This is a Colombian film filmed almost entirely in black and white and since you’re seeing it here, that means that it was very highly regarded by critics. It was made by little known Colombian director Ciro Guerra and filmed in the jungles of the Amazonia region of the country. An ending blurb suggest that parts of it were inspired by diaries kept by real European explorers and these are almost the only records that still exist of the tribes described therein.
Only Yesterday is one of Studio Ghibli’s earliest films but it received an official U.S. release only last year on the occasion of its 25th anniversary, giving it a new burst of attention. Since I’d never watched I added to our list and I guess I’ll probably eventually work my way through the rest of the studio’s early works someday. This one was directed by Isao Takahata and loosely based on a manga.
Like everyone else I played Duke Nukem 3D back in the day but for some reason or other never got around to playing the original Shadow Warrior. I didn’t play the reboot either but noticed when it was released for free and thought I’d give it a shot when I saw a friend of mine playing the sequel on Steam. I had thought it to be a fairly light game I could slot in between more hefty ones but it turned out to have substantial content and was a more difficult action game than I’m used to these days.
This is a documentary with an insanely high Rotten Tomatoes rating and was cited by multiple critics last year as one of the year’s best films, so naturally it was added to our watch list. It was made by Kirsten Johnson, who seems to be more of a cinematographer than a director. She asks that this film, compiled from footage of other documentaries that she has worked on plus personal videos of her and her family, be considered as her memoir.
So our regular cinephile friend had nothing but high praise for this little known Chinese film, making it a must watch. Unfortunately finding a copy of it anywhere proved almost impossible and I had to eventually get it from that same friend. When I finally sat down to watch it, I found it abstruse with its highly abbreviated Chinese speech almost indecipherable. Even my wife ended up giving up on understanding it. I eventually had to look up the plot on Wikipedia to work everything out.
I’ve gotten so used to flying Air Asia in recent years that I’d almost forgotten that one can actually watch films during flights. I picked this to watch during a recent flight but was not quite able to finish it plus of course watching this on such a small screen isn’t the best experience. Still I’d watched until the end of the climactic fight and it’s hardly a great film to begin with, so I think I have enough to write something about it.
After finishing The Witcher 3 and getting a better idea of the story of Geralt and Yennefer, I thought I’d give the book series the games were based on a go. I remember looking into the series back when the first game was released but I recall that the English versions weren’t ready yet. The whole thing consists of two collections of short stories and a series of five novels by Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski. The Last Wish is chronologically the earliest of the various works and indeed the English edition was only published in 2007, more or less at the same time as the first game.