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Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
A strange but full-of-emotions love story that's ever been brought to the big screen.
Though I'd heard of this movie for a very long time, I just watched it recently. And honestly, I've been asking myself ever since why I hadn't done it sooner. It's such a beautiful and remarkable romantic screenplay that I would not hesitate to recommend to anyone around me.
This movie is all about one thing and one thing alone: love in its purest meaning. The story has no more nor less than what any of us has been living in our couple's everyday life. Joel is an ordinary guy with a very normal (not to say boring) life, nothing had seemed to be much alive until the day he met Clementine. She, on the other hand, is an unconventional girl who changes her hair color depending on her mood at the moment. Like two opposite poles of a magnet, they fell for each other right away. And like every ordinary couple, they enjoyed their time together, they had fun together, but they also fought. As they are so different, they fought a lot. Though all those fights have never made them stop loving each other, one time, they fought so badly for some stupid reason that they decided to do something terrible that they've both regretted ever since: they went to Lacuna Inc. - a company specialized in wiping away customer's undesired memories... The erasing is an all night process of mapping and killing of the target memories. And here what's made this movie so special: almost the entire love story was told inside Joel's mind while we were walked through all the key memories of their relationship, just before every of them faded away into nothing during the erasing process.
It started with the most recent ones - their biggest stupid fight and some another before it, in which Clementine and Joel looked like 2 miserable persons who don't fit together and all they've been doing is to make the other suffer. But as we traveled backward, the memories got better and better. Witnessing the very same couple in their best moment, seeing how deeply they love each other, we finally understood why they were together at the first place. And that's also the time when Joel realized how much those memories mean to him and began to regret his impulsive decision. So he hopelessly tried every single thing he could think of in order to save all the memories he had left of Clementine, but it's too late... It's thrilling watching all those desperate attempts of Joel's mind, the movie showed us how amazingly our brain functions in creating new memory by mixing existing ones. Yes, remember when Joel tried to hide Clementine in some of his childhood memories? He was creating a new memory of her! But sadly, even this new one couldn't escape the erasure. As the process went on, no matter how hard Joel tried, his memories of Clementine continued to disappear one by one, until there was nothing left of her...
"[...]
Clementine: This is it Joel. It's going to be gone soon.
Joel: I know.
Clementine: What do we do?
Joel: Enjoy it.
[...]"
Facing the inevitable forgetting - the fact that they will be gone forever from each other's memory, they just enjoyed their last moment together.
The reason why I've placed this movie at the number one of its genre (romance) is because what it delivered is love in its true form, no more no less. No shiny romantic scene, no "the 2 of us against the world" situation, no drama with a lot of tears... It's just love, in normal life, of 2 very ordinary person, but brought to us in the most fascinating way! Following the whole erasure process, then seeing them falling for each other again as 2 complete strangers, that's made me realize how strong love can be. Even though all the memories were erased, the emotions, the feelings they'd had for each other are still there, buried deep down in their heart and mind, just waiting for the day they met again to come out...
And at the end, when they both learned about the truth, about all the heartbreaking things they'd done to each other:
"[...]
Joel: I can't see anything that I don't like about you.
Clementine: But you will! But you will. You know, you will think of things. And I'll get bored with you and feel trapped because that's what happens with me.
Joel: ... Okay.
Clementine: ... Okay.
[...]"
Then they laughed and cried, and they're together again.
Yes, that's what love is all about.
Black Mirror: White Christmas (2014)
The most cruel and most typical Black Mirror
Though it's only part of a TV Show (my favorite TV Show so far), with its skillful cinematography, I believe it would also be well fit for the big screen.
Black Mirror - White Christmas is a kind of cinematic piece that will haunt audience's mind for a long time. It pictures a dark and extremely cruel human society through the popularization of some unimaginable technology innovations. Yet, what's frightening is not about these technologies themselves, but about how people use them to deal with their issues as well as how far we can push the boundary of our human ethics. This film has a very complex but solid storyline with twists at right moments to keep audience's eyes attached to the screen. And all those ideas of technology innovation, just WOW! They are so original and astonishing at the same time! For me, they've been the most shocking of the whole series so far. And I must take my hat off to Charlie Brooker for that.
