Movie Review: Eternal Spring

 

Michael's Movie Grade: B+

An excellent animated documentary. 

This film is about a group of people in China from the Falun Gong spiritual movement. This movement has been outlawed in China and to stand up against this and for their faith they take over a Chinese TV station to talk about their faith.

This film is an example of a type of documentary that is becoming more popular and that I simply love. This is the animated documentary. This movie has the real-life people tell their stories, while these stories are accompanied by live action. This works perfectly and I am glad to see more movies in recent years embrace this idea. Documentaries that consist heavily of interviews and talking can have a way of feeling uncinematic and visually bland. However, documentaries that feature live action reenactments of events have a way of feeling phony. Yet with animation, there can be visually accompaniment to the dialogue while feeling like an illustration rather than a reenactment. This especially works well here as the animation brings a sense of excitement and suspense to the film. In fact, this movie can feel like a really good action and suspense film at times. The scenes with them trying to take over the TV station feel like they could have been from a fun heist movie. This is helped by the fact that we actually get an idea of who the people involved were (and are). We don't just get a rundown of a historical event but a deeply human movie. However, this film has much more to say than a simple suspense movie. This movie shows how the Chinese government oppresses people from many different religions and the extreme cruelty they use to implement the banning of various religions. This gives us a dark and disturbing look at how a government can oppress a people. Many of the scenes are hard to look at or see because of the cruelty involved. Yet it is important to know that such things happen in our world. 

This movie does have one major fault that really hurts it. That is the film's description of Falun Gong is incredibly vague. Little is said about it that can't apply to other spiritual movements. Those who know nothing about this movement will leave the theater knowing not much more. This is a problem as our main characters are being tortured and risking (or even losing) their lives over it. With that in mind, I think it would be important to know what they believe and why it is so important to them.

A very involving and well-made film.  

Movie Review: Parallel Mothers (Madres paralelas)

 

Michael's Movie Grade: A+

Pedro Almodóvar is one of my favorite directors and Parallel Mothers is one of his best films. 

The basic storyline of this film sounds like it could feel a bit like a soap opera, but as you watch the movie it does not come off this way at all. The reason for this is the pure sincerity and honesty put into this movie. In other words, this movie feels completely real without a single moment that rings false. Much of the reason for this comes from the main character herself. In lesser hands this character would have simply gone through the same emotions any movie character would in the same situation with no more depth than that. However, this character deals with many conflicting emotions This is a fully fleshed out character who overcomes any melodramatic overtones of the plot and becomes a completely real person. Much of this is due not only to Almodóvar's excellent script but an incredible performance by Penélope Cruz (her 7th film with Almodóvar). Almodóvar has referred to Cruz as muse and two always bring out the absolute best in each other every time they work together. This could not be clearer than in this film as Cruz gives perhaps the finest performance of her career. This is not an easy role to play but she plays it too perfection, both capturing the broad moments and the subtle with seemingly effortless ease. Not that she is the only one in cast worth noting as the entire cast is perfect in their roles. Young Milena Smit (in only her second feature film) is incredible as Ana, a young woman who our main character meets at the hospital while pregnant, but who will come to play a much larger role in her life. Smit and Cruz share incredible chemistry with each other and really light up the screen whenever they share it. This is certainly an actress to pay attention to. Pedro Almodóvar's script is incredibly well handled. This is not a movie in which you can predict anything that is going to happen. Yet Almodóvar wisely avoids anything that would make it feel too melodramatic. Instead, everything that happens no matter how unlikely feels like the most natural thing in the world. There are times when you can almost forget you are watching a fictional movie but instead feel you are watching the lives of these two women. This is also one of Pedro Almodóvar's most political films. This too is handled masterfully. It never feels like the characters stop to sermonize to you but instead these political points are told in the most natural and unobtrusive way. They are also incredibly intelligent and will leave you with food for thought as you leave the theater. While they do deal with the political history of Spain, you don't have to be familiar with that history to be affected by the powerful message behind this movie because it speaks not only to specific political events but great human truths that are often ignored and those are universal and timeless. All of this leads to an ending image that is simply cinematic perfection. 

This may be my favorite movie of 2021 and it is certainly a must see for any other fans of one of Spain's finest directors. 

Movie Review: Stillwater

 

Michael's Movie Grade: F

An long, tedious, slow, confused, pretentious and unfocused mess of a movie. 

This film never knows quite what it wants to be and loses focus very often. This movie has too many plots going on and sometimes it will spend too much time on one plot, that when you go back to the other you simply don't care anymore. There are also times when one plot will seemingly stop and the focus will change with no warning. This becomes worse when some of the scenes are incredibly slow and seemingly have nothing to do with the plot. Many of these scenes could have wound up on the cutting room floor and while this movie still wouldn't be great, it would at least be better and drag less. The scenes not only don't help the story but they add nothing to the film except to bore and lose the viewer's attention. They do not add a thing to the atmosphere, feel or enjoyment of the movie. 

This movie also tries to create a moral ambiguity with its main character. However this is poorly handled because these little depth or meaning behind it. So rather than creating something thought-provoking, the film simply becomes mean spirited and unpleasant. The third act of this film is in fact painful to watch because it is so unpleasant without enough depth to justify this. Sure Matt Damon gives a good performance but that is hardly enough to make this character anything worth our time. 

This film often tries to make political and social comments about Americas relationship to the rest of the world, but this too feels hollow and forced. Some of the commentary feels out of place and put into parts of the movie where it is completely unnecessary and the commentary that fits into the story offers no new insight that we haven't heard a thousand times before. 

The ending of this movie was a great risk on the filmmakers' part but unfortunately it is not a risk that pays off. Rather than giving us a new perceptive on what we saw before, it leaves the last two hours feeling completely pointless. It makes us feel like we wasted those two hours (and if you saw this movie than you did). The twist like the rest of the movie moved a too forced and laborious pace. Once we reach the point when we can all see how this will play out, it takes seemingly forever for it to do so. 

While in a way I want to applaud this movie for daring to take chances, I also have to acknowledge that there is not one chance taken that pays off and at the end of the day it is a terrible film. Avoid at all costs. 

Movie Review: The Courier

 

Note: I saw this film in a theater and I am so glad to be back.

Michael's Movie Grade: A-

A top notch Cold War spy thriller. 

I must start this review by praising what everyone else is praising about this movie and that is Benedict Cumberbatch's performance. To be honest before this movie I was mostly familiar with him from the MCU and The Current War. While I knew he was a good actor from these films, I was unaware he was capable of a performance like this. His acting here is incredible and despite the fact that I knew who the actor was, I never once thought about the actor while watching his performance. This performance starts out as charming and quite comedic but as the storyline gets more intense so does the way he plays this character. Yet this always feels like the same person, no matter how intense or how charming the performance is. Cumberbatch knows how to make you believe you are watching a regular likable person being pushed to his limits. The last act of this movie is simply a tour de force for Cumberbatch. That is not to say that he is the only good member of the cast. In fact everybody in this movie truly shines.  This film also benefits from an incredible true story. This story is a perfect story for a movie like this because while it is true it also larger than life. The story is told extremely well. There is not a single scene in which my attention drifted. Yet at the same time it is told at a pace that never once feels rushed. This film also extremely benefits from a fantastic score by Abel Korzeniowski that perfectly captures and adds to each scene.

This is simply a must watch movie.