We went to the cinema to watch this only because we had nothing better to do during Chinese New Year and Alita: Battle Angel has an atrocious rating on Rotten Tomatoes. I also realized we’ve now watched all three films of the trilogy in the cinema, quite a rarity for any film series really, without consciously intending to do so.

Here’s another adaptation of a very famous novel which I’ve never read. The novel entered the limelight again a few years ago due to the publication of a supposed sequel that is now more widely regarded as a first draft. This adaptation was widely acclaimed upon its release and is clearly definitive as no one has since tried remaking it.

It’s been a while since we last watched a film by Zhang Yimou especially since we skipped the badly reviewed The Great Wall. I had no great expectations for this, thinking that it should at least be beautiful. The visuals however turned out to be somewhat restrained being more focused on character-driven conflict and though the results are predictably, it’s not as bad as I feared.

BlackKKlansman is better known and is already on my list though I have yet to watch it. I did not realize that this film, made by Boots Riley who is mostly known as a musician, shares such similar themes with it. But then after a while I realized that this isn’t about white-black racism at all, even if it seems so initially, but really about criticizing capitalism.

This one is another compact European film that punches way above its weight class and it’s also the feature film debut by its director Xavier Legrand. It’s a little difficult to write about this because part of the intended effect involves some ambiguity over who is actually in the wrong. However if I don’t reveal anything at all, there wouldn’t be anything worth commenting about, so go on ahead only if you don’t mind spoilers.

Here’s another of Stanley Kubrick’s early films and though it’s said to be the best on his early career, I don’t believe it’s all that great. It’s a relatively short heist film that’s more about the plot than the directing. Apparently Kubrick cast Sterling Hayden as the male lead after seeing his performance in The Asphalt Jungle. Unfortunately for Kubrick this one is inferior to that other heist film in just about every way.

I ignored this when it first popped up on cinemas but it received enough critical praise to get my attention. Even my cinephile friend commented that it’s ‘pretty scary’. It’s the debut feature of its director Ari Aster with performers that are mostly not that well known. There is one exception in the form of a supporting character and unfortunately her first appearance is about when the film takes a turn for the worse.