The Beta Test (2021) ☆☆☆(3/4): He had it coming, you know

Posted on December 7, 2021 by kaist455

“The Beta Test” is a vicious and morbid black comedy which often goes wild with its edgy sense of black humor to our horror, embarrassment, and amusement. Mainly revolving around one very unlikable Hollywood dude who surely deserves all those predicaments poured upon him, the movie sharply and cheerfully examines and dissects toxic masculinity to the extreme, and we are not so surprised when it later enters a surreal territory of paranoia and online conspiracy.

Everything begins from one mysterious purple letter sent to Jordan Hines (Jim Cummings), who is your average hot shot Hollywood agent and is also about to have a couple of big changes in his life. Along with his partner, he is soon going to get a considerable financial support for their agency thanks to some very rich Chinese businessman, and he is surely determined to get the final agreement from that Chinese dude – even when he feels quite humiliated for getting his certain body part groped by that Chinese dude.

In case of his personal life, Jordan and his fiancé are busy with preparing for their upcoming wedding which will be held a few weeks later, and that is where that mysterious purple letter intrudes. It promises him a secret sexual encounter with a total stranger with complete anonymity, and he soon finds himself tempted by this offer even though he knows well that cheating on his fiancé now is not a good thing to do at all.

Once he sends his response in the end, Jordan receives the instruction on what to do next. He goes alone to some nice hotel located somewhere in the middle of LA, and then he enters a certain marked room where some young woman is waiting for him while being blindfolded just like he is as instructed. Due to their blindfolded status, it takes some time for them reaching to each other, but then everything goes pretty well once they touch each other, and he comes to experience a sort of power trip as gladly letting himself swept by passion and excitement.

As promised to him in advance, everything ends fairly well with no string attached, but then Jordan soon comes to realize that he probably made a very big mistake. It seems that he is entangled with some insidious scheme involved with sex and blackmail, so he attempts to search for any clue which may lead him to the origin of that mysterious purple letter, but his situation only becomes all the more baffling and frustrating to his exasperation.

In addition, as already shown to us right from the opening scene, he is not the only one who got into this kind of trouble. I will not go into details here, but I can tell you instead that the mood later becomes more ominous as Jordan comes to learn of the other cases and their eventual consequences. If he does not find any solution to his ongoing circumstance, he may also have to pay a heavy price just like others, and that drives him into more dread and paranoia.

Rather than showing any pity of sympathy to its hero, the screenplay by directors/writers Jim Cummings and PJ McCabe has lots of mean fun with its hero’s increasingly aggressive male attitude, and it surely makes a big point on how his toxic masculine behaviors annoys and hurts others who happen to be around him. At one point, Jordan cruelly intimidates one female employee working under him just because he is quite angry and pressured, and I was not so surprised to learn later that this and several other hurtful moments in the film are actually based on the directors’ interviews with a number of people who had similar experiences at their workplaces in real life. Although those deplorable Hollywood figures like Harvey Weinstein and Scott Rudin were finally exposed for their violence and cruelty during recent years, I guess there are still lots of monstrous people like them in Hollywood.

As Jordan becomes more unlikable along the story, we naturally come to observe him from the distance without much care, but Cummings’ intense comic performance grabs our attention via its raw manic energy. We often cringe and wince as observing more of what a jerk Jordan really is, but Cummings is often electrifying to watch thanks to his deft handling of comic lines and precise comic timing, and we become more interested in what will happen in the end even though we do still not care much about his character.

What is eventually revealed at the end of Jordan’s bumpy journey is rather anti-climactic compared to what has been built up to that point, but that part still has enough naughty fun for us. During one certain scene around the end of the story, Cummings throws us another big moment to watch, and we get a sort of comic catharsis as his character finally becomes a lot more honest to himself than before.

On the whole, “The Beta Test” is another distinctive work from Cummings, who previous gave us “Thunder Road” (2018) and “The Wolf of Snow Hollow” (2020). Although I did not like “The Wolf of Snow Hollow” enough mainly due to its jarring combination of different genre elements, it and “Thunder Road” showed that Cummings is an interesting filmmaker who knows one or two things about male anxiety and insecurity, and “The Beta Test” confirms that again to us. Yes, it may be a bit too edgy and feverish for some of you to enjoy, but I think you should give it a chance someday nonetheless.

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Belfast (2021) ☆☆☆(3/4): Branagh’s little personal work set in Belfast, 1969

Posted on December 6, 2021 by kaist455

Kenneth Branagh’s new film “Belfast” is a little likable coming-of-age drama which looks into its hero’s small world with considerable affection and a bit of bittersweet nostalgia. While often recognizing the alarming social tumult surrounding him and many others in one little neighborhood of Belfast, Northern Ireland in 1969, the movie also has a number of intimate human moments to be cherished, and you can clearly sense how much Branagh cares about the story and characters, which are loosely based on his own childhood experience in Belfast during the 1960s.

During the opening sequence, the movie introduces to us a young boy named Buddy (Jude Hill), and we soon watch how his usual afternoon playtime with those neighborhood kids is suddenly interrupted by a bunch of Protestant rioters quite determined to wreck a havoc on many Catholic neighbors’ houses. Although he and his mother and older brother are mostly safe because they are a Protestant family, what is happening outside certainly disturbs them all, and his mother accordingly becomes more concerned about her boys’ welfare.

And then there comes a possible solution via her husband, who has been often absent due to his current job in England. Because he may have to spend much more time in England due to possible promotion, Buddy’s father suggests to his wife that the family should move together to England for safety as well as stability for all of them, but his wife cannot help but hesitate over this suggestion. Sure, England will probably be much safer in comparison, but she also has lots of doubts on whether they can actually leave behind their dear hometown and their family members and neighbors.

