Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988) ☆1/2(1.5/4): Such a bloody boring bad place this hell is…

Posted on August 15, 2026 by kaist455

Tony Randel’s 1988 film “Hellbound: Hellraiser II”, a sequel to Clive Barker’s “Hellraiser” (1987), is a bloody boring mess I observed from the distance without much care or attention. Sure, there are a number of well-made moments intended to disgust or horrify you, but they are not held together by any sense of direction, and we are only left with unpleasant impressions instead of being really scared at all.

The story starts at the point not long after what happened at the end of the previous film. Quite shocked and traumatized by her father’s death caused by her evil stepmother, Kirsty Cotton (Ashley Laurence) is sent to some big mental hospital, and, not so surprisingly, nobody believes her incredible story about that mysterious puzzle box and those gruesome entities of hell or whatever.

Well, one person is actually quite interested in her case, and that person in question is none other than Dr. Philip Channard (Kenneth Cranham), who is the head of that mental hospital. On the surface, he seems to care a lot about Kirsty’s traumatized status, but then it turns out that he has been obsessed with that puzzle box and what exists beyond the gate to hell.

Needless to say, Dr. Channard is ready to do anything for getting his answer. First, he manages to bring back Kirsty’s stepmother Julia (Claire Higgins) from hell, and that is the beginning of many bloody and unpleasant moments to repulse you a lot. At one point, he lets a very disturbed mental patient of his mutilate himself with a razor blade, and you will wince more when something horrible suddenly appears and then sucks all the blood from that poor dude.

And there is Tiffany (Imogen Boorman), a young mute female mental patient whose special talent on solving puzzles certainly comes handy for Dr. Channard. In my humble opinion, solving that mysterious puzzle is not exactly rocket science, but Dr. Channard needs Tiffany anyway because he is going to observe whatever may happen once the puzzle box is solved by this poor unfortunate girl.

Around that narrative point, the movie expectedly pulls all the stops just for more shock and disgust. We see how Dr. Channard provides more blood for restoring the body of Julia, who initially looks as bloody and sticky as her brother-in-law/former lover Frank (Sean Chapman) did in the previous film. And then we are surely served with a highlight moment when the gate to hell is eventually opened in front of Tiffany and several other main characters.

However, what exists beyond the gate to hell is not particularly scary or interesting or imaginative to me. The main characters of the movie just walk or run along the dark, drab, and endless corridors of hell, while occasionally coming across some disturbing stuffs such as a nightmarish hall of mirror filled with dark memories and traumas. In addition, it seems that there is nobody else in this boringly bad place except those horrific entities of hell who previously appeared in “Hellraiser”.

Oh, yes, they are ready to play again with Kirsty. She must confront them again for finding where her father is in this dreadful place, but the movie is so busy with doling out one terrible moment another that it eventually seems to forget the purpose of her visit to hell around its last act, which is already quite jumbled even before Dr. Channard is transformed into a mighty evil entity ready to unleash more chaos and mayhem to the situation.

And the movie also miserably fails when it tries to bring some human backstory to those horrific entities of hell. There is a rather embarrassing scene where Kirsty clumsily attempts to remind them of whoever they once were a long time ago, and this is thankfully cut short by the expected appearance of Dr. Channard. He is now under the control of the powerful lord of hell via a sticky appendage which looks a bit like a certain male body part, and he also brings a bit of twisted amusement as occasionally throwing deranged one-liners (His first line after his full transformation: “The doctor… is in.”)

While not so impressed at all during my viewing, I appreciated a few enjoyable stuffs in the movie at least. While Claire Higgins gladly chews many of her diabolical moments along the story, Kenneth Cranham brings some cool detachment to his character’s fiendish side, and he surely has some naughty fun during the last act of the film. Composer Christopher Young, whose career got boosted a lot by his considerable achievement in the previous film, willingly goes for something grander and louder, and the movie can be regarded as a sort of music video for his undeniably epic score.

In conclusion, “Hellbound: Hellraiser II” is an inferior sequel which simply gives us more blood and gore without any real emotional engagement or impact for us. As reflected by its very last scene, the movie was followed by another sequel which was then followed by several more sequels, and they only brought down the franchise more and more. In fact, the 2022 remake film is relatively better compared to them, and you will have a bit more productive time if you watch it instead of wasting your time on these forgettable sequels. No, I do not mind watching a lot of blood or gore, but the movie does not have much personality or style for that, and it only reminds me of how tedious hell can be. Now that is a really dreadful possibility, isn’t it?

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Hellraiser (1987) ☆☆(2/4): It didn’t tear my soul apart at all

Posted on August 15, 2026 by kaist455

Clive Barker’s 1987 film “Hellraiser” did not tear my soul at all when I watched it for the first time via an old VHS copy in 1996. When I saw its promotional poster before that, it looked so scary to me that I even had some nightmares involved with those grotesque figures in that film, but, alas, the movie turned out to be not as scary as I imagined during that time.

The story opens with a sadomasochist dude named Frank Cotton (Sean Chapman) buying a mysterious puzzle box in some middle Eastern country. After that, we see him attempting to solve this puzzle box alone by himself at a house belonging to his family, and, what do you know, solving it turns out to be much easier than handling Rubik’s cube.

Frank was promised that he would experience pleasure to the extreme degree once he solved the puzzle box, but, of course, he gets far more than he wished for. The gate of hell or whatever is opened, and then there come several gruesome entities who give him an extreme amount of not only pleasure but also pain via their own sadomasochistic way.

Some time later, Frank’s brother Larry (Andrew Robinson) and his wife Julia (Clare Higgins) move into the house. When she and her husband find that Frank was there at least for a while, Julia cannot help but become haunted by what happened between her and Frank not long before she married Larry. It is apparent to us that there is not much love between her and husband, and that makes her miss Frank all the more than before.

