Category Archives: Movies

Toy Story 3 (2010) ☆☆☆ (3/4) : A dreaded moment has finally come for them

Posted on August 7, 2010 by kaist455

“Toy Story 3” has nostalgic quality to me. Come to think of it, I virtually grew up with these two wonderful animations. When I was about to become a teenager, “Toy Story”(1995) was released and I was fascinated by the new kind of animation as a young moviegoer(Ah, I love those days when I could watch the movie as many times as I wanted). When I was about to go to the university, “Toy Story 2” (1999) arrived in a local theater in my town and I was delighted to meet these loveable characters I came to like.
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Inception (2010) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4) : Descent into the labyrinth of dreams

Posted on July 24, 2010 by kaist455

Surprisingly to me, “Inception” is a small movie when viewed objectively from the outside. The story is not ground-breaking; it’s in a very familiar area where “Matrix” and other movies about the mind-bending world belong. The movie stays inside its settings and rules, and sticks to them even at the finale. Continue reading →

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Moss (2010) ☆☆(2/4) : A rural mystery – more than 2.5hr

Posted on July 17, 2010 by kaist455

After so much hoopla before its release, “Moss”, a much-anticipated Korean thriller of 2010, turns out to be very, very disappointing in almost every way you can imagine due to the fatally misguided direction. It is lazy, incompetent, and, above all, not compelling at all. Despite some good basic elements of a thriller in the screenplay, it is more close to the ennui of the bright summer days in a country town, and, boy, the running time is more than 2.5 hours even if you exclude the end credit. Continue reading →

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Presumed Innocent (1990) ☆☆☆ (3/4) : A Prosecuted Prosecutor

Posted on July 11, 2010 by kaist455

“An innocent man has nothing to fear, remember that.”, said the cop in Hitchcock’s” The Wrong Man” to Henry Fonda’s arrested character, but we all know his saying is not true at all. Guilty or not, our fate will eventually be decided at the courtroom where the lawyers make arguments on your culpability in front of the judges and the jury. And in that inexorable system pursuing the justice, we tremble in fear for the sheer possibility of punishment sentenced upon us.
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The Accidental Tourist (1988) ☆☆☆ (3/4) : A Healing Process

Posted on June 29, 2010 by kaist455

When I observed the lifestyle of Ryan Bingham in Jason Reitman’s wonderful movie “Up in the Air” early in this year, Lawrence Kasdan’s 1988 movie “The Accidental Tourist” came to my mind. Like him, Macon Leary(William Hurt) knows a lot about traveling around by plane. He can tell you how to pack your bag as small as possible(“In travel, as much as in your life, less is invariably more”). He can tell you how important it is to carry several travel-size packets of detergents. He can tell you why a gray suit is a full proof choice in any situations. He also can tell you where to have a real American meal in London.
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71: Into the Fire (2010) ☆1/2 (1.5/4) : Awful Hollowness based on a real-life war story

Posted on June 20, 2010 by kaist455

Fortunately, “71: Into the Fire”, officially released on last Thursday in South Korea, is not the bottom of the barrel. But still, it’s near the bottom of the barrel. The movie is not as ideologically repulsive as I feared, but … Continue reading →

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The Ghost Writer (2009) ☆☆☆1/2 (3.5/4) : The Trouble with a Memoir

Posted on June 6, 2010 by kaist455

Whatever your opinion about Roman Polanski as a human being is, we all can agree that he is one of the great directors in the film history. In the career as tumultuous as his life, he has made several great films including “Rosemary’s Baby” and “Chinatown” while making very disappointing movies. And now, with his new movie “The Ghost Writer”, it is apparent he is still a immensely talented director who knows how to make a good thriller. With chilly, foreboding atmosphere and a subtle sense of humor, this calm but compelling movie proves that the most important thing for the thriller is how to pull us, not how to ambush us. Continue reading →

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The Experience of Watching the Added Grandeur – and Its Heart

Posted on May 8, 2010 by kaist455

  There must be many ardent admirers who know far more than me about Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis”(1927), one of the great movies in the 20th Century. They will provide you more detailed and accurate knowledges about this unforgettable masterpiece after … Continue reading →

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