The Japanese Win? About a 2D viewing. This is very clearly produced under Party sponsorship to celebrate the soldiers who won the country. The contrast with US WWII films is striking. We require tough heroes, where here there is something more noble. Two remarkable things...
A stranger in the city asks questions no one has asked before. Known only by his initials, the man's innocent questions and childlike curiosity take him on a journey of love, laughter and letting go.
Swaggert Date: 31 August 2015 This should be classified in the ‘visitor’ genre where an outsider shows up and changes lives. Using my definition of noir it is reverse noir. As is common, this is someone from outer space who gets puzzled by our obsession with religion....
Paranoid and unpredictable, J.T. lives a solitary life of used tires and decaying trailers. Despite his situation, J.T. wins the love of Sara, an innocent young girl left alone in the world after losing the last of her family.
Temporarily Fixed TeeVee There isn’t the slightest feel that this is a first film. The way things are framed, and the rhythm of the edits are first class. The main actors are superb. There is no story to speak of, just enough events to serve the purpose...
The adventures of a group of explorers who make use of a newly discovered wormhole to surpass the limitations on human space travel and conquer the vast distances involved in an interstellar voyage.
Dissymmetries, sight The good news that we have the brothers reunited and again working on circular narrative. Again, we have a powerful narrative arc that shifts in unexpected and engages in expected ways. The device is hackneyed: messages from the future, but is handled deftly. Where it...
A fading actor best known for his portrayal of a popular superhero attempts to mount a comeback by appearing in a Broadway play. As opening night approaches, his attempts to become more altruistic, rebuild his career, and reconnect with friends and family prove more difficult than expected.
Parasitic Nests I have a particular interest in five different cinematic styles, worlds actually. One of them I have named the Hispanic style. It is characterised by: elements of magical reality, either in supernatural physics or synchronous connections. a belief that the world is rich, fecund. Occasionally female...
U.S. Navy SEAL Chris Kyle takes his sole mission—protect his comrades—to heart and becomes one of the most lethal snipers in American history. His pinpoint accuracy not only saves countless lives but also makes him a prime target of insurgents. Despite grave danger and his struggle to be a good husband and father to his family back in the States, Kyle serves four tours of duty in Iraq. However, when he finally returns home, he finds that he cannot leave the war behind.
Focus I watched this like many others, consuming a rather simple story. Superficially, we are to admire this soul, both as an individual and representative of a collective who ‘serve’ us. As with Forgiven, we have some subtle exit from the story in the direction of...
The story of a super-secret spy organization that recruits an unrefined but promising street kid into the agency's ultra-competitive training program just as a global threat emerges from a twisted tech genius.
Not that Kind of Tailoring From time to time in these comments, I remark on my surprise at how sophisticated young viewers are, and how they demand ever more complex and subtle self-referential folds. It gives me pleasure to realise that my flower children cohort were...
When Sawa's mother and policeman father are found victims of a grisly double homicide, she begins a ruthless pursuit for the man who murdered them. With the help of her father's ex-partner, Karl Aker, and a mysterious friend from her past, she becomes a merciless teen assassin, blasting her way through the dark world of human trafficking only to uncover a devastating truth
Raped This could have been a good movie. I’m particularly sensitive to the cinematic power of sexual exploitation — after all, that’s pretty close to much of the cinematic experience. And child molesting adds great power to the experience. Also, I like Manga’s sometimes honest approach to...
An ordinary Lego mini-figure, mistakenly thought to be the extraordinary MasterBuilder, is recruited to join a quest to stop an evil Lego tyrant from conquering the universe.
Gamer Gate The outer story is about a kid and his dad who doesn't understand play. An inner story has tokens that elaborate on this, a story that is mostly flashiness. The animation is based on Lego and I am sure there is a large franchise...
Country bumpkin Haruko only ever wanted to become a maiko, an apprentice geisha. Initially rebuffed for lack of references, Haruko's strong accent intrigues a linguistics professor, who undertakes to coach her.
Adaptation The story itself is about adapting from a not ideal Japanese state to the purest state, a Geisha. In Japan, the rural north is considered to consist of country bumpkins, something like in the US we associate with the South. A Geisha’s training includes many...