Of course, she gets her wish – sort of. Not long after her husband gets seriously injured in one of his hands and then bleeds a bit on the floor of a big empty attic room where Frank solved that puzzle box, Frank returns from hell as partially regenerating his body during the stickiest moment in the film. After finally reuniting with Julia later, he demands that she should get more blood for completing his regeneration, and Julia eventually agrees to help her lover.

What follows next is supposed to scare or horrify us, but the movie presents that without much tension or suspense at all, while just serving us more goriness from Juila and Frank’s morbidly bloody love affair. She lures those several lustful guys into the house one by one, and their blood comes to nourish and then strengthen Frank more, though he still mostly looks like a walking human anatomy textbook picture.

While all these and other things happen, Larry, who is usually absent to whatever he does outside the house, remains quite obtuse as merely wondering about what is wrong with his wife – even after when Frank is right behind him while he is having a rather joyless sex with Julia during one dark and stormy night. Eventually, he confides his ongoing issue to Kirsty (Ashley Laurence), the daughter from his previous marriage, and it does not take much time for Kirsty to find what her stepmother has been doing behind her back.

Around that narrative point, those horrible entities of Hell appear again as expected, but the movie does not have much shock or surprise or depth for us – even during a deranged moment when Julia and Frank decide to go further in the name of love and lust. Besides, we never get much understanding on what drives Julia so much into such gory madness, and that is why we come to observe the eventual finale without much care or fear for anyone in the story.

The movie is based on Barker’s novella “The Hellbound Heart”, and, needless to say, the novella is more effective in engaging and then scaring us in my humble opinion. Thanks to Barker’s good writing, we get more engaged in the unspeakable horror surrounding its several main characters along the story, and I particularly remember when one of them desperately tries to save herself from those horrible entities of hell during its climatic part.

In contrast, Barker stumbles more than once as struggling to deliver shock and awe on the screen. The climactic part of the movie feels curiously static, shabby, and sloppy even during its most horrific and unpleasant moments, and those horrible entities of hell, led by a figure later nicknamed “Pinhead”, sometimes feel like the masked killers in those cheap slasher films during the 1980s. Sure, they do have a bit more style and personality in their extremely sadomasochistic appearance, but do they actually add up much to the story and characters? I don’t think so.

At least, the movie is not a total dud thanks to a few good things to stand out. Claire Higgins is convincing in several disturbing scenes where her character lets herself go down into more evil and madness, and it is a shame that Barker’s screenplay does not flesh out her character more. In case of the unforgettable gothic score by Christopher Young, it was a major breakthrough work in his career filled with a lot of notable horror films ranging from “A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge” to “Drag Me to Hell” (2009), and I must tell you that I often listen to his score despite not liking the movie itself much.

Overall, “Hellraiser” still does not impress me a lot, but I also have to recognize that it remains as one of the notable horror films from the 1980s. Yes, its status has been tarnished to some degree by a bunch of unnecessary sequels, but its gruesome qualities are something you cannot easily forget, regardless of whether you like it or not.

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Kiss of the Spider Woman (2025) ☆☆☆(3/4): Two different prisoners between desperation and fantasy

Posted on August 12, 2026 by kaist455

Bill Condon’s 2025 musical film “Kiss of the Spider Woman”, which went straight to streaming in South Korea, is about two very different but equally desperate prisoners whose reality swings back and forth between desperation and fantasy. As they begin to open themselves more to each other along the story, they also come to hold more onto their shared fantasy, which eventually leads them to sort of salvation for both of them.

Like recent musical film “The Color Purple” (2023), the movie has a rather complicated background history. It is based on John Kander and Fred Ebb’s acclaimed Broadway musical of the same name, which is based on the novel of the same name by Argentine writer Manuel Puig. Incidentally, Puig’s novel was already adapted into Brazilian filmmaker Héctor Babenco’s 1985 film of the same name, which won a Best Actor Oscar for William Hurt besides being nominated for Best Picture and Best Director Oscar (Sidenote: It was the same year when “The Color Purple” (1985), which is the predecessor to the 2023 film, came out and then garnered 11 Oscar nominations).

I am not so familiar with Kander and Ebb’s Broadway musical (I only watched “Chicago” (2002), by the way), but I can tell you instead that director/writer Bill Condon, who wrote the adapted screenplay for “Chicago”, makes a fairly solid musical film. Like “Chicago”, the movie frequently alternates between reality and fantasy, and this can be a bit distracting at times, but it mostly succeeds in holding our attention thanks to Condon’s competent direction and the strong performances from its three lead performers.

At the beginning, the movie, which is set in Argentina, 1983, introduces us to Luis Molina (Tonatiuh), a young gay window dresser who got convicted due to his homosexuality and has spent several years in some big prison. We see him being sent to a section mainly for political dissidents, and we soon meet his new cellmate Valentín Arregui Paz (Diego Luna), who does not welcome Luis much right from their first encounter just because of his homosexuality.

However, mainly because there is nothing else he can do as tediously waiting for whatever may happen to him next during his seemingly endless incarceration, Valentín gradually befriends Luis as time goes by, and Luis gladly talks a lot about not only himself but also his favorite movie. It is some old musical film he often watched when he was young, and he is a huge fan of its beautiful lead actress Ingrid Luna (Jennifer Lopez). As your typical romantic, he sees a lot of himself from the heroine played by Luna, and he certainly describes her romantic musical drama with considerable enthusiasm.

