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Mosura tai Gojira (1964)
Very solid first half, incredibly boring second half
Mothra vs. Godzilla (1964) is the fourth film in the Godzilla franchise. In preparation for Godzilla vs. Kong, I decided to familiarize myself with the Godzilla franchise a bit. I've already seen 1954 and thought it was great, and was going to watch King Kong vs. Godzilla next but after searching around online I couldn't find the original Japanese version anywhere. I decided to go jump to this one as it introduces Mothra into the franchise. Mothra had her own movie before this but I was told it was unnecessary so I jumped straight into this. That being said, here are my thoughts on the film.
The first half of the movie is pretty good. It's almost entirely devoted to developing the human story which focuses on themes of greed. It's a compelling narrative and plays out pretty well. There are some... weirder aspects (and this goes for the whole movie) but overall the characters are all well defined and it was pretty good. Where, for me, the entire movie falls apart is the entire second half which is exclusively monster action. Now, I appreciate the work that went into the effects, and I'm sure it was stunning back then, but it is simply outdated and boring. It drags on for an entire 40 minutes and it just doesn't hold up. One thing that really surprised me about Godzilla (1954) was how menacing Godzilla was and how well the effects worked. I think, besides that film just having superior filmmaking all around, it was also in black and white. It makes it a lot scarier when it's in black and white and any faults in the visual effects are harder to see. On the other hand, this film takes place almost entirely in broad daylight and the Godzilla suit just looks silly with Mothra looking even worse.
The cinematography here also left a lot more to be desired. There weren't any technical aspects that really stood out as amazing here, the film is basically carried by the human narrative in the first half. There are some themes that come into play later in the film and I thought that was done nicely along with tying it all together in the final scene. The action just dragged for way too long. Overall, I really want to like this film more as there was a solid story but I just can't ignore the unnecessarily long monster action scenes. 5/10.
Âya to majo (2020)
Extremely forgettable, but not that bad
Earwig and the Witch is the newest film from Studio Ghibli. Studio Ghibli has been praised for decades for their painstakingly hand-drawn 2D animation that gave an unparalleled sense of beauty to their films. Earwig and the Witch is the first 3D, computer generated Ghibli movie directed by Goro Miyazaki. I haven't seen Goro's first feature but I found From Up On Poppy Hill to be great, so I was kind of torn on this film. On one hand, the animation didn't look very good, but on the other hand it showed Goro was taking a step away from his father's path, trying to find his own style. I really congratulate Goro for trying something new out here and straying away from his father's footsteps... but at its core this movie is basically trying to be My Neighbor Totoro. It aims to be a simple, charming, and thinly-plotted experience. This isn't a bad thing, of course people love My Neighbor Totoro, but it is disappointing to see Goro still trying to stick really close to his father's legacy.
So, I guess I'll talk about the animation now. I was very surprised when the film started as the animation actually looked pretty good with some really nice lighting and landscape shots... but the character design is just bad. It looks like plastic and they all feel so unnatural. There are also a handful of continuity errors which really doesn't help. Whenever characters blink or make a silly/shocked/angry face it's just very unnerving. Did the film make good use of 3D animation? I think it did, there were a lot of things here that benefitted from the 3D animation as opposed to 2D. With that out of the way, I'll talk about the story a little bit more. The first 20 or so minutes of this film are painfully generic but then it kicks into that simple, character-focused mood for the rest of the movie.
The characters are fine, the story is fun, the world is interesting, and the way music ties in is a little weird but adds some charm and saves the movie from being a bland attempt at something that has been done better before. I will say, the ending feels very forced and isn't satisfying at all. I think they just didn't know how to end something like this, which is an inherent problem with movies of this nature. Overall, it was entertaining, had somewhat interesting themes, and I don't think it's nearly as bad as most are making it out to be. I do find it sad that because of the backlash it's likely Goro will either stop filmmaking or retreat to the comfort of doing what worked for his dad when I think with this film he got one step closer to finding his own style and voice. 5.5/10.
Le Cinquième Élément (1997)
Weird and dumb fun
The Fifth Element is a 1997 sci fi movie starring Bruce Willis and Gary Oldman. This movie has a simple story, some nice characters... but it's really weird. I'll start off talking about the plot of the film. The beginning of this movie isn't confusing, but it jumps around between a lot of time periods/plot lines and it's kind of annoying. I think the entire opening scene probably could've been cut. For the most part, the general story and themes aren't anything new but it's presented in a very unique way. The characters are honestly pretty interesting with some great relationships within here. The visuals here look great a lot of times, but other times some costumes look clunky and the CGI isn't very good. The performances are all solid with some, once again, very weird things going on. The soundtrack can be a bit much at times but most of the time everything sounds good and matches the setting. Overall, it's a fun, simple, but very weird film that has a solid atmosphere and was incredibly charming. 7.5/10.
