Tag Archives: Drama

Her Blue Sky Review

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Imagine for a moment that you’re the coolest guy in the room. Everyone has standard black hair but you have cool red hair. Everyone grew old and let themselves get wasted while you are young and immortal. Then you find out the catch..you are stuck in a single room for the rest of your life while you watch a doppelganger of yourself mess up everybody’s lives. This is the tragic drama that unfolds in this movie and it’s a pretty good one that will keep your attention. One characters gets off wayyyyyyyyyyyyy too easily though.

The movie starts with Aoi’s parents getting destroyed so her older sister Akane is forced to take care of the two of them. Akane basically gives everything up including her boyfriend in order to be ready for this task and does a masterful job. The great impact of this sacrifice is not lost on Aoi who blames herself for this. She aims to move to Tokyo as soon as possible so Akane can get her life back and plans to do this through music. Well one day, she bumps into Akane’s old boyfriend Shinno inside of the practice dojo but he hasn’t aged a day. He is stuck in there though and his older self shows up for the town concert but the guy has become a womanizing creep. Should Aoi help the older Shinno get back together with Akane to free the younger self or is this all a big mistake?

There’s a lot going on here and right off the bat you should know that the characters have no idea why the old Shinno has appeared. I’m glad that he doesn’t randomly know either, it helps add some drama on not knowing how to free him. They make the assumption that he has some kind of regret so matchmaking him to Akane makes some sense but it’s also a bit of a leap in logic. Shinnosuke (That’s how I’ll refer to the older one like Aoi does in the movie) is also such a bad guy that you can’t root for them anyway. He would only be making her life a lot worse.

Shinnosuke is really my biggest problem with the movie because he seems like a completely different character. I know some years have passed but for him to have changed this much is absolutely crazy. He has gone against all of his old values and goes out of his way to be a massive jerk. From saying how he thinks girls shouldn’t be in the band, to insulting Akane immediately, there’s no reason to like the guy. I would have liked for him to have been booted out of the band. The film half heartedly tries to massage his flaws in the end but I did not buy it at all. I also thought it was a stretch for Akane to go back to him so quickly. It shouldn’t have even been a tempting proposition for her, I would have expected her to have been completely disillusioned.

So in short, all scenes with Shinnosuke were completely undeserved. He should have been knocked out and the best scene in the film is when Shinno chews him out. It has to be absolutely depressing to meet your future self and find out that you became a total loser. It’s more incentive to make sure you never turn out that way and I’d probably just be in denial that there’s no way I could turn out like that. On some level it would definitely hurt though and Shinno did good to not be crushed.

It’s why Shinno is such a great contrast because he’s easily the best character in the film. He’s in a really sucky situation. Imagine being trapped in a room with nobody to talk to for hours and hours? Yet he never complains or grumbles and is instead always ready to listen to the other characters and support them. He helps Aoi out a whole lot and when he’s put into awkward positions like having someone confess her feelings to him, he handles it about as well as possible. He’s just a good guy and when Akane is in danger he is ready to jump into action. He’s easily the most passionate character in the film and I was really glad that he got some good closure at the end of the film. It really dodged a bullet as it would have been super unsatisfying otherwise.

If you watch the film, Shinno should be the reason why. Then we have Akane who is a good character but I would argue she has some poor judgment. You have to give her a ton of credit for looking after Aoi so well. She made big sacrifices and just kept on looking forward. She never showed Aoi any hint of weakness and was also very practical in learning how to cook and take care of a kid. Her only fault is in what I would call “settling” when it comes to Shinnosuke. It feels like she just wasn’t able to move on and so in the end she is forced to keep on going after this guy but he doesn’t deserve such a good person. I would have even preferred for her to just leave for Tokyo at the end of the film or something. That would have still been better.

If you have to have her go back with Shinnosuke, have him be begging for a while and she gives a non committal answer like she needs to see him turn his life around first. It should be a long and hard road for him to win her back, not her laughing because he can still play a song. Also, that’s not to say she should go with Michinko because that guy was lame. I’m definitely not a fan of his in the slightest. For starters, he wants to win her over but doesn’t seem to be improving his life at all. He wastes a lot of money in attracting a big singer to the town and then he still drinks a lot of beers and gets drunk?

The guy acts rather desperate wanting her to notice him to the point where everyone knows he has a crush on her. That’s just sad and so I would not have wanted him to have been a rebound either. Meanwhile his son seems to have inherited his timidity in not saying anything to Aoi about his crush. Nothing will ever happen if you stay quiet about these things. Better to say something and get rejected hard than to always hang around and hope you get picked eventually. I’ll never really be able to defend a character like that. It just makes you shake your head instead.

There’s one more supporting character in Aoi’s friend Chika but she doesn’t get to do a whole lot. She’s fun enough and it was nice for Aoi to have at least one friend but you could cut her out and not much would really change. Not for Aoi herself, she is a fun lead. Definitely not the nicest one by a long shot but at least she is a bold character. She is pro active and tries to get things going like when she enters the band and proves herself. She talks tough and is rude to those around her but at least she has the skills to back it up.

While I do say you should be loud and make your feelings known generally, she should have probably kept her peace. Not much use in confessing to a ghost who won’t be here for long. Particularly since it’s someone that her sister likes. It’s one of those unspoken rules that you are not supposed to cross. You just gotta bury those feelings so deep that you never find them again. All in all, it was nice to have a lead who was more on the tough side and wasn’t afraid to call everyone out though. She gave the film a lot of personality.

As for the animation, it’s okay but nothing too noteworthy. The film is pale enough where Shinno’s red hair really stick out though. So it’s a nice contrast like how he stands out from all of the other characters who really can’t keep up. This isn’t exactly an action film so there’s not much opportunity for the film to show off otherwise but I can say that it is far from a low budget experience. The animation is still very smooth and I had no issues there throughout. The music is definitely on the weaker side though, I don’t think any of the tracks really landed.