As a guy far less apolitical than Luis, Valentín cannot help but become sarcastic or critical about the movie, but, what do you know, he slowly finds himself more engaged in Luis’s vivid description of that old musical film. In fact, he and Luis soon become the two male characters surrounding Luna’s heroine, and their shared fantasy brings some levity to their grim life condition at present.

Nevertheless, they are also often reminded of how things can be cruel and harsh to them in prison. Valentín must be always careful for his possible survival, and he still cannot open himself fully to Luis because that can endanger not only himself but also Luis. In case of Luis, it turns out early in the story that he was forced to become an informer by the prison warden, and the situation certainly becomes all the trickier for him as he finds himself more attached to Valentín in addition to getting to know him more. 

While their despair and anxiety are increased more and more, both Luis and Valentín are more absorbed in Luis’s movie story, and the movie serves us several nice musical scenes as expected. While making a striking contrast with the two heroes’ gloomy reality, the musical scenes in the film come to resonate more with their complex relationship drama, and there is some real poignancy from when both of them make each own important choice during the last act.

The two lead actors are certainly crucial for the emotional ground of the film. As Diego Luna steadily holds the ground as required, Tonatiuh, a newcomer who previously played a substantial supporting characters in “Carry-On” (2024), goes up and down along his character’s dramatic arc as demanded, and his natural chemistry with his co-star is one of the reasons why the movie works well in both of its reality and fantasy parts. They smoothly slip into the musical scenes in the film whenever that is necessary, and they and Jennifer Lopez, who incidentally gives her best performance since her commanding supporting turn in “Hustlers” (2019) here in this film, are compelling as their musical movie characters come to form a complex triangle among them. While Lopez surely has a couple of showstopper moments as exuding her undeniable star quality, Luna and Tonatiuh also have each own moment to shine, and Tonatiuh is quite terrific as his character delivers the grand finale of the story. 

On the whole, “Kiss of the Spider Woman” does not reach the achievement level of its 1985 predecessor, but it is engaging for several good musical moments to be savored as well as the commendable efforts from its three lead performers. I admire it rather than being enthusiastic about it, but I had a fair share of entertainment and poignancy, and I guess that is enough for recommendation.

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Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): Between two different prisoners

Posted on August 10, 2026 by kaist455

Brazilian filmmaker Héctor Babenco’s 1985 film “Kiss of the Spider Woman” is a hauntingly complex prison drama between two very different figures. Although there are not many common things between them, they cannot help but connect more with each other under their grim life condition, and then the movie becomes all the more compelling when their developing relationship turns out to be more complicated later in the story.

The story is mainly set inside a stuffy prison cell shared by Luis Molina (William Hurt) and Valentine Arregui (Raul Julia). While Valentine is a journalist imprisoned for his left-wing political activity, Luis is a flamboyant gay dude who happens to share his prison cell with Valentine, and the movie opens with Luis describing to Valentine about some old Nazi German propaganda film he watched some years ago. While he does not like Luis that much, Valentine listens to Luis’s story anyway, just because that makes his seemingly endless time in the prison a bit less boring.  

Even though he knows that old Nazi German propaganda film is an inherently bad flick, Luis has been mesmerized by the love story inside it, and he really wants to share with Valentine for showing more of his sensitive side. It is about a beautiful French entertainer who feels quite conflicted about her loyalty to her country and her love toward a high-ranking Nazi German officer, and Luis is particularly touched by how the heroine eventually follows her heart to the end. 

While he throws some sardonic comments on the movie story presented by Luis, Valentine gradually opens himself a bit more to Luis, and the story becomes more interesting as his personal story resonates with Luis’s personal story as well as that movie story described by him. Under the dictatorship of their mostly unspecified South American society, both of them struggled in one way or another, and they also had to choose between love and integrity not long before they got imprisoned. 

Around the narrative point where the relationship between Luis and Valentine becomes more solidified, we come to learn that there is something Luis did not reveal to Valentine from the beginning. This certainly adds some tension to their ongoing drama, but the screenplay by Leonard Schrader, which is based on the 1976 novel of the same name by Argentine writer Manuel Puig, takes its time as usual for more character development. While there is still some distance between its two main characters, we come to sense more of human connection developed between them, and that makes their ongoing drama all the more intriguing and poignant than before. 

The movie was incidentally the first English language film by Babenco, who rose to considerable prominence thanks to the critical success of his previous film “Pixote” (1980) at that time. After the critical considerable success of “Kiss of the Spider Woman” (The movie garnered four Oscar nominations including the ones for Best Picture and Best Director, by the way), he made “Ironweed” (1987) in US, but he eventually went back to his home ground and then made several notable films including “Carandiru” (2003).

 Besides making a fairly smooth transition to English language movie, Babenco also did a commendable job of generating a striking contrast between gritty realism and beguiling romanticism. The more the movie focuses on its two main characters’ relationship, the more we get immersed into their grim life condition from which both of them desperately want to escape. Luis’s movie story, which is often shown to us in soft sepia tone, comes to function more as an emotional relief for both Luis and Valentine, and we are not so surprised when they come to share a lot more between them than expected.

The movie is constantly supported by the powerful performances from its two different lead actors. Although he may look a bit awkward in the South American background, William Hurt, who won the Best Actor award at the Cannes Film Festival and then a Best Actor Oscar for this film, subtly brings human nuances to his seemingly theatrical character, and he also deftly illustrates his character’s inner conflict along the story without overplaying that at all. On the opposite, Raul Julia, whom I have always fondly remembered for his enthusiastic comic performance in Barry Sonnenfeld’s “The Addams Family” (1991) and its 1993 sequel, steadily holds the ground for his co-star with considerable intensity and gravitas, and he and Hurt never make any misstep as their characters pull or push throughout the story.

