Well directed and tightly focused. Cleverly edited; frenetic, tensile and tightly focused. A love story mired within the muck of inhumane malevolence; an inner beauty trying to escape like a tar covered dove struggling to fly. It’s quite lovely in all its sour and unrelenting painfulness
The acting by our two young protagonists is top notch, embellished with it’s tear soaked agony.
There is something lost in translation without the immense and enduring societal pressure of the entrance exams, but the scourge of bullying is universal. This is a message film wrapped around a romance/drama/and mini crime thriller, but its impact on a delicate personal level and as one of import is adroitly felt.
3/16/21 - The White Tiger (2021) - 6/10
A sly story of a driven driver; pushing through the caste barriers of his society and violently claiming what he believes is his destined singular place in the world. A shrewd tale that is well told.
1/23/21 - One Night In Miami... (2020) - 7-/10
Well put together and paced, with an impassioned and empathetic performance from Kingsley Ben-Adir as Malcolm X. It makes for an amusing and captivating civic discourse/friendly camaraderie display with insight & style.
1/9/20 - Pieces of a Woman (2021) - 6+/10
(I lost my ample notes for this one) so…. Obviously, this is Vanessa Kirby’s award consideration worthy effort, and she truly does a stellar job. Delicately broken but resolute in finding her own sense of peace and closure. The film heaps all the focus upon her, nearly ignoring her husband LaBeouf, which was fine in the end.
12/29/20 - Soul (2020) - 6+/10
It’s another good film from Pixar, but I just didn’t find the connection that it needed. Well made, cleverly laid out, and both animated/voice acted superbly...just didn’t do much for me. I could recognize its preeminence but my watch didn’t land.
12/14/20 - Onward (2020) - 6-/5+/10
It felt a bit substandard overall, but it had a soul that adeptly plucked at the heartstrings, even if the song was completely one note. It was light and didn’t make a lasting impression.
11/29/20 - Emma (2020) - 6/10
Its grandstanding color palette, lustrous vibrancy, and enticingly eccentric costuming firmly plant this as a vision of a film, but I must confess that Ms. Austen and her wares are not for me. I appreciated this film for its elements, but at once, found it a bore.
7/24/20 - Da 5 Bloods (2020) - 6-/10
Lee joints have become instances of interest, but I have found his current mode of filmmaking a bit stilted, over-eager, and replicating. I just don’t feel the vibrancy or passion that filled the frame of his earlier work. His political rhetoric is still present, but it is bolded and capitalized now. This was a film that needed to wear everything it has right on its dust jacket, but sometimes the fun is in opening the book and reading the details of the story.
An interesting anti-Irishman. Makes it feel more like actual memories, not lies.
Informed and playing off of old Nam war films, like Apocalypse Now and Platoon, while combining it with Treasure of the Sierra Madre & something geriatric (like Grumpy Old Men or Unforgiven). But such nostalgia was worn like an unneeded stinking badge on its chest.
The soliloquy directly into the camera is what Lindo deserves as an actor, but it isn’t compelling. He steals the show, but that moment like much of this film, just poked at the audience instead of judiciously caressing the imagination.