The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar (2023) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): Wes Anderson Meets Roald Dahl Again

Posted on September 29, 2023 by kaist455

Wes Anderson’s short film “The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar”, which was premiered at the Venice International Film Festival early in this month and then was released on Netflix on this Wednesday as the first of a four-part series of shorts adapted from Roald Dahl’s short stories, is a little but undeniably charming piece of work which will surely delight any fan of Anderson’s films out there. While this is another typically mannered work of his, Anderson, who previously adapted Dahl’s children book “Fantastic Mr. Fox” for his 2009 stop-motion animation feature film, fills the film with an ample of amount of wit and style as expected, and it is certainly the terrific starting point for the rest of the series to come after it (“The Swan” and “The Ratcatcher” are already released while “Poison” will come tomorrow, by the way).

Like Anderson’s recent works such as “The Grand Budapest Hotel” (2014) and “The French Dispatch” (2021), the film is rather complex in its overall narrative structure. At first, we are introduced to Dahl played by Ralph Fiennes, and then the movie delves into the story of a British dude named Henry Sugar (Benedict Cumberbatch), which is incidentally associated with an unbelievable tale involved with an old Indian guy who happened to develop an uncanny ability to see things without using his eyes at all.

If you are not so familiar with Dahl’s original short story, I will simply let you delighted by how the story of the film effortlessly hops from one point to another – and how Anderson and his crew members including his longtime cinematographer Robert Yeoman superbly handle the mood and details on the screen. As usual, Yeoman’s camera observes the characters and backgrounds from distantly static positions, and the scene composition is as precise and meticulous as you can expect from Anderson, but Anderson and Yeoman sometimes break away from their usual mode deliberately. For example, when that old Indian Man, played by Ben Kingsley, demonstrates his special ability in front of the two doctors played by Dev Patel and Richard Ayoade, the camera quickly follows after Kingsley’s character at one point, and the result is dramatically effective while never disrupting the detached overall mood of the film.

Via Kingsley’s character, the mood becomes as colorful as Anderon’s previous film “The Darjeeling Limited” (2007). As Kingsley’s character enters a remote jungle area where a certain great yogi guru has lived alone, the film ably shuffles several different backgrounds for our delight and entertainment, and what is eventually exchanged between Kingsley’s character and that yogi guru character is another amusing moment for us.

The film engages us more as Cumberbatch’s titular character later tries to test himself after accidentally encountering a written record left by Patel’s doctor character. Because he is an affluent guy who does not have much to do in his comfortable daily life, Sugar is eager to focus on developing any potential inside him, and, what do you know, his little experiment turns out to be much more successful than he imagined.

The last act of the film is initially fun to watch as Sugar tests himself with more confidence, but then there comes Dahl’s usual last-minute twist. Sugar is surely excited about his newly regained ability at first, but, not so surprisingly, he becomes rather depressed about his remarkable success, and that reminds me of the ironic dilemma inside being the master of the universe. If you can correctly know and predict everything in the universe, that may be pretty awesome to you for a while, but then you may also be dreadfully crushed by the absolute absence of uncertainty in everything including your death.

While sharply recognizing the absurd irony of Sugar’s circumstance, the film pulls out a surprisingly sweet final moment which will grow on your mind after it is over, and that reminds me again of how many of Anderson’s best works have considerable emotional qualities behind their dryly detached attitude. Although I was not totally enthusiastic when I watched his latest feature film “Asteroid City” (2023) a few months ago, I still could sense the melancholic feelings lingering around the screen, and that is the main reason why I admire it to some degree even though I still do not think it is one of his better works.

Anderson assembles a much fewer number of performers here than before, but it is evident that he still has lots of fun with handling them as his usual deadpan dolls to play in front of the camera. While Benedict Cumberbatch demonstrates a more humorous side of his intense talent, Ralph Fiennes and Ben Kingsley are constantly compelling even though they are demanded to deliver their lines as flatly as possible just like many of Wes Anderson movie performers. In case of Dev Patel and Richard Ayoade, they also find each own source of humor just like their fellow main cast members, and I sincerely hope that they will work for Anderson again someday.

As I said before, I initially regarded Anderson’s films as a sort of acquired taste, but I gradually changed my opinion as getting more accustomed to his films, and he has been one of my favorite filmmakers during last several years. “The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar” is surely a quintessential Wes Anderson film, but it also shows Anderson trying something different in his usual artistic territory, and I am glad to report here that he accomplishes as much as intended while impressing us again.

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Cobweb (2023) ☆☆☆(3/4): One crazy filmmaking day

Posted on September 28, 2023 by kaist455

South Korean film “Cobweb”, which finally arrived in South Korean movie theaters yesterday after being shown at the Cannes Film Festival early in this year, is about one crazy filmmaking day to watch. Although it stumbles from time to time besides being a bit too long, the movie delivers a fair share of entertainment on the whole, and you may appreciate it more if you are familiar with the South Korean films during the 1960-70s.

Set in South Korea in the early 1970s, the movie opens with the artistic dream of a prominent filmmaker named Kim Yeol (Song Kang-ho). Kim has been making his latest work, and he and his cast and crew members are almost at the end of their shooting period, but Kim comes upon a seemingly brilliant idea about his new film, which is incidentally titled, yes, “Cobweb”. Inspired by that dream of his, he decides to change the finale a bit, and it looks like all he and his cast and crew members will have to do is working for two more days before the following post-production process.