Although a number of supporting performers around Hurt and Julia simply come and then go, the special mention must go to Sônia Braga, who is simply unforgettable in her multiple roles. Besides playing Valentine’s girlfriend, she plays not only the heroine of that Nazi German propaganda film but also the titular character of the movie, who is the heroine of some another old movie described by Luis later in the story. While imbuing her three different roles with each own personality, Braga does more than holding her own place around Hurt and Julia, and the movie led her to a number of many various films ranging from Robert Redford’s “The Milagro Beanfield War” (1988) to Kleber Mendonça Filho’s “Bacurau” (2019).

Overall, “Kiss of the Spider Woman” remains as an interesting film to watch even though more than 40 years passed since it came out. Although I only watched it once around the 2000s before revisiting it yesterday via a Criterion 4K blu-ray copy, I found impressed again by its mood, storytelling, and performance during my viewing, and I guess that says a lot about its considerable dramatic power.

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Last Summer (2023) ☆☆☆(3/4): As a country summer passes…

Posted on August 9, 2026 by kaist455

It may take some time for you to sense and then process what and how South Korean independent film “Last Summer” is about. Leisurely establishing its vividly realistic rural atmosphere across the screen, the movie gradually blurs the line between fiction and nonfiction for intriguing and then engaging us more, and you will feel more of the underlying sense of ongoing life around the people and locations shown in the film.

The movie, which follows several months in a little real-life rural village, begins with the opening shot showing the beginning of one hot summer day, and then we see several villagers who are about to work on their rice paddies. While the sun is shining, the temperature is pretty hot, and, as reflected by the title of the first chapter (“Drought”), there has not been much rain during last several weeks. Needless to say, the villagers are quite concerned about their rice paddies, but they can only hope that they will have some rain before they eventually run out of water supply. 

Meanwhile, we get to know a bit about one of these villagers. He is a middle-aged widower living with his aging mother and his adult son, who has incidentally worked as a local public servant for a while. When we later see his son at his workplace, it is apparent that he does not like working there much, and we are not so surprised when he subsequently quits his job and then begins to help his father’s farming work instead.

While this naturally causes some tension in the family later in the story, the movie does not overplay this at all, and it simply observes the son’s uncertain situation at present. He surely knows that he must make a decision sooner or later, but he still does not know what to do next for his life, and his father patiently hopes for the best for the son. 

The son sometimes hangs around with a close friend of his, who seems to be quite content with his current status in contrast. Besides running a pet shop along with his wife, the son’s friend also works at a local cattle farm belonging to his father, and we often see him diligently working at his father’s farm. It looks like he genuinely cares about the cows in his father’s farm, but, as reflected by one sobering scene later in the story, the movie sharply recognizes that all these cows are bound to be sold or slaughtered someday.

As slowly building up its story and few main characters, the movie also pays attention to not only their little world but also its many other residents at times. Usually sticking to its calm and static position, the camera simply observes the people and places in the village, but then we gradually find ourselves immersed more in its mood and background. While appreciating a series of crisp landscape shots, we come to focus more on whatever can be glimpsed from the occasional individual moments from the villagers, which often approach to the considerable level of verisimilitude observed from good documentary film.

Not so surprisingly, director/writer/co-producer/editor Choi Seung-woo, who incidentally made a feature film debut here, actually had a bunch of real-life villagers play the minor supporting characters in his movie. As far as I could observe from the film, they all look natural and spontaneous while just playing more or less than themselves on the screen, and they are also mixed fairly well with several professional performers in the film playing the main characters in the film, who are not showy at all in their low-key acting.  

Around the end of the second chapter (“Rainy Season”), the movie takes a little unexpected turn, but it still sticks to its phlegmatic tone even at this point while showing more sensitivity and thoughtfulness than before. At one point, the camera just looks at the son merely cutting his toenails inside his family house for a while, but then we somehow sense some change inside him, and the movie did a splendid job of conveying that to us via a rather simple but undeniably effective visual touch.

And we observe more of how life keeps going in the village as usual. When the movie eventually arrives at its final chapter (“Harvest”), we cannot help but notice how the village looks different with its rice paddies turning yellow day by day, and you will also reflect more on what one farmer says around the end of the movie. Sure, it is one of those familiar words on farming, but we cannot possibly agree to that more.

In conclusion, “Last Summer” is commendable for its subtle storytelling and sublime mood and details to be admired and appreciated. Although it was premiered in the Busan International Film Festival in 2023, the movie had to wait for no less than three years before it is eventually shown to me and other South Korean audiences in this year, and Choi already showed his next feature film at the Busan International Film Festival in last year (He also made a short documentary about revisiting the village and its residents shown in “Last Summer”, by the way). I have seen neither of his next two works yet, but I can tell you at least that he is another new promising South Korean filmmaker to watch, and I will certainly have some expectation on his burgeoning filmmaking career.

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The Odyssey (2026) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): Nolan’s stark and gritty spectacle

Posted on August 6, 2026 by kaist455

Christopher Nolan’s new film “The Odyssey” is a stark and gritty spectacle quite determined to overpower and then exhaust you. Based on the ancient Greek work of the same name by Homer, the movie may disappoint you for not having much awe or wonder or fun on the whole, but it is often quite intense and visceral under Nolan’s confident direction, and my eyes and mind were constantly engaged for its long running time (173 minutes) despite some reservation.

While mostly following the plot of Homer’s work, the movie will probably remind you more of some of Nolan’s previous works such as “Inception” (2010) and “Oppenheimer” (2023). Dexterously juggling multiple narrative lines which will surely converge later in the movie, the movie stays focused on the agony and conflict of its white male hero, and, as many of you know, that has been Nolan’s usual subject for many years.