As for the romance itself, I do tend to like dramatic romances. The more characters and triangles you have, the more intense the drama gets. Naturally I’m not rooting for most of the pairings but so long as the film doesn’t let anyone get too far, it works out well. I’ve already said that I don’t support Shinnosuke and Akane in any way, shape or form but Shinno and her would have worked out well. I can’t support Aoi and Shinno because that would be a massive rebound. Machinko and his son are completely out of luck as well. While I may not be rooting for them, the romances were all developed well though and you can get why the characters would fall for each other. Aside from Akane falling for Shinnosuke again, the others made perfect sense. Like Aoi hangs out with Machinko’s son a lot and her bold attitude probably won him over many times. Machinko being desperate for Akane the whole time makes sense as well since they were close, etc. The writing was on point here.

Overall, Her Blue Sky is a pretty good film. The ending is rather rushed and Shinnosuke got way too lucky the whole time but outside of that I didn’t really have any issues. The film’s pacing is good and a lot is happening the whole time. I’d definitely recommend it so long as you enjoy a good drama film. There is no shortage of that here after all so you can really just enjoy how crazy it all gets. Also a good reminder to always be watching yourself to ensure that your future self doesn’t disappoint your past.

Overall 7/10

Pat and Mike Review

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It always used to seem cheesy to have one of the characters say something like “There’s just one rule. Don’t fall in love with me!” right before they team up in a movie but now I see why that happens. This is one of those classic films where two characters decide to team up and get some massive Ws but along the way they start catching feelings. It’s a pretty fun film but the romance does feel like it’s more on the weak side.

The film starts with introducing us to Pat who is one of the top athletes of our generation. She is incredible in all physical sports and the only reason she hasn’t shattered every record is because she gets nervous whenever her boyfriend Mike shows up to watch her. He finds the whole thing amusing and doesn’t take her career too seriously though. So when she loses another tournament, he suggests she should just give it a rest and marry him already. Then she can be a stay at home mom. Pat resists and jumps off the train so that she can prove she is still the greatest athlete in the world. Well, that’s not her goal, but a local trainer named Mike notices her and decides to team up. Initially he was going to have her throw a few games and everything but she’s the real deal. So he’s decided that he will help her become the best. Can they pull this off?

In a way Mike’s job here is pretty easy since Pat is already super talented. All he has to do is figure out why she freezes up at times and he eventually gets to the bottom of that. Otherwise he does also pressure her to go to sleep early and such. He seems like a good trainer to be honest and their partnership works out well. The guy may not be the most heroic person out there but he is serious about his money so he takes the situation very seriously.

Meanwhile Pat is also a solid character. Naturally the freezing up is real unfortunate but it’s not like she does this on purpose or anything like that. She is an easy character to root for the whole time and seems like a nice person. She has a solid moment where she takes out a whole gang of thugs and made it look easy. This is definitely something that not just anyone could pull off. While Mike was a little embarrassed about the whole thing, he really shouldn’t be. This just further proves that she is a generational talent.

Like I said, the weakest part is the romance. Collier is set up to not be a great guy from the start so you know that he’s doomed. The fact that he encouraged Pat to just quit is pretty awful. Clearly she had the skills to go the distance so he should just encourage her. In hindsight it make the whole Golf battle at the start look even worse since she would have aced the whole thing otherwise. That said, leaving Collier doesn’t mean that she needs an immediate rebound. It’s why the romance doesn’t work because you don’t know if she really loves Mike a lot or if this is really just her trying to find another guy real quick. It’s just hard to say either way.

Meanwhile the fact that we had full villains with that gang running around was pretty fun. This is still a comedy first and foremost so I wouldn’t expect anything too crazy but it still does amp up the stakes which I appreciate. If I had any real issues with the film it’s that I would have liked to have seen Pat on top of the world a bit. We know that she is cured in the end but I wanted a longer montage showing her finally winning all of the tournaments. I feel like that would have been a more satisfying ending. I don’t have a problem with the ending itself, but it just happens so quickly that you feel like they left some meat on the table.

We do get a good amount of sports footage in general though which I appreciate. For example, Golf in particular is a sport where we get to really see what Pat’s got. Both in the losing match and then her big return later on. Golf is a sport that I don’t like playing or even watching professionally but it can work well in a movie or anime where they can use some good directing/editing to make it even better. There was also a good tennis match in there.

One subplot that was rather weak was with Mike’s other client though. He was coaching a boxer and for some reason he completely ditches the guy after being with Pat. It felt a little out of character to me because the boxer was still winning his matches and making money. That should have been enough to incentivize Mike to keep close tabs on him. Instead Mike was very dismissive of him the whole film and Pat had to step in. It was a really bad look for Mike and I don’t blame you if you find the guy completely unlikable by the end. It’s not the kind of moment that you can really defend.

It’s more okay to see Mike constantly be bashing his partner because that guy was not very good at his job and it still felt like an even fight. With the boxer, it’s clear that the guy wasn’t very smart so that’s why you feel worse for him. He’s not able to launch any counters or talk tough back to Mike so you can’t really enjoy the banter and back and forth action there because there isn’t any. At the end of the day in a comedy it’s pretty much impossible for every joke to land though. So while that plot was weak, it didn’t ultimately take away from this film’s ability.

Overall, Pat and Mike is a fun film. It balances the comedy and serious moments pretty well throughout the movie. The pacing is solid and it covers a lot of ground. The story beats all tend to be pretty funny as well and there is a good amount of sports footage. So this is a great all around title with how well it juggles everything. As long as you enjoy a low key film like this, then you should have a really fun time.

