Too casual philosophy and too-formal blogging
Dir. Peter Howitt, Cin. Remi Adefarasin; in English; 99 minutes. Gwyneth Paltrow gets double billing in this very dated movie about fate and human nature, which adds a sense of depth and loss to an otherwise-forgettable 90s romantic comedy. In a charming flirtation with determinism, the film has her fall in love with the same man … Continue reading Sliding Doors (1998)
Dir. Yorgos Lanthimos; Cin. Thimos Bakatakis; in English; 121 minutes. Like a chair with a tack built into its seat: powerfully commands audiovisual style to create slick and disturbing montage that, upon examination, comprises of just that: shallow, hypnotic, and dark, the shore of a glass-laced black-sand beach. I would have preferred if form—er, style—followed function, … Continue reading The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017)
Dir. Sofia Coppola, Cin. Edward Lachman; in English; 97 minutes. A meditation on the male gaze and nostalgia and the psychological distance of boys and girls in late 20th-century suburban white America, beautifully shot and scored. Well done for a debut, though I was not sure how much, if not all, of the movie was … Continue reading The Virgin Suicides (1998)
Dir. Akira Kurosawa, Cin. Kazuo Miyagawa; in Japanese; 88 minutes. Short, bitter, kaleidoscopic, circuitous, yet to the point. On my third viewing, I can't say much about this you don't already know: the incredible melodrama only believable in stories of days long past; the masterfully symbolic use of lighting; the aggressive theme; the fact that, at … Continue reading Rashomon (1950)
Dir. Jane Campion, Cin. Stuart Dryburgh; in English; 144 minutes. Lush, painful, ambiguous, inventive, deeply committed to injecting a contemporary reading on a story over a century old, and as emotionally compelling and psychologically complex as all those James novels I'll never get around to reading. (Unless The Turn of the Screw counts—life is short; the … Continue reading The Portrait of a Lady (1996)
Dir. Tony Stone, Cin. Nathan Corbin; in English; 91 minutes. A sort of memoir about a man so hell-bent on an existential quest to find or make meaning through his project of running an organic farm that he seems to take his isolation and alcoholism amid natural beauty as proof of his martyrdom, rather than … Continue reading Peter and the Farm (2016)
Dir. Jay Roach, Cin. Peter Demig; in English; 89 minutes. Stale humor reliant more on raunchiness exemplified by naive simplifications of the 1960s as judged against 1990s sensibilities. Much like Vanessa Kensington, I found myself at times charmed enough to play along, though our reactions diverged before long: I did not fall in love.
Dir. Evans Chan; in English and Cantonese; 102 minutes. A dramatic and vivid picture of the realities and complexities of anxiety, both personal and political, clarified as only fiction can. Valuable, too, as a personal and full-throated piece of HK history that puts a middle-class view of the Handover front and center. As a film, … Continue reading To Liv(e) (1992)
Dir. Wes Anderson, Cin. Robert Yeoman; in English; 109 minutes. Kitschy, cutesy, full of corners and muted pastels, daddy-issues, and whip-pans, this Wes Anderson picaresque contemplates forgiveness in a quirky and not altogether unsatisfying way. The distinctive style made empathizing with the characters hard at times: much of the drama felt so stilted as to … Continue reading The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)
Dir. James McTeigue, Cin. Adrian Biddle; in English; 132 minutes. Moore protested that the film supplanted his 90s-flavored anarchism-versus-fascism political caper with a sanitized debacle between "American liberalism" and "American neo-conservatism." More apposite, the film pits V as a generic left-liberal freedom-fighter-turned-radical battling a fascist state. This swap results in a feel-good action movie that … Continue reading V for Vendetta (2005)
Not Opinionated Enough 