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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The Saint of Second Chances (2023) ☆☆☆(3/4): An Owner’s Son

Posted on October 3, 2023 by kaist455

Mike Veeck is an interesting guy who also has had a pretty curious life and career, and Netflix documentary film “The Said of Second of Chances”, which was released a few weeks ago, could not possibly be less entertaining at all if it just focused on what he says in front of the camera. As a matter of fact, I often found a certain part of the documentary rather distracting for a reason I will talk about later, but, fortunately, I mostly remained engaged during my viewing as observing the ups and downs of Veeck’s life and career with enough curiosity and amusement.

As some of you know, Veeck was the son of legendary MLB (Major League Baseball) franchise owner Bill Veeck, and the early part of the documentary pays attention to how much Veeck tried to distinguish and prove himself in the 1970s. While he was not a hot shot MLB franchise owner anymore during that period, Veeck’s father decided to have the last shot of his via buying and then running the Chicago White Sox, and he eagerly recruited his son into his new business plan simply because he believed in his son.

Right from his very first day in the Chicago White Sox, Veeck was very determined to show others that he was more than the owner’s son, and, for a while, it seemed that he could actually succeed in that. While his father’s casually likable public image drew lots of affection from the fans of the Chicago White Sox, Veeck enthusiastically developed a series of showy events for drawing more audiences to their home ground, and many of them actually worked to his delight. As a matter of fact, these ridiculous ideas of his, which looked too showy at that time, have been frequently used in the MLB games these days, and he was certainly proud of his rather brilliant idea on how to generate more excitement from each home run, though that turned out to be much more cumbersome than expected.

Because his father and Chicago White Sox were constantly in the need of more money, Veeck really had to push the limit by any means necessary, and, not so surprisingly, this eventually led to a disaster to remember on July 12, 1979. For the extra entertainment for the audiences in the home stadium of the Chicago White Sox, Veeck planned a big event involved with the increasingly popular backlash against disco music, but this event soon went out of control on that day, and the following catastrophic moment smashed not only his career but also his father’s. Although his father willingly took all the blame from that incident, Veeck ended up being ridiculed and criticized a lot in public, and that was the beginning of the darkest period of his life.

While hitting the bottom of his life in one way or another, Veeck eventually found a way to rise up and then save himself. Around the time when he met a woman who would become his second wife, he pulled himself up more for doing anything for getting him back in business, and, what do you know, there indeed came the second chance for his life and career. He was asked to handle a little independent baseball team in Minnesota, and, though he was well aware of how low his new job was compared to his former position in MLB, he took the offer without much hesitation.

What followed next is a remarkable case of redemption. Because there was no bottom to hit in his career, Veeck fearlessly went all the way for promoting the status of that little independent baseball team, and, again, many of his outrageous tactics worked well enough to boost the public image of his team. Just like his father, Veeck simply wanted the audiences to experience a lot more than merely watching a game, and the audiences surely got experiences to remember fondly thanks to him.

In case of his players, Veeck was quite open to give a chance to almost anyone out there. For example, he gladly recruited a legless guy because this physically disabled guy simply wanted to play baseball as much as he could, and he also did not mind at all about allowing a female player to have a professional career of her own in his team. In case of a certain infamously disgraced MLB player who is incidentally interviewed in the documentary, even Veeck hesitated a bit as all of American major baseball teams rejected this player after this player screwed up in an epic scale, but he changed his mind after reminded by his no-nonsense wife that this player deserved the second chance as much as he once did.

Although he did not make a glorious comeback as he hoped in the end, Veeck chose to become a better husband and father to his family, and his personal story with his two children is certainly a big weepie for any good father out there. Although he was not exactly a perfect father, Veeck tried his best once he saw what was the most important in his life, and the documentary becomes quite poignant when Veeck and other interviewees reminisce about Veeck’s close relationship with his daughter, who left her family too early due to her rare terminal illness.

On the whole, “The Saint of Second Chance”, directed by Jeff Malmberg and Morgan Neville, is fairly enjoyable, but it is less effective whenever it switches to the redundant reenactment scenes with Charlie Day playing young Veeck. I wonder whether this part would be less distracting if Veeck were played by a much less famous actor instead, and I also think Malmberg and Nevill should have trusted Veeck’s engaging presence as a storyteller more. In my trivial opinion, he looks like someone who can easily entertain and amuse you a lot at a bar as you are sipping a glass of bear right next to him, and it is a bit of shame that the documentary does not put much trust on him.

