Better Nate Than Ever (2022) ☆☆☆(3/4): Going to Broadway for his big dream

Posted on April 8, 2022 by kaist455

“Better Nate Than Ever”, which was released on Disney+ in last week, is a plain but likable musical film packed with enough heart and spunk. As a story about one very enthusiastic theater kid dreaming of becoming the next star of Broadway, the movie is pretty predictable to the core, but it constantly delights and amuses us as bouncing from one expected moment to another, and we find ourselves rooting for its little young hero more than expected.

At the beginning, we see how life has been rather frustrating for Nate Foster (Rueby Wood) in his suburban neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Although he has aspired to have a successful theater career in the Broadway area of New York City someday, his parents and his older brother Anthony (Joshua Bassett) do not understand his aspiration that much, and he is also often ridiculed at his school just for being, well, quite theatrical.

Anyway, Nate has diligently participated in the school drama club along with his best female friend Libby Reneé (Aira Brooks), and he is ardently hoping that he will be cast as the leading performer of the upcoming musical performance (It is a new rock musical based on Abraham Lincoln’s biography – Blame that certain acclaimed hip-hop musical by Lin-Manuel Miranda if you want). Alas, he only comes to learn that neither he nor Libby gets included in the main cast, and it is quite certain that they will just play minor roles as before.

While Nate naturally becomes daunted a lot by this bad news, Libby suggests that they should go together to New York City for participating in the upcoming audition for the Broadway musical production based on “Lilo & Stitch” (2002), one of a few contemporary Disney animation feature films which I have not somehow watched yet (I will rectify this error someday, I promise you). Nate is reluctant at first, but he soon finds himself quite motivated by the possibility of getting a big breakthrough in Broadway, and he and Libby subsequently embark on planning how to go to New York City without being noticed by their respective parents.

Fortunately, they do not have to lie that much for making their little scheme work. It seems that all they will have to do is taking a midnight bus to New York City and then returning to their neighborhood right after the audition, and, by coincidence, Nate’s parents will take a little vacation together outside Pittsburgh during that short period. They are going to leave their two sons alone in their house for a while, but they are not so concerned because Nate is supposed to be taken care of by Anthony, though taking care of Nate is the last thing to be considered for Anthony for good reasons.

It is not much of a spoiler to tell you that Nate and Libby eventually succeed in arriving in Broadway. Mainly thanks to their accidental encounter with Nate’s struggling actress aunt played by Lisa Kudrow, Nate manages to pass the first stage of the audition, but he and Libby belatedly come to learn that the audition will take more than just one day. While naturally feeling conflicted, he eventually decides to follow what his heart has always wanted, and that certainly makes the circumstance much more complicated than expected.

Around that narrative point, you will get a pretty good idea on how the story will arrive at its expected ending, but the screenplay by director/writer Tim Federle, which is based on his book of the same name, still holds our attention as deftly juggling its genre clichés and conventions. Yes, we surely get several your average musical scenes as our young plucky hero dreams more or more along the story, but these musical moments are peppered well with wit and energy, and I assure you that you cannot help but smile as watching Nate giving an impromptu musical performance in the middle of New York City. Sure, the main characters are more or less than your typical broad archetypes, but they are depicted with loving care and attention at least, and that is particularly evident from Nate’s parents, who still find themselves concerned about their sons even when they are supposed to enjoy their own private time together.

The breezy charm of the movie owes a lot to young newcomer Rueby Wood, who ably carries the film with his own presence and personality. While you may find his character a bit overeager at first, you will be soon disarmed by Wood’s unadorned spirit coupled with considerable singing talent (I can easily imagine him playing Billy Elliot someday), and then you will appreciate more of how his character’s energy and determination will inspire and encourage many theater kids out there. Sure, not all of them will be next Broadway stars, but, after all, there is not anything wrong about following your passion and dream, isn’t it?

The supporting cast members fill their respective spots around Wood as required. While Lisa Kudrow is the most colorful one in the bunch (Raise your hand if you cannot help but feel a bit nostalgic like me due to her certain classic American TV sitcom series), Aria Brooks and Joshua Bassett have each own moment to shine, and Norbert Leo Butz, who is incidentally a two-time Tony winner, and Michelle Federer provide some gravitas to the story as Nate’s parents.

On the whole, “Better Nate Than Ever” is as thin and fluffy as cotton candy, but it is a well-made product equipped with enough charm and competence at least. I am a rather down-to-earth dude who does not have much illusion about life and reality, but I do not mind enjoying such sweet lightweight stuffs like this film as long as they are entertaining, and I am willing to recommend it to my friends – especially if they have kids to be entertained.

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The Electrical Life of Louis Wain (2021) ☆☆1/2(2.5/4): Behind all those funny cat pictures of his

Posted on April 7, 2022 by kaist455

“The Electrical Life of Louis Wain” is supposed to appeal to many cat lovers like me out there, but it is not exactly a cheerful experience in my humble opinion. As a biographic period drama about an eccentric dude who became quite famous via his funny cat illustrations, the movie is often flat and pedestrian instead of being witty or whimsical, and it also comes to lose considerable energy and momentum during its second half, which is unfortunately hampered by the absence of what makes its first half engaging enough to hold our attention.

