CATCHING UP WITH FILM - FILM CRITICISM WITH AN EYE ON A PERSONAL CANON

To wrap up January’s theme of Japanese female directors, I wanted to give out awards from a totally subjective jury of one (me). I am calling them the Sakuras (Japanese for cherry blossom) since at least three out of the five movies I watched this month featured cherry blossoms quite prominently. Best Lead Performance Anna Tsuchiya as Kiyoha in Sakuran She saved the film from being pure spectacle, and she went against the stereotype of Japanese and Asian women being submissiv

For January, I will be exploring the works of Japanese female directors as part of my 2018 resolution to watch more films by female directors (more than fifty percent of films watched to be precise). If any film were begging to be an anime, it would have to be Sakuran. In fact, this movie was based on a manga by Moyoco Anno (another female writer). I feel it was live-action probably because the producers wanted to make a more widely accessible film, because even in Japan, adu

Inspired by the 1001 Movies to Watch Before You Die, Edgar Wright’s 1000 favorite films and other lists, I am striving to come up with my own personal canon of films. Time has not been kind to Tomas Alfredson. Or at least 2017 wasn’t. His big Hollywood detective/serial killer film The Snowman aspired to be something like Gone Girl, a trashy genre pic that was elevated by excellent cinematography, flawless direction and editing, and compelling performances. Instead, it was der

There are just some genres that individual cinephiles do not naturally gravitate to. I tend not to watch many horror movies or romantic comedies, but I still have examples from those genres that I love. My most despised genre has to be the biopic. I find these movies so boring and predictable that on the rare occasion I see one, I instantly forget it. Here are some of the exceptions to the rule, however. Raging Bull (1980) My favorite movie for the longest time. I kind of for

January was a strong start for the Catching Up With Film blog. It has been challenging but exciting to write every day, with most of my Canon reviews reaching a 1000 words or more. I don’t know if I can keep up the pace, but I will be writing as much as I can. I am hoping eventually to have a 1000 Canon entries (more than a millions words written!). Best of the blog I am quite proud of my review of Park Chan-Wook’s The Handmaiden, especially since I spent nearly a month just

Inspired by the 1001 Movies to Watch Before You Die, Edgar Wright’s 1000 favorite films and other lists, I am striving to come up with my own personal canon of films. Do-joon (Won Bin) and his mother (Kim Hye-ja) live in their own separate world. They stick out like sore thumbs wherever they go - Do-joon because of his mental disability and Mother (she’s never named in this film) because of her unshakable conviction in the goodness of her son. Characters are perturbed by both

I’ve always been a sucker for pub trivia, and I almost like creating trivia quizzes more than competing in them. The answers to the first nine questions are all connected by a theme, and the tenth is the theme. Feel free to share this quiz, and no Googling when you’re trying it! (What’s the fun in that?) Answers will be posted next week with the newest quiz. Johnny Depp’s character in Pirates of the Caribbean. The author of A Modest Proposal and Gulliver’s Travels Singer of “

When life gets in the way, yet you still want to continue your film education, here is a short film that you can slip in during a spare moment of the day. As an Asian-American, I have heard the immigrant experience told way too many times. In many ways, I have lived it, even though I was born here, and my parents and their families were the true immigrants. The immigrant narrative is not unimportant; it’s just that the way that is told is often so conventional and predictable

For January, I will be exploring the works of Japanese female directors as part of my 2018 resolution to watch more films by female directors (more than fifty percent of films watched to be precise). Close-Knit is in the tradition of gentle Japanese cinema, which finds its roots in Ozu and finds its modern master in Hirokazu Koreeda. A young girl, Tomo, finds herself abandoned yet again by her irresponsible mother and has to go live with her uncle. To her surprise, he is now

Inspired by the 1001 Movies to Watch Before You Die, Edgar Wright’s 1000 favorite films and other lists, I am striving to come up with my own personal canon of films. A cast-iron rule in filmmaking is to match the eyelines of characters. When a character is looking at something offscreen, the next shot should match perfectly with that character’s line of sight. It’s such a basic technique that we rarely notice it, although filmmakers work hard to pull off this illusion. And i