However, not so surprisingly, things do not go that well for our filmmaker hero right from the start. His production team members manage to have all the cast members come to the big studio building of their production company, and his technical crew members quickly prepare for this sudden shooting, but the president of the production company, who is incidentally the wife of a famous director who was Kim’s mentor before his untimely death, is not so willing to allow that for understandable reasons. Kim’s revised screenplay must be checked by those government censorship officials first, but Kim is already determined to ignore this routine procedure while being so occupied with his artistic vision, and he naturally comes to clash a lot with the president before the president eventually leaves for Japan.

In contrast, the president’s niece, Mi-do (Jeon Yeo-been), is willing to help and support Kim as much as possible as a fervent admirer of Kim’s movies. Once her aunt is gone, she actively pushes the cast and crew members into the shooting as Kim wants, and everything seems to be going fairly well for everyone including Kim as the camera begins to roll on the set.

Of course, the situation gradually becomes messy and chaotic in one way or another. For instance, Kim’s lead actor seems to be very close to one of the actresses of the movie, and that becomes more evident to everyone else around them, no matter how much they try to hide that from others. They and the other cast members often express their confusion and frustration with Kim’s revised finale, but Kim simply pushes them forward after belatedly coming to realize that he must finish the shooting before the end of the day. In addition, there also comes a grouchy censorship official later, and we get an absurd moment from Mi-do’s hasty attempt to hold this official at one spot while Kim and his crew and cast members are hastily working in the other spots inside the studio.

The main pleasure of the movie comes from how Kim’s artistic vision randomly bounces along the story. At first, he thought that he and his crew members will just need to shoot a few big scenes, but they come to shoot much more than he originally planned, and this certainly frustrates not only his crew members but also the cast members of the film. At one point in the middle of the story, he has no choice but to play a certain minor supporting character for himself, and what follows next is a hilarious moment of narcissistic acting to amuse you.

After the chaotic spirit of its first half, the screenplay by Shin Yeon-shick, who also directed a fair share of films including “The Fair Love” (2010) and “The Russian Novel” (2013), comes to lose some of its comic momentum during the second half as the situation becomes more serious and daunting for Kim and others around him. While he is still determined to make a masterpiece to remember, he is still blocked here and there as before, and he also comes to face the fact that he should make a bit of compromise for protecting his artistic vision.

Kim’s movie in the story occasionally functions a pastiche of the South Korean filmmaking during the 1960-70s as demanded, and director Kim Jee-won and his crew members including Oscar-nominated editor Yang Jin-mo and cinematographer Kim Ji-young surely have a field day as recreating the recognizable qualities of those old South Korean film of the 1960-70s. I am sure that this aspect of the film will be appreciated more by the audiences of older generations including my parents, and I really want to know how my parents will respond to a number of key filmmaking moments in the film.

While Song Kang-ho, who has been the ever-dependable stalwart of South Korean Cinema during last three decades, diligently holds the center with another fine performance of his, several other performers in the film leave some impression even though many of supporting characters in the story remain on the level of broad caricatures. While Jeon Yeo-been steals the show with her character’s irrepressible enthusiasm, Im Soo-jung, Oh Jung-se, and Krystal Jung have each own moment to shine, and I also enjoyed the brief cameo appearance by Jung Woo-sung, who previously worked with Song in Kim’s previous film “The Good, the Bad, and the Weird” (2008).

On the whole, “Cobweb” is not entirely without flaws, and I still wonder whether it can be improved more via cutting around 20 minutes, but it is at least more entertaining compared to the glaring failure of Kim’s recent film “Illang: The Wolf Brigade” (2018). It certainly does not reach to the greatness of Federico Fellini’s “8 1/2” (1963) or François Truffaut’s “Day for Night” (1973), but it has some goodies to be savored including Song’s entertaining acting, and I will not deny that I chuckled more than once at last night.

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Dr. Cheon and Lost Talisman (2023) ☆☆1/2(2.5/4): Your average TV pilot

Posted on September 28, 2023 by kaist455

South Korean film “Dr. Cheon and Lost Talisman” is a curious case of how a sub-standard piece of work can be redeemed at times by the compelling presence of its engaging lead actor. Whenever the camera looks at him, he is somehow always entertaining and interesting to watch, and it is a shame that the movie itself is more or less than your average TV pilot instead of being, uh, cinematic.

Gang Dong-won, who has been one of the most prominent star actors in South Korean cinema since “Jeon Woo-chi: The Taoist Wizard” (2009) and “Secret Reunion” (2010), plays Dr. Cheon, who is supposedly a fake shaman but turns out to be more resourceful and gifted than expected. During the opening part hilariously featuring the two main cast members from “Parasite” (2019), Dr. Cheon and his technical assistant Inbae (Lee Dong-hwi) visit a rich family who seems to be in the need of some exorcism, and Dr. Cheon and Inbae skillfully handle the situation even though their plan does not go that well at the last minute. Yes, they are surely conning this wealthy family, but Dr. Cheon does not have much qualm on that because, well, he simply gives them what they want – and he is pretty good at sensing and then providing whatever his clients want.

Not long after they finish their latest job, Dr. Cheon and Inbae are approached by a young woman named Yoo-kyung (Esom). Dr. Cheon is not so eager to take her case because she looks too serious to handle for him, but then he quickly changes his mind once he sees a big bag of cash she brings to him, so he and Inbae soon follow her as she leads them to a little rural village where she has resided with her younger sister.