The History of Time Travel (2014)
Very solid independent sci-fi
The History of Time Travel is a 2014 low-budget mockumentary about, you guessed it, the history of time travel. I can't find a ton of details about this production (as it's a very small one), but it seems that this is the director's first feature length film. I found this on amazon prime and its concept really interested me so I put it on my list without even realizing it was a really obscure movie. After watching it, I can safely say that this is a very solid watch. This is basically the ideal movie with a tiny budget and not much resources at hand, it has the benefit of being a documentary style so it can use narration and photographs but of course it has interviews throughout. Some of the effects to replicate old cameras didn't work very well and it was obvious they were filmed with new cameras, but there was one specific segment meant to look like it was filmed in the 80s that actually nailed that look. The acting here is amateurish but since it's just interview segments it gets the job done. There are some photographs shown where it wouldn't logically make sense for these pictures to be took but it wasn't that big of a deal.
The film has a slow start but as we get into it it becomes complex with a simple, human story at the core of it. The film's approach to a documentary about time travel is just done so well, I don't want to spoil anything, but it's complex and incredibly interesting to follow while also having a strong emotional core. I would love to watch this film again with pen and paper and just track everything (seeing as its more obscure and I doubt there are many explanations out there). There are a few more technical errors I could point here but at the end of the day the director (Ricky Kennedy) knows the technical aspects aren't the greatest and creates a very strong, entertaining, and satisfying story to carry the film. Overall, I really enjoyed this and if you're a fan of sci-fi recommend you give it a watch on amazon prime. 8/10.
Kong: Skull Island (2017)
Clichés done well to create entertainment
Kong: Skull Island is a 2017 film that takes place in the new "monsterverse" (which consists of Godzilla 2014, Kong: Skull Island, Godzilla: King of the Monsters, and Godzilla vs. Kong which will release later this year). I've only seen the 2014 Godzilla from this set of movies so I decided I better get caught up to watch Godzilla vs. Kong. I don't have too much to say here so I'll try and keep it brief. It takes place in 1973 as the Vietnam War has just ended. This film has a handful of cliches, with each character kind of having cliche aspects, but surprisingly enough the film actually takes these cliches and makes something neat out of it. It has some really interesting themes about war and commentates on the time period it's set in. The characters are mostly all interesting, although I did find some of the humor in here to be forced and not very funny. There is some really cool cinematography and lighting in here that makes the whole film visually interesting to watch. The CGI is surprisingly good and a lot of the special effects look nice. I did find the soundtrack to be stereotypical as it used a lot of songs from the time period instead of a big score. Overall, the film takes some cliche'd ideas, expands on the more interesting elements, and throws King Kong in to make an incredibly entertaining experience. Its themes aren't as well done as something like Godzilla (1954) but they are still there. Kong: Skull Island gets a 7/10.
Tou tiao hao han (1971)
Better Than Expected, Still Hilarious
Fearless Fighters is a 1971 kung fu action movie. Recently I watched The Shaolin Drunken Monk, an obscure kung fu movie, and thought it was hilarious so I might as well try out some other films of that nature. Watching this film I was actually very surprised at how good it was compared to The Shaolin Drunken Monk. First of all, I was surprised that there was actually some very solid cinematography in here. There were some shots that actually looked really good and some of the camera movements looked very nice. Unfortunately the film is plagued with these awful zooming effects that look terrible, combined with some of the worst editing I've ever seen. To top it all off, the whole thing seems like it's 10fps, so it just has this laggy feeling which really doesn't help an action movie. Speaking of the action, it's hit or miss. Some of it is good, but other times physics is just thrown out the window and some of the most hilarious and insane leaps and bounds happen. The sound quality is also very bad with awful dubbing, but compared to something like The Shaolin Drunken Monk the mixing here is actually pretty good. The sound effects are bad but you get used to them after a while, and I never found the music to be distracting, and overall volume-wise everything was pretty even. The film's story makes sense until the finale where a lot of things just happen out of nowhere and it all becomes a mess. The story is nothing groundbreaking but had some real potential. Overall, I felt that the execution fell flat and although there were actually things to like about this movie I wouldn't call it good. 4/10.
The Dark Knight Rises (2012)
Larger-than-life
The Dark Knight Rises is the conclusion to Christopher Nolan's trilogy of Batman films. Batman Begins was a superhero origin story, The Dark Knight was a crime drama, and The Dark Knight Rises is an epic. This film has a grand scale, emphasized with the sequences shot on 70mm IMAX. This film has quite a bit more IMAX footage than the previous film, and it looks absolutely incredible. This film keeps up with this Chicago-esque Gotham style and it looks great. The cinematography is really good with perfect use of handheld. Hans Zimmer once again has an absolutely fantastic score with this film, and the sound design of this film is great. This is kind of a controversial take as this is where Christopher Nolan really started to pick up is "but what if we just don't let them here was the characters are saying and have Hans Zimmer music at 11" style, although it's not nearly as exaggerated as his other films. I just love how loud the film gets, but I was still able to make out 99% of the lines. This film also has even better action than the previous film, as at this point in time Nolan really started to find his footing when it came to directing action.
