Okuribito おくりびと Departures

Okuribito tells the story of a relatively young cello player who’s orchestra runs into financial problems and decides to sell his cello to move to the countryside to find work. He ends up becoming an encoffiner (sort of a buddhist mortician, but not just for buddhist, he prepares the make up and dresses the dead for the afterlife).

Its an interesting film which won the Academy Awards for best foreign film last year. I really suggest this film to anyone taking up any basic japanese culture course as it gives you some insight into the japanese culture and death rituals as well as the stigma between the workers in (is this the right term) death industry. The movie also has a fantastic musical score which I can probably compare to any Final Fantasy video game.

I was actually assigned to watch this film for my Theology 131 class though I think missed the day they had a discussion on this. I may not exactly understand the theological connection to Theology: Love Sex and marriage but it is a great film which makes you see the different situations of those left behind by the dead. I really liked certain scenes such as the opening scene with the dead transexual and the dead grandmother who’s grand daughter wanted her to be buried in the socks she loved so much.

If you have time to look for this film I highly suggest it.

I don’t really agree with the common notion that Jason didn’t really want to be there but I do believe that he just didn’t try enough. His reaction to the judges, “I was thinking Bob Marley” somehow made really uneasy about he was treating the competition. He was really a unique contestant but the problem I guess comes with how unfamiliar he was with the singing competition.

As for my rants and raves from last night’s performances, Syesha definitely pulled through. Let’s face it, the odds we’re practically against her with half the world voting for Archuleta and the other half choosing between Jason and Cook. I loved Syesha’s performance of Proud Mary, it was definetly entertaining a lot like her performance of “One Rock and Roll too Many”.

Cook seemed to be uneasy last night but he was still really good as usual and David Archuleta once again stole the show last night with both his performances.

I did see one amusing pattern in last night’s performance. It seems that the contestants we’re singing song’s previous eliminated contestants from this season had performed. Anybody remember Josiah Leming?

[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZZV4ULHrmJ8[/youtube]

And who could forget Danny Noriega

[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=7LxwJw8sT4E[/youtube]

Well, tonight was the night that I finally understood why. It was Neil Diamond night on American Idol and I have to say tonight was really amusing. These songs we’re really good classic pop songs that even though they were older than me, I still enjoyed specially when I was younger.

Most of the first performance weren’t really good. Most of them didn’t feel as if the contestants we’re trying to out do themselves, they weren’t giving their all. I was disappointed at Brooke’s performance of “I’m a Believer” since its a well known song and a song you’d generally be happy to sing to. David Archuleta was good during his first performance though his voice broke during a note.

Fortunately, most of the contestants were able to redeem themselves during their second performance. David Cook has again amazed us with a good rock arrangement and Brooke’s second performance gave some of my faith back in her.

Overall though I think my favorite performances this week would have to be Brooke’s second performance “I Am I Said” and David Archuleta’s “America“. Don’t get me wrong though I still think Brooke should start stepping up a lot more now since she’s really been slipping these past few weeks.

As for the contestants, last night’s theme really separated the versatile singers to those who aren’t used to moving from one genre to another. Syesha did a good opening number, I really liked how she started on top of the piano and worked the entire stage for her performance. Funny though, the whole barefoot thing made it feel like she was copying Fantasia.

Carly Smithson hasn’t been making stand out performances for the past two weeks but she definitely made her mark this week. Jesus Christ Superstar was definitely a good song for her and she really looked like she was having fun performing.

I’d have to say, the best of the night would definitely be David Cook yet again. Cook has really started to step out into the lime light. The spotlight was definitely on him tonight as people were definitely expecting him to out do his performance of “always be my baby” last week. He pulled it through with singing “Music of the night” from the Phantom of The Opera. It sounded just like it did on the musical as if he was made for the part.

But who will get kicked off tonight? hmm… Well I really don’t want to share my opinion on that as I don’t want to get flamed all over my blog so lets just wait and see.

“What will David Cook sing?”

Mariah Carey is well known for her 5 octave vocal range that she uses extensively in her songs which most of the time are very mellow and ballad-like in nature. Her songs are also filled with what we describe in the Filipino as “kalandian” or femininity and are not that quite guy friendly. David Cook has a voice and a thats has more of a rock edge to it and out of the box there really isn’t any way he could sing a Mariah song. Well he proved that wrong.

I never really liked “always be my baby” when it was originally released. It felt like the song had a lot of deep meaning but was sung in a very shallow manner. David Cook changed all that when he sung his version of “always be my baby” last night as the second to the last performance.

He re-arranged it with a rock/orchestra mix that really made it very climactic. I loved how the violins entered and the song now just seems to sound so much deeper than what it originally sounded.

David Cook definitely had the best performance of the night.

[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=oVAs2zmb0ig[/youtube]