Stephane Tanaka on mubi.com, the social network for people who love film.

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Stephane Tanaka

About Me

About the rating system: since there is no half points (><), nor a true zero, it’s very hard to rate correctly and with nuances, but let’s try…
There is not so much very bad movies so now I won’t use a linear scale.

1 star : total crap and bad movies (00 – 05.5/20)(00 – 29/100)
2 stars: not good to not that bad movies (06 – 09.5/20)(30 – 49/100)
3 stars: good (10 – 13.5/20)(50 – 69/100)
4 stars: better (14 – 17/20)(70 – 85/100)
5 stars: masterpieces or highly cult (17.5 – 20/20)(85 – 100/100)

Watching 10-15 films a week, MAINLY what’s on screens in Paris, then: classics retrospectives <3, mainstream stuff, blockbusters or mainstream comedies or french auteur films etc (for instance I’ve just watched Tintin after The balad of Genesis and Lady Jaye few hours ago haha). I don’t really want to rate every single movie I see for this reason… Mainstream stuff are just for entertainment or for my own contemporary culture.

Acclaimed directors I dislike or hate (for the moment): Ingmar Bergman, Ozu, Manoel de Oliveira, Robert Bresson, Pasolini, Wong Kar Wai, Hou Hsiau Hsien, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Brillante Mendoza, Eisenstein, Alain Resnais, Philippe Garrel.
In general there is always ONE film that makes total exception (Resnais’ Marienbad, Garrel’s La cicatrice intérieure, etc)

Important addendum: I’m mostly sensible to photography, atmosphere and tone, and some themes; or/and for instance dialogues in “dialogues-films” (films that rely mostly on dialogues), story, fights and characters in wu-xia pians, humour and writing in comedy, level of entertaining in entertainment/blockbusters, WTFrie and gratuity in exploitation movies, ETC; while I’m barely sensible to the text in “text-films” especially when it’s pure modern literature style (like Hiroshima mon amour, Melville’s Le silence de la mer, Agatha …). Hence my sometimes abusively very high ratings for cult (for me) things, and very low ratings for painful watchings (like the ones above)

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see Stephane Tanaka's filmography

Peppermint Soda

very cheap/thin compared to other things on the same subjects, like the beautiful A Swedish Love Story, or the great 2012 australian show Puberty Blues!

Favorite Films

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Bilitis

H-8...

The Night Porter

Once Upon a Time in China

Lists

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Style

Auteur-driven
Deliriously surreal
Nouvelle vague
Canonical classics
High Art
Coming-of-Age
Avant-garde

Following

Following 20 people

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kasia_karwan

Marko

Mihaela Dobre

mannequinlegs

Emilie

Wall

Displaying 4 of 16 wall posts.

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Vanity Celis

14Apr12

I KNOW, I'm the most generous rater of all, I rarely completely dislike a film and always give way too much credit but this one irritated me beyond belief, for me it was completely devoid of true feeling, the characters were completely flat and dull, not far from caricatures - I guess I need a bit of a background story to sympathize with them, there was none for any of them, not even a hint of their personality, except for the female lead who was very rational etc, but overall the drunk was a drunk (not a very convincing drunk at that), the male lead was pitiful and that's about it. Some scenes were absolutely laughable, I mean the interrogation wtf, the killer stares at her boobs so she knows something is up and decides to pester him, the killer immediately gives way, takes out his dick and pours out a confession, while the male lead is like "what just happened here hurrdurrrr", what's up with that 'I never saw anyone who loved a woman as much as you' while the husband of the raped girl was so chill about the whole thing, ok he's supposed to be in denial but whatever, why the hell do some thugs come over to kill the male lead and whack the drunk friend instead while it had been clearly established the killer could do whatever the hell he wanted in a corrupt regime and get away with it and the interrogators posed no threat whatsoever to his ways, there is also no consistency of style, just run of the mill shot/reaction shot with like two long takes that aren't really that interesting, then over to a subjective camera in the chase at the football stadium (just their luck that they spot the killer among thousands of people wtf) that doesn't make any sense as it jumps out of the window with the killer, I know these are petty remarks but the whole thing just felt like a film I could watch on any given day on Belgian tv (we have a channel that programs weepy films for women and this would fit right in). Normally I would be like, sure, nice effort, doesn't do it for me, I don't see the hype but two stars, and then I read this got an award OVER Das Weisse Band? No no just no. But my ratings are just my personal feelings, so don't take it the wrong way :D The screenshot is from the most beautiful scene in Black Moon btw ;)

Stephane Tanaka likes this

Stephane Tanaka

14Apr12

Haha! i won't argue, i don't remember the film so well for that ^^. Just remember it was not that bad when it was released... (ofc nothing to compare to the great Weisse Band!!). Black Moon! ofc. i should have recognized at least her back, hair and sweater. I forgot to see the entire movie, oups, just started it some years ago and fell asleep (i'm kinda narcoleptic,'twas not due to the film itself)

Sergio Lopez

3Apr12

I was interested in your movie taste but then I saw that you hate Pasolini, Ozu, Bergman, and Hsien (while misspelling his name, too). You like Snyder though?? Herpy derp. So against the grain ^_^

Stephane Tanaka

4Apr12

Let me be clear, this classics directors (to whom i give other chances, don't worry!) are not at all at the same level of Snyder, not the same planet i should say. I really like light cinema, entertainment, and in this genre, he's quite novative, and intersting. but it's not very serious though! it's like exploitation cinema, i love it, and can give 5 star for some films in the genre, it is not to compare to serious cinema :)

L.

31Jan12

do you keep a database of all these old loli actresses? you perv

Stephane Tanaka

1Feb12

thanks to mubi (and to you!), my collection is growing nicely :D (isn't she gorgeous this rusalochka?)
L.

1Feb12

i don't have a passion for russian potato faces but i liked the hair. you should love this girl then, she has the ~*kAwAiiEst Voice uguuuu*~ and a face like an ant eater http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fnA5Qq7U2I
Stephane Tanaka

2Feb12

anteater! so true! creepy :s:s. I miss Kana now :(

Vanity Celis

6Mar11

I am so jealous of your cinémathèque, I was in Paris in september last year, and just by chance I happened to visit it - well, the museum at least, I didn't have the time anymore to watch a film because I had to get back on the bus to Belgium - and the programmation/retrospectives were just too good :( I even thought directors like Lynch and Catherine Breillat were scheduled to come and talk about their work in that period (or maybe my French isn't that good and I misread :D). If I want to see a good film on big screen, I have to travel for an hour! I really do have to get a hold of these Baratier films, boarding schools girls are always a ++! I did see Żulawski's On the Silver Globe in our Cinematek some weeks ago, but I don't have the feeling the audience appreciated it ;) It started out with a pretty full room, but during the entire film people kept walking out and slamming doors, ranging from the moment the spacetravellers had JUST arrived (I mean wtf, they hadn't even gone tribal yet) until 5mins before the end (if you can sit through this experience for more than two hours, why just leave before it's over, come on). AND there were actually people behind me who insisted on laughing out loud (grr), especially with the crucifixion scene. Guess I should be happy the Cinematek at least takes the chance to screen these kind of films, for the very few who are interested haha.