The Burial (2023) ☆☆☆(3/4): Two different men against a big corporation

Posted on October 16, 2023 by kaist455

“The Burial”, which was released on Amazon Prime on last Friday, is a modest but engaging drama about the legal battle of two different men who came to stand against a big corporation. While it does not exceed our expectation that much, the movie does its job well at least as taking its time on story and character development, and it is also anchored by the compelling contrast between its two reliable lead performers.

Tommy Lee Jones, who has been one of the most dependable actors working in Hollywood during last several decades, plays Jeremiah O’Keefe, a funeral director living in Biloxi, Mississippi. Since he inherited the family company from his father not long after the World War II, O’Keefe has diligently run it in addition to becoming not only a proud father and husband but also a respectable member of his local community, but he comes to face a serious business problem which may be beyond his control in 1995. After consulting with his family lawyer Mike Allred (Alan Ruck), he eventually decides to sell some of his family business to a large funeral home company named the Loewen Group, so he and Allred comes to have a meeting with its CEO Raymond Loewen (Bill Camp) in Vancouver, Canada.

At first, everything seems to be going well for O’Keefe as the Loewen Group promises a deal supposedly benefiting both sides, but then O’Keefe soon senses something fishy about this deal as the Loewen Group keeps delaying signing the contract on their deal. Hal Dockins (Mamoudou Athie), a young African American lawyer who is incidentally a friend of one of O’Keefe’s children, tells O’Keefe that they should be more active about this ongoing problem because the Loewen Group was apparently not interested in signing the contract from the beginning for a good reason, and O’Keefe eventually agrees to take a legal action against the Loewen Group.

Because the following lawsuit will be handled at a local court whose area happens to have lots of African American people, Dockins suggests that O’Keefe should hire an African American lawyer instead of being just represented by Allred, who is incidentally a white American just like O’Keefe. There is a well-known African American lawyer in Florida who has been mainly known for personal injury cases, and Dockins is confident that this lawyer, Willie E. Gary (Jamie Foxx), is suitable for O’Keeffe’s legal battle against the Loewen Group, though O’Keeffe has some understandable reservation because, after all, Gary does not have much experience or knowledge on those contract laws.

Jamie Foxx, who has gradually been back in his element during several recent years, plays his showy character with pure gusto right from his first scene in the film. While he is surely your average ambulance chaser, Gary is also pretty good enough to convince the court and the jury members in one way or another, and O’Keefe is certainly impressed when he and Dockins come to watch Gary handling his latest case.

When he is later approached by O’Keefe and Dockins, Gary understandably does not show much interest at the beginning, but, after Dockins makes a good argument on how O’Keefe’s case can make Gary all the more famous than before, Gary agrees to represent O’Keefe. He promptly takes the lead position of O’Keeffe’s counsel team to Allred’s annoyance, and he is also ready to tackle against those several high-profile lawyers representing the Loewen Group, who are all African American as expected.

One of Gary’s opponents is a young female lawyer named Mame Downes (Jurnee Smollett), and one of the most entertaining moments in the film comes from when Gary and Downes has a little unofficial meeting before the first day of their trial. While their casual conversation is tinged with some playful respect, Downes tactfully warns that she will not be easy on Gary and O’Keefe at all as doing her job as usual, and Gary has no problem with that as her main opponent at the court.

What is unfolded at the court is quite conventional to say the least, but the screenplay by director Maggie Betts and her co-writer Doug Wright, which is based on the 1999 New Yorker article of the same name by Jonathan Harr, keeps us engaged as steadily paying more attention to character details. Yes, Gary and O’Keefe surely come to have some conflict between them during the trial, but they also come to respect and admire each other more as they continue to stand up against their opponent, and they become more determined as coming to learn more about how sneaky their opponent has been in its rather aggressive business expansion.

While Jones and Foxx ably complement each other along the story, several notable cast members including Alan Ruck, Bill Camp, Mamoudou Athie, and Jurnee Smollett, whom I still fondly remember for her powerful performance in Kasi Lemmons’ great film “Eve’s Bayou” (1997), have each own moment to shine. Smollett clicks so well with Foxx during several key scenes between them that I would not mind watching them playing against each other again someday (I can easily imagine them appearing together in the remake of Steve Soderbergh’s “Out of Sight” (1998), for example). In case of Camp, who has been one of the most interesting American character actors during last several years, he is particularly fun to watch when his despicable supporting character finally comes to the court later in the story.

Overall, “The Burial” mostly sticks to its genre conventions, but the result is still good enough for recommendation thanks to Betts’ competent direction and the commendable efforts from her main cast members. I was not surprised, but I was satisfied with its fairly solid storytelling and performance, so I will not grumble for now.

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Vesper (2022) ☆☆☆(3/4): One defiant girl in the middle of a post-apocalyptic world

Posted on October 14, 2023 by kaist455

Post-apocalyptic science fiction tales are dime a dozen, but “Vesper” distinguishes itself via its vividly barren and strange background. Although it is rather modest in terms of scope and production budget, the movie did a fairly good job of filling the screen with enough mood and details to engage us, and we gladly follow its young plucky heroine’s story while coming to root for her more.

At first, the movie explains a bit about its post-apocalyptic background. After the global disaster caused by the reckless genetic engineering, all the edible plants are almost wiped out from the Earth along with animals and most of the entire human population. While the majority of human survivors struggle to eat and live day by day in their stark environment, there are special places called “Citadels”, and those privileged people of the Citadels have had the nearly absolute power over the population outside their areas via occasionally selling the precious crop seeds genetically modified for only one harvest.

Vesper (Raffiella Chapman), a 14-year-old girl living alone with her invalid father, has tried to crack the genetic code of those genetically modified seeds for totally being free from the Citadel in her region. When she is not going around here and there outside along with a drone connected with her father’s brain, she usually spends her time at her little shabby laboratory, but there has not been much progress for her yet, and things get more frustrating for her due to a big problem in her residence.

