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Star Trek: Discovery: Forget Me Not (2020)
The difficult journey toward healing
A beautifully crafted story about trauma, emotional processing, and resilience. The episode adeptly depicts the multifaceted nature of trauma, illustrating both the discomfort it brings and the path toward healing. The crew, having endured a unique and harrowing experience, clearly shows their pain. It is heart-wrenching to witness their suffering and occasional missteps in dealing with it. Yet, the narrative's strength lies in how they ultimately come together, recognizing the need for mutual support and help. This collective journey underscores a profound message about healing on both individual and communal levels. The episode also emphasizes the importance of acknowledging and accepting our history as an integral part of the healing process and self-identity.
As for the negative reviews, well, don't pay attention to the Terrans, they are losing and they know it. Star Trek has always been progressive and it still is, which makes it one of the best science-fiction shows of all time. It uses the sci-fi genre not only to explore scientific advancements but also to delve into social progress.
Rent-a-Pal (2020)
Intelligent and sensitive movie about care-giving, loneliness, and mental illness
The horror in this film is much deeper than just jump scares or gore: the real horror here is psychological and social.
The portrayal of the main character as a full-time caregiver for his mother is remarkably accurate. Themes such as the profound loneliness and the simmering resentment that can arise in such situations are explored with intelligence and sensitivity. While traditional horror can be entertaining, this film's exploration of these themes adds a layer of depth and unease to the story.
I also really liked the character of Lisa. She illustrates perfectly how being a caregiver is a job, not just a familial duty. The relationship that develops between her and David is really interesting, breaking away from traditional heteronormative stereotypes, and adds a layer of complexity and tension to the plot as David's secret comes closer to being revealed.
It's a pity the film doesn't get the credit it deserves.
Mad God (2021)
Beautiful ugliness
Beautifully ugly.
Overflowing with creativity from start to finish. Every shot is absolutely beautiful and is like discovering a carefully crafted jewel. The themes explored in the movie are pretty basic but the main interest for me was really the aesthetical experience. Even if the story is not really important, the editing, the environments and the music really transport you in this nightmarish dream. I was in almost constant awe and very impressed during the whole movie. The whole experience is like going through a museum of horrors, admiring each painting and being surprised by the next one.
This is really a labor of love!
Beau Is Afraid (2023)
One of a kind
Absolutely fantastic metaphorical and surrealist movie!
Joaquin Phoenix is amazing as always and Ari Aster really didn't disappoint on this one!
The depiction of anxiety inducing situations in this movie is just phenomenal. Sometimes, it is pushed to such extremes that it even becomes comical!
And the whole thing being a consistent metaphore for abusive parenthood is really astounding! Of course, it may not speak to everyone but people should accept that they're not the target audience sometimes.
It was so dense, so rich, it was like being in a crazy dream, each shot so beautiful and intriguing.
Thank you so much for this amazing unique movie!
I Origins (2014)
A very poor representation of how science works
I watched the trailer and thought it would be some new-age nonsense apology movie. But seeing the good IMDB score, I thought I should overcome my prejudice and try to watch it. This is a scientific approach: overcoming preconceived notions to confront them with actual observations.
Now into the story. Very quickly, the main character, Ian, falls into a weird obsession about a woman, Sofi, and soon adopts stalker-like behaviors that will result in a romance between the two of them. The romance in itself is very immature and doesn't have any substance: they move in on a whim, they get married on a whim. Then she dies in an elevator accident.
The rest of the film will be about the """scientific""" quest to determine whether the fact that two people share the same eye biometrics also share something else (some kind of spiritual bond). Anyone with a little bit of understanding about how science works will have a very difficult time during this part of the movie as it greatly misrepresents how science works. Science is not an immutable body of knowledge that could be disproved by spirituality as the movie claims. If there was actual sufficient evidence to prove a spiritual claim, then it would enter the domain of scientific knowledge. But unbelievable claims call for unbelievable proofs. Which the story didn't provide. So, the astonishment of Ian, the """scientific""" mind, when confronted with the """proofs""", is unjustified, unless you consider he adopts a spiritual outlook about these events to cope with the death of Sofi, which then would just defeat the purpose of this movie.