Needless to say, Odysseus in the movie, played by Matt Damon, is not your average clean-cut hero at all. He is a weary and conflicted man who has to face the consequences of his morally questionable choices and actions in and after the Trojan War, and Damon did a good job of conveying to us his character’s inner struggle and conflict along the story. During the early part of the story, Odysseus has been stuck in some remote island along with a mysterious woman named Calypso (Charlize Theron), and, though his old memories have been faded for a while under her care, he gradually begins to remember what happened during the war – and how he got lost as desperately trying to go back to his small island kingdom.

And what he slowly begins to remember again is not so pretty to say the least. As many of you know, Odysseus concocted that famous scheme for ending the Trojan War at last, and we see the considerable amount of sacrifice behind that. He and many others have to be locked inside that big wooden horse for several days at least before it is eventually taken inside Troy, and, needless to say, that is not so fun for them at all.

After the war was finally over, Odysseus unwisely decided to sail his ship along an independent course, and that is the beginning of many different dangers and plights for him and his soldiers. Rather than going for wonder and fun, the movie goes all the way for horror and bitterness, and that is particularly exemplified by a sequence involved with a one-eyed giant figure played by Bill Irwin. While we are horrified by the savage sides of this entity, we also observe that his daily life is irrevocably disrupted by the unwelcomed invasion of Odyssey and his crew, and we find ourselves feeling more of both horror and disgust.

Later in the story, Odysseus is told about his destiny which is probably determined by those Greek gods or whatever. He becomes determined to defy against that as much as possible, but his and his crew’s struggles only seem to lead them to their pre-determined fate, and that makes him all the more agonized than before. In fact, he sometimes cannot help but talk a bit with a Greek goddess played by Zendaya, though the movie is rather ambiguous about whether he actually imagines this or not.

And the movie continues to serve darkly intense moments worthwhile to watch from big movie theater screen. There is a horrifying scene involved with a witch lady named Circe (Samatha Morton), and you will wince a lot even though you already know what she is going to do to Odysseus’s hungry crew. In case of Charybdis and Scylla, I was rather disappointed to see that these two monstrous entities are not shown that much on the screen, but I still admire how deftly Nolan presents his hero’s utterly impossible situation with considerable intensity and gravitas.

Meanwhile, the movie also pays attention to the struggle of Penelope (Anne Hathaway) and Telemachus (Tom Holland), Odysseus’s wife and their young son. As waiting for Odysseus for almost 10 years, they have had to tolerate the insolence of Penelope’s numerous suitors including Antinous (Robert Pattison) in their palace, and Telemachus comes to feel more need to do anything under their increasingly daunting situation. After all, if his mother ever decides to marry one of those despicable suitors, his position will be quite unstable to say least.

It is not much of a spoiler to tell you that 1) Telemachus eventually meets his father and 2) the story inevitably culminates to an intensely brutal climax sequence where Odysseus returns at last and shows everyone who the boss is. Nevertheless, the movie continues to hold our attention to the end as its multiple narrative lines converge and then powerfully resonate with each other, and its bitterly overwhelming catharsis, which is driven by what has haunted Odysseus for years as well as his emerging desire for vengeance, makes us care enough to reflect more on the ending.

And I admired the top-notch technical achievement from Nolan and his crew members, some of whom incidentally worked with Nolan in “Oppenheimer”. I will not be surprised if cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema, editor Jennifer Lame, and composer Ludwig Göransson, who all won their respective Oscars for “Oppenheimer”, get Oscar-nominated again along with Nolan in next year, and the movie is indubitably another highpoint for their respectable filmmaking careers.

However, I also observed that the spectacles in the film sometimes overshadow the human qualities glimpsed from the story and characters. While Nolan places various recognizable performers here and there around Damon, their characters are more or less than background details except several notable cases, and that is a bit of letdown for me. Again, Nolan falters more than once in the depiction of female characters, and that is particularly evident from the two different characters played by Lupita Nyong’o. There has been a lot of ridiculous controversy surrounding Nolan’s casting choice, but, what do you know, Nyong’o simply comes and then go in her very brief appearance, and that is disappointing in my humble opinion.

Anyway, many of the main cast members in the film are thankfully strong enough to leave some impression on us. Anne Hathaway, Charlize Theron, Samatha Morton, Mia Goth, and Zendaya manage to overcome their rather under-written roles, and Morton is simply uncanny as a sort of dark twin to her memorable psychic character in Steven Spielberg’s “Minority Report” (2002). While Tom Holland, who is having quite a year thanks to this movie and Destin Daniel Cretton’s “Spider-Man: Bran New Year” (2026), carries his part well, Robert Pattison has some juicy fun with his unpleasant villain character, and several other performers including Benny Safdie, Elliot Page, Jon Bernthal (It is a bit weird for me to see him sharing the screen with Holland again after I watched “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” in last week, you know), Corey Hawkins, Himesh Patel, and John Leguizamo are also solid in their respective supporting roles.

In conclusion, “Odyssey” is frequently stupendous for its spectacular mood and visual, and that is more than enough for compensate for several glaring weak points in terms of story and character. I am not so sure about whether this is one of Nolan’s best works, but, considering its enormous critical/commercial success at present, it will solidify Nolan’s status more, and I can only hope that this may lead him to trying something other than your typical conflicted white hero. Yes, it is difficult for any good filmmaker to come outside his usual artistic territory, but haven’t we had already seen enough of him doing same things during last two decades?

