Log: week 17 / 2024

The problem with Swift is that the songs are shallow, but her performances try to be deep and emotional, and she's just not a good enough actor. The production is flawless, but none of it ever looks effortless. On top of that, Swift's meager attempts to engage with the audience feel fake and forced, only underlining that this is nothing more than a huge commercial undertaking.

On the technical side, it's a rather dull registration of the concert. You can do so much with editing and camera work, but my guess is that Swift and her army of fans aren't interested in that type of cinema. Based on this film, her enormous success remains a pretty big enigma for me.

Hanabi is a respected musician who is enjoying some time away from his fame. One day a mysterious young girl stands in front of his door, introducing herself as Hibana. Hanabi isn't too taken with her presence at first, but she's an insistent girl, and the two form a strong bond over the course of the summer.

The setting is lovely, the music is nice, the characters are intriguing and the pacing is the right kind of slow. Add a little dance/ballet scene at the end and it's obvious why this references Iwai. This is one of Shinohara's better films and an easy recommend for fans of Japanese romance.

Edna Spalding sees her life falling to pieces when her husband is shot dead by accident and she has to pay off the loan for their farm all by herself. She has two kids to take care of, luckily a wandering man decides to help her farm some cotton, in return for a roof over his head. Not all is lost for this family.

The cinematography is dreary, the performances are stern and lacking emotion, whereas the plot is just gushing with sentiment. None of the emotions feel earned, the film is way too long and the ending is horrid. No doubt there's an audience for these types of films, I would rather stay away as far as possible.

BroZone is no more, after a pretty terrible performance. The brothers each go their own way. The youngest gets kidnapped by two aspiring artists, the only way he could ever hope to escape is when all the brothers come back together to sing in perfect harmony, breaking the diamond case that's keeping him locked up.

Sure enough, it's not just endless references to bad boybands, there's also some cheap Hollywood morality to make things even worse. The film looks pretty cheap for a Dreamworks production, I hated all of the songs and the dub is horrendous. Do I have anything positive to say about this film? Nope.

When boarding a train, an older man is called upon by a younger woman. To everyone's surprise, he throws a bucket of water over her head. Once settled on the train, his fellow passengers are eager to hear what the story is behind this little scene, and so the man explains what happened before.

The age difference between the main characters is quite big, and the "romance" isn't very romantic. Once you get by the borderline creepy relationship, what remains is some back-and-forth between two genuinely irritating characters. At least the story remains somewhat unpredictable and the pacing isn't too bad, so it's not all bad.

A small rural community is going about its business when it hears that a glamping site is opening very close by. They go to a meeting where two representatives unveil the plans to them. The meeting doesn't go quite as planned and the representatives return soon after to present a new proposition.

The pacing is very slow but deliberate. Hamaguchi takes his time, with many scenes playing out in real-time, aptly setting the mood. I'm a bit surprised about the setup (quite a few contemporary Japanese dramas deal with withering local communities, Hamaguchi's take appears to be the opposite), it's also a bit too generic for my taste. The ending does add some intrigue, but not enough to make this a great film. A perfectly serviceable movie though, just a bit overhyped because of the name attached to it.

Two young lesbians go on a trip to Florida. They rent a car, inadvertently making them accomplices to a criminal scheme. The car holds an important briefcase, the girls are wholly unaware but they have two henchmen on their backs, who are trying to track them down as quickly as possible.

Make no mistake, the comedy is pretty crude and blunt. If you want subtlety, you're not going to find it here. Not like most comedies that are made these days. The performances are good too (very self-aware), the plot is fun, the runtime is nice and short and the pacing is slick. It's nothing too special, just some prime entertainment. A welcome surprise.

Po is supposed to become the new spiritual leader, but that means he has to say goodbye to his life of adventuring and kicking ass. He's not too keen on doing that, so when the opportunity presents itself, he decides to save his valley for one last time. For that, he has to counter the plans of The Chameleon.

It's the same kind of humor, in the same type of setting, mixing purely US sensibilities with Chinese culture. The comedy is horrid, the voice acting is bad, and the plot is utterly boring. If I want Chinese fantasy cinema, iQiyi and similar are releasing these films on a daily basis, and still, they're better than this junk.