As Buddy’s mother and her husband conflict more with each other over this important matter, the situation in Belfast becomes more volatile day by day. As more TV reports about riots and demonstrations come, their neighborhood is soon guarded by not only vigilantes but also British soldiers sent into the city, and Buddy’s father finds himself often threatened by local Protestant thugs who demand that he should make a certain political choice sooner or later. As a decent good man, he does not like the increasing social/political conflict between his Catholic and Protestant neighbors at all, but being neutral is not an option at all if he and his family continue to live in Belfast.

In case of Buddy, this serious situation in Belfast is not much of a concern to him as his innocent mind is usually occupied with small matters of his. For example, he wants to get closer to a certain young girl in his elementary school class, so he tries his best for drawing more attention from that girl, though his supposedly clever strategy backfires later to our little amusement.

And there are also his paternal grandparents, who always welcome their grandson whenever he drops by their nearby house. Although they sometimes bicker with each other a bit, it goes without saying that Buddy’s grandparents still love and care about each other a lot, and there is a little sweet moment when they show their enduring love and understanding at one point.

Leisurely flowing from one episodic moment to another, Branagh’s screenplay steadily maintains its gentle overall tone, and he and his crew members including cinematographer Haris Zambarloukos did a commendable job of transferring us into Belfast in the late 1960s. Mostly shot in black and white film, the movie is filled with nice period details to be observed, and you may also appreciate how it occasionally bring colors back into the screen for accentuating Buddy’s growing fascination with stage plays and movies.

I must point out that the movie is somehow curiously distant as frequently observing its story and characters from the distance. As a matter of fact, it does not delve that deep into many of its main characters as often limiting itself within its young hero’s narrow viewpoint, but it still has lots of charms besides its authentic period atmosphere to be appreciated, and newcomer Jude Hill is quite likable as giving one of the most memorable child performances of this year. Whenever Buddy wields his lively spirit on the screen, we cannot help but smile for his unadorned cheerfulness, and Hill did a good job of bringing considerable life and personality to his role.

Several notable cast members revolving around Hill are also impressive while never overshadowing him at all. Caitríona Balfe, an Irish actress who has been mainly known for her performance in TV drama series “Outlander”, is terrific as Buddy’s struggling mother, and she and Jamie Dornan, who demonstrates here again that he is too good to be remembered only for “Fifty Shades of Grey” (2015), click well with each other especially during one key scene between them. In case of Judy Dench and Ciarán Hinds, they are dependable as usual, and Hinds is particularly touching when his character gives a sincere advice to Dornan’s character later in the story.

In conclusion, “Belfast”, which incidentally won the People’s Choice award when it was shown at the Toronto International Film Festival several months ago, is rather modest compared to Branagh’s more ambitious works such as “Henry V” (1989) or “Hamlet” (1996), but it is better than his recent middling commercial products including “Thor” (2011) and “Murder on the Orient Express” (2017). He is surely back in his element as going for something more personal, and I am glad for his humble but substantial achievement.

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Nine Days (2020) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): Before Life

Posted on December 6, 2021 by kaist455

“Nine Days” is a little thought-provoking drama film which willingly delves into those familiar matters of life. After initially quite intrigued by its offbeat fantasy setting, I willingly followed its simple but thoughtful narrative as often admiring a number of poignantly human moments in the film, and I found myself gradually reflecting a lot on how I have lived my life during last 38 years – and how I should live during the rest of my life in the future.

At first, the movie lets us immersed in a small isolated world inhabited by its hero Will (Winston Duke) and a few other characters in the story. Although nothing much is explained about it, we come to gather that this world, which looks like being in the middle of some vast remote wasteland, is a sort of spiritual checkpoint before getting born into our world (Imagine a far plainer and more barren version of the Great Before in Pixar animation film “Soul” (2020)), and Will and his colleagues’ main job is monitoring the everyday lives of souls who were born into our world after being evaluated and then selected by them.

Via a bunch of old televisions assembled together in the living room of one cozy house assigned to him, Will often watches how those people selected by him live their respective lives day by day, and he has been particularly interested in a young woman who grows up to be a talented violinist. Although all of those selected souls are supposed to remember nothing once they get born into the world, she was somehow able to remember a bit about Will during her early years, and that is why Will has been particularly affectionate toward her for years.

And then something quite tragic happens in her life later, and that turns Will’s seemingly uneventful daily existence upside down as he becomes increasingly obsessed with how that could happen. He begins to check one record after another for finding whether there was actually anything seriously wrong in her life, and his colleague/best friend Kyo (Benedict Wong) is naturally concerned about him, though he cannot possibly give Will any nice pep talk as an entity who has never lived a life unlike Will.

Meanwhile, there soon comes a very important time when Will will handle a number of different candidates to be evaluated by him during nine days. During this period, Will must eliminate most of them one by one according to how they respond to a series of ambiguous tests, and the only one candidate will eventually remain to be ready for living a life.

Although he phlegmatically eliminates one candidate after another, Will remains as calm, gentle, and compassionate as before, and he also does his best for providing comfort and consolation whenever he notifies to a candidate of getting eliminated from the process. Although eliminated candidates will not exist sooner or later, they are given a chance to re-experience their most precious personal memory before their inevitable non-existence, and the screenplay by writer/director Edson Oda, who made a number of short films before making a feature film debut here, accordingly gives us several achingly humanistic moments not so far from Hirokazu Koreeda’s “After Life” (1998), a great Japanese film which is about a bunch of sincere spiritual entities helping souls moving onto afterlife with each own personal memory to cherish forever.

