The movie is for children and the main stars are children. I liked the fact that it was hunting at how stories should be written and what the building blocks of novels are. Actually, every movie hints at s truth that lies behind Truth with capital T. Nowadays movies are hardly labouring and striving on to keep the watcher hooked I the dynamics of the textual elements of movies but rather lure them to the ephemeral effects of gimmick used in the movie.
Reviews
32 Reviews
Body Cam
(2020)
Cliché horror thriller
24 December 2021
The movie is well crafted in terms of the plot and mini climaxes scattered around. The movie revolves around the theme of vengeance, prejudice and karma as well. However, the movie doesn't have an added value to the horror movie industry since the same jump scares, twists and whooshes are present and you feel like that horror industry needs a poke so we can enjoy the old suspense.
Wounds
(2019)
Posthumous craft
22 December 2021
The movie was a bit drag and the mini twists of horror movies are hardly found. The start was good but as the plot unfolds and strings are pulled the movie started to to turn up into an idle movie with unnecessary d8gressikns thrown here and there. Gross modo, the director fails to floxk in with the usual horror movie vibe.
The Beyond
(2017)
Beyond Natural Philosophy
10 January 2018
The movie raises one of the fundamental questions philosophy or call it life and delves into a muddy world of evergreen questions that we are still to find answers for. Indeed, some simple questions are prove to be one of the most difficult ones: what are the boundaries of humans as a soul and as a body? are there any alternate lives that we are not aware of? are we intelligent creatures or it's just a label that we give ourselves since we have not found yet a reference point for humanity. The production is a blend of documentary style and movie building blocks. I was pleased with the performance of actors who were in general more natural in their acting. The movie also touches on one of the biggest challenges for today civilisation and so-called governments taking control over people and how it is easy to divert opinions with only cover-up stories broadcast on media. Unfortunately, this reflects how gullible the majority of people may be by only looking a well crafted ad or an awareness campaign. This also reminds me of one the philosophical questions that we, non deliberately, keep asking ourselves: should governments exist? are they turning us, like the benevolent AI machine in Star Trek, into unthinking objects? The answer for such questions would prove to be multifaceted and to be interpreted differently by different folks depending on the beliefs.
A Bad Idea Gone Wrong
(2017)
A Bad Idea Half Gone Wrong
2 December 2017
I just watched this movie and I had a mixed feeling about it on whether to classify it, as the French people say, as a navet or just another brick in the wall of normal movies. One thing that I didn't like about the movie is stupidifying actors to a level that it becomes really démodé because if comedy scenes don't build up on a natural increasing curve, they will certainly cause the watcher to switch off and roll over their eyes. The movie also deserves some honorable mentions such as the plot and the good acting of Marlon (Matt L. Jones) whom I enjoyed looking at his manners and physiognomy and my eyes was glazing over for the cartoon-based stupid acts he may have to do.
Ghost Note
(2017)
Navet Ghost Note
10 August 2017
I was expecting a lot when I saw the first scenes of the movie but as it unfolds the bore was taking me over because the movie was filled with holes. The scenery was nice and mesmerizing with spooky music as well as the change of light, but you lose interest in a movie when you can expect what will happen next. Added to that, one of the most important reasons for giving low rates for this movie is the poor performance of Justin whom I think was not a fit for that. The plot was a plain one and nothing new is brought to the world of thriller movie. For first timers, this movie is a good start and it may give you some jumps if you've never watched a movie in this genre before but if you do, you're likely to finish all your corn without even filling that you're watching a movie.
The Wall
(II) (2017)
The Western Wall
3 August 2017
The movie is a snap of what happened, happens and would happen at war with lives, hopes, and disguise at stake. There is no wonder that the American soldier is depicted as one with a heart, with hope for life, and with a brain. Yet, if you look at the movie from an alien point of view you would understand that the soldier is a foreign land whom he has no idea why he is there, who he is fighting for, or even whether this war he's fighting and involved will change his world or the worlds of other. In other words, if your house is made of glass, don't throw at people stones. The producer tries to depict the lost souls who unwillingly fought for their countries or rather for their superiors and the so-called enemies who are on a mission to get back at them being pushed by what happened to them or to their countries. What separates truth, untruth, life and death is a mere wall that can collapse at any time.