Right from their arrival in the village, Dr. Cheon senses something weird and suspicious, and his suspicion is confirmed when he subsequently confronts what Yoo-kyung has been struggling with in her house. She believes that her younger sister is possessed by some bad spirit, and she also thinks she can see spirits and ghosts. Dr. Cheon is skeptical at first, but, what do you know, he soon comes to realize that what he is handling is not a merely troubling domestic problem at all, and that is when he becomes much more serious than before. As a matter of fact, he is actually from a family of shamans, and his father, who has incidentally been dead for years, was one of the most powerful ones in the country.

Through an old associate of Dr. Cheon, we get to know about what happened to Dr. Cheon when he was young. There was a mighty evil figure quite hungry for more power and influence just like Harry Potter’s arch-nemesis, and this figure in question eventually targeted Dr. Cheon’s father as a part of his diabolical plan. Although Dr. Cheon’s father could stop his opponent before he died, his opponent, who has been imprisoned for years by an almost unbreakable talisman made by Dr. Cheon’s father, is now planning to escape, and he is targeting Yoo-kyung for snatching her psychic ability, which happens to be crucial for his escape.

The story eventually revolves around Dr. Cheon and several other main characters’ bumpy quest for locating where the two divided parts of that talisman are as well as where that powerful evil figure in question is lurking. While he remains imprisoned in his secret lair, this evil dude can exert some strong psychic power from the distance while being assisted by a group of disciples, and there is a spooky action scene later in the story where Dr. Cheon and Yoo-kyung have to deal with one possessed attacker after another.

In the meantime, the movie shows some sense of humor from time to time. Although its special effects mostly look cheap and silly on the whole, the performers in the film play as straight as possible even when surrounded by a lot of rudimentary CGIs on the screen. I was particularly amused by how they mostly look serious during one goofy scene involved with a certain shaman who may actually help their urgent mission, and I also like when the movie goes all the way for flashier special effects in the middle of the climax sequence.

However, the movie does not have enough space for character development, and many of its main characters feel rather underdeveloped on the whole. In case of the main villain of the story, he surely looks as scary and gruesome as required, and Huh Joon-ho did a fairly good job on that, but he is still no more than the villain of the week while his disciples do not have much personality beyond their evil appearance.

Anyway, Gang steadily holds the center with his engaging performance which becomes sort of endearing along the story with his character’s cool and detached attitude, and I am actually interested in watching whatever he will do next in the possible sequels to come. While she is sometimes limited by her thankless supporting character, Esom is effective as Gang’s counterpart, and Lee Dong-hwi, Kim Jong-soo, and Park Jeong-min are also fun to watch in their respective comic supporting roles.

Overall, “Dr. Cheon and Lost Talisman”, directed by Kim Seong-sik, is merely the opening chapter for its franchise (It is based on Fresh and Kim Hong-tae’s popular webtoon “Possessed”, by the way). At least, it is mildly watchable mainly thanks to the good efforts from Kang and several other main cast members. and, considering the positive reactions from many audiences around me I observed yesterday, it may succeed enough in the local box office to produce the following sequels. Seriously, I really hope that I will be more entertained in the next time.

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Road to Boston (2023) ☆☆(2/4): Running with tedious nationalism

Posted on September 28, 2023 by kaist455

South Korean film “Road to Boston” is so shamelessly corny and old-fashioned that I cringed a lot more than once while watching it yesterday. Here is a dramatic real-life story which is surely worthwhile to tell for good reasons, but the movie unfortunately soaks this interesting story in heavy-handed melodrama coupled with blatant nationalism, and it actually feels pretty boring and tedious despite being less than 2 hours.

At first, the movie shows us the historical injustice involved with a Korean marathoner named Sohn Kee-chung (Ha Jung-woo), who has been regarded as one of the legendary Korean athletes in the 20th century since he won the marathon race at the 1936 Berlin Summer Olympics. As many of you know, Korea was occupied by Japan at that time, so Sohn had to wear the Japanese flag on his uniform all the time as officially being a Japanese runner, and a little gesture of defiance at the time of his monumental glory could almost finish his athletic career later.

After 11 years later, Korea and its people are now free, and Sohn has been openly respected as a national hero in Seoul, but he feels rather bitter and sour while being retired for a while. Right after Japan left Korea after the end of the World War II in 1945, Korea was divided in half by US and the Soviet Union, and Sohn still cannot bring his family from the north side as this division becomes more solidified day by day.

On one day, Sohn is approached by Nam Sung-yong (Bae Seong-woo), a friend/colleague of his who incidentally finished third at the 1936 Berlin Summer Olympics marathon race. Nam has been training a bunch of lads who may become as good as him and Sohn someday, and Nam suggests that Sohn should coach these lads for the upcoming Boston International Marathon, which is incidentally the first international marathon race to be held after the World War II. Sohn is not so eager to accept this proposal of his colleague, but, of course, he eventually agrees to be back in action because somebody must succeed his invaluable legacy.

One of these lads under Sohn’s coaching is Suh Yun-bok (Im Si-wan). As shown from his first scene in the film, he has already shown his considerable potential as a long-distance runner, but Sohn does not like Suh that much just because he thinks Suh is too cocky and willful. In case of Suh, he surely wants to be a marathoner as good as Sohn, but he must do a number of menial jobs first for taking care of his sick mother, so Nam has to provide a bit of unofficial help for persuading Suh to join the team.

What follows next will not surprise you much if you are a seasoned moviegoer like me. Yes, Sohn surely gives Suh and others hell for reminding them that they really should train themselves hard for representing their country. Yes, Suh and Sohn certainly come to conflict a lot with each other, but then they come to recognize and respect each other. Yes, the movie definitely overuses its loud and sentimental score whenever Sohn galvanizes Suh and other trainees including Nam, who volunteers to run again even though he is a bit too old considering his current age.