Because of that problem, Vesper has to ask for a little help from her uncle Jonas (Eddie Marsan), who has been the de factor leader of some other survivors in the region. As reflected by his first scene in the film, Jonas is not so kind or generous to anyone at all, and, not so surprisingly, he demands something from Vesper in exchange of a little help. Vesper has no choice but to accept the deal, and there is a brief but disturbing moment between her and her menacing uncle as he regards her with some interest.

Meanwhile, something unexpected occurs in the remote area surrounding Vesper’s house. Not long after a flying ship from the Citadel in her region crashes into the area, she comes across a mysterious woman named Camellia (Raffiella Chapman), who turns out to be one of the two persons in that flying ship. Camellia requests Vesper to help her and her companion who is still in that crashed flying ship, and, because Camellia promises that she will take Vesper and her father to the Citadel, Vesper is determined to help Camellia as much as possible, though her father shows understandable suspicion and skepticism as a guy who once worked for the Citadel before becoming invalid.

The situation becomes more tense when Vesper’s uncle gets involved with the ongoing situation later in the story, but the movie takes its time as before while building up its post-apocalyptic world more. At one point, Vesper shows Camellia a little special place of her own, and the mood becomes a little more relaxed as Camellia appreciates the results of Vesper’s various genetic modification experiments. As a guy with a PhD degree in biological scientist, I found the biological technologies in the film quite preposterous, but the movie is not a realistic science fiction at all from the beginning as being more like a sort of medieval fantasy tale at times instead.

Besides providing enough details for the world inhabited by its few main characters, the screenplay by directors Kristina Buožytė and Bruno Samper and their co-writer Brian Clark also focuses on the human drama surrounding its young heroine. Although Vesper and her father communicate with each other only via his drone, we come to sense more of how much they care about each other, and there is a poignant moment when her father willingly chooses to do what should be done for his dear daughter. While their initial interactions are awkward to say the least, Vesper and Camellia come to open themselves to each other more as time goes by, and it is touching to see when Camellia describes to Vesper a bit about several extinct animals in the past.

The main cast members of the film are believable as embodying their respective archetype characters. As the center of the film, young performer Raffiella Chapman is constantly compelling as her character defiantly struggles with one obstacle after another, and she ably balances her character between vulnerability and resilience while often reminding us of Jennifer Lawrence’s haunting performance in Debra Granik’s “Winter’s Bone” (2010). As Vesper’s invalid father, Richard Blake speaks volumes even his character does not say via that drone, and Rosy McEwen exudes certain alien qualities as required by her role. In case of Eddie Marsan, who has been one of the most dependable character actors since his breakout supporting performance in Mike Leigh’s “Happy-Go-Lucky” (2008), he is effectively seedy and deplorable, and my only complaint is that his character’s eventual comeuppance comes a bit too easily.

In my humble opinion, “Vesper” has a sufficient amount of style and mood to be savored, and its two directors and their crew members including cinematographer Feliksas Abrukauskas skillfully immerse us into its curious futuristic background. Although it requires some patience from you due to its rather slow pacing, the movie is a rewarding experience on the whole, so I recommend you to give this little but impressive genre flick a chance someday. ‘

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Benediction (2021) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): The final film by Terence Davies

Posted on October 10, 2023 by kaist455

“Benediction”, which is now the last film by Terence Davies after he died a few days ago, is a melancholic collection of personal memories from a real-life British poet who had a fair share of bitter anger and sadness as often reflected by his several poems quoted throughout the movie. While broadly covering his life story, the movie calmly and sensitively focuses on vividly illustrating his personal feelings and thoughts in front of our eyes, and the overall result is often hauntingly poetic to say the least.

At the beginning, the movie shows how things have been hopeful and promising for Siegfried Sassoon (Jack Lowden, who steadily carries the film with his solid acting) and his brother before the World War I begins. We see them going to a tailor’s shop for their suits, and then we see them enthusiastically waiting for the beginning of the performance of a certain groundbreaking work by Igor Stravinsky, but then everything becomes quite grim and serious both of them are drafted to the British Army after the war is started not long after that.

Subsequently devastated a lot by not only the death of his brother on a battlefield but also what he saw during his military service, Sassoon makes a public statement protesting against the ongoing war, and that gets him into a big trouble because he is still in the army. He actually could be put into a court martial, and he is not afriad of that, but, thanks to his good friend Robbie Ross (Simon Russell Beale, who previously collaborated with Davies in “The Deep Blue Sea” (2011)), he is ordered to be examined by a military medical board instead for his supposedly unstable mental state.

As Sassoon tries to process his feelings and thoughts on all those tragic human casualties of the war, some of his poems associated with World War I are quoted while a montage of archival photographs and film clips convey to us a bit of the horror of the war witnessed by him during that period. His bitter and anxious feelings generated from the war experience still haunt him even around 30 years later, and that is the main reason why older Sassoon, played by Peter Capaldi with weary but brittle bitterness during this part, chooses to convert to Catholicism later, though that does not seem to give much peace or comfort as he wants.

After clashing a lot with those officers of the military medical board on his adamant opinion on the war, Sassoon is eventually sent to a military hospital located in Scotland for “recovery”, and, to his little surprise, he finds some comfort and sympathy as staying there a for while. Although the chief medical officer of the hospital, played by late Julian Sands, is not so friendly at all, Sassoon’s doctor is much more sympathetic in comparison, and Sassoon also befriends a young soldier who comes to share a lot of artistic passion with him.

It does not take much time for us to sense that Sassoon and this young soldier come to feel more than friendship between them, though neither they nor Sassoon’s doctor dares to talk or discuss directly about what is going on between them. After all, homosexuality was regarded as an unspeakable abnormality during the early 20th century, and it is rather amusing to observe how Sassoon and his doctor talk about homosexuality in very, very, very discreet ways while not admitting too much.

