Martha (2024) ☆☆1/2(2.5/4): Martha presented by Stewart

Posted on November 5, 2024 by kaist455

Netflix documentary film “Martha”, which was released in last week, tries to present some human sides of Martha Stewart. While she does not reveal anything particularly revealing about herself or her career, the documentary is mostly watchable as following the rise and fall of her fame in public, and you may wish that it threw harder questions at what was hidden behind her supposedly admirable achievement.

Now currently going through another chapter of her career and life, Stewart seems ready to tell all in front of the camera at the beginning. She reminisces about growing up under her rather problematic father and hard-working mother, and she also talks about how both of her parents influenced her in one way or another. Although he was not a very good father, she inherited his perfectionist attitude from him, and she also learned a lot from her mother’s constant diligence in their domestic environment.

After working as a young model for a while, young Stewart began to study at a college in New York City, and that was when she met and then fell in love with her husband Andrew Stewart. Despite her father’s strong objection, she eventually marries Andrew, and she was expected to become your typical housewife, but then she was not so happy as struggling to raise her only daughter, and that was why she got interested in getting a job once her daughter grew up enough.

Thanks to her father-in-law, Stewart tried on the stock trading at Wall Street, but then she gave up once she saw how the stock market is often beyond anyone’s control. Like any usual perfectionist, she wanted to run things under total control, so, after quitting her stock trading job, she came to focus on improving a new house for her family in the suburban area outside the city. The house was pretty shabby at first, but it soon got look much better thanks to Stewart’s efforts, and then she began the catering business as often throwing many lovely parties for her friends and neighbors.

Because her husband happened to be a prominent figure in the publishing business in New York City, Stewart was soon approached by a well-known publisher who suggested to her that she should publish a book on homemaking, and, what do you know, that was the first stepping-stone toward her immense fame during next two decades. Once her first book got sold pretty well, she published more and more books on homemaking, and she quickly rose further as expanding her business and public image.

However, things did not go well inside Stewart’s house in the meantime. She and her husband became more and more estranged from each other, and Stewart admits that she had at least one extramarital affair behind her back during that time, though she also points out that her husband had much more affairs behind his back (Director R.J. Cutler and his crew seemed to interview Stewart’s husband, but they do not go into details that much here).

Anyway, Stewart’s eventual divorce with her husband in 1990 did not affect much Stewart’s public image as No.1 American homemaker, and her business kept growing and growing during the 1990s. When her company officially entered the stock market of Wall Street, she earned a lot more money than before, and it looked like the sky was only the limit for her and her company.

Of course, as many of you know, there came an unexpected disaster for Stewart during the early 2000s. She was accused of an insider trading involved with one biotechnology company run by one of her close friends, and she insists that she did not do anything wrong except lying a bit somehow. Anyway, once she became the target of the federal investigation, her public image was tarnished more and more as there came more talks about her toxic behaviors to others working under her, and this negative publicity certainly affected a lot her business.

Stewart does not admit or regret much about those toxic behaviors of hers in the past. and many interviewers keep emphasizing that she would have easily gotten away if she were a male businessman, but I must say that I have some reservation on that. She might deserve some admiration as a trailblazer for many women out there, but, come on, wasn’t she as toxic as, say, Cate Blanchett’s equally problematic character in Todd Field’s “Tár” (2022)?

In the end, Stewart was sentenced to a five-month incarceration, and the excerpts from her personal diary give us a little glimpse into what might be the bottom of her life and career. While quite depressed and devastated at first, she subsequently found some will and strength to endure the next five months, and then she got a chance to re-charge her social status not long after she was released. She reluctantly agreed to appear in a TV show where a bunch of invited celebrities roasted a certain infamous public figure together, and, what do you know, she surprised everyone with much more laughs than expected, and the public came to embrace her again.

Overall, “Martha” does not delve that much into its human subject, but it is mildly enjoyable and informative if you are not that familiar with Stewart’s life and career like me (I only vaguely knew about her public image except that criminal record of hers, by the way). From the documentary, I could only see Martha the businesswoman instead of Martha the human being, but that will probably be enough for you.

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Anora (2024) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): Getting married and then into a big trouble

Posted on November 4, 2024 by kaist455

Sean Baker’s latest film “Anora”, which won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival early in this year, is an absurd but ultimately bitter comedy about one female sex worker who turns out to be a lot more naïve and desperate than she seems at first. As foolishly attempting to go all the way for more economic stability in her life, she thinks she can prevail over one increasingly messy circumstance, but there soon comes a harsh dose of reality to strike her, and we are reminded more of how fragile and unstable her social status really is.

The early part of the film establishes the daily life of Anora “Ani” Mikheeva (Mikey Madison), a young and confident high-priced stripper working at some flashy strip club located somewhere in New York City. When she is going through another usual night of hers at the strip club, Ani meets a young Russian lad named Ivan “Vanya” Zakharov (Mark Eydelshteyn), and he soon becomes her No.1 client mainly because of being quite wealthy. Not so surprisingly, Vanya gets quite interested in spending more time with Ani outside the strip club, and Ani gladly goes along with that as long as she gets paid enough for that.

As they frequently spend time together, we get to know more about Vanya, who turns out to be your average spoiled rich kid. Living alone in a big house actually belonging to his parents in Russia, he simply needs someone ready to please him at any time whenever he is not having a party or playing a video game, but then he looks a bit more serious about his relationship with Ani. He eventually proposes to her while they happen to be spending a week in Las Vegas, Nevada, and Ani cannot possibly say no as being quite excited about this unbelievable opportunity for social rising.