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Love Reset (2023) ☆☆(2/4): Love after divorce – and amnesia

Posted on October 3, 2023 by kaist455

I am not an ideal audience for South Korean film “Love Reset”. To be frank with you, I do not like comedies simply resorting to cheap gags and apparent jokes instead of being driven by genuine personalities and absurdities, and “Love Reset” often does such a rote and boring thing despite being quite aware of how clichéd it is from the beginning in terms of story and character. I am totally fine with its self-awareness, but, seriously, does it bring anything surprising enough to tickle or amuse me? HELL NO!

As a romantic comedy, it seems to try something a bit different at first. The story opens with the sequence showing how its two main characters, Jeong-yeol (Kang Ha-neul) and Na-ra (Jung So-min), ended up marrying despite some obstacles on their way to the eventual wedding. First, Jeong-yeol did not come to their wedding ceremony while Na-ra was waiting just because this petty and pathetic lad was afraid of full commitment, and that surely hurt Na-ra’s feelings, but, probably because she still loved him, she accepted his subsequent apology and then got really married with him later despite the strong objection from her parents.

However, after two years, things become quite changed between Jeong-yeol and Na-ra, who cannot possibly stand each other now as seeing more negative things from each other. In the end, they agree that they get divorced as soon as possible, but they have to answer a lot in front of the divorce court judges, and they certainly clash a lot with each other under your average “she-said-he-said” circumstance.

Anyway, it looks like divorce is the only solution for their increasingly acrimonious conflict, but there is a little problem to handle for both Jeong-yeol and Na-ra. They receive a 30-day divorce settlement period for more thought and consideration on their nearly settled situation, and that makes them more bitter to each other, but then, what do you know, something quite unexpected occurs not long after they leave the courthouse. In the middle of their latest argument, they happen to have a big car accident, and both of them later wake up to find themselves -are you ready for this?- almost totally amnesiac about their respective pasts.

Because both Jeong-yeol and No-ra do not have any memory on their relationship, their families and friends think this unfortunate incident of theirs may be the best for both of them. However, after listening to their doctor, No-ra’s mother decides that her daughter and Jeong-yeol should stay together for their recovery process at least before their divorce is eventually permitted several weeks later.

This is certainly a familiar comic situation of two different people awkwardly stuck together for a while, but, alas, the screenplay by director Nam Dea-joong and his co-writer Bang Gi-cheol, is utterly clumsy and superficial in case of character development. For instant, we are supposed to root for its two main characters as getting to know them more along the story, but neither of them is not particularly engaging or likable to hold our attention. While he was your typical petty jerk in the past, Jeong-yeol becomes nicer and tamer simply because of his memory loss, but the movie does not bring much personality to him beyond that as merely pushing him and Na-ra along its contrived plot. Even during the last act where things get more serious for Jeong-yeol and Na-ra, we do not get much sense of whatever Jeong-youl and Na-ra come to see from each other, and that is why its expected finale does not work as well as intended.

To make matters worse, most of supporting characters in the film are ludicrous caricatures which belong more to the artificial world of third-rate sitcoms. For instance, one of Jeong-yeol’s friends is mostly quiet and silent as always occupied with the bitcoin dealing on his smartphone, but we all can discern from his very first appearance that 1) he will certainly function as a running gag in the background and 2) he will eventually open his mouth when that is required.

I also feel sorry for the two lead performers in the film, who deserve better than this considering how they show some comic chemistry between them at times. I am not familiar with their previous films, but, as far as I can see from the movie, Kang Ha-neul and Jung So-min are good comic performers, and I can only hope that they will appear in better films where their presence and talent can be utilized more efficiently. In case of several other main cast members in the film, Jo Min-soo manages to generate some amusement as Na-ra’s stern and unflappable mother, and Hwang Se-in, who plays Na-ra’s unruly younger sister, acquits herself well as getting a few moments to stand out.

Despite its constant awareness of many of its genre clichés and conventions, “Love Reset” does not freshen them much on the whole, and that really bored and frustrated me a lot. As a matter of fact, when I was watching the movie along with a bunch of audiences around this noon, I frequently found myself weakly humming the tunes of several songs from Jonathan Demme’s great concert film “Stop Making Sense” (1984) just for cheering me up a bit. Or, is this actually the reflection of my unconscious wish to watch its resent 4K restoration version on big screen someday, I wonder?