Benedict Cumberbatch, who has been specializing in playing antisocial characters since his breakthrough turn in British TV drama series “Sherlock”, plays Louis Wain, and the opening part of the film shows us how this well-known British illustrator once struggled day by day as a freelancer living in London during the 1870s. While he is a very good illustrator who can draw many drawings within a short time, Wain is not so good at how to sell his talent, and that certainly frustrates his mother and five sisters, who have to depend on him a lot since his father’s recent death.

Anyway, things get a little better for him (and his family) when a governess named Emily Richardson (Claire Foy) begins to stay in his house. Although he does not welcome this change much, he eventually accepts that, and, mainly for affording her, he comes to accept the full employment suggested by Sir William Ingram (Toby Jones), a rich and benevolent newspaper publisher who comes to appreciate Wain’s talent a lot despite Wain’s socially awkward attitude.

What follows next is an amusingly awkward courtship between Wain and Emily. Like any Victorian couple, they do try to be discreet as much as possible, but it does not take much time for his sisters to see what is going on between their older brother and Emily, and the same thing can be said about many others in their neighborhood – especially after when they happen to be spotted at a certain place where they should not be together at any chance.

In the end, Wain’s oldest sister Caroline (Andrea Riseborough) decides to let Emily go, but that only comes to motivate him more. To Caroline’s displeasure, he promptly proposes to Emily, and they move to a cozy little house together shortly after their marriage. As finally finding someone who will love him while also accepting his eccentric personality, Wain feels much happier than before, and Emily gradually becomes the firm ground for his daily life and work. At one point, they happen to adopt a little stray cat on one rainy day, and, thanks to her encouragement, he comes to draw many cat illustrations which lead to considerable public fame for him.

Sadly, their happiness does not last long due to Emily’s terminal illness, and Wain is certainly devastated by her eventual death. As Emily asked not long before her death, he keeps drawing cat illustrations as usual, but he is not wise enough to hold the copyrights of those illustrations, and that makes Caroline and his other sisters all the more frustrated. Thanks to his generous employer, he and his sisters manage to get a place to stay together at least, but things only get worse year by year, and Wain also begins to show more erratic behaviors just like his youngest sister, who is eventually taken to an institute for mental illness.

While the first half of the film is enlivened by the nice chemistry between Cumberbatch and Claire Foy, its second part simply plods from one miserable moment to another in Wain’s later years, and that is where the movie becomes less engaging than before. Director Will Sharpe, who wrote the screenplay with Simon Stephenson, and cinematographer Erik Wilson attempt to convey to us Wain’s increasingly unstable state of mind via a number of visual techniques, but the overall result is rather distracting, and we only come to observe Wain’s worsening mental problem from the distance without much care or attention.

In case of Wain’s cat illustrations, well, I assure you that you will get plenty of them as expected, but we do not get much of artistic joy or excitement as the movie merely wallows in Wain’s growing miseries. Yes, my eyes were immediately drawn to several cute cats in the film including that adorable kitty adopted by Wain and Emily, and I enjoyed Wain’s cat illustrations appearing in the film, but these more cheerful elements do not mix that well with the darker parts of the film. In other words, the movie does have agony, but it does not have enough ecstasy to complement that.

At least, Cumberbatch and several main cast members try as much as they can. He and Foy have some fun as their characters tentatively approach to each other, and that is the main reason why Foy’s eventual absence feels like a big hole. Although she is stuck with a thankless role, Andrea Riseborough makes her long-suffering sister character more understandable than expected, and Toby Jones, who has been one of the most dependable British character actors during last two decades, simply steals the show whenever he appears on the screen.

In conclusion, “The Electrical Life of Louis Wain” is not entirely boring a number of whimsical touches besides its eccentric hero and his lovely artworks, but it is also not engaging enough mainly due to its weak storytelling. If you want to see a really good and cheerful cat movie, there is a little special Turkish documentary film “Kedi” (2016), and, believe me, you will not be disappointed at all.

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Apollo 10 1⁄2: A Space Age Childhood (2022) ☆☆☆(3/4): That fun time in the 1960s

Posted on April 5, 2022 by kaist455

Richard Linklater’s new animation feature film “Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Age Childhood”, which was released on Netflix on last Friday, is as sweet, funny, witty, and whimsical as you can expect from his work. Starting with one silly and outrageous story promise, the movie simply rambles from one episodic moment to another, but those individual moments in the film are constantly packed with enough wit and humor tinged with some warm nostalgia, and you may find yourself gladly going along with that.

First, let’s talk a bit about its preposterous story promise. Mainly set in Houston, Texas of the late 1960s, the movie opens with how its young hero happens to be chosen for a certain secret government mission. While he is going through another school day along with his schoolmates, Stanley (voiced by Milo Coy) is approached by a couple of NASA agents, and they subsequently tell him about why he is needed for their latest lunar exploration mission. Due to some engineering error, the lunar module happened to be produced in a half size, so they need a child astronaut right now instead of those adult ones including, yes, Neil Armstrong, and Stanley somehow looks like an ideal one for that.

