Kubo and the Two Strings (2016)

"Your magic is growing stronger. You need to learn control. But when we grow stronger the world grows more dangerous."... is an advice given in "Kubo and the Two Strings". An animation which seems initially to be addressed mostly to a younger target range. I don't know if it's hard or I'm really too lazy to unfold every piece of tale we have here, but one thing is certain: This is not a children's movie. Looks deceive. It's an allegory from start to end, which requires a lot and sometimes in-depth analysis to understand...

Kubo is a boy missing one eye living in a Japanese village, without a father and whose mother struggles somewhere between dementia and Alzheimer as days go by... One day, Kubo forgets to obey the rule of coming home before the night sets. So the fantastic threats saying that his relatives on the mother's side = 2 aunts and The Moon King - an evil grandpa from another world will come to take his last eye left become real. With a final appearance his mother saves him sending Kubo on his father's path, a great samurai, to search for a legendary armor made out of three pieces, which will solve the problem. The search or the armor?... That's one of the many questions left after the ending. Where you probably should become aware that everything you've seen it's probably a symbolic dream of the main character, and the effective reality in the movie is in a very tiny amount. Well, if you're in the mood for a bit of analysis :)...

Starting with the title, where it's relatively easy to infer that "the two strings" are the parents, and that the third string of the Kubo's shamisen is actually Kubo, the first line in the movie - "If you must blink, do it now." that initially might look like a bad cliche, but when it gets repeated seems to catch a meaning, and up to the ending with a short break on a black screen finished with a "The End" said before a really nice cover of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" by Beatles, this whole movie is cryptic... So cryptic that at some point you get lost. I guess that not even the screenwriters could give a cohesive interpretation of everything it's there, some parts having maybe a different meaning independent of others. I could say that the result is quite close to Miyazaki's animes, where behind the childish facade lie often meanings that are much more mature.

As I said in the beginning, it's hard, both subjectively and objectively, to give an interpretation of what I've seen in "Kubo". I actually think there's a bit of room for a personal meaning to be found by everybody, the common element being: family. Maybe just a warning, and that's if you have issues in this area... think again before watching this, or expect some tears...

I've tried in the latest days to close the year, as usual, with an entry that's really worth watching - that's why the frequent posting :). I think I finally found it, so I'll allow myself to wish a Happy New Year! for a hopefully better 2017 & Happy Holidays! for what's left of this season ;)

Rating: 4 out of 5

P.S.: I don't know if somebody really went that far to think this on purpose, but there's a third verse in the final cover which says something like "I look at the world and I notice it's turning / While my guitar gently weeps / With every mistake we must surely be learning / Still my guitar gently weeps". Well, the same verse, in an older, demo version, sounds a bit different ... "I look from the wings at the play you are staging, / While my guitar gently weeps. / As I'm sitting here, doing nothing but ageing, / Still, my guitar gently weeps.". Now, figure out, which and where fits in this story ;) ...

Girl with a Pearl Earring (2003)

In 1665 Johannes Vermeer painted "Girl with a Pearl Earring", a portrait of an unknown subject (or a so called "tronie" = face/expression, to describe it more precisely). In 1999 Tracy Chevalier wrote a novel with the same name offering a story for the mystery behind the face with a pearl. And in 2003 the movie came out. Which I, looking for a more serene movie subject, I've decided to watch today.

The girl in the painting is identified in the novel as a maid hired by the painter's family. From here onwards we have a drama mingled with romance, which to be fair I was a bit afraid of, but my assumption that an artificial subject integrated in real history can't get too far fortunately confirmed. Or more precisely it stopped on time so I didn't get overly subjective on this. Therefore, the movie is indeed "calm", maybe even a bit dry in its story development. But I didn't decide to write this entry for the tale of a mistery as big as the painted pearl...

The main reason for which I would recommend "Girl with a Pearl Earring" is the way the movie is shot and backed up by the score. Eduardo Serra got an Oscar nod for his camera work in this back in 2003 and (since we're getting closer to the season) I think it's one of the situations when the Academy snubbed the right winner sending the statue at the time to "Master & Commander".. This doesn't matter that much. The result stays, where the light in the movie is used such that we have an entire series of frames that look basically like painted photo stills. Alexandre Desplat was not yet very known at the time among the composers in Hollywood, but you can clearly see here why he got to be. The conclusion is that if you want to watch a movie technically worked as less and less unfortunately are, no matter what you think of the subject, you should probably watch this...

