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White Rabbit (2018)
A beautiful, weird story
This is not a film for everyone. I personally loved it. I thought the casting was excellent, and the story was well-told, though it did unravel a bit toward the end. The themes of friendship, uncertainty, awkwardness, and what it means to be a minority in this country were all poignantly told. The underlying mental struggles of the lead character were hard to see but realistically represented, and I liked seeing Mukbang being represented (albeit in a small way).
Maniac (2018)
Tedious and interesting
Think Wes Anderson does Twin Peaks as written by Sigmund Freud. There's a lot of symbolism and social commentary, some quirky humor. A little story, some character development, barely enough structure. The combination feels tedious, like an incipient sneeze that never comes. You're left with your finger on your nose, waiting for the release. But it doesn't come. It doesn't come.
A.P. Bio (2018)
Cute network show
This is a cute show with great comedic actors including Patton Oswalt, Paula Pell, Niecey Nash, and of course Glenn Howerton. The student actors round out the cast to give it a great ensemble feel. The premise and storylines are creative and interesting, but the writing sometimes feels..restricted? Different from other NBC shows and more along the lines of a CBS sitcom. Maybe it's the uniformity of the lighting, costuming, and set design. And while I expected a little more improv, all in all I would say this show is worth a watch IMO.
The Innocents (2018)
Sci-fi teen drama with great casting but too many plot holes
I really wanted to like this series. And while I didn't outright hate it or think it's garbage like some reviews, I did find it a bit unstable at times in its writing and character motivation. There is good chemistry among the cast, and the leads were very good. There is beautiful cinematography, and the story is compelling. However somewhere around the 3rd episode things begin to feel overly-complicated, and the story meanders. It never felt like it went where it should have gone. There were lots of plot holes; in particular the skin-to-skin contact aspect of shifting being mitigated by wearing gloves. If that's all it took to prevent shifting, why all the other complications? It makes no sense. The ending was a disaster as well, and quite disappointing. Perhaps they meant it to be a cliff-hanger for a second season. I don't know if I will be back for season 2.
Historia de un clan (2015)
Netflix's best kept secret
Historia de un clan is a gripping crime drama inspired by true events that took place in Argentina in the 1980s. With hints of Breaking Bad and The Sopranos, Historia de un clan is excellently cast, terrifically written, and beautifully directed. You feel like you're peering into the complicated lives of an extraordinary family, seemingly perfect on the outside, with many dimensions and dark hidden corners.
Girls Incarcerated: Young and Locked Up (2018)
Prison pipeline and authoritarianism
These children are incarcerated and treated in ways which disregard their current stages of development and encourage further delinquent behavior because their true issues aren't being addressed, which perpetuates the cycle of re-offending and returning to incarceration. What is the common denominator here and what interventions need to happen to make them change?
Many of these young women come from troubled backgrounds. There is increasing and compelling evidence for challenging authoritarian approaches to discipline and rehabilitation due to the compelling evidence from the ACEs study and its implications for the influence early traumatic childhood experiences have on brain and behavior development. Read it.
As long as people are treated like they are the sum total of their problems and locked in solitary confinement for days on end under the pretense of "Making A Change", nothing will change to alter the cycle of institutionalization that these young people are inevitably facing due to lack of proper rehabilitative and constructive guidance.
Rather, they're being treated to glorified babysitting with arbitrary rules and regulations that facilitate the prison-industrial complex, and do a major disservice to dampen the potential of some truly bright, capable young future leaders.
This type of incarceration is wrong and is in no way helpful for young people, and it wastes millions in taxpayer dollars every year. It is astonishingly, frustratingly the norm rather than the exception. Look up programs who consider the implications of the ACEs study and design their curriculum and treatment of children based on looking at our responsibility and their ability rather than as little adult offenders. #sorrynotsorry. fight me.
Marrowbone (2017)
Beautifully filmed, well acted and expertly directed film with great potential ultimately stifled by confused editing and last-minute mental health awareness message
This movie made me feel so conflicted. On one hand, I'm a sucker for a beautiful location, plucky kids and heartfelt narratives dealing with family togetherness and independence. I'm also a proponent of mental health awareness. It's high time we de-stigmatize and humanize and validate the suffering people experience at the hand of long-misunderstood phenomena that cause real pain and suffering. Too many horror films demonize people with mental illness and it's time for that to end.
