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Santosh (2024) ☆☆☆(3/4): Her complicated case

Posted on December 24, 2025 by kaist455

“Santosh”, a Hindi-language film which was incidentally selected as the British entry for Best International Film Oscar in last year (It was subsequently included in the December shortlist, by the way), is a dry but engaging police procedural drama. As following the viewpoint of a young female rookie police officer struggling with many obstacles including systemic corruption and discrimination, the movie vividly and powerfully presents a number of serious social issues in the Indian society, and we gradually get its points as observing the very murky moral situation surrounding its increasingly conflicted heroine.

At first, the movie quickly establishes how things have been quite difficult for Santosh Saini (Shahana Goswami), a young woman living in somewhere in north India. She was once happily married to her husband who worked as a local police officer, but her husband recently got killed when he and other police officers attempted to suppress a big riot, and she has been quite devastated by this sudden death of his.

When she is notified that she will not get any compensation for her husband’s death and also will have to move out from their current residence, Santosh becomes all the more desperate, but there comes a seemingly nice option for her. All she will have to do is inheriting her deceased husband’s job under a process called “compassionate recruitment”, and we soon see her beginning to work as a new police officer in some rural region.

However, not so surprisingly, Santosh soon comes to see how difficult it often is for her to work as a female police officer. For example, her station chief does not care much about whether she can be a good police officer or not, and he does not even hesitate to have her stay in his residence just for helping his wife a bit. While there is one female police officer in the police station, she is not so friendly to Santosh, and Santosh does not approve much of how her female colleague handles their menial cases. For example, when they catch some lad for a minor misdemeanor involved with a girl around his age, that female colleague deliberately humiliates him just for setting an example for other young people, and Santosh cannot do or say anything as a rookie police officer.

Meanwhile, Santosh comes across a desperate request from a guy from local “Dalit” neighborhood (It is a term used for untouchables and outcasts, who represent the lowest stratum of the castes in the Indian subcontinent). A few days ago, his 14-year-old daughter was suddenly disappeared for no apparent reason, but nobody in the police station is particularly willing to help despite some subsequent efforts from Santosh.

In the end, the situation becomes much more serious when the dead body of that missing girl is eventually found and then leads to a lot of public criticism on how the police mishandled her case from the very beginning. As a result, a new chief comes to the station, and Santosh comes to have some expectation, mainly because the new chief, Geeta Sharma (Sunita Rajwa), is a female police officer who looks experienced enough to handle such a sensitive case like this.

Along with Geeta, Santosh goes further in their ongoing investigation, and it does not take much time for them to focus on a certain figure who looks like a very possible suspect. When it turns out that this figure in question was also disappeared not long after that girl’s death, Santosh becomes more determined to catch this suspect, and Geeta seems to be willing to help and assist her junior as much as possible.

Needless to say, the case turns out to be a bit more complicated than it seemed at first, and the screenplay by director/writer Sandhya Suri, a British-Indian female filmmaker who makes a feature film debut here after making a couple of documentaries and a short film, enters rather murky moral areas along with its heroine as she comes to see more of how problematic her system is in many aspects. While almost everyone in the police station wants to close the case as soon as possible without looking back at all, there is also the pressure from a prominent public figure with considerable power and influence, and many people in that dead girl’s village, who have always been disregarded and discriminated throughout their whole life just because of their caste background, do not trust Santosh and many other police officers at all for good reasons.

In the end, there comes an inevitable point where Santosh gets herself involved in the case much more than she wanted, and this only leads to more conflict and disillusion for her. As her character becomes more unnerved and conflicted along the story, Shahana Goswami’s good performance firmly holds the center as required, and her earnest acting is complemented well by the more seasoned appearance of Sunita Rajwar, who ably suggests whatever her deeply jaded character had to endure and then accept in the past.

In conclusion, “Santosh” feels rather modest at first, but its several quiet but powerful moments will linger on your mind for a while after it is over. It does not surprise us much as we can clearly see where the story is going from the beginning, but it still holds our attention to the end, and that is more than enough for recommendation in my humble opinion.

Posted in Movies | Tagged Crime, Murder, Police | Leave a comment

Vermiglio (2024) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): In a small mountain village

Posted on December 24, 2025 by kaist455

“Vermiglio”, which was selected as the Italian submission to Best International Film Oscar in last year (It was later included in the December shortlist, by the way), is an immersive experience to remember. Slowly and patiently developing the mood and characters along the calm narrative, the movie works as the vivid and realistic presentation of a family life in one small Northern Italian mountain village during the 1940s, and we become more engaged as understanding more of the female repression inside the family at the center of the story.