We might not mind these and many other clichéd stuffs at all if director/writer Kang Je-gyu, who has been known for his two successful films “Shiri” (1999) and “Taegukgi” (2004), paid more attention to storytelling and characterization. His screenplay is frequently riddled with bad dialogues and clumsily nationalistic speeches, and the movie also often hurries itself too much without any engaging character development. While its three main characters feel rather flat and quotidian, many of supporting characters around them are more or less than broad caricatures, and this glaring flaw is particularly evident from several perfunctory female roles in the film.

During its last act involved with the Boston International Marathon, the movie underwhelms us more with its mediocre presentation of what is supposed to be a dramatic race to excite and touch us. It merely hops from one point to another without any real sense of narrative momentum, and we are only distracted more due to its many crummy aspects including the overbearing score which constantly forces more sentimentality and nationalism upon us. Furthermore, it is quite evident that Kang and his crew members did not shoot this part in Boston (They did it at several locations in Australia instead, by the way), and I cannot possibly give any good excuse if the movie is roasted by the members of the Boston Society of Film Critics for the sheer lack of authentic mood and details.

The main cast members of the film diligently try, but they are ultimately limited or wasted by their superficial roles. While Ha Jung-woo is merely required to raise his voice from time to time, Im Si-wan does not leave much impression despite his committed efforts, and Bae Seong-woo and Kim Sang-ho manage to acquit themselves fairly well despite mostly being demanded to function as the comic relief element of the story.

In conclusion, “Road to Boston” is another disappointing mainstream South Korean film of this year. When the movie was over, I was already ready to run to some other South Korean released on the same day, and that surely says a lot about its utterly exasperating failure. In my humble opinion, these three real-life figures are indeed remarkable athletes to remember, but, folks, they deserve much better than this crappy flop.

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Cassandro (2023) ☆☆☆(3/4): Meet Cassandro

Posted on September 27, 2023 by kaist455

“Cassandro”, which was released on Amazon Prime in last week, is less flamboyant while also being more earnest than expected. Based on the real-life story of a gay American-born Mexican luchador (professional wrestler), the movie sensitively focuses on its characters as paying some attention to those wrestling matches at times, and I enjoyed its down-to-earth qualities enough to overlook its rather glaring weak aspects.

Set in the early 1980s, the movie tells the tale of Saúl Armendáriz (Gael García Bernal), a young Mexican American gay man who works as a mechanic in El Paso, Texas while occasionally crossing the Mexico-US border to participate in lucha libre wrestling matches held in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. During the opening sequence, we see how he prepares himself as “El Topo” before entering the ring, and we also get to know about a bit about how a wrestling match is set and then played before its audiences.

Because he has been rather bored and tired with being “defeated” by those more famous wrestlers, Saúl is willing to hone his skill and style more, and that is how he begins his modest training under a female trainer named Sabrina (Roberta Colindrez). As he becomes more confident day by day, he considers playing an exótico, an unmasked wrestler in drag, but he has a different idea about how to play his role. Usually, exóticos are expected to lose on the ring for making their opponents look better, but Saúl wants to win in his matches, and Sabrina is willing to help him as much as she can.

However, we do not get your average training montage sequence because, well, as many of you know, the outcomes of those wrestling matches are always determined from the very beginning. When Sabrina tries to persuade a promoter to end the match with Saúl as the winner, the promoter is not particularly interested at first, but then he changes his mind later as watching how much the audience gradually become enthusiastic about Saúl, who incidentally presents himself as “Cassandro”. As observing how Saúl wins his audiences’ enthusiasm along the match, I came to have more understanding of how some of those popular WWE wrestlers could transfer their success in the ring to the screen. After all, besides all those wrestling skills to wield, they have styles and personalities to draw and engage audiences as entertainers, and I guess that is the key to the success of Dwayne Johnson or David Bautista in Hollywood.

Once he finds his own professional ground, Saúl soon finds himself becoming pretty popular in Mexico, and his mother Yocasta (Perla De La Rosa), who has always supported him a lot even after he came out of his closet when he was 15, is certainly excited about that. Although she was initially not so eager to watch her son’s matches because of her understandable concern, she eventually becomes one of his No.1 audiences just like Sabrina, and there is a little poignant moment when she firmly defends his son to one of those homophobic audiences around the ring.

While surely feeling hurt a lot by all those homophobic insults hurled at him during his matches, Saúl does not mind this much mainly because he has been focusing on how to get the recognition of his absent father. Although he left his son and Yocasta shortly after learning that his son is gay, Saúl still often reminisces about those happy childhood times when he and his father spent time together while watching the wrestling matches on TV, and he sincerely hopes that his father will watch him on TV at least.

Meanwhile, the movie also focuses a bit on Saúl’s romantic relationship with one of his fellow wrestlers, which is unfortunately the weakest part of the story. Right from when their eyes meet early in the film, they click with each other while not showing anything to others around them, and Saúl and Gerardo (Raúl Castillo) eventually begin a little affair of theirs although Gerardo is a married guy with several children. However, when Saúl later comes to learn that Gerardo will never leave his family at any chance, their romance ultimately fizzles without much fuzz, and Saúl’s attention is soon diverted to a young hunky drug dealer named Felipe (Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio)

Despite this weak subplot, the movie continues to hold our attention via its unadorned realistic approach to the story and characters under the good direction of director/co-writer Roger Ross Williams, who won an Oscar for his short documentary film “Music by Prudence” (2010). Several wrestling matches in the film feel rather plain on the surface, but they are depicted with enough spirit and cheer in addition to functioning as a crucial part of the story.