Assassin's Creed
(2016)
The Ascendancy of Video Games Stories
26 December 2016
I was hesitant to watch this movie but I thought I'd rather give it a shot so as to see how the trend is going to be in the next few years. The scenes were mesmerizing with the flavor of the past that lives in the present and the mixture of languages being during the reign of Muslims over Spain. Michael Fassbendor acting as Aguilar did a good job in the ups and downs of the plot of the movie, but I think that the producers didn't invest much time training him on what should constitute a good stance in martial arts which may lower his credibility within the environment of the movie. In one of the stances his foot is not as flat as it is case with stances in most martial arts and anyone who has a basic background in martial marts would recognize that. The special effects were also nice with steam surrounding "animosis" to give a shape the characters coming from the past.
Inception
(2010)
Layers of Truth and Beauty
22 December 2016
The plot of the movie was one of the best ones that I have ever seen especially the fact that it treats in a dramatic and cinematic way one of the oldest and never answered mysteries of life and existence: what is real? and what is True - with capital T-. DiCaprio has done a great job and his acting was canonical here in that movie along with other actors. Because the theme of the movie is of philosophical nature it could not fully escape the paradoxes and the illogical and this is normal due the complexity of that topic. This made me think whether we are in a dream or we are like the inception in a augmented reality that we created for ourselves and how we know that we are really awake or dreaming. Maybe death as the kick of inception for us; it only awakens us to another layer of reality. The soundtrack of the movie is also inspiration with one of the french master pieces of music "Je Ne Regrette Rien" for Edith Piaf.
Blair Witch
(2016)
What we don't know keeps scaring us
21 December 2016
But what we can expect or predict keeps making us feel the bore. The movie was based on the trend of making the shots from a first person narrative to give it the original feel and that it's not edited. For horror movie first timers, this may be a good candidate to start with; however, for those who have watched many horror movies, this one will not likely to surprise you or give you extra experience but it would only rather leave you with usual message:"nah! I knew it from the very beginning". The plot of the movie is predictable that fans of horror movies know exactly when the producer of the movie expect them to jump. This does not mean that the movie didn't gain some points such as the setting that stood out as spooky and eerie with light and darkness being switched off sporadically and irregularly.
Bad Santa 2
(2016)
Santa Gone Wrong
21 December 2016
The movie was supposed to be funny with a guy whose seriousness is the source of fun, yet the movie missed both fun and seriousness. It simply doesn't have these ingredients to make it stand as a comedy. The plot is not something that hooks up but rather beats you down and even can make you, literary speaking, think of mimesis of mimesis, namely imitation of imitation. Willie is depicted as the Albert Camus who doesn't care about his mum and who doesn't care about himself, the world, and the Santa's; however, he would have something hidden inside his heart that would be triggered by a scene such as seeing his mum coughing, or a performance such as seeing Thurman singing some Christmas song with his tenor voice to lure us to think that the cold Santa we see in front of us is, in fact, a by-product of society that fabricated him and it's more or less what we have made with our behaviors toward people who may have problems and desires in life. Simply, this latter was not reached.
The Autopsy of Jane Doe
(2016)
Nice start but the end of a snake
20 December 2016
The start of the movie was promising with the flavor of mystery that colored the first scenes and as it unfolds the movie gets more predictable. The scenes were really gross especially when it's related to the work of a morgue. The music also had its effect on the horrorness of the movie if we may say so when you link to the sudden moves of the antagonist that literally made me at first jump because I was completely concentrating. Cast members were generally good but the one that I would give more stars is that of Brian Cox because he was the one with most natural and real-like reactions and this is no wonder because he has under his belts a lot of acting and casting in different kinds of movies. In the end, I don't think that the movie brought something new to the world horror since it followed the same predictable patterns that we would find in other movies, yet it may serve as something ephemeral to enjoy.
Darkness Falls
(2016)
The Red Panda eats shoots and leaves
19 December 2016
The first impression that I had is the nice pun the movie had deliberately or not to put in the title with the word "falls" being possible both a verb (to fall) or a noun ( water falls) which is the same technique used by Richard Wilbur in his poem entitled "The Beautiful Changes". The scenes of this short movie are well selected and well shot with eeriness of the environment and birds eye view with acid darkish music to give it the flavor of the unknown that is to be known soon. One of things that could have been improved in the short film is the flow of truth of information where I felt that it was too premature to leak out some crucial information and even I felt that the climax was a bit empty from the building complexities that should have preceded it. Overall, it is a promising short film that can be turned into a fully-fledged movie with more care of the plot.