In the meantime, one of the few remaining candidates comes to draw more attention from Will. That candidate in question is Emma (Zazie Beetz), and she seems to be interested in Will as much as living a life out there. As she talks more with Will, she sees through him more, and Will slowly comes to reveal a bit of himself to her even though he still sticks to his ongoing duty as before. To him, it looks like Emma is a better candidate than Kane (Bill Skarsgård), but he also does not want her to get closer to him as a man who has been accustomed to emotional detachment, and that consequently generates some emotional tension between them.

Even at that point, the movie firmly maintains its meditative style and attitude not so far from Terrence Malick’s “The Tree of Life” (2011). As a matter of fact, Oda and his cinematographer Wyatt Garfield often provide us a series of vividly impressive bits of life just like Malick’s film, and we come to muse more on our existence on the Earth. Furthermore, we later get an interesting discussion on life among Will and several other main characters, and you may find yourself agreeing to both of two very different viewpoints on life.

Most of you will probably not be surprised by the ultimate result of Will’s selection process, but the finale is undeniably touching mainly thanks to the quiet poignancy of Winston Duke’s good lead performance. While usually functioning as the stable counterpoint to the other stellar cast members including Zazie Beetz, Bill Skarsgård, Tony Hale, and Benedict Wong, Duke comes to have several moments to show more of his character’s humanity along the story, and you will not be disappointed with one powerful showstopper moment which he delivers magnificently to say the least.

In conclusion, “Nine Days”, which received the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award when it was shown at the Sundance Film Festival early in last year, is a small but admirable film, and it surely deserves more attention considering how it was quickly put aside after it was unceremoniously released in US several months ago. In short, this is one of the better films of this year, and I assure you that you will not be disappointed especially if you admire “The Tree of Life” and “After Life”.

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The Card Counter (2021) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): The Gambler in the room

Posted on December 6, 2021 by kaist455

Paul Schrader’s new film “The Card Counter” is another compelling character study which deserves to be mentioned along with many of his notable works. Just like “American Gigolo” (1980) or “First Reformed” (2017), the movie presents an austere but intense character drama about one particular solitary hero, and it is often captivating to observe how its detachedly confident hero deals with a few other characters around him while frequently holding cards behind his back.

In the beginning, the movie succinctly establishes its hero’s unorthodoxly stoic handling of his life and profession. While he was incarcerated in a military prison for several years due to a reason to be revealed along the story, William “Tell” Tillich (Oscar Isaac) had thoroughly mastered how to play and count trump cards because that gave him something to focus on during his long incarceration period, and he has utilized his mastery of cards fairly well since his release at many gambling spots, but he has always been cautious and rigorous about that. He usually wins, but he never tries that too much for avoiding drawing any unwanted attention from those casino management and security guys, and that is how he has been under radar with a constant stream of cash for him.

When he is not ‘working’, Tillich mostly stays in motel room, and he only concentrates on cards or writing his personal journal there. As observing how he always covers the furnitures of his motel room with white sheets in advance, you will sense a sort of religious devotion from him – and how lonely and isolated he really is just like many of Schrader’s memorable movie heroes including the agonized priest played by Ethan Hawke in “First Reformed”.

And then two different people unexpectedly come into Tillich’s small world. At one big casino, he happens to be noticed by a woman called La Linda (Tiffany Haddish), and she is willing to connect him with some investors to promote him at a series of big national poker tournaments to be held around the country. Tillich is not particularly interested as he wants to stick to his solitary independence as usual, but, as he talks more with La Linda, they come to feel more mutual attraction between them.

Meanwhile, he also encounters a lad named Cirk (Tye Sheridan) at a certain big conference into which both of them come for each own personal reason. After instantly recognizing Tillich, Cirk tells Tillich a bit about his personal plan involved with one certain speaker at that conference, and, though he sharply points out how unprepared Cirk is in many aspects, Tillich eventually lets Cirk accompany him as a sort of protégé in addition to accepting the offer from La Linda.

As these three main characters come to roll together from one point to another, the movie comes to feel like a mix of gambling and road movie, but it continues to intense and reserved just like its hero. While we later get to know more of his dark past associated with not only Cirk but also Cirk’s target, we are never quite sure about what exactly Tillich is planning behind his back – even when he confides his feelings and thoughts to his little diary as usual.

Steadily maintaining the level of its subtle tension beneath the screen, the movie shows some sense of humor at times. I was amused by the frequent appearance of a cocky gambler who is quite different from Tillich in many aspects, and I also enjoyed how Tillich and La Linda often push and pull each other during their little private moments. Tillich prefers to stick to business as usual, but he cannot help but feel more attracted to her vivacious warmth, and she seems to be willing to go further if he lets his guard down a bit more for her.

In the end, Schrader’s screenplay culminates to a crucial point where its hero must handle two different situations together, but it does not lose any of its calm attitude even around that point. I will not describe this part in details for not spoiling any of your entertainment, but I can tell you instead that how the movie deftly hands out surprises for us like a skillful croupier, and the eventual finale is satisfying on the whole although its delivery feels a little too hurried in my inconsequential opinion.

Above all, the movie is carried well by another excellent performance from Oscar Isaac, who has been one of the most interesting actors of our time since his notable supporting turn in Nicholas Winding Refn’s “Drive” (2011). In addition to being dry, slick. and confident as required by his character, Isaac masterfully depicts his character’s inner turmoil and conflict without exaggerating at all, and he is especially captivating when his character must do something very drastic to Cirk at one point later in the story.

