a 40s crime thriller thats neither that engaging or joyfull to watch. to be fair, its not the negative worldview thats bad, its just that i don't really get anything substantial or that much from this story but like almost every old noir flick, its stylish with its light and its black and white cinematography.
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A fun oddysey throught Chinese desserts with a great cast that is very smaltzy and makes it all feel giant in emotion.
Its cool to see yuen woo-ping, in his 80s to make such a sprawling epic where morality is questionable all around but where there are clear heroes, goals and villains.
It harkens back to the classic action films China used to make and what its trying to get back to and for a glimpse, woo-ping gets it because he comes from that era. His roots in Hong Kong action films like he did with Jackie chan allows him now to build on that and create some great fight choreography. These characters are all played with 100% seriousness and sentimentality which creates an emotional connection for me because everyone in this knows what type of film it is but never downplays what it is.(Watch my films
The grievance of the day: https://boxd.it/eClxUn
Summer walk: https://boxd.it/ewa1db )
boots riley is an interesting fellow.
its wacky nature and humor is funny and leads to some wonderful gags.
its thematic strings are rooted in sweatshop workers, material stolen from cultures and how the media and big companies ultimately are oblivious or ignore that and villanize people like boosters in this film.now, not every character is fully a person but they all have good chemistry with eachother. i am a bit dissapointed by the way the first two halfs look, the film obviously is full of color but the color GRADING is a just a hint away from letting the colors actually pop. despite that, the film has some beautifull imagery, stop motion and visuall effects.
uncompelling and i applaus it for not looking like total shit but it also never really does anything interesting. i would rather take this then new franchise slop for kids but i expected way more.
i mean, i didn't have high hopes, fuck no but the way some of my friends talked about it, it was like this movie was really good and ultimately it just ended up being very formuliac, unfunny and not charming at all.
(watch my films
the grievance of the day: https://boxd.it/eD8Suj
summer walk: https://boxd.it/ewenRP )
a slow burn despite it revolving around a bullet train but generally, its characters are fleshed out enough or have established moralities that clash to make it work. its an entertaining film and while i wouldn't call it anything special, it works.
i like its camerawork and editing, i like a few of the dutch angles they through in but it be lying if its pacing ultimately drags due to the fact that while its character are entertaining enough....this shouldn't be nowhere near the length it with the level of substance it has.
this is one of many things that lead to dandadan.(watch my films
the grievance of the day: https://boxd.it/eD8Suj
summer walk: https://boxd.it/ewenRP )
a lot better then bi gan's previous outing where love and hatred are fluid, a man seeks for the woman he can't forget.
impeccable sound design and generally the world bi gan creates is better made then his first feature. i generally think kaili blues has pretty good cinematography but its world always felt very loose in the sense that it sometimes didn't felt cohesive. he later used that as an advantaged in resurrection but here it generally feels like a cohesive world that makes sense in its own terms.
i really like how the world ingeneral has a sense of mondanity despite its characters being heavily steered in multiple directions due to love. love is by technicality, ordinary but it also doesn't play by the rules of conformaty and is different to everyone else but its stuck in this regular world and thats what the film feels like.
(watch my films
the grievance of the day: https://boxd.it/eD8Suj
summer walk: https://boxd.it/ewenRP )
Disconnect between generations both in aesthetic but also due to the political shift in China and I really like how it portrays both old and new as something to be looked at through equal eyes, I generally didn't feel a sense of downplay here.
With new generations, there is always something thats gonna be left behind whether it be values, traditions and what not. and in combination with the political shift during those times, its understandable why that especially happened around that time but to an extend its universal. I found its non linear narrative exciting and it reminded me a lot of dodes'ka-den in that it takes its time with cutting and generally let's the actors naturally take form in the time the film sets in with its long takes and static movement.
It sucks that this guy, the director, has fallen to ai because this is an achievement for a second feature.(Watch my films
The grievance of the day: https://boxd.it/eD8Suj
Summer walk: https://boxd.it/ewenRP )
my favorite thing about dodes'ka-den is that no matter the material look of everybody, they are still poor. its a film that may not have an answer to poverty but it does have answers as a way to combat it and thats human connections and imagination.
most of its characters are all connected through these two things and i find the former interesting because we all wanna be aproachable and look "normal" and some inherentely don't care but even tho i wouldn't say that movies concerned with poverty aren't doing this, they just rarely do anything interesting with it because its mostly just the same shtick of poor people dress with clothes covered in filth.
each and every one of these individuals have unique sense of material identities and if not then they are either friends or part of a group in the story so its simple costume design but very, VERY effective.
the camera and shots are drawn out with minimal cutting which makes everything slow and to an extend that cannot work with the indiviuals stories but to be fair, it also helps to melt inside of the collective misery.(watch my films:
the grievance of the day: https://boxd.it/eD8Suj
summer walk: https://boxd.it/ewenRP )
Doesn't help with the running joke in my group chat that I dislike female lead films.
as close as a cinematic hulk has come to perfection.
the cinematic journey of bruce banner/hulk has been rocky with this starting it all and largely i found this charming but also sad to watch considering im gonna think about how hulk will never get such a good film and character like this again.
if anything, smart hulk is not the problem considering even classic "savage" hulk has shown in comics to be intelligent in multiple ways. its just that smart hulk is never used in benefit of the character. the film displays a pretty good dynamic between bruce and his father, it also suprisingly contains some of his regular quirks like using other names and ultimately going on the run. also the action is great.
a film that.....i don't know how to describe because it reminds me of the last year. im gonna be very honest, i always try to be because honesty is what film deserve imo considering film is such a large piece of my puzzle.
while i never gotten close to the same horrors as these girls did and i was never forced into this life due to financial gain, the sexual exploitation feels weirdly disturbing to me because i experienced it due to myself and myself alone. i had sex, yes and maybe i shouldn't state this directly on the internet where everything is public but what is private anymore? but i had sex with probably someone in their 50s, two men to be exact. i searched them up, i did because of a reason i don't fully know to this day but would that help?
i was and still am trying to be seen, feel like an actual women instead of cosplay and that has lead me to something disturbing. i wish i never did that because it still haunts me, i feel and think like this is all my own doing. i could sit here and say "what had gotten me in my head" as earnestly and self hating as possible but the thing is, i go to these sex websites to maybe seek validation, to experience human touch on the naked body because i don't know any better. i told them i was 18 and i have to live with that fact and i qeustion if thats really the person i am or not. i don't want that because a lot of trans women are forced into sex work and i don't wanna experience that but if i continue to seek it out myself then i have no else to blame but myself and myself alone.
if anything, this and so many other things fuel my self hatred.self pitty is not an option. this is somewhat different to what happened in this film but i nonetheless am drawn to it with an experience of similaire kind. its digital cinematography is gorgeous even if a little weird in editing. it always feels like a film with bulging eyes looking at every inch of the body of these girls. wether you think thats weird because a man directed it is up to you and neither do i blame you.
a movie that understand love, war and....dangerous catastrophes are all memories. like ww2, pearl harbor, the hiroshima bombing and many mother.
an anthology thats strikingly thematically connected between all its stories with beautifull animation to boot. i do wish the third segment was a bit longer tho because automatically, i do find a futuristic world that still lingers on off memories of old war times while having a hitler caricature is interesting.
(watch my films
the grievance of the day: https://boxd.it/eD8Suj
summer walk: https://boxd.it/ewenRP )