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The Truth vs. Alex Jones (2024) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): The judgment on a vile purveyor of lies

Posted on August 2, 2026 by kaist455

As far as I heard from many others during last several years, Alex Jones is a truly vile piece of sh*t, and 2024 HBO documentary film “The Truth vs. Alex Jones” confirms me on that more. It is often infuriating to observe how mean and vicious he was to the families of the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting for many years just for getting more money and popularity for himself, but the documentary calmly and thoughtfully follows their long and painful struggle for truth and justice, and you will be certainly relieved to see this despicable bastard getting what he really deserved from the very beginning.

After the brief summary on how Jone rose to a considerable degree of prominence along with his online media website Infowars around the 2000s, the documentary moves onto that what happened at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut on December 14th, 2012. A deeply disturbed man suddenly broke into that elementary school and then killed a number of teachers and young students with his guns within a few minutes, and the whole town was certainly shocked and devastated a lot by this atrocious incident.

While coping with their immense loss and grief, the families of the victims tried to hold themselves in front of the media and the public as much as possible, but that unfortunately did not go well. Robbie Parker, who lost one of his kids at that time, simply tried to deliver a sincere joint statement from him and many others who also lost their loved ones because of the incident, but then Jones deliberately spread an outrageous lie about Parker just because Parker nervously smiled a bit before reading the statement in front of reporters, and that was when all hell broke loose for not only Parker but also many other families of the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. As Jones and InfoWars continued to claim that the incident was a hoax and the victims’ families were actually hired performers, Parker and his family as well as many other victims’ families were harassed a lot in one way or another, and this certainly exacerbated their pain and grief a lot.

The documentary gives us a clear and lucid picture on why Jones committed such a cruel and loathsome thing like that to the families of the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. He frequently spread sensational lies and conspiracy theories for years just because that would financially benefit him a lot, and he simply found another big profitable opportunity for him from the incident. No matter how much the victims’ families protested, he went further with more lies, and those millions of subscribers out there willingly consumed his virulent lies without any second thought, just because 1) he is an entertaining bully to watch just like that orange-faced prick currently residing in the White House and 2) most of what he said instantly appealed to their worse sides. The more lies he told, the more they believed in these total bullsh*t from him, while also purchasing a lot of whatever was heavily advertised on InfoWars.

Needless to say, the families of the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting started to take some actions for stopping Jones from spreading more lies about them, though their road to justice turned out to be quite hard and difficult for them. At first, some of them attempted to take care of their matter for themselves, but it did not take much time for them and others to realize that they must confront Jones together at the court.

In the end, Jone was sued by the two different groups of the victims’ families, but he kept spreading more lies as usual, and that reminded them more of what was being at stake for not only them but also many others in the American society. Jones was indubitably guilty as charged, and he needed to be punished really hard for setting a big example to alarm many detestable purveyors of lies just like him.

Fortunately for the victims’ families, Jones and his legal defense team were catastrophically sloppy while also willfully (or incompetently) disregarding the court orders during the two following trials. As a consequence, the main point in both of these two trials became how much Jones must actually pay as the damages for the victims’ families, and the attorneys representing them already had plenty of evidences against Jones. In fact, his legal defense team in one of these two trials inadvertently sent their opponent an email containing a heap of incriminating inside information associated with him, and this certainly contributed to the eventual verdict on the amounts of damages to be paid by him.

Director/co-producer Dan Reed, who previously made that controversial HBO documentary film “Leaving Neverland” (2019), and his crew could receive the exclusive access to these two trials, and the second half of the documentary is quite compelling as steadily focusing both on Jones and the victims’ families. While seldom recognizing his faults, Jones pathetically and impertinently attempted to manipulate the trials to his advantage, and that makes a glaring contrast with the quiet sorrow and dignity of the victims’ families. Despite a lot of suffering inflicted upon them by Jones, they stood up to him without hesitation as delivering their respective testimonies during the trials, and that led to some consolation and peace for them in the end.

Overall, “The Truth vs. Alex Jones” is difficult to watch at times for good reasons, but it is another important documentary which will make you reflect more on the importance of truth in our increasingly confusing era, which has been strewn with millions of online fake news during last several years. While justice was indeed delivered to Jones, that toxic media trend enabling him and many others including that orange-faced prick is still going pretty well even at this point, and, as many of us know too well, we still need to fight and protest more against that.

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The Gorals (2025) ☆☆☆(3/4): A modest but charming coming-of-age tale

Posted on August 2, 2026 by kaist455

South Korean independent film “The Gorals” is a modest but likable coming-of-age tale about four different high school girls banding together for their little mission to accomplish. As they bounce from one point to another along the story, the movie cheerfully swings between comedy and drama, and we are amused more while also rooting for them more than before.

At the beginning, we are introduced to the four main characters of the story one by one: In-hye (Park Hye-jin), Seo-hee (Lee Seung-yeon), Jeong-ae (Park Hyo-eun), and Soo-min (Choi Soo-in). Although they do not have anything particularly common among them, they happen to be gathered together by the head of the college admissions office in their high school due to their rather underachieving school score records, and they are soon demanded to prepare together more for the upcoming college entrance examination and the following admission interview.

However, unlike many of their other schoolmates, these four girls do not have much plan or wish about whatever they want to do next after their eventual graduation. In case of In-hye, all she cares about for now is taking care of those ducks and rabbits in a little kennel of the school, and she even named each of them already.

When she subsequently joins In-hye as a punishment on a little minor transgression of hers, Seo-hee is not so interested in handling those animals in the kennel at first, but then she comes to care about them more than expected when she and In-hye are notified later that the kennel and its inhabitants will be eliminated sooner or later. Once they find a remote spot inside a nearby forest, they begin to plan on taking all those animals in the kennel to the new one to be built on that spot by them, and Jeong-ae and Soon-min later join them just because they also need something to lighten them up a bit as tediously preparing for their college entrance.

