Every one of Satyajit Ray’s films we’ve seen so far has been at the very least strong contenders and this one impresses us once again as a powerful invective against traditional superstition. I particularly love how this film very small and yet very large at the same time. It’s based on a short story and limits its scenes entirely to one family and their household. Yet its themes encompass the pantheon of Hindu deities and carry all of the weight of tradition, the patriarchy and wealth. It says so much and so powerfully in one compact package.
I’m not really an enthusiastic fan of the films of Wes Anderson even if I tend to enjoy them and this newest one makes for a pretty good illustration of why. It’s almost pure style with no real underlying theme except for a love of its setting. There’s no character development and it actively tries to avoid emotional engagement. Anderson himself calls it a love letter to journalists, well, maybe a very specific kind of foreign correspondent from a bygone era. But it feels to me like more of a tribute to France, at or at least a kind of idealized France of the 1960s according to the American imagination. It’s supremely gorgeous and fun but ultimately feels hollow and unsatisfying.
Ran was Akira Kurosawa’s last epic and is one of his most famous films despite it being made so late in his career. It’s considered an adaptation of Shakespeare’s King Lear though it seems that the director was originally inspired by a real figure from Japanese history Mōri Motonari. While Kurosawa was never a very subtle director, I found this to be much too heavy-handed and obvious for my tastes, like a lavish, exaggerated stage play. It does look incredibly beautiful and being the most expensive Japanese film ever made at the time, features some of the most impressive large-scale period battles put on film. It even manages to convey the effective use of tactics to win battles!
This series may consist of only three episodes but the total running time adds up to over eight hours. Even if it’s The Beatles, it gets boring watching four guys muck about the studio just doing their own thing. I’m not a particular fan of the group but I persevered anyway, treating it as a kind of inside look on the creative processes of genius musicians as well as their group dynamics. Plus of course it’s fun to listen to their performances as they experiment with different variations and even do covers of other people’s music to warm up or relax.
I added this onto my watchlist more out of sense of obligation than anything else as it was one of the big winners at last year’s Oscars. For a while this film fell on the wrong side of being too sickly sweet for me but it did eventually win me over when it focused on how the main character’s ability to hear is making her deaf family too dependent on her. I note that this is a remake of a French film but the original wasn’t notable enough to register on my radar. Out of curiosity, I sought out its trailer to take a look and yeah, it’s so similar down to the sex jokes that there’s no point in watching it. This not being a very consequential film anyway, I’m actually kind of glad that I watched this American version as its production values are visibly better.
After being so disappointed by No Time to Die, it’s reasonable to ask if it’s even possible to make decent action movies set in the modern era. This film from the Philippines makes for a great counterexample as it limits the scope of its action to reasonable levels. Despite its limited budget, its cinematography is fantastic and it doesn’t compromise on its plot and character development either. This is admittedly a very dark film but that this what it means to treat the subject of violence and killings seriously. It seems that I was way late in hearing about this and this was successful enough that an American remake is in the planning.
This film wowed critics as a real-time look into how an upmarket restaurant in London works behind the scenes in one long, continuous shot. Despite its modest scope, the film impressed enough people that it’s already been made into a full series. I loved all of the details and how each character, including the customers of the restaurants, all have their own little stories. But I do note that the way it ramps all of the restaurant’s myriad problems into an explosive climax kind of makes it feel like a reality show. It’s just so dense with drama and it makes a lot of sense why this might better be expanded into a television series.
