This one made it onto my list as it is a highly regarded film, being apparently considered one of the best Canadian films ever made. It was inspired by a real life accident involving a school bus and a truck but I think it’s been fictionalized enough that it doesn’t matter. I found that I didn’t like it much however due to how its focus seems sort of spread out and how it doesn’t follow through on its individual storylines.
This one appeared on critics’ lists as one of the most notable films of last year so I had to check it out. The fact that it’s billed as a supernatural horror film out of Norway only makes it more intriguing. To me however the hype seems unjustified and it’s pretty standard fare. From what I can tell, it has been lauded simply because it is Norwegian and it portrays a lesbian relationship of a sort which seems unwarranted to me.
This was a recommendation from our cinephile friend but I had a hard time getting into it. Even with the help of Chinese subtitles I had difficulty following along as the characters switch between different Chinese languages and the cast of characters is huge with complicated relationships between them. The director Yang Ya-che must have realized this as well as there are captions when new characters are introduced as well as a pair of two mysterious elderly storytellers who provide exposition but that wasn’t quite enough for me.
Continue reading The Bold, the Corrupt, and the Beautiful (2017)
Brie Larson is kind of big deal now that she is slated to appear as Captain Marvel and of course we loved her performance in Room. Short Term 12 however is considered her breakout role and it also made the name for its writer and director Destin Daniel Cretton. Cretton apparently made based on his own experiences working at a facility similar to the one shown in the film.
I can’t remember why I added this to my list and I’m pretty sure I’ve never watched anything by director Kim Ki-duk before but this is listed among some polls as one of the best films ever made so I suppose that’s reason enough. The title is very long and feels rather generic given how common this metaphor is but it does turn out to be very fitting.
Continue reading Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… and Spring (2003)
This Italian film can be considered a classic but I don’t think it is that well known and I only knew about it from a post on Broken Forum. As it cost so much to make they needed American money to fund it and so, unusually, it stars an American actor, Burt Lancaster, in the titular role. All of Lancaster’s lines are therefore dubbed. As the choice of male lead was forced on director Luchino Visconti, the result should have been a disaster, yet all seems to have turned out well.
This film seems to be the result of a deliberate attempt to rekindle the magic behind Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid by reassembling the creative team of Paul Newman, Robert Redford and director George Roy Hill. Since we liked the earlier film so much, putting it on the list was a no brainer. It does evoke the same tone and look very strongly beginning with the opening scene featuring the familiar ragtime melody “The Entertainer”.