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Reviews
Shin seiki Evangelion Gekijô-ban: Air/Magokoro wo, kimi ni (1997)
He redid the ending with a bigger budget
This is actually phenomenal. It's a bit confusing at times, I feel like I would have to watch it three times with the intent of writing an essay about it. That being said, the animation is great, the themes fit perfectly in with the rest of the story. It is a more than suitable replacement to the last minute pencil crayon drawings that the original ending consisted of. The opening is pretty ridiculous. I feel like all of the serialization in this series is there to disturb you, and not really arouse you like in other anime, which is refreshing.
The Gentlemen (2019)
As Good As Any Guy Ritchie Film
Let's get it out of the way. The plot here is wildly simple. It is basically a delivery mechanism for the character drama. A rich cannabis grower / distributor wants to get out of the game. He tries to sell his business to a dude. The dude is a dick and tries to secretly devalue his business. A weird reporter guy likes to spy on the mobster guy (and his trusty ultra-violent but dapper af sidekick). He want to use this to blackmail them for a lot of money. This is where the entertainment is. The sidekick guy is a badass. The reporter is witty, and annoying in a very endearing way. The sidekick guy's reaction to the reporter guy's story telling is actually extremely well done. They really do an extremely good job of acting the part of badass witty uk gangsters (as all of Guy Ritchie's characters seem to be). So yeah if you like these movies, you will like this one. It's not the best, it's not the worst, but it is good and bad for the same reasons that all of his movies are good and bad. You will laugh. You will cringe. You will wince. You will feel something and come away with a weird smile on your face, as you always do from a Guy Ritchie film.
Layer Cake (2004)
Selling Ecstasy to Billionaires
Layer cake is an interesting movie. It very much so fits the whole Guy Ritchie shtick. There's a bunch of badass, but surprisingly witty, UK gangsters that are selling various drugs to various crowds of people. That's most of his movies honestly. It works, and it works damn well. The dialog is excellent, the characters are great, even though some are definitely caricatures on occasion (Duke). The plot is just interesting enough to keep you interested throughout the movie. Basically extra sleazy and not very respectable dudes steal some ecstasy pills from a manufacturer in the Netherlands. They bring them to the UK and try to offload them on our lovely hero protagonist. Meanwhile our man (Daniel Craig) is also trying to find the daughter of his boss (or at least occasionally checking in with the dudes he hired to do his job). As you can imagine, the Netherlands guys want their drugs back, and all sorts of other people want the million plus MDMA pills that they have acquired. As with any good Guy Ritchie flick, there are a multitude of plot twists and turns, along with a pretty fantastic scene in a diner involving dumping hot tea on a incapacitated guy's face.
Grizzly Man (2005)
A Guy Loves Nature So Much He Wanted to be a Bear.
This documentary makes me feel torn. Herzog is doing quite a few things here. He is highlighting the type of person Timothy Treadwell (the guy who goes and lives with bears for months at a time) is. He shows that he is meticulous in that he obsesses over getting the right shots over and over. He obsesses over what he says to his camera. He is very emotional. He often breaks down in tears at his perceived beauty of the world around him. He loved the bears, foxes, and just nature in general. He is out there, ostensibly trying to protect the bears, or at least he firmly believes that he is. This is where we go beyond merely exposing this individual's nature. Treadwell was vaguely delusional. He was invading the bear's territory, and it is unclear whether he had any positive impact other than making people excited about bears (which you could totally make the case that this makes it worth it.) He does not protect against poachers. They are in a national park. There are patrols. The bear population is protected. There is no evidence of poaching ever presented.
