I’m a bit of a sucker for games that manage to combine mechanics with story in interesting ways, especially with this being about playing a king who has to balance the needs of his country and also his family. Unfortunately I don’t think this counts as one of the successful examples as too often it’s difficult to tell which outcomes are hardcoded to happen no matter what you do and how much your decisions actually matter. It’s also an odd combination of sometimes being cutesy and other times being horrifically dark. I laud its makers for their boldness in creating what is in effect a very grim fairy tale but in the end, this isn’t a game that really worked for me.
Elia Kazan and Tennessee Williams are of course the creative team who made A Streetcar Named Desire. This one was made five years later and it’s immediately apparent from its opening scenes that it shares the same DNA. Unfortunately while there are strong scenes in it and there’s no way that the characters in it can be said to be psychologically uninteresting, this is a case of the whole being lesser than the sum of its parts. None of the characters in it are remotely likable and the whole film oozes with filth and nastiness, yet somehow it is mockingly framed as a comedy. I don’t understand the rationale behind many of the creative decisions here and I don’t like the film. Nonetheless I can recognize the genius of Kazan and Williams in it.
Céline Sciamma is rapidly becoming my favorite modern French director with her women-focused films. Here is another, about the relationship between a child and her mother told in a manner surely no one will expect. I love how complete and perfect this work is: the excellence of the performances of the two child actresses who carry the film, the accurate yet subtle insight into how children are dismissed by adults and all of it in a package only a little over an hour. It’s a wonderful example of compact, economical filmmaking that I will recommend to everyone I know.
I added this onto my watchlist purely because of Ridley Scott’s name and because the subject matter seemed promising. But I really should have heeded the atrocious reviews because this film is so mediocre I wondered why Scott wanted to take this project on. This isn’t about fashion or even the world of luxury goods at all but rather is about a feud within the Gucci family that would eventually lead to the murder of Maurizio Gucci in 1995. The characters are businesspeople not artists or craftsmen and it’s not even a particularly serious depiction of business. Lady Gaga gives her all to her role as Patrizia Reggiani but everyone just seems to be going through the motions. Since everyone doesn’t seem much bothered, I don’t see why the audience should either.
As promised, I finishing the final part of what ought to really be the first complete book starring Murderbot. I do believe this may well be my favorite entry of the set of four as there is somewhat less combat in here and instead Murderbot mostly has to deal with infiltrating a large space station while posing as a human and spends a lot of his time agonizing over meeting his original crew again. Finally we get the conversations and emotional closure I’ve been longing for over Murderbot being accepted as a person. This doesn’t redeem the series as a whole in my eyes but it does make bring it to a suitably fitting end.
After years of not watching a single Malaysian film, I suppose I’m picking up the slack now. The Story of Southern Islet is still really not that well known and this is director Chong Keat Aun’s first film. Nonetheless I believe it’s the best Malaysian film I’ve seen in a long time and is able to hold its own against the world’s best. Chong is actually a reasonably well-known figure in our local cultural circles but this is his first foray into directing. The result is an impressive debut that proves that he really does have the technical skills and artistic vision to have a promising career ahead of him.
Pedro Almodóvar’s films can be hit or miss with me and this one is definitely a miss in my book. The main story is perfectly cromulent even if some decisions in it seem a little suspect. On top of that is tacked on a secondary story about excavating the mass graves of victims of the Franco regime. This lends dramatic weight to the film but feels like a cheap trick as it’s so tangential. If it had been made by a lesser director, I think it would be a solid credit in their filmography. But with such renowned names attached to this project, it ends up being underwhelming.