Overall 7/10

Adam’s Rib Review

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It’s time for a classic comedy title and this one is definitely pretty fun. It has a nice sense of humor and goes by pretty fast. I enjoyed the court case and this movie has a whole lot of energy. I do think that in some ways it hasn’t aged amazingly well like with the moral and how parts of the film turn out but on the whole it is fun. I want to say it is a satisfying watch all the way through even if you don’t necessarily agree with every part of it.

The film starts off with a lady shooting her husband after catching him cheating on her with another lady. Unfortunately for her, the shots don’t end up being fatal and so she is taken to court on the charge of attempted murder. The prosecutor is a man named Adam who believes that the law should be considered as absolute. It cannot be bent or broken so he aims to really make an example out of her. Meanwhile her defense will be Amanda, Adam’s wife who feels that jurors are often bias against women. She seeks full equality in order to end this and so the big fight begins. Can their marriage stay strong as they try to destroy each other on the battlefield?

Now in terms of that question, I feel like it should be an easy Yes. You should absolutely be able to distance the work part of your relationship from the fun part. Like if you’re dating your boss at work and she is always chewing you out for mistakes, once 5:00PM is reached, it shouldn’t matter and you keep chatting as always. That’s how this should be but I feel like Adam takes this the most personally. He feels a little too delicate for most of the film as he takes things too hard and tries to get Amanda to quit. He should just let his talents do the talking for him and have it out with her.

If he really believes that the law will win out in the end then he has nothing to worry about. If the law is so easily broken by her antics, then perhaps it wasn’t a good one. In part I am a bit bias here as well though because I thought the lady was certainly fine. She caught her husband having an affair and decided to put a stop to it. I’d always support that to an extent, like as long as she isn’t firing at random civilians. I also agreed with Amanda that on the other foot this would also have been an easy case.

It’s not to say that any of the people in the court case are all that good because mot of them seemed incredibly suspicious. That said, you still have to go into this on only the facts of the matter. We find out that this was an abusive relationship with both of them hitting each other and throwing constant insults. Definitely not a healthy environment to be in, but that’s how it goes. So whoever wins the case, you aren’t rooting for either character but I would say the girl was more sympathetic. The guy just seemed absolutely unapologetic and like he typically started all of the fights.

Back to the main duo, Adam just comes across as really petty the whole time. He should have talked things out with Amanda more instead of giving up. Running off at the end was also a really bad look since it showed that he wasn’t really confident in the situation. I take a lot of points away from him, but unfortunately I have to take a lot of points from Amanda though. That’s because she allows Kip too much free reign and basically encourages him.

So Kip is the next door neighbor who is constantly flirting with Amanda. He doesn’t care that she is married and makes his contempt for Adam widely known. I have a big problem with Amanda not shutting this down immediately. It’s not cute or funny to let some random guy badmouth your husband the whole time. Perhaps the attention feels good but that just makes it even worse. It was really poor form and then she kept putting herself in bad situations. The worst was nearly getting drunk and being alone at the neighbor’s apartment. That was absolutely a terrible situation and she’s lucky that Adam showed up.

I would have cut out that entire plotline because it felt completely unnecessary. Just there for a little drama and some more jokes but it all felt a bit more mean spirited than the rest of the film. You were definitely ready for Kip to get blasted in the end and Amanda defending him was also pretty terrible. Definitely the weakest part of the movie but not something that would end up sabotaging the film as a whole.

After all we still had all of the court scenes which were a lot of fun. It was nice to see all of the different witnesses show up and then the experts to give their own testimony. The film got a lot of screentime to this part which was cool. We got to really see what the case was like and it definitely helped take things to the next level. I always love a good courtroom scene and the more detailed they are, the better. It felt like we got to see every aspect of the case.

Overall, This was a pretty good movie. It’s definitely a solid comedy with a lot of funny moments. Not all of the jokes land and both characters do look really bad in different ways. As long as you don’t take them too seriously then you should be fine. At the end of the day, things resolve pretty well as far as the case is concerned and we do have a happy ending. There may have been some bumps in the road but the pacing is fast and the writing is good. It’s definitely a solid film that I can recommend.

Overall 7/10

Challenge to Lassie Review

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It’s time for another Lassie film and this one is definitely ready to give you that emotional punch. Fortunately it focuses on the humans taking their Ls again instead of Lassie which is definitely the right way to approach it. It certainly works for me at least although Lassie still does get injured a bit here and there with all of the big jumps. I would say that it doesn’t end up beating the last film but still beats the average Lassie experience.

The movie starts by showing us how a guy named Jack raised Lassie for a long while. She was a small pup at first and then gradually grew into full size. She had a really good upbringing and it all turned out well but Jack was an old man. He was already breaking down and it only got worse when he was beat up by a bunch of thugs. That really accelerated things and he ends up dying. This forces his friend John to look after Lassie but it won’t be easy. She wants to always be with his grave but the grave is located among church grounds where dogs are not allowed. Now the cops have been alerted and since John has no formal license to Lassie, she is in a lot of trouble and may get the death penalty. Can’t anything be done?

I would say the weakest part of the film is how a lot of the characters are super unreasonable. This is a dog after all and a rather harmless one at that. The whole putting him to sleep business makes no real sense. They try to explain how it is necessary because that’s just how the law is, but it feels rather forced the whole time. There is no real reason to be this stringent about it. When the kids ask the judge about why he has to pass the law, the guy can barely even answer. Deep down he also knows that this is all a bunch of nonsense.

The basis of the law is that because John doesn’t have the license, he isn’t able to get one after the fact. Instead of waiting the usual 3 days for someone to pick up the dog, they can skip right to the execution. It’s a case of the process being put ahead of the logic which is where the whole thing breaks down. If a rule doesn’t make sense then you have to find a way to agree with it or just ignore it entirely. Now you do have to put some real effort into understanding the law first as you shouldn’t just break laws that you disagree with but this was a very clear example.

