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Shotgun Stories (2007)
Had promise but failed to really pull off key scenes
This ticks a lot of the boxes that I desire in a good movie. But one thing I couldn't get past was the movie's inability to get the most out of its key scenes. And the main culprit in this failure was the music, which was far too repetitive and insistent. It told me what to feel before I really felt anything, the way canned laughter kills a joke.
I usually like realistic, sparse dialogues, and I could see that this was what the film was aiming for, but besides Shannon I don't think many of the actors quite had the chops to pull it off. The end result was some pretty wooden acting which removed the tension from some pivotal scenes, most notably the final showdown (surrender?).
Also, what kind of basketball coach was that guy?? I'm not sure if that was supposed to be funny or not.
Boy A (2007)
A movie that makes you consider justice from all sides
The wonderful thing about this film is that you can actually empathise with each character. Jack is the protagonist who has been released from a juvenile sentence for involvement in the murder of a child. As the story unfolds we begin to love Jack - he's sweet, caring, socially awkward, loyal, and just wants to get on in life. There are two time parameters in the film, the present and the past, and as the past unfolds parallel to the present, we are convinced that Jack was framed or wrongly convicted in some way. But in the end we never know... We can only hope, and the complex feeling of hoping that Jack is innocent, but knowing that he might not be, and then thinking that he still deserves a chance even if he did do it in consideration of his circumstances and the man he has become, teaches us something new about forgiveness and empathy.
But the fact that we don't really know 100%, that Jack may well have gone after that girl with a knife and smiled while slashing her to bits, allows us to empathise with his coworkers and girlfriend, too. Of course they feel betrayed and dirty for having associated with Jack.
Jack's friendship with the lads at his new job is so effortlessly natural. And the romance between Jack and Michelle, and the significance of the words "I never thought I'd say those words, or have them said to me" in the context of the story is simply beautiful. My heart jumped when I saw Michelle at the end, but of course sank when the truth became clear.
I pray that Jack didn't jump, that Terry called him and talked him around at the last minute, and that he had the chance he deserved at happiness with another identity. But we never know. The fact that the audience genuinely cares is what makes this film special. I imagine I'll still be thinking about this film for years to come.
Mid90s (2018)
A setting is not a theme
I watched this film mostly because I saw that Jonah Hill had written and directed it. While I wasn't that big a fan of Hill's earlier work (he just seemed like a smaller Seth Rogan), I think he really came into his own in a (somewhat) serious role in Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot - definitely one of the finest acting performances I've seen in recent years.
So, how does he get on behind the camera? The film is well directed, but unfortunately I don't think it really succeeded in terms of its content. While I can see that it's ripe with nostalgia for his childhood in the 90s and full of references that others from his generation/region can indulge in (game cartridges, CDs, etc.), none of this actually constitutes a theme or anything to ponder afterwards. I was hoping for something like The Florida Project but was left pretty disappointed.
Yes, each character has his own issues which could constitute something thematic or poignant, but I pretty much learned about each of these (poverty/neglect/substance abuse) by being told in dialogue rather than ascertaining it myself. And, besides the ending, none of these problems were really presented in a way that had any serious effect on the characters or made me care. And speaking of the ending, I appreciate that the viewer was supposed to learn that the guys genuinely care about each other and the mother was supposed to figure this out too, but I honestly didn't feel it. The mother, especially, behaved in a pretty inconsistent manner by treating her son's potential murderers(!) kindly after the accident.
And a final note on being unrealistic (and I assume that was the purpose of the film - to convey an honest slice of life in the 90s), that girl at the party would NEVER have gone near Sunburn in the real world. She'd have been interested in 20 year olds, not a kid who looks ten, unless she had severe mental issues. Couldn't they have found an actress who was a bit younger and less attractive? I was actually laughing while watching simply because of how preposterous this scene was.
Still, it gets 7/10 because it was genuinely funny at times and at least tried to do something different. But I hope for Hill's next film he has some kind of theme and plot structure rather than just a setting as the film's main draw card.
Fúsi (2015)
A worthy attempt at an honest portrait
This kind of movie is right up my alley. It's a worthy attempt at an honest portrait of a man who is suffering quietly and finds a path to improving his lot, namely through his love interest, Sjöfn. This is the kind of shaky camera, bleak close-ups film that really tries to immerse the viewer by making it seem almost like a documentary. The casting is good in parts: Fusi is overweight and looks and feels like someone who'd exist in the real world, but I think Sjöfn is perhaps just a little too good-looking to be in the position she's in (working as a garbage processor, single, and desperate enough to consider Fusi as a romantic partner). It's odd how movies always seem to push the envelope on the attractiveness of female characters to the point of implausibility, but I guess that's a minor (and possibly un-PC gripe) I have. The bigger gripe is that, considering the film wants to seem like an honest, gritty, realistic portrait, it manufactures some pretty cliched and implausible situations. For example, Fusi's coworkers, in order to bully and humiliate Fusi, pay a prostitute to have sex with him. This makes him uncomfortable and he refuses aggressively. But does this kind of thing really happen in real life? These are airport workers, presumably with little cash to spare - is it really a funny prank to blow a week's wages just so they can watch a 40-year old man feel awkward? These are grown men remember. Now I'm not denying that bullying exists in the workplace, I just don't think it looks like this. I feel that this scene was written by someone who might have read about bullying or seen it on TV, but had never experienced it in the real world. I wish it had been a bit more subtle. Fusi is already in a miserable situation - we'd have empathised with him in a more realistic bullying situation, like for example, his coworkers sniggering when he fumbles over his words, or spotting him on a date with Sjöfn and subtly hitting on her while putting him down.