For the next paragraphs, I want to share some of my further thoughts about the 2 main techs that were brought out in the story: Z-Eye and Cookie.
So SPOILERS AHEAD !!!!!
* Z-Eye: In a world where smart-phones are no longer needed, by having a neural implement called Z-Eye, we can cover every functionality of smart-phone without carrying any device. We can make a call only with our ears, take a photo, record a video or even make a live-stream (Eye Link) only with our eyes and ears. It sounds amazing, doesn't it? So Matt uses this feature for his hobby-job as a so-called dating coach, getting live-stream from his customer then giving them tips in-live to get laid. We are talking about this particular service from the movies, but I think it would get a lot of customers if it might one day come to life, given the fact that more and more (young) people are struggling to have a real relationship as they've grown up in a virtual world of social networks. Returning to the story with Matt, everything's been going well with his little hobby, until one time, instead of an usual happy ending with live porn, he's ended up witnessing a homicide through the eyes of the victim! However, what concerns me the most about Z-Eye is not its advance streaming feature, but its blocking feature. It makes me think of social network, like how easy to block some of your facebook friends list. But with Z-Eye, the blocking is no longer limited in the virtual world, it becomes real and heartless. If a person is "Z-Eye-blocked", she/he will only see the blocker as an unclear shape and vice-versa, she/he will no longer talk to nor hear from the blocker, all the sounds they can hear from each other will only be like some radio buzz. Can you imagine being blocked like that from someone you love, someone you really care about? No more arguing, no more talking it out, zero chance for making up, not seeing again her/his face even through pictures that you have of her/him. And don't even think about removing Z-Eye cause it was permanently implemented in your neurone. All of that will definitely drive me insane. So that's why in White Christmas, I truly empathize with Joe Potter's tragic story. I'm not saying that I agree with what he did but at some point, I'm kind of understand all the pains that had been pushing him to commit his crime. Sometime afterward, when I think about this story again and relate it to our present day, what worries me the most, is not "Z-Eye-blocking", but the fact that how many among us would be willing to use this feature for "shutting down" their conflicts. Though hiding is much easier than facing, this should never be the way to treat our close relationships, we should instead take the courage to face them with our open heart, with sincerity. Indeed, that has always been how we build and nurture a true relationship. And even if it hadn't worked out, at least we did give it a try and a decent closure without any regret. On the other hand, an "utter shutting down" of conflict will only do one thing: brutally destroy the relationship. And sometime, some relationship means so much that it can also destroy the person....
* Cookie: In one simple sentence, it's a little device containing the AI which replicate a person consciousness. So if you decided to make a Cookie of yourself, not only it would have all your memories till the moment it was extracted from your brain, it also would have all your hobbies, your dislikes, your fears..., all your feelings. Here you might wonder why on earth we would create such creepy thing. The reason lies in a strategic axis, which has become more and more crucial in every business nowadays: customer experience optimization. Every firm knows that the better they understand their clients, the better they are in improving their customer experience. Then, one beautiful day, some of them might come up with an crazy idea: "What if we could enter our client's mind and learn from there? Cause who knows her/him better than herself/himself.". And that's the inception of Cookie! Now let's imagine a smart house, monitored by your Cookie, that not only can automatically run your "little-supply-chain", but can even provide you the exact service at the exact moment that you need it, by precisely predicting your mood. In White Christmas, that was what Greta ordered for her fancy house. But as a duplicate of human consciousness, Cookie has thoughts and feelings. Therefore, when it was first extracted from a person's brain, believing that it is a real person, it was utterly confused and terrified. That's the part when Matt has built his actual career: making sure that the Cookie will fulfill its "predefined purpose", usually against its free will. It was uneasy watching all the things Matt did to Greta's Cookie - an absolute cruelty! It made me question the most fundamental basis of morality: What makes us Human? Aren't our intellectual capabilities and above all, our consciousness that distinguish us from other animals? Still, we choose to treat that fully conscious creature as lifeless things, like Matt said to justify what he had done to Greta's Cookie: "It wasn't really real, so it wasn't really barbaric. [...] She's only made of code, she's not real. **** her." About the real Greta, she is the embodiment of our society of consumerism. Indeed, how many among us are ready to buy what we desire (of course, within our financial capability), and do not really pay much attention to the details of how it was brought to us? In Greta's case, I don't believe that she would have accepted the service if she had ever been in close contact with her Cookie like Matt did, but she chose to indulge herself in her perfect house rather than to be fully aware of what's behind it.