Of course, she gets herself into a very big trouble not long after they quickly get married and then return to Vanya’s house in New York City. After coming to learn of their son’s sudden marriage, Vanya’s parents in Russia become quite furious to say the least, and they order several dudes working under them to take care of this serious trouble as soon as possible. Ani and Vanya are subsequently visited by these guys, and then Ani finds herself stuck with these guys after Vanya runs away from the scene instead of facing the consequence of his impulsive action.

The main source of comedy in the film comes from how the situation between Ani and the guys sent by Vanya’s parents becomes increasingly silly and pathetic. The guys turn out to be rather clumsy in their attempts to force Ani into a quick divorce, and Ani becomes more adamant about not having a divorce at any chance, after clearly showing them that she is not someone they can easily bend at all. As Vanya’s parents are already coming to New York City, the guys must search for Vanya while holding Ani all the time, and, to our little amusement, she and they frequently clash with each other as both sides stubbornly stick to their respective positions without stepping back at all.

Leisurely rolling this absurd circumstance, the screenplay by Baker, who also edited the film besides serving as one of its co-producers, steadily builds up the story and characters for more comedy and drama. There are a number of broad comic moments including the one involved with a tow truck driver, and then there are also some serious moments as Ani slowly comes to discern how things are hopeless for her from the beginning. Nevertheless, she tries to stick to her position as much as possible – until the eventual point where she comes to see that her resistance was futile from the very beginning.

While usually observing its heroine’s plight from the distance, the movie also indirectly shows some pity and compassion at times. Although they often get exasperated with Ani’s stubborn attitude, the guys sent by Vanya’s parents are merely the employees assigned to do one particularly thankless job for their employer, and the movie makes a brief but sharp point on how they are no better than many other employees including the cleaning staff members of Vanya’s house. As a matter of fact, one of these guys comes to show a bit of genuine kindness to Ani as being stuck with her much longer than expected, and the movie wisely lets us sense the unexpected emotional alliance between them without spelling that out too obviously.

Under Baker’s skillful direction, the main cast members are effective in their respective parts. Mikey Madison, who has been more notable since her minor supporting role in Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood” (2019), brings enough spirit and personality to her character, and her good performance here in this film may lead to more good things to come in her promising acting career. Around Madison, Yura Borisov, Karren Karagulian, and Vache Tovmasyan hold each own place well as the guys hired by Vanya’s parents, and Mark Eydelshteyn looks as pathetically coward and unreliable as required by his crucial supporting character.

Since he drew my attention with “Tangerine” (2015), Baker has steadily advanced as making “The Florida Project” (2017) and “Red Rocket” (2021), and, considering all the attention and buzz surrounding it during this ongoing award season, “Anora” will surely establish him more as one of the most interesting American filmmakers during last several years. To be frank with you, I am still not sure whether it is one of the best films of this year as many reviewers and critics have said, but it is still one of the most interesting films of this year nonetheless, and it is certainly worthwhile to check out just like many of Baker’s previous films.

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Peafowl (2022) ☆☆☆(3/4): She just wants to be herself…

Posted on November 4, 2024 by kaist455

South Korean film “Peafowl” is a flawed but interesting queer family melodrama mainly distinguished by the strong lead performance at its center. Even when the movie unfortunately stumbles in one way or another due to its blatant plot contrivance, it is still supported well by its undeniably charismatic lead performer, and her memorable raw performance will keep you engaged enough to forgive several shortcomings in the film.

The story is mainly about Sin-myeong (Choi Hae-jun, who is also known as Haejun), a transgender Waacking dancer living in Seoul. In the beginning, we see her trying to win the top prize money at the local dance competition for paying for her upcoming gender transition surgery, and she is quite disappointed not only because she eventually fails but also because she is told later that she does not have her own color to distinguish herself more.

Meanwhile, there comes an unexpected phone call from someone in her past. That person in question is Woo-gi (Kim Woo-kyum), who has been the favorite pupil of her estranged father known quite well for his respected “Nongak” (traditional farmers’ music) career. After Sin-myeong came out, her father cut ties with her, but now he passed away, and Woo-gi wants her to attend her father’s funeral at least.

Even though she still feels a lot of anger and resentment toward her father, Sin-myeong eventually returns to her rural hometown, and it goes without saying that she is not welcomed much when she comes to her father’s funeral. While her aunt is mostly fine with her niece’s current appearance, her aunt’s husband is not so pleased to say the least, and that surely reminds Sin-myeong again of why she left her hometown and father.

And then Woo-gi tells her something which draws her attention. According to him, Sin-myeong’s father wanted her to perform a traditional memorial ritual for him, and Woo-gi promises her that she will receive a considerable amount of cash in exchange for that. Sin-myeong is initially reluctant, but she comes to accept the deal after getting some advice from a local fortune teller in her neighborhood in Seoul, and Woo-gi is willing to help her during the following preparation period.

It does not take much time for Sin-myeong to get more accustomed to what she has nearly forgotten for many years, but she soon comes to face a number of troubles just for being proud of who she is in front of others around her. While Woo-gi does not have any problem with her current gender identity, the aunt’s husband remains as hostile as before due to his homophobia/transphobia, and Sin-myeong comes to have more doubt about whether her father really wanted her to perform that ritual.