At first, the movie gradually lets us get to know what has been going on in that village in question. The World War II is being over outside in 1944, and Cesare Graziadei (Tommaso Ragno), a middle-aged man who works as a teacher for young kids as well as illiterate adults in the village, and many other villagers are simply waiting for the end of the war in their rather isolated mountain region, and the opening part of the film somberly illustrates their another cold and snowy winter day of theirs.

And we come to gather that Cesare and the village people have been hiding two deserters for a while. One of these two figures is the son of one of the villagers, and the other is Pietro Riso (Giuseppe De Domenico), a Sicilian lad who saved his fellow deserter not long before they ran away together. Although many of the villagers do not trust him that much just because he is an outsider, Pietro has not caused much trouble as hiding in a barn outside the village, and he has virtually been an open secret among Cesare and many other villagers.

However, not so surprisingly, we soon sense a little trouble to come. As he appears more in the village, Pietro becomes interested in getting closer to one particular beautiful young woman in the village, and that is none other than Lucia (Martina Scrinzi), the eldest daughter of Cesare. They just regard each other at first, but then they get more attracted to each other, and then we get a little amusing moment when Pietro, who is an illiterate trying to learn how to read and write under Cesare’s tutelage, tries to express his love toward Lucia.

Needless to say, it does not take much time for Cesare and his wife Adele (Roberta Rovelli), who recently gave birth to their ninth child, to see what is going on between Lucia and Pietro. While not particularly pleased about this situation, Cesare is not so angry about that either, mainly because, as a young unmarried female adult, Lucia must leave the family in one way or another, and it looks like to Cesare that Pietro can be a fairly good husband for her.

As days goes by with some seasonal change, we get to know more about Lucia’s family – and how many of them are often unhappy and discontented under their patriarchy system. When Adele is devastated later for being about to lose her young baby due to some unspecified but serious illness, Cesare does not console her much just because the village doctor tells him that she is already pregnant again. While most of Lucia’s younger brothers and sisters are still too young and innocent to sense how their future will be stuck in their village, Ada (Rachele Potrich) and Dino (Patrick Gardner) have been quite frustrated about that, and Ada is particularly displeased when her father does not let her have more education for an understandable but petty reason.

The somber personal drama among the main characters of the film is often accompanied with the crisp presentation of the wide landscapes surrounding them, which often accentuates their seemingly constant isolated life condition. As a matter of fact, they sometimes seem stuck in an older period, and we are surprised a bit when we see a modern bridge and a big bus later in the film. Director/writer/co-producer Maura Delpero, who deservedly received the Grand Jury Prize when the movie was premiered at the Venice International Film Festival in last year, and her cinematographer Mikhail Krichman did a commendable job of bringing a palpable sense of life and people into the screen, and we find ourselves getting more immersed into that while often noticing small and big details on the screen.

It also helps that the main cast members of the film are believable in their respective roles. They all look like they have lived in the background of the movie for years, and we come to care more about some of their characters as these figures go through each own emotional conflict later in the story. We are disgusted more about Cesare’s callous attitude to the women in his family and the hidden hypocrisy behind that, and then we are also saddened more as observing what his wife and daughters have to suffer under their patriarchy system.

In addition, Delpero also handles well her several young performers, who feel quite natural during several key scenes of theirs. Whenever their characters faintly whisper to each other during their bedtime, we observe more of how much they see and hear despite still being young and innocent to what is really going on around them, and that brings a little poignancy to the story.

Overall, “Vermiglio”, which is incidentally Depelro’s second feature film after “Maternal” (2019), is one of those “slow” arthouse film which requires some patience from you at the beginning, but it will engage and then impress you more than expected once you go along with its patient storytelling approach. In short, this is one of the more impressive works I watched during this year, and I think you should give it a chance someday.

Posted in Movies | Tagged Family, Patriarchy, World War II | Leave a comment

Tampopo (1985) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): For making a perfect bowl of ramen

Posted on December 23, 2025 by kaist455

Japanese filmmaker Juzo Itami’s 1985 film “Tampopo”, whose 4k remastered version is currently being shown in South Korean theaters, is a first-rate food movie filled with a lot of wit and charm to be savored and then appreciated. While cheerfully following its main characters’ sincere and comic efforts for making a perfect bowl of ramen, the movie also presents a number of humorous vignettes as sort of side dishes to taste and enjoy for a while, and you will surely feel like having a full meal in the end.