Kubo and the Two Strings
(2016)
Symbolism revisited
1 December 2016
This animation movie produced by Laika has the ability to inspire you what life can be and why we care about life in a more symbolic way that is meant to be understood by the adults, while to be funny for the kids. This is to some extent the same style as Lewis Carroll in his novels such as Alice in Wonderland, through The Looking Glass, etc. Kubo, voiced by Art Parkinson is a little boy who is to discover his supernatural gifts through a pre-ordained quest that he's meant to carry out. The character of Kubo is a kind of bildungsroman that builds up as the story unfolds. One of the best moment, recognition in literary terms, is when Kubo knew that his father was always near him and even had dinner with his parents and that's again one of the tragedies that there are things that are really close us, yet in a blink of an eye their value, essence, and closeness changes suddenly probably because we only have one opportunity to blink.
The Monster
(2016)
Paradise Lost and Horror Lost
30 November 2016
It is natural that humans fight and flight is triggered when faced with the unexpected, and therefore you would expect anything that is unexpected. However, the more you're exposed to the same pattern of moves and events the less reactionary the fight-and-flight mechanism gets triggered. Having said that, almost, at least in my opinion, everyone who is familiar with horror movies should have predicted the moves and twists of the movie in the first 20 minutes. This will make the horror less horror but rather something mechanical that we already know what is going to happen. There is a shortage of scenes in the movie which makes the circle of thriller confined to a road and an upside down ambulance. the reaction of Zoe Kazan (Kathy) towards the scenes of the movie were to a great extent artificial and didn't sow in us the inherent fear of a vulnerable woman in the wood that we would notice in other horror movies. As for the performance of the little girl Ella Ballentine (Lizzy), it was in my opinion better than of the mother.
Trolls
(2016)
The Hidden Happiness Within
29 November 2016
This movie has some really nice allegorical lessons that are of great wisdom to the youngster and oldster as well. It goes around the notion of happiness and beauty. These two notions, easy as they seem, entail a lot of thoughts and many philosophers have wondered and wandered about them. It also depicts the causality of our happiness and sadness and the fact that what surfaces on the ground as a reluctance to be happy is no longer than an aftermath of deep incident such as what happened to Branch who happened to lost her life for him and the same for Poppy who happened to have never known "real world" as Branch told her. Bridget reminisces us of the mantra that the way we define truth is the same way we define beauty; however, we don't have to define but we're rather given definitions the rest of our lives and it's up to us to discover happiness inside us and go out to find who will find it for us inside us.
The Girl on the Train
(2016)
The Girl she used to be
28 November 2016
The movie was not that drag but rather I didn't like the quick climax and the rush towards it. I expected more twists in the climax only to find out that the climax was not that complicated compared to the previous events. The movie is also a classical portrayal of conflicts between couples who don't get along or couples who engage into a proselytizing act by convincing their partner that they are ones to be blamed. The movie also depicts the role a place, time, and fractions of moments how hurtful it can be especially for people who commute on a daily basis. Here I was asking myself whether her alcohol was commuting or the beverage itself. In our present civilization, much of our working hours are spent in routine tasks that turn us into walking machines and even create alternate realities that we plunge into when commuting. While others, like me, see commuting an opportunity to complete a book I would not read otherwise, others see in commuting a nightmare.
Fantasy and the art of animalove
27 November 2016
This is one of my favorite movies that I have watched this year. The setting of the movie is reminiscent of London in an old style. I felt that the movie suggested that some hidden problems in society are better to be left to the elite away from the laymen whom it's better for them to be obliviated. Whether this is a true or false is a matter of personal choice. In other words, the movie depicted a world that has an alternative world where a group of people have more power, secrets, wisdom and transcendence. A world that is so centralized to the extent that the government, the people are to accept the wisdom of the Group who has the power. This rhetoric repeats over and over in many other movies where few govern many because the many are helpless in facing problems bigger than them unlike the few who are surrounded by mystics and mysteries. This leaves us with the question: do we need magicians so we can breed and tame these fantastic beasts? some questions will have to wait.
Arrival
(II) (2016)
The Alchemy of Linguistics
27 November 2016
The movie tackles one of the infamous questions that we are still struggling to answer or at least to find a way how to answer: who are we and are we really alone?. Before the release of the movie I had some heated debate with some linguists about the possibility of humans to understand a completely different semiotic communication pattern than we. The movie goes around the idea that heptapods communicate through some pictographic writing system that use it to communicate with us. Is it only designed for us or they use that system to communicate between each other. I use French when I'm talking to French who don't understand English. One thing that I has some reserves about the movie is that the fact in a matter of weeks they have reached an understanding of this complex pictographic language while we, humans, failed to even decipher some of the ancient language of of our fellow species and there are some languages that are still a mystery till now. Consequently, it would not be a cinch to decipher such complex system. Also, the link between this pictographic language and its ability to reveal the future was not well spoken and it didn't burn well. Again this movie has made linguists look cool as it was described in some of the newspapers.