Moving on to the story aspects, this film packs in all the emotions it needs to be a perfect emotional conclusion to the trilogy. That being said, this film does have some issues plot-wise. It takes on this grand scale, and it takes a few shortcuts that Nolan is known for not taking. There are plot holes that are noticeable, even to someone like me who really never notices this sort of thing. There are some silly moments and some of the dialogue isn't the greatest.
The silliest moment that stands out to me here is Talia's death scene which is just laughable. Some other plot holes include Bruce getting back to Gotham from halfway around the planet and them not flooding the reactor before they gained access.
I think the script could've used some polishing but this is mostly due to the studio pushing to get this made as quick as possible after Nolan finished Inception. The characters here are all well written, the acting is great, and it has a solid plot. The themes, while not as good as The Dark Knight, are also really good. Overall, this film has it's flaws, but it's a masterful conclusion to one of the best trilogies ever made. 9/10.
The Dark Knight (2008)
A symbol as powerful as Batman himself
For a long time, The Dark Knight was my favorite movie, but it's been over a year since I've last seen it. I decided it was time for a rewatch. This is the sequel to Batman Begins and serves as the second installment in Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight trilogy. First of all, there were three problems I had with Batman Begins all of which were fixed in this film. I didn't like the style of Batman Begins's Gotham, as it felt like a cross between realistic and stylized. In The Dark Knight, Christopher Nolan fixes this and makes everything as realistic as possible, making everything really great. The second problem that was fixed was Racheal. In the last film, she was played by Katie Holmes who just didn't do a good job. In this film, she was recast and is now played by Maggie Gyllenhaal, who delivers a very solid performance. The third problem that was fixed was the action. Batman Begins had poorly edited action where you could barely see, and in this film it's greatly improved. It's all really well choreographed and overall a big step up from the last film. As I mentioned earlier, this film has a very realistic setting, and that creates some phenomenal visuals. The visual effects in this film are so, *so* good. Almost every time you see an explosion or some car being flipped over, I just want you to realize that that is probably real. The amount of huge explosions and stunts they did for real just so that it looked good in the film is amazing. The cinematography is truly stunning, mixed with the fact this film has sequences shot on IMAX cameras (although not nearly as much as Christopher Nolan's later films), and it just looks absolutely stunning each and every time. Some people get really bothered by the switching aspect ratios, but honestly I think it's done in the perfect moments and although I do notice it it doesn't bother me that much.
There are so many iconic shots in here, and it's mixed with the fantastic editing. Hans Zimmer's score is a huge step up from Batman Begins delivering one of the most iconic film scores of all time with this film. It elevates each and every scene, and it's made even better by the choices of when to NOT use music. The sound mixing is really fantastic overall. Now, I do have a problem here, and it's that I think the pacing is a little unsteady. The film really gets better as it goes on, but the first act focuses almost exclusively on the mob and the slide plot with Lau with the "supervillains" not getting lots of screen time until later in the film. I feel that a lot of this stuff with the mob just wasn't as interesting as everything else. It could've either been cut, shortened, or more evenly dispersed throughout the film's runtime. Speaking of villains, this film has Heath Ledger as the Joker giving one of the greatest performances of all time. The entire cast of this film is stellar, Aaron Eckhart is absolutely fantastic as Harvey Dent, Gary Oldman delivers a really solid Gordon, and Micheal Caine and Morgan Freeman play great parts in their roles. Moving on to what I like about the plot, I think this film just has some fantastic themes. It's a superhero movie but has some really complex moral dedications made and absolutely fantastic themes presented once we reach the halfway mark. To this day, I don't think I've seen a superhero film successfully pull off themes as big as this.
Now, for as many years as I can remember The Dark Knight was my favorite movie of all time. In recent months, I started to get a little shaky on that claim, and after watching The Matrix for the first time I declared that to be my new favorite movie. So the question is: after rewatching The Dark Knight, is it my favorite movie? The answer is no. Like I said, I've had to have seen this movie around 15 times, and after seeing something that many times a lot of the flaws become more apparent, and I can see it's not perfect. It's not about the suspense and tension, all of that is gone, you look at the film through a more objective lense. This is why The Matrix is my favorite film, because I've only seen it once, and because that perfect momentum, mystery, tension, and the incredible thrills were all there and are still fresh in my mind. I'm sure in the years to come I will watch The Matrix many many times, and I'm sure I will soon start to see the flaws and the mystery and suspense will fade from my memory. What it will come down to is what film means the most to me.
