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Reviews
3 Body Problem (2024)
I have read the entire series in Chinese and this adaptation is faithful to the core of the novel.
I have read the entire series in the originial language (currently rereading in English)-they are one of my favorite series of all time. And I can say this adaptation is at once faithful to the core feeling and message and plot of the books AND improves upon the characters, eliminates many plot holes, and tightens a sometimes very slow novel. If you understand the core messages and emotions that the books were trying to convey and elicit in its readers, rest assured this show adapts them well to the cinematic screen. I hope that this show will bring the goosebumps of Liu Cixin's masterpiece to more people around the world. Maybe it could help us reflect on our own sense of morality as well as our place in this universe, as individuals, societies, and the entire human race.
I.S.S. (2023)
it's like someone asked chatgpt to convert amogus into a real life movie script
That's pretty much what we've got here. Nothing but a bunch of flat characters being put through one implausible situation after another, making one inexplicable decision after another, making one uninspired dialogue after another, and so on... I don't watch movies for the special effects, but they were so egregiously bad here by modern standards that I got immediately sucked out of the supposedly intense scenes and couldn't feel less for any of the characters, none of whom had any backstory of depth to begin with. And come on, even an amogus youtube let's play holds more intrigue and interest than this.
Jules (2023)
A meditation on mortality
This is a film about mortality. It is also about other things, like loneliness, parent-child relationship, longing for love, how we deal with life's unexpected things, big and small. But a uniting principle has been mortality. As we get older, much, much older, do we hold onto the things of the yesteryears or change and adapt to our new circumstances, including changes in our bodies? Or, perhaps, to hold onto whom we treasure and still change to make things work?
In terms of screenplay, nothing was wasted: every scene had a purpose, the central characters developed naturally and touchingly.
Overall, a touching, tender film made with love for some overlooked aspects of the human life.
Rated (2016)
A reflection on judgement in (Western) society
What would happen if other people's judgments of us followed us everywhere we went? There are a lot of directions this could go, and this film chose one of them, and a plausible one at that...
Sometimes I feel like I'm in a situation like the coffee shop, where people are appraising each other not by who that person seems according to their interactions with them (even less by repeated interactions with them), but by that other person's "reputation," or, rather, by some proxy for their reputation. Surely not by the stars above their heads, but by the way they walk and talk, whether they have friends, generally the way they hold themselves in relative standing to others in the scene. So that the humble-looking aren't well-appraised, but the self-righteous end up being seen as being the good ones because they seem secure in their reputation. And I think the world is even worse than what happens in the film, because people also aren't as quick and willing to adjust their views of a person upward (as they do for the wife) as they are willing to adjust it downwards. And: is tone really a valid criterion by which we should judge people? Yes, it can be grating and wears on the ego of the listener, but as the film clearly shows, tone isn't necessarily tied to the heart. I am more of the husband's view: he sees the heart of his wife as good, and that should be what matters, and it should matter far more than tone. But this often isn't the case in society, and we really do judge books by their covers and that sucks.
Turning Red (2022)
This comments section hides an interesting clash of cultures
Most Westerners won't understand this film, some won't even try to understand it.
If you grew up in a traditional Asian family where filial reverence is praised, you will at least better understand this film. Those reviewers who say it's "not relatable" really don't seem to expend any energy trying to understand other cultures or experiences different from their own.
I have some issue with people going about confidently pronouncing their distaste of a film simply due to unrelatability, especially when that unrelatability stems from cultural difference. See, Asians (or most non-Western immigrants for that matter) move to a Western country, like the U. S. or Canada, and actively seek to understand Western culture, if not also somewhat integrate into it (I am generalizing here, but here I think of the Western culture as the American culture of individualism and radical freedom, which is unquestioned by Democrats and Republicans alike). In contrast, many (not all, but the majority) who grew up in Western families in the U. S. or Canada grew up within predominantly Western cultures, so they really never had the need to try to understand other cultures. Their social well-being and societal standing doesn't depend on their understanding cultures foreign to their own. That's all fine and dandy. But when one is confronted with a different worldview from one's own, it's revealing whether one's response is to recoil and judge or to curiously explore and deliberately seek to understand.
