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katshapiro
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Reviews
Knock Down the House (2019)
Felt like a long political ad
Watching this from outside the US, it strikes me as so odd how few women and working-class people get to participate in US politics. That's not the case at all where I'm from. Further, it bothers me how political actors in the US keep referring to their ethnic backgrounds to rally support. It seems like such a conservative way of viewing the world: you are, to a large extent, your ancestry.
Anyway, I personally find AOC to be very likeable and charismatic, but if I didn't know her from before watching this docu, I wouldn't have left it knowing much more about her. So my issue isn't even so much with the one-sided politics of this film, as the lack of narrative and informativeness. Watching someone chant slogans or attack their opponents on air doesn't make for an interesting political exploration, it's just that much more marketing.
Always Be My Maybe (2019)
Warm, smart and uplifting
Finally, a romantic comedy that isn't unwatchable (sorry), because it's genuinely funny and believable. The actors have great chemistry, there's a warm sense of being with old friends, the jokes are never forced and it's just a fun, relatable, cute movie. I recommend it for everyone who likes the idea of rom-coms, but struggles to find one that isn't sappy and materialistic. This one's a gem.
La vie d'Adèle (2013)
Intensely uncomfortable male gaze
I wanted to like this film. Coming-of-age is my wheelhouse. I enjoy watching young people bristle against the hypocrisies of the adult world. Feel the agony and ecstasy of first love. There is a wistfulness about young adulthood that I find deeply moving, on screen and in literature. And the actors did a great job here.
Having said that, this movie was about as deep as a teacup saucer. Who is Adele, our main character? We are told, in throwaway lines, that she likes all music except metal, and that she enjoys American cinema: "All the directors. Scorcese, Kubrick..." This information is not relevant to the story, and is never referenced again. She wants to be a teacher, and her parents are very square. This is also irrelevant: she does not display any teacher-esque character traits, and her parents are never mentioned again after the one dinner scene. Adele likes literature. A laughably predictable plot device: she likes to read tragic love stories. She is mostly silent throughout the movie. To the point that her lover tries to emotionally manipulate her into being more interesting.
Speaking of her lover, what do we know about Emma? She likes Gustav Klimt, and snipes at anyone who calls him decorative. She is a cliche of an art student on film: overconfident, quotes famous philosophers, while painting very mediocre works inspired by whichever lover she has at the time. She is also inexplicably successful. She is also living an inexplicably wholesome suburban lifestyle.
It doesn't matter who they are as people, though. Why their conversation is so stinted. Or why they are so irresistibly attracted to each other. It doesn't matter that the sex they're having is wildly unrealistic. While being shot so clinically.
What matters is that Adele is taking a shower and the camera slides all along her arched back and butt. That Adele is walking to the bus and the camera slides all along her butt. Adele is dancing and the camera is followin her hips. Adele is washing dishes and the camera slides along her butt. Adele is swimming, eating spaghetti, looking at her lover, teaching, reading in school, and contributing nothing in conversation, all with the same look of wistful vacancy and parted full lips.
Crazy Rich Asians (2018)
Boring corporate-sponsored tripe
Pros: Michelle Yeoh is in it.
Cons: Shallow, unoriginal film with an embarrassingly obvious promotion of Singapore as a tourist destination, embarrassing brand marketing, one-dimensional characters, predictable rom-com cliches, soulless attempts at humour, and insulting cultural stereotypes. Need I go on? Don't watch it, or at least, don't pay for it.
Jackie (2016)
Sadly, soulless
One of my favourite things about watching 60s-era Jacqueline Kennedy giving a tour of the White House, is that the audience is being addressed respectfully. Mrs. Kennedy comes off as an intelligent, thinking human being who warmly expresses her interest in the things she is describing. Watching her speak, I return the warmth and respect.
Natalie Portman manages to parrot Mrs. Kennedy's accent, but conveys little of the intelligence and sophistication. The script, moreover, seems to require one to think Mrs. Kennedy a cold, manipulative narcissist of a woman. Her outbursts throughout the movie are juvenile. She wishes she had become a stenographer, and had married a "lazy, ugly man" - apparently because ordinary folks with ordinary jobs are beneath the Kennedys, and never feel grief or pain?
Ms. Portman's character is sly, and reveals that everything she says and does is duplicitous. She evidently has no personality, and neither do any of the supporting characters. They are mere filler, as the camera is otherwise glued to Ms. Portman's face through the five stages of grief: shock, crying, smoking, lying, and self-righteousness.
There was no reason for this story to be re-told in this flaccid way. It is a shallowly written melodrama, bleak and lifeless, at worst exploiting a real tragedy involving real people for a bit of speculative celebrity gossip.
The two stars is for John Hurt's talent - and the soundtrack, which was well done and added some interest.
Paterson (2016)
Interesting premise
Paterson is about the double lives people lead, where art and poetry are bubbling up from underneath the surface of daily routine. Some of the characters corageously (even foolishly, in the case of the actor) wear their art on their sleeve, while others just process it and largely keep it to themselves. In the end, though, it's inescapable: "Poetry is everywhere, it just needs editing".
The premise is an interesting one, and is rarely explored in any recent cinema. Yet, the dialogue in the movie felt very forced and awkward at times, clearly meant to add style but not substance. The slow pace would have worked if there were fewer "distractions" in the form of stylized humour, and more layers of meaning and intent.
Christmas Inheritance (2017)
Pain
I went into this hoping for some cotton-candy brain cleanser after a long day at work. Which means my expectations were already nearing rock bottom. And yet still, somehow, I'm disappointed.
First off, actors Eliza Taylor, Neil Crone, and Michael Xavier all did a good job. And that's the only positive thing I can say here.
Because the plot is that a rich girl cheats on her loving fiance with a grown-up toddler in overalls, whose deeply unimpressive hobbies involve drawing 3rd grade level pictures of Santa Claus and punching jukeboxes.
Her fiance, meanwhile, takes this all with a surprisingly level head, even when she unceremoniously dumps him on Christmas eve.
The take-away is that baking cookies is better for the soul than having wealth and being an adult, which is sufficiently Christmas-y, but still a complete dumpster fire of a movie. Enjoy it after a few too many eggnogs, or better yet, don't.