Howard Ji

Howard Ji Patron

Favorite films

  • There Will Be Blood
  • The Lighthouse
  • Satantango
  • Mirror

Recent activity

All
  • The Immortal Story

    ★★★½

  • Black Bag

    ★★★★

  • The Circus

    ★★★½

  • La Vie de Bohème

    ★★★★

Recent reviews

More
  • The Immortal Story

    The Immortal Story

    ★★★½

    The tale of a man's last wish to be cucked. Like all of Welles' work, this was visually marvellous. The colour palette was very painting-like and the framing of some of these shots tempted me to change my desktop wallpaper. I was a bit frustrated at first by how little it had going on narratively but I came to embrace its small scope by the end.
    As a side note, I find it quite funny how much Welles embraces his obesity. He's so perfect at playing these repulsive sacks.

  • Black Bag

    Black Bag

    ★★★★

    Damn, Soderbergh is on a roll, and I'm totally on board with this phase of Fassbender's career. Between The Killer and this, I wouldn't mind if he keeps signing on to these sleek almost Melville-esque spy thrillers. This was gorgeously shot, tightly edited, and has a dizzying script that ties things up quite nicely. Those dining table scenes (both with and without food) were gripping as hell. I also loved the production design, it's nothing too out of the ordinary but just enough special touches to the tech and interior design to stand out.

Popular reviews

More
  • The Substance

    The Substance

    ★★★★★

    TIFF 2024 #10

    Truly fucking insane, like if Cronenberg and Verhoeven co-directed Black Swan but even that doesn't do it justice. In recent years, it seems like women directors have far more balls within the horror space. As someone with a pretty strong stomach for this sorta thing, it's impressive how much of a reaction it got out of me. Even by body horror standards, this is an extremely physical movie, with uncomfortably close close-ups and sounds that are disgustingly…

  • Kinds of Kindness

    Kinds of Kindness

    ★★★★½

    👍
    Oh Yorgos, never change. For me, seeing him reunite with cowriter Efthimis Filippou is like seeing a favourite band make a comeback. I can see a lot of people get put off by this movie's abrasive absurdity especially given Lanthimos' recent more mainstream sucesses (my gf included who loved Poor Things), but this shit is right up my alley. Uncomfortably violent and awkwardly hilarous, all 3 stories kept me hooked all the way through. The whole cast is great…