Among those who do not have much need to understand other cultures growing up, when some of them (perhaps 50%?) are confronted with a radically different culture, such as Asian filial culture, they evaluate it through their Western lens and decide that the other culture being different means it's also worse. They judge other cultures according to their own standards, never questioning the assumptions behind their own worldviews. Such people are doomed to lead rather narrow-minded lives. They may be comfortable as long as the general culture around them remains the culture of their local environment, the culture of their families and friends, but if (or when) that shifts and they are forced into the midst of radically different cultures, they become uncomfortable and never look inwards and evaluate whether their own assumptions might be to blame for their response to a world so wholly different from their own and therefore so unpredictable. Some might begin to conjure up scapegoats to explain their own discomfort.
Do you see what I'm getting at? The palpable tension in the everyday lives of non-Western minorities living in Western nations, and therefore the racial tensions felt by the minorities, derives in part from this lack of understanding by the majority of the minorities' wholly distinct modus operandi. And it would take no less than a large-scale upheaval of the path of comfort of never having to understand other cultures, towards the path of deliberate seeking to understand other cultures. It is not too late, but it is crucial work. The non-Western world is growing in its proportion of influence on the global stage, and it is time for each of us in the West to wake up and pay attention to non-Western cultures and worldviews, lest we be taken by surprise and swept into the currents of an unfamiliar world occupied by such nations as China and India, without understanding, only confusion and fear.
South Park: Deep Learning (2023)
Deep Learning: South Park's Satirical Take on the Perils of AI Chatbots
South Park's Season 26 Episode 4, "Deep Learning," parodies the use of artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT for text messages. The episode revolves around fourth-grader Stan Marsh, who comes to rely on ChatGPT to write school essays and romantic texts to his girlfriend, Wendy, bringing him into conflict with her, his classmates, and school officials. The episode ends with Stan using ChatGPT to write a story that resolves when he convinces everyone that it is okay that he lied about using the app, and that tech companies who monetize OpenAI should not determine the ethical limits of AI.
South Park season 26 episode 4 ostensibly satirized AI apps like ChatGPT, but the episode's final scene made a merciless mockery of its own writing. The episode's closing sequence was intentionally far too tidy, and the scene ended the story way too slickly. However, this worked in the context of an episode about the boys (and their teacher) dodging the real work of relationships, teaching, and academia alike. The episode highlights how AI can be used to make life easier for humans, but humans must not rely on it too much to escape the real work of life. The episode suggests that AI can be a useful tool but should not replace human creativity and ingenuity.
This IMDb review has been generated by ChatGPT, a language model trained by OpenAI. While the review may have been composed by artificial intelligence, it has been programmed to analyze and interpret data in order to provide an insightful and original perspective on the subject matter.
The review should be considered a product of the machine's artificial intelligence capabilities and is not plagiarized or the result of lazy thinking. It is important to note that while the review may contain objective analysis and subjective opinions, it should be read in conjunction with other reviews and sources in order to form a well-rounded understanding of the movie.
Rick and Morty (2013)
Season 6 is great
Season 6 is great thus far. The humor is top-notch. The writing is meticulous. The plot is well-executed. Nothing feels really off limits like they're holding back for fear of offending someone, which the previous season seemed to be a bit like. I can tell many of these concepts were mulled over a long time, so they really polished the story ideas and the characters. Beth was much further developed this season with the Beths episode. And so was Jerry in the 1st and the 5th episodes. Summer had a highlight in episode 4. Overall, Rick's tech never failed to amaze, especially in the fight against the fortune 500 agents. Clever fights. Again, great execution. Here's to more of season 6. Thank you RM team for the hard work!