Around that narrative point, the screenplay by director/writer Byun Sung-bin gets more melodramatic and contrived as Sin-myeong happens to sense and discover a certain hidden fact about someone in the town. For protecting that figure in question, she willingly lets herself misunderstood by her aunt’s husband and several others in the town, and this also puts more strain on her relationship with Woo-gi, who naturally becomes quite frustrated and exasperated despite his good-willed intention behind helping Sin-myeong.

It is rather disappointing to see how the story resolves its complicated personal conflicts too conveniently during the last act, and I also wish the movie delved more into the interesting details of Nongak. It is not much of a spoiler to tell you that our heroine eventually accomplishes her personal task in the end, but her bold attempt to mix old and new stuffs together for the ritual could be more effective for us if we got to know more about Nongak in advance.

Nevertheless, the admirable integrity of Choi Haejun’s good performance continued to hold my attention throughout the film. As a real-life female transgender figure who is also known well as a professional Waacking dancer, she surely has all the right stuffs for playing her character from the beginning, and she also did a commendable job of conveying her to us character’s strength and vulnerability. As a result, we come to have more understanding and empathy on her character along the story, and that is the main reason why it is touching to observe when Sin-myeong finally comes to find her own color around the end of the movie.

In contrast, several supporting performers around Choi are rather under-utilized as mostly stuck in their broad archetype roles. While Kim Woo-kyum brings some genuine decency to his thankless supporting part, Ko Jae-hyun, Hwang Jung-min, and Kim Jin-soo are merely required to fill their respective spots, and Ki Joo-bong appears as Sin-myeong’s father during one brief scene later in the film.

Overall, “Peafowl” could be more improved here and there, but you will not easily forget its unforgettable transgender heroine and the lead performer behind her, who is really a force to reckon with in my trivial opinion. It will be interesting to see whether the movie will give Choi a significant career breakthrough in the near future, and I sincerely hope that the movie also will bring more awareness and sensitivity on gender identity and sexuality to many South Korean audiences out there.

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Longlegs (2024) ☆☆☆(3/4): Something insidious this way comes to her…

Posted on November 1, 2024 by kaist455

Osgood Perkins’ latest horror film “Longlegs” is insidious and unsettling from the beginning to the end. Although you may get a bit impatient with its rather slow narrative pacing and loose storytelling, the movie keeps us on the edge with a creepy sense of dread surrounding its increasingly disturbed heroine, and there is also some extra amusement from another odd performance from one of its main cast members.

After the unnerving prologue scene involved with a young little girl who happens to come across some very weird figure, the movie, which is set in the middle of the 1990s, introduces us to Lee Harker (Maika Monroe), a young female FBI agent assigned to a mysterious case not long after her first field experience which turns out to be quite traumatic for her. Although she is still not fully recovered from that shocking happening, her supervisor recruits her anyway because she actually has a sort of psychic ability which may help the investigation of that strange case in question.

As Harker begins to work on the case, we get to know a bit more about its disturbing details. For many years, there have been a series of gruesome family murder incidents, and all of them happen to be linked with an unknown figure named “Longlegs”. While there is no other evidence showing that this figure is actually responsible for these terrible incidents, this figure always leaves a coded letter on the crime scene, and FBI investigators remain quite baffled about who this figure really is – and why and how this figure has done all these killings.

Trying to search for anything to be noticed by her special ability, Harker also often gets quite disturbed by those unnerving details of the incidents associated with Longlegs. In case of the latest incident which happens to be belatedly discovered, she and her supervisor have to face a very unpleasant sight, and some of you may wince a lot even though the movie thankfully does not dwell too long on that.

Meanwhile, it turns out that Longlegs somehow knows that Harker is working on the case. When she is alone in her residence at one night, Longlegs comes and then leaves a letter for her, and that actually leads to a significant breakthrough for the investigation. In addition, Harker eventually discovers the hidden pattern behind the incidents associated with Longlegs, which seems to be involved with some Satanic sacrifice rituals.

As Harker delves deeper into the case, Perkins and his crew members including cinematographer Andrés Arochi Tinajero continue to fill the screen with a lot of moody creepiness. Many of the key scenes feel quiet and static on the surface, but there is always subtle tension beneath the surface, and that is occasionally punctuated by effective moments to jolt us in one way or another.

The story gets more interesting as Harker somehow feels a lot more unnerved about the case than before. While her supervisor is always ready to support her as much as possible, she cannot help but become quite anxious as getting closer to their target, and she also finds herself becoming more distant to her aging mother, who often calls her just for checking out whether she is all right.

Perkins’ screenplay is surely reminiscent of several other serial killer movies such as “The Silence of the Lambs” (1991) and “Zodiac” (2007), but it goes its own way as taking its time for bringing more creepiness to the story. Even when its villain character is fully revealed at last, the movie does not hurry itself much, and then it allows Nicholas Cage to have some morbid fun with his villain character. While almost unrecognizable under heavy makeup, Cage, who also participated in the production of the movie, is as intense and insidious as demanded, and his deliberately loony performance frequently hovers over the screen even during his absence.

As the emotional center of the film, Maika Monroe, who is no stranger to horror movies considering her breakout turn in David Robert Mitchell’s “It Follows” (2014), anchors the movie well with her solid performance. While ably conveying to us her character’s unstable state of mind, Monroe also brings some human qualities to her character, and she is particularly good during several personal key scenes between Harker and her aging mother.