After the war gives him another bittersweet memory not long before it eventually ends, Sassoon continues to go on with his artistic career, but his personal life comes to have some melodramatic ups and downs in the meantime. At one point, he happens to get romantically involved with famous musician Ivor Novello (Jeremy Irvine, who is brimming with your typical bad boy vibe), but, as even noticed by Sassoon’s mother right from the beginning, Novello is not a very good lover to say the least, and Sassoon certainly gets quite frustrated no matter how much he tries to tolerate and accept his lover.

In the end, just because of being afraid of being lonely for the rest of his life, Sassoon chooses to marry a girl willing to marry him despite knowing quite well about his homosexuality, but, as bitterly illustrated by a brief but sad fantasy moment showing him joylessly dancing with several partners in his life one by one, his marital relationship with this young woman does not give him much consolation at all. During one flash-forward scene, the movie shows how loveless their relationship has become, and it is implied that their estranged relationship also affects Sassoon’s strained relationship with his defiant son.

In the meantime, the memories of the war keep haunting Sassoon’s mind, and Davies gives us several artificial but undeniably striking visual moments for conveying more to us on his hero’s emotional state. When one of the poems appearing in the film is quoted around the end of the story, it is accompanied with the visual presentation of the content of the poem, and the result is quite powerful even when the camera simply regards Sassoon’s deeply troubled face from the distance.

Since I happened to watch his deeply personal documentary “Of Time and the City” (2008) in 2009, I have admired Davies’ distinctive filmmaker career while impressed a lot by “The Deep Blue Sea” and “A Quiet Passion” (2016), and “Benediction” is surely another excellent drama film. Although he is not with us anymore now, he left a number of fine works to be cherished, and he certainly deserves to be remembered as one of the most interesting filmmakers in our time.

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Juliet of the Spirits (1965) ☆☆☆1/2 (3.5/4): Her spiritual journey of self-discovery

Posted on October 9, 2023 by kaist455

Federico Fellini’s “Juliet of the Spirits” baffles me a lot in good ways. When I watched the film for the first in 2005, I felt like not totally understanding how it is about or what it is about, and that impression was not changed much when I revisited it at a local theater during this afternoon. Nevertheless, its many haunting stylish moments linger on my mind as I am struggling to process them even at present, and it is surely another highlight in Fellini’s long and illustrious filmmaking career besides being his first feature film shot in color.

Unlike his two preceding films “La Dolce Vita” (1960) and “8 1/2” (1963), the movie is pretty modest in terms of narrative. Usually sticking to the occasionally unreliable viewpoint of a plainly affluent housewife named Giulietta Boldrini (Giulietta Masina), the movie follows her increasingly confounding personal struggles, and you may not be entirely sure about her reality even when she eventually arrives at the supposedly soothing end of her bumpy emotional journey.

At the beginning, everything feels mostly fine to Giulietta as she prepares for her and her husband’s wedding anniversary party along with her two maids at her big house decorated here and there with a number of colorful stuffs. Although he has been often known for striking images shot in black and white film, Fellini deftly moved onto color film without much difficulty in this film, and he and his Oscar-winning art director/costume designer Piero Gherardi, who deservedly received two Oscar nominations for the movie, surely have a field day here.

While she is enjoying the party along with her husband and a group of guests, Giulietta happens to participate in a séance along with several others just for casual fun, and that leads to something quite unexpected. After experiencing an inexplicable incident, she somehow begins to sense something supernatural hovering around her, and this occasionally makes her mind go astray into the realm of dreams and memories.

Because she does not believe much in mysticism, Giulietta is just mildly annoyed with this sudden happening at first, but then she only finds herself immersed more into dreams and memories along the story, and the movie surely goes all the way for Fellini’s usual idiosyncratic surreal moments. At one point, Giulietta attends a meeting presided by some old mysterious figure as asked by her friend, and that is followed by a series of baffling words associated with mysticism until Giulietta comes to have a little private meeting with that old mysterious figure. As an agnostic atheist, I think this part merely feels like full of mumbo-jumbo at times, but Fellini presents this part with enough style and a playful sense of humor at least.

Meanwhile, Giulietta’s personal memories and many people in the past keep popping out here and there in her mind. One of them is her teacher father who got ostracized simply because of following his heart, and his liberal presence, which is exemplified well by your average Felliniesque circus sequence in the middle of the film, is contrasted with the stern Catholic repression mainly represented by Giulietta’s sour mother, who still exerts considerable influence over Giulietta even at present.

As Giulietta becomes more reflective about her life and herself, it does not take much time for her to realize that her husband has been cheating on her for some younger woman, and that leads her to ask herself on what she really needs or wants. In case of one sequence involved with a tall and handsome foreign guest of her husband, its mood feels so dreamy that you may wonder whether this hunky dude is no more than the projection of her romantic yearning, and you will also be moved to see how her face is more brightened up than before.

However, she still flinches from the possibility of freedom and desire. Later in the story, Giulietta visits the house of a flamboyant neighbor living next to her house, and then she is caught off guard by a series of odd moments pulsating with sexuality and pleasure. She surely feels tempted, but then she becomes as terrified as a model girl scout would be in the middle of red-light district.

In the end, everything around Giulietta culminates to another big surreal moment which leaves us with some ambiguity about her state of mind. Does she finally free herself via embracing whatever is still speaking to her from somewhere? Or, does she actually become quite delusional after coping so much with her personal issues? To be frank with you, I am not that sure even at present, but I can tell you that Giulietta Masina, who was Fellini’s wife for almost 50 years till his death in 1993 and was also quite unforgettable in her husband’s two early films “La Strada” (1954) and “Nights of Cabiria” (1957), gives another sublime performance as ably anchoring the whole film with her gently sensitive presence. Usually looking docile and passive on the surface, Masina subtly conveys to us her character’s inner turmoil without exaggerating it at all, and Fellini surely handles his wife’s work with lots of care and affection – especially when the movie depends a lot on her beautifully expressive face during its last 20 minutes.

In conclusion, “Juliet of the Spirits” feels like an acquired taste compared to Fellini’s relatively more accessible works such as “Amacord” (1973), but it will come to you as a rewarding cinematic experience if you give it a chance. I mostly admire it instead of enthusiastically loving it, but I think I will soon revisit it someday for more fascination and amusement.

