Letterboxd — Your life in film

Kenneth Branagh’s third adaptation of a Hercule Poirot story is surprisingly fun,genuine attempts at building ghastly atmosphere with deliberately off kilter stagy shots,tasting Branagh’s auteur flair in a tonally consistent proper whodunit mystery almost tricked you into believing his previous two films are anywhere as interesting as this one is. Lots of creative use of handheld dolly shots and go pro shots injects modern horror sensibilities into a classically gothic story like this,it has quite a few number of jump scares…

Hirokazu Koreeda’s latest is a multi perspective Rashomon puzzle that starts dry building suspense through commentary on education but gradually unravels into a tender tale of societal gender roles. It genuinely caught me by surprise as it wasn’t quite clear initially what the film is heading towards with all its heavy handed criticism on education through horror imageries and a looming sense of a eerie mystery, in the first act from the central mother character’s perspective the film felt quite…

“Pray for me”
Hlynur Pálmason’s emotionally&visually engrossing ashes to ashes masterpiece reverizes the vignettes of colonial photographs, a stoic man of god attempts to photographically captures but ultimately desolated by the local Icelandic land&culture he’s at odds with. This film left me so shellshocked, I think I may even liked it more than Scorsese’s Silence, instead of just meditating on Catholic guilt and the struggles of wavering faith it examines the ironic humanistic contradiction of colonialism and religion. The arrogance…

The magic of Greta Gerwig’s coming of age existential angst and the glit&glamour of a campy musical riff on gender stereotypes shines even brighter on second cinema viewing even if it never let you forget it’s a toy ad,Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling are just perfect casting and you can feel they were just having a bawl acting over the top and cartoonish. I felt a bit cynical on first watch as I can’t help but feel the the underlying…

Celine Song’s feature debut is gentle and bittersweet, an incredible story of diaspora romance doubles as an 21st century millennial time capsule,the understated distance&intimacy of unrealized love and lingering emotions between the two actors were absorbing. But the biggest issue of this film is that I kinda wonder what is this film saying that has not been said better by the opening of Chungking Express or through the other works of Wong Kar-Wai about time distorted longiningness already? It’s a…

Rather bland and generic comedy film that doesn’t go far enough into the raunchy territory,more chuckles than laughs but Jennifer Lawrence in physical comedy mode half of the film lights it up,reminding us why she is a real movie star brimming with charm. Ironically the film felt more like a real movie when JLaw was punching and kicking people in the nuts nude while when it tried its hand at a emotional core attempting to give it heart through cookie…

“My film is similar to the process of meeting people. you meet someone and get an impression, and make a judgment with that. but tomorrow, you might discover different things.”

The banal vulnerability of horny,sad,pathetic and lovesick men of a typical Hong Sangsoo mumblecore but takes the structure of three POV stories in a love triangle reframing them as it unfold until the uneasy meta rug of emotional clarity is pulled under you. The parallels of dating a younger and…

Went to see it again third time in cinemas and in a different IMAX theater, genuinely amazed me how Nolan is able to pull such astonishing amount of general populous into cinemas to go see a three hour black and white epic where the sharpening words of a hearing are intertwined with the images of cosmic imagination inside the head of a controversial figure on trial. The kinetic editing and cinematography are like a jolt of energy that powers us…