This is probably the most cheery example of this sort of proudly disreputable movie I can recall seeing; it's all sex workers on the margins of a place that is pointedly already marginal, but is never really looking to make the audience feel like they're slumming it, even when it eventually gets to the point when the candy coating starts to wear off.
Which is a neat trick, because it's a story that requires a lot of episodic bouncing and…
Quality Japanese "the world is somewhat askew from what you think" stuff, although I kind of want an argument to be raised with its premise at some point, even if it ultimately fails. This lady wants to push back on nihilism, but doesn't really get to.
Nice slow burn, though, with a really nice lead performance and complementary folks to make it work. The filmmakers have a nice way of raising flags right away so that the audience gets a…
There's a moment in the middle of The Concierge where one character basically points out that this whole situation is messed up, since these animals going extinct and the rise of department stores are linked to the same rise in consumerism, and then the whole movie basically shrugs and goes "anyway..." Weird, right?
Anyway... It's a really charming little movie that does a nice job of taking what were probably one-off stories in the manga and building a narrative out…
Movies like The Booksellers don't exactly backfire when, halfway through, certain viewers find that this film meant to celebrate a rare and vanishing breed of person is instead providing examples of just how that breed rubs them the wrong way. A documentary doesn't necessarily need to be convincing to be worthy, but at times there is enough self-satisfaction evident in this one to visibly crowd out the more dynamic stories that filmmaker D.W. Young could be telling.
You almost have…