Once he accepts the request, Stanley soon goes through your average training montage, but then the film comes to focus on something else. Yes, it is apparent to us that what older Stanley, voiced by Jack Black, tells us is no more than a funny fictional tale of grand exaggeration, and the movie looks back at how much this tale is influenced by Stanley’s childhood background. After all, he has grown up in a big suburban family living not so far from that NASA center in Houston, and his father actually works in NASA, though what he does there is not as awesome as his youngest son wishes.

Anyway, living near that NASA center during the late 1960s was pretty fun and exciting for young kids like Stanley. As the American space programs went higher and higher toward the moon, everyone in US became more excited about space and future, and that is quite evident from a brief scene where Stanley and others watch Stanley Kubrick’s great SF film “2001: A Space Odyssey” (1968) at a local movie theater. Although I watched it for the first time alone at my family home at one night of 1996 autumn, I still remembere well how much I was baffled and intrigued during my viewing, and I must confess that I was quite amused by the following scene where Stanley enthusiastically talks about its sublime qualities in front of his several disinterested friends.

Stanley can be regarded as your typical young Linklater hero not so far from the boy hero of Linklater’s masterpiece “Boyhood” (2014), and the film has some fun from Stanley’s dryly humorous observation of his family and many other figures in his neighborhood. While his father is usually busy with his work outside, his mother is mostly occupied with numerous domestic stuffs besides raising their six children including Stanley, and one of the most amusing moments in the film comes from how she diligently handles the daily meals for her and her family every week.

As 1969 begins, the mood becomes more exciting in Stanley’s neighborhood thanks to the upcoming Apollo 11 mission, and the film freely goes back and forth between the reality and whatever is imagined inside Stanley’s imaginative mind. In his imagination, he continues to go through the training before the launch day comes, and, as watching those three astronauts of Apollo 11 preparing for the launch on TV, his mind keeps focusing on how he prepares just like that without being noticed by the media and many people out there including his family.

In the meantime, the film sometimes pays some attention to the considerable social/cultural changes through which the American society was going around that time. Although everything usually looks just fine and normal around Stanley and his family, they often encounter various social issues ranging from the Vietnam War to the civil rights movement whenever they watch TV news, and Stanley naturally becomes more aware of how things are not that rosy for many other people in the country.

In the end, the story culminates to that historic moment on the Moon which happened in August 1969, but Linklater’s screenplay sticks to its casual attitude while continuing to have funs as usual. Cheerfully wielding its distinctive animation style which will instantly take you to Linklater’s two other notable animation films “Waking Life” (2001) and “A Scanner Darkly” (2006), the movie somehow pulls off a solid ending from its free-flowing narrative style, and Coy, Black, and several other substantial voice cast members including Glen Powell and Zachary Levi are mostly effective as wisely keeping their voice performances straight even during the most absurd moments in the film.

In conclusion, “Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Age Childhood” does not reach to the profoundly offbeat aspects of “Waking Life”, but it is still another enjoyable work from Linklater, who has seldom disappointed us since his debut feature film “It’s Impossible to Learn to Plow by Reading Books” (1988). Sure, the film may be no more than a merely whimsical rambling which simply goes on and on throughout its 98-minute running time, but it is done fairly well with enough wit, style, and intelligence, and the result is fun and entertaining at least. It is not great, but I am glad that I spent some time in watching and listening to it, and I assure you that you will not regret at all if you are an admirer of Linklater’s many works just like me.

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Moonshot (2022) ☆☆(2/4): As they’re heading to Mars

Posted on April 5, 2022 by kaist455

My demand is not that high when I watch any film which happens to draw my interest, but “Moonshot”, which was released on HBO Max in last week, let me down in more than one way. As a romantic comedy, the movie is pretty predictable to the core without surprising or amusing me that much, and that made me more aware of its rather bland storytelling and thin characterization. As a movie decorated with science fiction elements, it woefully lacks imagination and creativity to say the least, and I only came to wonder more about how cheap it is for its filmmakers to produce the film.

The movie begins its story with its hero’s longtime aspiration toward Mars. It is 2049, and space travel has become a bit more common than before thanks to considerable technological advancement while Mars is going through the first stages of colonization. Although he is not so distinguished in many aspects, Walt (Cole Sprouse) still wants to go to Mars someday as he has always wished, and we get some little laugh from how he is still miserably stuck in his mundane daily life on the Earth.

Anyway, there comes an unexpected moment of motivation for Walt during one evening party he happens to crash into. He comes across a pretty girl, and, as they talk with each other more after leaving the party, he soon finds himself quite attracted to her, and it seems she also likes him enough to let him be around her more. Sadly, she will get on a spaceship to Mars on the very next day, so it looks like that is the end of their little nice moment, but Walt becomes quite determined to find any possible way to follow after her.