A few notable performers around Isaac are equally solid. While Tye Sheridan complements Isaac well with his naïve appearance, Tiffany Haddish dials down her usual comic intensity to some degree for showing a more serious side of her talent, and Willem Dafoe, who previously collaborated with Schrader in “Affliction” (1997) and “Adam Resurrected” (2008), is insidious as another substantial supporting character in the story.

Overall, “The Card Counter” is a fascinating piece of work to be admired and appreciated, and Schrader demonstrates here that he is still one of the most intelligent American filmmakers. Yes, he has unwisely caused several controversies during last several years, and I personally think he deserved that, but I also have to admit that he is still a talented one as before.

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Wild Indian (2021) ☆☆☆(3/4): When the past returns to him

Posted on December 6, 2021 by kaist455

“Wild Indian” is a calm but unnerving thriller about two different Indigenous American men who come to face their old dark childhood secret in the past. As slowly rolling its story and characters to the expected narrative point, the movie examines not only their respective guilt but also their gloomy past, and the result is alternatively harrowing and chilling while revealing more of what has been tormenting them for years.

The early part of the movie, which is set in the reservation area of one Indigenous American tribe in 1984, casts a long gray shadow over the rest of the film. We meet two Indigenous American kids who often hang around with each other as close friends, and the movie mainly focuses on how things are miserable and hopeless for them and many others in the area due to poverty and unemployment. In case of Mawka (Phoenix Wilson), this sullen boy has been frequently abused and neglected by his parents who have no idea on what to do with him as well as their own life, and his detached face speaks volumes about his growing anger and resentment.

When Teddo (Julian Gopal) later shows Mawka a rifle belonging to his father, we instantly sense a trouble, and something quite horrible does happen in the end. I will not go into details here, but I can tell you that the resulting incident affects the lives of Teddo and Mawka a lot even though they manage to cover up everything without raising any suspicion from others.

The story subsequently moves forward to 2019, and we observe how much things have changed for both Mawka and Teddo, respectively. Not long after that incident, Mawka, who is now played Michael Greyeyes from this point, left his hometown, and he is currently a successful businessman living in California with everything he wanted. While a certain big business deal for him and his close colleague has been going pretty well, he also has a Caucasian wife and their little son, and now she is going to give him the second kid.

Everything seems fine for him on the surface, but we come to discern that the past is still living well inside Mawka. Although he changed his name to a more, uh, American one, he cannot help but conscious of his race, and there is a little awkward scene where he deliberately throws at his close colleague a possibly sensitive question about his hairdo. When his wife announces to him the upcoming arrival of their second child, he feels rather stiff and baffled, and he is actually more honest to himself when he shows his darker side to a young woman he meets at a strip club later.

Above all, his hidden guilty about what happened at that time still feels strong to him as before. We see Mawka desperately praying alone at a church, but nothing gets better for him nonetheless, and he is also still keeping a certain little incriminating object. Is this a constant reminder of his guilt? Or, is it simply a morbid souvenir from what he managed to get away with?

In the meantime, the movie also pays attention to the current status of Teddo, who is now played by Chaske Spencer. Since that incident, Teddo got himself involved with a number of serious criminal deeds, and he has consequently been incarcerated in a prison for several years, but he is now released with lots of uncertainty in front of him. While he manages to get a job, there is still no future for him, and the only consolation comes from his two family members who come to care a lot about him as living with him for a while.

However, as he tries to make a new beginning for his life, Teddo cannot help but feel more guilt about what happened at that time, and that consequently threatens what Mawka has built for years. While caught off guard by the unexpected return of his old dark past, Mawka is quite willing to suppress it by any means necessary, and the screenplay by director/writer/co-producer Lyle Mitchell Corbine Jr. steadily follows his following struggle as revealing more of his darker side. At one point where he approaches to a certain person who may cause more trouble for him, he initially looks mild and courteous, but then he shows his old contempt and resentment toward the world he left many years ago, and that is quite chilling to say the least.

As Mawka becomes more heartless and dastardlier along the plot, we come to observe him from the distance with more disgust and horror, but the movie still holds our attention thanks to Greyeyes’ strong lead performance. While never making any excuse on his character, Greyeyes is often intense and compelling as ably conveying to us his character’s guilt, torment, and determination, and I hope we will see more of this talented veteran performer in the future. On the opposite, Chaske Spencer, who previously played a supporting character in the Twilight movies, is also effective in his role, and he and Greyeyes are flawlessly connected with young performers Phoenix Wilson and Julian Gopal, who hold their own place well in the beginning.

In conclusion, “Wild Indian” is worthwhile to watch for its competent storytelling and solid acting, and Corbine, who previously directed several short films, makes a fairly good feature film debut here. As far as I can see, he is a good filmmaker who knows how to engage the audiences, and it is will interesting to see whether he will become another interesting American filmmaker to watch.

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The Summits of Gods (2021) ☆☆☆(3/4): Following after a mountaineer

Posted on December 5, 2021 by kaist455

At first, Netflix animation film “The Summits of Gods”, which was released a few days ago, draws our attention for its odd combination. Although it is based on a Japanese manga series of the same name written and illustrated by Jiro Taniguchi (It was developed from Baku Yumemakura’s 1998 novel, by the way), the film is actually made in France, and you may find it rather awkward to see those Japanese characters in the film speaking in French, even while admiring those gorgeous visual moments rendered in cell animation.