Most of the supporting performers in the film simply fill their respective spots around Monroe, but a few of them manage to do a bit more than their functional roles require. Alicia Witt, who steadily worked during last 40 years since appearing in David Lynch’s “Dune” (1984), has her own moment later in the film, and Blaire Underwood acquits himself fairly well even though mostly being stuck in his blandly thankless supporting part.

On the whole, “Longlegs” is mostly engaging for the mood and performances, and it will certainly interest you if you like Perkins’ two previous films “I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House” (2016) and “Gretel & Hansel” (2020). His works are still a bit of acquired taste to me, but I come to have more admiration for his filmmaking skill and talent, and I am already looking forward to watching his next film which will be incidentally released in the next year.

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The Remarkable Life of Ibelin (2024) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): His remarkable online life

Posted on October 28, 2024 by kaist455

Netflix documentary film “The Remarkable Life of Ibelin”, which was released on last Friday, looks into the bountiful online life of one Norwegian gamer who died when he was only 25. Although he did not reveal himself that much to his numerous fellow online gamers, he closely interacted with them for more than 10,000 hours before his eventual death in 2014, and it is often quite poignant to observe how he showed his better sides to others in their online world.

At the beginning, we get to know a bit about the private life of this Norwegian gamer in question. Mats Steen was born to one ordinary couple living in Oslo, Norway in 1989, and his parents were certainly quite devastated when Steen was diagnosed to have a rare type of hereditary degenerative muscular disease a few years later. At first, young Steen simply looked like being rather weak and clumsy in his physical movements, but this only got worse and worse as time went by, and he eventually had to rely a lot on his wheelchair.

While his parents and his younger sister tried a lot for making Steen participate more in their social life, Steen’s attention got gradually drawn to online computer games. He frequently spent many hours on playing online games every day, and his parents could not possibly say no to him even though they sincerely wished he got interested in other stuffs besides online games because, well, they were well aware of how time kept running out for him as well as them.

Steen’s medical condition got much worse during last few years of his short life. He tried to keep going on as much as possible, but he inevitably became too weak to breathe for himself, and his fingers also became too weakened to play Warcraft, which was incidentally his favorite online game. As a matter of fact, he was constantly monitored by a series of different caregivers every day around that point, and both he and his family became more aware of his impending death than before.

Not long before his death, Steen sent his parents his user ID and password to the Warcraft website. After he died, his parents checked out what he had been doing on that online game website during last several years, and what they discovered there was quite revealing to say the least. He actually made a lot of online friends as playing here and there along with them, and, to his parent’s surprise, most of them immediately sent their heartfelt condolence to Steen’s parents when Steen’s parents posted the notification on his recent death on his personal blog site.

Around that point, the documentary delves a lot deeper into Steen’s online life, and that is where it becomes quite extraordinary. Via the digital animation based on the visual elements from the online world of Warcraft, it immerses us more into what was shared among Steen and his many online friends, and then it gives us the vivid reenactment of the excerpts from the vast online records generated among Steen and his fellow online gamers. This looks rather artificial at first, but director Benjamin Ree and his crew and voice cast members handle their materials with enough care and sensitivity, and the overall result is pretty absorbing to say the least.

Just like all the other online gamers, Steen had some fun with presenting himself via his game avatar, which was named, yes, Ibelin. He presented Ibelin as a freelancing detective who can solve problems and mysteries for others around him in addition to having some adventures from to time, and it did not take much time for him to draw the attention of many other online gamers, mainly thanks to his likable personality glimpsed behind Ibelin. He soon made a lot of online friends here and there, and he became closer to some of them as they came to interact more with each other outside their online game world.

We are later introduced to several close online friends of his, and they all have each own personal story about Steen. Although he always drew the line between him and others as keeping hiding himself behind Ibelin, he also showed a lot affection and empathy to many of his online game friends, and there is a particularly touching story on how he helped one of them get closer to her autistic son, who also became Steen’s close friend after joining the World of Warcraft for more communication with his mother.

Needless to say, things were not always rosy and pleasant for Steen and his fellow online gamers – especially when he became angrier and more depressed due to his rapidly worsening medical condition. Nevertheless, he eventually came to realize that he had to open himself much more to his online friends than before, and that led to a moving moment of reconciliation and understanding between him and them. After his eventual death, several online friends of his willingly came to the funeral for remembering him more along with his family, and this certainly reminded his family that he did live as fully as he could before his death.

In conclusion, “The Remarkable Life of Ibelin”, which won the Audience Award as well as the Directing Award at the World Cinema Documentary section of the Sundance Film Festival early in this year, powerfully shows us how positive human interactions are still possible on the Internet. Yes, we all have seen the many negative sides of the online world in one way or another during last several decades, but we can also be quite understanding and empathetic to others across the Internet, and the documentary surely gives us a remarkable example to remember.

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Uprising (2024) ☆☆☆(3/4): A bitter and brutal period drama

Posted on October 28, 2024 by kaist455

South Korean Netflix film “Uprising”, which was released a few weeks ago, is a bitter and brutal period drama about an intense class conflict in the background of a big historical war in Korea during the 16th century. While it often strikes and shocks us with numerous violent and bloody moments, the movie engages us with broad but strong characters and competent storytelling, and the result is one of the better products from Netflix during this year.

During its early part, the movie establishes the complicated relationship between Cheon Yeong (Gang Dong-won) and Lee Jong-ryeo (Park Jeong-min). Just because her mother became a slave around the time of her pregnancy, young Choen Yeong, played by Jin Jae-hee, also becomes a slave despite his father’s desperate protest, and he is subsequently sent to the house of one of the most influential military officials in the kingdom, where he works as a new whipping boy for the military education of his master’s son.