While he is not particularly rich enough to buy a spaceship ticket (It costs around one million dollars, by the way), Walt is ready to grab any possible opportunity, and the chance comes to him a few days later via Sophie (Lana Condor), another girl whom he happened to encounter at that evening party. Although their first encounter was not exactly pleasant, Sophie comes to let out her thoughts and feelings about her boyfriend who is currently in Mars along with his family, and Walt encourages her to go to Mars right now because he is going to take advantage of her following decision.

Once she gets on the next spaceship to Mars, Sophie belatedly comes to learn of Walt’s opportunistic plan. He managed to sneak in the spaceship right before it left the Earth, and he is going to hide in Sophie’s cabin during next several weeks before the spaceship eventually arrives in Mars. While she is naturally exasperated, Sophie has no choice but to help Walt, and that is the beginning of their uneasy space trip to Mars.

Around that narrative point, you will already have a pretty good idea on where the story and characters are heading, and, unfortunately, the screenplay by Max Taxe is often deficient in terms of humor, tension, and personality. While what is being at stake for our two young lead characters is almost non-existent, the movie frequently stumbles as occasionally throwing casual moments of cheap humor, and many of supporting figures surrounding Walt and Sophie are more or less than broad caricatures simply existing for mild laughs.

It is not much of a spoiler to tell you that Walt and Sophie come to care more about each other than they can admit on the surface, but their supposedly playful moments do not work well despite the good efforts from the two lead performers in the film. While Cole Sprouse, who is mainly known for the recent American TV drama series “Riverdale”, is fairly engaging on the whole, I cannot help but point out that his character is no more than a pesky dude who causes considerable troubles for others who happen to be associated with him, and you may not be so surprised by how Walt’s dream girl responds to him when they finally meet each other again later in the story (Is this a spoiler?). In case of Lana Condor, this wonderful actress was simply charming in Netflix film “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before” (2018) and its two following sequels, but she is sadly stuck with her rather bland character here, and the only consolation for us is that she somehow acquits herself well despite that.

Above all, the movie is quite dissatisfying in terms of its futuristic background details. I understand that space has become a bit mundane stuff on the screen since “Gravity” (2013) and “Interstellar” (2014), but director Chris Winterbauer and his crew members merely give us a number of mediocre scenes drenched in plain and unimpressive CGIs, and a subplot involved with a big technology corporation CEO played by Zach Braff, who is clearly based on Elon Musk, is redundant at best and distracting at worst.

Although it is passable as a lightweight romantic comedy, “Moonshot” seriously lacks elements to make it a bit more distinctive at least, and I often found myself observing its story and characters without much care. Maybe I was a bit too generous as giving three stars to Jennifer Lopez and Owen Wilson’s recent comedy film “Marry Me” (2022), but that commercial product has more charm and wit in comparison, and I sincerely recommend you to watch it or Richard Linklater’s recent Netflix film “Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Age Childhood” (2022) instead, which did a better job of doing some comedy in the space. Believe me, you will have a much more productive time with either of them.

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After Love (2020) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): Two women left behind

Posted on April 4, 2022 by kaist455

“After Love” is a simple but sensitive film about two different women who happen to be involved with each other via the man they both loved deeply. While calmly observing how one approaches the other without telling anything at all, the movie dryly but sensitively conveys to us the accumulating emotional undercurrents around them, and we come to care about both of them more as gradually understanding and empathizing with their complex personal feelings.

The movie opens with an unexpected happening which turns upside down the daily life of a middled-aged British Muslim woman named Mary Hussain (Joanna Scanlan). For many years, she has been married to a Pakistani guy who has worked as one the crew members of a ship routinely going back and forth between UK and France, and, as clearly shown from her traditional attire, she even converted to Islam for her husband around the time of their marriage. It looks like she and her husband have had a fairly good married life despite having no child between them, and we see her making some tea in the kitchen not long after they return to their home at one night, but then, alas, she belatedly discovers that her husband suddenly died while waiting for the tea in the living room.

While subsequently trying to deal with this sudden loss and the following grief of hers, Mary checks out her husband’s personal belongings for their old time’s sake, and then she finds something suspicious from her husband’s wallet. It is the identification card belonging to some French woman living in Calais, and Mary naturally becomes curious about this French woman whom her husband had never mentioned to her at all.

Shortly after she arrives in Calais, Mary goes to the residence of this French woman, and it does not take much time for her to gather what her husband was hiding from her behind his back. He actually had a longtime affair with this French woman for years, and, to Mary’s surprise, they even have a teenage son between them.

However, probably because of fear and embarrassment, Mary chooses not to tell anything to Genevieve (Nathalie Richard) when they happen to encounter each other at the front of Genevieve’s residence, and Genevieve simply assumes that Mary is a temporary helper sent to her residence. She is soon going to move to some new place as planned by her and her lover, so she has been pretty busy with preparing for that, while wondering why he still does not call her yet after leaving for UK several days ago.

While baffled about why her husband cheated on her for years, Mary finds herself getting involved more with Genevieve and her son Solomon (Talid Ariss). She helps Genevieve packing various stuffs in her residence, and she feels all the more conflicted as observing how important her husband was to Genevieve and Solomon. Although she was well aware from the beginning that her lover was a married man, Genevieve still loves him while being content with being his mistress, and, just like any other boy at his age, Solomon wants to be closer to his father even though his father was frequently absent throughout his childhood.