So I can’t say that I really liked any of the policemen or judges here. Then you have the church personnel who aren’t the best here. At least the big preacher at the end seemed reasonable and wouldn’t rat him out but the main guy wasn’t the nicest. You can understand why Lassie wouldn’t be allowed on the church grounds since there could be a lot of cleanliness issues but in this case you should just move the body then. Put it somewhere where Lassie could visit it and you would solve all of the problems at once.

I’ll give John credit for fighting pretty hard to save Lassie the whole time. He went to court and risked his reputation the whole time as well. It’s definitely not something that just anyone can do. His son the young lawyer was also pretty solid here. There were a lot of limitations on what he could really do before he was fully certified but he was always ready to help as well. Even the kids weren’t bad here as they were all on Lassie’s side. It was nice to see the whole community supporting him like that.

As I noted earlier, an issue is that Lassie still goes through a certain amount of grief. It’s nothing as crazy as in the earlier films but she is pushed to her physical limit the whole time as she has to scale mountains and constantly be on the run. You can’t forget the emotional burdens as she wants to be with the old owner the whole time and keeps on being prevented from doing so. Her dedication was definitely second to none but of course those scenes aren’t very fun.

That is a common theme with a lot of the Lassie films which is that they generally aren’t very fun to watch. This one has some fun dialogue and reasonable characters but it is mainly lacking a big hook. One framing device that could have really helped it would have been to have the film start in the court-room and have that continue as the present throughout the movie. We then see the scenes spread across as several flashbacks. Have more and more of the characters enter the court room as witnesses and then we see the scenes from their perspective. It would have turned this into more of a courtroom thriller film which always tends to work pretty well. It would have given the movie a bit of a boost.

Overall, Challenge to Lassie is a decent film for the most part but I wouldn’t say there is much reason to watch it. In some ways the last one is still a more satisfying overall picture with Lassie mainly getting the sweet end of things. In this one, Lassie may avoid a lot of the physical trauma of the original films but still has to deal with the emotional trauma of the fallout that occurs from the owner dying. It’s not like he returns at the end or anything like that so in the end it’s still a net loss for her. The fact that she still goes to the grave every evening to mourn also shows that she isn’t really over the loss and perhaps never will be. I like to think that eventually she would change and not have to visit the grave but it’s hard to say. Either way if you’ve seen all of the Lassie films then you may as well check this one out. Otherwise you can give it a skip.

Overall 5/10

Hills of Home Review

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You ever start watching a film and almost immediately start thinking to yourself, “Get this stuff off of my screen!!?” Well that is what happens with this film as it is definitely a thumbs down almost immediately. It makes every kind of mistake in the book as it puts Lassie through way too much. There aren’t really any redeeming values to be had with this film and so it ends up being a heavy thumbs down. Definitely a title that you will want to skip at all costs.

The movie starts by showing us that Lassie is on tough times as she is owned by a rather cruel owner. He traumatizes her into being deathly afraid of the water and fortunately her next owner ends up being a doctor named William. He is kinder but also in a rush and initially tries to sell Lassie off. Fortunately his conscience wins out and he keeps her. William is pretty busy as the only doctor around with a never ending stream of patients. He is getting older too but the guy doesn’t complain about it and just keeps on working as hard as he can. Will he be able to cure Lassie of her fears or is this one mission that will be too difficult even for him?

I won’t say that he’s a perfect character though because he does betray Lassie a few times here. Aside from selling her the first time, he also yells at her at different occasions and isn’t very patient with her fears. You would think as a doctor that he would know how difficult these things can be to get over but instead he doesn’t act all that sympathetic. He’s a fun enough character when it comes to interacting with the other humans, he just doesn’t seem like he’s the biggest dog person.

He’s also not that smart as he lets one of his “friends” get away with not paying him back on a lot of loans and then being tricked with Lassie. For starters that isn’t a good friendship and he probably should have asked for some serious money in the end. He let the guy get off easy despite being a major thorn throughout the whole movie. The guy’s son is an aspiring doctor to be but the path forward is made a lot more difficult because of this guy’s objections. Basically the way I would explain it is that the father is very old fashioned in an annoying way.

The aspiring doctor Tammas is okay but way too soft spoken and doesn’t really stand his ground. He gets pushed around so easily and so I never really grew to like the guy all that much. He’s okay at best but that’s a main problem for the film as a whole. The characters don’t really stick out and can come across as boring. You certainly aren’t all that invested in any of the characters, I can tell you that much. They come and go without a ton of impact.

As for Lassie, well like I said the film is rather brutal to her the whole time. It’s just so mean spirited and you get the feeling that none of the characters really knew how to handle a dog both in and out of the movie. Whether it’s Lassie being forced to lay down and clearly not wanting to or the whole water trauma moments, it’s all rather distasteful and holds the film back in a massive way. Even throwing in the big time skip at the end as if this was an anime could not save the film. That’s because there was no saving it by that point.

The writing itself isn’t terrible I suppose. We have some nice dialogue at times but there just isn’t much of a point to it all. Even for a complete slice of life film, you are expecting some dynamics to keep you interested and things like that. Instead you have nothing to hold your interest until the storms start setting in. Even when characters get sick you find it hard to care because of how unlikable they are.

Put it this way, even if we remove all of the animal violence, this film would have been probably stuck around a 5-6. It’s just not interesting enough and I tend to enjoy old time films like this one. Well, this time it wasn’t enough to carry the film which is a really big blow. In my opinion it’s not very hard to make very compelling characters in a setting like this. You just have to make them likable so they shouldn’t be doing anything crazy.