That being said, Treadwell, in my opinion, has totally developed a unique relationship with these animals. That is where Herzog and I differ. When I look into the eyes of any other animal, I see myself. We just want food and to survive. The only reason we think of anything else is because it is (almost) a given. If we were transported back a million years ago to where the need for food and shelter were more prudent, we would be consumed by solving these problems. That doesn't mean that we no longer care about relationships or whatever. But starve people and they become cannibals. We are no different than the bear. The only difference is the bear is 10x large than us. We are still not free food necessarily, but we are not hard prey for them either. It depends on resources how they view us, but own a dog and you will feel that bonds are real. There is a relationship and I don't buy the whole "bored disinterest and desire for food" philosophy that Herzog presents with respect to nature. I think if you apply this philosophy to nature, you will quickly discover that we are nature, and we behave in all of the same ways that a bear or a lion or a shark behave.
Regardless of my philosophical difference with Herzog, this movie is fantastic. It also must be noted that the events that lead to Treadwell's death were a few key mistakes and over-confidences on his part. He returned to the same site, out of season when he should not have been there. His bear-bros were gone and hibernating. All that were left were vaguely food-impoverished mainland bears that had migrated. They had no relationship and were hungry. They ate him. End of story. He overstayed his welcome in a land now populated with strange and desperate animals. He probably would have made it many more summers if he did what he normally does, and didn't get frustrated at the airport. He became arrogant and foolhardy.
Inside Bill's Brain: Decoding Bill Gates (2019)
You Are Not Bill Gates and Never Will Be.
Aside from informing me of the fascinating philanthropic efforts that bill has undertaken lately, this documentary instilled in me the sense that Bill Gates is never something I could aspire to be. This guy's raw skill for knowledge accrual, retention and comprehension is unmatched. A truly gifted individual. Couple this with a relentless drive and motivation to work, and you get a very successful man. Someone empowered with vast quantities of knowledge with an extreme desire to use it to do something useful is a powerful person indeed. That is bill. And he keeps it up into his old age. He is not the sort to make a fortune and then ride out the rest of life. He derives meaning from his output. I think everyone should aspire to be a bit more _like_ Bill Gates. Everyone would likely be a bit more productive, goal oriented and generally useful. Is that good? Is that the only way to be? Surely not, but as someone who works in a technical profession (software development), it is highly rewarded and incentivized by society.
That aside, the toilet, polio stuff and nuclear reactor are all really cool cutting edge technology. The snippets about Bill's personality are also contextually quite interesting. A sort of summary history of his life. Good stuff.
Primal (2019)
A Surpisingly Hearfelt Reminder of What it is to be Alive.
This show is surprising at every turn. First you get bombarded with the sadness of losing your family in a wild and dangerous land, then we are shown that suicide is still an option in prehistoric times, then we see that to move on is to open yourself to new relationships (with a dinosaur). We see that bonds can transcend species, and that serious relationship problems (my dino keeps eating all of my food) can be worked out. We see the value of loyalty. We then see what it is to become old, and have society move on, leaving you behind (the mammoth). This part actually almost made me cry. We also see the importance of being respectful when killing another animal. Ending it quickly, preventing suffering. We see that as an obligation. We also see what happens when loss strikes twice later, and the lengths we will go to to protect our friends. This show is incredible. I would recommend it to anyone.
Oh Boy (2012)
An Excellent Movie About Feeling Meaningless
This movie follows a vaguely lost Berliner as he spends a day in his city after moving into a new apartment. He has many jarring experiences, is short on money, never seems to have a lighter to smoke cigarettes, and can't quite track down somewhere or something that will provide him with a coffee. We get to see is damages relationship with his father due to lying. We get to see his interaction with a girl he used to bully in highschool for being fat, who had a crush on him. We get to see how he handles the death of a stranger. We get to see a measure of his moral and ethical fiber. It shows that everyone, even pretty good people, are internally tortured and deeply flawed. The average person goes through an immense amount that you don't even realize. This movie directly highlights that.
The scene probably is the one that bothered me the most, was the one with his highs chool bully-ee. She tries to have sex with him, and she asks him to tell her that he wants to "Roly Poly XX (XX being her name that I can't remember)". He of course gets weirded out and ends up offending her. He should have just said "No, I don't want to do that". Our society is chronically bad at communicating desire, or lack of desire. This showcased that in spades, but I guess that was the point.