As Genevieve and Solomon keep waiting for any news from Mary’s husband, Mary is reminded more that she must do something about this increasingly difficult situation between her and them, but she still hesitates nonetheless while coping more with her complicated feelings toward her husband. She may feel betrayed as finding her husband’s stuffs here and there in Genevieve’s residence, but she is also saddened by not knowing or understanding her husband more before his untimely death, and she cannot help but delve more into Genevieve and Solomon’s life as days go by.

Around that narrative point, we can already discern where the story is heading, but the screenplay by director/writer Aleem Khan, which is partially inspired by his personal background (His mother is also a British Muslim convert just like his heroine, for example), patiently builds up its emotional momentum via small intimate moments of character development. While both Mary and Genevieve come to us as well-rounded and complex human figures along the story, the story also pays some attention to Solomon, and it is engaging to observe how these three main characters in the story interact with each other in one way or another.

Khan also draws the very good performances from his three main cast members. Joanna Scanlan, who deservedly received the BAFTA Best Actress award for this movie a few weeks ago, steadily anchors the film with her many quiet but emotionally palpable moments in the movie, and her excellent acting shines whenever she lets us sense more of her character’s life story. On the opposite, Nathalie Richard, a veteran French actress who has appeared in a number of various French films ranging from Olivier Assayas’ “Irma Vep” (1996) to Michael Haneke’s “Caché” (2005), effectively complements her co-star on the whole, and Talid Ariss holds his own small place well between Scanlan and Richard as another substantial part of the story.

In conclusion, “After Love” is a modest but powerful female drama which deserves more attention for its thoughtful direction and wonderful performances, and Khan, who previously made several short films, made a solid feature debut here. In short, this is one of more impressive films I saw during this year, and I think you really should check it out as soon as possible.

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The Blind Man Who Did Not Want to See Titanic (2021) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): But he wants to see it with her right now….

Posted on March 27, 2022 by kaist455

Great Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman once said that human face is the most fascinating subject possible for the camera. That is what came to my mind while I was watching Finnish film “The Blind Man Who Did Not Want to See Titanic”, which won the audience award when it was shown at the Venice International Film Festival in last year. So adamantly focusing on its disabled hero’s face from the beginning to the end, the movie will make you constantly aware of his plain but unforgettable face, and you will find yourself more attentive to whatever can be glimpsed from his face – and whatever he cannot possibly see due to his deteriorating medical condition.

At the beginning, the movie lets us get accustomed to what Jaakko (Petri Pikolainen) has to deal with everyday of his isolated daily life. Due to his worsening multiple sclerosis, he already cannot move the lower part of his body anymore while having also lost most of his eyesight, and he always has to depend a lot on his caregiver who comes to his small apartment everyday. At least, he still can get up from his bed and then move his body to his wheelchair for beginning another day, and he also often has an online talk with a woman who has her own serious illness, though he cannot see her at all while only listening to her voice.

While Jaakko talks more with this woman, we get to know a bit more about him. He is your average movie fan just like me and some of you, and we later see him proudly showing her his modest collection of DVDs, though he cannot watch any of them after losing his eyesight. He turns out to be a big fan of the works of John Carpenter, and I am sure that I can have an interesting discussion with this dude mainly because I like some of Carpenter’s works while also not liking others that much (He will be furious if I say I felt rather cold to “They Live” (1988) or “The Fog” (1980), for example).

In addition, he dislikes James Cameron’s “Titanic” (1997) a lot, but it seems that he is willing to tolerate this gloriously ambitious (and humongous) Hollywood product just because, well, his woman wants to watch it along with him someday. Considering that she lives a bit far from the city where he resides, their wish looks rather improbable, but then something unexpected occurs later. Her medical condition suddenly becomes quite worse than before, and that reminds Jaakko more of how both she and he are running out of time as coping with any possibility of death day by day. In the end, he comes to decide that he must go to her residence right now for watching several movies including, yes, “Titanic” along with her, even though he has been stuck in his small residence for years without going outside at all.

At first, his impromptu plan seems to be going well for him. On the surface, all Jaakko will have to is arranging a taxi ride between his place and a local train station where he will get some help for getting on a train going to the city where she lives, and he feels excited and delighted as being taken to the local train station as planned by him.

However, of course, Jaakko soon finds himself reminded again of how vulnerable and helpless he can be as a person with disability. Yes, there are good people ready to help him as expected, but there are also bad people not hesitating to take advantage of him at all, and the mood becomes a bit more tense when our hero is subsequently cornered by two strangers at one point.

Effortlessly going back and forth between comedy and drama, the screenplay by director/writer/co-producer Teemu Niki generates some nice comic moments which will earn chuckles from any seasoned moviegoer like me. Even when things get considerably grim for him, Jaakko cannot help but become a bit sardonic about his serious circumstance as mentioning Joel and Ethan Coen’s “Fargo” (1996), and my biggest chuckle during my viewing came from when he instantly points out that Peter Stomare, who was in that shockingly memorable climax scene in “Fargo”, is not a Danish but Swedish actor.