The movie is also fairly short even if it can feel long at times. So there isn’t a ton to talk about here beyond what we’ve already gone over. I suppose the final thing is that if you live by a road that is submerged during all big storms, you should probably have a better backup route rather than trying to swim through with your horse. That just seems like a terribly dangerous way to do this and there has to be a better way. There just has to be, because with this way people are going to die sometimes. I didn’t blame the big city doctor for panicking because the whole thing seemed absolutely crazy.

Overall, Hills of Home is definitely a film to stay far away from. It’s incredibly mean spirited and doesn’t really have anything to it. All of the characters have moments where they are acting like big jerks and you get the feeling that they all probably hate each other. After all you don’t just forget the comments so quickly. Whether it was one wife blaming the doctor for not doing well enough, another guy saying his new method for knocking out someone was terrible, everyone laughing at him at the bar, etc.; they were all taking some major shots here. Lassie doesn’t really get the respect that she deserves at any point which is a shame.

Overall 2/10

Lonely Are the Brave Review

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Lonely are the Brave is definitely a film that took a much different direction than what I was expecting. Initially it plays out as a very low key drama and then all of a sudden it becomes more of a thriller as the second half is a big chase scene. It’s an interesting story but does start to really fumble in the second half and unfortunately ends on a whimper. The final scene is stretched for quite a long time only to make the wrong decision in the end.

The movie starts off with Burns coming back into town to visit his old friend. Unfortunately his friend is doing two years in jail for helping get some people who jumped across the border illegally. His wife is quite upset at this and so Burns decides to break his friend out. After all, for a Cowboy such as himself getting thrown into jail should be real easy. Burns has never agreed with modern life and still lives life on the wild side. Unfortunately that works against him as the cops don’t want to deal with the paperwork of arresting him. So Burns is forced to seriously upgrade the felony by striking a policeman. Now when he escapes prison he is really going to have to hustle!

I think the film could have focused more on Burns’ lifestyle instead of turning into a big chase film. The chase itself is solid enough but at that point the premise doesn’t really matter anymore. The chase would have been the same regardless so it seemed like a really odd decision. We could have also gone a bit more into Burns’ psyche on why exactly he doesn’t want to modernize. We got a brief speech about not liking restrictions and fences but you could go deeper.

Where the film faced its first big pitfall was when Burns was leaving for the big police chief. He convinces his best friend’s wife to cheat with him “just once” as a parting gift. Now this is terrible for a bunch of reasons but the most obvious one is that cheating is never justified. You see this kind of thing all the time. The guy was coming off a bad break up, he seemed depressed, lost his job, etc. All of these sob stories to try and somehow convince people that cheating is justified now. I’m here to report that the context doesn’t matter. It’s still cheating and a complete betrayal to his friend who is in jail. It was just an awful move to make.

The wife looks terrible as well since it’s like she has no agency there. She should have just told him to get lost. Respectfully or Disrespectfully, I wouldn’t have minded either way she put it to Burns. That scene was just terrible and a really poor way to start off the chase scene. Yeah her husband made a big mistake and will be in Jail for a while as a result, but you still don’t just decide to throw him in the ditch like that.

Then my other issue is the super unnecessary animal violence. You could see this one a mile away to be honest. They built up from the start that Burns was really close with his horse Whiskey. So immediately if you’ve seen any movies before you know that Burns will be punished by having his horse taken away from him. It’s easily the way that you can hurt him the deepest so the film is going to take it. That’s just the way that it goes. The whole build up to that is just fluff and only delays the inevitable.

It all comes to a head for the ending which is why the ending is absolutely brutal. That final scene just stretches over and over. The actual chase itself is also rather drawn out. Perhaps it is because the movie is going for a super realistic vibe but Burns can’t move very quickly through the mountain so it’s one of the slowest chase scenes you will get. Really the only interesting part was the meanwhile with the cops.

I rather enjoyed the main chief with his sarcastic barbs the whole time. He seemed like a guy who would be fun to work with. Perhaps not the most efficient out there, but considering that all of his colleagues were complete scrubs, he seemed like an expert next to them. He was certainly the most effective and I can see how working with these guys would make him so sarcastic eventually. It’s like he was all alone out there.

There is another subplot with a truck driver but it takes forever to go anywhere so I wouldn’t worry about it. In general the film’s writing was pretty solid so I’ll give it a thumbs up there. The pacing was good as well until the chase scene. I don’t have any real issue with the film’s technicals. The backgrounds and such were fine. The movie just needed more likable characters and to remove the two weaknesses that I talked about earlier. It’s not like they were just small weaknesses either. We’re talking absolute film busters here which is the real problem.

We even have the corrupt cop who goes around beating up inmates with complete immunity. I can’t say that I was expecting that to happen in this film since it just didn’t feel like the tone they were going for. The absolute moral here is that if you don’t change with the times, you will be beaten and overpowered over and over again until you eventually submit. That is your only real option and the film isn’t shy about reminding you of this point.

Overall, This is a film that had some potential but ultimately squandered it. The ending just couldn’t be salvaged in the end and so this one won’t be a film for the record books. You’re better off choosing a different western to watch or just taking the chance to check out a big sci-fi film like some of the Terminator titles for that complete contrast. At the end of the day, change is always coming in and you have to adapt or fall behind.

Overall 4/10

High Cost of Loving Review

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It’s time for a classic romantic comedy title. It’s a fun enough film that has a nice plot. I would say the film restrains itself a bit too much at times and could have really drummed up the craziness of it all a bit more. Still, it’s an easy film for me to recommend to anyone and it’s fairly short so things tend to move fast.

