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Reviews
The Twilight Zone: Mute (1963)
Incredibly Nuanced
I'm surprised at how good The Twilight Zone is. The 60's were an awful time for American television. This was the era of sitcoms based on the most ludicrious situations. Like being married to a Genie/Witch or having a family made up of monsters or being lost on an island with all your Earthly belongings.
But The Twilight Zone is incredibly good.
This episode deals with a lot of subjects and doesn't spoon feed the audience an easy answer.
It touches on child abuse, what makes a parent a parent, conformity, trauma, children being used as pawns, Germans as the symbolic stand in for extremism, and difference as both strength and weakness. All wrapped up in a story about telepathy. A story of voicelessness. A truly underrated episode.
Hotaru no haka (1988)
Greatest animated film ever.
I was a geeky teenager in the 90's who loved anime. The thing I liked about anime was that even though I was getting too old to watch cartoons, I could make the claim that in Japan cartoons were made for grown-ups and justify my love for them.
I would go to Tower Records and rent every single anime as they came out and then copy them with two VCR's (90's version of torrenting) and this was released by Central Park Media (one of the three American companies releasing anime back then) so like all the others I rented and copied it. But oh my God this blew all the other stuff I was watching out of the water. IT made me cry, it made me feel. I HAD to show my parents this film to justify my love of anime.
And I did, and my parents who really don't like cartoons both cried. Bawled. My dad says he still remembers it and that it haunted him.
Anyways, fast forward to the present day, I am now an adult approaching my 40's, i have a family of my own, I've outgrown anime (let's be honest the majority of it is garbage) but my dad reminded me about this film, so I decided to watch it again all these years later to see if it would still hold up.
I cried even more. Once you become a parent, as many other reviewers have said here, you put your loved ones faces on the animated characters and it makes it even more powerful. I don't know if this could have been even more powerful or more heart-wrenching if it was live action. You can watch it and because it's animated you can project onto the animated characters and setting even easier than if it was live-action. You can see war torn Kobe as your hometown, you can see it as Iraq, you can see it as Afghanistan, it makes the film all the more powerful.
Being a dad now I watch a lot of cartoons, and all the Disney ones, and Pixar etc with my own little Setsuko...this film blows them all out of the water. This is indeed, the greatest animated film of all time if for nothing else than the fact that it is able to transcend the genre and shows the full unfiltered power of what the media is capable of showing.
If you are a parent, or have little ones in your life this film will hit you harder, but even as a teenager it hit me hard. I think it shaped my views on war, and had a very profound affect on me. I don't understand the people who say they wouldn't watch this again because there is something strangely cathartic and beautiful about being able to bawl your eyes out. I guess people are afraid of their own vulnerability but I have to say, I enjoyed getting back in touch with that empathetic part of myself. It's strangely relaxing. Highly recommended.
Hemlock Grove (2013)
A show in need of better quality control
Hemlock Grove...good first episode. Good overall story...but some dialog is good..some is just god awful. Some of the acting is decent, some if it is just hammy and awwwwfulll. Special effects are good, and sometimes the editing is really slick and good and sometimes it looks like it was edited by a film school freshman. The quality is so uneven. From great to horrible. But I can't stop watching. I guess that's a testament to the story. But the entire show shouldn't have been released all at once for streaming. Quality control on the series is awful. So much of it seems like a rough cut or like the director only got one take and then had to wrap it up before getting the shot just right.
This makes watching very distracting. Some scenes will be so spot on and then others, just embarrassing.
Bridesmaids (2011)
Women are people...shocker!
This is one of the funniest films I've ever seen. People keep comparing it to the Hangover, but this film is far superior.
For one, although the Hangover is hilarious none of the characters are relateable or have any depth to them. Wigg and Rudolph's friendship is well developed and you feel for Wigg as she begins to face a new life without the one person in her life who gives her joy and helps her through her tough times.
I have been reading some of the bad reviews here, and it makes me sad. Now if "gross out" comedy is not your thing (in this day and age there is nothing that gross about it) then fine. This movie is not for you but then neither is the Hangover. When I see people here talking about how it's nothing but a "chick flick" or "it's no hang over" I can't help but feel like these people are trapped behind the times.
I think a lot of men, and some women too have a hard time with this movie because they don't want to see women as people. Women to some men are supposed to be "the other." We're not supposed to relate to them. They have periods and cry for no reason and do stupid things. That's how so many men unfortunately see women. Then there are women out there, who refuse to see themselves as people as well. They like going to a romantic comedy and seeing a really good looking fashionable girl who for some reason just can't find a good guy, and then TA DA! She meets Matthew McCoughnahey or Bradley Cooper and lives happily ever after.
It's sad that in 2012 we have to be reminded that WOMEN ARE PEOPLE. They chase the good looking guy who treats them like dirt. They have insecurities. They get angry. They fart and vomit. They're frustrated by the opposite gender and they share deep bonds with their best friend. Get over it.
Seriously some of these reviews just make no sense to me. The male love interest isn't a hunk. The women use foul language. It's a chick flick because GASP the characters have some depth, while others claim the movie has no character development or any substance. I really don't get it.
Since Something About Mary/American Pie mainstream movies have been dirty and gross. This one wasn't even that dirty or gross I honestly thing it's because people are uncomfortable in seeing women in these types of situations. Women are supposed to poop roses and fart rainbows. They're supposed to be the ones with all the power in the relationship, the ball breakers the evil bitches who can never appreciate the "good guys" of this world who will treat them well. They're not supposed to want to go to see male strippers in Vegas and if they do they're supposed to pretend like they don't like it and giggle.
I really don't get it. This movie was so charming, so hilarious, an ensemble cast (and it has Rebel Wilson who I fell in love with when i was living in Australia watching her show on SBS: "Bogan Pride") if you don't like it because it's Hollywood, fine. If you don't like it because it had sex and foul language, fine. But honestly most of the bad reviews seem to be coming form people who want to see women as not human. As some ideal "other" species incapable of having the same feelings, frustrations, shortcomings and yes, bodily functions that men have.
Get over it.