While all these and other things happen around its hero along the story, the movie austerely sticks to his very limited viewpoint for having us understand and empathize with him more, and Nikki and his cinematographer Sari Aaltonen deliberately make almost everything around Jaakko look constantly blurry and elusive on the screen. It may take some time for you to get accustomed to this interesting visual choice reminiscent of other notable films including László Nemes’ Oscar-winning movie “Son of Saul” (2015), but Nikki and Aaltonen skillfully handle many key scenes in the film without confusing or distracting us at all, and that is the main reason why the very last shot of the film is so dramatically effective.

Above all, the movie is steadily and diligently carried by Petri Poikolainen, who has been actually struggling with multiple sclerosis for years just like his character. While all other cast members of the film stay in the blurry background, Poikolaniene’s face and body come to function as the emotional center of the film, and Nikki often lets his lead actor delve further into Jaakko’s frustration and helplessness with indelibly poignant emotional effects.

Overall, “The Blind Man Who Did Not Want to See Titanic” is rather modest on the surface, but its considerable poignancy coupled with a lightweight sense of humor will leave some distinctive impression on you, and I appreciate several thoughtful touches which may be also appreciated by its potential audiences with eyesight disability. In short, this is another highlight of this year, and I sincerely urge you to check it out as soon as possible.

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The August Virgin (2019) ☆☆1/2 (2.5/4): Her August in Madrid

Posted on March 26, 2022 by kaist455

Spanish film “The August Virgin”, which happens to be released in South Korean theaters in this week, simply strolls along with its heroine during her summer stay in Madrid, Spain. While it works to some degree as a likable character study thanks to its good lead actress, the movie often frustrated me during my viewing mainly due to the adamant aimlessness of its rather elusive narrative, and I did not feel much like getting to know its heroine even though I understood and empathized with her disoriented status.

Itsaso Arana, who incidentally wrote the screenplay with director Jonás Trueba, plays a young actress named Eva, and the opening scene shows her looking around one apartment in Madrid where she is going to stay alone during August. Although there are a number of inconveniences in the apartment as admitted to her by its owner, she has no particular problem with the apartment on the whole, and she later has a brief conversation with the owner, who talks a bit about old classic Hollywood films just because he has been quite interested in them.

Anyway, Eva moves to the apartment on the first day of August, and the movie leisurely observes how she goes through next several days. For some personal reason to be revealed later in the story, she simply wants to spend her own private time during her staying period in Madrid, and we see her going around here and there alone in Madrid.

When she drops by a big museum full of many different artifacts, she looks at one of them for a while, and then she unexpected comes across an old male journalist friend of hers, who happens to be there for doing his latest freelance job. After they come out of the museum together, they go to a spot where they can have more conversation between them, and their conversation soon comes to revolve around how he has been doing during last several years – how he has become less idealistic as focusing more on trying to earn his living day by day.

Eva later observes similar things from one of her female friends, who is now living in Madrid as raising her little son. As they casually talk with each other, they are reminded more of how distant they have been to each other for years, but her friend’s life always has to revolve around her young son’s welfare now, and Eva surely understands that without any judgment.

Meanwhile, Eva also has encounters with several strangers who do not mind spending some time with her. At a certain local bar, she happens to meet a British guy who has lived in Spain for several years as working as an English teacher, and she is willing to talk more about herself as he gladly shows more of himself to her. As they talk more with each other, they seem to be more fascinated with each other, but they do not go further than that, and Eva later kindly invites him to a little afternoon picnic for her and her friend.

One of the most amusing moments in the film comes from Eva’s accidental encounter with two women who happen to be sitting right behind her at a movie theater. After hearing these two ladies’ conversation on how to synchronize ovulation cycle to the lunar period, Eva becomes quite interested in that, and she even invites one of them to her staying place. I do not know whether what they do together really works, but it will probably generate some chuckles from you.

What may be the most substantial part in the film comes from some dude Eva happens to spot during one evening. Because he looks rather depressed as he simply remains at a certain spot, Eva comes to care a bit about this guy, and she tries to approach and then talk with him. Although he is not exactly social, the guy responds to her anyway when they encounter each other again, and that is the beginning of their relationship, which eventually culminates to the point where she comes to reveal what she has been concerned about.

I must tell you that this moment of revelation feels rather anti-climactic, and the movie continues to stick to its leisurely aimlessness as before. Its heroine remains vague and ambiguous without letting us know more about her, and then the movie merely walks away from the screen along with her, while we are supposed to fill the gaps and blanks in the story in addition to reflecting a bit on our own life as expected.

While I wish the movie could bring more substance to its story and characters, I still admire Arana’s solid lead performance. While she ably handles a number of key scenes in the film with engaging emotional details, Arana is also supported well by a number of supporting performers who have each own moment to shine without overshadowing her at all, and she and Vito Sanz click well with each other as their characters subtly pull and push each other during several scenes later in the story.

