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Reviews
My Fair Lady (1964)
Absolutely amazing...but slightly ruined by the ending.
Overall, this film was great! The songs were memorable, the characters were great, and the story was pretty good. I definitely enjoyed watching the film for the story because the growth of Eliza is funny and moving. You see how she changes from a poor flower girl that has, what is considered "very poor english" and transforms into a "proper woman" however, the film is about not only accepting your true self, but also wanting to improve. It's shown in both Eliza and Henry's characters, as Henry wants to change Eliza and Henry falls in love with her, but she wants him to change. However, both want to be accepted for who they are, despite being encouraged to change for each other.
With that being said, the ending was too ambiguous of the outcome of their relationship and character arcs to be considered a masterpiece. I really wanted to like or understand the ending, but I felt like it was so "up to the audience" to decide what happens with them. The ending shows Henry singing about how he has grown accustomed to her, which I can only guess was his way of saying that he has fallen in love with her, and he goes into his study and plays one of her voice recordings of when she first came to his office. He sits on his chair and Eliza steps into the room and tells him "I washed my hands and face before I come, I did." in the poor English accent he was so intent on changing. He then says "Eliza" with a huge smile on his face, then proceeds to cover his face with his hat and says "Where the devil are my slippers?" I loved and hated it, I wanted there to be a more romantic gesture to each other to indicate the outcome of their relationship! Perhaps it's their characters way of saying they love each other.
The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run (2020)
Stephen Hillenburg is spinning in his grave.
What else can I say about this god awful movie besides it's one of the stupidest movies ever. Yes, it's just a kid's movies, so many would expect this nonsensical plot and characters, but I grew up watching spongebob, so to see the way the plot and characters are written is a disgrace.
They completely disregard the character backgrounds altogether, for example, the characters seem to have flashbacks of some kind of summer camp where they all met, specifically in terms of Sandy, if you watched the show way back in the late 90's, you'll remember that spongebob meets Sandy when she fights off a clam in jellyfish fields, then she invites spongebob to her tree dome, in the film, they meet in camp, like what!?!?
Overall this film is sad and pathetic, they completely disregard the original show completely!
Soul (2020)
Pure masterpiece.
The first time I watch Soul, I finished it on December 25th at 2:00 am, so I was very worn out from staying up so long to watch it and didn't think much of it. I rewatched it the next day and realized it was an absolute masterpiece, another instant classic by the legendary Pete Docter, which is no surprise.
Soul manages to use worn out storylines from films like Heaven Can Wait, A Matter of Life and Death, Defending Your Life, It's a Wonderful Life...the list goes on and manages to create an entirely new and engaging story with a very meaningful message of appreciating the little things in life.
I've been watching Pixar my entire life and one thing that makes Pixar stand out from other animation studios is that they create films that appeal directly to adults. I heard this saying about Disney and Pixar, which was that Disney makes films for kids that adults MIGHT enjoy, Pixar makes films for adults that kids WILL enjoy. With Pixar's filmography of films like Toy Story, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Ratatoullie, Walle, Up, Inside Out, Coco, and now Soul, Pixar has proven that statement to be not only the truth, but a testament to its importance in cinema.
Guling jie shaonian sharen shijian (1991)
Definitely a film that subverted my expectations and I liked it!
I had heard about this film after seeing Edward Yang's Yi-Yi. I did not like Yi-Yi, upon hearing many critics praise Yi-Yi, I watched it and was completely appalled at how pointless the film was. Maybe it's the fact that the film was insanely long and the structure of the film was weak due to its length, like too many characters to keep track of, weak plot, and nothing really to walk away from the film with. I finished the insanely long movie and gained no insight or thoughts on anything, if anything I was pleased that I had finished it. Overall I gave Yi-Yi a 3/10, there was just too much wrong with the film for me to enjoy it.
Finally, I had heard of Edward Yang's other film A Brighter Summer's ray and thought, oh great another long Edward Yang film that everybody says is a masterpiece. After hearing more and more about it I finally decided to sit down and watch it today. The film was excellent, I couldn't even believe how similar it was to Yi-Yi, but it had a much better story and captivating tone to it. The constant tone shifts of gang members engaging in brutal fights and betrayal made me forget that these are middle school kids and then showing them in their school settings was a huge tone shift that flowed so smoothly.
The romance in the film could have been a bit more developed, I thought that this was a mix of The Outsiders, West Side Story, and Romeo and Juliet, because of the romance between members and women a part of rival gangs/territories, but I was so enthralled with the romance element, or Atleast what I was expecting it to be, that the overall theme of identity and how some people never change went completely over my head. I really wanted this to be a star crossed lovers tale, I'm really into those, yet what I got was much darker and I loved it. I was not expecting the ending at all, it completely threw me off and was stunned until the final credits rolled.
Definitely check it out!
Yi yi (2000)
Too long and too dry to enjoy.
I consider myself, not a guy that just likes watching films, but a guy that loves films and spends most of my time and energy watching and learning more about different films.
I had heard about Yi-Yi from the amount of praise it has, especially since many different YouTube film channels I follow praise this film like no tomorrow. I noticed the film was 3 and 1/2 hours long so I had to wait a few days to really clear my schedule to watch it in one sitting and all I can say is that it was a VERY LONG 3 and 1/2 hours.
For starters, the film lacks any real character development, I couldn't really connect with any of the characters because there was too many characters in the story to follow, many of whom are very monotone and can not really sympathize or connect with. It's very difficult to point out the main character, there's so much juggling around with characters that you would think it would be the dad because we follow his story the most, but then you would also think it's the little boy because he's in the cover and we follow his story for awhile. This film's character development is all over the place.
Next is the plot, oh my god, it felt like I was watching a soap-opera without a narrative story. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of films that use this non-narrative plot where the plot of the film is juggled between multiple characters and juggle the narrative of the film like Pulp Fiction, The Squid and the Whale, Magnolia, and many others. However, this film lacks any really story, it's like you're just watching the daily lives and struggles of this middle class family. Because of that, there's not really much to walk away from and in turn leaves the movie to be a very boring story. I think the movie tries too hard to be a deep movie using very simple dialogue and scenes for example, the kid and the dad talk about seeing what the other sees, but the kid points out that the dad can't see what he sees and he can't see what the dad sees, saying that they both wouldn't understand each other's perspective, and this leads to the son getting a camera and taking pictures of the back of peoples heads so that they can see what they can't see. I literally have no idea what the point of that was.
The camera work is okay, there is way too many long takes and long shots in the film that it makes up atleast 30 minutes of the monstrous run time of the film.
My advice, unless you really want to see for yourself and maybe get a better insight of the film, be prepared to either become wowed, or bored out of your mind.