The main story of the film revolves around a little ramen restaurant belonging to a young widow named Tampopo (Nobuko Miyamoto, who was Itami’s wife and frequent collaborator). During one rainy evening, a truck driver and his younger partner happen to drop by her ramen restaurant, and, not long after finishing his bowl of ramen, the truck driver comes to fight with one of Tampopo’s frequent customers over a petty issue. In the end, the truck driver finds himself staying at Tampopo’s house due to his resulting injury, and then he makes a rather brutal but honest comment on how sub-par her ramen is in many aspects.

While feeling quite daunted to say the least, Tampopo also discerns that her unexpected guest does know much about the qualities of ramen, so she requests him to be her teacher/advisor for improving her ramen. Once he agrees to do that, the truck driver teaches her one thing after another, and you will have some good laughs especially when they look into several other ramen restaurants in the neighborhood. Needless to say, Tampopo and the truck driver sometimes need to be a bit sneaky while they do their research on those better ramen restaurants, and there is a little funny moment later in the story when Tampopo pretends to be a dissatisfied customer to extract more information from the chef of one fairly successful ramen restaurant.

In addition, Tampopo and the truck driver get some extra help from two unlikely experts. One of them is an old homeless man who turns out to be quite knowledgeable about ramen, and we get a hilarious scene where he and his fellow homeless men show a surprising amount of culinary insights. When Tampopo and the truck driver happen to save an old rich man’s life, they are introduced to the chauffeur of that old rich man, and, what do you know, this dude turns out to be a considerable ramen expert and is very willing to help Tampopo’s ongoing project.

While steadily rolling its main story to its expected finale, the movie doles out a series of quirky comic moments around the fringe of the story. These moments are not directly connected with the main story, but all of them are connected with food and eating in one way or another, and some of them are quite wry and naughty to our little amusement. In case of a couple of sex scenes involved with a lot of different types of food, we are served with a weird but funny cross between Adrian Lyne’s “9 1/2 Week” (1986) and Dušan Makavejev’s “W.R.: Mysteries of the Organism” (1971), and this is certainly something we cannot see everyday. I also like an uproarious comic scene involved with eating spaghetti, and I must tell you that the sound effects in this scene are as hilarious as that infamous fart scene in Mel Brooks’ “Blazing Saddles” (1974).

You may roll your eyes more than once during these and other offbeat moments in the story, but the movie, which is clearly influenced by the works of Jacques Tati as well as Luis Buñuel (Itami was particularly inspired by Buñuel’ 1974 film “The Phantom of Liberty” (1974), by the way), presents them with a lot of humor and insight based on human nature. We can often be quite silly as following our basic human needs including eating right from when we are born into this world, and that is particularly exemplified well by a vignette involved with a guy who still cannot stop his food love even though he is soon going to a dental clinic for some serious treatment. You may laugh for his silliness at first, but then you will come to have a knowing smile as observing a bit of human nature from his silly behaviors.

Anyway, the movie always goes back to making a good bowl of ramen, and there are surely several moments to make you hungry for ramen during your viewing. I still remember how wonderfully the movie presents a bowl of freshly cooked ramen with a lot of juicy details to observe at the beginning of the story, and I was alternatively touched and amused by that inevitable moment when Tampopo finally reaches the end of her lesson and then demonstrates her improved culinary skill (Is this a spoiler?).

The main characters in the film are more or less than broad archetypes, but they leave indelible impression thanks to the spirited efforts of the main cast members. While Nobuko Miyamato often elevates the movie with her plucky performance, Tsutomu Yamazaki is effective as a gruff but ultimately generous man, and he and Miyamato click well with each other as suggesting a low-key sense of romance between their characters. In case of several notable supporting performers in the movie, they also have each own moment to shine, and you may be delighted to see Kōji Yakusho and Ken Watanabe during their early career years.

In conclusion, “Tampopo”, which incidentally means “dandelion” in Japanese, is brimming with a lot of charm and amusement even after 40 years it came out, and I am still smiling a bit as reflecting on many of its funny or tasty moments. In my trivial opinion, that is what a good movie can do, and I am already willing to revisit this modest but undeniably charming movie sooner or later.

Posted in Movies | Tagged Comedy, Ramen, Restaurant | Leave a comment

SAVE (2025) ☆☆☆(3/4): Meeting her lifesaver again

Posted on December 22, 2025 by kaist455

South Korean film “SAVE” follows the relationship between two women who cannot possibly be different from each other. Right from the beginning, we can clearly see where their story is heading, but the movie did a solid job of bringing enough life and personality to its two contrasting lead characters, and we come to care about their odd relationship more – even when the story becomes rather melodramatic.