The film starts off by introducing us to Jim and Ginny who have a really good marriage going on. They have no real problems and Ginny is finally pregnant after nearly a decade so they are ready for fun. The only problem is that Jim’s job has been taken over by a new company and they might be letting some people go. When almost everybody except for Jim gets an invite to a luncheon, he figures that this is game over. Should he talk things over with the bosses and see what’s going on…or should he crash out? Time for Jim’s toughest call!

Now a lot of this film does rely on Jim not making the smartest choices time and time again. He jumps to conclusions quite regularly and doesn’t put himself in a position to succeed. It’s a story that we have all seen many times before but it can be pretty funny. I would have liked for things to have been more extreme like I mentioned in the intro though. Like one misunderstanding that worked super well is when someone jokes with Jim that he won’t be ordering the boxes because he might mess it up. The guy was just having some fun and Jim didn’t pick up on it because he was so stressed.

Beyond that, we don’t have a ton of big misunderstandings going on though. So a lot of it is Jim really just overthinking things and I feel like it’s because the film wanted to stay very grounded. You could have really had it both ways in this case though. Also Jim does look pretty bad throughout because of how callous he was when the shoe was on the other foot. At the beginning of the film he talks quite happily about how some guys will get fired and that’s just how life works. He talks a lot about survival of the fittest and all of that. It makes it ever so slightly harder to root for him here because you know first hand that he would not really care if someone else was fired.

He took his safe standing within the company for granted to the point where he didn’t even imagine not having the job. It’s why his friend Steve is comfortable about joking how he would be super depressed and end it all if he was fired. Nothing wrong with the jokes but then you have to be able to take it when you’re the one going down. Instead Jim was super defensive and panicking the whole time. It just didn’t do wonders to make him likable and then of course when he’s frustrated he is very quick to start taking it out on his wife. Being snappy, irritated, etc.

Jim doesn’t talk about things until it is forced out of him and it’s jut such a standard move but it is always a character killer. You can’t be so close to someone and then immediately still get so upset like that. He needed to talk things over and calm down. Ginny is also shown to be super reasonable the whole time so it’s not like there was any risk of her being upset. There was no downside to talking things out with her instead of straining everything like when he wasn’t acting very concerned about her pregnancy results coming out negative.

His friend Steve seemed a lot more reasonable and was a good guy to the end. He prevented Jim from making any career destroying decisions the whole time. His wife Syd may have been someone who just wouldn’t start talking but at least she wasn’t actually trying to cause harm. So I won’t really dock her any points there. She meant well and of course this goes back to how the characters don’t mind smack talking everyone except when it effects them. The double standards are where things really start to get dicey.

If there are any other main issues here, it can be that you feel like there should have been another angle to the film. Either make the jokes a bit bigger like I mentioned or introduce another plot. Even though the film isn’t all that long, it feels like there isn’t anywhere for it to really go. So it’s a serviceable film but not a super memorable one. It’s nice to see a married couple without too much drama but in the meantime their scenes tend to be a little on the boring side. Showing how close they are in the opening also backfires because of how easy we see Jim turn on her later on. You may as well cut out the intro at that point.

I did like the fact that Jim’s immediate boss had his back. Often times in these things it feels like the main character is on his own throughout management but since he was such a good worker, it makes sense that some people would have his back. It would have been annoying if the boss was just looking out for himself or something like that. The top executives were also pretty solid. They asked the hard questions and pressed Jim a little. They did seem really good at their jobs and it’s not like they take joy in letting anyone go. They are just doing their jobs and doing them well. This is an example of a movie that didn’t really have an antagonist but ultimately didn’t need one anyway.

Overall, High Cost of Loving is a good film. It hits enough of the right notes to skate on by and it’s one that you could easily watch because it’s just light entertainment. It has good replay value in that way. It does reinforce why you should always have proper communication channels open with everyone. If you don’t, then it opens the door for misunderstandings and panic. Also, perhaps keep the jokes to a minimum if you would be upset if the same thing happened to you.

Overall 6/10

Matewan

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It’s time for a film based on true events. Those always hit extra hard when you don’t really know about the events beforehand. The whole strike was new to me so that made things nice and unpredictable. It’s definitely an intense film where there are no easy victories. We have the heroes holding back for most of the film but eventually once it is time to fight, they do deliver. It covers a lot of ground and so overall I was definitely satisfied with it.

The movie starts with Joe moving into a small town. It’s really in a difficult spot here as the mining company is making people perform back breaking work with no real pay or benefits at all. They are treated as disposable tools who can be replaced at any time. In the movie they even mention how a lot of the miners keep dying left and right. You may wonder why they put up with this but there just weren’t many options available to them at this point in time. They took what they could get and that’s really all that there was to it. There is a union, but it is incredibly weak here and the company has been successful in setting off race wars among the miners so they don’t work together. Well, Joe is here to tell them that there is a better way but will he be successful?

One thing you have to remember about strikes, particularly back in the days is that it was incredibly dangerous. Often times you are up against an entity that is much more powerful than you are. They will have more guns, people, and typically even the law on their side. After all, the legality of striking in general can range from technically being legal to being completely illegal. Then at that point you have to hope you can hold out. So during the course of the film you have people being forced to live in the wilderness since all of their assets and homes were taken away. It’s an incredible challenge for all of them.

Then eventually this escalates into full blown violence and you also have people who will be tempted to go traitor or look out for their own self interests. There are so many factors in place that it makes sense how difficult it is to have everyone on the same page. Some characters can be rather gullible though. At the end of the day it is always important to remember to hear both sides of an argument, especially if you are friends with someone. It’s unfortunately realistic though. Often times you’ll hear someone spreading around rumors and lies about your friend and instead of asking them what’s up, the person will believe this right away and continue escalating.

