Given that I thought director Bi Gan’s first film Kaili Blues was far and away the best of its year, this follow up was always going to have a lot to live up to. This is especially so given that he has managed to attract serious acting talent in the form of Tang Wei and Sylvia Chang this time around. Unfortunately as is often the case, while this remains very recognizably the work of the same director, I found it to be markedly inferior to the first film even as it tries to draw on many of the same elements.

So we’re far from done with delving the deep well of nostalgia so here is another live-action remake of a Disney classic. This one was heavily derided on its initial announcement for the casting of Will Smith as the Genie with his skin a ludicrous shade of blue. But I like how the casting now proper reflects, more or less, the appropriate ethnicities of the characters and I love how director Guy Ritchie completely commits to this as a musical. This is probably my favorite of the Disney remakes so far.

This film received some decent press last year and it was directed by Steve McQueen who shot to fame following 12 Years a Slave. Given that its three leads are all women and their leader is a black woman, it’s obvious that there’s a female and minority empowerment theme going on in here as well. Yet this is a heist film, not a serious drama, and one expects the requisite excitement and entertainment value from it. This unfortunately is not forthcoming.

This one is an Indian documentary that is a little obscure so I’m rather happy that I managed to find it at all. It was the director Rahul Jain debut film and it has no narration and indeed very little dialogue at all. There are a few very succinct interviews and that’s it. Jain for the most part allows the images to speak for themselves in a manner that is very similar to Tie Xi Qu.

So we watched the first season of this a while back and only now made time for the second season. There’s a third and final season already out but I think we’re done with it. As Marvel Comics fans will know, Legion refers to David Haller, the super powerful son of Charles Xavier and who appears most often as a villain. I’m amazed that so esoteric a show was allowed to be made. I’m even more amazed that it amounts to an exercise on how to present psychosis in a visually interesting way.

This marks the last of Stanley Kubrick’s films that I have yet to watch. I was reminded of its existence only due to Filmworker as Leon Vitali got his start with the grandmaster director here with a supporting role. As always I am astounded by Kubrick’s ability to make masterpieces of completely different genres and this is indeed a beautiful film on multiple levels. Still though it proceeds at a sedate pace, this should be considered one of his more conventional and approachable films.

Due to director Bong Joon-ho’s track record alone, we would have gotten around to watching this eventually. Yet I am still struck by how successful this has been, both critically and commercially. Many critics have named it the best film of 2019 and it has been so talked about that it has become a meme. It’s quite an extraordinary achievement for a foreign film to gain such a cultural foothold in the US. For myself, I don’t quite see where the greatness lies. It’s a good film, of that there is no doubt, but the widespread acclaim it has garnered has made it feel overrated to me.