The story begins with a photographer named Makoto Fukamachi (voiced by Damien Boisseau), who is doing his latest assignment for a mountaineering magazine around Everest of the Himalayas during the opening scene. Although he does his best for capturing a bunch of Japanese mountaineers trying to climb on Everest, but these mountaineers’ attempt is soon aborted due to an unexpected bad weather, and everyone returns to Kathmandu in the end.

When he is drinking along with others at a local bar, Fukamachi was approached by someone trying to sell a certain old camera to him. According to that person, this camera once belonged to George Mallory, who attempted to climb Everest in 1924 but was unfortunately gone missing while presumed to be dead somewhere in Everest. Fukamachi naturally does not believe that at all, but then he comes across a mountaineer named Habu Joji (voiced by Eric Herson-Macarel), and, after witnessing Joji taking away the camera from that person, Fukamachi becomes convinced that that camera really belonged to Mallory.

And we hear from Fukamachi about why Mallory’s camera is so important. As many of you know, Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay are officially the first ones to succeed in reaching to the top of Everest, but it was also speculated that Mallory actually succeeded first. If he did photograph his moment of success as he promised before trying to climb on Everest, that camera will surely give a big news to surprise the world.

However, as he embarks on searching for Joji, Fukamachi is reminded again and again of how elusive and anti-social Joji has been throughout his whole life. Since he was young, Joji has been quite passionate about climbing mountains, but he did not get along that much with his fellow mountaineers, and he often let himself ostracized by many of others around him. Always looking more serious in comparison, he even did not hesitate to say that he will definitely save himself first instead of letting himself and his partner die together under a certain impossible circumstance, and that certainly killed the mood among him and others.

Of course, such a situation like that soon happened to him as expected when Joji subsequently tried to climb on a big rock wall along with a young man who had worshiped him from the beginning. What eventually happened after a long and grueling period between both of them is pretty devastating to watch to say the least, and that consequently pushed Joji into more solidarity as he kept driving himself into more risk and peril. At one point, we see Joji attempting on one of the most dangerous climbing routes in the Alps, and that is followed by a literally chilling scene where he must not only deal with the extreme weather condition but also confront his growing guilt about that unfortunate incident.

Around the point where Fukamachi is approaching closer to Joji than before, the film gives us a bunch of impressive visual moments to behold. Director/co-writer Patrick Imbert and his crew did a fairly good job of evoking the texture and details of Japanese animation on the screen, and they certainly did their best in case of the scenes depicting those snowy landscapes of the Alps and the Himalayas. These scenes look quite striking on the screen, and I particularly like one involved with a big and wide crevice which looks pretty daunting for its unfathomable depth.

Meanwhile, the story brings some human depth to both of its two main characters. While that camera eventually turns out to be more or less than a MacGuffin (Is this a spoiler?), we get to know more about Joji’s constant attraction toward climbing onto those high mountains, and we also come to sense more of why Fukamachi was drawn to that camera as well as Joji. As one slowly follows the other later in the story, the film gradually becomes a sort of meditation on human nature, and those gorgeous depiction of cold and snowy summits in the film come to feel more haunting than before.

On the whole, “The Summits of Gods” is a fairly solid piece of work reminiscent of several notable mountaineering documentaries ranging from “Touching the Void” (2003) to “14 Summits: Nothing Is Impossible” (2021), which also is incidentally available on Netflix at present. Although the story and characters are rather simple and broad in my humble opinion, the film compensates for this weak aspect enough via its excellent visual depiction of the risks and challenges of climbing on those high rocky places, and that reminds me again of why cell animation is sometimes better than digital animation in terms of style, mood, and drama. Yes, as I said you before more than once, I am your average indoor guy who never dreams of climbing onto such risky spots like Everest, and I surely winced more than once while watching “The Summits of Gods” at last night, but I am willing to savor its several good moments again someday.

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Benedetta (2021) ☆☆☆(3/4): Verhoeven strikes again

Posted on December 4, 2021 by kaist455

Paul Verhoeven’s new film “Benedetta” is a decidedly salacious period drama peppered with some nudity, violence, and cynicism. Although it is relatively less wild, violent, and sensational compared to many of Verhoeven’s notable works, the movie is still another provocative work of his, and, although observing its main characters from the distance during my viewing, I actually enjoyed several blatantly vulgar moments wrapped inside its amusingly sanctimonious attitude.

At the beginning, the movie, which is set in the 17th century Italy, shows us the early life of a nun named Benedetta Carlini (Virginie Efira). When she was very young, her rich merchant father sent her to the abbey of a content in a small town of Tuscany, and we get a moment of sardonic black humor as her father and the Abbess, played by Charlotte Rampling, come to have some conflict on how much he has to pay for her daughter being accepted into the abbey. No matter how much he tries to persuade her, the Abbess remains unflappably no-nonsense as before, and Benedetta’s father eventually agrees to accept her conditions.

Although the rest of her life will be stuck in the abbey forever, young Benedetta is quite eager to devote herself to her God, and, as reflected by the opening scene, she also seems to have some genuine spiritual connection with her God. During her first night in the abbey, a strange incident happens, and the Abbess and many other nuns in the abbey are naturally baffled even though they just put aside their bafflement in the end.

When Benedetta grows up to be a young woman 18 years later, there comes an unexpected change into the abbey. While she is spending her time with the Abbess and her visiting parents, a shabby peasant girl suddenly comes in the abbey for getting anyone to help her free from her abusive father. Because she instantly takes a pity on her, Benedetta persuades her parents to get this poor peasant girl to be allowed into the abbey, and Bartolomea (Daphne Patakia) soon becomes the new member of the convent.

