christmas weekend doesn't it? Although The Aviator had much more real Oscar hype and more bankable actors, I think that the extra marketing could allow the film to do almost as well over the holidays. A finish of 45-55 million is what I'm sensing if it's an Oscar bust.