Although they are rather clumsy at the beginning, these four girls, whose group is incidentally named “The Gorals” later, gradually improve their private kennel bit by bit. Mainly thanks to Jeong-ae’s farmer father, they can easily get a number of materials for building the kennel, and everything goes fairly well for them as they willingly and harmoniously work together, though they need to be really careful about handling all those animals to be saved by them (The movie assures us at the beginning that no animal was harmed or injured during the shooting, by the way).

Once the kennel is completed, the girls come to bond with each other more as spending more time together in their little shelter, but, not so surprisingly, there come several troubles from the world outside. In-hye has been in a relationship with a very selfish boy who does not have much consideration for her, and we are not so surprised when he threatens to expose her and her friends’ shelter at one point. In addition, their private kennel later becomes a very serious matter due to an unexpected epidemic of a certain animal disease in their area, and they eventually take a lot more risk just for doing what should be done in their viewpoint.

Instead of hurrying its story and characters more, screenplay by director/writer Yoo Jaa-wook, who previously co-directed “Limecrime” (2020) before making a solo debut here in this movie, leisurely doles out a series of small moments for more character development. While In-hye functions as the center of the story, her three friends come to show more life and personality via their respective personal moments, and we come to care more about them when they attempt something not so legal around the end of the story. Despite a few narrative hiccups, the story balances itself fairly well between humor and gravitas, and it is touching to see how its four main characters become more matured and confident in the end. Yes, things remain mostly uncertain for them as before, but they are quite ready to step forward and face whatever may come next for them, respectively.

The movie is steadily supported by the good chemistry among its four principal cast members. While Park Hye-jin, who previously appeared in “The Slug” (2020) and “Gyeong-ah’s Daughter” (2022), dutifully holds the center as required, Lee Seung-yoen, Park Hyo-eun, and Choi Soo-in, who was simply unforgettable as the little young heroine of “The World of Us” (2016), have each own moments to shine, and they always click well together as their characters push or pull each other along the story. In case of a group of several animal performers in the movie, they instantly steal the show from time to time, and the special mention goes to a duck named “Hee-seon”, which turns out to have a little surprise for our girls later in the story.

On the whole, “The Gorals” does not aim that high, but it accomplishes its goals as much as intended at least. Although it could be improved a bit more in my humble opinion, its several minor weak aspects are mostly compensated by the youthful charm and spirit generated among its four lovable main characters, who have sort of grown on me after I watched it yesterday. In short, this is one of more interesting South Korean films of this year, and I certainly recommend you to give it a chance someday.

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What Should We Have Done? (2023) ☆☆☆(3/4): The memories of his schizophrenic sister

Posted on August 2, 2026 by kaist455

Japanese documentary filmmaker Tomoaki Fujino’s 2023 documentary film “What Should We Have Done?” is often difficult to watch for good reasons. Mainly consisting of old video clips showing a number of personal moments from Fujino’s deeply troubled older sister and their parents, the documentary looks back on how things got worse and worse for not only her but also her family for many years, and it does not flinch at all from some of the most despairing moments in her very unhappy life.

At the beginning, we get some background information on Fujino’s family. Both of his parents were well-educated academics, and his older sister Masako was certainly expected to follow her parents’ footsteps as showing more potential and intelligence under her parent’s care and attention. In fact, she could have been a promising young researcher if she had not suddenly developed symptoms of schizophrenia at the age of 24 in 1983.

As someone who had been quite close to her since his childhood, Fujino was certainly concerned a lot about his older sister, but there was nothing he could do as her mental illness got worse during next several years. While simply hoping for any sign of recovery, her parents eventually confined her to their house, and she became more distant to Fujino as he subsequently left their family house for his college study.

Nevertheless, he still cared about his older sister, so, not long after starting his filmmaking education, he began to record his private moments with his family in 2001. Around that time, Masako’s mental condition got much worsened than before, and she did not respond much to her younger brother or her parents even when they were together in the living room of their family house.

And we see more of her miserable life condition during that time. She usually looks distant and disheveled, and her room is filled with a lot of various things including some rather expensive research equipments for whatever she is studying on. In addition, she is quite fascinated with fortunetelling and astrology, and that often created another headache for her parents besides her many other eccentric behaviors. For example, she suddenly went to New York City by airplane without telling anything to her parents, who instantly took her back to their home after she called them from New York City.

Still wishing to understand his older sister more, Fujino tried for more communication with her, but all he could get was a series of babblings which did not make sense at all. Both saddened and frustrated with her worsening mental illness, he certainly reminds his mother at one point that she and her husband really have to do more than merely confining her to their house, but they remain adamant about their decision on her.

It must be pointed out that Fujino and Masako’s parents are not bad people at all, though it is undeniable that their decision on their daughter was misguided at best and abusive at worst. Like many other old Japanese people of their generation, they regarded mental illness as a stigma which they must cover up from others around them as much as possible, and that is the main reason why they chose to believe that their daughter’s mental illness was just a mere personal issue to overcome sooner or later. In their rather conservative viewpoint, all she will have to do is pulling herself together with more focus and will, and this surely made her feel much worse about herself without helping her at all. 

And her parents went further when things continued to get out of control for both them and her. After Masako tried to go outside for no apparent reason on one day, they decided to put a heavy lock on the front door of their house just for preventing another transgression of hers. Fujino was certainly alarmed by this extreme measure, but, again, his parents firmly believed that this was really the best they could do for their daughter – even when they had to endure another painful moment due to another disturbing emotional outburst from her.  