Things go well during next several days, but it turns out that Bartolomea cannot repress her wild free spirit well. She and Benedetta initially get along well with each other, and we get another naughty moment to tickle you due to its scatological humor, but then Benedetta experiences something quite thrilling when Bartolomea approaches to her a bit too closely while nobody is watching around them.

As already shown from a series of dream scenes which feel as sacrilegious as you can expect from Verhoeven, Benedetta has developed a sort of religious mania inside her, and that becomes quite more serious after that incident of hers with Bartolomea. At first, she becomes quite vicious to Bartolomea during one certain scene which will make you wince for a good reason, and then she is subsequently thrown into a bout of inexplicable hysteria at one night.

And that is the point where the story becomes more deranged than before. Besides her increasingly serious fits, Benedetta also often shows something which suggests that she is actually a saint chosen by God, and nearly everyone around her begins to believe her words without hesitation. After all, things have been pretty gloomy for everyone inside and outside the abbey due to a spreading plague epidemic, and Benedetta soon comes to get considerable influence over the abbey to the displeasure of the Abbess.

While Benedetta and the Abbess eventually clash more with each other after one devastating incident happens during one rather ominous night, the screenplay by Verhoeven and his co-writer David Birke, which is based on Judith C. Brown’s nonfiction book “Immodest Acts: The Life of a Lesbian Nun in Renaissance Italy”, also focuses on the growing romantic relationship between Benedetta and Bartolomea. Once Benedetta gets the full control over the abbey later in the story, she and Bartolomea heedlessly throw themselves into their love and passion, and Verhoeven does not disappoint us at all in case of their expected sex scene. In addition, the movie also pays some attention to a little special present from Bartolomea, and that is certainly another big laugh for us.

Of course, the situation inevitably becomes quite serious with the entrance of the character played by Lambert Wilson, who has a nasty little fun as a haughty dude quite willing to punish our two lesbian lovers by any means necessary. As a result, we are served with a torture scene which is thankfully presented with some admirable restraint, and then there inevitably comes a big dramatic moment of good old burning-at-the-stake.

Even around that point, we still maintain some distance from all of the main characters in the story, but the movie continues to hold our attention thanks to Verhoeven’s competent handling of story and characters, and his main cast members are fearless as willingly going along with his sardonic approach. Although her character is often a bit too elusive to sympathize with, Virginie Efira is still compelling while complemented well by Daphne Patakia’s unadorned forthright acting, and Wilson and Rampling have each own moment to shine as the other crucial parts of the story.

Overall, “Benedetta” is one or two steps down from Verhoeven’s better works including “Black Book” (2006) and “Elle” (2016), but it is still a fairly interesting work thanks to the commendable efforts from Verhoeven and his main cast members. I must confess that I was a bit sleepy during its first 30 minutes, but I soon became less sleepy as gleefully following its story and characters, and I am glad to report that Verhoeven is still a dirty (and talented, of course) old filmmaker even at present.

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14 Peaks: Nothing is Impossible (2021) ☆☆☆(3/4): Project Possible

Posted on December 3, 2021 by kaist455

Netflix documentary “14 Peaks: Nothing Is Impossible”, which was released on this Monday, is about one extraordinary achievement which certainly deserves to be known more to us. As reflected by the very title of the documentary, the hero of the documentary and his team succeeded in climbing all 14 eight-thousander peaks of the Himalayas within less than a year, and the documentary gives us a close look into their ambitious project which was surely quite risky and demanding from the beginning.

At first, we are introduced to a Nepalese dude named Nirmal Purja, and the documentary alternates between his life story and the gradual progress of his project. As the youngest son of a poor family in Kathmandu, Nepal, Purja has always been drawn to challenging tasks to prove himself more since he was young, and that was one of the main reasons why he decided to climb all those 14 summits of the Himalayas within several months in 2019 even though nobody had ever tried to do that within such a short period before. Since renowned Italian Mountaineer Reinhold Messner succeeded in climbing all the 14 summits during 1970-1986, a number of other mountaineers also accomplished the same thing, but it took more than 5 years even in the case of the shortest record time in the bunch.

Nevertheless, Purja was not daunted at all as he has been quite accustomed to physically arduous tasks throughout his whole life. After all, before he decided to pursue a mountaineering career, he was in the Brigade of Gurkhas of the British Army and then subsequently joined the Special Boat Service (SBS), the special forces unit of the Royal Navy. Once he successfully went through all those difficult military trainings, he was later put into real combats, and he tells us about one scary incident where he avoided death thanks to sheer luck.

Although his old parents had depended a lot on the money from his military career, Purja decided to quit the army in 2018 because of his growing passion toward mountaineering, and he promptly embarked on gathering enough fund for his project, but, understandably, nobody was interested in funding “Project Possible” because it felt too impossible to say the least. Nevertheless, Purja did not give up at all, and, with the agreement from his ever-understanding wife, he eventually got the fund via re-mortgaging their house.

Besides testing on whether he was physically fit enough to accomplish the aim of Project Possible, Purja also assembled the team. His team members were all his fellow Nepalese mountaineers, and that meant a lot to all of them because their success would bring more attention to not only their country but also many overlooked Nepalese mountaineers who were substantial in those numerous Himalayan climbings since Edmund Hilary climbed on Everest with Tenzing Norgay in 1953.