At the beginning, we are introduced to Se-jong (Kim Pu-reun), a young female adult preparing for independence after growing up in an orphanage during last several years. While she has earned her living as an employee of a local beauty parlor, Se-jong also receives a settlement fund of 5 million won, and she has already been planning to use this money for renting any suitable place to stay.

And then someone quite unexpected appears in front of Se-jong on one day. She is a woman named Eun-sook (Song Seon-mi), and she says that she is the one who saved Se-jong’s life many years ago. At that time, Se-jong was a young baby living with her single mother at a shelter for women like Se-jong’s mother, and, as shown from a brief flashback at the beginning of the film, there was a big fire incident on Se-jong’s first birthday. While Se-jong’s mother did not survive at that time, Se-jong was saved by some other woman in the shelter, and Eun-sook claims that she is that woman in question.

Mainly because she does not have much memory of her lifesaver, Se-jong begins to suspect Eun-sook, after Eun-sook asks Se-jong to give 5 million won. According to Eun-sook, she needs to have a surgery right now due to having a serious case of cancer, but Se-jong cannot trust her that much. In fact, she even checks on the remaining records from that shelter, but she is only confirmed that Eun-soon was indeed with Se-jong’s mother at that time.

Meanwhile, the situation suddenly becomes quite bad for Se-jong, who belatedly realizes that she lost all of her settlement fun due to a nasty case of real estate fraud. Because she officially graduated from her orphanage, she cannot possibly go back there, so she has no choice but to contact Eun-sook, who willingly lets her into her current staying place.

Although the mood between them is pretty awkward at first, Eun-sook shows more generosity to Se-jong than expected. Besides kindly letting Se-jong stay longer at her residence, she also embarks on helping Se-jong a bit on retrieving her stolen money. Thanks to a few useful clues, Se-jong and Eun-sook soon begin to locate a certain figure involved with that real estate fraud, and it does not take much time for them to make that figure in question quite agitated to say the least.

Needless to say, Eun-sook gradually looks like a surrogate mother to Se-jong as time goes by. Just like many other socially awkward people, Se-jong is sometimes too naïve and passive, and Eun-sook often advises Se-jong that she should be more active and tougher for handling many matters to come in her beginning adult life. Although she still regards Eun-sook with some reservation, Se-jong comes to depend more on Eun-sook, and Eun-sook seems to care more about Se-jong, but she remains rather elusive to Se-jong even at that point.

Needless to say, the circumstance between our two heroines eventually becomes more serious, but the movie does not lose any of its lightweight tone despite that. While clearly recognizing how things can be really bad for Se-jong and many other young people like her, the movie also shows some humor and warmth as leisurely rolling its main characters along the story, and its last act is accompanied with real emotions even during its expected melodramatic finale. We are not so surprised when Se-jong and Eun-sook’s relationship turns out to be a little more complex than expected, but we are also touched as observing more of the emotional bond between them.

It helps that the movie is carried well by the good duo performance from its two lead actresses, who ably complement each other from the beginning to the end. Although I am not so familiar with her movie acting career, I can tell you at least that Kim Pu-reum is a promising actress with enough talent and presence, and she is convincing as her rather docile character goes through her bumpy course of emotional maturation along the story. On the opposite, Song Seon-mi, who has been mainly known for her appearances in a number of Hong Sang-soo’s movies such as “Walk Up” (2022) and “In Our Day” (2023), brings genuine human nuances to several key scenes of hers in the film, and you may come to forgive her deeply flawed human character to some degree. Around Kim and Song, Heo Jung-do and Lee Ye-jin have each own moment as the two substantial supporting characters in the story, and Heo brings a bit of extra humor as a man who still cares a lot about Eun-sook despite all the troubles between them.

Overall, “SAVE” is fairly engaging mainly thanks to not only its two engaging lead characters but also the strong performances behind them. Although this is her first feature film, director/writer/editor Bang Mi-ri demonstrates here that she is another promising new South Korean filmmaker to watch, and it will be interesting to see what may come next from her after this commendable debut work of hers.

Posted in Movies | Tagged Comedy, Family, South Korean Film | Leave a comment

Sound of Falling (2025) ☆☆☆(3/4): Sound of female despairing

Posted on December 21, 2025 by kaist455

“Sound of Falling”, which was selected as the German submission to Best International Film Oscar in this year and then was included in the shortlist several days ago, is quite subtle and elusive about what it is about. This may baffle and frustrate you a lot throughout its first hour, but then you may gradually come to behold its indirectly disturbing presentation of female repression, and this may linger on your mind for a while once it is over.