As much as I loved The Matrix, out of all the films I've seen, I can't say it affected me on a personal level. It just had unparalleled suspense and momentum which will disappear in the rewatches for years to come. The lore won't change, the structure won't change, and I have no doubt I will still love the film, but I don't know that it will be remembered for personally affecting me. The Dark Knight, a superhero movie, has affected me in more ways than I can begin to describe. The Dark Knight is one of the few pieces of media, up there with Minecraft, where I literally cannot imagine where I would be without it. The Dark Knight got me into superheroes, it got me into comic books, and it got me into fiction. I've said before that despite only getting into film recently, I've been developing my own story ideas for years. Those ideas wouldn't be here without this film. The Dark Knight has had such a large influence on who I am, and even a large influence on what I believe. The themes about morality, justice, and Batman as a symbol had such a large impact on me that I really don't know where I would be without it. Not to mention it starting my love for superheroes, which still continues to this day. At the end of the day, The Dark Knight is personal to me while The Matrix is not. I love both, but one I love like a new Christmas present I just got and the other I love like a stuffed animal I've had since I was an infant. Thank you to Christopher Nolan, Jonathon Nolan, and David S. Goyer. You have created an everlasting masterpiece, a film that transcended film and affected me in more ways than I can describe, and a symbol as powerful as Batman himself. 10/10.
Batman Begins (2005)
Dated and flawed but still stunning
Batman Begins is the first film in Christopher Nolan's "The Dark Knight Trilogy". I haven't watched the trilogy in a long time, so I'm thinking about rewatching the whole thing in the coming weeks. Starting off with the positives, I really love the structure of the first hour or so of this movie. It's told in a nonlinear way and is incredibly captivating, well written, and fantastically directed. This is definitely my favorite part of the whole movie, as we get some stunning visuals during the sequences set in Asia (the film never specified exactly where it is as it isn't really that important). The film has solid performances throughout with all of the characters having their own personalities and motivations driving them forward... now that being said there is one notoriously bad performance here, Katie Holmes as Racheal Dawes. She is bad. She just does not give a good performance and either does something painfully generic or nothing at all. Another problem that's been pointed out many times when it comes to this film is the action. It's edited in a way to be from the "criminal's perspective" which basically means you can't see what's going on the entire time. Thankfully, the more important fight scenes are better shot but a lot of the action here just isn't good. The final problem I had with this film was that the visual style of Gotham is just really outdated. It goes for this mix between realistic and stylized and it just looks dated and doesn't work (I'm really glad Nolan just stuck to the realistic style for the rest of the trilogy). One of the reasons I really enjoyed the first hour of this film even more this time around was how good it looked, and I think the film just turns into this muddy mix of dark colors with a yellowish tint in Gotham itself. Other than that, my problems were minimal. The characters are well written, the story is well told, the plot is engaging, it's entertaining, it has some nice humor, and although I don't think I'd call it a masterpiece, it's a very solid origin story with a fantastic introduction but I think the rest of the film isn't as great. 8.3/10.
Soul (2020)
Pixar is back
Soul is a new Pixar film directed by Pete Docter, the director behind Monsters Inc, Up, and Inside Out while also contributing some other talent to many films in Pixar's filmography. For me, Pixar has kind of fallen off recently. Onward was a pretty good quest movie, Toy Story 4 was a solid conclusion to Woody's character arc, Incredibles 2 was a fun sequel with some interesting elements... but it's not the same as early Pixar. When describing their recent filmography I use words such as "solid" and "pretty good". Nothing has really went above and beyond, nothing has ever reached the incredible level of storytelling in films such as Monsters Inc, Wall-E, and The Incredibles. When the first trailer for Soul dropped, I was a little skeptical. The story about a passionate jazz musician was interesting but the little blue people looked too similar to Inside Out, and although it was definitely a Pixar twist on things I just thought that the Pixar twist was less interesting than the base story itself. Fast forward all the way to yesterday, and I see positive review after positive review, claiming this was like the beginning of the Pixar renaissance. I was slightly more hopeful that this wouldn't be another "pretty good" family flick.
I am here to tell you that this most certainly is Pixar's best film in years. The last act of Soul is some of Pixar's finest storytelling *ever*. I was very worried that this film would go all in with this Soul world and completely forget about New York City after the first 15 minutes, but boy was I wrong. This film balances the two worlds very well and has a solid plot to tie the two together. The Soul world (which I will not name for anyone who doesn't want to know) is very atmospheric and creative to the point it reminded me of a Ghibli film (this is a phenomenal accomplishment). One of my faults with this film is that I think it does get a little too exposition heavy when it comes to this soul world. I think too many questions are asked and answered when it could've took that same route as Ghibli and just let the beauty and atmosphere sink in without necessarily explaining every single detail. The film has an incredible score, with the difference between the jazz of New York and the ambience of the soul world being very apparent in the score. The animation is Pixar at its best, the way they can mix the cartoonish and exaggerated character designs of the humans in with this photorealistic environment in New York is fantastic. The cinematography here is also really good with some shots that mimic a handheld camera, and I think it's really well implemented.