Purja’s plan consisted of three phases. First, he and his colleagues were going to climb on the six summits in Nepal including Everest, and then they would move onto the five other summits in Pakistan, and then they would go for the last three summits in Tibet, China. Their first summit to climb was Annapurna, and they were reminded again of how risky it is to climb this infamous summit. When they climbed down shortly after reaching to the summit at last, they came across a mountaineer who was in a very serious medical condition, and the mood becomes tense as we see them and others subsequently trying to bring back this unfortunate mountaineer to the base camp and then send this person to a big hospital in Kathmandu as soon as possible.

As they accomplished the task of the phase one and then moved onto the phase two, Purja and his colleagues became more confident than before, though there were still unexpected obstacles here and there around them. In case of K2, another notorious summit in the Himalayas, they took much more risk for climbing that summit than expected, but they eventually succeeded, and that incidentally also happened to help other teams a lot. Around the time when they embarked on the phase three, the Chinese government happened to stand on their way, but they kept trying to persuade the Chinese government in one way or another, and the Chinese government finally allowed them to climb all of the three summits in Tibet.

And there was also a serious personal matter involved with Purja’s mother, who was not that well even before her son embarked on Project Possible. At one point, it seemed quite possible that Purja should abort his project for spending more time with her, but, despite her increasingly fragile physical condition, she told him to keep going as usual, and she did live long enough to see the eventual end of her son’s project.

The documentary comes to lose some of its narrative momentum as reaching to its expected arrival point, but it keeps holding our attention nonetheless under the competent direction of director/co-writer/co-producer Torquil Jones. Besides those obligatory shots showing us how huge and challenging those 14 summits look under the bright and clear blue sky, there are also lots of vivid and frightening moments captured during the climbings of Purja and his colleagues, and I must say I was often marveled by how they managed to record all these moments even though they also had to focus a lot on other things besides their safety during that time.

On the whole, “14 Peaks: Nothing Is Possible” is an engaging documentary which is often awe-inspiring and thrilling for a number of impressive moments to remember, and it also reminds me again of my longtime aversion to high places. Sure, I want to watch those summits of the Himalayas for myself someday, but, folks, please don’t ever force me to climb on them.

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The Hand of God (2021) ☆☆1/2(2.5/4): Naples, Family, Maradona…. and Movie

Posted on December 2, 2021 by kaist455

I often felt impatient during my viewing of Paolo Sorrentino’s new film “The Hand of God”, which was released in South Korean yesterday before being available on Netflix two weeks later. While it is Sorrentino’s another distinctive work which also has some personal elements to notice and appreciate, the movie did not engage me that much due to its tediously laid-back narrative and superficial characterization, and there was not enough emotional resonance for me around the end of its supposedly poignant coming-of-age drama.

The movie, which was incidentally shot in Sorrentino’s hometown Naples, Italy in the 1980s, begins with the stunning opening shot which will grab your attention right from its first few seconds. After initially sweeping above the sea of the Mediterranean for a while, the camera slowly looks up to show us the wide and lovely view of Naples, and then it focuses on one classic car moving along a beach road before eventually looking at the buildings of Naples again.

This car later stops at a bus station where a bunch of women waiting for their bus to arrive. The man in the backseat of the car calls for one of these women, and, though she does not trust this stranger that much, she soon gets on the car and goes somewhere along with him. He promises her that he will make her get what she has wanted so much, and she follows his instruction although what she comes to experience is rather baffling in addition to being not very pleasant.

Anyway, when she subsequently returns to her home where her husband is waiting, they soon come to have a fight, but the movie is not mainly about this problematic couple. After getting her call, her older sister Maria (Teresa Saponangelo) and Maria’s husband Saverio (Toni Servillo) come along with their adolescent son Fabietto (Filippo Scotti), and Fabietto comes to experience something he will never forget because of his aunt’s apparently unstable psychological status.

After this eventful night, the movie lets us get to know more about Fabietto and his family. While he is often proud of being a communist, Saverio has actually worked in a big bank of the city, and he and Maria have maintained a fairly stable relationship even though it later turns out that there is a big problem behind their back. Fabietto’s older brother has recently been trying on the extra audition for Federico Fellini’s new film, but it looks like he will not get any part no matter how much he tries. In case of Fabietto’s older sister…. well, we seldom see her because she is usually in the bathroom whenever the movie shows her interaction with the other family members.

We also get to know a number of people surrounding this fairly ordinary middle-class family. An old baroness and her adult son live right above their apartment, and the baroness and Maria sometimes exchange some gossips whenever she comes down to their apartment. In case of one certain female neighbor living on the same floor, Maria hates her guts for some reason, and there is a little amusing moment when she gives that neighbor a prank call just for her little naughty amusement.

And there are a bunch of colorful relatives who often gather around Fabietto and his family whenever they have a chance. Watching how they enjoy their summer afternoon outside the city at one point, I could not help but think of how my mother and many of her family members often enjoyed summer together on the east coast of the Korean Peninsula during my childhood years, though that is not possible anymore at present because they all became estranged from each other later due to a trivial money problem.

Besides all these numerous figures surrounding Fabietto and his family, the movie also has Diego Maradona, a famous real-life Argentine soccer player about whom many of citizens of Naples have been quite excited. Just like everyone around him, Fabietto has been very enthusiastic about Maradona, and he is even willing to watch Maradona’s another game at a local stadium instead of spending a brief winter vacation along with his parents outside the city.