If you are actually friends with someone, then you should face them and ask about what’s going on. It’s the only way to avoid misunderstandings like this. One of the heroines here definitely made a huge mistake there. I also thought the traitor got off super easy here but I suppose depending on what we know about him from the real life event, it’s not like the film could really just make something up. I mean it could, but probably not a good idea if you’re trying to really be a full adaption that is true to life.

The best character by far is the sheriff though. He was a true standout from the start. I figured that he would be useless at best and an ally to the company at worst. Fortunately neither of those two options happened and he really looked after his people. He wasn’t about to be overpowered in his own town and really fought to the end. The fact that he could actually fight was also good since it showed that he wasn’t just all talk. The climax is very impressive and ended things on a high note. Every scene with the sheriff in it was quite good.

The mayor was not nearly impressive though. Even by the end he’s whining about how he just wanted to talk but it’s obvious that this wasn’t an option. He’s the kind of character who will still be talking as he’s getting shot. In some cases you have to make the first move because if you don’t, then you’ll end up being dead. It’s one of those topics that i shard to debate though because everyone is pretty firm on their sides. I’d just say that for my take, in a life or death situation you can’t afford to wait.

This is my issue with Joe at times here. He keeps telling everyone to be patient and keep on waiting but after a while it’s clear that this is not working. The mining company is not above breaking the law and doing whatever they want. If you wait too long then you will eventually fold. There are times when waiting is good to be sure and Joe does help on different occasions but he does start to get annoying by the end. You can only stick to the same plan for so long before it starts to become a burden. Joe didn’t really adapt with the situation and that’s what held him back here.

At the end of the day, the film reminds you that a union is only as strong as its members. To stand up to a whole group like this, you need a lot of fighters and muscle to back them up. If the sheriff didn’t have his guns, then all of Joe’s tough talk wouldn’t have mattered at all. The villains made it clear that they would have just shot him and had the whole situation done with. Joe doesn’t seem to factor that part in though which is when you shake your head.

I will say that the movie also doesn’t hold back on just how rough corporate is. They literally go around slitting throats and burning churches. It may almost seem cartoonishly evil to an extent but I have no doubt that these things would have happened. The company would act almost like the mafia to get its way. Even nowadays we see mass firings when different places try to start a union. Sure we may be past the point of rifles and everyone being shot on sight but corporate has never lost sight of trying to stay on top of things.

Overall, Matewan is definitely an interesting film. I’d imagine it was a pretty faithful retelling of events as it wasn’t pulling any punches. The film didn’t mince words on how much the miners suffered even as they got their licks in. There was a ton of collateral damage but at least they did change the system in the end. Change often comes at a high price after all, it’s not something that just happens. If you are interested in the situation then you should definitely check out the film. Just remember that it is an intense journey all the way through.

The Cobweb Review

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The Cobweb is one of those films that definitely gets real dramatic. The characters all tend to be pretty bad and so the movie spends more time spinning its wheels than necessary. You could have made a pretty good flick out of this with quality writing and a solid ensemble of characters but in the end it was not to be. By the end of the film I dare say you will be thinking that the ending should be a cliffhanger or something just for the extra drama.

The film takes place at a psychiatric institution where everyone is always at odds with each other. The main character is Dr. Stewart who uses some pretty controversial methods in how he runs the place. He has let the inmates make their own government council so they can talk directly with the heads of the facility. In that form they are able to mount complaints against things they don’t like and also participate in the decision making. The idea is that this will help them also reach a point of more stability by having this control and also learning how to deal with some stress. Everything goes wrong when the topic of window drapes comes up.

The inmates are hoping to have their local painter take care of the job. The head wants to buy professional ones to put up instead. Stewart is with the inmates, the other head of the school doesn’t particularly care, but Stewart’s wife has her own idea for professional ones. Unfortunately Stewart is basically never home so she ends up talking to someone else about this and now we have a bunch of characters who only know chunks of the story. This starts to result in all of the characters cheating on each other and using any trick necessary in order to claim victory. Will the characters manage to stay sane by the end of this?

So lets talk about each of the characters’ mistakes here. First up we have Devanal who is definitely one of the most depraved characters here. He has long since forsaken his mission to help patients get better. He basically skips all of the meetings so he can have a bunch of affairs and be drunk all the time. He makes a big push to get with Stewart’s wife as well and by the end of the movie you feel like he got off way too easily. For one thing, he is married so that makes all of this 100X worse.

It’s already pretty bad to get into a lot of flings, but once it is cheating then that is rock bottom. There’s no such thing as it being a “mistake” either as I see that around a lot. Cheating is a completely conscious decision to do the wrong thing and there’s never any way to justify that. So I had no sympathy for this guy whatsoever and he should have definitely been outed at the meeting.

Then you have the main character Stewart and unfortunately he’s just as bad. He takes his job seriously which is good but he’s always got a short fuse and started off on the wrong foot by blowing up at his wife in the early scene. He basically does nothing to stay close with her and quickly ends up cheating with a colleague. Again, no excuses are good enough for that, you’re basically throwing the whole relationship into the dirt at that point. What really hurts him at the end is that he’s eager to keep on cheating and the girl has to be the one to call it off. So you don’t take anything he takes seriously in the final scene because it wasn’t his choice to stop. That’s such a bad scenario.

Obviously I also take points away from Meg for cheating with him. It’s not just the cheater that you blame in affair but the one who agrees to participate in the act. She knows full well that he is married after all. It’s really not to hard to be loyal and if you have such extraordinarily weak willpower then the next thing is to make sure not to put yourself in bad situations. This means no drinking or hanging out with someone one on one at night. In general that’s good advice for anyone.

