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…
The film opens on black. We hear murmurs in the background, a vague air of importance and urgency, yet we are not permitted to see it. Then, after the credits play itself out, we see Lydia Tár preparing to step onto the stage. Before we are even aware, we've plunged ourselves into the world of high art where Tár resides, and here, sound comes before picture, and time stops until she allows for it to run its course. Blanchett's transformative…
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish is still a franchise spin-off sequel meant to capitalise on the success and appeal of its large-saucer-eyed feline hero, and there's still a sense that the story whilst entertaining is utterly disposable, but it's undeniable that there's an artistry to the proceedings, and that Puss in Boots: The Last Wish has indeed raised the bar on modern animated franchise entertainment. If an 11-year belated, once-cancelled studio film can have such a vibrance in its…
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…
What's a bad miracle? Do they have a word for that? Fret no longer, the question has an answer, it's Avatar. A tiresome, insipid multi-million dollar spectacle that makes you wonder why a man would dedicate more than a decade of his life to such a monumentous undertaking with no real purpose. Avatar: The Way of Water treads familiar grounds, rehashing the same ecological themes of its 2009 predecessor whilst splashing a new coat of paint and a trillion more…