Above all, Gael García Bernal, who has always been interesting to watch more than 20 years since Alejandro González Iñárritu’s “Amores perros” (2000) and Alfonso Cuarón’s “Y tu mamá también” (2001), diligently carries the film with his another good performance, and he is supported well by several fine supporting performers around him. While Roberta Colindrez and Perla De La Rosa are solid in their respective parts, Raúl Castillo brings some charm to his rather thankless role, and that makes a big contrast to the rather colorless acting of Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, a musician who is also known as “Bad Bunny”.

In conclusion, “Cassandro” could be improved more here and there in my inconsequential opinion, but it is still worthwhile to watch mainly due to Bernal’s commendable efforts on the screen. The movie is much milder than I imagined, but this little queer drama film engaged enough on the whole, so I will not be grouchy about its weak points for now.

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No One Will Save You (2023) ☆☆☆(3/4): Katilyn Dever carries the whole show

Posted on September 26, 2023 by kaist455

“No One Will Save You”, which is currently on Disney+ in South Korea, is a little horror film which depends a lot on its talented lead actress’ strong performance. Nearly wordless throughout the film, she deftly swings around several different emotional modes ranging from fear to despair, and her skillful acting firmly carries the film even during its rather shaky last act.

Katilyn Dever, a wonderful actress who has steadily impressed us since her harrowing supporting turn in Destin Daniel Cretton’s little but undeniably powerful independent drama “Short Term 12” (2013), plays a young girl named Brynn, and the opening part of the film succinctly establishes how isolated Brynn’s daily life is. She lives alone in a big cozy house located in the middle of a forest area, and she does not interact much with others even when she drops by a nearby village at one point early in the film. When she happens to notice two certain persons she seems to know, she only watches them from the distance while also hiding from their sight, and we gather that there is some disagreeable past between her and them.

Anyway, as she returns to her home later and is subsequently about to sleep at night, Brynn suddenly hears some strange sounds from somewhere inside the house, and that is where the movie starts to become more suspenseful. She carefully gets out of her upstairs bedroom, and then she sees something is moving in the downstairs kitchen. Naturally quite terrified, she tries not to make any unnecessary noise, but, of course…

Now I have to be a bit more discreet about describing the rest of the film, but now I sincerely suggest to you that you stop reading my inconsequential review if you have already become interested in watching it. Although its promotional poster does not hide at all what is exactly menacing its heroine, I think it is better for you not to know anything about that especially if you really want to enjoy the movie as much as possible.

After an intense moment of hide and sick between her and that mysterious entity, Brynn naturally tries to handle the situation as much she can, but, as you can already guess from the very title of the film, there is no one around her to help her while it also seems that there is no possible way to get away from her increasingly disturbing circumstance. Yes, she could just go to the police, but then she comes across the last persons she wants to face right now. Furthermore, as shown from one brief but frightening moment, it also looks like whatever is menacing her does not want her to leave the area at all.

Like many other terrified horror movie heroines, Brynn gradually comes to confront her personal demons as getting scared more and more along the story. It is eventually revealed later in the story that there was indeed some bad incident in her past, and we are not so surprised to see that the only line in the entire film comes from her old guilt associated with that incident.

Meanwhile, the movie keeps accumulating more suspense and terror around its heroine, and director/writer/co-producer Brian Duffield, who previously made a feature debut with “Spontaneous” (2020), and his crew members including cinematographer Aaron Morton have a field day with serving us one tense moment after another. There are several nice scary scenes to corner our heroine here and there, and I particularly like a chilling overhead shot showing a number of signs on the ground which clearly show us the overwhelming magnitude of her circumstance.

Despite getting frustrated or despaired again and again, Brynn somehow does not lose her will to survive and escape, and she comes to us an engaging character for whom we can root along the story. Although she does not say or express much on the surface except looking quite scared at times, Dever, who also participated in the production of the film as one of its executive producers, ably fills her archetype role with enough nuances and details, and her good performance diligently holds the whole show together from the beginning to the end.

In case of the main source of the menace against Brynn in the film, this story element is a fairly effective genre tool for generating enough horror and suspense to hold our attention, but I must tell you that it is also one of several weaker aspects of the movie. Although the special effects in the film are not bad at all on the whole, the movie actually works better whenever it simply focuses more on Dever’s terrified face while not showing anything else much on the screen. In addition, we never get to know anything about why Brynn and her surrounding environment were targeted from the beginning, and the movie does not explain that much even during the finale where our heroine fully confronts what has been terrifying her so much.

Overall, “No One Will Save You” did not really scare me a lot, but I enjoyed its little genre exercise in addition to appreciating Dever’s commendable efforts and the competent direction of Duffield, who is mostly known for writing the screenplays for several notable genre films such as “Love and Monsters” (2020) and “Underwater” (2020). Although it is not the scariest film of this fall, the movie achieves as much as well while generating enough thrill and entertainment, so I will not grumble for now.

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The League (2023) ☆☆☆(3/4): Leagues of Their Own

Posted on September 24, 2023 by kaist455

Documentary film “The League” looks over the mostly overlooked history of the African American baseball leagues during the early 20th century. As a guy not so knowledgeable about its main subject except, yes, Jackie Robinson, I observed the documentary with constant fascination and interest, and I certainly came to learn a lot in the end as often entertained by its engaging presentation of the relatively unknown parts of the American sports history.