Where Soul shines is it's writing and story. The characters are all well written, and this might actually be Pixar's funniest film. There was only one moment in the film where the comedy felt out of place, and considering the comedy was a big worry for me going in I was pleasantly surprised. The messages delivered are simple but grand and impactful. It's nothing that's necessarily breaking new ground but I think that it's just done so well. The runtime also flew by, it doesn't have a breakneck pace but there are plenty moments of dramatic tension and reflective beauty. Soul surprisingly tackles some darker themes in a presentable way and I think that in this time, after all everybody has gone through this year, this film is something everybody needs to see. The film really gets better as it goes along and there is one sequence near the end of the film that rivals the opening of Up as Pixar's best visual storytelling. I believe Soul is a simple masterpiece that everybody should watch. 8.5/10.
Wonder Woman 1984 (2020)
A good enough superhero movie
Wonder Woman 1984 is the sequel to the 2017 Wonder Woman. This is a solid sequel, and although the themes are nothing we haven't seen before, it gets its message across and is made well. The film, for the most part, looks great. The entire thing looks like it was shot on film (after a quick google search I confirmed I was right and my eyes are really trained to notice the difference between film and digital now), so the colors look great and the image really pops. The cinematography was pretty solid throughout, although I thought it didn't look the greatest at times.
The film has some CGI that's... bad. A lot of the CGI looks great, but some of it just really doesn't work. The characters are all well written, and the main villain of the film, Maxwell Lord, was really interesting to see. I think he got a little over the top near the end of the film, but he was an interesting villain (a lot better than Ares in the original film...). The movie is entertaining throughout, although I thought some of the action scenes did drag on for a little too long. The score by Hans Zimmer is great, and the film keeps a fast pace and there's never a moment where it drags throughout its two and a half hour runtime. Overall, this is a well written and well made sequel to the original film, and although it has its flaws, I'd definitely recommend seeing it if you liked the first. 7/10.
The Greatest Showman (2017)
Meta
The Greatest Showman is a 2017 film starring Hugh Jackman about the creation of Barnum and Bailey Circus. It's a musical, which I'm really not a big fan of, and that applies here. The music was hit or miss, some songs were better than others, but most of the time the music just felt unnatural. One thing that bothered me is that we never actually get to see the circus and how it goes down, we don't get the tension that could be used in these moments, instead we get song and dance numbers in place of this. For the most part they are choreographed well, but once again it's just not my thing. The cinematography is also hit or miss, there are some shots that look really good and other shots that look really bad. I feel like the ideas the movie presents about Barnum loving his work more than anything else could've really been expanded on instead of being quickly resolved the way it was. There was a lot of potential for a really great study, something similar to The Prestige (which ironically also stars Hugh Jackman as a lead), but it goes the easy route. The film is entertaining, and it basically just aims to be fun. After watching this, I realized the whole thing was basically a parallel to Barnum's circus. The movie ends by showing a quote by PT Barnum, "The noblest art is that of making others happy." This quote basically sums up what this movie is, it just aims to be fun and put a smile on your face. It could be a lot darker but it doesn't decide to go that route. That's incredibly fascinating to me, and even if that other route had more potential, I actually admire what this movie did and that it's really what the character of Barnum believed. 6/10.
It's a Wonderful Life (1946)
Heartfelt classic
It's A Wonderful Life is an older film that's considered to be a Christmas classic. Let me just say, I didn't look at the date the film was released until I started writing the review and realized the version on amazon prime that I watched is actually not the original. I watched a colorized version of the original black and white film that came out in 1946. Besides the color, to my knowledge there were no additional changes. The film is unique in the way it's presented but has a very simple message. The film starts off by telling us this man is deeply contemplating suicide, and we basically go back and see what got him to this point.
The film has well written characters, an engaging plot, a solid score, some good cinematography, and nice set pieces. There were some moments where there was an odd editing choice that changed the camera angle in a kind of harsh and unappealing way that took me out of the movie for a few seconds, but other than that I don't have any issues regarding the technical aspects. Some of the dialogue had a little too much people talking over each other and it took me a while to figure out what's going on, but for the most part the dialogue here is really great. Overall, this is a solid film that I can definitely see myself watching again near Christmas time. 8/10.
