Interesteg What makes it different from others?

Acensbart Excellent but underrated film

Ariella Broughton It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

Logan By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

subxerogravity I was expecting a movie about a brilliant but not really well known artist and the woman behind him. I was expecting the movie to explore their long relationship. This is what I got, but what hit me from left field was how the movie focused on boxing painter Ushio Shinohara's wife Noriko, as she used the film (and her art) to pent her frustration of her life being over shadowed by a semi self destructive genius. It was an interesting story of a young girl who leap into her ideals without looking and more so fell in love with an ideal that embodied Ushio Shinohara.Cutie and the Boxer gives off a strange feeling. It's a downer without being depressing. She never gives the impression that you should feel sorry for her. After all, she lived her dreams, it just did not turn out as she thought it would. I'm sure a lot of artist feel the same about their struggle.It's a brilliant movie about two struggling artist both financially emotionally and in the case of Cutie artistically.And I love how the filmmaker allows the narrative to tell most of the story with very little voice over or interview. He points the camera at Cutie and The Boxer and lets it tell the tale with inter cuts of home movies archive footage and moving graphics of Cutie's Art. I learned so much about the couple in this matter and it was clear without adding too many traditional documentary device.Definitely, one of the most interesting subjects I've seen for a documentary.

keeara I think the purpose of this film is to provide viewers insight on the life of a married couple. The mental and physical strain each partner experiences throughout the marriage. Also I think it was meant to show the life's of struggling artists. I think personally this couple is lacking affection and there actions show it for sure throughout the film. In the beginning of the film I got the feeling that art is what brought them together and toward the end I felt art is what is keeping them together. Watching this film made me appreciate art more.I really enjoyed the significance of the film which felt was the couple it's self.

The_Film_Cricket Whenever I hear that a couple has been married for a long time, say 40 or 50 or even 60 years, my mind tries to consider how such a thing is possible. What keeps people together? How do they manage a marriage that takes up 80% of their lives? How do you settle with another person indefinitely? How do you deal, year after year, with someone who drives you crazy? "Cutie and the Boxer" is a fascinating fly-on-the-wall documentary that chooses one married couple as a means of answering those very questions. Noriko and Ushio Shinohara are a Japanese couple who have been married for 40 years. They aren't quite equals. He's an abstract artist who hasn't exactly made himself a household name. Noriko seems to function, more or less, as a dutiful housewife. She cooks, she cleans and she complains about his expensive trips to show off art that don't yield much money. He throws off her complains with "Hey, it's something." Ushio's art - which he creates by punching a canvas with paint-dipped boxing gloves - is popular but, he admits, nothing that anyone really wants to buy (watching him create the piece is more fun than the actual result). He also sculpts large grotesque and colorful sculptures of motorcycles that look cool in a museum but aren't anything that anyone wants in their home.Noriko exists, more or less, off in the corner of Ushio's life. She tolerates his attempts to supplement a living making art that no one will pay money for. Oh, he makes a little, but we can see that his meager income has forced them into a cramped living space in Brooklyn, with spaces filled by his art and other assorted clutter. She complains about the cost, then later he comes home and slaps money on the table with a "so there" satisfaction.The most wonderful thing about "Cutie and the Boxer" is the way in which it simply leaves us alone to observe Noriko and Ushio. This is a movie completely devoid of talking heads. We learn about them through their experience with each other and some flashback information that shows us how they met that gives us a template of how they got where they are. They met in New York City, in 1969. Noriko was a 19 year old art student; Ushio was 40 and making avant-garde art. It was a good plan but then real life burst in the door. They got married and circumstances forced her to be housewife and supporter of a struggling artist who would spend the next 40 years in a state of professional stalemate.Presently, we see Noriko struggling to recapture her dream, drawing a series of cartoons called "Cutie and Bullie" which depict her life with Noriko through cherubic characters that are half-autobiographical and half-pornographic. Their bond is touching, but we wonder what keeps them going. As the movie opens, they have cake together Ushio woofs it down and gets frosting on his face. Noriko tells him to wipe it off but he ignores her. "I don't listen to you," he tells her. "That is how I stay young." It is that kind of connective resistance that keeps them together. They are contentious, combative, competitive, yet somehow strangely affectionate. There are moments that the camera captures that no screenwriter could invent. Take a moment late in the film when Ushio finishes one of his paintings. He asks Noriko what she thinks. "It's not good", she says. Then the camera lingers on Ushio's face, he's hurt and a little upset, but he never tells his wife. The scene shifts to sometime later and we can still see the pain on his face.Their competitive nature exists all through their marriage. That's especially true at they draw to an upcoming art exhibition in a New York gallery in which they will both be showing off their work. "Art is a demon that drags you along," Ushio says. "It's something you can't stop even if you should." What he doesn't admit is that their respective artistic visions are the glue that binds their marriage together.***1/2 (of four)

MartinHafer "Cutie and the Boxer" has been nominated for the Oscar for Best Documentary (full-length) and this is why I chose to watch it. This is not the sort of picture I would normally chose, though I love documentaries.The film is about a very strange family of bohemian artists living in New York. Ushio Shinohara is a struggling artist who reached 80 during the filming. He seems to have a strong penchant for making odd sculptures of motorcycles as well as murals he makes by donning boxing gloves and strapping sponges to them and then punching the canvas with paint on them. For the most part, his art seems to be 'outsider art'--stuff that has not sold well and his wife and son have lived in relatively primitive conditions. As for the wife, Noriko, she is much younger and came to the US for her art. However, she soon met Ushio and pretty much gave up on her career to take care of Ushio and their son. It appears as if taking care of Ushio is pretty much a full-time job, though now that they are older, Noriko is returning to her art and making work that appears similar to that of Jean Cocteau.While I have described the couple briefly, I wasn't particularly interested in their art nor did I particularly like them. I hope this isn't the purpose of the film, as it didn't instill these feelings in me. Instead, I at least appreciated it on a sociological level. The idea of a talented woman completely subjugating herself and her art in favor of the man and his career is interesting...and a bit sad.So did I like the film? No. But I did appreciate the filmmakers' work. There were some interesting camera-work (particularly with the swimming scene) and it must have taken a lot of work following the family...as well as patience. All in all, I didn't see in the film what most other reviewers or the AMPAS (the Oscar folks) people saw in the film. It was just okay and just left me pretty flat. Of the other nominees, "The Act of Killing" and "The Square" are much, much more engaging and impressive films. So is "Dirty Wars". I have not yet seen the final nominee, "20 Feet From Stardom".UPDATE: Saw "20 Feet From Stardom". It was fun but took zero risks and did not impress me...and it took home the Oscar.