Log: week 27 / 2021

There's a bit too much time spent on the drama, which is only borderline acceptable. Luckily, the creature designs are awesome, and the horror bits are moody and tense. The little twist at the end is quite unnecessary, but Bell is smart enough to keep the ending open-ended. Certainly not the greatest horror flick around, but quite entertaining nonetheless.

Bruce Willis is pretty decent and there are a couple of nice, brutal action scenes, but you can't help but wonder why they decided to revive this franchise. The plot is pretty bland, Roth adapts it as if it was a 90s video rental, and there's quite a bit of fat that should've been trimmed. Not terrible, but I sure hope we won't be seeing a sequel.

Bullshit story aside, the choice to go for a '30s universe is ridiculous and takes away from the overall sci-fi feel. The performances are absolute crap, the film looks dirt cheap, the pacing is all over the place. Add to that a disappointing finale, and all that's left is some very basic, bland genre filler. Not good.

Brigitte Fossey's performance is powerful indeed. The cinematography is solid too and the start, with her wandering around the countryside, looks very promising. Once she arrives at her new home, things settle down and the drama gets a little less interesting. It's a shame that the second half fizzles out, this would've worked better as a road movie.

Hisaishi spends a bit too much time on the music itself (some of it taken from his former films). The performances are decent, the drama is nice enough, but at times it feels like filler in between the musical bits. It's certainly not a bad film, but the balance is a little off and if you care so much about Hisaishi's music, it's probably better to just catch one of his concerts.

It's nice to see a different setting for a costume drama for a change, but other than that, there wasn't much here that caught my attention. The cinematography is crisp but unadventurous, the soundtrack is mediocre and the characters too plain. Very basic drama that doesn't engage and overstays its welcome.

The Great K & A Train Robbery isn't a particularly great film and it did very little to change my idea about westerns and silents, but at least it wasn't boring. There was lots going on, all the fat had been cut away and there was no unnecessary padding just to inflate the runtime. Not great, but better than expected.

The performances of Pine and Witherspoon are rather plain, Hardy is slightly better but he looks painfully out of place. The mix of action, comedy and romance feels rather convoluted, the execution of the genres is basic, the ending is lame. This was a pretty unnecessary film, that said, I've seen way worse.

There's a lot of wordplay here, which went pretty much all over my head. It's kind of obvious that the translation strained to do justice to all the puns. But even then, the first hour is surprisingly serious. The sillier and more visual comedy is kept for the finale, which is more in line with other Wong/Chow collaborations. Certainly not a bad film, but not the all-out craziness you might expect it to be.

The budget may have been limited, Suzuki made excellent use of the cinematography and the soundtrack to create a quirky and off-kilter atmosphere. The plot is fun, performances are decent, and the short runtime definitely plays in the film's favor. An entertaining entry in Suzuki's unpredictable oeuvre.

It's not the most original premise, but it adds enough mystery to the film to get through the first half. Once things start to clear up, the action and thriller elements keep it going. Performances are solid, the pacing and runtime are perfect, the ending fitting. A fun and amusing film, nothing more, nothing less.

The performances are decent, but not very spectacular. The cinematography is rather basic and the drama quite slow. It's the music that is extremely overdone and makes this film overly sentimental. It becomes difficult to care for the characters and since that's really all there is to this film, it's not a big success.

Performances are solid and the build-up of the mystery is effective. The problem is that the reveals are rather bland and keep getting worse as the film continues. The bits of action at the end feels forced, but up until three quarters in this was a pretty solid effort from Wright. It's a shame the film slowly slips away from him after that.

The film is little more than a constant battle between teacher and students, that said it's not all snide and pestering. Performances are decent, though for a comedy, most actors do lack comic timing. The solid pacing and light atmosphere carry this one through, not bad if you're looking for some HK comedy filler.

The lead actor isn't too bad, the rest of the cast is decidedly worse. The cinematography is bland, the soundtrack is almost complete absent and the drama is rather predictable. It's not a very remarkable film, but if social drama is your thing you should give this one a chance. If not, it's probably best to ignore this one.

Gleeson and Church have tremendous chemistry together, Applegate and Dobrev are decent, but clearly playing second fiddle. The writing is smart, there are plenty of funny details/side characters and even though the film sticks quite neatly to the romcom template, Crash Pad never feels obsolete. A nice surprise.

Performances are decent but nothing special. The plot is basic and the comedy not all that funny. The one big positive here is that the film stays clear from introducing too much drama. The tone is light from start to finish and the film doesn't take itself too seriously. Certainly not the worst screwball comedy, still not really worth it though.

The art style is a little odd (very detailed, still the characters look a bit plain), the animation looks slick in places, a bit pedestrian in others. The story is simple, and the politics weren't too interesting for someone not embedded into the Gundam world, but once the mecha actions picks up, that part of the film is quickly forgotten. Pretty decent.

Seagal is Seagal. I simply can't stand the man, but he has his fans. The rest of the cast is equally poor, the direction is incredibly cheesy, and the plot is some bad copy-paste job from a bunch of other action flicks. The action itself isn't all that great either, but at least heads fly and people die. That's about as good as this films gets.

Some of the jokes are a bit too on the nose and the plot's pretty cookie-cutter for a sequel, but I'm pretty sure Gluck and his team were well aware of this. The self-referential moments don't quite redeem this, but the film's charm does. The animation is solid, the performances are nice and when the comedy does hit, it's all very sweet and quirky. Not the Paddington competitor it wants to be, but it's not that far behind either.