Like I said at the beginning, this film has a lot of good twists, and the ending part was the biggest. It turned out that the whole conversation between Matt and Joe wasn't "real" at all! As a confession from a Cookie is legally accepted as the same as of the individual it was taken from, Matt was helping the police to make Joe's Cookie confess by using the expertise from his day job, and also trying to get away of his own crime by doing so. We treat Cookie worse than animal, yet we take its words as a human speaking! The movie ends with the endless loop in Joe's Cookie (such a memorable scene!) because our police detectives decided that it had to be punished for the crime that actually had been committed by the real-human Joe. How ironic and inhumane our humanity would become!
Black Mirror (2011)
An utterly astounding, as well as disturbing anthology series, but definitely worth your time
My favorite TV Show of all time. It's a series of science-fiction anthologies focusing on potential ugly outcomes of technology innovation, and many of them are already about to happen. Episodes are standalone with their own original story, but they all share the main theme of how technology might affect us and reveal the hideous side of our soul. Furthermore, their typical dark and ironic tone are so exceptional, it blends in perfectly with the main theme. Besides, the anthology approach was really a great choice because it keeps the audience focused on core concept of the series while enjoying various stories rather than be attached to some recurrent characters in a standard approach. Indeed, the show has never ceased to amaze us, either with unimaginable ideas of technology, or sometime with new plot development regarding similar tech innovations but from very different angles. Like its creator - Charlie Brooker said: "There was a signature tone to the stories, the same dark chocolate coating - but the filling was always a surprise." And all together, that's what has made Black Mirror stand out as an uniquely remarkable picture of our time.
* The series's title was inspired by the cold, shiny screen of a TV, a monitors, a smart-phone... when it's off - technology's "black mirror" that can reflect the darkness of humanity.
* Some of you might decide to abandon the series after watching the 1st episode. That's a terrible mistake! In fact, I consider it as one of the weakest stories of the collection. In my opinion, as it was a pilot, Brooker didn't want to go too deep, therefore the shocking stayed in the shallow but not in the profound. However, don't give up on the show because of it! Otherwise you'll miss some extraordinary gem that'll make you regret.
So far, my 3 favorite stories are: 3rd - "The Entire History of You" (season 1); 2nd - "Black Museum" (season 4); and especially the 2014 Christmas special, "White Christmas", has been my number one ever since.
Captain Marvel (2019)
Regular Marvel's dish
Captain Marvel has what it takes to meet the MCU standards, no more nor less than most other "dishes" Marvel has been feasting us with for over the last decade. Plot with simple typical superhero storyline, decent visual with great CGI that indulges audience's eye and always some good humour at the right moment. So all features have made the MCU brand today, that could be summarized in one word: ENTERTAINING. And yes, Captain Marvel is as highly entertaining as any other MCU product.
That's why I have trouble understanding all the negative user feedback and all the dislikes this movie has gotten, especially from MCU's fan (5.6 on IMDB on its opening day???!!). It's true that it is not as fascinating as The (first) Avengers when we first saw the whole team together on screen, or (the last one) Avengers: Infinity War where we had a bad-ass unstoppable villain who wiped out half of the universe (seriously, we just cannot expect Marvel to do the same 5 times a year!). But giving it 2 or 3/10 and saying this movie has ruined the MCU? That's something I could not agree on, it's obviously not on the same level of disaster as Bay's famous Transformer saga!
