waltcosmos

I enjoyed some of the movies moments, particularly the scenes related to the calendars. But on the whole, the mid-level managers reminded me of a Japanese supervisor I once had in a company I worked in, in Silicon Valley. I was once staying late, doing bench work when a white mid-level manager was showing the building and workspace to a visitor. At some point, the mid-level manager asked if anyone had a thermometer. This was a singularly odd request, but I just so happened to have one so I offered it to him. Instead of being grateful, or even giving me a polite "thank you", he icily told me it wasn't calibrated.

??? The next day, my jap supervisor called me into his office and erupted in rage over my "transgression" the day before with Don, the obnoxious impolite imbecile who was angry because I didn't give him a thermometer that came out of Apollo's as s. Perhaps I should have shoved it up his own. In any event, I came within an inch of being fired, but it was only my absolute self-control that defused the situation with these two losers, Vic and Don. Vic finally resigned, hopefully he reviewed his life and realizing it was meaningless, he opted for early suicide. Don still works for the company.

As someone else has commented, it's a mindset such as the one revealed in this film that explains why the economy of that country is essentially in the toilet. Because it belongs there. Perhaps also, it is time for those wonderful figures from Japanese mythology, the fat man and the little boy, to visit them again.

I gave it a seven only because the acting is good. And of course by that I mean Wilkinson. The other two principals were "decent". But the characters themselves...what on earth was so bad about the character Wilkinson played (James Manning)? I didn't see him behaving like the martinet Emily Watson accused him of being. Bill Bule, on the other hand, was an insufferable jerk who I was praying would meet an extremely brutal and prolonged demise. Who was I kidding? Tom Wilkinson isn't Paul Bettany after all. So what on EARTH did Emily Watson's (Anne) character SEE in him???? She herself admitted he was pretty much a piece of offal in his treatment of her. Why would she even want to be in the same TOWN as him, to say nothing of the same "room".

I noticed some other reviews, one person said she "cried" at the end, to witness James' tragedy. ??? WHAT tragedy? What, you mean losing an imbecile who finds someone like Bill Bule AMUSING???!!! Give us a break.

This haunting spectacle, this bizarre, saturnalian plunge in the everlasting MUST be seen back-to-back with HERBIE:FULLY LOADED, starring Lindsay Lohan. Allow me to explain. In the first dream, a little boy goes into the forest and witnesses a miracle of nature, coming across a group of sentient foxes (people displayed in fox costumes, anticipating Andrew Lloyd Webbers CATS-even though technically, CATS came first). Flash cut to Herbie. A fox, Lindsay Lohan, who has without a doubt the most gorgeous legs in America, comes across a sentient car. Back to Kirosawa. A family pointlessly destroys a peach orchard, leaving nothing in it's place. The dolls are angry and assume the little boy is to blame. Wham Bang. Back to the penultimate BABE! Lindsay plays a girl just graduated with a bachelors degree in something or other. That would PROBABLY make her at LEAST 22 YEARS OLD!!! A GROWN WOMAN!!! Yet she is asking her dad for permission to do things, like drive her OWN CAR in a race that has NOTHING to do with him!!! O, THE ANGST!!! Both films leave you breathless. But for different reasons.