I expected it to have a dinner scene like the one in <August: Osage County> but it was more like a collection of sharp cold broken ice shards that melt slowly. The distant characters with their seemingly boring suburban lives burst and exploded into passion, compassion, tears, and death when an ice storm arrived and […]

This is a good example of how narrative, characters, and cinematography creates incredible synergy. From the beginning, I noticed that the camera is bold and showing off. And then the dramatic soundtrack followed. This naturally pumped me up as if I was watching the tennis match in the movie right there at the court. On […]

This is a different type of Rinklater movie in that it was more dramatic and entertaining than his other movies. But it had an element of philosophy in it as usual (well maybe a bit heavy-handed because there was a scene about this philosophical conversation). At the essence, the movie is about how and whether […]

Perhaps because I have never been to Finland, I did not know what to expect about a slice of an ordinary life of a Finnish person. Because of this, even though the movie is very much based on everyday elements, the whole time I felt like I was watching a movie set in a distant […]

Over-promise and under-deliver. The premise was interesting but it failed to develop it into an interesting story. Certainly, the sci-fi setting of growing a baby outside the mother’s womb was fascinating. I get dissatisfied with a film when a character personality or behavior changes dramatically without any plausible reason, this happened in this movie. There […]

This is not the greatest horror movie but at least it had an interesting plot line. I liked that the horror element came from the growing doubt between a married couple. The clever thing that they did was the doubt was not one-directional but it changed throughout the film, which was quite unexpected. Another clever […]

The hypothetical civil war in the movie is a bit of red herring. The movie is about the challenges and ordeals that photojournalists experience in a war zone, which unfortunately we see from our news almost everyday these days. The movie was intentionally vague about why the war happened. In our political divide, this could […]

It is not easy to stoke immense warmth and love through a film. It’s easier to create emotional moments such as sadness and shock. Sometimes this is done by separating what characters can see and what audience can watch. In this movie, the camera was so intimate with the characters that I felt that I […]

As someone who navigated the complex immigration system in the US, this movie was an easy sell. Julio Torres’s whimsicalness and Tilda Swinton’s humorous character were plus. But I was pleasantly surprised that this movie was more than that. It was a story about Alejandro and Elisabeth, who appeared to be diametrically opposed, but in […]

People collectively start having dreams about Nick Cage’s character one day. Soon he becomes an internet start, but this fame soon becomes notoriety because his dreams become nightmares to people. He didn’t do any terrible thing in reality (well, other than being human and vain), and it is natural that he feels frustrated by this […]