Fusi is a good movie though, worth making and worth seeing. (Sorry, I'm not good at writing positive things about films, only criticisms) The above gripes are all that stood in the way of this movie getting a 9/10 (the highest score I give).
Hyakuen no koi (2014)
Meandering, disjointed, shallow
Meandering, disjointed, shallow, this is pretty much what I've come to expect from Japanese movies.
I was intrigued initially, having seen the kind of captivating performances Sakura Ando is capable of, in Shoplifters for example. The first five minutes also seemed to pretty authentically portray a dysfunctional family and a lead character with serious and plausible human flaws. Unfortunately, that got my hopes up a little too high. From there, the entire premise seems to sink into the mold of another typical Japanese movie, with the eccentric and quirky shallow characters and meandering, arbitrary storyline. It really got me thinking about why all these sorts of movies are always set in rural areas. One theory is that the irrational behavior of the characters is better justified in these kinds of places. For example, I found it ridiculous that Ichiko still had feelings for Yuji after being so unceremoniously spurned by him and after surely gaining a bit of self respect through her boxing success, but in a small town perhaps we can justify this kind of behaviour by assuming that there simply weren't any other guys around.
The acting in most Japanese movies really irks me because you can see that they're obviously "performing". Look at the side-to-side movements from Noma as he's talking to Ichiko. He looks as though he is doing some kind of manzai performance with her as the straight character. But the director needs to realize that he's directing a movie that is supposedly reflecting the real world. This kind of TV acting performance has no place there. It completely kills any tension or empathy you might have for the characters and reminds you that you're watching actors trying to perform for you. I was really hoping this movie would be different and have some kind of genuine human element to it the way Shoplifters did. Sakura Ando is a class act and I really feel she was let down by pretty much everyone else, in front of and behind the camera.
The storyline also bugged me in that I didn't understand the motives of the characters or the relevance of any of the motifs. Like, why did Yuji keep leaving bananas on the counter? I thought something would come back about little things like that, but they just left it. I can imagine the director thinking that he was expertly "leaving things to the viewer's interpretation" but the viewer is simply left thinking they've been abandoned by the director completely.
The rape of Ichiko, which should have had more bearing on the story and been treated with a bit more gravity, seemed like an insignificant after-thought. At no point are we given any indication that she took up boxing based on that. And it seems a bit sloppy that we see her soon after enjoying sex with Yuji despite having lost her virginity by being abused and raped.
Why did Ichiko suddenly feel that she was justified in assaulting her boss? He was simply telling her to abide by the company rules. It simply does not make sense. It seems that whoever wrote the story and decided what the characters would do didn't think about the plausible motives for those actions. It just felt so arbitrary.
Not that the characters were nearly well-developed or relatable enough to care about by the end of the film, but I was at least hoping that someone would show some kind of significant change by the end of the film. All I noticed was that Ichiko suddenly found an interest in boxing. I thought she'd at least punch the guy who broke her heart and is obviously a selfish prick, but she decides to go out for a meal with him. Roll the credits. Is that the message of the film? Try something new and give it a go, and even if you fail, it's the journey that matters? Are we in high school or something?
I charitably give this 6 stars, but please bear in mind that a movie has to be grievously flawed to get 5 or less. Sakura Ando's acting (physical especially) and the thrilling fight at the end are pretty much the only redeeming factors in the film.
After Life (2019)
Another lazy, shallow piece of work
I can't believe how well this has been received. It seems like positive comments on social media are all from people who have lost their partner and feel comforted by the show. I'm in no position to tell these people they are wrong, but it seems Gervais devised the premise of the show and then simply used it as a vehicle to insert his own personal opinions about the world. I encourage people to go back to The Office and Extras, watch them a dozen times, and marvel at the detail they put into crafting every scene. To be honest, after watching the first episode with my wife, I had to stop it and show her Extras instead, lest she get a bad opinion of what Gervais is capable of.
I didn't see a "Tony", I simply saw Gervais practically talking to the camera throughout. There was little of the subtlety or nuance seen in The Office and Extras that I've now given up on expecting in subsequent works. The events in one scene were often explained in the following scene, i.e. Tony would experience something, and then in the next scene he'd be sitting on a bench repeating the story to the woman (who was always there when he was, by the way).
The junkie took quite a lot of cash from his wallet the first time... Why didn't he kill himself then?
And more importantly, where did we see any remorse from Tony for enabling someone to kill himself? He only seemed to be sorry that he told his brother in law and upset him.
The story arc, if it could be called that, basically happens in the first and last episode. It reminded me of Life On the Road, in which he basically filled the movie with as much material as he could, then hastily tried to tie it all together with a feel-good message in the last few minutes.
What on earth is he going to do in the second series? He's already turned into a nice person (very suddenly, and without any particularly compelling reason). He's going to get with Maggie (I thought they were just friends? Oh, wait, that's Extras. Don't even get me started on how he has recycled, not only several actors from previous works, but basically transplanted Kev from the atrocity that was Derek).
I imagine Stephen Merchant and Karl Pilkington watching this and shaking their heads. I hope other people are too. Again, I simply cannot fathom the critical acclaim it's getting. This is more of a vanity project than a work of art. We should expect more from Gervais, the co-creator of the greatest comedies of our generation.