There is a bitter irony in how Masako was eventually allowed to have some peace and freedom several years later, but it is also poignant to observe the considerable change in her appearance. Although still looking quite awkward and introverted as before, her face is far less sullen and distant than before, and she also responds to her younger brother much more than before. Yes, she irreversibly lost a lot as struggling with her mental illness during all those years, and we cannot help but notice some deep melancholy from her aged face. Nevertheless, we are also quite touched by how she tried to live more than before despite all those pains and sufferings of hers.  

In conclusion, “What Should We Have Done?” is an earnest documentary which holds our attention with a number of deeply personal moments tinged with raw emotions to observe and then feel, and Fujino, who also served as the co-editor and co-cinematographer of his documentary, did a commendable job of handling his family story with enough sincerity and honesty. According to his respectful personal wish, it is shown only in movie theaters without any subsequent streaming service release here in South Korea just like it was in Japan, and I think you should check it out as soon as possible before it leaves movie theaters.

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Spider-Man: Brand New Day (2026) ☆☆☆(3/4): Brand Old Familiar Day

Posted on July 29, 2026 by kaist455

“Spider-Man: Brand New Day” works best whenever it is just about its earnest superhero character. As a matter of fact, it could just try less on connecting itself with those other notable characters of Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) and then go its own way. However, not so surprisingly, it eventually becomes another chapter belonging to the current stage of MCU instead, and that is a bit of disappointment to me although I was entertained enough during my viewing. 

Anyway, Tom Holland is still likable and engaging as Peter Parker / Spider-Man. In “Spider-Man: Homecoming” (2017) and “Spider-Man: Far from Home” (2019), his character was often like the lap dog of Tony Stark / Iron Man played by Robert Downey Jr., but Holland and his character finally began to grow on us more in “Spider-Man: No Way Home” (2021), and, to my little delight, now Holland comes to show more of his talent and presence here in “Spider-Man: Brand New Day”.

The opening part of the movie covers what happened during several years after the grand finale of “Spider-Man: No Way Home”. As many of you remember, Peter chose to get himself erased from the memories of everyone around the world for not only saving the world but also protecting two close friends of his: Michelle “MJ” Jones-Watson (Zendaya) and Ned Leeds (Jacob Batalon). In the end, both MJ and Ned came to forget Peter just like everyone else, and they subsequently left New York City for going to Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for their college education.

However, after graduating from MIT four years later, MJ and Ned are back in New York City, and that surely hurts Peter a lot, who has steadily followed MJ and Ned’s college life via Ned’s social media account. He even wrote a personal letter for MJ, but he is reluctant to send the letter to her because 1) she still does not remember him at all just like everyone else including Ned and 2) getting involved with him again may lead to another danger for her.

In addition, Peter has often been quite busy as doing a lot more than being your average friendly neighbor to the citizens of New York City. Day by day, there are always incidents to be handled by Spider-Man, and his valiant efforts have been appreciated a lot by not only millions of citizens but also the New York Police Department, which is mainly represented by Detective Jean DeWolff (Liza Colón-Zayas, who has been more recognizable to us thanks to her Emmy-winning supporting turn in American TV comedy series “The Bear”).

And then there comes a very big and serious case on one day. Somebody attempts to attack one of the facilities of the Department of Damage Control (DODC), and Peter surely comes to the spot as soon as possible, but he soon faces an opponent who may be more than an equal match to him due to a certain kind of superpower. As he tries to get more information about this opponent in question, we come to sense that there is something fishy about DODC and its director Bill Metzger (Tramell Tillman, who effectively generates an aura of shady assurance as he recently did in his Emmy-winning supporting turn in Apple TV+ drama series “Severance”).

In the meantime, Peter also struggles to deal with several personal issues. His physical condition begins to show considerable change due to his genetic background (You all know that his genome is mixed a bit with that of spider, right?), and this sudden biological change puts a lot of strain on both his mind and body. In addition, he gets a chance to get close a bit to both MJ and Ned, and we get some small humorous moments during his reunion with MJ and Ned, who still do not remember him as before. 

While it is not much of a spoiler to tell you that MJ eventually gets involved more in Peter’s ongoing adventure, the movie surprises us a bit as generating a substantial amount of gravitas from their very awkward situation later in the story, and Holland and Zendaya ably handle several key moments between their characters. While Zendaya brings considerable warmth and thoughtfulness to her character, Holland is simply terrific when his character is reminded again of the irreversible consequence of his sacrificial choice, and Jacob Batalon expectedly provides some comic relief as your average nerdy fanboy.

In contrast, the movie becomes more generic whenever it presents several familiar superhero characters from those MCU products. Jon Bernthal, who is incidentally another Emmy-winning performer from “The Bear”, Florence Pugh, and Mark Ruffalo put some game efforts, but their characters do not have much surprise for us on the whole, and so does a certain substantial character played by Sadie Sink, who is clearly destined to open the door for more familiar superhero figures to come next.

Moreover, the action scenes in the film are not particularly impressive to me. Thanks to the competent direction of director Destin Daniel Cretton, who should be more remembered for his remarkable second feature film “Short Term 12” (2013) than being a merely hired director in “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” (2021), these action scenes are mostly slick and efficient, but they do not have much style or personality on the whole. In my inconsequential opinion, the only fresh thing is how the climactic sequence is eventually resolved via a simple but sincere moment of real empathy, understanding, and communication instead of resorting to more bangs and crashes to numb us.  

In conclusion, “Spider-Man: Brand New Day”, which is incidentally the 38th feature film for MCU, lives up to its very subtitle to some degree even though it is limited a little too much by the ongoing phase of MCU. It does not lift me up that much from the accumulating superhero movie fatigue, but it succeeds fairly well at least, so I will not grumble for now.

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