On the other hand, I'm a person who has little patience for filmmakers who underestimate their audience or rely on trickery and manipulation to make their point or tell their story in a way which fits their definition of "horror". Which this film has in spades. Its final, admittedly touching point, isn't made until the final 15 minutes. It felt rushed. It was confusing. It was clichéd. And that's too bad because it had all the right pieces to be something really amazing. As it is, it feels more profound than it was because it ends on such a sentimental high note. Hence many of the positive reviews you see here.
The first half hour of the movie is engaging and emotional, and the story is easy to follow. You're introduced to a lovely family whom you want to see succeed. Tragedy strikes. Motivation is introduced via villains, cute kids and animal friends, and intriguing plot devices. Things begin to fall apart around the middle when disjointed tricks of editing to confuse the viewer into believing something is happening that isn't really happening. They're trying to get you to see things from the protagonist's perspective, but that message comes too little too late.
And all potential falls apart. Whatever message was trying to find a voice gets lost in translation.
Realistically, one movie cannot possibly be all things to all socially-relevant issues and invested audiences, but I feel like it's not hard to find a bridge to join two concepts like what this film is trying to marry which is family, acceptance, love, safety, and coinciding mental illness. There's a lot to unpack here, but the editing is like a baggage handler who sends your bags to Hawaii while you're off to England; you may have fun on your trip but you're just not gonna have what you need for the journey.
The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017)
You'll either love it or you'll hate it
The horror genre has seen a resurgence in the US in the last few years that is trying to reconnect to a mainstream audience. This film doesn't achieve that, because it is a piece of art and all art is subjective. This is a deeply unsettling, highly stylized film, and when the plot takes its twists and turns, if you aren't into "weird" films with nuanced approaches, you're going to hate this one, so much.
First there is the film's distinct rhythm and cadence. The actors speak in a flat, rapid manner that almost sounds like they're running lines for time. Next, the music is unsettling and often doesn't match what's happening on screen. This makes the viewer feel unsettled, possibly without being aware of why that is. The camera angles are Hitchcockian, the color palette like Kubrick. If you don't like Hitchcock or Kubrick, those things will annoy you. The plot takes a while to unfold and lurches and stalls without giving the audience any explanations. The interpretations are left ambiguous on purpose.
If you are the type of person who likes predictability and paint-by-numbers storytelling, you should definitely not watch this movie. Go see Avengers instead. If you're more comfortable with being uncomfortable in a movie, and/or a horror buff who is familiar with the works of Miike and Kurasawa, you might still hate this but you'll get something out of it regardless.
Downsizing (2017)
This is a film that needs to be seen with no expectations
I saw this film without knowing anything about it. I never like to watch trailers for films because I find they set an unreasonable expectation for what the viewer is told to think the film should be about, and when that expectation isn't met, people are rightfully disappointed. So I never watch trailers. Having said that, this is a film not without flaws. Ultimately though, the story is unique, intriguing, and definitely weird. If you are the type of person who likes weird, you'll probably dig this film. If you're the kind of person who prefers predictability and by-the-numbers painting, this film will definitely get on your nerves.
I can't really say much about this film without giving too much away. Matt Damon is solid as always. Hong Chau is by far the star of this movie; she absolutely stole the show. Her no-nonsense vulnerability and strength is often seen in female asian roles and it's definitely in demand. The plot is intriguing but this movie does seem to meander at several points. I was definitely bored in a few places, and sometimes the message was so muddy all I could do was stare and grin blankly like Cristoph Waltz does in so many of his scenes. Don't get me wrong, I love Cristoph, but it's almost as if they forgot to give his character lines or direction in several scenes.
Anyway, no film is perfect, and I happened to love this one, warts and all. It's one of the most interesting and delightfully weird films I've ever seen. Perfect? Absolutely not. Unique. Definitely. Worth a watch? That's entirely up to you and what kind of film-goer you are.
Game of Hyrule (2016)
Brilliant pop culture mashup
Game of Hyrule is a delightfully irreverent and silly Zelda-GOT mashup. You'll find references from all the Zelda games here, with several Game of Thrones references peppered throughout. If you're a Zelda fan you're likely to enjoy this.