The main background of the film is a farm in some rural region of Germany, and the movie shuffles several different female perspectives along the story. At the beginning, we are introduced to a young woman named Erika (Lea Drinda), and the opening scene shows a bit of her rather morbid behavior involved with her older brother. The movie subsequently shows how she and her big family lived around the late 1910s, and this is mainly presented via the innocently limited viewpoint of Erika’s younger sister Alma (Hanna Hekct).

Through the viewpoints of these two different young girls, we gradually get to know how things can be pretty oppressive for women during their respective periods. Although the movie does not emphasize anything at all, many females around them including their mother and maids are apparently repressed by their patriarchy system in many aspects, and this is exemplified well by their mother’s rather alarming medical symptom.

Meanwhile, the movie also adds two other different perspectives from different periods. One belongs to an adolescent girl named Angelika (Lena Urzendowsky), who is incidentally one of the descendants of Alma and Erika’s family. We gradually gather that her era is around the 1980s, and we also come to see how problematic her situation is. Like many other young boys and girls around her, she wants more freedom, but that seems virtually impossible mainly because she and her family are living in East Germany, and then we come to sense that she has actually been sexually exploited by one of her adult relatives.

The other perspective belongs to a young girl named Lenka (Laeni Geiseler), who is entering her adolescent period around the 2010s. Under her fairly open-minded parents, she and her several siblings seem to live a fairly good life in the farm, but she often feels unhappy and disaffected, and, to her frustration, nobody pays any particular attention to her growing discontent.

As freely juggling these four different perspectives along its free-flowing narrative, the movie slowly makes its point via small individual moments to notice and observe. While she does not know or understand whatever she happens to observe or witness, Alma’s rather innocent viewpoint often sharply conveys to us the toxic influence of the patriarchy system surrounding her and many other females around her, and this often resonates with all the systemic repressions Erika and many other women around her have to cope with in one way or another. In case Angelika and Lenka, things may look relatively better for them, but they also have to deal with each own female issues because of that lasting influence from the patriarchy system.

Never underlining its points at all, the movie frequently unnerves and then engages us via its exquisite sound design. As the sound effects of the movie are often dialed up or down throughout the film, we come to pay more attention to whatever is going on beneath or outside the screen, and the remarkable overall aural effect of the movie is sometimes reminiscent of Jonathan Glazer’s exceptional Oscar-winning film “The Zone of Interest” (2023), which frighteningly conveys to us the banality of evil right next to Auschwitz via a similar aural approach. Although the presentation of evil in “Sound of Falling” is more subtle in comparison, we gradually come to sense it thanks to the competent direction of director/co-writer Mascha Schilinski, who incidentally won the Jury Prize when the movie was premiered at the Cannes Film Festival early in this year (The movie won the award with Oliver Laxe’s “Sirāt” (2025), by the way).

While firmly sticking to its clinical attitude from the beginning to the end, the movie shows a bit of poignancy from time to time. There is a distant but undeniably harrowing moment involved with one of Alma’s older sisters, who is cruelly victimized by her patriarchy system. When Angelika comes to join her many other family members including her sexual abuser for a group photograph, she becomes all the more tormented than before, and that leads to one of the most haunting visual moments in the film.

I must confess that I felt rather impatient with its glacial non-linear narrative more than once when I watched the movie during this afternoon. I am still not so sure about whether I understood everything in the film, but I also admire what is so strikingly achieved by Schilinski and her crew members including cinematographer Fabian Gamper and editor Evelyn Rack. They try to create a unique presentation of the persistent female repression under the patriarchy system, and I think they succeed fairly well even though the overall result is a bit too cold and distant for us at times.

Anyway, I recommend “Sound of Falling” mainly for its distinctive mood and style, and I am willing to revisit it soon for more understanding and appreciation. To be frank with you, I was not so surprised to see several audiences walking out of the screening room during my viewing, but the movie is much more interesting than that new Avatar flick at least, and, in my inconsequential opinion, you should give it a chance if you are open to any new cinematic possibility out there.

Posted in Movies | Tagged Family, Farm, Patriarchy, sexual abuse | Leave a comment

This Is Spinal Tap (1984) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): Still endearingly outrageous and hilarious

Posted on December 21, 2025 by kaist455

Rob Reiner’s 1984 comedy film “This Is Spinal Tap” still amuses me a lot for many good reasons. While keeping its attitude as straight as possible via its ground-breaking mockumentary style, the movie has a lot of fun with many absurd moments generated among its clownish but somehow endearing main characters, and many of its funniest moments do not look aged at all even after more than 40 years since it came out.