Mank (2020)
Technically superb, lacking in heart and story
Mank is the newest film directed by David Fincher. I've only seen two films from Fincher's catalog, one of them being The Social Network which is one of my favorites of all time. This film is about Herman Mankiewicz writing Citizen Kane, and the political climate of 1930s Hollywood. This film is very well made on a technical level. The film easily could've just done black and white and called it a good enough reference to Citizen Kane, but of course David Fincher makes sure that this really *feels* like you're watching a film from that time period. The visuals, the image quality, and the sound and score especially really make something interesting. My problem with the film is basically it focuses a lot more on politics than I thought. Basically half of the movie's runtime is dedicated to this election with Upton Sinclair and how Hollywood influenced this. The film doesn't go out of its way to explain who most of these people are so you don't really know what's going on a lot of the time. There were points of the story that I was invested in, but for the most part there wasn't really a lot of emotion behind this. The dialogue *sounds* great, the acting is very well done... but I really didn't know/have a reason to care what the characters were talking about. The protagonist spends half the film drunk and the other half laying in a bed flirting with women despite the fact he seems to be happily married. I was honestly expecting to care a lot more about what's happening considering this is (sort of) about the making of Citizen Kane, a film I really loved. David Fincher's directing really is the strongest aspect of this film, but the screenplay written by his late father just wasn't that great. I get why he would've wanted to make something his dad wrote but it just wasn't that great of a screenplay. It's a very niche film, if you have extensive knowledge of 1930s Hollywood and it's politics along with Citizen Kane you'll probably really enjoy this one, but most people don't have that knowledge (including myself). I'm going to give Mank a 6.5/10.
Sonic the Hedgehog (2020)
Harmless family adventure
This is basically just a harmless family fun movie with familiar plot points and story beats. The standout here is Jim Carrey who adds an element of fun to the movie and keeps it entertaining. Without him, this film would probably be boring for anyone over the age of 9, but he makes sure you're entertained. The film got some chuckles out of me, some humor felt forced but most of it was fine. The characters are likeable, but once again they're nothing mind blowing or brand new, it's just all very familiar. The film doesn't really go deep into sonic mythology or anything, it mainly focuses on doing its own thing and that's probably why it works better than most video game movies. Overall, it's harmless, it's fun, but I wouldn't go out of my way to watch it. 5/10.
La La Land (2016)
The best musical I've seen
Where do I even begin? Let me say, first of all, I'm not a big fan of musicals. Musicals just really aren't my thing... but La La Land worked for me. It's not just that it worked, it's that it worked very, VERY well. I think part of this is that the musical numbers in this film are very dreamy, most of the time they're meant to be in "la la land", this perfect version of our reality. The film showcases this excellently with the opening scene. I really enjoyed the music in the film and thought it was all done really well. The film is basically about passion and ambition as we focus on two young characters trying to get into some of the most luck based industries on the planet, an actress and a jazz pianist. The dialogue and characters are phenomenal, they are completely believable, and this is helped by Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone who give fantastic performances. The film's themes really resonated with me, but it still stayed realistic enough with how it tackled success. At the end of the day, there would be no need for the musical numbers in this film if the characters got everything they wanted, and that just works so well in my opinion. This is an absolutely beautiful film with stunning cinematography, set design, costume design, and editing. Honestly, I can't think of a single issue I had with this film. La La Land gets a 10/10.
Shao Lin zui ba quan (1981)
As soon as it starts to make sense it falls apart
First of all, let me say that this movie is referred to by like 20 different titles by 20 different sites and there is, to my knowledge, not a single monk in this movie so I really don't know what's going on. I watched the film on Amazon Prime (US) titled "The Shaolin Drunken Monk". This is one of the most hilarious films I've ever seen. It is a complete and utter disaster on every level, from literally being VHS quality, to having the worst sound mixing with music just abruptly ending for another track to start up, awful dubbing, and a plot that doesn't start to make any sort of sense until over halfway through the film. It starts with a scene that doesn't make any sense until 40 minutes in, followed by a plot that makes sense, then all of the sudden it decides to go back in time 20 years with no sort of warning, then it goes forward quite a bit but not exactly to the present, and then we finally return to the present and the remainder of the film (30 minutes or so) is entirely kung fu action.
The plot is so jumbled, the effects are so bad, the drama is so weak it's just so much fun to watch. The action is pretty good and has some nice choreography although the constant dubbed laughter/grunts gets very repetitive. The film finally makes sense once we return to the present until literally the last 20 seconds or so of the film which seems to me like they ran out of money and just said "ah we'll leave it at that". Basically what happens is the girl in love with the main character kills herself after he wins a fight that she seemingly wanted him to win. Although the fight was against her own father, the movie established that she didn't like her father and she literally let the main character free so he could fight him but I guess she thought killing herself would be better so ????? Overall, hilariously bad movie I would definitely recommend. 2/10 Objectively but in my heart this is an 8/10 comedy.
Eraserhead (1977)
Terrifying
Eraserhead is David Lynch's first feature length film... if you can call it that. This film is basically THE arthouse film. It has just enough plot so there's a tangible story, but other than that it goes into all sorts of weird and abstract directions and you're left at the end going "what?". The film has really fantastic sound design and the atmosphere as a whole is really good. It's very eerie.. it's not "scary" in the traditional sense... it's more like a subconscious feeling of watching a nightmare play out. The visuals help build this really eerie atmosphere. I really can't think of anything else to say. I have no idea what it means, I'd have to watch it a few more times to try and assemble my own theories, but it was certainly an experience. At the time of posting this review, this is the only film I have ever seen that has ever really disturbed or scared me, and that is a huge accomplishment. As with other films of this nature, I don't think I can give it a number rating based on one viewing.