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I vitelloni (1953) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): A group of village slackers

Posted on October 9, 2023 by kaist455

Federico Fellini’s “I vitelloni”, which means “The slackers” in Romagnol slang, is a dry but funny comedy drama film about a group of young but pathetic village slackers. Although it may not be one of Fellini’s best works in my inconsequential opinion, the movie is still compelling to watch for showing Fellini’s gradual transition from the Italian neorealism to his own artistic territory during the 1950s, and it is surely one of crucial steppingstones in Fellini’s early filmmaking period.

The movie mainly revolves around five aimless lads living in a little beach village on the Adriatic coast: Fausto (Franco Fabrizi), Leopoldo (Leopoldo Trieste), Riccardo (Riccardo Fellini, who is incidentally the brother of Fellini), Alberto (Alberto Sordi), and Moraldo (Franco Interlenghi). During the opening scene unfolded in the middle of a local beauty contest, the movie quickly establishes these five young characters one by one, and then it suddenly pushes one of them into a very serious situation. Fausto’s girlfriend Sandra (Leonora Ruffo), who is also Moraldo’s sister, turns out to be pregnant shortly after being announced as the winner of the beauty contest, but Fausto only comes to show what a lousy boyfriend he is – before being eventually forced to take the full responsibility for Sandra’s big trouble.

Meanwhile, the movie leisurely observes how the lads spend days and nights without much thought on what to do with their life. While Riccardo and Alberto are not particularly interested in getting any job to earn their living, Leopoldo is mostly occupied with writing his ambitious play whenever he is left alone, and Moraldo, who turns out to be more aware of their current pathetic existence, remains indecisive about his future as continuing to hang around with his friends as before.

When the time for carnival comes later, the mood becomes a lot more cheerful among them and many others in the village, and this part gives us some foreshadowing of Fellini’s later works as he throws lots of spirit and excitement onto the screen. As the score by Nino Rota, who began to collaborate with Fellini in Fellini’s previous film “The White Sheik” (1952), often energizes the screen, the main characters are joyously mingling with many others in a big local theater, but then the mood becomes quite melancholic when the night is almost over, and that impression is further accentuated by a few main characters still trying to have more fun.

As reflected by that memorable moment, it becomes more apparent to Moraldo and his friends that their jolly good time is being over, no matter how much they try to look away from that hard fact of their reality. While Alberto is so absorbed in having a fun with his friends, it turns out that there is a big domestic problem involved with his sister, and there is nothing he can do when he belatedly realizes her subsequent decision. While he seems settled with Sandra and her family for a while, Fausto remains reckless and thoughtless as before while believing that he can get away with anything via his usual charm, and, not so surprisingly, that gets himself into a trouble more than once. Watching his almost incorrigible behaviors in the film, I could not help but think of that famous line from Orson Welles’ “Citizen Kane” (1941): “If it was anybody else, I’d say what’s going to happen to you would be a lesson to you. Only you’re going to need more than one lesson. And you’re going to get more than one lesson.”

While it may have some pity on its young main characters, the Oscar-nominated screenplay by Fellini and his co-writers Ennio Flaiano and Tullio Pinelli never overlooks how silly and pathetic they are, and that is where many of its sharp laughs come from. In one of the most amusing scenes in the film, Leopoldo cannot help but gush on and on about his precious play in front of some famous theater, who happens to drop by the village for a special performance of his. That star actor seems to be really interested in his artistic passion and talent for a while, but then Leopoldo belatedly comes to sense what he is actually more interested in.

As observing more of how his friends are not very good companions to hang around with, Moraldo is naturally more disgusted and disillusioned than before, and that is why it is touching to see a couple of sensitive scenes showing his genuine friendship with a little local boy who looks up to him like an older brother. They may have nothing much in common, but Moraldo can be more sincere and honest to that boy than he can to his other friends, and their little but meaningful relationship later comes to function as the emotional base of the finale.

Compared to more ambitious and flamboyant works in Fellini’s filmmaking career such as “La Dolce Vita” (1960), “I vitelloni” looks rather modest while clearly influenced by the Italian neorealism as reflected by its shabby but realistic mood and details. Nonetheless, it shows that Fellini was already a confident filmmaker bound for greatness even though it was only his second solo directorial work after “The White Sheik”, and, as many of you know, he subsequently moved onto a string of awesome achievements ranging from “Nights of Cabiria” (1957) to “Amacord” (1973).

By the way, when I watched the film at a local theater during this afternoon, I noticed that Moraldo’s surname is Rubini, which is incidentally the surname of Marcello Mastroianni’s gossip journalist hero in “La Dolce Vita”. I do not know whether “I vitelloni” can really be regarded as a sort of prequel to “La Dolce Vita”, but now I want to wish more good luck on Moraldo.

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Fair Play (2023) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): A risky office relationship

Posted on October 9, 2023 by kaist455

Netflix film “Fair Play”, which was released on last Friday, is a tense and disturbing thriller drama about one supposedly cool office relationship deteriorated by toxic office environment. Alternatively chilling and harrowing, the movie often feels like watching the slow-motion clip of a car accident to happen sooner or later, and we come to brace ourselves more as its two lead characters are gradually heading toward to the inevitable conclusion waiting for them.

The movie mainly revolves around a young couple named Emily (Phoebe Dynevor) and Luke (Alden Ehrenreich ). They fell in love with each other while working at some prestigious hedge fund company in New York City, but they have been hiding their romantic relationship from others in the company, even though they have actually lived together for a while. When they go to their workplace early in the morning, they do not come there together for avoiding any suspicion, and, so far, they have been having things under control pretty well at the company.

Probably because secret makes their romance all the more exciting, Emily and Luke do not feel that uncomfortable about the current state of their relationship. As a matter of fact, they have felt more attracted to each other, and they even come to have a quick sex while attending the wedding party of Luke’s brother. When it later turns out that Luke bought a ring for their official engagement, Emily cannot possibly be more excited, and she does not hesitate at all to accept his impromptu proposal.

