Author Archives: kaist455

All We Imagine as Light (2024) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): Three women in Mumbai

Posted on March 18, 2025 by kaist455

“All We Imagine as Light”, which won the Grand Prix award at the Cannes Film Festival early in last year, is a haunting character drama about three different women in Mumbai. While phlegmatically illustrating their daily lives in the middle … Continue reading →

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Hard Truths (2024) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): This bitter woman

Posted on March 17, 2025 by kaist455

Mike Leigh’s latest film “Hard Truths” gives us one of the most abrasive characters in his filmography since “Naked” (1993). While this is definitely not a pleasant experience at all, Leigh presents this troubled human figure with a lot of … Continue reading →

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White Bird (2023) ☆☆(2/4): A Holocaust tale to reform him

Posted on March 16, 2025 by kaist455

Marc Forster’s new film “White Bird” presents its well-intentioned tale in a way so rote and manipulative that I felt like shaking my head more than once during my viewing. As another typical Holocaust drama flick, it does not bring … Continue reading →

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I’m Still Here (2024) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): A family under the dictatorship in Brazil

Posted on March 13, 2025 by kaist455

Walter Salles’ latest film “I’m Still Here”, which recently won a Best International Film Oscar, calmly but powerfully observes a real-life personal struggle under the dictatorship period in Brazil during the early 1970s. While never overlooking the grim and horrific … Continue reading →

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Exorcism Chronicles: The Beginning (2024) ☆☆1/2(2.5/4): The passable first chapter

Posted on March 11, 2025 by kaist455

South Korean animation film “Exorcism Chronicle” is a modest genre piece simply doing some warm-up exercise for whatever may follow next. Probably because I remember too well the first entry of the short story series it is based on, there … Continue reading →

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No Other Land (2024) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): “We have no other land”

Posted on March 10, 2025 by kaist455

Documentary film “No Other Land”, which won the two awards including the one for Best Documentary at the Berlin International Film Festival early in last year and then won a Best Documentary Oscar in last week, calmly and thoughtfully follows … Continue reading →

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Porcelain War (2024) ☆☆☆(3/4): Artists in the middle of the ongoing war in Ukraine

Posted on March 10, 2025 by kaist455

Documentary film “Porcelain War”, which won the U.S. Documentary Competition Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival early in last year and then was recently nominated for Best Documentary Oscar, looks at the activities of several Ukrainian artists in … Continue reading →

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It’s Okay! (2023) ☆☆☆(3/4): You will like this girl in the end

Posted on March 8, 2025 by kaist455

South Korean film “It’s Okay!” amused and then touched me with its plucky young heroine. You may wince from time to time as watching how irrepressibly spirited and optimistic she really is, but you will come to root for her … Continue reading →

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Starlet (2012) ☆☆☆(3/4): Between two very different people

Posted on March 5, 2025 by kaist455

Sean Baker’s 2012 film “Starlet”, which happens to be available in South Korea via a local streaming service, is about the unlikely relationship between two very different people. Although their first encounters are rather awkward to say the least, they … Continue reading →

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The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): Anderson’s early dollhouse play

Posted on March 4, 2025 by kaist455

Revisiting Wes Anderson’s 2001 film “The Royal Tenenbaums”, I was reminded again of how consistent Anderson has been during last several decades. While this movie and many subsequent works of his are basically his own little dollhouse plays, they are … Continue reading →

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