The movie is presented as a fictional documentary following a British heavy metal band named, yes, Spinal Tap. As shown from several “archival footage clips”, Spinal Tap was initially a skiffle band called the Originals in the early 1960s, but they had to change the name of the band more than once for a rather silly reason, and then they became more famous thanks to their rather ridiculous song, which is titled “Listen to the Flower People”. Not long after that, the band moved onto heavy metal, and we later see them performing one of their recent songs, which is fairly passable but sounds very absurd with its preposterous lyrics.

Anyway, the main focus of the documentary in the film is the 1982 US concert tour of the band, which is mainly for promoting their latest album “Smell the Glove”. Although the album is quite problematic for many reasons including its blatantly sexist album cover design, the three main members of the band and their manager are still confident that the album will be successful enough to boost their rather underwhelming status at present. There was a time when they were popular enough to draw more than 10,000 fans to their concert, but, alas, now they can attract around 1,000 ~ 1,500 audiences now if they are lucky.

The director of the documentary in the film, played by Reiner himself, throws some serious questions to the main members of Spinal Tap during his occasional interview sessions. They all try to present themselves as musicians both talented and passionate, but they usually end up making themselves look all the sillier than before. In fact, you may actually feel a bit sorry for the director, who must tolerate the sheer ego and idiocy of his incorrigible human subjects.

Nevertheless, we often cannot help but chuckle and giggle thanks to a lot of amusement from many of the memorable moments in the film. The main reason of their absolute hilarity comes from how utterly serious the members of Spinal Tap and several figures around them are, and that is exemplified well by one very funny moment when Nigel (Christopher Guest) eagerly shows us a heap of electric guitars and then his own special amplifier, which can be dialed up to the level of, yes, 11. When the director seriously asks the reason for that, Nigel only finds himself pathetically failing to give any good answer, and it only reminds us more of how ludicrous he and his two fellow main members are as mired in their petty ego and pride.

Not so surprisingly, it has been said that the movie is not so far from reality in many aspects. After all, even if you are not so interested in rock music (FULL DISCOSURE: I am one of such dull persons), you have probably heard about some of the truly ridiculous stories about those real-life rock bands such as, say, the Rolling Stones, and you may smile a bit when one of the main members of Spinal Tap complains about a rather trivial issue with the ham and bread served to him.

As the members of the band keep going down in their increasingly inconsequential career, the movie adds more absurdity and hilarity to be savored. Besides that stupefyingly comic moment involved with a little model of Stonehenge, there is some comic tension involved with their latest drummer, who may die under a mysterious circumstance just like all of his predecessors (One of them was choked to death due to the vomit which was incidentally not his, for instance). When the girlfriend of David (Michael McKean) gets involved more into their career and business as becoming their manager, things only get all the worse among them, and it seems that they all are reaching the end of their career – especially when they have no choice but to start their next concert tour in Japan.

Nevertheless, the movie also regards its main characters with some admiration and affection. Yes, they are still quite silly and ridiculous to the bone, but you can also sense their remaining passion and dedication whenever they try to go through another concert. Around the end of the film, Nigel and David come to have a touching moment of reconciliation as sincerely performing together on the stage, and they and their fellow band members come to look a bit less ridiculous than before.

It has been well-known that Reiner encouraged his cast members to do a lot of improvisation in front of the camera, and the overall result is quite fluid and effortless to say the least. Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer, who did contribute a lot to the screenplay along with Reiner as reflected by their names on the screenplay, always click well with each other whenever they are on the screen together, and they are also pretty believable as your typical sub-par rock band musicians. In fact, they did their job so well that their fictional band became gradually popular along with the movie itself, and they actually did concerts under the name of their fictional band in real life.

In conclusion, “This is Spinal Tap” is still one of the most hilarious movies even though it was followed by a lot of junior mockumentaries during last several decades, and it is also one of the most notable achievements of the long and illustrious career of Reiner, who was tragically murdered along with his wife not long after his last film “Spinal Tap II: The End Continues” (2025) came out a few months ago. While he may not be a great director, he was at least an undeniably skillful filmmaker who gave us a number of excellent films to remember including “This is Spinal Tap”, and we will surely miss him more as admiring and appreciating his considerable cinematic contribution more.

