Change Your Image
cinemakerry
Lists
An error has ocurred. Please try againReviews
Always at The Carlyle (2018)
Tedious sycophantic Trip Adviser promo for an overrated hotel.
Dull, from the start. I expected some cinematic and insightful observation on life in the hotel business in the grand city of New York. What we get is a load of old schmaltzy stars lined up to burble gleefully at the privileges of getting to lounge in
an overpriced luxury hotel. Cue endless bum kissing, drooling reviews of the Carlyle repeated every 2 minutes until the editor gets bored and crashes up the music cuts. To top it all, a fawning sequence of bowing and scraping to English royalty who see fit to park their more "I am more privileged than you" rears in the Carlyle every few shopping trips. I disengaged after ten minutes. (yawn) My partner watched on, aghast at the obsequious, servile, ingratiating, sycophantic tone of it all.
They sew guest initials into the bed linen of these pampered planet wreckers.
I dread to think of the Carlyle carbon footprint. Second only to Imelda Marcos's
laundry, I expect.
Gui tu lie che (2009)
Brilliantly observed human condition documentary.
A film that captures for it's viewers a profound record of what it is to be human in an industrial age side by side with internet and space travel, yet living in a society where to undertake a train ride home for a holiday can be a struggle far removed from the comforts and expectations of our western lives. To be a Chinese person in the world of this film, is to learn to endure separation and loneliness, long hours working at repetitive jobs, longing for a better future for one's kids and family. Also to have a deep enough well of patience to survive the chaos and disappointments of a system overrun by sheer force of numbers, keeping you from your loved ones hour by hour as transport problems mount over a holiday season. A moving portrait of people like us all, with simple dreams and aspirations, facing life's challenges as only the Chinese seem able to do. Every school child should see this beautiful film at a young and impressionable age. It reminded me of the lifelong effect I experienced as a 10 year-old watching Vittorio De Sica's poignant 1948 masterpiece "Bicycle Thieves". "Last Train Home" left me with the same feelings for the humanity of ordinary people struggling to better their lives against the odds.