Meanwhile, the mood in their workplace becomes a little more agitated than usual. There comes a chance of promotion as one senior analyst gets fired, and Emily hears from others that Luke may be the one to fill that empty spot in question. However, not long after they celebrate for that in private, things turn out to be quite different from what they expected. As a matter of fact, the CEO of their company, played by Eddie Marsan with a steely sense of unforgiving ruthlessness, has set his eyes on Emily because of her more distinguished resume and more promising record, and he personally notifies to her after calling for her at late night.

While surely disappointed a lot by this unexpected outcome, Luke sincerely congratulates Emily, and Emily appreciates that, but the discord in their relationship becomes apparent to us right from when Emily begins the first day as his boss. The more she advances day by day, the more he gets frustrated due to their changed office relationship, though she promises that she will help him get promoted someday.

And we get to see more of how toxic and competitive their office environment can be. Usually surrounded by her boss and many male employees, Emily is constantly pressured to excel herself more, and she manages to pull that off for a while, but then her boyfriend gradually becomes a major impediment for her in one way or another. When Luke eagerly persuades her to make a risky investigation decision, she has some understandable doubt, and, what do you know, she soon finds herself taking care of a considerable financial mess caused by him.

As the boss curtly points out to Emily at one point, Luke is not so better than many of other analysts in the company. In fact, he has benefited a bit from his male privilege since he was hired some time ago, and he has been already expected to go sooner or later. No matter how much he tries, he only makes him look more pathetic to not only Emily but also others in the company, and you may wince a lot when he comes to make himself quite embarrassing in front of others later in the story.

While quite exasperated with how their private relationship gets more estranged because of their office problem, Emily also feels quite frustrated with the toxic office culture surrounding her, which is mainly driven by male ego and aggressiveness. She is sometimes expected to show that she can be, uh, bold enough to hang around her male co-workers, and she must also handle more demand and expectation from her boss, who does not mind at all calling her in the middle of night just for business talk. No, he seems to be your typical workaholic too busy to be interested in exploiting her sexually, though he does not hesitate to show his blatant sexism from time to time.

The screenplay by director/writer Chloe Domont, who previously made several short films before making a feature film debut here, slowly accumulates the tension inside Emily and Luke’s relationship here and there along the story. Around the point where Emily is almost close to a sort of breaking point, the tension beneath the screen is palpable to say the least, and everything in the story eventually culminates to a very disturbing moment which functions as a counterpoint to the opening scene of the film.

Domont’s two lead performers are pitch perfect as their characters are drifted away from love and intimacy and then tumbled into estrangement and resentment. While Phoebe Dynevor, who has been mainly known for her supporting turn in Netflix drama series “Bridgerton”, is showier as her character become more conflicted among her complex emotions about her increasingly problematic boyfriend, Alden Ehrenreich, who has been a new talented actor to watch since his breakout turn in the Coen Brothers’ “Hail, Ceasar!” (2016), is ably supports her in addition to being believable in his character’s negative change along the story, and the movie is certainly supported a lot by their fluidly dynamic chemistry on the screen.

On the whole, “Fair Play” works well thanks to its sharp handling of story and characters as well as the two engaging performances at its center, and it is certainly one of the better offerings from Netflix during this year. While it is mainly about how tricky office romance can be, the movie will also surely make some of you think twice about working in hedge fund company, and I am glad that my current workplace is much less mild compared to that.

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8 1/2 (1963) ☆☆☆☆(4/4): A filmmaker in chaotic crisis

Posted on October 8, 2023 by kaist455

Federico Fellini’s “8 1/2” is your average navel-gazing piece of work, but it is surely one of the best ones of its kind in addition to being the groundbreaking one. While having been emulated so much by numerous subsequent films ranging from Bob Fosse’s “All That Jazz” (1979) to Charlie Kaufman’s “Synecdoche, New York” (2008), this supreme masterpiece remains on the top of the bunch as their bold and pioneering senior even at present, and it is also quite funny, charming, and touching at times once you go along with Fellini’s undeniably big artistic ego and ambition behind the screen.

It is well-known that Fellini actually had no clear idea about how to make his movie even right before beginning its production. After making a big impression on audiences and critics with his previous film “La Dolce Vita” (1960), he surely felt lots of pressure on what to do next, and “8 1/2” is essentially a cinematic reflection of his immense artistic frustration and desperation during that time, but, boy, everything in the movie somehow feels so effortlessly lightweight with lots of stylish freedom and imagination – even while its filmmaker hero, Guido Anselmi (Marcello Mastroianni), reaches to the dead end of his artistic struggle again and again.

The surreal opening scene of the movie humorously exemplifies what has been eating at Guido’s mind. As literally reflected by one impressive shot in the middle of this scene, he wants to fly higher with more artistic freedom, but, to his despair and frustration, he always finds himself facing the chaotic crisis of his life and career. While he is supposed to get some rest at a big spa for whatever he will do next, the production of his next film is already set in motion, and everyone ranging from his producer to his mistress keeps asking him to make up his mind on one matter after another.

As Guido’s chaotic circumstance gets more complicated along the story, the movie certainly feels messy and confusing without any clear direction to lead us, but Fellini and his crew members including cinematographer Gianni Di Venanzo and composer Nino Rota busily keep things rolling around Guido even though he remains rather passive without making any choice at all in contrast. Besides his original score, Rota freely utilizes several recognizable pieces of classic music such as Richard Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries” on the soundtrack, and the result is often quite amusing as cheerfully accompanying numerous memorable moments in the film. At one point, the camera simply but drolly follows the lines of various people waiting to get a cup of mineral water one by one, and this silly moment feels all the more absurd as these people often look like doing a sort of musical choreography across the screen (As many of you know, Fellini often played music on the set for getting his performers and extras into the specific mood he wanted).

