Ramblings on Cinematic Matters
Before continuing my Zhang Yimou retrospective, I must take a quick detour to a seminal movie in the genre that would define the next stage in Zhang’s career: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Zhang Yimou broke into a new artistic realm in the early 21st century. Having made his name with historical family dramas and off-beat, …
Continue reading “Walking on Air: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon Review”
I continue to catch up, over the holidays, on interesting content. Moving outside my usual reviewing scope, I look at a book and a miniseries. They are both about the movies, though, so it is not that big a change! Five Came Back: A Story of Hollywood and the Second World War (2014), by Mark …
Continue reading “The Celluloid War: Five Came Back (2014) and Five Came Back (2017) Review”
The holiday season is an excellent time to catch up on good and interesting movies I missed the first time around. Here, I catch up on One Night in Miami… When I reviewed The Trial of the Chicago 7 over a year ago, I lamented how an exciting premise—the debate among a group of radicals …
Continue reading “Fighting Together: One Night in Miami… Review”
Finally completing my Studio Ghibli retrospective last month was quite a benchmark. I felt a real sense of accomplishment at having finished a look-back at 24 movies that I started more than three years previously. Yet, as I joked with friends at the time, my basic state of mind at the end of the project …
Continue reading “Next Steps for the Cameraman: A Quick Update”
UPDATE: I have revised the ranking below to include The Boy and the Heron. When I began this movie blog back in 2019, the first reviewing project I decided to undertake was a retrospective on Studio Ghibli’s work. I must admit I did not expect that (because of my slow work pace and various instances …
Continue reading “The Ghibli Retrospective: Final Rankings and Thoughts“
In the final review of my Ghibli retrospective, I examine the “proto-Ghibli” movie, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. Once upon a time, in the bygone era known as the early 1980s, a 40-something Japanese film director and artist named Hayao Miyazaki decided to make a movie. Miyazaki had at the time directed some …
Continue reading “Setting Off into the Unknown: Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind Review”
Next in my Zhang Yimou retrospective, I review the off-beat Happy Times. Happy Times (2000) is a movie that should not work. The plot is strange and wildly implausible. The tone occupies an uneasy middle ground somewhere between the comic and the tragic, the sappy and the bleak. The conclusion seems likely to leave many …
Continue reading “Laughing That We Might Not Cry: Happy Times Review“
Next in my Studio Ghibli retrospective, I turn to the most recent Ghibli movie to date, Earwig and the Witch. Earwig and the Witch (2020) feels like a movie made by some parallel universe version of Studio Ghibli. Recognizable Ghibli characteristics are here: a strong young heroine, a story that blends the domestic and the …
Continue reading “Children Are the Real Monsters: Earwig and the Witch Review“
Next in my Zhang Yimou retrospective, I look at The Road Home. The Road Home, Zhang Yimou’s second movie of 1999, is full of emotionally powerful themes. The movie deals variously with China’s rural-urban divide, especially rural areas’ falling populations and accompanying decline in community life; the generation gap between parents and children; aging; and …
Continue reading “Getting Lost along the Way: The Road Home Review“
Next in my Studio Ghibli retrospective, I look at The Red Turtle. Probably the first point to address in reviewing The Red Turtle (2016) is “Does this really count as a Ghibli movie?” My answer: Yes, to me it counts. The movie was co-produced by Studio Ghibli and as such is part of the studio’s …
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