Movies
For a while now, Asian-American cinema has been lauded as something worthy, whereas it's just plain old US drama with Asian-looking people. Minari is no different. It's a predictable, somewhat sentimental, and even borderline cheesy drama. It might as well be directed by Clint Eastwood. The performances are decent and the setting is idyllic, but that's about it. The drama is pedestrian, the themes aren't all that original and the characters are very stereotypical. It's not a terrible film, but it isn't that noteworthy either. I guess having A24 plastered on top of it must've helped with the prestige, but that bit of branding didn't make the film better.Read all
I'm not entirely sure why they made a sequel, but apparently, the time was right to make another tornado chaser flick. The original film was pretty decent, sadly this one loses track of the main focus more than once. There's too much drama and marginal nonsense to call this a fun blockbuster. Edgar-Jones is a poor lead, Powell is downright irritating, and this whole South-Central USA vibe got on my nerves after a while. But the tornado scenes are pretty amusing, even though there's not quite enough of them and they're spread too far apart. Great cinema this is not, but there were some amusing parts.Read all