At first, the documentary details on how racial segregation was imposed upon the Major Leagues in US around the beginning of the 20th century. While African American baseball players were actually allowed to play with White players during the late 19th century, they were gradually pushed out from fields mainly due to racism, and that was just a tip of how racial segregation became more prevalent in the American society during the early 20th century.

While they were more discriminated in one way or another, many African Americans moved to the northern cities including New York City or Chicago, where they had less problem with racism and discrimination compared to many other parts of the country including those Southern states. As they formed their own communities in these northern cities, a number of various business activities followed, and baseball happened to be one of them because, well, African American people wanted to watch baseball games as much as White people.

At first, a bunch of independent African American baseball teams were established here and there, and then they eventually came to band together to form several regional leagues once the owners of teams including Reuben Foster saw the considerable business potential from that. Besides being a pretty good baseball player during his younger years, Foster was also quite a clever and charismatic figure who could easily persuade his competing baseball team owners, and he soon became the major driving force behind the regional league established by him and others.

And he and others surely had quite a success thanks to not only a number of exceptional players ranging from Josh Gibson to Satchell Paige but also thousands of African Americans eager to watch their favorite players. As a matter of fact, their Christian churches even stepped back a bit, and, considering how unflappable African American churches usually are, that says a lot about the growing popularity of baseball among African Americans at that time.

And those remarkable African baseball players during that period seldom disappointed their enthusiastic fans out there. As shown from a series of archival clips, they often dynamically and excitingly demonstrated a lot of their athletic skills in one way or another, and that makes an amusing contrast with the relatively dull sights from those White players of the Major Leagues during that time.

The final goal of Foster and other African American baseball team owners was to get recognized and then accepted by those influential White figures of the Major Leagues, but, not so surprisingly, racial discrimination still stood on their way as before. Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, who became the first Commissioner of Baseball in 1920 after handling the infamous Black Sox Scandal, adamantly refused to do anything about the racial desegregation of American baseball, and he kept sticking to his bigotry until his death in 1944.

Around the time of Judge Landis’ death, the situation looked more optimistic as both the American society and the Major Leagues could not ignore the social demands from African Americans anymore. Thanks to their considerable contribution to the World War II, African Americans were able to step forward more than before, and those White power players of the Major Leagues came to notice more of how much racial desegregation could benefit their business via those talented African American baseball players out there including, yes, Jackie Robinson.

Of course, the documentary delves a bit into how much Robinson had to struggle after being recruited by the Brooklyn Dodgers. While millions of African Americans surely had lots of expectation on him, there were also lots of White racists he had to face whenever he was on the field, and it was really fortunate that Robinson had all the right stuffs for enduring and then prevailing before eventually opening the door for his fellow African American players.

However, Robinson’s historical accomplishment turned out to be a double-edged blessing for the people of the African American baseball leagues. They all surely welcomed Robinson’s amazing success, but, as some of them already sensed, this also signified the end of their days of glory and success. Once the barrier was broken, many of those Major League teams including the Brooklyn Dodgers did not hesitate to snatch more and more of talented African American players, and this consequently led to the gradual demise of the African American baseball leagues within next few years.

In conclusion, “The League” amply and succinctly presents its fascinating historical subject despite its rather short running time (103 minutes), and director Sam Pollard, who previously directed a number of acclaimed documentaries including “MLK/FBI” (2020) and “Citizen Ashe” (2021), did a commendable job of handling the main subject with enough care and respect. I wish the documentary shows and tells more, and that is just a minor weak point, and I gladly recommend you to check it out someday.

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Citizen Ashe (2021) ☆☆☆(3/4): More than a good tennis player

Posted on September 24, 2023 by kaist455

Documentary film “Citizen Ashe” looks into the life and athletic career of Arthur Ashe (1943-1993), a talented tennis champion who has been known mainly for being the first African American to win the US Open in 1968. Although he was less prominent in case social activism compared to some of his contemporary African American athletes such as Muhammad Ali or Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Ashe actually was quite more active than his mostly relatively mild public image suggested, and it is interesting to observe how he was changed in one way or other as going his way as usual.

The early part of the documentary focuses on how Ashe happened to find his athletic talent while growing up in his hometown Richmond, Virginia. In 1955, Ashe began playing tennis along with several other local boys under a local African American coach who really cared about encouraging them more for better life, and it did not take much time for Ashe to show more of his potential during next several years. When he eventually became a confident tennis player with a fairly good game record, he decided to move to Missouri for more freedom for his life as well as his burgeoning sports career, and then he got a full athletic scholarship at UCLA in California.

During his college years at UCLA during the early 1960s, Ashe came to distinguish himself more as a promising young college tennis player, but he did not have much hope about becoming a professional tennis player. After all, there were not many options for his future professional athletic career at that time, he actually considered joining the US Army for becoming an officer someday. In fact, he later joined the ROTC (Reserve Officers’ Training Corps), and he could have been sent to Vietnam if his brother, who was serving in the US Army at that time, had not chosen to do the second tour in Vietnam in exchange for keeping Ashe in US.

Thanks to his brother’s wise choice, Ashe continued to show more prominence in his athletic career while staying in US, and then he found himself at the right moment to boost his position further. As the Open Era began in 1968, both amateurs and professionals were allowed to compete together in the Grand Slam tournaments including the US Open, and that led to more career opportunities for promising young players like Ashe. He surprised everyone as winning the US Open at that time, and it did not take much time for him to become another famous African American athlete to notice.

Of course, as the American society was troubled more and more by racial tension during the late 1960s, Ashe was often asked to be more outspoken about racism and discrimination just like many other prominent African American athletes during that time, but he was rather reluctant for understandable reasons. As a man who was constantly scrutinized even at the beginning of his athletic career, he was more accustomed to being less provocative while holding himself as much as possible, and making any unnecessary noise was the last thing he wanted.