Of course, the master’s son is none other than young Jong-ryeo, who is played by Lee Yoon-sang. As watching young Jong-ryeo pathetically struggling every day, young Cheon-yeong decides to take care of the matter for himself mainly for avoiding getting whipped a lot by the master, and, what do you know, he comes to show more talent and potential while having a helpful extra training session with the master’s son at every night.

However, though Jong-ryeo’s swordsmanship and other military skills do get improved a lot during next several years, but he is still not good enough to distinguish himself as much as his father desires, let alone pass the annual military annual examination. Again, Cheon-young comes forward to take care of Jong-ryeo’s trouble, and it seems he will be free at last if he helps his master’s son a bit as before.

Not so surprisingly, Cheong-yong finds himself betrayed at the last minute not long after getting that job done, and this only adds more anger and resentment toward not only his master but also the family members of his master including Jong-ryeo. It looks like all is lost for him when he gets captured shortly after his attempt to escape, but then things suddenly get turned upside down in the kingdom when the Japanese Army unexpectedly invades Korea. As not only King Seonjo (Cha Seung-won) but also many ruling class members prepare to leave the capital of their kingdom in advance, thousands of people of lower class in the capital become quite furious to say the least, and we soon see the royal palace being ransacked and then burned down not long after the king runs away along with his underlings to the North.

Around the time when Cheon-yeong manage to escape, all of Jong-ryeo’s family members get killed due to the revolt of their angry servants, and Jong-ryeo becomes quite angry and spiteful as shown from the first bloody action sequence in the film. Wrongly believing that Cheon-yeong is the one mainly responsible for the death of his family members, he is determined to catch and then kill Cheon-yeong, and he keeps looking for Cheon-yeong even after the war is eventually over 7 years later.

Meanwhile, after bravely fighting against the Japanese Army during last several years, Cheon-yeong and many other slaves are all hopeful about becoming free as promised to them at first. However, the king is not so willing to do that as more occupied with restoring the royal palace as well as the class system he is going to rule over as before, and he does not even give any damn about how millions of people of his kingdom are starving to death as struggling a lot among the ruins of the war right now.

The screenplay by Shin Cheol and Park Chan-wook adds more bitter irony to the story during its second half as Cheon-yeong and many of his comrades are cruelly betrayed by the king, who gladly gives full authority to Jong-ryeo for eliminating Cheon-yeoing and his comrades once for all. Following Jong-ryeo’s advice, the king also gives full immunity to a bunch of Japanese soldiers including one particularly notorious general, who are soon ordered to track down Cheon-yeong and his comrades in addition to do something else for the king’s benefit.

As Cheon-yeong and others around them get cornered in one way or another, director Kim Sang-man, who took the helm instead because Park was busy with making his recent HBO TV miniseries “The Sympathizer”, and his crew members including cinematographer Ju Sung-rim continue to serve us more bloody and violent action scenes. You will probably wince a lot as many heads and limbs are ruthlessly severed along the story, but they are skillfully presented while also serving the story and characters with considerable dramatic power, and you may get some dark laugh from when the king eventually gets a sort of comeuppance around the end of the story.

It certainly helps that the main cast members of the film fill their archetype roles with enough presence and personality. While Kang Dong-won diligently occupies the center as required, Park Jeong-min holds his own place well as the counterpart for Kang’s character, and Cha Seung-won and Jung Sul-il, who plays the aforementioned Japanese general, are also solid in their substantial supporting roles.

On the whole, “Uprising” works thanks to its good direction, storytelling, and performance, and that is enough to compensate for its several weak aspects including the glaring lack of the substantial female characters (Kim Shin-rok deserves the special mention for bringing enough spirit to the sole female main character in the story, by the way). It could be improved more, but it is mostly entertaining in my humble opinion, so I will not grumble for now.

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The Room Next Door (2024) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): Being next to her dying friend

Posted on October 25, 2024 by kaist455

Pedro Almodóvar’s first English-language feature film “The Room Next Door”, which recently won the Golden Lion award at the Venice International Film Festival, is somber but elegantly compelling to work to be cherished. While it is an inherently elegiac melodrama about death and friendship, the movie is also as witty and colorful as you can expect from the director, and it is also carried well by two of the best movie actresses of our time.

At the beginning, we meet Ingrid (Julianne Moore), a successful middle-aged female novelist who has just published her latest novel. Not long after she is back in New York City, she encounters an old friend of hers when she is signing her books at a local bookstore, and she comes to learn that a mutual friend of theirs, Martha (Tilda Swinton) has been seriously ill due to cancer. Although she and Martha have been out of touch with each other for many years, Ingrid comes to a medical center where Martha has received some experimental medical treatment, and both of them are delighted to see each other again after many years.

While they come to spend more time with each other, we get to know a bit about their friendship and Martha’s private and professional life. Martha is a well-known war correspondent, and she was on the top of her field just like her friend before she got very ill, but she has some regret about not being a very good mother to her estranged daughter from the beginning due to her busy work around the world. Her daughter remains distant to her even after learning about her illness, but Martha accepts that without much bitterness nonetheless.

Sincerely hoping for the best for her friend, Ingrid is willing to spend more time with Martha for more emotional support, but things soon get really bad for Martha when it turns out that she does not have much time to live because her cancer turns out to be a lot more malignant than expected. While she is surely recommended to go through more medical treatment, she decides to live a bit more peacefully and painlessly before her eventual death, and she eventually returns to her cozy apartment, whose interior design is as slick and colorful as you can expect from an Almodóvar movie.