Now all these and other elements in the film including Fabietto’s growing fascination with filmmaking will surely take you back to Fellini’s several classic films ranging from “I vitelloni” (1953) to “Amacord” (1973), but Sorrentino’s screenplay somehow often struggles to make them gel together without generating enough narrative centripetal force – even after one devastating incident in the middle of the story. Despite Filippo Scotti’s earnest acting, Fabietto remains to be a blank background for other characters even around the ending, and many of substantial supporting characters surrounding Fabietto are more or less than broad caricatures without much depth, though Toni Servillo, who has been one of Sorrentino’s frequent collaborators since Sorrentino’s debut feature film “One Man Up” (2001), and Teresa Saponangelo acquit themselves well as a couple who has stuck together for many years despite their flawed but enduring marital relationship.

While notably subdued and restrained compared to many of his stylish works such as Oscar-winning film “The Great Beauty” (2013), “The Hand of God”, which received the Grand Jury Prize when it had a premiere at the Venice International Film Festival in this September and then was selected as the Italy’s entry for Best International Film Oscar, did not click well with me on the whole, and I think this is another misfire in Sorrentino’s career after “Loro” (2018). I do understand that the movie is quite personal to Sorrentino, but, alas, I still do not feel much of that aspect for now.

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Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021) ☆☆1/2 (2.5/4): A hollow piece of nostalgia

Posted on December 1, 2021 by kaist455

“Ghostbusters: Afterlife” exists only for the nostalgia for its target audiences, and, unfortunately, that is all. Although it does try to recharge its franchise with a number of new characters at the beginning, the movie ultimately regurgitates old familiar elements from its predecessors while not generating anything new or surprising for us, and I only came to observe its story and characters without much care or attention.

After the opening scene which involves with one of the four Ghostbusters in the previous two films, we are introduced to a young nerdy girl named Phoebe (Mckenna Grace), her mother Callie (Carrie Coon), and her older brother Trevor (Finn Wolfhard). Due to their current difficult financial status, Callie and her two kids have to leave their small apartment in New York City, and then they go to a rural town in Oklahoma where Callie’s estranged father lived before his recent death. Callie hopes to get some money from selling her father’s house and the surrounding land, but her hope is soon dashed as she later sees how shabby the house really is, and she and her kids have no choice but to live in the house for a while.

As they gradually get accustomed to their new home, Phoebe becomes more interested in who her grandfather really was, and then she comes to sense something invisible inside the house after one incident involved with a chess board. Eventually, she discovers not only a certain device familiar to many of us but also a secret laboratory hidden below the barn next to the house, and she naturally becomes all the more curious about what her grandfather was trying to do before his death.

Fortunately for her, someone in the town knows a lot about the Ghostbusters, and that person in question is Gary Grooberson (Paul Rudd), a local middle-school science teacher who turns out to be a bit too smart to be stuck in his current position even though he often shows his students old horror films such as “Child’s Play” (1988). Besides showing Phoebe more about what happened in “The Ghostbusters” (1984), Gary talks with her a bit about a series of inexplicable earthquakes happening around the town, and it does not take much time for Phoebe to discern the connection between this mysterious happening and her grandfather’s secret project.

Around that time, you will get a pretty good idea of what you are going to get, if you ever saw “The Ghostbusters”. Yes, there is an evil supernatural force to be unleashed sooner or later at some old abandoned spot not so from the town. Yes, Phoebe and Trevor come to have an adventure once they acquire all those equipments from the 1984 film besides that iconic vehicle. Yes, they and their two new friends, Podcast (Logan Kim) and Lucky (Celeste O’Connor), must stick together for stopping that evil supernatural force from causing, of course, the end of the world we know.

In the meantime, the movie throws one familiar thing after another along the story, and you will certainly get nostalgic if you enjoyed the 1984 film just like I did, but, sadly, the screenplay director Jason Reitman and his co-writer Gil Kenan does not go beyond that at all. While I was amused a bit by the appearance of several notable creatures from the 1984 film, there is not much fun and surprise from that, and I am disappointed to report to you that the climax of the movie is more or less than a lazy variation of that memorable climactic part of the 1984 film. In case of what is supposed to be a big emotional moment around the end of the movie, it feels merely obligatory without adding much to what has been so predictably and perfunctorily accumulated on the screen, and I come to miss more the 2016 reboot version than before, which was surely flawed but actually tried some new things with its all-female Ghostbusters.

At least, the movie is not a total waste of time mainly thanks to the good efforts from its several young main performers. McKenna Grace, a young promising actress who drew my attention for the first time via her likable performance in “Gifted” (2017), anchors the film well with her plucky performance, and Finn Wolfhard, who has been mainly known for Netflix series “Stranger Things”, Logan Kim, and Celeste O’Connor are also well-cast as Phoebe’s three fellow Ghostbusters, though their supporting characters are rather thankless in comparison.

In contrast, a number of notable adult cast members in the film are seriously wasted due to their flat supporting characters. While Carrie Coon, who has been one of the most dependable actresses working in Hollywood, does not have many things to do from the beginning, Paul Rudd only utilizes a bit of his considerable comic talent, and the other adult cast members including Bokeem Woodbine, Tracy Letts, and J. K. Simmons simply come and go as required by the screenplay. In case of several main cast members from the 1984 film, their expected cameo appearance will surely delight the fans of the 1984 film, but the movie does not do anything much besides bringing their characters back to the screen, and that is another disappointment in the movie.

Overall, “Ghostbusters: Afterlife” did not entertain me enough, and whatever I saw from it was quickly evaporated as I came out of the screening room. I do not hate it, but I still wish it would do much more than serving us with heaps of nostalgic stuffs, and I can only hope that I will be more entertained by whatever will come next after this hollow entry.

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