In conclusion, “The August Virgin” is a fairly enjoyable character drama, but it is not interesting enough to engage my mind, which unfortunately happened to be quite distracted for some personal reason. If the movie worked well enough for me, my mind would put aside my private issues for 2 hours at least, but that did not happen at all during my viewing. Therefore, I cannot recommend it for now because of what I felt as watching it, but I also think I should give it another chance someday, and I will be certainly glad if it looks and feels better than before.

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My Prediction on the 94th Academy Awards

Posted on March 23, 2022 by kaist455

We are approaching the end of the first quarter of 2022, and things have been pretty much same as the COVID-19 pandemic is still dominating over us as usual. Although the situation has been less severe in South Korea compared to many other countries including US, I and many others in South Korea are quite careful about any possibility of infection nonetheless due to another big wave of infection, and I still often work a lot at my workplace, whose employees have tirelessly produced virus test kit materials during last two years.

Meanwhile, I watched lots of movies as usual, and I have certainly paid some attention to the current Oscar race. The Oscar race of this year turned out to have some surprises as a number of major local awards showed one interesting sign after another during last several months, and we were all surprised as “CODA” eventually rose as an underdog to defeat “The Power of the Dog”, which has been the top dog of the race for a while. In my humble opinion, “CODA” will make a small but clean sweep in all of its three categories including Best Picture Oscar, and I will be pretty fine with the eventful victory of this little likable family drama film even though I think we had a bunch of better films in last year (Did you watch “Drive My Car” or “The Worst Person in the World”, by the way?).

Anyway, I am pretty sure about which movie will win in case of many categories, but I am still not so sure about several others including Best Screenplay and Best Song Oscar, and I guess we will have some upsets on March 27th. To be frank with you, I have never been wholly correct in my prediction, so I bet you have a pretty good chance of outguessing me.

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Days (2020) ☆☆☆(3/4): Those quiet wordless moments

Posted on March 23, 2022 by kaist455

Tsai Ming-liang’s latest feature film “Days”, which won the jury Teddy Award when it was shown at the Berlin International Festival early in 2020, is slowly and patiently observes two different gay persons at its center. While it feels so simple and mundane on the surface without any particular narrative direction, the movie gradually engages us as immersing us into its calm and meditative mood, and you may find yourselves reflecting more on some of those quiet wordless moments in the film after it is over.

At the beginning, we are introduced to a middle-aged guy named Kang (Lee Kang-sheng, who has appeared in all of Tsai’s feature films), and he is silently looking outside the window in the living room of his modest middle-class house. We do not know what he is looking at, and his phlegmatic face signifies nothing at all, but, as the camera simply stares at him during next several minutes, we come to wonder more about whatever he is feeling or thinking behind his expressionless façade.

From Kang’s subsequent scene which is unfolded in some oriental medicine clinic, we come to gather that he has some physical problem in his neck. As a guy who has also frequented oriental medicine clinics for a similar neck problem, I observed Kang’s acupuncture therapy session with some mild amusement, and I got a small laugh as watching him paying some attention to his neck muscles later.

These and other moments of Kang are alternated with the scenes depicting the daily life of a young man named Non (Anong Houngheuangsy). Like Kang, he is living alone, and the movie shows us how he goes through the same day in his rather shabby residence. At one point, the camera just looks at him working in his kitchen during several minutes without any interruption, and, though nothing significant happens on the surface except those vegetables diligently handled by Non, this extended shot steadily holds our attention via its effortless verisimilitude coupled with a subtle but genuine rhythm of daily life.

As time keeps going for both Kang and Non, the movie tentatively flows from one plain moment to another while distancing itself from both of them as before. The movie does not show anything about who they are or how their respective lives have been, but there is always a palpable sense of life from their surrounding environments, and the movie feels like a documentary especially when the camera patiently follows after Kang as he walks along a busy urban street filled with many different people.

The movie was actually edited from what was shot here and there by Tsai and his crew members during several years, but its individual scenes are seamlessly connected together to generate a sort of narrative flow, and then it eventually arrives at the narrative point where its two main characters meet each other in a nice and comfortable hotel room. As arranged between them in advance, Non gives Kang a full-body massage, and the movie calmly looks at how Non works on Kang step by step. While it is not much of a spoiler to tell you that Non does a bit more than usual massage, this key scene is presented with enough sensitivity and tactfulness, and we come to focus more on whatever is exchanged between them beneath the surface.

However, the movie still sticks to its austere storytelling approach even at that point. After their massage session is over, Kang and Non talks a bit with each other, but their brief verbal interaction is barely audible, and, as already told to us from the very beginning, the movie does not provide any subtitle. Kang shows some gratitude to Non via a little small gift, and then he comes to have a little dinner with Non at a nearby restaurant, but the movie observes them from the distance, while we wonder more about what exactly Kang feels about Non during this moment.

What follows next during the rest of the film is another quiet wordless observation of how days continue to pass by as usual for both of them. We see Kang going through another day at his residence. We watch Non working at his kitchen again. We see Kang doing some night walk. And we watch Non becoming a bit melancholic as looking at that little gift from Kang.