Rating: 3+ out of 5

The BFG (2016)

Since a while ago I'm trying to get a bit more selective with the movies I'm watching due to the lack of time. And that sort of excludes from my "to watch" list the range of movies where the main attendance target is age <15. For "The BFG" I made an exception because long long long ago I've read the book by Roald Dahl, which at the time I liked a lot. Unlike other books by the same author though, as "The Witches" or "Matilda" that I've also seen on scree, or "Fantastic Mr. Fox" where even though I can't compare with the written material the video version was excellent, I always found "The BFG" hard to get into a movie. And I guess I was right...

The context puts face to face Sophie, a girl in a London orphanage and The Big Friendly Giant aka The BFG, who being discovered decides to take her to the giants land, a location probably somewhere close to the British coast and inhabited by other large humanoid creatiures, however less friendly and more hungry. Let's jump to the moment when the girl decides that action should be taken against an oversized cannibal threat, and what's a better solution than the help of her Majesty - the Queen of England. There are more details (in particular a connection between the BFG and Sandman), but let's stick to the essentials...

The reason why I thought "The BFG" hard to get on screen is not that much the difficulty of a realist integration of a giant in the real world, which is actually quite ok in the movie. Technically the production is gorgeous, and Mark Rylance "plays" the BFG part flawlessly. The issues is that the written tale somehow convinces the reader (well, at least a young one...) that the Queen, woken up in a normal sunny day, could have an official meeting with a fairytale creature + other stuff like that. In writing there's a way that this sense of "believable", within the limits of a fantasy, is kept. In the movie this mixture of real and imaginary a bit too forced... Something doesn't seem to work, but I have to keep in mind that we're talking after all about a children's movie, and I'm a bit older (around 20+ years) now than when I've read the book...

Rating: 3 out of 5

Rogue One (2016)

I'll make this short: "Rogue One" suffers of what I could define as the "Two Towers" syndrome... Meaning, the unfortunate position of a middle piece. Not to be confused with the second episode in a trilogy, or the k < n part in an "n"logy. A second episode doesn't generally imply a finality in the third. A middle piece is a filling between an existing beginning and an existing ending. That's what we have here. This never works. And still "Rogue One", really manages to bring "A New Hope" in the "Star Wars" line, compared to the force awakening of last year ... Even if we don't have much of a story, set somewhere immediately before Episode IV as an excuse to bring on screen back the Death Star together with some short Vader scenes (= good way to cash in $), the result still seemed closer to the original trilogy feeling. At least the details and the way the characters were built felt like that... Even so, it looked a bit too much driven behind as a side story in one single piece (oops, big spoiler), just not to hijack the public of next year's Episode VIII...

Rating: 3 out of 5

Allied (2016)

"Allied" is a movie that tries to answer three questions... How much can you trust somebody? How far can you go to confirm your trust? and How much trust can you have after you decided to go that far?... Well, as I said, the movie tries. Succeeding is another story ...

A movie is a movie and life is life. "Allied" is a romance before all, and as cynical it may sound, I'm afraid is hard to find some title in the genre that's relevant in respect with how things really are (or maybe I'm a lost cause, who knows...). We have Brad Pitt, an allied agent sent in 1942's Africa behind enemy lines for organizing an assassination, where he must team up, ex-French resistance. I don't know if it's love at first sight (yet another unicorn...) but things move fast in any case. Mission accomplished, British residence for the girl, marriage, a child, everything seems perfect despite the Luftwaffe bombings. Until the British intelligence breaks some news...

Well, I already went far enough with the subject and I would say as usual: "watch the movie" for what's following, but already the trailer gives you more. I think it's the worst I've seen this year. Fortunately I watched the movie before so it was still spoiler-free and I was able to discover something by myself. That the questions in the beginning might have also some other answers than I knew already :) At least in a movie...

Rating: 3 out of 5

Arrival (2016)

"If you could see your life from start to finish, would you change things?" ... says a key line in "Arrival". Which seems rhetorical now... But in the movie is well enough places to cover the obvious answer. Not so easy is to decide if you've watched a good movie or not ...

One (not sunny) day, on the Earth land some ... let's call them "obelisks", of alien nature, which obviously create lots of panic in the world. Who are they, where are they from, what they want, and other questions. The U.S. government recruits a linguist and a physicist to solve the mystery. Big spoiler: they brought a gift - the non-linear perception of time.