More pressured and frustrated than ever, Guido frequently finds his mind going astray into the fleeting moments of personal memory and artistic imagination, and that is where Fellini goes further with more personal artistic touches to be savored. In case of one particular flashback moment from Guido’s childhood years, his certain sexual taste, which is represented by one earthy woman with big breasts, is cheerfully juxtaposed with his Catholic repression represented by his mother and several stern priests, and it is interesting to observe how this juxtaposition is connected with his ongoing personal conflict between his long-suffering wife and his current mistress. He later makes an unwise choice of having both of these two women come to the spa, and his wife is silently enraged not just because of another infidelity of his but also because of his apparently lousy choice of mistress.

Guido’s messy and complex situation with these and many other women in the film is vividly developed into an outrageous fantasy sequence where he dominates over them in his own little harem. At first, everything seems to be going well for everyone including him, but there soon comes a trouble in his paradise, and that is when this sequence becomes much more hilarious than before. Frankly projecting his desire and need onto his hero, Fellini willingly makes a fun of his constantly confused fascination with many women in his actual life including his actress wife Giulietta Masina, and you may admire how unhesitating he is in almost showing himself warts and all even while proudly wielding his artistic ego across the screen.

This apparently egoistical aspect of the film is sometimes difficult to process, but that is mostly compensated by not only Fellini’s seemingly endless stream of style and imagination but also the buoyantly debonair presence of Marcello Mastroianni, who holds everything together in the movie just like he did in “La Dolce Vita”. Deftly balancing his character between absurd comedy and intense drama, Mastroianni elegantly glides along with the movie, and we come to care more about Guido’s artistic struggle while also clearly recognizing many human flaws of his.

Around Mastroianni, a number of actresses come and go as having each own moment to shine, and that surely shows how Fellini was often good at drawing memorable performances from his actresses. While Anouk Aimée and Sandra Milo make an amusing contrast as Guido’s wife and mistress, Claudia Cardinale is simply sublime as an ethereal star actress idolized by Guido, and several actresses including Rossella Falk, Barbara Steele, Madeleine Lebeau, and Eddra Gale are also solid in their respective supporting parts.

Although it will require some patience from you for understandable reasons, “8 1/2” is worthwhile to watch for its inarguable greatness, and I came to love it more as coming back to it from time to time. When I revisited it at a local movie theater during this evening, I found its bittersweet finale more poignant than ever, and then I came to reflect more on how I failed and then restarted more than once throughout my life. Yes, I have had a fair share of frustration and desperation, but, like Guido, I also found that nothing is really over as long as I can keep going along with many others in my inconsequential life. Sure, as sadly reflected by the very last shot of the film, the show will be eventually over for me in one way or another, but I can put aside that matter for now at least, can’t I?

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La Dolce Vita (1960) ☆☆☆☆(4/4): The ups and downs of his chic but hollow lifestyle

Posted on October 8, 2023 by kaist455

It has been 20 years since I watched Federico Fellini’s “La Dolce Vita”, and I could not help but become a bit reflective about its timeless qualities when I revisited it at a local movie theater today. While it can be simply regarded as a time capsule containing a certain chic urban lifestyle in Rome during the early 1960s, it is also a supreme personal masterwork full of wit, charm, and style to be appreciated, and I was enthralled again by its sharp and humorous illustration of how its supposedly cool and dashing hero is hopelessly stuck in the ups and downs of his ultimately hollow social life and career.

Its hero is Marcello Rubini (Marcello Mastroianni), a slick gossip journalist constantly working through the glamorous days and nights in Rome. As the movie hops from one episodic moment to another along with him, we are dazzled at first by all those fun and excitements around him, but we come to sense more of the growing emptiness and anxiety inside him, and the main source of humor in the film comes from how usually he fails in his endless pursuit of pleasure and happiness. Every evening seems to dangle a new opportunity for pleasure or happiness in front of him, but he only ends up feeling unfulfilled or frustrated whenever another day begins – and then he finds himself reaching for more as usual.

The first act of the film, which is preceded by the grandly amusing opening sequence a helicopter carrying a big statue of Jesus to Rome, sets this recurring narrative pattern as Marcello begins another fun evening in the downtown area of the city. He is looking for any juicy gossip material at a posh nightclub, and a photographer named Paparazzo (Walter Santesso), who is incidentally the origin of that well-known term for those trashy photographers, is eager to shoot anything interesting from many celebrities simply enjoying their little private time at the nightclub.

When Marcello comes across a rich socialite named Maddalena (Anouk Aimée), he does not hesitate to spend some nighttime with her, but the situation becomes rather absurd when they go outside for a car ride. Maddalena makes an impulsive decision of having a prostitute accompanying them, and they eventually go to that prostitute’s shabby residence. In a closed space, Marcello and Maddalena come to have a little fun time together, but their fun time is quickly over as the dawn eventually comes, and then Marcello has to take care of an emergency involved with his long-suffering girlfriend Emma (Yvonne Furneaux).

Although he may regret about not paying much attention to Emma, Marcello’s mind soon goes astray as he and many other journalists flock around a famous American star movie actress who has just arrived in Rome. Although the movie may be the only valuable spot in her whole movie acting career, Anita Ekberg has a lot of fun with playing with her own public image, and Fellini immortalizes her undeniable beauty on the screen via a series of unforgettable moments including that iconic scene involved with the Trevi Fountain. Everything surely feels almost perfect to Marcello during that wonderful scene, but then, of course, there comes the next day along with the sobering disappointment for him to our little amusement.

Marcello’s desperate pursuit of happiness is reflected further by the episode where, along with Emma and Paparazzo, he goes to a rural village for reporting on two little children who have attracted lots of attention as claiming to have seen a holy spirit. As these two children say that they see the holy spirit here and there, the big crowd surrounding them are thrown into a sort of mass madness while reaching for any kind of miracle to behold, and that is not so far from how much Marcello tries to reach for something seemingly beyond his reach.

