High Fidelity starts with John Cusack looking straight into the camera and delivering this monologue.
What came first — the music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns or watching violent videos; some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands —literally thousands — of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery, and loss. Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I…
To Singapore, With Love is an endearing portrait of real people who have been exiled from Singapore due to a multitude of reasons, all sharing the common thread of standing up against the Singapore Government in the 60s and 70s. Singapore’s dictatorial tendencies rears its ugly head and bares its fangs for all to see as we get personal insights from the victims of an oppressive system. There’s only so many films that really open your eye to the world…
What I find the most interesting about Scott Derrickson’s films is the recurring theme of turning skeptics into converts. It’s much easier for a horror film to operate when both the characters within its world and the audience can just agree on a few fundamental genre tropes, and yet, there’s an apparent tension within his films brought about purely from the beliefs of his protagonists in question. Inevitably, they all succumb and turn into a stern believer after surviving through…
The throne is vacant, and a power vacuum this big always brings the power players out of the woodworks. After all, there’s blood in the waters, and power and influence up for grabs. The bloodiest game of succession starts as one of the largest Hong Kong Triad’s decides on the crowning of a new leader. Johnnie Toh’s Election is Hong Kong’s answer to mafia films from Hollywood, which would also make Election the Godfather of Hong Kong Triad films. The…
James Wan’s return to horror isn’t as triumphant as one would have hoped. Somehow, Wan comes off as an amateur with Malignant. A film that shows no understanding of tone, pacing, tension and atmosphere. Sandbagged by one of the worst scripts I’ve seen in a film in recent memory. One that offers pure exposition and a narrative that falls into every pitfall in storytelling. It seems that Malignant has no idea how cliched it is nor how expository it actually…
The kids are not alright. La Haine comes at you like a bullet, propelled by the very anger and resentment which threatens to burst out the seams of every frame and every scene. Hate begets Hate, and we are in a death spiral that we are desperately holding onto. Perhaps a grave decree that the worst of our fears have already begun, or perhaps a plea for humanity to change itself before it’s much too late. La Haine seems ever…