Anyway, I observed that the other audiences around me laughed much more than me during the screening, so you may laugh a lot more than I did during my viewing, but I would rather recommend other recent South Korean romantic comedy “HoneySweet” (2023) instead. Yes, I gave that film only 2.5 stars out of 4 a few months ago, but, thanks to the mediocre boredom of “Love Reset”, I am now wondering now whether I was a bit too harsh to that film at that time. Seriously, maybe I should give that film another chance someday.

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The Eternal Memory (2023) ☆☆☆(3/4): If we knew them more…

Posted on October 1, 2023 by kaist455

Chilean documentary film “The Eternal Memory”, which won the Grand Jury Prize when it was premiered at the World Cinema Dramatic Competition of Sundance Film Festival early in this year, simply observes the small and big struggles of an Alzheimer’s disease patient and a woman who has loved him for more than 20 years. This is surely a strong emotional stuff, but I wonder whether it would be more powerful if it let us get to know more about who they are.

The main subject of the documentary is the daily life of Augusto Góngora and Paulina Urrutia, who married several years ago but actually lived together as a couple for more than two decades. When Góngora turned out to be suffering Alzheimer’s disease, Urruitia stood by him as his devoted spouse, and the documentary chronicles several years of their struggle before his eventual death early in this year.

At first, Góngora looks pretty well on the surface. He is well aware of how his mind is being faded day by day, so he and Urrutia often focuses on remembering one thing after another in their shared past, which is reflected a bit via occasional archival footage clips. While she was a prominent actress during that time, he was a progressive journalist who was passionate about chronicling all those bloody injustices committed under that dark period of dictatorship in Chile during the 1970-80s, and the illness during his later years is sort of ironic considering how much he tried for preventing the public from forgetting that dark and violent time in the past.

No matter how much he tries, Góngora slowly succumbs to his illness bit by bit despite his spouse’s sincere efforts. At one point, we observe how much Urrutia tries to get her husband involved in her latest theater project, but he still looks like a child who does not understand much what is going on around him. He surely appreciates his wife’s efforts, but he cannot help but feel lost at times, and, to the frustration of both him and his wife, his mental condition only gets deteriorated more and more as time goes by.

In the end, there comes a point where we wonder whether Urrutia really should take her husband to any suitable facility. In addition to more erratic behaviors, Góngora becomes more dependent on his wife, and the situation becomes all the worse as not only Chille but also the whole global world is shaken by the COVID-19 pandemic during the beginning of this decade. As more isolated than before, Góngora comes to show more anxiety and confusion, and Urrutia only can provide him comfort and assurance as much as possible while standing by him as usual.

What follows next in the documentary is often pretty painful to watch to say the least, and you may have some doubt on the warts-and-all approach of the documentary to Góngora and Urrutia’s increasingly challenging daily life. In case of one certain big moment, the camera closely observes another confusing incident of Góngora without any intervention, and we are only relieved as watching him subsequently handled by his wife.

In my humble opinion, this and several certain moments in the documentary could be more harrowing or poignant if we get to know more about the life and career of Góngora and Urrutia, but director/writer/co-producer Maite Alberdi, who was previously Oscar-nominated for “The Mole Agent” (2020), adamantly sticks to her dryly detached storytelling approach while occasionally becoming a bit sentimental. Although the documentary shows us some highlights in the life and career of Góngora and Urrutia, we never get the full picture of their respective contributions to the Chilean society, and we also do not learn that much about Góngora’s two kids from his previous relationship. There is a bittersweet moment between Góngora and one of his two kids, but it did not linger much on my mind because I did not get to know that much about his two kids.

Nevertheless, the documentary still engages us via a number of raw emotional moments generated between Góngora and Urrutia. Even when he could not recognize her at all, she continued to try as much as she could for the man she had dearly loved, and she did stand by her man to the end. She was indeed a remarkable woman, and it is a shame that the documentary does not delve much into her life or personality. I understand that the documentary tries to be restrained as much as possible for avoiding any possibility of sentimentality or exploitation, but I still want to know more about not only Góngora but also Urrutia, who must have had her own interesting life during that gloomy period of dictatorship in Chile during the 1970-80s.

On the whole, “The Eternal Memory” is less amusing compared to “The Mole Agent”, but Alberdi and her crew members handled their main subject with enough sensitivity and respect at least, and the result is another notable documentary of this year. Yes, it could be a bit less detached while showing more about its two engaging human figures, but it still left enough impression on me at least, so I recommend you despite some reservation. After all, there are not many things as devastating as helplessly watching a loved one losing mind day by day, and the documentary did a commendable job of conveying that painful truth to us without any pretension.

