Log: week 36 / 2023

Catherine is a young, naive girl, looking for a suitable man. When she meets Morris she is smitten with him, but her father is suspicious. Catherine's family is wealthy and he suspects that Morris is more interested in his daughter's money. On the other hand, he can't risk being wrong, ruining his daughter's relationship.

The film is very much dialogue-driven, the romance is cheesy and predictable and the film is at least 30 minutes too long. I will say that I'm not big on costume dramas to begin with, so Wyler was fighting an uphill battle from the start, but even then this was way too clammy and sentimental for my taste.

The film tells Aurora Mardiganian's story. A young woman who escaped the Armenian genocide, ended up in the US and became a movie star when she was cast for Auction of Souls, a film tackling the events she had experienced. The film was a big success but disappeared, with only 18 minutes of it remaining.

It's an impressive story for sure, but the animation is just subpar. The art style is quite interesting, impressionistic and rather detailed, but it is animated with very simple motion effects. The music is also disappointing. I think this might've worked better as a regular documentary, the interviews with Aurora are by far the most interesting bits of the film.

Some kids get their hands on a relic that allows them to be possessed by spirits. The first few tries are successful, but then their little experiments go wrong and one of them is captured. The others feel guilty and try to contact the only man who may know how to get him back from the spirits.

The performances are solid and there are some pretty fun moments, but there's a bit too much inane drama and the film is never all that tense or gory, even though it tries very hard to be exactly that. Talk to Me is pleasant horror filler, but nothing more. No doubt there will be a sequel, so let's hope they crank up the horror levels for that one.

The film is a sequel to Black God, White Devil, but the story is pretty stand-alone. Three decades after killing the last Cangaceiro, Antonio receives word that a new Cangaceiro has been sighted. He happily takes on the job to get rid of them, but his latest adversary is nothing like his previous enemies.

The cinematography is a bit crude and the performances aren't great, but it's the grating, loud, and ever-present music that was just unbearable. And it goes on for the entire film. Now, I'm all for a demanding soundtrack, but I just couldn't stand the folk music. Other than that, it was kinda interesting to see a Brazilian take on the western genre, but I didn't care for it before, still don't care for it now.

There are remnants of a plot here (there's certainly quite a bit of dialogue), but I couldn't make much of it while watching. Apparently, an artist and a revolutionary are joining a local commune, with the police on their tail. I got that from the summary after having seen the film though, so fair warning.

The animation is varied and there are some interesting scenes, especially when the music is more prominent, but it's not enough to make this a good film. The quality of the animation is disappointing (too many collages and filters), the dialogue is too deliberately artistic, and the balance between the narrative and the abstract moments is off. It's not a complete failure, but I was still quite happy to reach the end credits.

Ember's parents moved to Elemental City, where the four different elements live together. Her father wanted to open up a shop there, and even though he succeeded, he never really got along with the other elements. Ember is a temperamental young lady, but her outlook on life changes when she meets Wade, a water element.

Props for tweaking the art style just a little. It's subtle and it doesn't make a big difference, but at least Pixar is trying to evolve. The characters are horrible though (Wade in particular is obnoxious), the comedy is bland and the plot is more than a little embarrassing. But it's not their worst, so that's something.

Fukamachi is a journalist covering the climbs on Mount Everest. The attempts disappoint, but he digs up an interesting story regardless. Mallory, a climber who tried to reach the top in the 20s, supposedly made it. The proof is in a lost camera, which slipped through his fingers.

The art style is a bit plain, and the animation is a tad too basic. I wasn't a big fan of the French dub either, though if still miles ahead of the English one. The score was majestic though and it injects a ton of atmosphere into the film. The plot was okay, and the pacing fine. The potential was there to do more, but overall not too shabby.

The plot hasn't changed too much from the original, only now there's a little extra padding that allows the goofier side of Dragon Ball to surface. Goku and Vegeta bump into a new Saiyan, the strongest they have faced so far. He is a formidable foe, and they'll have to go to extremes if they want to survive.

The art style is a bit more detailed, and the animation is richer. That's a welcome change, as DBZ was pretty bare-bones in that regard. It's the action that has gotten the biggest upgrade though. Where it always felt rather underwhelming, the battles here are fast-paced and flashy, and they come off completely over-the-top. Still not the greatest of course, but a real improvement over the original.

Masaya's dad left pretty early on, after which he spent most of his time living with his mom. When he is admitted into an art college in Tokyo he leaves his mother behind and moves there. He gets into debt, but when he hears his mother has cancer, he throws his life around and invites her to come live with him.

With Odagiri and Kirin on board, the performances were on point. The cinematography was a bit basic though and while the drama is fleshed out appropriately, the pacing is slow and there's little here I hadn't seen before. It's not a bad film, it's just a bit too by the number to leave a big impression.

When two supreme judges are murdered, people are looking for answers. A young law student stumbles upon the reason, but this knowledge puts a big old target on her back. With the help of a journalist she manages to stay out of trouble, but she won't be safe until the truth is out there.

The film is quite slow and quite long, which aren't great traits for a film that is heavily focused on its narrative. The styling is pretty mediocre, the performances aren't anything special and the plot is by the numbers. It's a pretty polished film in its genre, but hardly worth a mention unless you're a real fan of political thrillers.

After a heroine gets rid of the evil in her kingdom, she puts in place a system that should protect her land for future generations. Her descendants are trained to be skilled knights, but times change, and 1000 years after her passing, a commoner is allowed to join the ranks of the knights. Things go horribly wrong when he is finally instated.

I don't mind a story about outcasts trying to fit in, but the writing is terribly simplistic, and moralistic points are driven home through bland and basic dialogues, which really kills a lot of the fun. The dub is also disappointing, which is a shame as the animation is pretty interesting. Keep the animators, and change up the creative team for the next one.