And then Martha asks a big favor of Ingrid. She is going to commit a suicide sooner or later, and she simply wants her friend to be around her for a while before her planned death. Needless to say, Ingrid instantly gets disturbed and conflicted about her friend’s suicide plan, but she eventually agrees to accompany her friend as much as possible until Martha decides to kill herself.

We subsequently see Ingrid and Marth embarking on what will be the last few days of their long-term friendship. They go to a slick and comfortable modern house located outside the city, and, as instructed to her in advance, Ingrid stays in a bedroom not so far from the one occupied by Martha, who will leave a certain sign for her friend before she really kills herself as planned.

For not getting her friend into any trouble in the aftermath, Martha thoroughly planned her suicide, but her planning turns out to be not wholly perfect, and Ingrid comes to have more doubt and conflict about their circumstance. Although she still cares a lot about her friend, she is not so certain about whether she can really stay next to her friend to the end, and that leads to more strain on their relationship.

Almodóvar’s screenplay, which is based on Sigrid Nunez’s acclaimed novel “What Are You Going Through”, steadily maintains its calm attitude as subtly building up the emotional narrative beneath the surface. When its two heroines watch together John Huston’s last film “The Dead” (1987), which is incidentally based on the short story of the same name by James Joyce, this key moment initially seems to emphasize the main subject of the story a bit too blatantly, but it is handled with enough care and sensitivity to engage and then touch us, and the movie later delivers something as sublimely poetic as the haunting last scene of Huston’s movie.

Almodóvar shows here that his storytelling talent is not inhibited by language boundary at all, and he and his crew members including cinematographer Ed Grau did a fabulous job of imbuing the screen with a palpable sense of sadness and melancholy. Often driven by the nervous string performance a la Bernard Herrmann, the score by Almodóvar’s longtime collaborator Alberto Iglesias effectively complements what is so dexterously presented on the score, and I will not be surprised if the score gets Oscar-nominated like his score for Almodóvar’s previous film “Parallel Mothers” (2021).

Above all, Almodóvar draws the terrific performances from his two lead actresses, both of whom are dependable as usual. Often shining with her own uncannily ethereal quality, Tilda Swinton ably embodies her character’s tranquilly melancholic acceptance of death, and Julianne Moore is equally excellent in her masterful illustration of her character’s emotional conflict along the story. Around these two great actresses, John Turturro and Alessandro Nivola provide small but effective supporting performances, and Turturro steals every minute of his in the film as providing some sense of humor to the story.

Overall, “The Room Next Door” is another superlative work from Almodóvar, who has rarely bored me and other audiences with his own distinctive style and storytelling during last several decades. In short, this is one of the more interesting movies of this year, and it is certainly much more recommendable than “Venom: The Last Dance” (2024), which happens to be released in South Korean theaters in the same week. While that forgettable flick is a waste of time, “The Room Next Door” is something you must watch at movie theater in my humble opinion, and you may later thank me for my enthusiastic recommendation.

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Venom: The Last Dance (2024) ☆☆(2/4): Until death does them apart

Posted on October 24, 2024 by kaist455

“Venom: The Last Dance”, what is supposed to be the last chapter of the trilogy started with “Venom” (2018), is a schizophrenic mess which fails to mix well its goofy parts with more serious plot elements. While it is occasionally amusing to watch the comic interactions between the mismatched duo at the center of the movie, the story is also too thin and scattershot to hold our attention, and the overall result is another disappointing comic book movie during last several years.

The movie begins at the point not long after the ending of “Venom: Let There Be Carnage” (2021). Eddie Brook / Venom (Tom Hardy) has been a fugitive hiding somewhere in Mexico, and then he and his alien symbiote which imbues him with super-human abilities come to have a very big trouble on their way. The evil creator of symbiotes, who has been imprisoned somewhere in the universe, is looking for something Brook and his alien symbiote have, and one of those hideous alien creatures under this evil dude’s control comes down to the Earth for looking for Brook and his alien symbiote.

Meanwhile, Brook and his alien symbiote are also being pursued by the people associated with a certain top-secret US military project hidden at a site not so far from that famous military zone in Nevada. Once they find Brock’s current location, a bunch of soldiers led by General Strickland (Chiwetel Ejiofor) immediately begin their pursuit, and it goes without saying that they soon encounter that hideous alien creature, which has a rather nasty way of killing whoever tries to interfere with its relentless pursuit.

Anyway, as trying to evade both General Strickland’s soldiers and that hideous alien creature, Brock eventually finds himself in the middle of Nevada, and that is where he gets some help from a goofy family guy and his wife and children, who happen to be traveling around Nevada just for getting any chance to see an alien around that famous military zone of Nevada. The movie has some fun with how Brock tries to hide his little secret from his unexpected helpers as much as possible, and we get a little amusing moment when they attempt to cheer up Brock with a brief musical performance while his alien symbiote is eager to sing along with them.

After more comic moments along the story, the movie becomes much more serious as Brock and his alien symbiote must confront their main opponent, and that is where the movie becomes a lot shakier than before. Hurriedly throwing its hero and several other characters into lots of busy action, the action scenes in the film feel merely frantic and jumbled, and you may get all the more confused when a bunch of additional alien figures appear later. While we surely get a big explosive finale in the end, we already saw that coming from the beginning due to something which can be regarded as an equivalent to Chekhov’s gun, and I must say that this is one of many occasions of ineffectual writing in the film.