Chernobyl (2019)
A Phenomenal Retelling of the Chernobyl Story
This is well acted, faithful, and just overall extremely well executed. Nothing breaks the believably that you are reliving this mess. The acting is on point the entire time. It never falters. Event the side characters are shot and written in a way that just lets them succeed at their roles. Also this series is quite educational. It is amazing how close this was to killing more people than WWI / WWII combined. It would have been the biggest man made catastrophe of all time. A lot of brave people willing to destroy their lives for the common good (and communist bullying occasionally) are the only reason that Ukraine is an inhabitable area to this day. If you get the opportunity to watch this, do it.
1917 (2019)
A Fantastic Rendition of WWI In the Veign Of Saving Private Ryan
This film follows a very similar structure, and that is not a bad thing at all. It feels very similar to Saving Private Ryan, sans Omaha Beach. A couple of young lads get asked to do something deathly important... save 1600 men from death (including the one boy's brother). We then watch them traverse the desolate landspace between trenches, navigate an abandoned German trench, go gallivanting across the country side, sneak through a bombed out french town, and float down a river. All while occasionally having a gun fight, interacting with other soldiers, and viewing the infamous wave of infantry "going over" at the sound of a whistle. This movie is fantastic, and my only complaint is the same complaint that I have about most war movies... how is the protagonist not dead? He dodges a good two dozen rifle shots by running in a straight lie away from armed infantry men, takes a bullet to his helmeted head, and nearly drowns to death. He is lucky, sure, but wow. Anyways. Go see this movie. It is fantastic. The best WWI era movie I have ever seen.
The Irishman (2019)
Long, Insightful, Occasionally amazing, Occasionally Boring
The character acting is fantastic, the portrayal of inter-personal relationships with respect to mob bosses and their "middle-management" is impeccable. The portrayal of mob influences on local businesses is great. The portrayal of the Teamsters' Union is really well done. I even learned a thing or two about this era of history. Overall there is an immense amount you could take away from this movie. It's a period piece with a touch of emotion here and there, albeit in the flavour of the gruff masculinity of mob men. It has a softer side, and deals with the concepts of getting old, and specifically how this disarms mean, bad, and violent men. It does drag quite a bit, especially in the beginning. I will say this part is necessary to get you accustomed to the characters, but I may just be waning as far as interest in New York / Las Vegas / New Jersey / Philadelphia mobster movies nowadays. I feel like Goodfellas or The Prestige, or The Godfather ar better watches than this, but this is still an excellent contemporary movie done in the vein of those movies.
Little Women (2019)
A Great Period Piece About Women and Growing Up
First I will say that this movie is kinda about a few things. Firstly it is trying to highlight the struggles of women with what society expected from them around in the 1800s era. Very much so still "Get married and have kids". Clearly people were starting to wake up, as these women's aspirations extend beyond that into creating things. They have life passions, but society keeps stomping in their dreams. It's sad.
The second thing is about the nature of love, and it kind of plays into the first point in a way. You have three sisters in particular. On rejects love in favor of her passion, and lives to regret it. She realizes in her you adulthood that she is lonely and sad as a result of perusing her writing with all of her energy. She even comes to realize that she has compromised on her values as to what she wants out of writing. She ends up settling for her second pick of a relationship (or does she?) as a result of waiting so long to come to this realization. The second sister marries for love. The only issue is her husband is poor. She is a stay at home mom struggling to be fulfilled with what she has. She loves her life, ans would not change it, but she is suffering in a very physical way. The third sister loves the boy who loves the first girl. She becomes tired of failing repeatedly on the road to mastering her craft (painting) and decides that maybe she will get married. She decides "uck it I'll marry for money", but end up marrying the boy she loves, even though she is his second choice. The fourth sister dies of sickness, but was devoted to her art. It's significant because it is symbolism for purity. It's basically saying it is fragile and hard to maintain.
So yeah. A complex movie full of emotion with a lot to say about being you, being a woman, love, loneliness, passion and all of the other ailments of the human affliction. Fantastically done.