Besides his increasingly strained relationship with Emma, the movie also focuses on Marcello’s personal interactions via two different figures. When his father visits Rome, Marcello is glad to have some good time with his father, and his father appreciates Marcello’s generosity at first, but then there comes a point where he bitterly admits that he is not young anymore while Marcello is reminded more of how he may end up being utterly lonely and dissatisfied just like his father. In case of his best friend Steiner (Alain Cuny), this confidently sophisticated man seems to have everything for which Marcello has yearned so much, but then he later turns out to have his own problems behind his back.

All these and other things in the film are presented with a lot of style and humor under Fellini’s dexterous direction, and the movie remains fresh as ever while dynamically swinging back and forth between alluring beauty and daunting ugliness. With the constant presence of Nino Rota’s unforgettable score on the soundtrack, it steadily serves numerous awesome moments shining with artistic imagination, and I particularly like a solo musical performance scene involved with lots of balloons. I am sure that Fellini and his crew members used some practical effect for this scene, but it still feels funny and magical while being a quintessential case of being, yes, Felliniesque.

And the achingly human qualities of Marcello Mastroianni’s performance hold everything together in the film. During my recent viewing, I observed more of what a cad Marcello really is, and I felt more disgust on how he often mistreats his poor girlfriend, but Mastroianni, who is still one of the coolest actors in the movie history, held my attention as usual while gradually conveying to me Marcello’s anxious melancholy behind his frequently detached appearance. You may not like Marcello that much even at the end of the story, but you may pity him a lot while also feeling some empathy on his desperation and frustration. After all, we all have a fair share of disappointment and discontent as reaching for happiness and pleasure just like him, don’t we?

Fellini also surrounds a bunch of variously colorful performers around Mastroianni. Just like Ekberg, Anouk Aimée and Yvonne Furneaux are impressive in each own way as two contrasting female figures in Marcello’s life, and Walter Santesso and Lex Barker, who plays the stern boyfriend of Ekberg’s character, are also engaging in their respective crucial supporting roles. In case of Alain Cuny, he flawlessly embodies his character’s calmly assuring attitude, and that is why it is devastating to see what his character comes to commit before the final act of the film begins.

Overall, “La Dolce Vita” is indeed one of Fellini’s best works, and I admire how it has grown on me during last 20 years. In 2003, the movie just felt to me like a homework to do, but I came to appreciate it more as observing how it has influenced many subsequent films including Paolo Sorrentino’s Oscar-winning film “The Great Beauty” (2013), which can be labeled as the successor to “La Dolce Vita” for a number of reasons including its aging gossip journalist hero who can be regarded as Marcello’s older version.

By the way, the final scene of the film, which makes a striking contrast with the opening scene for an apparent reason, initially seems rather pessimistic with another failure to connect for Marcello, but, as I reflect more on this scene, the very last shot of the film somehow feels hopeful even while leaving an ambiguous impression on the whole. Perhaps, he will come to realize what is really important to him as remembering that lasting moment again someday, and then, who knows, he may simply be happy to stroll around here and there in Rome just like the hero of “The Great Beauty”.

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Totally Killer (2023) ☆☆☆(3/4): Scream mixed with Back to the Future

Posted on October 8, 2023 by kaist455

“Totally Killer”, which was released on Amazon Prime a few days ago, is another familiar genre mix which thankfully has enough entertaining moments to hold our attention to the end. As slyly recognized in the film, this is basically a cross between Wes Craven’s “Scream” (1996) and Robert Zemeckis’ “Back to the Future” (1985), but it did its job fairly well on the whole, and we are often delighted and amused by a number of humorous moments which happen to be accompanied with lots of stabbings as required.

The movie quickly establishes the story background as its adolescent heroine, Jamie Hughes (Kiernan Shipka), is eager to have a fun Halloween day in her little town which has been known for one infamous incident. 36 years ago, three high school students were brutally murdered one by one in the middle of the Halloween season, but the killer was not caught despite lots of investigation, and the identity of the killer remains in mystery even at present. Because she still remembers well that period of terror, Jamie’s mother Pam (Julie Bowen) worries a lot about what might happen, but Jamie is not concerned much in contrast, and that leads to a small conflict between her and her mother.

Of course, the killer strikes again not long after Jamie leaves her house, and not only she but also the whole town are shocked by this incident. While understandably mired in lots of grief and regret, Jamie comes to learn that her best friend happens to be developing a little time machine for the upcoming science fair, and she does not believe much of what her best friend tells her, but, what do you know, that time machine actually works when she is subsequently targeted by the killer. As a result, she is transported back to the day before the first killing happened, and, once she comes to realize what has just happened to her, she immediately embarks on stopping the killer.

As disguising herself as a newly transferred student named “Colette”, Jamie infiltrates into the local high school, and the movie has a lot of fun with how much she is surprised by how many of several adult figures in her life look quite different as teenagers. For example, the current sheriff in her time, who is incidentally the daughter of the sheriff in 1987, is your average dopey marijuana-smoker, and Jamie is also caught off guard to see that young Pam, played by Olivia Holt, is another mean girl besides those three girls to be soon murdered.

While trying to get closer to young Pam and those three girls, Jamie also approaches to Lauren (Troy Leigh-Anne Johnson), who will be the mother of Jamie’s best friend. Because Lauren has also tried to develop the time machine, it does not take much time for Jamie to convince Lauren that she indeed comes from 2023, and Lauren willingly assists Jamie while also trying to figure out how to send Jamie back to 2023 before it is too late.

Cheerfully swinging between the two aforementioned films, the screenplay by David Matalon, Sasha Perl-Raver, and Jen D’Angelo diligently delivers wit and humor along the story. The frequent cultural clashes beween Jamie and its main period background is certainly the main source of comedy in the film, and you will enjoy a bunch of period details including several notable pop songs from the 1980s. Although the time travel logic of the story is rather shaky in my humble opinion, it is handled with enough sense of fun at least, so we do not mind at all when the film occasionally goes back to 2023 for showing how Jamie’s actions affect her present in one way or another.