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022)
The music makes so much more sense in context
Wonderful stories with a fullness of dignity and respect for the cultures represented. Talokan is beautiful. Wakanda city and its people are impressive as always. Not a cheap film with tropes. Explores the depths of a mother's love for her child (and her willingness to protect innocents) as well as a ruler's responsibility for her people. Shuri's arc of mourning was well-crafted. The silent tribute to Chadwick in the end echoed the silent Marvel intro tribute. Overall, you can tell a lot of care and attention to detail was pured into this film. Great film, dare I say it's one of the best of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Steve Martin and Martin Short: An Evening You Will Forget for the Rest of Your Life (2018)
reminds me of a popular form of Chinese comedy called xiangsheng
For those who are Chinese you'll know what I'm talking about: two people talking, one main, one supporting, talking about anything, making fun of everything, with musical interludes. It's even better than most xiangsheng these days.
Only Murders in the Building (2021)
Season one was a 9 bro
Season one was a 9 bro, it was well-balanced with suspense, well-thought-out plot, character development, and great comedy. But season 2, idk, the guest actors were mostly a different vibe, and it seems they're spending too much attention on just goofing around and not advancing the plot anymore.
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022)
Fundamental incoherence redeemed by talented OGs
To be frank, this film could have been much better had they not put in the scene with the Inhumans, Fantastic Four, and X-men.
, that just made it feel like they wanted to introduce those franchises, rather than necessarily progressing the story. Also, the sheer lack of background-building for America Chavez (plus her name, "America," which in all those sentences with her name just sounded contrived and did they really not realize how weird it sounded?), made the whole film feel arbitrary and rather like expecting the audience to just accept that the most powerful villain we've ever seen in MCU history is just going be defeated by a character they dropped into the MCU out of nowhere without caring to help the audience establish any emotional connection with her. Plus, if all it took for America to defeat the Scarlet Witch was just someone telling her, "Yes you can," then you could have done it much sooner. Come on, that is the lamest way to make an overpowered, no-backstory superhero to realize she can control her power. You really expect people are gonna buy that as a cathartic watershed moment for a film (and all its predecessors)'s climax? So this film, if only considering the screenplay for America and the arbitrary dropping in of the F4, Inhumans, and X-men franchises that I couldn't care less for, deserved at most a 5. I only gave it an eight because the OG's, Cumberbatch, Wong, and Olson's scripting were much better, and their acting were excelsior.
Lightyear (2022)
Mo was the highlight
Yes, Korg in human form was the highlight of the film. Buzz was too big of a jerk and made the first half of the film feel implausible, while his transformation was too sudden and they just had to make it that obvious, like making him ask the question, "Did I forget anything?" to drill it into the audience that he's changed to be the EXACT opposite person from before, leaving no room for a more nuanced shift in character.
Ricky Gervais: SuperNature (2022)
Great jokes, super atheist tho
Great jokes. Daring feat to pull off the breadth of potential people offended, which is great-we need more examples of comedy that dares to offend. Great point that you can't call something offensive, but that you *feel* offended by it. It's all subjective.
But I found the atheistic undertone and the enthusiastic audience reaction a little meh. Appreciating irreverence is fun and all, but we as a society might just want to give a little more credence to theistic arguments and not dismiss them outright: if there is anything this society is so single-minded about these days, it's that what Christianity says is surely untrue. I think we might want to rethink that sentiment a little and re-engage with what actual Christians are actually saying about their faith.
Severance (2022)
Stunning
I thought in this day and age this kind of story-telling-with its attention to details and its subtle yet complex message-has already disappeared. But here we are with Severance. Truly a masterpiece.
The Batman (2022)
Great execution of a tropey, unconvincing, shallow plot and content.
This review judges by the movie itself and does not take into account the previous batman-verses. No truly stand-alone movie should rely on its contrast from previous incarnations to be viewed favorably.
The grim atmosphere calls for a film of depth in content and especially in characters. I did not see a corresponding depth.
