Spotlight might be the ugliest film of 2015. It’s so wrapped up in its own aesthetic of reality—washed out faces that blend in with pale, drab wallpaper, garish orange furniture clashing with a painfully ordinary office—that you might cry foul that it’s meant for the big screen at all. Yet Tom McCarthy, the visionary director behind […]
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2
I’ve had an interesting relationship with The Hunger Games film series. The first (and titular) entry caught my attention for bringing Suzanne Collins’ dystopian world to such initially vibrant life, but director Gary Ross’ shaky camerawork kept me from lauding the film too heavily. Francis Lawrence took up the directing reigns afterward, and crafted Catching Fire into a […]
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1
I didn’t know how to react to Mockingjay – Part 1. I remember feeling strangely ambivalent. I was entirely unmoved for the two hours I spent in the theater. After thinking about the film for a week or so, I realize that I felt cheated. This is because Mockingjay, Part 1 isn’t a movie; it’s a glorified advertisement for […]
The Wind Rises
Wind is fickle. One day it erodes mountains, and the next it softly grazes your cheek. It bends the largest trees, but then offers quiet respite on a hot day. Harnessed, it can be the substance of power, offering utility to humanity. But left to its wild nature, wind can devastate and kill. Humanity is […]
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
The first Hunger Games movie pissed me off. It feels like that playing in free bet websites is more worth my time than watching that movie. Series author Suzanne Collins helped pen the film’s script herself, but the adaptation was troublingly devoid of the substance that made the book so great. Perhaps the best thing […]