Under Tsai’s thoughtful direction, we often sense subtle emotional undercurrents beneath the screen, and his two lead performers did an effective job for that. As a seasoned professional actor, Lee Kang-sheng makes an interesting contrast with the unadorned non-professional acting from Anong Houngheuangsy, who is incidentally a Laotian immigrant to Thailand. Their tentative physical/emotional interactions during the second half of the film function well as the modest but tangible emotional anchor of the movie, and that is the main reason why the last shot of the film leaves some bittersweet emotional impression on us.

Overall, “Days” is surely one of those ‘slow movies’ which require you a considerable amount of patience (According to the IMDB trivia, it has only 46 shots, by the way), but it is worthwhile to watch for its admirable mood, storytelling, and performance. As a matter of fact, I am already willing to revisit it someday for appreciating its seemingly plain but undeniably strong aspects more, and that says a lot about how it works well for me.

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Zeros and Ones (2021) ☆☆(2/4): A murky and rambling work by Abel Ferrara

Posted on March 23, 2022 by kaist455

I admire how Abel Ferrara have steadily continued his interesting filmmaking career during last 20 years. While he may have passed his prime period after a string of fascinating works he made in US during the 1990s, this distinctive American filmmaker has quietly kept working during next two decades, and his recent films “Pasolini” (2014) and “Tommaso” (2019) showed us that he is still a master filmmaker who deserves more attention.

Mainly because I was amused and entertained by “Tommaso” more than expected, I had some expectation on Ferrara’s very next film “Siberia” (2020), but it turned out to be rather hollow to my disappointment, and now here comes another disappointment via “Zeros and Ones”, which was released in US several months ago. While I could sense to some degree that the movie is the reflection of whatever Ferrara is feeling and thinking during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, I frequently felt lost, confused, and frustrated due to its murky visual and barebone narrative, and I was eventually left with empty hands as already dreading over what I could possibly write in this review.

What is presented at the beginning and end of the movie is much more interesting than the movie itself. Ethan Hawke, who plays the solider hero of the movie, talks directly to the audiences, and I actually enjoyed his sincere and enthusiastic introduction for the film. As one of the most interesting (and intelligent) actors working in Hollywood, Hawke has seldom hesitated to accept challenging roles, and we can understand how eager he has been to collaborate with Ferrara as admiring Ferrara’s fruitful recent collaborations with Willem Dafoe, who incidentally gave one of his more interesting performances in “Tommaso”.

I must confess that I had some expectation thanks to Hawke’s introduction clip, but, sadly, my expectation was soon dissipated during next 20 minutes as trying to understand what exactly is going on around Hawke’s character. As far as I can remember from the movie, his soldier character comes to Rome during one night for some secret mission, but the movie is adamantly vague about the details of this secret mission, and I have to admit that I came to understand its plot a bit only after getting some information from Rotten Tomatoes.

Anyway, Hawke’s character goes around here and there in the city, and we see more of how the city has been struggling with the ongoing pandemic, though the movie never specifies whether it is due to COVID-19 or some other highly contagious virus. Almost everyone in the film wears mask as ordered, and some of the characters appearing in the film sometimes say that their test results are negative.

Anyway, Hawke’s character is supposed to prevent a serious terror attack may occur sooner or later in Rome, and it looks like his imprisoned brother, who is also played by Hawke, holds a crucial piece of information for that, but, as your typical rebellious radical, his brother is quite uncooperative to say the least. At point, we see a video clip of his brother being interrogated by several soldiers, and we have to endure a sprawling speech which is incidentally ended with a certain classic song from Woody Guthrie.

After that, Hawke’s character keeps navigating the dark night streets and alleys of Rome, and the movie gives us a series of baffling moments which simply come and go. For example, I have no idea on the purpose of a seedy scene involved with drug and sex, and the same thing can be said about the subsequent sex scene between Hawke’s character and one of the female supporting characters in the film. Furthermore, the movie resorts to lots of rambling from time to time, and this does not add up to anything substantial while merely feeling like random excerpts from Ferrara’s personal notebook.

To make matters worse, the visual quality of the movie is so persistently murky that I often struggled to focus on whatever was shown on the screen. I guess Ferrara and his cinematographer Sean Price Williams attempt to make some point on how murky and confusing our world has been at present due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but their result is simply distracting and suffocating to say the least, and I was relieved only after the movie was finally brightened up a bit around its ending.

After consoled a little by that little bright part, I felt a bit better when Hawke appeared again at the end of the film, and I chuckled a little as he honestly admitted that even he does not know what exactly the movie is about. It looks like he had a fairly good time as working with Ferrara, but his performance here in this film is not exactly one of the highlights in his long and illustrious acting career, and now I am wondering whether he just simply followed whatever Ferrara ordered to him on the set.

In conclusion, “Zeros and Ones” is a misfire which feels more baffling and frustrating as I reflect more on its numerous elusive moments, and I would rather recommend you to watch “Tommaso” (2019) instead. Although I merely admire that film when I watched in October 2020, I still remember well its several interesting moments, and I am willing to revisit it sooner or later. In case of “Zeroes and Ones”, I have no interest at all in re-evaluating this vapid mess for now, and I am already ready to move onto whatever Ferrara will give us next.

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