Normally, as all SciFis that somehow connect with "the time issue" I should've liked "Arrival". Well, didn't (really) happen ... Honestly I don't know if I should appreciate more that we finally have a media product that strongly supports that "time might bend", and in a way that wasn't overused = to be able to simultaneously see the future and the past, or if I should start bashing on how wrong I find the idea to be presented/justified/whatever ... Another big spoiler: how do you get to be "Dr. Strange" in "Arrival"? by learning "alienish" - meaning that if you understand a way of expression used by some extraterrestrial heptapodes this will some somehow unlock something in your brain that will allow to what party you'll be in a year ... sorry, that doesn't cut it, not for me ... Without any alien influences, now I foresee that I'll end soon this entry without further details because I wasted enough time with it.

Rating: 3 out of 5

Winter 2016 - Spring 2017 Movies Preview - Part 2

I'm writing again when I should normally be sleeping before an early morning flight, so I'll cut this as short as possible ( anyway, these previews are more about trailers, right? ;) ). So, in March we have a bunch of blockbuster releases, starting with "Logan" = a sequel to the solo Wolverine line besides X-Men. I thought I heard at some point that Hugh Jackman will give up on this character. If the new release is as "good" as the previous it would've been better ...

"Kong: Skull Island" is a reboot of the giant gorilla. In this case I doubt it's possible to be worse than the last attempt ...

To stick to the deja-vu area on subjects, the next one is "King Arthur: Legend of the Sword". The interesting part - this is directed by Guy Ritchie. I don't hope much for such combination, but if it manages to work there are chances to see this in the "best of 2017".

In Aprile we move from box-office to very indie. At least this is what "Sleight" seems to be. The only title for now in that month with a trailer out and worthy of mentioning.

In May we have the sequel of the best Marvel movie by now (say whatever you want, I'll strongly keep my vote on it). I'm not very convinced that "Guardians of the Galaxy 2" will level with the first, but if it gets closer it's still good.

"Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell no Tales" is the fifth part of the series, bringing in Javier Bardem. For what purpose, you can check the trailer ;) ...

I've kept again for the end the "spring" title which is #1 on my waiting list. I think that since "Pandorum", at least based on the trailer, "Life" has the highest chance to get in the same "space thriller" zone where we have "Alien", "Sunshine" and not many others.

That's it for this preview round ;).

Winter 2016 - Spring 2017 Movies Preview - Part 1

We have lots of interesting releases this December, but as usual I'll just mention a couple. We start with one "made in China", which actually premiered at some festival earlier this year. "Old Stone" ("Lao shi") it's a debut thriller of Johnny Ma, a Chinese director with a Canadian education. IMDb gives a slightly higher than average rating for now, but we'll see. Based on previous experiences I tend to trust more the Far East productions ...

We'll stay on the Asian continent with "The Great Wall". This time we have an established director - Zhang Yimou ("Hero", "House of Flying Daggers", etc.) and a cast lead by ... Matt Damon, for something that looks like a sort of fantasy ... The first trailer (which didn't give so much info) seemed more promising. The second, however, made me doubt. Still, again, we talk about the guy who was behind "Hero", which I think it's the best wuxia (Chinese fantasy) ever made (and no, I didn't forget about Ang Lee).

Although I typically tend to get over the box office targets that already have enough publicity, I'll stop a bit on "Star Wars: Rogue One". The reason is simply that last year's "The Force Awakens" was so disappointing that I'm expecting something much better now, even though it's a spin-off, secondary story thread, SW branded money maker, tell it how you want... I still have higher hopes than I have for the "main story".

The fifth "Underworld: Blood Wars" enters cinemas tomorrow. The first two movies in this series made the difference from what else we have starring vampires & werevolves ("Blade" series, "Twilight" shouldn't even be mentioned in the same sentence, and others). The last two "Underworld"(s) unfortunately dropped to a much lower level. Maybe we'll have a comeback now ...

In January we have "Sleepless", a remake of "Nuit Blanche", a very good French action from 2011. Remains to be seen if the US version can top that.

"Split" is a horror by M. Night Shyamalan who, after a very long series of failures, incredibly enough (really, I don't know how he still got a budget) seems to get back in the shape he was in the beginnings of his career ("6th Sense", "Unbreakable"). At least that's what the critics say after several screenings in festivals...

"The Lego Movie" was a very pleasant surprise. High expectations for "Lego Batman" next February.

"John Wick" was a very unpleasant surprise. Low expectations for "John Wick 2" (so theoretically I should be pleasantly surprised now, right?).

We're closing February with "A Cure for Wellness", the title that seem to me the most interesting and #1 on my waiting list from this series. Gore Verbinski is a good director. Justin Haythe is a good writer. The only problem is that the trailer says a bit too much...

Soon, the Spring season ...