As I went to see this movie expecting for something entertaining, in the simplest and plainest meaning of this word, I have nothing to complain about. If you're looking for the same thing for your movies-time, Captain Marvel would not be a bad choice. Otherwise, if you want something more (more story with more "human" superhero, more acting performance, more emotion...), you rather watch Nolan's Batman or more recently, Marvel's superhero series on Netflix (Daredevil and The Punisher are the best!).
P.S: one thing I did agree with the criticism is the invincibility of Captain Marvel. She, for sure, will share the bottom position with Superman in my interesting-superhero-list.
Inception (2010)
A one-of-a-kind mind-blowing masterpiece!
My 3rd time watching this movie! Yet, it still stunned my mind, kept me enjoyed its every moment and left me with many thoughts afterward.
For someone like me, who've rarely slept without dream, it's so exciting watching how Christopher Nolan had illustrated every single characteristic of dream on the big screen. As it's been done so sophisticatedly, I do believe the rumour that Nolan had spent 10 years to finish the script of Inception. In my opinion, it's been so far the greatest achievement in his brilliant writer-director career. I jumped into this conclusion after making a quick benchmark of Nolan's remarkable works:
- Memento, as his first signature in the cinema history, is tremendous and has stayed the most mind-bending film I've ever seen. But overall, it doesn't reach the same level of Inception.
- The Prestige is highly impressive but somehow I haven't been able to find the very particular "Nolan's spirit" in it.
- The Batman Trilogy is the best superhero saga of all time and its peak The Dark Knight is no doubt a masterpiece as well. Nonetheless, every time we talk about it, Heath Ledger takes all the spotlights with his life-time-role: The (unique-and-only) Joker.
- Then there came Inception where Nolan truly stood out, having every single detail of his work done in the finest way. The multi-layered storyline despite its complexity, remains consistent and originally interesting. From visual aspect, everything was masterly handled: an impeccable cross-cutting allowed the movie to follow Nolan's nonlinear story-telling without being scattered; a wonderful cinematography work completed with incredibly imaginative visual-effects brought into life so many breathtaking scenes, some of them, I believe, will stay in the audience's mind for a long time (city bending in Paris, zero-gravity fight, in limbo, dreams collapsing...). In addition, Nolan had also a solid cast ensemble to help him deliver all of his messages.
- Later, we had Interstellar. Though I did admire its cinematography and visual-effects, the film itself is nowhere near the level of Inception.
SPOILERS AHEAD !!!!! For all who haven't watched this movie, you may stop the reading right here because the following paragraphs contain a ton of spoilers!
It is set in the world where there's technology that allows people to literally share dream. There is, in this world, a new kind of corporate spy - "extractors" who use this technology to infiltrate the target's subconscious and extract valuable information through a shared dream world. Our hero Mr Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio), a very well-known extractor, and his partner Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) are approached by a powerful businessman - Mr Saito (Ken Watanabe) for a nearly impossible mission, something no one has ever done before : instead of stealing, he wants them to plant an idea in a person's subconscious, which is also called "inception". In return, Saito offers something that Cobb could never resist: a ticket to go home with his children by taking out the homicide charge against him. So Cobb and Arthur gather a team to carry out the mission: Eames (Tom Hardy) - a veteran identity forger, Yusuf - the only one chemist can make such a powerful sedative for such a complex 3-levels "dream within a dream", and Ariadne (Ellen Page) - a newbie but remarkably talented architect whose role is critical for the success of the mission. The target is Robert Fischer (Cillian Murphy) - son and heir of Saito's biggest competitor (Maurice Fischer, who's dying). The goal is to seed an idea into his mind which will make him abandon his father's business, and the team has to carry Saito as visitor in their mission to let him verify the result of inception. While the team go deeper and deeper into Fischer's mind, we discover gradually the dark of Cobb's past, as well as the 2 biggest why concerning our hero: Why he has became such an expert of inception and What is his desperate motivation for taking that insane mission.