Posted in Movies | Tagged Band, Comedy, Mockumentary, Musician | Leave a comment

Between the Two of Us (2024) ☆☆1/2(2.5/4): Disability and pregnancy

Posted on December 21, 2025 by kaist455

South Korean film “Between the Two of Us” is a sincere but flawed drama about one young pregnant woman with a disability. While it is fairly engaging to observe how much she is anxious and pressured due to her increasingly difficult circumstance, the movie becomes rather contrived for some melodramatic effect during its last act, and that is where I became rather distracted during my viewing.

At first, the movie establishes the loving relationship between Eun-jin (Kim Si-eun) and her husband Ho-seon (Seol Jung-hwan). Around when she was 18 years old, Eun-jin became wheelchair-bound due to some unspecified disability, and she has been quite accustomed to this changed life condition of hers, but she has to deal with many different obstacles in her daily life day by day. Nevertheless, Ho-seon has always stood by her for more than 10 years, and it is touching to see how caring he is to his wife during the opening part.

And then there comes an unexpected change. On one day, Eun-jin is notified that she has been actually pregnant for several weeks, and she becomes conflicted about whether she can go through her ongoing pregnancy and then give birth to her baby. For example, because of her disability, she always takes several different drugs day by day, and she is naturally concerned about whether this will jeopardize the growth and development of her baby.

Eun-jin eventually tells everything to her husband, and Ho-seon tells her that he will respect whatever she decides to do, but this only makes Eun-jin more burdened and conflicted. As watching her baby growing in her womb week by week, she seriously begins to consider giving birth to her baby, but she is also worried about many issues she must confront during her pregnancy period. She may have to stop taking some of her routine drugs, and, above all, she will definitely need some medical assistance during her delivery.

In the end, Eun-jin chooses to have a baby instead of having an abortion, and she and her husband become optimistic about having a new family member in their house, but there soon come a series of complications and difficulties. For instance, she frequently wets their bed once she stops using a drug preventing that, and then she also comes to suffer a mild case of urinary tract infection. Although she knew well from the beginning that she is bound to have these and many other problems to cope with, she still cannot help but become more uncertain and anxious about having a baby, but her baby has already grown up to a considerable degree, and this makes her all the more hesitating.

In addition, we see how this increasingly burdening situation of hers affects not only Eun-jin but also her relationship with her husband more and more. Eun-jin has recently been trying to write some important article for some public association for the disabled, but she finds herself against writer’s block as her mind is often more occupied with her ongoing pregnancy. In case of her husband, he is ready to support his wife as much as possible as before, but then he becomes quite busy as trying to earn more money for paying all those medical bills involved with her pregnancy.

At least, there later comes some unexpected support and consolation for Eun-jin. Early in the story, she happened to share a hospital room with some young pregnant woman around her age, and they came to befriend each other a bit before this young pregnant lady eventually left. Not long after this accidental encounter, Eun-jin meets her again, and, what do you know, she and Eun-jin become closer to each other as sharing their respective difficulties from pregnancy.

Around that narrative point, we are supposed to care more about the story and characters, but the screenplay by director/writer Sung Ji-hye, who incidentally made a feature film debut here in this movie, does not bring enough life and personality to its two main characters. While they are pretty nice and decent people, its two lead characters are a bit too flat to hold our attention at times, and that is the main reason why a rather blatant plot contrivance during the last act does not work that well. You may be surprised a bit, but this sudden plot turn only exists for accentuating Eun-jin’s amounting conflict and anxiety without providing any more depth to the story and characters.

Nevertheless, we can still admire the diligent efforts of its two lead performers. Kim Si-eun and Seol Jung-hwan have a solid low-key chemistry between them right from their very first scene, and they are believable as two different people who have loved and respected each other for years. In case of a few substantial supporting performers surrounding them in the film, Oh Ji-hoo, Kang Mal-geum, and Choi Ji-Youn are well-cast in their respective roles, and Choi is particularly good when her character lets out a bit of her old personal feelings in front of Eun-jin later in the story.

Overall, “Between the Two of Us” is surely well-intentioned as attempting to make us have more human understanding and empathy on its main subject, but the result is not as successful as intended in my trivial opinion. Nevertheless, considering how harsh and insensitive how the South Korean society has been to the disabled for many years, there should be more South Korean films about disability, and I sincerely hope that the movie will be soon followed by better ones.

