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Arrival (2016)
Great Sci-fi movie overshadowed by better representations
Firstly, great trailer displaying all the exciting clips from the movie, made me want to watch this despite never heard of "The Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang.
Plot: From the beginning the scenes already hinted strong characteristic traits on a sci-fi alien movie. The first half of the movie seems legitimately haunting and frightening. As the movies past it's halfway point you realized it's not focus on exploration technologies, but focus on humanity and how we see ourselves in time. I really like intellectual stories and how it present a deeper message.
Characters: Amy Adams did a fantastic job in this film, she basically carried this movie with her performance as the Dr. Louise Bank as a woman with strong personal "back stories" and reflect them when she was on the mission to interpret languages for the government. I love how her character is sometimes giving "flashbacks" between tasks and the different emotions throughout her progress. Sadly her wonderful performance is the only memorable character in this film, either Jeremy Renner or Forest Whittaker showed strong performance which is understandably due to the nature of the script, but still disappointment.
Effects: Great visual and sound effects, but the cinematography struck me the most. There were a few reoccurring shots usually similar layout and techniques really standout from the other sci-fi movies. There was a wide shot vertically from top to front into frame perfectly focusing on the background objectives and telling stories of the character without any dialogues. I love how the cinematography has a pattern or theme that strongly emphasize some deeper and hidden messages. I will say it is the best thing from this movie and certainly deserve all the praises and awards.
Opinions: Personally I really enjoy this film despite the nature of the plot and ending confuses some younger audience and leave them scratching their heads. I just feel the plot is too multi layered in the second half of the film. I can see it draws resemblance from Contact(one of my all time favourite movie) and Intersteller, but the final payoff comes is not well. The pacing is slow and lack of excitement compare to the ones I mentioned, overall it comes out too artsy to younger viewers with overloaded information and layers, which is unfortunate.
Rating: 7.5. Definitely one of the better Sci-fi film and strong individual performance by Amy Adams, can see it won awards on cinematography and lead actress in the following award season. Unfortunately slightly pale and slow in some areas compare to few recent sci-fi movies with similar structure. Still a recommendation movie.
Shin Gojira (2016)
Great in-depth film about Godzilla (Light Spoilers)
For all the viewers who looking forward CGI Monster battles, be warned as this remake of the classic Godzilla movie will tap into the topic it original intended - politics, environmental issues, nuclear weapons and lastly, how Japanese should do it with it.
Japan had went through a nation-wide massive Earthquake and countless Nuclear spill issues, so it's very close to reality of the experience and fears of Japanese people. Upon the introduction of Godzilla, we saw a lot of boardroom meetings and argument for making every steps of decisions from the government, clearly mocking how indecisive and powerless the bureaucrats can be facing such catastrophic incident.
The Director Shinji Higuchi even studied the laws on how government will react if there's a similar incident occurs, so every steps of the political meeting were very close to reality of how would they react.
In this film there are no soldiers or weapons being the hero or protagonist, but rather people fighting the monster will mind and will, showcase that key of all the actions are the planning. It can be boring consider the amount of talking and mostly subtitles which irritates some audience, but remember this is a Japanese franchise and this is their realistic approach towards the subject, surely different Hollywood who treats everything like a battle without any strategic planning and consequences. This is later revealed by the US female official who said "I don't want to see a third bomb drop in my homeland", a very touchy issue in Japanese history.
To me, all the political issues in the movie are very subtle and clever showing, make us believe that it is not, and never just about Godzilla the monster. It require many people with different specialty to study and plan to neutralized Godzilla, and meanwhile stall and avoid UN to drop bombs in Tokyo, the key and center of the nation.
All the actors are amazing with the planning team working hard and the elder bureaucrat complaining about their reputation or cold ramen. The soundtracks are also excellent where mostly are from classic Godzilla films and noticeably from or remix of EVANGELLION, another classic anime franchise deal with similar topics. There were quite a lot of audience smiling during the soundtrack playing.
Subtle symbolism throughout the whole movie, people with little background knowledge of Japanese should be able to connect the dots. The relationship between Godzilla and Nuclear weapon, the nuclear power plant, and environmental issue. The last scene was very memorable to me, as Japan is sitting on Godzilla and looking to coexist with this monster, just as how Japan must coexist with it;s nuclear plants and avoid less earthquakes, and how Japan needs to survive sitting on these time bombs.
After all, Very good movie shows depth of it's origin rather than nonsense CG battles like the Hollywood remake. One of the best film this year.
If you can't stand much dialogue or reading lots of subtitles then sadly you might miss on this masterpiece.
1 rittoru no namida (2005)
Please Watch this MOVIE!!! (...Not the TV drama...)
first of all i......in case you guys didn't know,this one is th MOVIE version of 1 Litre of Tears, NOT the TV series one!!! The one with Erika is the TV series which they filmed at 2005,after the released of the MOVIE version(2004),and this one is the the MOVIE website... don't mess up
I think Asae Oeshi done a wonderful job by doing this role,she acts much better than the TV drama one. She may not pretty as Erika but she sure can act.They add a lot of conflicts and that "boyfriend" who didn't exist in the reality.This movie is more based on the reality,and all the acting are more realistic.
Please go watch it
X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)
The Last Stand?The Last X-Men movie for sure...
well first of all I don't know X-Men very well,but since my friends are X-Men fans,I learn a lot about it...so if u find some mistakes,please correct me
the beginning part is cool,it told about how Pheonix's power was found, but the Angel part confuse me...he really did nothing in the whole movie except save his father,that scene is mean-less...and most of my friends were shocked when they heard Cyclops was killed by Phoenix!I mean OK,she killed him,that's cool,but the mighty Cyclops just like that?with no body found,no last word...come on he was a main character,he's not supposed to died,not like this...Professor X's death is also a WTH moment,he's the symbol of X-Men and since he's dead I realize this is the last X-Men movie...other parts are OK,the bridge scene was cool, but...
the worst part in my opinion showed up: Wolverein(forget the name)& Strom & Iceman & Beast & Kitty & Colosses and some human versus more than 100 mutants include Magneto?and do the mutants from Brotherhood have POWERS?The wolverine killed them just like cutting flowers......First,why Magneto send his army only to made them became only human?what's reason Magneto want to kill the cue at the first place?if he just let them became normal then there's no reason to kill it anymore since most of them are not mutants anymore...and if I'm not crazy I believe there MUST be some people who are STRONGER than them......but the movie made them looks no different with normal people,that's BS...and poor Juggenaut...well he supposed to be Prefessor X's brother,now he is a stupid Irish(no offense) with no brain?the fighting part is ridiculous,not to mention those mutants just decided to kill the guy(Angel's father)by throw him out of the top flour?...the very last fight part is not very good in my ind,either,I mean that's so typical...if I'm Phoenix I can killed Wolverein much easier and faster....
OK that's about it,the thing i didn't like about the movie are: Mis-Tiqe turn normal and betray Magneto? Cyclops,Phoenix and Prefessor X died? Most of the Mutants lost power,or died so easy and quick... Toad and Sabreto didn't show up,same as Night Claws... 6 X-Men > more than 100 Brotherhood? What the reason they put Angel in the movie?just for saving his father? Magneto became a normal old man?(actually I felt very sad about him,once a one of the most powerful mutant and the leader of Brotherhood...) Do you think that's so pity that the movie series ends,with lots lots lots more characters didn't have the chance to show up?
I know I did't know X-Men very well,and this is my first summary so please rate it or reply it(can u reply this?) the movie is OK,but worse than the first 2 movies...