The movie is not only about the inception mission but more importantly, about the struggle of finding the way in the maze of life. In Cobb's case, it's the maze of dreams built by his memories with his past wife Mal (Marion Cotillard) and his regrets. So as long as he let himself consumed by the past by blaming himself for the death of his love wife, it will keep coming back and haunt his present: the deeper the team go into dream, the more dangerous his subconscious, under the form of his ghostly wife, comes out and could anytime jeopardize the mission. Indeed, if we apprehend the movie with these 2 layers of its story, the ending scene makes perfect sense. Yes! We're now talking about that famous ending which has still remained one of the most controversial movie endings in the cinema history. Did Cobb find Mr Saito in limbo, bring he back to complete the mission then come back to his children in the real world? Or they are still stuck in limbo - the infinite dream world, and the last scene was just his big dream? But all of those question only matter in the first layer of the story: the result of inception mission. When we perceive the story in its deeper layer, as a journey for Cobb to let go of his feeling of guilt for the past and re-find the meaning of his life, this ending did fulfill its job. Cobb didn't even stay to see either if the spinning top would fall because he didn't care any more, what's important to him is that he gonna be with his kids. He did finally get rid of his haunting past and be able to move on, and that matters. And after all, dream or reality, the importance is to truly live. So from this point of view, he has solved the maze of his life.
Some short lines about the cast:
- Leo has done justice to our main character but he did not success to make a leap from his previous similar roles in Shutter Island and Blood Diamond.
- Joseph Gordon-Levitt could have been more intense, given the fact that he had the most astounding fight scene in the movie (zero-gravity sequence).
- There was something missing in Ken Watanabe's performance to portray the powerful man who sponsored the crazy mission. Maybe it was his English...
- Tom Hardy was OK but forgettable because his character didn't have any memorable moment though he had a lot of screen time.
- Ellen Page was really impressive, she did fully illustrate the cleverness and the keenness of the young brilliant architect. And personally, I did find a lot of charms in her acting.
- Cillian Murphy has also done a great job. Much more emotionally complex than just a target of the inception mission, his character Robert Fischer, at the end, was not so different than our hero Cobb. They both were struggling to find a way out of their own maze. If for Cobb, it was the painful past with his late wife; for Fischer, it was the grand shadow and the lack of recognition of his late dad.
- Last but not least, the one who impressed me the most was Marion. Mal was so beautiful and mysterious in a very unique haunting way, mostly with her speaking eyes! And for me, she is the most remarkable character of the movie.
Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014)
Brainless "stuff" with some good CGI
The 1st Transformers was not that bad, it did entertain me a lot. But the 2 ones came after kept getting worse. That's why I abandoned this saga years ago.
Recently, on an unoccupied afternoon, I decided to give it another chance with this one and I've regretted ever since! This should-not-be-called-a-film is nothing more than a series of CGI put into a non-sense plot. It's so stupid and illogical that at some point, I just kept fast-forwarding to watch the next CGI robot battle, hoping to finally get some fun out of it. But no, in the end, the only thing that I had was just a headache, and I was so mad with myself for losing my time on this garbage.
And to Box-Office-killer Mr Bay, as he will no doubt continue with his style (and make more and more money...), I really hope that he can give more "brain" into his future products. No offence, cause I, too, am a fan of good CGI, and a just-very-simple plot could be fine in this type of film. But this...
So 3 points for the CGI and 1 for the $1.1B in Box Office (I still haven't understood HOW).
Snowpiercer (2013)
Almost great movie but not convincing enough.
This movie has done a good job to build its own spirit which I do like a lot. Yet, it is still missing something...
Given in the dystopia context where all survivors of mankind have been stuck in a moving train with perpetual engine for 18 years, the main theme is to reflect the entire human social stratification in one small train. From visual aspects, the crew had it delivered successfully. The overall dark tone with high contrast was perfectly set, the decorations of different wagons and the costume designs were exceptional. Therefore the biggest praise must go to the art department.