Because of his less active stance, Ashe was not regarded that well by some of prominent African American figures during that time, but he did care a lot about racism and discrimination nonetheless. He was surely supportive of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. from the beginning, and, as shown from a number of TV interview clips, he actually did not hide his personal opinions on the racism and discrimination against African Americans at all. As a matter of fact, he also made an active public stance against the apartheid policy of the South African government when he was about to participate in a big tournament to be held in South Africa in 1973, and he surely left a big impression on the Black citizens of South Africa when he subsequently came there.  

Meanwhile, Ashe’s career reached to another peak when he won at the Wimbledon in 1975. During the final, he defeated his longtime opponent Jimmy Connors, and you will be amused a bit by how rude and arrogant Connors was in contrast to Ashe’s more much reserved attitude. While recognizing Connors as one of his toughest opponents, Ashe did not have anything good to say about Connors, and Connors even sued Ashe for libel.

Around the time when he played against John McEnroe in 1978, Ashe became more aware that his prime was being over, and his unexpected heart attack and the following surgery eventually put the end to his athletic career. Ironically, he subsequently became a new coach to handle McEnroe, and the documentary makes an interesting point on how their contrasting personalities somehow complemented each other despite lots of personal/professional clashes between them during next several years. McEnroe, who looks much milder compared to when he was young and wild, frankly talks about his tumultuous relationship with Ashe during that period, and that is certainly another amusing moment in the documentary.

Overall, “Citizen Ashe” is both engaging and informative in its respectful presentation of its human subject. Although I think it could pay a bit more attention to Ashe’s later years when he became all the more active for civil rights and social justice, directors Rex Millerv and Sam Pollard did a solid job of juggling various archival records and interview clips for giving us a vivid and interesting portrayal of one exceptional African American athlete, and you should definitely check it out especially if you do not know much about him like I did before watching it.

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Gran Turismo (2023) ☆☆1/2(2.5/4): From a gamer to a professional racer

Posted on September 24, 2023 by kaist455

The story promise of “Gran Turismo” sounded quite preposterous to me when I heard about the film a few months ago, and it is a shame that its unbelievable true story is reduced into a bland conventional underdog sports drama story. Yes, it surely delivers fun and excitement to some degree, but it does not have enough energy and personality to distinguish itself, and my mind simply checked out its every clichéd moment one by one when I was watching it during an early Sunday morning screening.

The movie is based on the real-life story of Jann Mardenborough (Archie Madekwe), a young British lad who was initially a top-notch gamer of that famous racing simulation video game called Gran Turismo but then became a professional race car driver thanks to a rather outrageous training program promoted by Nissan. Yes, as reflected by what is shown in the film, Mardenborough and several other skilled gamers were really trained to become real professional race car drivers, and he and his colleagues actually showed some notable results at a number of prominent international competitions including the 24 Hours of Le Mans in France.

The early part of the film shows how that unorthodox training program for Mardenborough and other gamers was started by Danny Moore (Orlando Bloom), an ambitious marketing executive of Nissan. After succeeding in persuading his bosses in Tokyo, Japan, Moore quickly embarks on recruiting and selecting ideal gamers to be trained, but he also has to find someone good enough to teach and train them, but, not so surprisingly, nearly all of trainers on his list show no interest in his proposal. In the end, he approaches to someone at the bottom of the list, and that is Jack Salter (David Harbour), an American trainer who was once a prominent professional race car driver in the past. Just like many others, Salter shows understandable skepticism at first, but then he accepts Moore’s offer mainly because he cannot stand the arrogant attitude of a well-known professional race car driver for whom he has worked for a while.

Meanwhile, Mardenborough is excited to get a chance to become a real professional race car driver thanks to his prominent game scores, but his father is not so impressed to say the least. As a man who was once a promising professional soccer player but ends up being stuck with a menial job, his father understandably keeps saying that he should be more realistic about his life, but Mardenborough is still determined to do his best for entering the world of professional racing, and we subsequently see him and a group of other recruits beginning their training process under Salter’s supervision.

Right from their first day, Salter does not pull any punch on how much they will endure and compete, and they surely come to experience how much driving a real race car is different from playing their favorite video game. For example, they need to improve their physical strength a lot in one way or another, and they are also often reminded that there is always considerable risk and danger once they begin to drive fast along the racetrack.

It is not much of a spoiler to tell you that Mardenborough eventually distinguishes himself more and more despite being around the bottom of the rank at first, but the screenplay by Jason Hall and Zach Baylin does not bring much life and personality to its hero, and this serious flaw consequently undermines Archie Madekwe’s sincere efforts. Although he is not a bad actor as far as I can see, Madekew sometimes struggles with his character’s rather flat personality, and he also does not have much chemistry with Maeve Courtier-Lilley, who is unfortunately stuck with a perfunctory love interest role.

In case of several racing sequences in the film, they are fairly good on the whole, but director Neill Blomkamp and his crew members sadly resort to frantic camerawork and choppy editing a bit too much in my humble opinion. There are some thrill and excitement as expected, but we feel rather distant to whatever is happening across the screen, and we are not so involved much in what is being at stake for Mardenborough and several other characters including Salter.

