Change Your Image
patrick-ohana
Reviews
A Quiet Passion (2016)
Beautiful and heart-wrenching!
I'm still morose from this masterpiece when writing this review. I'll start with the excellent parts and then proceed to the outstanding ones. I can't imagine better acting than the ensemble portrayals depicted in this gem, and especially that of Cynthia Nixon, who should and will receive several awards for giving us dear Emily Dickinson, dearest poet and individual. The writing (screenplay) and directing by Terence Davies, and everything else that constitutes a movie, are superb, and powerful. It's Emily Dickinson in all her glory. What an unusual and marvelous individual! Having read and studied a few of her poems at college was a blessing, but in disguise given all that I further learned about her. Life is cruel and unbearable would be an utter understatement. I'll let you revel in Emily: one of the few most beautiful names to pronounce :(
The Circle (2017)
The beginning of the end of Facebook
This is the scariest movie that I have seen that is not horror and in which only one person dies. It is basically a depiction of Facebook in the very near future. I used to think that the Internet was the best human invention of all time until the advent of global social networks, which turned out to be new tools for controlling us where ever we are around the world. Facebook recently advertised, or it was simply reported, that it had reached two billion members and users. What a market? It is a perfect circle. But all circles are perfect by definition. It is perfect on more than just the literal sense. Superb story and acting, and of course, a superb message that I will let you discover. You may be not scared, but I was terrified.
Okja (2017)
Okja: OK, ja; no meat for me!
We are destroying everything on this planet, not our planet, this planet, which we apparently rule, and ruthlessly at that, including all the other animals that we have been slaughtering in the billions in death camps especially tailored for them? These interminable and systematic butcheries of cows, pigs, goats, sheep, chickens, turkeys, ducks, rabbits, and many other living things, are vicious and cruel, and their Auschwitzes never close. Our inborn and conditioned desire to consume these living creatures must end. Vegans are paving the way, but the final rainbow is out of sight. Okja is a perfect example of so many things, including directing, acting, and of course, the unforgettable subject matter. If I was able to stop eating animal products over two years ago, anyone can. I cheated a few times with chicken, fish, and dairy, as well as eggs as an ingredient of some baked goods I had purchased, but I never went beyond these and hope to never do. The movie is amazing on several levels, and I will let you discover them.
Sandy Wexler (2017)
A Funny Fairy Tale
This is by far Sandler's best performance in a movie. Most of his performances were good to almost very good, but this one takes the cookies. The movie can be divided into two parts. The first part is funny and sad at the same time. It was hard for me to laugh out loud when Sandler's character, Sandy Wexler, was being made fun of, and I for one, could not laugh at that. It may have been devised to make us laugh, but it did not work for me; hence, the 9 and not a 10. The second part is drop-to-your-knees funny, and the film finally becomes much more comedic than dramatic. I'll let you discover why I titled this a fairy tale.
Silence (2016)
Scorsese' Best Movie to Date
This is by far Martin Scorsese' best movie to date, certainly his masterpiece. Better than Kundun, and surely better than any stupid gangster movie, yes, stupid gangster crap that has been elevated as if it was art. I'm not criticizing the actors here, nor anything else that has to do with movie-making; only the subject matter stinks. Why should we care about gangsters, old-style mafia-like ones, or even white-collar worse ones? If it is to inform us, then fine, but again, I don't give a damn. Silence screams at you with its imagery and truth. Yes, truth! It's truth that transcends the so-called truth that we are supposedly looking for. What truth? Look around! The truth is out there. No, it's not, when most of us wouldn't even know how to recognize it. It takes artists (only referring to those in cinema here) like Chaplin, Allen, Kubrick, and others, and now, Scorsese, to give us a glimpse of the truth. Many of us are scared of the truth. Yet, as Nietzsche so aptly wrote: We possess art lest we perish of the truth.
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016)
Harry Potter for Adults
Just 25 minutes into the movie, and I thought, this is so much better than Harry Potter, or should I say, Popper. I know that many adults loved the Harry Potter movies and/or books, mostly because we are still kids at heart. Not that there's anything wrong with it :) Childhood was mostly great too. However, movie after movie and/or book after book, it was childish, albeit Harry Potter and his friends kept growing, the story, nonetheless, remained the same. Great! No quarrels there! But this is better; Fantastic Beasts is so much more intelligent, and entertaining to boot. It's almost magical, and the almost is key since the movie never becomes childish. Excellent acting and directing, amazing visuals, and based on a terrific book by the same author, beautiful J. K. Rowling.
Michael Moore in TrumpLand (2016)
A masterpiece to say the least!
Michael Moore delivers his pièce de résistance, his tour de force, his best all-around presentation to date. He should win every conceivable award for his mastery, not of exploitation as some reviewer(s) have suggested and even went as far as declare, but of pure genius. You will be amazed by him, even more than you might have been (should have been) by all his excellent feature documentaries. Wow is a word that you will repeat to yourself and anyone around many times. Wow! Wow! Wow! I am still flabbergasted by his words and the ways in which he delivered them. There are numerous unforgettable instances that I will not mention so not to spoil it for you. It is perfection. Michael Moore will be remembered for this more than anything else he showed us. Thank you, Mr. Moore, for showing many of us that things are not as they seem. Kansas is no more!
Princess Ka'iulani (2009)
All around Beauty
Hawaii's loss wasn't everyone's gain to say the least. The rich and powerful White minority wanted to dominate the natives of this beautiful necklace of islands, and succeed they did as we all know, but at what price: the inner and outer beauty of a Princess no less, as well as the beauty of the land. The fact that I live in Hawaii may bias my point of view. How can it though? Tears rolling throughout the movie is an indication. Is it? Any grave injustice should bring, among other things, tears. Hawaii was wronged by the USA with formal excuses coming only in 1993. Shame, and tears, many tears for Princess Kaiulani. May her name shine till the end of time.
Martyrs (2008)
Sickening from a sick mind
I don't care about the so-called artful vision that some sick minds can surmise from this sick movie; one of the sickest films I had ever seen; up there with Salo, which at least had a message about fascist Italy. It's more than revealing that the sickest movies ever made came and keep coming to us from Europe; that wannabe continent that gave us wars galore including the First World War and the Second World war, and then to boot, the Shoah, the true name of the Holocaust. And as Woody Allen's most unforgiving Jewish character, David Dobel, discloses in Anything Else: "The crimes of the Nazis were so enormous that if the entire human race were to vanish as a penalty it could be argued that it would be justified." Amen to that, especially after watching Martyrs.
The Sunset Limited (2011)
Perfection and Truth
Easily the best story ever told by two characters, and the ending could not be any better. The lack of music is mesmerizing. I never thought that a movie could survive without it. Perfection! Truth! The same thing really. One of the best movies I have ever watched. Another viewing is forthcoming, but not any time soon. First-rate writing, acting and directing. It is really a play, a filmed play; it is based on a play. I would even go farther, perhaps the farthest, and say that life was somewhat worth it as long as I had not seen this movie, and now that I have, there is really no point to it; life, that is. In case you do, do not; worry that is, about me. Watch the movie first and then wonder if you should be worried.