Log: week 2 / 2025

I like going into film blind, but I don't think it's ever happened to me with a musical. I didn't expect it at all and I must admit that it bothered me here. The premise is interesting enough, the setting is cool and there's enough quirky weirdness to warrant the runtime. But the musical numbers really didn't work for me.

Wisit Sasanatieng's latest harks back to his earlier work. No more straight-forward horror and/or sullen colors, back are the bright teals and pinks. His signature vision of Thailand is no doubt an acquired taste, but I love the way he plays around with color, the more otherworldly it looks, the more I like it.

A rather sullen Japanese drama that doesn't offer much hope. Rather than focus on the period immediately after a young child has disappeared, the film rejoins the family three months after the fateful event, when most of the world has stopped caring. For the people involved, their emotional hell continues.

A nice little horror anthology that offers some interesting shorts, though it lacks a true standout. Each of the stories has an interesting enough twist or premise, and the directors paid attention to the presentation, but there's nothing here that baffles or surprises, and that's what makes anthologies interesting.

A fun paranoia thriller that starts well but fails to hold on to the unsettling mood it has built up. The second half of the film is too focused on revealing the mystery and explaining the narrative, which is not what made this film interesting to me. But that's a common pitfall for these types of films.

Brad Anderson is a solid director, but I have no clue how this made it into theaters. It's not a terrible film, but it's pretty damn mediocre and if this had been the 90s, it would've been average shelf filler aimed at the local video rental store. I'm sure we can do better than give films like this a theater release.

A film divided into two very distinct parts. The start of the film is rather calm and subdued, slowly setting the stage for a second half that ends up being more gun-fueled. I'm not sure if it even works all that well, but both halves kept me entertained, so Kurosawa must've done something right here.

Nicolas Cage headlines this somewhat generic horror flick. It takes a couple of cues from A Quiet Place and throws in some better monster designs to compensate for a lacking budget. It's perfectly fine filler, especially when you're in the mood for this type of film, but it's hardly a standout.

Even though this didn't feel like a right-wing produced doc aimed at taking down the left, the lack of context and the rigidness of its message didn't make it all that trustworthy. No doubt the stories of the people involved are valid, they certainly felt genuine, but the experience of five people isn't really enough to make broad statements about an entire generation.

It's been more than two decades since I last watched the Wachowski's first. It's a movie I liked when I hadn't seen too many films yet. I appreciated the single-location stuff and some of the edgier crime scenes, but twenty years later it doesn't feel all that special anymore. It's still a fun film, but nothing more.

Gens' latest is a brutal action flick. A bit too brutal maybe, because even though the drama is effective, I'm not sure I needed that from an action film that's mostly serving kick-ass action scenes. Some emotional investment is definitely a plus, but the film gets pretty dark and nihilistic in places.

A nice neon-colored Chinese thriller, about a man trying to rectify the sins of his past. There are slight crime and drama elements present, but this is primarily a film where characters move around in slums and darkness. And it's a pretty good one at that, though slightly too long-winded.

Sometimes it's better to end a career on a high. I'm not sure why Woo bothered to remake one of his most popular films for a streaming service, but the result is pretty much what you'd suspect. Some winks to his glorious past, but the film can't hold its own to modern action cinema.

I was going to start by calling this film Kafkaesque, but it turns out The Trial is an actual adaptation of one of Kafka's novels, so yeah. If the story of a man stuck in an absurd legal system sounds like it'll be a critique of our bewildering bureaucratic structures, you now know the reason.

Another one of those turn-of-the-century Japanese horror films I never gotten around to. It's been nearly three decades since its release, so I'm making good use of the fact that they're being reissued, getting their final chance to be rediscovered by the masses. And so far, it's been worth the trouble.

I'm not sure how serious Takal was about the feminist angle in this loose Black Christmas remake, I'm also not going to try and find out to avoid disappointment, but kudos for making this film in an era when wokeness and overt feminism were sure to bomb box offices and IMDb ratings. They sure made an effort to anger as many defensive men as possible.

Fujii continues his winning streak, this time paying homage to Japanese/Taiwanese romance cinema, tipping its hat to films like Love Letter and Three Times along the way. The premise is endearing, the performances are strong and Fujii's direction is spot on. There are some lovely moments here, fans of Asian cinema get a few extra treats and the conclusion is fitting. The film goes on just a little too long, but apart from that I thoroughly enjoyed it.

A documentary that brings together three stories that are marginally linked. I didn't see a lot of added value in bringing them together, but at least Steiner goes for a show-don't-tell approach and each of the stories has a certain appeal, even though the film couldn't quite hold my attention until the end.

Maury and Bustillo return with an ice-cold police procedural that reminded me of their Spanish counterparts. There's a supernatural angle that makes things a bit spookier and the duo's familiarity with the horror genre certainly helped, but in the end, this is a clear, unfiltered police mystery.