At least, several main cast members in the film acquit themselves well despite their broad archetype supporting roles. Although he often chews his several big moments more than required, Orlando Bloom’s possibly intentional overacting makes an amusing contrast to the low-key no-nonsense attitude of David Harbour, who has been one of the most dependable character actors working in Hollywood since his breakout Emmy-nominated turn in Netflix TV series “Stranger Things”. Although he has to handle a bunch of clichéd moments along the story, Harbour delivers them with enough conviction, and he is the main reason why the movie works from time to time. In case of Djimon Hounsou, he does not have much thing to do besides looking stern as Mardenborough’s disapproving father, but I must point out that he does more acting here compared to when he appeared in a number of Marvel Cinematic Universe and DC Extended Universe flicks.

Overall, “Gran Turismo” is not as awful or ludicrous as I worried, but it is still not good enough for recommendation despite several enjoyable elements in the film, and I can think of several better alternatives right now. To be frank with you, I sometimes wonder whether I overrated James Mangold’s Oscar-winning film “Ford v Ferrari” (2019), but that thrilling movie, which is also based on a real-life story associated with professional racing, has enough spirit and personality to propel its familiar story and characters at least, and maybe you will have a better time if you watch that solid racing drama film instead.

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The Eight Mountains (2022) ☆☆☆(3/4): A friendship among mountains

Posted on September 24, 2023 by kaist455

The best thing of “The Eight Mountains” is the cinematography by Ruben Impens, who gives some of the most stunning landscape shots I have ever seen during this year. Although I was a bit tired due to watching and then reviewing two films in row before watching the movie, my rather sleepy eyes were constantly fixated on what is so vividly and crisply captured by Impens’ camera from the beginning to the end, and that was a bit more than enough for compensating for the slow and elusive narrative flow of the film, which baffled and frustrated me from time to time.

Based on the Italian novel of the same name by Paolo Cognetti, the movie mainly revolves around a longtime friendship between its two different characters: Pietro (Luca Marinelli) and Bruno (Alessandro Borghi). In 1984, young Pietro’s parents happened to rent a little cottage in one small rural village in the middle of the Italian Alps area for spending some summertime away from a city where they and their son lived, and that was how young Pietro, played by Lupo Barbiero, befriended young Bruno, played by Lupo Barbiero. Mainly because Bruno was the only boy around Pietro’s age in the village, Pietro was encouraged to hang around with Bruno, and they quickly became each other’s best friend during their first summer.

Since that, Pietro and his parents continue to spend every summer in Bruno’s village, and he certainly often looks forward to that, and so does his father. He sometimes takes Pietro to those high mountains around the village, and Bruno also comes to join them later. At one point, they all climb up to one big and snowy mountain, and that is where Pietro unfortunately comes to have his first experience of mountain sickness.

Probably because he is their son’s best friend, Bruno’s parents come to care a lot about Bruno’s welfare and education, so they persuade Bruno’s uncle and aunt, who have incidentally taken care of Bruno due to his parents’ respective absence, to let Bruno live with them and their son. However, Pietro does not like this decision much because he thinks Bruno is happy enough in his village, and Bruno is not particularly enthusiastic about this change either.

Anyway, the situation is abruptly changed later because Bruno’s mostly absent father takes away Bruno from the village instead. Several years later, Pietro, who now becomes a teenager played by Andrea Palma, accidentally comes across Bruno, who also grows up a lot as being played by Francesco Palombelli. However, they simply and silently recognize each other from the distance, and that has been all for them during the next 15 years.

In the meantime, the movie also focuses on Pietro’s rebellious conflict with his father. He wants to be a writer, but his father does not approve much of that, and that eventually leads to several years of estrangement before his father’s untimely death. Quite saddened and devastated, Pietro returns to the village for getting to know his diseased father more, and Bruno gladly welcomes him while ready to show a little isolated place bought by Pietro’s father some years ago. He wants to build a cabin there as Pietro’s father always wanted, and Pietro willingly agrees to help his friend’s little personal project as much as possible.

It seems that there is indeed a strong bond between Bruno and Pietro, but the screenplay by Felix van Groeningen, a Belgian filmmaker who has mainly been known for his Oscar-nominated film “The Broken Circle Breakdown” (2012), and his co-director/co-writer/wife Charlotte Vandermeersch frequently regards Bruno and Pietro’s relationship from the distance without clarifying or illustrating their friendship that much on the whole. No, there is not any homosexual undertone around their private moments, and I appreciate that the movie simply wants to depict a plain male friendship with considerable sincerity and honesty, but the depiction of their relationship development in the film is often a little too dry and opaque for me. In fact, it is rather difficult for me to understand why Bruno is so special to Pietro, and the movie is all the more elusive about how Bruno exactly feels about his friendship with Pietro, because the story is mainly presented via Pietro’s viewpoint.

In the end, what ultimately remains on my mind is all those breathtaking landscape shots in the film, which is a very good reason for watching the movie in a big screening room. While being shot in the screen ratio of 1.33:1, the landscape shots in the film are often astounding to say the least, and I frequently found myself wondering more about how they actually shot these haunting visual moments. As a matter of fact, some of these moments look quite risky for the crew members as well as the performers, who surely took some safety measures during the shooting.

In conclusion, “The Eight Mountains”, which won the Jury Prize along with Jerzy Skolimowski’s “EO” (2022) when it was shown at the Cannes Film Festival early in last year, seems more interested in capturing the natural beauty of its main background than delving into its two main characters’ longtime relationship, and that made me constantly feel distant to the overall result even though I patiently follow the story and characters to the end. Mainly thanks to its top-notch visual quality, it was a mostly rewarding journey on the whole at least, but I think you should be aware of what it is about as well as how it is about in advance, so I recommend it with some reservation.

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