Cats (2019)
Not even worth watching for the laughs, simply boring
Cats (2019) is a film that's been poorly received since it came out, and I thought I should watch it because it might be "so bad it's good". Let's start off with the positives. Onto the negatives, the cinematography here is just headache inducing. Basically for the very small moments in between the music performances the cinematography switches to this extremely shaky handheld camera and like maybe they were going for the perspective of the cats but it just comes off as completely unnecessary. The CGI here is just awful, and these human cat hybrids taking up most of the screen just make things worse. To be honest, the movie could have some style with the use of color and some of the cinematography if it wasn't for the fact the subjects of the frame were these "cats" that did not blend in very well with their background. Moving on to the plots and characters... man there's really not much to talk about. This film just had so very little plot for an almost 2 hour runtime. There are these extremely long musical scenes that 99% of the time actually do nothing at all to advance the plot and then there are literally 2 minutes in between where all the cats do the weird crawling thing and our protagonist moves to a new area. Speaking of the protagonist, we basically know nothing at all about her until halfway through the film. The characters are all almost nonexistent, and I could've cared less if they were all killed by the exterminator. I was just so bored throughout the film because I cared about nothing that was happening, and even if I did the musical parts drag on for way too long and would basically ruin the whole thing anyway.
Don't let the fact Cats has so little plot make you think "oh so it's something artsy". Artsy films like 2001 have a lot of possible themes that you can project onto them, and the plot there is clearly goes deeper into your subconscious to create a thoughtful experience. Cats does not do this. Cats has no themes besides don't abuse your animals. Besides, at least with films like 2001 and Blade Runner everything is done really well, in Cats nothing is done that well.
I guess the music is fine but this film is almost entirely song and dance. The only thing that made this slightly tolerable was my brother sitting next to me laughing and making fun of the movie, but after he ditched me to go on the computer I was just disappointed. I can't think of any intentional comedy that lands. I won't bother getting into the whole thing about the fact our main character literally just arrived and somehow magically knew the moves for all the very complex and intricate dances. Overall, Cats had... a little going for it? Not really, the potential for good style doesn't matter because it was all ruined anyway. Cats gets a 1/10.
The Christmas Chronicles: Part Two (2020)
Simple family film
I watched The Christmas Chronicles 2 with my family. I'm just taking this at face value here, it's a family Christmas movie that is just meant to entertain and teach some very simple messages to small children. The film has some moments that drag on for too long, some dialogue that's very cliched, and characters talking out loud to themselves is annoying, but other than that there wasn't anything that made this film unbearable for me. It kept me entertained although I did almost fall asleep, but it had some simple messages about family I guess that are very common and nothing new. It has some CGI that doesn't look the best but it also has some CGI that looks pretty good. It serves its purpose well enough, I watched this without seeing the first one and had no problems keeping up, but overall just a simple family Christmas flick. 6/10.
The Prestige (2006)
A masterful story about obsession and dedication to the craft
The Prestige is directed by Christopher Nolan and written by Jonathan and Christopher Nolan. This film was incredible. Out of the Nolan films I've seen, this is probably the most intimate on a human level. The film focuses on two magicians played by Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman. These two both give amazing performances, and their characters are very well written. The film focuses on the theme of obsession, and it just plays out wonderfully, with us getting to see the layers and layers of these two characters' minds. The plot is engaging, entertaining, and has high stakes throughout. In Nolan fashion, it's told in a non-linear way basically cutting between three main points in time. I really love the way Nolan does this in his films, and although it can be a little confusing when the film starts you get the hang of it pretty quickly. The cinematography was excellent, and the whole film looks really good. There's a lot of handheld here, but it really works and just looks amazing.
The film does a good job at staying relatively grounded throughout, but my problem comes in at the ending portion of the film. Although the plot twist with Borden is really cool, it just kind of took me out of the film a little bit. It's really well done and shows the insane levels of obsession and perfectionism these characters put in, but it's just really unrealistic. The stuff with Angier's clones is also weird too. Basically, the film starts to drift off from the realism in the end and although I think it still works it just took me out of the film a bit. Overall, I think this is another masterpiece from Christopher Nolan and if you have the time, check it out. 8.5/10.
8½ (1963)
Astonishingly dull
I am not one to get bored easily, I watch films that many consider to be boring, like 2001: A Space Odyssey and am fine with it. This film, on the other hand, was different. I was bored out of my mind. I basically found this film at random, not even knowing how acclaimed it was, and hit play. I hope that one day I can rewatch and see what everyone else sees, but for now I don't have many positive things to say about the film. 3/10.