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Scrapper (2023) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): And then her dad comes…

Posted on October 1, 2023 by kaist455

“Scrapper” is a modest but endearing character drama film revolving around the strained human relationship between two very different characters. Right from when they meet each other for the first time, you will know where the story is heading, but you will gladly go along with that as amused and then touched by how their relationship is developed along the story.

At the beginning, the movie quickly establishes the daily life of a 12-year-old girl named Georgie (Lola Campbell). Because her single mother recently died due to some terminal illness, Georgie has lived alone in their little residence for a while, but, as reflected by her plucky response to a certain familiar saying appearing right before the opening scene, she has been pretty all right with living all by herself, and we get some amusement as how she does that. Besides routinely checking on her current stage of grief, she always cleans her residence everyday, and she also often earns a bit from stealing bicycles outside while often absent in her elementary school. In case of those social workers assigned to her, she lied to them that she has living with an uncle (His name is one of many little funny things in the film, by the way), and she certainly makes sure that this deception of hers works.

The only person who knows what Georgie has been doing is Ali (Alin Uzun), one of the neighborhood boys who has been Georgie’s best friend. He does not even tell anything to his single mother mainly because Georgie’s residence can be a little private place where he and Georgie can freely spend time together. He simply lies to her mother that he and Georgie will be fine with her uncle, and his mother becomes more interested in meeting her uncle someday.

On one day, there comes an unexpected change into Georgie’s daily life. A lad suddenly comes into the backyard of her residence, and, what do you know, this lad turns out to be her father who left her and her mother several years ago. Because she does not remember her father a lot, Georgie does not trust or like Jason (Harris Dickinson) much from the beginning, but he is determined to stay in her residence as long as he wants, and Georgie has no choice because he may expose her ongoing lie to those social workers.

What follows next is how Georgie and Jason gradually accept each other more than before. Although he looks more like a big brother instead of a good father, Jason tries his best for taking care of Georgie, though that is the last thing she wants from him now. He willingly presents himself as someone to take care of her instead of her uncle, and he also gives a bit of advice to her when she happens to clash with Ali at one point.

Meanwhile, the movie comes to pay more attention to the emotional status of Georgie, who is not as fine as she looks on the surface just like many other people struggling with personal grief. There is a room where she can be totally alone, and what is inside that room reflects more about how much she has struggled with her immense loss caused by her mother’s death.

Despite the remaining gap between him and Georgie, Jason tries his best for making things better for her, and we get a series of sweet moments as they tentatively approach closer to each other. Besides teaching her a little on how to steal a bicycle more efficiently, he tells a bit about his past with her mother, and there is a humorous scene where he and Georgie try a little conversation play at a local train station.

Without resorting to any cheap sentimentality, the screenplay by director/writer Charlotte Regan, who made a feature film debut here after making several short films, sticks to its low-key tone while occasionally throwing some offbeat touches to enjoy. The situation surrounding its main characters is sometimes explained by a number of minor supporting characters looking and talking directly into the camera, and I also like a couple of nice humorous moments involved with those little spiders in Georgie’s residence, though they will surely make a friend of mine wince a lot due to his arachnophobia.

Above all, the movie is held together well by its two lead performers. Young newcomer Lola Campbell is superb in her unadorned natural acting balanced well between innocence and shrewdness, and Regan also did a fabulous job of drawing solid supporting performances from a group of other young performers including Alin Uzun. On the opposite, Harris Dickinson, who has been a new talented actor to watch since I came across his breakout performance in Eliza Hittman’s “Beach Rats” (2017), ably supports his young co-star without never overshadowing her at all, and he is also quite convincing as his character comes to show more care and affection along the story. Although he is absent in a certain key scene around the end of the story, we can feel his character’s sincerity as we observe Georgie’s response to a certain stuff left by his character, and that is the main reason why the ending is so poignant to say the least.

In conclusion, “Scrapper”, which won the Grand Jury Prize for the World Cinema Dramatic Competition when it was shown at the Sundance Film Festival early in this year, is a small but precious gem to cherish thanks to Regan’s skillful handling of story and characters as well as the excellent works by Campbell and Dickinson. It is exactly what you can expect from the story premise, but it handles the story and characters much better than you may think, and I assure you that you will find it quite touching in the end.