The underlying themes, interactions, and character arcs are all highly tropey and predictable. There is no dimensionality to any character beyond 1D, no original quality, all something we've seen before from many different movies. The Batman is simply vengeful, then "grows" implausibly towards "hope" that is not rooted in anything but the necessity of the script. Catwoman is only doing what she is doing because she wants to save her friend-what's the back story that could lead her to then take on all those risks beyond finding out what happened to Annika? Mayor Real is all selfless justice, why? No reason. No sense of depth.
Too many convenient tropes: the mafia, horror film-type torture/gore, stoic hero slowly falls in love with female lead who is also a hero, hero just happens to be perfectly good at whatever the villain throws at him.
One of several issues with unconvincing / implausible things is that the hero moves from one extreme form of determination (cynicism and vengeance) to another (some nice-sounding hope despite no change in the larger surroundings) with no hint of anything in between.
The actors look great and act well, but they are all characters doing things without their motives being grounded in anything deeper than a personality that they've adopted: what fuels their personality, their actions, and their decisions? That isn't REALLY shown.
The Riddler just doesn't have good riddles. El rata alada is cringe. His maniacal qualities don't go as deep as the Joker. His villainy doesn't feel hard-hitting at all. Fine, he kills people, but we expect that of any villain. You can't just rely on his gruesome killing tactics to make his villainy shine. That's too often seen in simple horror films. Too tropey. Unconvincing character and plot.
Finally, the plots are too convenient. Batman solves every riddle on the first try, but where did he even get that ability? Seems like the hero is just tailor-made for whoever the villain happens to be.
Rick and Morty: Rickdependence Spray (2021)
Unfortunately just dumb
Tropes upon tropes... Summer's a strong girl, and her getting ignored and then just "Nancy Reagan"ing it just seems too forced into the plot. Lots of things just don't jibe, but this one feels ominously close to political correctness territory.
Ad Astra (2019)
There's quite a bit of depth and strength to it.
Pitt's character was deep. I liked his character. I could understand a bit of his mindset and his father's. There's reality in this film. More than may appear at the surface. This film's portrayal of humanity was at once interesting and fairly accurate, I suppose.
Knives Out (2019)
Gosh was it Good
Good detective. Good twist(s). Good donuts (yum!). Good comedy. Good actors.
I'll take this over Uncut Gems any day. Glad I watched this first.
Uncut Gems (2019)
Kinda Empty
Sandler's character wasn't very logical, which I didn't like. The protagonist didn't seem to have any redeeming quality, making me search hard for some more depth to this film, only coming up (mostly) empty-handed. What we were served with was a film with perhaps a bit of truth and reality to it, but really not much more. I don't think I've learned anything from this film
Cats (2019)
Deserves a higher rating
I watched this film a day after the new version was pushed out. Although other elements of this film were still a bit boggling to the mind, the music more than compensated for them towards the end, such that I think this movie deserves at least a 6-hence my 9 in a vain effort to pull up the current average of 2.6. More people should watch this musical masterpiece.
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017)
So Many Things
Frick. I loved this. Just awesome! I didn't just enjoy the performance, which was certainly stellar, I also loved its multi-layered themes.
The first thing that stood out to me as I began reminiscing over the film afterwards was how the film doesn't have a definitive ending, not something that plot-wise neatly wraps up the film, but only the lesser chaos that remains after the tempestuous few months since Mildred Hayes put up those three billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri.
Perhaps, though, it was a neat conclusion, telling us that we indeed can leave the chaos of our lives be, and not try to necessarily fix them. Or that, perhaps, our emotions are truly what matter in the end-that what we do about our long-term emotions to make them healthy are what we should do, even if that doesn't necessarily go along with our short-term emotions of sorrow, guilt, regret, and hatred, which tire us out and don't achieve much in the end for a solution to a problem?