There Will Be Blood (2007)
Incredible craft but overly cynical
There Will Be Blood is a 2007 film directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. This is the first film I've seen from him, and it stars famous method actor Daniel Day Lewis as the lead. It takes place in the late 1800s and early 1900s, and focuses on a prospector during these times. I'll start off with the negatives so I don't forget. There were a couple fade transitions that kind of bothered me and felt out of place, but that's really nitpicking. A big issue I had here was the score. Usually I'm never bothered much by scores, either they're very good mediocre for me, but the score for this film was just very distracting. It wasn't very good in my opinion, and honestly I would've preferred if the score was just took out of some scenes. I guess another problem I have is that, as I'll get into this is an incredibly well-told story, but I think outside of the story itself it doesn't hold much weight. There's some surface level themes about capitalism and greed, but nothing that's super impactful, but honestly I think that's ok (I should mention that this is subjective, of course different themes impact us in different ways, this is just how it impacted me personally). It doesn't make the movie pointless, it's certainly a story worth telling, but just throwing that out there.
Getting into the positives, this film has an excellent screenplay. All of the characters are very well written and the dialogue is superb. The acting by everyone is great, but of course Daniel Day Lewis steals the show. He gives one of the best performances I've ever seen. There's a moment, about 35 minutes into the film, where he gives a single look that terrified me more than most horror movies could. You could really consider this film to be a character study on Daniel Day Lewis's character, and it absolutely works due to his performance. The film is slow, it's 2 hours and 38 minutes long or something along those lines, but I was never bored. It's entertaining from beginning to end. The cinematography and direction is very good, the sets are good, and everything about the production really feels like it hit the mark in terms of portraying this time period. The film is on Netflix, and I strongly suggest you give it a watch if you're up for a dark and sometimes very violent film. 8.3/10.
The Social Dilemma (2020)
A deep and reliable look into the dangers of social media from its own creators
The Social Dilemma is a documentary about how social media is absolute garbage. It also had this narrative part added on, and I'll just say that that was the weakest part of the film by far as the script and acting just wasn't that great. The actual substance of it was really great, and the interviews were very insightful. I thought for the most part it had good style and the information was presented in a very effective way. I said "bruh" out loud several times. As it went on I realized how much deeper and how many more layers the issue of social media actually has. I knew it was an issue, I knew it was a big issue, but this really showed me just how bad it is. I'm deleting Twitter now, and someday I should delete YouTube as well. It's 1 and a half hours, very informative, and definitely worth your time. I'm going to give it an 8/10 just because the narrative part had weak scripting although it was relevant and conveyed the information they were trying to get across.
Citizenfour (2014)
A fantastic introduction to a terrifying topic
Citizenfour is a documentary exploring Edward Snowden and the process of releasing the documents to the public. A quick introduction if you don't know who Edward Snowden is: Snowden used to work for the NSA. He was an infrastructure analyst, and in 2013 he gave several documents to journalists (who would go to the government and make sure no information was vital to public safety before deciding on their own what information to release to the public) revealing details of the U. S government's warrantless wiretapping and mass surveillance put in place after 9/11 for "national security". This documentary serves as a great introduction to Edward Snowden and the NSA's programs if you don't already know them, and if you do it provides fascinating insight about how it actually went down in real-time. I'm going to be judging this based on a documentary level, so it's not comparable to a normal movie as documentary filmmaking is incredibly different, especially considering the director of this documentary was filming such a sensitive process and was being followed by the CIA at several different points. Of course, the story and people involved is absolutely captivating. This is partly due to the fact that it seems like you're reading a dystopian novel when in fact it's actually happening. I greatly respect this filmmaker (who apparently has 2 other documentaries dealing with the American government post 9/11, which I'd be interested to check out) for a few reasons. One, of course this documentary is going to be incredibly challenging to make because of the topic it's covering. Two, this filmmaker could've easily used a whole bunch of dramatic music and editing to make this super intense. Instead, she lets the intensity work itself out, having several quiet and reflective moments where nothing particularly exciting is happening.
A lot of the documentary is simply conversations between Snowden and journalists in a hotel room, no dramatic music, no intense editing, just conversations regarding what the information is and how it will be released to the public. Is it the best filmmaking ever? No, there are several points where the camera is out of focus because the director had to start recording quickly while an important conversation began, but I think that overall it's done very well. It doesn't cover the NSA's systems in depth, if you wish to know the full details you can look elsewhere. If you watch this documentary and it interests you, or you'd prefer to find out about this story in other places I'll give you some. The two main things I'd recommend are either reading Edward Snowden's autobiography, Permanent Record, which should be available in most places, or watching Joe Rogan's podcast with Edward Snowden where Joe basically stays silent the whole time and let's Edward Snowden tell his story and talk about the NSA's surveillance program (Joe Rogan recently did a 2nd podcast with Snowden talking more about the media in general if you're interested). I believe this is an incredibly important topic, and strongly recommend reading Snowden's biography, listening to the podcast, or watching this film. I'd give Citizenfour a 9/10.