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Ghostbusters (2016)
What a Waste!
This film is utter waste of opportunity with its source material and talented cast. Although all main actors shared good chemistry between them, but the writing is so bland. All the witty dialogue, colourful characters and the suspense from the original movie has been all taken out, and replaced with racial stereotypes, sexism and fart jokes.
A Dog Called Money (2019)
Portrait of an Album
PJ Harvey seems to be an awesomely weird chick, and I like to watch movies that explore an artist's creative process. PJ Harvey accompanies a photographer Seamus Murphy on his reporting trips over the four years. They visit Afganistan, Kosovo, and Washington. The footages from the recording session switch with footage from their trips with voice over by Harvey herself. She doesn't tell us straight what she sees or feels, but she gives her emotions forward in poetry.
It was beautiful and at the same time a sad movie - to see how this world is torn apart by corporate greed, politics, and war, and yet there are all these people trying to go on with their lives, and some even trying to create something beautiful. I didn't like how the film that just observed still took a political stance (quite a strong one, I might add), towards the end, where they showed images from Trump's inauguration. I'm not much fond off the guy, but I'm getting tired of all this anti-Trump thing by now.
A beautiful movie that shows the beautiful artist in making a gift to the world. Not particularly informative documentary and most definitely not the best rockumentary out there, but I enjoyed the general vibe of the movie.
Gisaengchung (2019)
The Most Important Movie in 2019?
I finally went along with OSCAR hype and watched the 'Parasite' (just kidding, I was going to see it anyways, I just never managed to get into the theater in the summer when it was in the cinemas. I'm not quite sure did seeing the movie after all the award shower enhanced the viewing experience, or left me with shoulder shudder. I will not say that 'Parasite' is not worthy of all these awards, but considering all the hype - I expected something, I don't know, more. Do I think that the film is overrated, or underrated doesn't matter? What matters, is that 'Parasite' is a wonderful movie. I must give the highest praise to the actors. The story was intriguing with several layers, and it contained some unpredictable twists and turns along the way. I have a hard time to find perfect words to praise the cinematography - the camera (literally) danced with the actors and with the story. Yet, it was all so subtle that if you just didn't turn your attention to awe at the cinematography, you almost didn't notice it. Same thing with editing. The magnificent aspect was also the way the story was told - it started like absurdist comedy, then turned to quite spicy satire, then all of the sudden gory thriller and then ending this all with a nice touch of morale, but without preaching. The change in the atmosphere didn't ruin the pace or make the film lose its focus. The characters were clear, each one of them perfectly fleshed out. At least, the best original screenplay award is well earned.
Besides being visually poetical and masterfully acted, the movie raises some poignant questions. People praise how good of overview 'Parasite' gives on South-Korean society, but to be honest - all the 'First World' countries are dealing with the same problems. No matter which economical class we are, people ale too self-absorbed, that they don't see the faults in themselves - everything is someone else's fault. While different people struggling for the same goal, rather than becoming allies and work together, they start to compete, and that usually means, that both sides will lose (that is just philosophizing, it is not a spoiler).
Was it the most important film in 2019? Well, I don't know, because I haven't seen most of them, but 'Parasite' is most definitely a rare masterpiece that can be entertaining and what most important, thought-provoking at the same time.
Trading Paint (2019)
Plug Fiction
Like Nicolas Cage and Bruce Willis, John Travolta is another former silver screen heavyweight who has succumbed into 'from B to the Z movies.' I don't want to say that all of those movies are awful, but usually, they are. 'Trading Paint' is near awful. Looking at the cast and the story, there was a promise for a much better movie. John Travolta is in good form (although his hairline can make you nervous), and the rest of the supporting cast does their work fairly well. But, the writing is so poor that it seems like they filmed the first draft (or perhaps they only had notes of the writers). Actors did their best, but the characters were paper thin and relationships between them shallow and empty - no real development that would have put some juicy meat over the skeleton of the screenplay. After the opening race, the viewers are suddenly thrown into the dating scene between the main character Sam (John Travolta) and his girlfriend Becca (Shania Twain). The viewers never got to know how these two met, and how many dates they already had (they talked like they had been a couple for a long time, but still didn't know much about each other). At least the chemistry between Wain and Travolta was sizzling enough to keep their romance in the fire. Then there is the big rivalry between Sam Munroe and Linsky (Michael Madsen) that is largely left unexplained. Simply put - the relationships lacked real depth and drama. And racing scenes, unfortunately, weren't very spectacular.
When you don't happen to be in the mood of wasting an hour and a half, or if you are not a huge John Travolta fan (who does fairly well in this trite) then 'Trading Paint' is easily passable. For racing fans, there are many more exciting movies out there, and the dramatic part is not well written/directed either. There are worse films out there, but there are definitely much better ones when it comes to filling your hours with simple entertainment. But the main question was left unresolved - was his car indeed auto-matic, system-matic, hyyyyydro-matic? (I totally stole this joke.)