This is the follow-up to the surprisingly good Chinese animated film Nezha and part of what they are calling the Fengshen Cinematic Universe. In truth, it doesn’t look like there is much connection between the two films save that they are set in a sort of mythological version of China. If anything this one is even more fantastic and, yes, it is just as good. The art looks amazing and more importantly has a single consistent style and there’s certainly no begrudging the soaring ambition of its story.
It’s safe to say that everyone has heard of Anton Chekhov if only because of his famous dictum of creative writing using a gun as an example. But I don’t believe that I have actually read or watched any of his work. So it’s neat to watch this adaptation by essentially the same core team who made My Dinner with Andre. As usual, this is a talk fest that threatens to be deadly boring at first but it is very engaging once you know all the characters.
This has a slick, instantly memorable title that brings to mind perhaps a light, romantic comedy but I would never in a million years be able to guess the context in which the phrase is actually used. It is in fact a serious film about pregnancy and abortion and is shot from such a studiously objective point of view that it sometimes feels like a documentary. Nevertheless it makes for a powerful statement about the needless pain to which America subjects its young women in deliberately making it difficult for them to get an abortion when they want to.
I bought this a while ago, motivated mainly because I now own a Hori Mini Fighting Stick and wanted to try different fighting games with it. Also because I have never played a single Soulcalibur game before and this newest entry in the franchise features Geralt of Rivia as a guest character. Beyond the fact that it’s one of the few fighting games involving characters who are armed with melee weapons plus the character Ivy in it often appears as a sex object, I knew nothing about this franchise beforehand.
Cabaret is another famous musical with particularly iconic imagery featuring Liz Minnelli sitting behind a chair. However unlike other musicals, you never hear its songs being played outside of the show itself. Watching this, I understand why. The songs themselves are nothing special but combined with the visuals and dance choreography, each has a unique effect. Similarly, the film affects a tawdry, tasteless look but actually harbors surprising emotional depth and insight.
This is Akira Kurosawa’s second last film and generally the last few films he made were not very well received. This one is conventional in terms of story and style but was nevertheless criticized at the time for serving an anti-American agenda, something which Kurosawa has never been known to do. Personally I thought this might have been a little too heavy-handed in its messaging but it’s far better than I expected and does exactly Kurosawa set out to do: restore the power of the atomic bombings to shock and terrify modern audiences.
So this is the last book of Jo Walton’s Thessaly trilogy about Athena and Apollo’s project to found Plato’s Just City. It’s pretty clear that this was written only to close out the trilogy as there is very little plot. Much of it consists of a series of philosophical essays by Crocus, the first of the Workers, the robots Athena brought to build the city, to gain sentience. The much promised renewed contact between the Platonic cities and the rest of humanity also turns out to be a bit of a damp squib. But it does have time-travel, aliens and even a dinosaur!