In addition, the drama at the center of the story works better than expected. Although their first encounter was not exactly pleasant to say the least, Jamie comes to know and understand young Pam more as spending more time with her, and that makes Jamie all the more determined to change the past as much as possible. In case of those three girls to be murdered sooner or later, the movie handles these seemingly superficial characters with some care and affection, and that is the main reason why we come to care more about what is being at stake for them and others including Jamie and young Pam.

The main weakness of the film is a part involved with the killer. Although it is handled well under the competent direction of director Nahnatchka Khan, this part feels rather perfunctory compared to the more entertaining parts of the movie, and you will not be that surprised even when the identity of the killer is eventually revealed during the finale – especially if you are a seasoned moviegoer like me.

Nevertheless, the movie keeps us engaged despite that, and Kiernan Shipka and several other main cast members including Olivia Holt and Troy Leigh-Anne Johnson are solid in their respective parts. At the fringe of the story, Randall Park, who plays the sheriff in the 1987 storyline, and Julie Bowen provide some extra humor, and Bowen and Shipka effortlessly click with each other well in their key scene early in the film.

In conclusion, “Totally Killer” is not totally fresh, but it studies and then plays with its genre elements well for our little entertainment, and the result is one of the more enjoyable products from Blumhouse Productions. Right before watching the film, I happened to be quite depressed by the tediously pointless presentation of misery and violence in South Korean movie “Hopeless”, but I got soon lightened up as savoring its every good moment, so I definitely recommend it to you for the upcoming Halloween season.

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Hopeless (2023) ☆☆(2/4): Hopelessly grim and tepid

Posted on October 8, 2023 by kaist455

South Korean film “Hopeless” is a grim crime noir drama which tediously pushes the story and characters into more violence and misery without much substance or interest. Besides being unlikable or pathetic, most of the main characters in the film are not particularly interesting or engaging enough to hold our interest, and the rather murky aspects of its plot only make us more distant to their increasingly despairing circumstance.

The movie opens with a striking act of violence committed by a high school student named Yeon-gyu (Hong Xa-bin), and the movie subsequently depicts his utterly, yes, hopeless status. He has to pay around 3 million won to the family of the student injured by him for their settlement, but his family is too poor to pay the settlement money, and neither of his parents is particularly willing to step forward to help him. While his mother has almost given him up, his abusive alcoholic stepfather is only ready to beat him more, and his stepsister, who is incidentally the main reason behind that violent incident, is the only one who can stand between him and their father.

Yeon-gyu tries to handle the situation as much as he can, but things only get worse and worse for him. He gets beaten by a bunch of adolescent thugs associated with that student beaten by him, and then he gets seriously injured on his face when his stepfather tries to beat him again while being quite drunk as usual. Due to his resulting facial scar, he comes to lose his part-time job, and that surely makes him all the more desperate than before.

And then there comes an unexpected help. Yeon-gyu’s desperate circumstance happened to be noticed by a local middle-level loan shark named Chi-geon (Song Joong-ki), and, for some personal reason, he takes little pity on Yeon-gyu. He gives Yeon-gyu the money for the settlement, and Yeon-gyu subsequently comes to work under Chi-geon because he is willing to not only pay Chi-geon back but also earn enough money to take him away from his miserable daily life to somewhere outside the country.

What follows next is how Yeon-gyu quickly becomes Chi-geon’s protégé. Besides his small-time loan-sharking business, Chi-geon also runs a chop shop for stolen motorcycles, and Yeon-gyu learns a bit about how to steal a motorcycle within a short time. Although he probably knows well that he is stealing from poor people not so different from him, he focuses on earning more money and more recognition from his mentor/boss, and Chi-geon appreciates his earnest efforts in response.

However, Yeon-gyu remains pathetic and miserable at his home. Whenever his stepfather appears to be quite drunk, he cannot help but become scared and cornered, and his stepsister usually stands against their father as before. When it later turns out that she has her own problem to deal with, Yeon-gyu takes care of her problem via Chi-geon’s thugs, but his stepsister is not so pleased about that even though there has been a certain feeling between her and Yeon-gyu.

Meanwhile, the movie also pays some attention to what is going on in Chi-geon’s crime organization. Chi-geon’s boss has been supporting a certain local politician for his financial gain, but this local politician turns out to be not so trustworthy. Naturally, Chi-geon and his gangs must do something drastic for handling this problematic situation, and, not so surprisingly, Yeon-gyu finds himself getting involved with the circumstance much more than expected.

Of course, Yeon-gyu becomes more conflicted about what he is demanded to do by Chi-geon, but the screenplay by director/writer Kim Chang-hoon does not put much effort on bringing enough detail and substance to its hopelessly monotonous hero. Hong Xa-bin does try a lot throughout the film, but he is unfortunately limited by his superficial one-note role, and his resulting performance in the movie frequently feels ponderously wooden without generating anything compelling enough to engage us.

On the opposite, Song Joong-ki has a bit more to play in comparison, but the movie also fails to develop his character into someone really interesting to observe, and Song’s hunky image sometimes feels awkward in the seedy background of the film. Although there is a private conversation scene where Chi-geon shows a little more of himself to Yeon-gyu in the middle of the story, we never get any sense of relationship development between these two main characters, and that is why Chi-geon’s choice during the final act feels quite contrived instead of organically developed from the narrative.

Furthermore, the movie often baffles us as being adamantly vague about what is going on in Chi-geon’s crime organization, and it also does not handle well its several substantial supporting characters, who are more or less than plot tools for more misery and violence along the story. As the sole main female character in the story besides Yeon-gyu’s mother, Kim Hyung-seo, who is also known as a popular local singer Bibi, brings some pluck to her role, but she does not have much to do from the beginning, and that reminds me again of how female characters are frequently wasted in many of recent South Korean crime drama noir films.

Although it is not lousy in terms of technical aspects, “Hopeless” does not bring anything particularly new to its genre territory while merely depressing us with lots of misery and violence. No, I do not mind at all watching lots of misery and violence on the screen – as long as they work well as a part of story and character to observe with interest and, perhaps, empathy. However, “Hopeless” is not such a case like that, and it only left me with dirty and unpleasant impressions to be erased as soon as possible.

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