Above all, it is often difficult for us to care about the story and characters of the film. Eddie and his alien symbiote are still an amusing mismatched duo, but their dysfunctional relationship is not developed that much from what was shown in “Venom” and its 2021 sequel movie. In case of several substantial supporting characters in the movie, they are mostly flat and bland without much human quality to engage us, and that is the main reason why we do not care much about whatever is being at stake for them along the story.

Tom Hardy, who also provides the voice for Brock’s alien symbiote in addition to serving as the co-writer and co-producer of the film, looks as committed as he did in the previous two films while also having a ball whenever Brock bickers with his alien symbiote. However, his fairly enjoyable efforts here in this film are often limited by the numerous half-baked aspects of the story written by him and director/co-writer Kelly Marcel, who also served as a co-writer in the previous two films, and I can only hope that he will soon move onto something much better for his career.

A number of notable cast members of the film are regrettably under-utilized, though a few of them fortunately acquit themselves well at least. Chiwetel Ejiofor, who is no stranger to comic book movie considering his supporting turn in “Doctor Strange” (2016), is thoroughly wasted without much to do, and the same thing can be said about Juno Temple and Stephen Graham, who often seems merely waiting for getting the paycheck. While Rhys Ifans generates some amusement as that goofy family guy, Peggy Lu, who delightfully stole the show as a Chinese convenient store owner who befriended both Eddie and his alien symbiote in the previous two movies, has another scene-stealing time during her brief but funny appearance around the middle of the film.

In conclusion, “Venom: The Last Dance” manages to reach to the end of its trilogy, but it is disappointing due to its deficient narrative and superficial characterization. After getting quite dissatisfied with “Venom”, I was a bit glad to see some sign of improvement in “Venom: Let There Be Carnage”, but “Venom: The Last Dance” sadly goes down back to the gross level of underachievement shown in “Venom”, and this surely lets me down a lot. To be frank with you, it is already being faded in my mind as I am about to move onto Pedro Almodóvar’s latest film which happens to be released in the same week in South Korea, and I am sure that my memory of “Venom: The Last Dance” will be almost wiped out after watching that Almodóvar movie.

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Smile 2 (2024) ☆☆☆(3/4): It’s going to smile again

Posted on October 23, 2024 by kaist455

“Smile 2” goes for more terror and fear in the same playground, and I enjoyed it more than expected. While it is not so different from its predecessor in terms of story setting, the movie gives us a wilder and flashier version packed with enough mood and a darkly vicious sense of humor, and it is also supported well by the strong performance at its center.

The movie begins at the point not long after what happened at the end of “Smile” (2022). As many of you remember, the heroine of “Smile” sadly failed to free herself from some horribly powerful supernatural entity, and she only ended up getting possessed and then committed “suicide” right in front of her cop boyfriend. Six days later, he is also driven to the edge as that evil entity is now stalking him, and he devises his own desperate plan for freeing himself and stopping that evil entity. Unfortunately, his plan does not go well at all just like his girlfriend’s case, and he only comes to get that evil entity transferred to some young drug addict before he also gets killed in the end.

This young drug addict happens to be a friend of Skye Riley (Naomi Scott), a very famous pop star singer who has been trying to be sober and clean after having a devastating car accident due to her addiction problem around one year ago. When she comes to her addict friend’s apartment for getting some painkiller to dull her frequent pain in the back, he has been already quite unhinged due to that evil entity, and, of course, Riley soon becomes the very next target after he eventually gets possessed and then killed.

While trying to recover from this shocking incident, Riley soon comes to realize that something is going very, very, very wrong around her. She begins to have quite frightening nightmares, and then she frequently sees that disturbing smile from others around her. As these happenings get worse and worse to her horror, she becomes more confused about what is real or not, and she even receives the warning texts from a mysterious figure who seems to know well about what is really happening to her right now.

However, Riley does not have anyone who can really help her. Her mother, who has worked as her manager for years, is more occupied with pushing her daughter more for more success along with an executive from some influential recording company. In case of a young woman who was once Riley’s best friend, they have been estranged from each other since the time around when that accident happened, though Riley comes to consider calling her friend for reconciliation and some help as being terrorized more and more by that evil entity.

As that evil entity frequently throws Riley into a series of unnerving mind-bending moments, director/writer Parker Finn, who is also the director/writer of “Smile”, and his crew members including cinematographer Charlie Sarroff have some naughty fun with vividly and strikingly presenting the heroine’s worsening plight. The movie sometimes emphasizes its heroine’s increasingly unstable state of mind with odd camera angles, and the accumulating sense of dread across the screen is further amplified by the score by Cristobal Tapia de Veer.

In terms of story and character, the movie generates interesting resonance between the story setting and its heroine’s profession. Even before she is cornered to the extreme by that evil entity, Skye has already been driven to the edge due to not only her mother and several others around her but also thousands of fans out there, and the movie makes some sharp points on that while also giving us several big moments of music and dance as required.

Good horror films usually have someone for whom we can fear at least, and Naomi Scott, who has been mainly known for her lead performance in “Aladdin”, willingly hurls herself into her high-strung lead character. In addition to handling well the musical scenes in the movie, Scott deftly goes up and down along with her character as palpably conveying to us her character’s terror and confusion, and she surely demonstrates more of her considerable talent and presence here in this film. It goes without saying that Riley is doomed from the very beginning, but Scott is still compelling enough to hold our attention to the end, and the result is another memorable horror movie performance to remember.

