CW: Reference to and brief discussion of suicide
"True" horror isn't about vengeful spirits, crazed serial killers, or mindless zombies. It's deeper than that. The underlying building blocks that shape what causes us fear is always deeper than that.
Taipei Suicide Story is a simple yet uniquely alluring, meditative, and soul-piercingly still story about a "suicide hotel" receptionist and his rapport with a guest who's uncertain about if she wants to live or not.
I think this film does a…
“What a cruel joke…what a cruel joke.”
More cinematic homecooking from the maestro, Bimal Roy. With Naukri–similar to Two Acres of Land (released one year prior)–Roy deftly blends wholesome, amusing, and endearing dramatic elements into a tale of tragedy and woe.
For the less fortunate, contending with economic deprivation can feel like an exercise in Sisyphean futility. Even the most naively optimistic among us gradually mature to bitter realists when forced to endure such ugly, unjust, and unrelenting distress.
No…
The Eyes, the Sea and a Ball is an uplifting story about a teacher relocating to a remote island–out of duty, on the strength of a promise–to educate impoverished village kids and who also coaches them to play and eventually excel at volleyball. And of course, being the master that he is, Kinoshita was able to craft this story in such a way that it got me choked up by the end!
The way he fought for (sometimes literally 😂)…
In The Key, love is a burden, devotion is a sham, marriage is a charade, and the web of duplicitous fictions connecting them all are reimagined as truth for the “convenience” and pleasure (however detrimental) of all parties involved.
This film is yet another adaptation of famed author Junichiro Tanizaki's 1956 novel “The Key,” a clever and erotic psychosexual study of dysfunctional love, sensuality, and latent desire.
This tantalizing tale thrives due to its bizarre yet scintillating premise: a middle-aged…
Idk, man...I legit don't know what I just saw. 😳😆😒
I'm jealous that so many people are able to enjoy this. For me, though, Titane's particular blend of batshit, bizarre, and bewildering elements didn't resonate with me.
At no point was I bored, but there were moments of exasperation. I don't think it's "bad," but I was glad when it was finally over.
I don't hate it. I feel...nothing. I'm utterly indifferent. This wasn't for me. And my indifference is to the point that I don't even care enough to attempt to articulate why it didn't work for me.
If the distinctly Black inspiration behind Boots Riley's Sorry to Bother You, Jordan Peele's Get Out, and Malcolm D. Lee's Undercover Brother had a passionate tryst and made a cinematic lovechild. 🤌🏿🙌🏿✨
They Cloned Tyrone blesses us with an ideal blend of Black humor, Black ingenuity, Black existentialism (defined within the oppressive confines of white hegemony), and conscious Black "drapetomania."
Unapologetically Black and FUBU as fuck. Definitely Tupac's "Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z." type energy insofar as there being ample nuances,…