Now, the "science experiment". His little experiment with the girl he found in India that had the same eye biometrics as Sofi was very poorly designed and conducted. There was nothing about the consent of the participant (who is a child!) which really falls into the whole narrative that the third world is the experimentation laboratory of the first world. Ian gave feedback to the participant (he said "correct" or "wrong"), and, wow, the experiment wasn't double-blind (Ian shouldn't have known which answer was correct or not because his behavior could have influenced the responses of the child). Even with all those biases, the experiment didn't reach statistical significance. After that, Ian is convinced that there is an actual link just because the child is afraid of an elevator, which could simply be explained by the fact that she lives in the Indian streets and may have never seen or used an elevator, not by the claim that there is a spiritual bond between her and Sofi who died in an elevator accident. In science, hypotheses must be parsimonious, this is called Occam's razor.
In short, this movie provided a very poor representation of the scientific process to support a new-age ideology agenda, which, in my opinion, is a very lazy way of arousing a feeling of wonder. After watching this movie, I felt like I should have stuck to the trailer and that would have prevented me from wasting 106 minutes of my life and losing more hope in humanity's ability to reason scientifically.
WandaVision (2021)
Surprisingly undermelming
Attracted by the great reviews, I expected a really good show.
I was very bored during the first episodes where it's essentially just old sitcoms bs (had to watch it in 1.25-1.5 speed not to be bored to death), but I thought I shouldn't base my judgement just on a few episodes, keep an open-mind and persist because I thought there would be more to it.
So I watched the whole show. Episode after episode I was waiting for an actual breakthrough, something really thrilling and interesting. I thought "it can't just be about refusing to grief" and, well, spoiler alert, it's just about that...
I found the writing very lazy and was never really moved by the stakes the protagonists face.
I really feel like I wasted my time with this one, I am disappointed. Obviously, there is an audience for it, but I'm not part of it.
Isle of Dogs (2018)
Isle Of Imperialism by a white American man
The animation is not bad at all, it is the only positive point that can be found in this film. The scenario is predictable as hell and the fact that the story takes place in Japan brings nothing to the film but racist stereotypes about Japanese and Asian people in general, white saviorism (stinking of colonialism and American imperialism) and cultural appropriation, all sprinkled with a bit of sexism. The film is also outrageously speciesist while it is supposed to take the defense of dogs...
Now, here are the spoilers to illustrate what I am saying.
In this movie, Japanese culture is reduced to samurai, sumo, sushi and wasabi sauce (the poison used to murder a 'pro-dog' scientist and to exterminate dogs is the 'Wasabi Poison'...). In addition, the Japanese main characters are either completely hysterical corrupt politicians, or too stupid / soft to organize their resistance without the help of the white American student (color blind bonus: white blonde with an afro cut...). The white American woman speaks loudly for everyone to hear, while the little Japanese people are discreet and only serve as Japanese tokens (whenever there is a talk with important claims, it is she who is in the center of the image and who uses the megaphone, yes it is really painful to watch). A scene particularly representative of the racist violence of this film: the white American violently shakes a Japanese scientist, screaming at her, while she is mourning. It embodies the various racist stereotypes and domination relations that this film promotes: Americans who know what is good and take what they need by force, respectful discreet Japanese who let themselves be violated without retaliating (when we have in mind what Americans did to Japanese, it is an even more violent image...). The only important female character is the white savior and I wonder if it is not to better pass the pill of all the violence she symbolizes. The other female characters are bitches (literally, female dogs) completely useless to the scenario. In addition, Wes Anderson has chosen to make Japanese people speak Japanese without subtitling them so the only people we understand are the white American and the dogs who speak English, which makes Japanese people even more strange and incomprehensible to the audience.
In terms of speciesism, we are also served. In an imaginary Japan, Japanese people have an unexplained hatred for dogs while they love cats. The evil Japanese politician with the support of his degenerate barbarian people decides to get rid of all dogs by sending them on an island - open garbage dumpster. Then, one might think that they will question the status of human mastership and rebel. But the only character who could have led the revolt against human domination is a stray dog who will eventually become a bodyguard dog for a politician... Humans remain masters and dogs remain nice servile little doggies.
We are in 2018, this kind of film is still praised by the public and its director is glorified as a creative genius.
Brutti, sporchi e cattivi (1976)
Misogynistic, classist and vulgar
Rape scenes are depicted as funny. The poor are described as idiotic savages who are just wandering around aimlessly. Everything is presented as funny while there is nothing funny about what is presented on the screen: poor people reduced to kill each other for money, women raped by men who are all sexual predators, children who have to grow in this toxic environment, ...
A big pile of rape culture with a classist point of view. These kind of films make me feel like vomiting. This is absolute garbage.
The Martian (2015)
A film about growing potatoes with poop
A film about growing potatoes with poop. That's it.