Author Archives: kaist455

Shaun the Sheep (2015) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4) : The Sheep in the Big City

I remember well when I encountered those lovely stop motion animation works from Aardman Animations for the first time during late 1990s. Three short animation films featuring Aardman’s iconic characters Wallace and Gromit, “A Grand Day Out” (1999), “The Wrong … Continue reading →

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Assassination (2015) ☆☆1/2(2.5/4) : Too many shooters

South Korean film “Assassination” wants to juggle lots of things at once. Besides attempting a busy mix of action and comedy in the context of history drama, it shuffles between many various characters bound to converge on a certain point … Continue reading →

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Camp X-ray (2014) ☆☆☆(3/4) : A guard and a detainee in Gitmo

The Guantanamo Bay detention camp has been one of the most unjust things during the War on Terror, which is still being continued around the world with no end in sight. Because the people held at this camp are technically … Continue reading →

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Blackhat (2015) ☆☆☆(3/4) : Style over keyboarding

At some point during my viewing of “Blackhat”, I began to focus on how it looks rather than what it is about. As a ‘cyber-thriller’, it surely has an interesting topic which has been more relevant along with those frequent … Continue reading →

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Phoenix (2014) ☆☆☆1/2 (3.5/4) : The past is still there for her and others

The war is over, but the past is still there for her and others. Christian Petzold’s “Phoenix”, a quiet but compelling period drama revolving around disguise and manipulation with a touch of film noir, is reticent about the dark period … Continue reading →

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Big Game (2014) ☆☆1/2 (2.5/4) : No game is too big for this kid

One of many entertaining parts in late Roger Ebert’s memoir “Life Itself” is the story about how he participated in the production of Russ Meyer’s “Beyond the Valley of the Dolls” (1970) as its screenplay writer. While Ebert’s screenplay was … Continue reading →

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Beyond the Reach (2014) ☆☆1/2(2.5/4) : A survival game in the barren wilderness

“Beyond the Reach” works best when it focuses on a deadly cat-and-mouse game between its two contrasting main characters. While one ruthlessly pushes the other into an extreme condition, it is compelling to watch both of them trying to outwit … Continue reading →

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Inside Out (2015) ☆☆☆☆(4/4) : Inside the state of mind

Pixar has done it again. Their new animation film “Inside Out” is a simple but sublime work which not only delights us with its boundless imagination but also touches us with its dexterous storytelling. At first, you will be amazed … Continue reading →

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The Guest (2015) ☆☆1/2(2.5/4): A piper comes to the village

On one day during my miserable graduate school years, one of the seniors in my advisor professor’s biology laboratory told me about his personal aversion to rodents. As a guy who grew up in a farming village, he had vivid … Continue reading →

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Rudderless (2014) ☆☆☆(3/4) : Coming out of his grief through his son’s music

“Rudderless” plays familiar tunes we have heard before. Devastated by a sudden tragedy which turns his life upside down, its hero lets his life drifted away aimlessly as trying to look away from his personal grief, but then he gets … Continue reading →

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