Mini movie reviews
It’s the time of the year where my housemates have moved out for Christmas, and I take to writing things on the internet to try to stop myself from going crazy.
Here are some films I watched lately.
Yi Yi: A One And A Two is one of those films that I love, but will never be able to convince any of my friends to watch. There’s something so organic, so believable about these “slice of life” stories that really appeals to me moreso than the average film, but it’s that very aspect (along with the fact that it’s not in English) that’ll put many people off.
So I like Drive. I mean, I really like Drive. The setting, the music, the characters… really I have few things I object to in that movie. So why don’t I like Only God Forgives? The music is great. The cinematography is great. The colour grading is great, setting a mood (rather than the usual sloppy application that you see in every other film). But the story? I don’t know, it might be a bit too arthouse for me. There’s a point where I draw the line between “open to interpretation” and poor storytelling.
About Time is probably a good film, I don’t know, but I went into it wishing for it to be something it isn’t. I mean, the signs were all there. The cheesy looking posters. The director, and his previous credits. The gender ratio of the cinema. All these things should have let me realise that I shouldn’t expect a exploration of the morality and consequences of being able to repeat moments in life. But as a nice, simple rom-com? Sure, it’ll do.
Heat is pretty good, but the key thing I took away from it was how good the audio design was. Seriously, the shootout in the street sounded amazing.
The main way that I know of Spike Lee is because of some of his somewhat-controversial statements he’s made in the past, and the fact that he recently remade (/reimagined/reimagined-the-source-material-of) Oldboy. None of these things particularly enamoured me to him as a person. The only film of his I’d seen was 25th Hour, which I found interesting but unremarkable. After seeing Do The Right Thing did my opinion of him change much? Well, it was a nice film, but not earth-shattering. Good enough that I’ll try and give Oldboy a chance if it’s at a local cinema.