Then we have Stewart’s wife Karen and things don’t look good for her either. For starters she seems oblivious to basic facts of the job. She should know better than to be sneaking around the institution and opening doors when there is such a big level of privacy there. I don’t know how she would have forgotten this. Then hanging out with Devanal to spite Steven was a really bad idea. I do think she was fully aware of where that was going and so again she put herself in a bad spot. If Stewart hadn’t said anything about how he has a lot of affairs, it may have gotten even worse.

Putting up the curtains really just made the situation worse. Everyone was quick to get even and continue escalating the circumstances which was not mature in the slightest. I’m not going to knock her any points for the opening drive with Steven though because I’d say that was fully on the kid. It’s definitely a dumb risk to be picking any hitchhikers up when you’re on your own but the kid catching feelings wasn’t really on her.

Then you’ve got Victoria who is fighting in the power struggle for the curtains as well. She has been around for a long time and wants respect but ultimately is quick to fall into the misunderstandings and just make things worse for everyone. She’s a character who should have stuck to her instincts a bit more like in showing the report. As for the patients, most of them don’t have huge roles but the biggest is definitely Steven. I would say he also shows the biggest weakness in Stewart’s idealogy.

Yes, it could help give him more confidence to see his artwork hung up by the windows but any kind of setback or unexpected incident instead ends up setting Steven’s own development back. So it’s extremely high risk with what I would say is low reward. Often times you will remember a bad thing that happened way more than a good thing so this just wasn’t worth it. I would argue the film also makes this clear with how he nearly died. Hopefully Stewart does take this into account. I know he’s continuing the program but maybe they can scale back some of the projects.

Overall, The main problem with the Cobweb is that it ends up making all of the characters supremely unlikable. The idea of a bunch of misunderstandings all combining into a super mess is pretty fun. I think you could even throw in all of the characters trying to get their petty revenges if this was also part comedy. When played completely serious though, I feel like the movie just goes too far. You need someone to root for after all and that’s not going to work with any of the main characters. In the end I would say to just give this one a skip. It doesn’t have a satisfying ending or enough positives to keep it afloat.

Overall 4/10

Look Back Review

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I remember reading the manga for this a while back. It’s a pretty fun story although with this writer you are always expecting some kind of a sad twist. All in all this may not be very long at a little under an hour but it tells a complete story and the ending is reasonably satisfying. It was definitely really faithful to the artstyle and atmosphere that the original manga had going for it.

There are really two main characters in the special. First up is Fujino who has always been really good at drawing. She writes little manga strips for the local school newspaper and people always talk about how she could go pro someday. She takes this for granted quite a bit and loves all of the fame but eventually she finds out that she isn’t the best artist. There’s another girl at the school named Kyomoto who draws incredible backgrounds and her shading is on point. This girl is a complete shut-in who never even steps foot outside and yet she is this good. Fujino decides to really grind hard in order to improve her skills but will it really be enough?

As the main character with the most focus, Fujino does a good job of holding up the story. She can be a little full of herself and isn’t always the nicest character but that makes her a fun lead. She’s not good at really expressing herself and will often put on a really tough act as a front. We do see that she had a lot of friends though so her big personality worked well in social settings. Ultimately she experiences a lot of loss and hardship throughout the movie but always manages to get back up. So she may not have been perfect but she is someone you’d want to have as an ally.

Then we have Kyomoto who is a lot more quiet. She has a hard time talking to anybody at all and can definitely be socially awkward. Fujino helps get Kyomoto out of her shell but to an extent Kyomoto still has to get confidence on her own. That’s not really something that anyone else can give you automatically. Kyomoto is content to be the background person who doesn’t really get any recognition. The only real decision Kyomoto makes for herself is when she decides to go to College to learn art even though Fujino keeps telling her it’s a bad idea. It is good that Kyomoto finally made a choice though.

Was it the right one? Well that’s really hard to say. I think Fujino made some good points about how a degree in art doesn’t often help much at all but there are authors and artists who say it was beneficial. So in the end you don’t really know and it’s always important not to use hindsight afterwards to decide. Kyomoto may not have really been my kind of character as much as Fujino since I tend to like the loud, more active characters more. Still it was a nice friendship.

We also briefly do get to see the second timeline where the characters made a different choice. That timeline is naturally a lot better than the main one but alternate realities always tend to appear that way. It was cool to see what might have been but you definitely don’t want to dwell on it too much. I would say the movie has some themes about moving on mixed into all of this. At least that was my main takeaway from this. When bad things happen you just have to keep moving forward.

The animation definitely kept making me think of Chainsaw Man because the author has a very distinct look to the characters where they all look like they never get any sleep. There is something unnerving about all of the designs and that translates pretty well here. Naturally there isn’t much in the way of action scenes here but in general the animation looks solid. The colors aren’t as striking as your average anime as they usually try to make the more mainstream productions a lot more faded for the general audience. It all works well enough with what they’re going for. I was impressed with how well they changed the style for the mini animations inside of the story. That was definitely cool.

Drawing is always one of those skills that looks like a total blast but is really hard to get good at. So I can always appreciate the hard work that goes into being a creator. It was nice to see some quick step by steps in the drawings here like at the very end although of course there isn’t enough time to go into too much detail. It’s a huge commitment and the movie did a good job of showing just how much the characters were missing out on by honing their skills. You really do end up sacrificing just about all of your social life for this.

Overall, This is a pretty short production so at the end of the day it’s not like there is really a ton to go into here. It’s really about a fleeting friendship between two characters where they created memories that they will never forget. Sad moments aside, it’s pretty uplifting for most of the run. I have no issues with the writing or pacing. It’s an easy title to recommend to anyone as well because the storyline is easy to digest and the characters are nice enough. There was a cameo for another one of the writer’s works in the movie theater scene so I look forward to that one getting adapted some day. Hopefully it won’t be too much of a wait.

Overall 7/10