You know this is Cinema when the movie makes you cry over rocks.
Hellbound is frustratingly shallow and oft aimless in its approach to a story that had potential to be as deep, dark and layered.
The Green Knight enthralls your senses like no other Arthurian tale. Gorgeously shot sequences of reality dissolving into the surreal are rife with a semiotic texture that renders the characters almost monolithic. However, Patel and Vikander dominate when needed and deliver. Wanted to love it more, but couldn't for something I can't put my hand on.
Shockingly bad. Doesn't even live up to Netflix's dumb but fun movie standards. Needlessly long tedious watch with bad writing, bad dialogue, bad acting, and very boring characters.
A mesmeric blend of fragmented realities, disconcerting visuals and social commentary. Some of the best editing I have ever seen, conflates reality and illusion with ease and verve all the while culminating to a deceptively simple finale. Splendid yet trauma inducing animation.
Also shines a light on the dark side of fame and celebrity culture and the dissociation of identity someone might feel working under the lime light. Satoshi Kon at his best, we lost him too soon.
Porco Rosso is Miyazaki striking perfect balance between childish joy and jaded adult stoicism. A pig piloting a bright red plane in the summers of Italy captures the magic of Ghibli while also drawing a dark portrait of a generation stripped of its soul by the war.
Arcane has up the ante on storytelling in not just the animation genre but the whole of complacent, unoriginal and increasingly boring mainstream filmmaking. Infectiously stylish with its richly layered writing. Arcane is an almost perfect blend of style and substance, a rare feet few acheive.
A rare crime show more interested in the story of its victims than it's the villain. Introduces a much-needed empathetic approach to a genre that has become too obsessed with intellectual counterplay up to the point of being utterly insensitive to its characters. Great acting by all the leads and good chemistry between the detective duo. Enjoyed every minute of it.
A decent action drama that lacks good writing but is good enough to semi-mindlessly binge on.
The Lego Movie is ridiculously fun while offering more than just that. Richly layered plot, fantastic animation and a sense of humor that is self aware offer more than what you expect.
The Forever Purge takes on more than it can chew while trying too hard to give a message, nullifying its impact. Some of the action is decent but, all of the characters are really bland and fail to keep the story absorbing.
Original dark comedy that entertains with a strong female-led narrative.
Loki was fun. An overlong explainer for the future projects of MCU. I did like the more personal style Marvel adopted for its series but, something always feels out of place. The realism Loki tries to bring into the ultra formalist franchise never seems to fully realize itself. At least that's what makes me feel moving in and out of the story very frequently which kind of dampens the fun. Still, a decent show that is not at all boring to watch.
Tale of a Princess Kaguya is a search for true happiness. Finding it yourself and not confirming to others' opinions, and realizing that after one dies, none of that matters anymore.
In This Corner of the World tackles similar themes from Grave of the Fireflies but finds its own unique way of presenting them perfectly. Beautifully animated and patiently paced, it manages to show the reality of survival while still celebrating happiness in small things.
Across the Spiderverse redefines what animation movies can be. A perfect blend of style and subject, painstaking detail in animation and universally relatable themes make this one of the best movies in the last couple of decades.
Since Into the Spiderverse is about Miles accepting himself, Across the Spiderverse is about his friends and family accepting him, I shall assume Beyond the Spiderverse is about the multiverse accepting Miles. Add to that the reveal in the climax and we got one hell of a movie coming up.
Koreeda neither judges his characters nor does he sell their vulnerability, going as far as to obscure their emotions about to burst out into the open. Broken people build a family to be a little less broken. Endearing and tragic at the same time, Broker is perhaps the unadulterated form of forgiveness.
Rashomon presents profound contentions of philosophy in exquisitely blocked, effortlessly paced screenplay of a simple story. The fact that Kurosawa makes this amazing feat so painless to acheive is the reason why he's the superlative filmmaker.
The Souvenir's intent to be a dispassionate and a secretive semi-biographical affair of a young female in 80s London maybe worked a little too well and completely left me alienated from the vulnerability that I think, is supposed to bind me to the film. Unfortunately, this made watching the movie excruciatingly dull and painful.
Painting a portrait of a complex person with undeniably repulsive character traits while not being overly dismissive of them due to a narrative's need to idealise, at least to some extent, its protagonist is what Bojack Horseman does best. Occasionally the hybrid animal-human setting brews up some genuine humor but often the show is a bleak and unapologetic look at how bad systems amplify the unsavory traits of humans while simultaneously rewarding the individual with material benefits.
A commendable farewell to Craig's Bond in the franchise's most emotional entry. Starts out great and looses its pace towards the ending. The new villain is too bland and the conclusion is obvious early on. Wonderful stunt-work and good cinematography.
A decent action drama that lacks good writing but is good enough to semi-mindlessly binge on.
Fear Street Part Three: 1666 continues in the same vein of the previous movies with a decent plot and lots of gore churned into an enjoyable thriller. Imagining the same actors in past characters was a good choice instead of introducing new ones, created a leeway for the movie to ignore establishing characters and jump right into the plot without making it uninteresting. The big payoff in the end is satisfying enough after spending three movies to earn it.
If only the succint performances and somber cinematography weren't undermined by the casual approach Minamata takes in telling its story, it would have surely reached its full potential as a haeartbreaking story based on real life. Regardless Depp and Bages' authenticity alone deserves praise.
Knives is just too cool for Scott anyway.
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is one of a kind adaptation of a graphic novel that is quirky, funny, surreal, and tons of douchebag characters.
"You didn't blink."
"At mother's love?"
Some of the coldest people in coldest places making me feel the warmest of emotions.
Ante Sundaraniki is a well-made fun rom-com. Good use of non-linear storytelling to maintain the pacing of the story and the humor shines too. Introductory social commentary doesn't venture beyond a surface level but, its still welcome given how little of that is done right in Telugu movies. Tad overlong since the script takes little too many detours. Everything said, I love rom-coms and this a pretty good one at that.
Marred by a slack script and a needlessly convoluted plot, Innocence falters despite its decent screenplay and good performances.
Angel's Egg felt like an eternity of some lost soul wandering the unending plains of nothingness to only reflect itself as a dream to me that I will never be sure is just that.