Posted in Movies | Tagged Disability, Husband and Wife, Preganacy, South Korean Film | Leave a comment

Avatar: Fire and Ash (2025) ☆☆1/2 (2.5/4): Mostly in the same water again

Posted on December 18, 2025 by kaist455

James Cameron’s new film “Avatar: Fire and Ash” is a rare letdown from the filmmaker who has not disappointed us for more than 40 years. Again, we are surely served with a lot of spectacular visual elements and thrilling actions, but I do not care that much about the story and characters in this time. As a result, my mind just became more exhausted instead of getting galvanized after more than 3 hours.

The story starts from the point not so long after what happened during the finale of “Avatar: The Way of Water” (2022). After the victory in another battle for his new Na’vi tribe and many other Na’vi tribes on an alien planet called Pandora, Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) prepares again for another possible threat from those greedy and pesky human beings, but things are not particularly good among his dear family members. Sully and his wife Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña) lost their first son in that battle, and Neytiri has been struggling to cope with her immense grief while Sully simply focuses on his battle preparation.

In case of their remaining kids, they surely miss their big older brother. While Lo’ak (Britain Dalton) particularly feels guilty about how his action inadvertently caused his older brother’s death, Kiri (Sigourney Weaver), who is actually the daughter of the Na’vi avatar of Weaver’s human character in “Avatar” (2009) is still trying to grasp the meaning of her odd existence, and Miles “Spider” Socorro (Jack Champion), the adopted human son of Jake and Neytiri, often finds himself vulnerable as his human body cannot survive on the planet without a special mask to protect it from the toxic substance in the atmosphere of Pandora.

Mainly for Spider’s safety, Sully decides to take him to a shelter where Spider can be taken care of by the few human beings helping his tribe, though that is the last thing Spider and his other children want right now. Although he does not change his mind at all, Sully allows his family to leave for that shelter along with him, and we get one of the best visual moments in the film as they get on a big and beautiful airship belonging to a local trader.

Of course, there soon comes a big trouble not long after their departure. The airship is attacked by a bunch of aggressive Na’vi tribe members led by Varang (Oona Chaplin), and Sully and Neytiri get separated from their children during this sudden attack. In addition, there is also Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), Sully’s old opponent who is still quite obsessed with settling his old score even after being defeated twice by Sully.

As trying to expand its background further than before, the story written by Cameron and his five co-writers seem ready for bring a bit more character complexity – especially when Colonel Quaritch comes to ally with Varang for their mutual benefit later in the movie. Even though knowing well that what Colonel Quaritch and many other human beings will do to many other Na’vi tribes and Pandora, Varang and her Na’vi tribe are still willing to make a deal with Colonel Quaritch just because of the anger and resentment from their longtime hardship. In case of Colonel Quaritch, he subsequently finds himself seduced by Varang, and he does not mind that at all while not forgetting who the boss is in their rather uneasy partnership.

However, the plot only ends up plodding more than once as attempting to handle too many elements together, and we become more aware of its rather thin characterization. Many of the main characters in the film are more or less than mere plot elements, and that is true especially in case of the subplots involved with Kiri and Spider, respectively. We are not so surprised when Kiri eventually learns the truth about her birth – or when she finally demonstrates more of her special ability during the last act of the story (Is this a spoiler?). In case of Spider, he is woefully underwritten just like many other supporting characters around him, and the movie still does not delve that deep into his rather complicated relationship with Colonel Quaritch.

Anyway, Cameron gives us exactly what we expect from him in case of action. There are several well-made action sequences including the one which is pretty much like a bigger version of the climactic part of “Avatar: The Way of Water”. It is really disappointing that Cameron repeats himself here without much surprise for us, but he knows how to generate enough thrill and tension to hold our attention at least for a while.

The special effects in the film are top-notch as usual, and I will not be surprised at all if it wins a Special Effects Oscar just like its two predecessors. Many different locations in Pandora look quite real and convincing, and that may make you wish that Cameron focused more on mood and details instead of clumsily following the sprawling narrative of his movie. Although their efforts are often limited or wasted by the rather weak screenplay, the main cast members of the film manage to bring some personality and presence to their respective parts, and that reminds you that the special effects in movies still need some human touch regardless of whether they are analogue or digital.

In conclusion, “Avatar: Fire and Ash” does not have much fire and ash as serving us more of the familiar stuffs from its two predecessors. I saw the 3D HFR (High Frame Rate 3D) version at a local movie theater yesterday, and its technical qualities are commendable on the whole, but the overall result still did not impress me enough for recommendation. By the way, I heard that Cameron is planning to make two more Avatar films at least, and now I sincerely want to recommend him to take a long vacation for more imagination and better storytelling.