The main cast were also very solid with their performances. Chris Evans, with his heroic appearance, was the perfect fit for his character. Tilda Swinton was so original (as usual). Song Kang-Ho stood out between the Hollywood stars as a remarkable Korean engineer Minsoo. And not to mention another veteran actors such as Ed Harris (as Wilford) and John Hurt (as Gilliam) who also kept up their reputation even if it feels like they could've done more (I think mostly because the plot doesn't let them to).
The praise must also goes to Bong Joon-Ho for being able to make such an authentic dark Korean action drama with most of the main cast "made in Hollywood". If you really pay attention while watching this movies, you'll find a very typical tone or the set-pieces in some action scenes which are very similar to the legendary "Old Boy" of Park Chan-Wook.
However, despite all of those good points mentioned above, there is still something that has been holding me back from giving it a high note: lack of script development and lots of plot holes. It's true that the illustration of the cruel human social stratification in that one train was very well executed, but all the elements that'd led to this reality weren't solid at all. It's like a magnificent castle built on sand. There were so many questions needed a logical explanation or even more works on script to be more convincing:
(SPOILERS AHEAD!!!!!)
- We could do so many things with a perpetual engine but why it had to be a train ? Even if the initial purpose of the train was not to save the humanity (because if it was, that would make no sense, there are so many other things which could be more useful to save humanity than a train!), even if the train was manufactured in the first place just for Wilford's personal desire, it deserves to have more history/explanations.
- How-on-earth could the rails track have stayed still for 18 years without any maintenance ? Or even if they could by some miracle, given in the volatile context of post-apocalypse, it would've been another big miracle that there had been no earthquake or some little landslide anywhere on the railway.
- Why the perpetual engine needs children to keep running ? Also I think no one's understood what the child had been doing down there in the engine core.
- The motivation of Wilford could've been developed more. He is someone who wants to play God on the humanity. In fact, it was what he'd done in the (his) train. Yet, the last scenes didn't get any close to deliver it.
Before jumping to a conclusion, I have to admit that when it comes to rate movies with a "serious" theme or "great" core idea, I've always tended to be much more difficult than when I rate some "full-entertainment-fast-food" (like Marvel). Indeed, I gave it 7/10 at first, but then I felt so hard for all the great moments this movie has brought to us, that's why my final rate 8/10.
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
The Greatest Epic Trilogy
First of all, The Lord of the Rings (L.O.T.R) trilogy should always be
appreciated as a whole rather than 3 separate movies (despite the fact that each of them, alone, is already a beautiful piece of art). It's also the reason why you will find the exact same post on each movie's topic (10/10 for each and 100/10 for the TRILOGY!).
The series has everything needed to be a masterpiece :
- Great cinematography: thanks to the exceptional common works of Andrew Lesnie and Peter Jackson, we could experience all theses monumental battle scenes throughout the series (in magnificent landscapes of Jackson's native New Zealand). Some of them are the most epic battle scenes ever made!
- Great script: excellent adapted screenplay for the legendary novel of J. R. R. Tolkien.
- Great ensemble cast: in one sentence, they were just perfect for the series. In such a large screenplay, each one has precisely done what is needed to develop their character, not too few nor too much, for the common great goal : the global plot development.
- Great directing: respect to Jackson for putting all those great elements together so that we now could live Tolkien's splendid fantasy world on big screen. The TRILOGY has also engraved Peter Jackson's name on the wall of the Directors hall of fame alongside with Alfred Hitchcock, Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola...
I've been re-watching the whole series from time to time for the last 15 years since the release of The Return of the King, and it's kept me enjoyed every single time! For me, the L.O.T.R is the greatest epic movie of the cinema history and will remain for the next decades. And I have no doubt that many will agree with me on this.
Crazy Rich Asians (2018)
Just some east asian drama in Hollywood
Perhap it's something new in Hollywood but this movie has nothing more than an ordinary east asian drama. In fact it's worse because the cast ensemble were really terrible in their performance.