In case of several main cast members surrounding Scott, they are more or less than the background figures revolving around her grand performance, but some of them leave some impression nonetheless. While Rosemarie DeWitt is sometimes terrifying as Riley’s demanding mother, Peter Jacobson and Dylan Gelula are also well-cast as two different supporting characters who may actually help Riley, and Ray Nicholson, who is incidentally the son of Jack Nicholson, briefly appears as Riley’s dead boyfriend who got killed during that accident. I need to see more of Nicholson for confirming whether he is a good actor just like his legendary father (He recently played a minor supporting role in “Promising Young Woman” (2020) and “Licorice Pizza” (2021), by the way), but he inherits that killer smile from his daddy, and the movie and that evil entity effectively utilize it.

In conclusion, “Smile 2” is a solid sequel to be appreciated for its several strong points including Scott’s terrific performance, which compensate enough for is familiar story setting and rather overlong running time (127 minutes). Finn shows here that he is indeed a talented filmmaker as observed from his previous film, and it will be interesting to see what he will do next after the considerable achievement in his first two feature films.

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Woman of the Hour (2023) ☆☆☆(3/4): Appearing with a serial killer on TV

Posted on October 22, 2024 by kaist455

Anna Kendrick’s first feature film “Woman of the Hour”, which was released on Netflix on last Friday, chillingly examines sexism via an unbelievable story associated with one real-life serial killer in US during the late 1970s. Yes, as shown from the film, this horrible dude did appear in a TV game show, and it is often disturbing to observe how he managed to get away with his numerous killings during that time (Some estimated that he killed around 130 people at most, though he was convicted for total seven murders on the record).

That serial killer in question is Rodney Alcala (Daniel Zovatto), who incidentally died in prison a few years ago. The opening scene shows how Alcala is preying on a woman who will be his latest victim with his camera, and this dry but undeniably chilling moment comes to us a cross between “Zodiac” (2007) and “Peeping Tom” (1960). As Alcala keeps watching her and throwing a few personal questions to her, the woman gradually uneasier, and then, to our horror, she belatedly comes to realize what is going to happen to her.

The movie soon shifts its focus to Cheryl Bradshaw (Anna Kendrick), a plucky young actress looking for any possible big break for her career in Hollywood. After having another disappointment from her latest audition, Bradshaw gets consoled a bit by a male friend/neighbor who is also an actor, but their following drinking night only reminds her that he is no better than those two guys who callously disregarded her at that audition.

At least, her agent gets her a little job which may lead her to more auditions in the future. She is going to appear as a contestant in the latest episode a popular local TV game show called “The Dating Game”, and all Bradshaw will have to do on that show is just simply following whatever she is instructed to do in front of the camera and the audiences. When she subsequently comes to the set, everyone on the set including the host is already ready to do the show, and she is told that everything will be okay as long as she goes along well with others on the set.

Of course, as a young pretty woman who is simply regarded on the set as an object to be won by three hidden male participants, Bradshaw soon faces another moment of misogyny. For example, she is instructed to ask banal questions which demean her in one way or another, and the host, who is your average egoistic male prick, frequently ridicules and insults her just for drawing more laughs from his audiences. In case of the hidden male participants, the first two guys are pretty pathetic in each own way, while the third dude seems a bit better than these two other guys.

However, this third dude is Alcala, so the mood naturally becomes suspenseful for us step by step. On the surface, everything looks bright and cheery around Bradshaw, but the score by Dan Romer and Mike Tuccillo subtly dials the level of uneasiness around the screen, and we come to fear more for Bradshaw as it is more apparent to us that Alcala considers her as another victim to lure and then kill.

Meanwhile, the movie occasionally flashes back or forward for showing more of Alcala’s atrocious crimes – and how he often managed to avoid police investigation mainly due to sexism. While he seems fairly likable in his plain appearance, women always sense some creepy vibe around him, and he even gladly shows the photographs of his victims to his co-workers. Many of his colleagues, who are incidentally male, are not so serious about that at all, and neither does a detective who comes to his workplace for interviewing him a bit. As a matter of fact, Alcala happens to be recognized by one woman in the audience at one point, but, not so surprisingly, nobody listens to her words at all – not even her boyfriend.

The screenplay by Ian McDonald, who participated in the production along with Kendrick as a co-executive producer, gets a bit more tense as Alcala approaches closer to Bradshaw later in the story. While getting to know him a bit more, Bradshaw becomes more unnerved, but she cannot easily say no to him, even when she comes to sense more that something is not so right about him.

Never hurrying the story and characters at all, the movie skillfully accumulates tension below the surface under Kendrick’s competent direction. While the movie is influenced by “Zodiac” to some degree, it is clear that she did her homework well before making the film, and her result distinguishes itself as bringing substantial female perspective to the story materials besides wisely avoiding gratuitous sensationalism.

While Kendrick holds the center well with another strong performance to watch, she also draws fine performances from her several main cast members. While Daniel Zovatto is subtly creepy as required, Nicolette Robinson and Autumn Best are well-cast in their respective supporting parts, and the special mention goes to Tony Hale, who ably embodies the smug sexism of his smarmy host character.

On the whole, “The Woman of the Hour” is one of more satisfying movies from Netflix during this year, and Kendrick did a commendable job of showing another side of her considerable talent here in this film. It is surely a solid beginning for her directing career, and I think I can have some expectation on whatever she will make next.

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