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Kim’s Video (2023) ☆☆1/2 (2.5/4): Searching for Kim’s Video

Posted on October 1, 2023 by kaist455

The main subject of documentary film “Kim’s Video” is certainly something which will draw any serious movie fan’s attention. As a guy who spent a lot of time in a number of local video rental stores in my hometown when he was young and wild, I observed the story of one certain video rental store in New York City with some interest and fascination, but I must say that I was a bit disappointed to see that the documentary itself does not have enough depth to engage me.

During the early part of the documentary, co-director David Redmon, who also produced and edited the documentary along with his co-director Ashley Sabin in addition to handling its cinematography, reminisces about how movies have been a big part of his life since his childhood years in Texas during the 1980s. Once he got fascinated with movies, he devoured one movie after another just like I did during my childhood and adolescent years, and that eventually took him to New York City later.

While living in the Brooklyn region, Redmon came to learn about Kim’s Video, which was a motherload of various types of movies to be enjoyed by many different movie fans ranging from the Coen Brothers to Alex Ross Perry. Established by a young South Korean immigrant named Yong-man Kim, who was incidentally once an amateur filmmaker, this huge video rental shop had thousands of VHS copies of various types of films, and we see a bit of how Kim and his employees tried to collect many different films inside and outside US as much as possible. As a matter of fact, they did not hesitate at all to commit copyright infringement in the name of love toward movies, and there is a little amusing episode involved with Jean-Luc Godard’s “Histoire(s) du cinéma” (1988).

Kim’s video rental business flourished during the 1980-90s as a part of the counterculture of New York City, but then its period was quickly over things began to change around the 1990s. As the era of digital medium began, VHS video tapes became less appealing even to hardcore movie fans, and, above all, what Kim’s Video had passionately done for years was slowly moving into the Internet. In the end, Kim decided to shut down his beloved video rental shop in the early 2000s, and its location becomes quite different now as shown from the opening scene of the documentary.

At least, Kim tried to save what he and his employees had passionately collected for years, and that was how the history of Kim’s Video got a stranger-than-fiction epilogue. Kim searched for any facility or institution which would willingly store all those VHS copies belonging to him, and, he eventually decided to hand them to a little city located in Sicily, Italia just because it looked like the city officials were eager to make his collection as a popular sight for tourists to come in addition to storing it with care.

However, when Redmon and his few crew members came to that city in 2017, it did not take much time for them to sense something fishy. To their surprise, Kim’s collection had been forgotten for years even though it arrived in the city with lots of fuzz in 2009, and the facility storing Kim’s collection had virtually been abandoned without much care or attention, though a security alarm was activated not long after Redman and his crew members sneaked into the facility at one point.

Redmon certainly tries to find out how Kim’s collection has been abandoned for years, and that is where the story becomes a bit weirder with a bit of the sense of danger. The transfer of Kim’s collection to that Sicilian city was involved with an untrustworthy local politician who may be connected with, surprise, the local Mafia organization, and this seedy politician certainly did not tell anything much to Redmon no matter how much he tried. Redmon got some information from several other local interviewees including one old prosecutor, but the mystery surrounding Kim’s collection remained elusive while becoming a little riskier than before – especially when one of the interviewees suddenly died not long after his interview with Redmon.

Of course, Redmon later approached to Kim, and they eventually met while Kim was attending some unspecified business meeting in South Korea, but Kim did not clarify the situation much to Redmon. Even at the end of the documentary, Kim remains as a rather vague figure even though he and his video rental shop are supposed to be the center of the story, and I wonder whether Redmon and his crew were quite limited from the beginning in case of getting to know more about Kim and his business. 

During its last act, the documentary moves onto a little heist project planned by Redmon and several accomplices of his for saving Kim’s collection. This looks amusing at first, but I became more aware of the self-conscious attitude of the documentary, and I was also often distracted by Redmon’s frequent utilization of many different clips from a number of various films. He is indeed a big movie fan, and I understand that well as a fellow movie fan, but you may become annoyed like I did as he keeps comparing his journey experiences to a bunch of films such as “Blue Velvet” (1986) and “Goodfellas” (1990).   

Overall, “Kim’s Video” may be worthwhile to check out if you have ever heard about its main subject, but the result is sometimes frustrating mainly due to its uneven and shallow narrative. Although the odd epilogue of the history of Kim’s Video is certainly interesting, the documentary could focus on who Kim really was or how much Kim’s Video meant to its employees and customers out there, and, in my inconsequential opinion, that would bring more depth to what happened to Kim’s collection in the end. Yes, it is surely driven by the love and passion toward movies, but, as many of you know, making a good and solid documentary needs more than that.

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