Nine Lives
(I) (2016)
The Alter Ego of Tom and the Capitalist
23 November 2016
This a movie that I found it really interesting in terms of plot and also at anagogical level. It shows us how a third person narrative of us would enlighten us in how we really are and what really matters to us. In other words, we would be asking the question of what really matters: love, life, success, money? this movie answers some of this in a hilarious but wise way. I got to know Kevin as an artist in K Pax movie and I see him as one of the great artists ever. This movie also reflects also the idea that what really changes people is not necessarily money but having power would test the goodness of good people and what happened in the movie is a perfect example of power being triggered by greedy manager who is ready to sacrifice the company because he got power.
Hacker
(I) (2016)
Doesn't really reflect a hacker mastermind.
15 November 2016
The movie tried to portray how a life of a typical hacker would be with the usual suspects: a migrant who is rationally sleeping till a turning point in his family's life pops us which is generally related to finance. The usual suspects suddenly decides to awaken his sleeping cyborg and decides to be utilitarian just to end up in an existential circle. Also, it doesn't really reflect the mind of a hacker but rather a mind of someone who wants to get rich and regret later. Most of the hackers fight for a cause and they wouldn't back up. There are scenes in the movie that depict a hacker as being someone who rushes in his decisions and is not proactive about what would happen and does not assess the current situation on the spot in which the movie failed to give a close-to-reality snap on how a hacker react and assess a risk.
The Answer
(III) (2015)
The Cromance
12 November 2016
The movie is a nice try by Iqbal to bring some romance between humans and aliens if we say so. However, I felt that movie lacks many important factual information that would allow the viewers to have a grasp of where the story has begun from. Also, the movie does not qualify to the canonical movies but I can call it a "soap sci-fi" movie where we already know what would happen by just having a simple guess. In the same line, the plot is not that sophisticated and was not really polished at least to avoid some clichés. The actress fell behind in some scenes where she didn't seem natural and I bet that many have noticed that especially when they argued. Again it's a nice watch by Iqbal but compared to the gurus of sci-fi movies, it is only a decent try. The movie could be improved only adding more mini climax to it.
HyperNormalisation
(2016)
Again: From Falsity everything follows
8 November 2016
Adam again used his deconstructivist style in order to reach the un-result leaving the viewer mesmerized and perplexed by what s/he should hold as truth in this world. The soundtrack of the documentary is similar to his previous documentary "Bitter Lake" with the acid music and also the colors in the movie are really sharp with raw footage that are unedited maybe to reflect the real world he's trying to unravel to the laymen. Again, he blames the finance men for the troubles that are happening around the world and also the politicians who gave up their powers to them by letting them have more than it is supposed to be. However, he has some inaccuracies in terms of some cases especially to what is happening in the Arab world. In other words, he may have even fallen in the perception management that he described in his documentary. In general, his documentary is mind opening to question the reality that is surrounding us.
Tangerines
(2013)
Simply the world
24 September 2016
It was one of the best films I've ever watched due it's hologram of simplicity and depth at the same time. The soundtrack that was used during the film was really deep with its pauses, reflecting the unknowness that cover the human nature and at the same time tapping into the original human good will but not original sin. Watching it reminds how the world doesn't matter and most of our values that we have created are only to protect the "us" from the "them" by engaging in a mercantilist kinds of way. What is religion? who is religious? what is war? does it matter to live? and so on are only parts of the questions that were put forward in the movie. The theme of death and religion is approached with eyes of a simple farmer living in a stranded village where the war for Ivo, to put it in his words, " nobody's war"
Crimson Peak
(2015)
A movie that has literature
20 September 2016
I really liked the movie and the script especially because it had meaning, meaning of the controversies of the world and what we may be losing, gaining, or missing. Mila did it again with her innocent adult smile. The only thing that was a bit out of order for me is perhaps the long introduction of the setting and maybe the climax. The place is so British that it made me think again about my future wife. In other words, the setting was another duplicata of literary description of master pieces with color contrast between red and crimson that again reflects controversies of values and principles according to one given nation or to put it in the words of Jessica:" It's a monstrous love".
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