This was a recommendation I read on Marginal Revolution. Tyler Cowen, oddly enough, praised it for its depiction of modern Taipei. After reading its synopsis however I became a bit apprehensive: stories about geniuses who suffer from a mental ailment of some sort as a side effect of their talent is well-trodden territory and risk conforming to a standard formula. X + Y (known in the US as A Brillliant Young Mind) might be doubly prone to these tropes as its protagonist is a teenager.
It’s been a while since we’ve actually watched a film in a local cinema. This one was picked because it’s an animated film which always makes my wife happy, it has a stellar Rotten Tomatoes rating and at least one poster on Broken Forum had some nice things to say about it. It also helps that this was made by Laika, the studio that only does stop-motion animation, and was responsible for the impressive Coraline.
Ever since I started watching films seriously, I’ve been a bit obsessed with lists of the best films. It goes without saying that these are always highly subjective and prone to all sorts of biases but they’re awesome for knowing what’s out there. The problem with lists of great cinema is that they’re heavily weighted towards the great films of the past so that it’s hard to spot anything recent on them. This is why one of the most interesting lists I’ve seen recently is one that limits itself only to films released so far in the 21st century and this film by Paolo Sorrentino had a strong showing on it.
If you’ve heard about the term “pod people” but have never watched Invasion of the Body Snatchers, well, now you know where it comes from. I didn’t know this myself until I watched this film and I’ve even watched the 2007 remake starring Nicole Kidman and simply titled Invasion. That version admittedly isn’t very good and doesn’t have pod people at all. I also didn’t realize until after the film was over that this 1978 version is also a remake of the original that was made in 1956. It always seemed to me that this version is more well known, especially since the iconic final shot of Donald Sutherland is a popular image on the Internet.
Spirits’ Homecoming was released only earlier this year, which is why unlike pretty much every other film covered by this blog, it has yet to be honored with any awards. It’s a sure thing though that by this time next year it will earn plenty of awards if only because of public sympathy for its subject matter. I’m less certain that it deserves such honor based on its merits alone as it’s just not that good a film but I will agree that it’s worth watching anyway for its historical significance.
Browsing the Lowyat forums for opinions about cinema is usually like diving into a cesspit but this one was an interesting suggestion that I believe I first saw there. Completely by coincidence, it also shares a similarity with the other film we watched this week: like The Hateful Eight, Baraka was filmed in a 70 mm format though this one used the even rarer and now defunct Todd-AO system. This film fully justifies the expansive format though as it is a documentary with absolutely no narration and no dialogue. Everything therefore rests solely on the power of its visuals and the brilliance of its musical accompaniment.
I can’t say that Quentin Tarantino is one of my favorite directors but his Pulp Fiction certainly led some of my earliest realizations that the cinematic world is larger and richer than I had imagined. I’ve since watched nearly all of his films and while they usually each have their good points, none can really match up to his earliest works. In particular, I thought Django Unchained was a beautifully shot but rather generic action movie. I probably would have skipped this one if it weren’t for the fact that the posters on Broken Forum had some interesting things to say about it.