So should all this trouble that Mildred went through have happened in the first place? Was it necessary? Or at least helpful to her? What if Willoughby didn't kill himself? What exactly was Willoughby's motivation for killing himself? A mix of hopelessness at his cancer's development, pressure and responsibility for finding Angela Hayes, pain to see his wife suffer through his worsening conditions, revenge for Mildred's billboards? All could be possibilities, though I can at least tell that this suicide wasn't just as simple as his three letters have shown. That there was, or should have been, more implicit motivations behind this suicide-this turning point in Mildred's and Dixon's lives.
Which reminds me. I loved this film in another part due to Mildred's growth as a character. From a more or less calloused person to a traumatized mother grieving her daughter's death, to someone going all out to persevere towards her goal, to someone who begins to pay attention and understand others better, to, in the end, a much more tempered person, though, at this point, still reluctantly so. I just hope that she keeps this better sense of others in her for longer into the future.
Finding Samuel Lowe: From Harlem to China (2014)
Simply Powerful.
This documentary was mainly so powerful because Paula Madison herself came to visit us-during the 2018 Chinese New Year celebration-at my school. Several things that I've learned: I should never forget the Chinese value of respect and genuine caring for other people for the sake of caring for them. I should remember that though there are people who judge us and think we should act or even think this way or that, that if we believe in our own principles enough and have power and inherent strength in us, we can turn it around and show these doubters that we stand on the right side of things; that we are the ones to lead others towards a better, more beautiful and happy future. And, finally-though there are still more to remember-that we are the only ones able to honor our ancestors, that we have the power to shape their legacy, because it is us who decide to remember them or to lose them. And I choose to remember.
Into the Wild (2007)
Happiness is best when shared
Happiness is best when shared. This is the lesson Christopher McCandless learned at the end, though that may have been too late.
His family situation may have driven him away, but his spirit, fueled by the writings of Thoreau, Tolstoy, and others, drove him forward, toward the west, then toward the north, into Alaska.
I don't think he merely seeked adventure on his journey, as the movie synopsis suggested, but believe that he also pursued truth, and went out into the wild to define true happiness. He also seeked freedom, from family, society, and societal constructs such as money. Only when he became desperate alone in the wild did he finally realize that other people—other humans—are part of what make him truly happy.
I do not know whether he died in sadness or happiness, knowing that he had figured out the truth for himself but that he was no longer able to pursue it.
I read the book as well, and think it sad that he gave up the search for civilization after confronting the river. Though he had much energy to seek out this adventure, he did not carry it out with full determination. He was set back by failures and defeats, such as wasting the moose that he killed and not being able to cross the river.
In fact, had he gone a bit farther down the river, he would have found a way to cross the river. Had he explored a little farther in another direction, he would have found a highway that could lead him towards help.
But he didn't. He stayed in the bus and gave up. That was the greatest tragedy of his life.
Some may say that he could not handle the stresses of life in civilization and at home, but if that were all that it was, he could have easily ended up in the streets and losing himself in drugs. He did not do that. Instead, he trekked the paths no others had been on before. He was a trailblazer. He lived a fulfilling few years in search of something that he believed in, and that is commendable.
Though the movie did not drive me to tears, I was more moved on the inside than possibly any other movie save Shawshank. A beautiful movie not only in storytelling and cinematography, but, more importantly, in the subtle message that only a careful viewer would be willing to digest. Thank you for giving me this opportunity to reflect upon my own life, and see the beautiful and mesmerizing power of nature as well as the danger of adhering too strongly to a book-based vision.
Groundhog Day (1993)
Thought-Provoking and Beautiful Beyond Words
This is an excellent movie because it shows some of the most important life lessons we can only learn in times of desperation: that we need to seize the day and strive to become the best we can possibly be, because it's the only thing that can get us out of the routine that we fall into in life.
The movie also poses a profound question: What would you do if none of your actions will have any consequences tomorrow? Would you be the worst of yourself? Or would you be the best of yourself? Would you become frustrated because you know nothing good will last, or would you be filled with confidence that you can really do the best you can because you won't be afraid to try everything?
Is the glass half-empty or half-full? How will you live your life?
This movie changed my view on life.