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thomasmorus
Reviews
Made in Abyss (2017)
An unfulfilled promise
There are few bad reviews on this one, I thought I should make a critical review for people who might not like it. This first installment of the Made in Abyss franchise is good, maybe somewhere between 5 and 6 stars. The animation is gorgeous, in terms of living an adventure it does a pretty good job and the first episodes are quite good in drawing you into their world.
So why am I giving this 4 stars? It starts off wonderfully well, the plot is intriguing and the descent into the "abyss" of our souls seems promising. Already in the first episode we learn how kids are exploited, how rough and savage life can be. However, the series journey through the layers of the abyss is very underwhelming the closer it gets to the bottom. In the last season, Golden City of the Scorching Sun, it gets bonkers instead of touching, the whole promise of the series of delivering a major punch gets postponed indefinitely. You can see the story lost itself the closer it got to reaching the end and delivering its final message, they're stalling and just pushing flashy action scenes with forced, contrived emotivity.
In summary, the promise to get to the bottom of the abyss is broken, it seems the writers have no idea either of what should be there.
Another very annoying thing is the sexualization of children. It's off-putting, I wish they could stop doing this in animes overall, it just takes away value for the larger audience.
Hige o Soru. Soshite Joshikousei o Hirou. (2021)
Nice anime, but could be focused on an adult audience
This anime has a nice message, though you might be put off by the first episodes, it's nice at the end. It's a simple story about caring, honesty and valor, really simple, but still nice to watch. A man takes in a teenager to live with him and then life lessons are taught.
What I think is a let down and I really hope anime story writers could fix this, is that there are few good slice of life animes about adult life, this one still isn't fully in the adult spectrum. I wish it could at least have taken an approach closer to Usagi Drop and Barakamon, which are similar. Animes have the "fan service" thing and I really wish they could cut the hentai crap out. There's definitely a market for animes which are heartwarming and focused on adult themes, with very little supply.
Toradora! (2008)
Not for adults I guess
All reviews here are positive, I wanted to leave a review for people who might not like this anime. It has raving reviews on the web, someone said here (correctly) that the first half of the episodes is a drag, but I forced myself to carry on due to the reviews. In the end, it gets much better, but I wouldn't recommend it to any adults (or 18+), which makes sense since it's probably aimed at a 8-14 yr old audience.
Why would an adult want to watch this? Well, because there are animes with deep and heart-warming messages, even though they're aimed at children. Hayao Miyazaki's films comes to mind; in terms of series, one can think of Natsume's Book of Friends / Mushishi, Barakomon / Usagi Drop, Angel Beats / Plastic Memories, Clannad After Story etc. Any of these series has much more depth to their story, characters and messages than Toradora.
I don't know if people were using a different translation, but I couldn't see any depth in most Toradora's episodes (the last ones are a bit different, but they go through an entirely predictable and beaten path in animes, copied and pasted basically). Toradora's character are shallow, almost unidimensional (the exception is the obvious transformations towards the end into something a bit more mature), unrealistic and very childish. Unrealistic characters are fine, Clannad and Angel Beats, for example, have a bunch of them, but their unrealism serves a higher purpose. Here they are unrealistic mostly due to their silliness, I guess it's supposed to be funny, but in a brattish way for children to laugh. When they blossom in the end, it's still unrealistic, unfunny, childish and silly, there aren't bigger life lessons to be transmitted.
Why am I writing this review? Because I can't believe that adults would recommend this. From the visual style, you can already see it's not aimed at adults, so it's of course fine for teenagers to like and recommend it, but I feel cheated and having wasted my time watching this series (which could easily be shortened to 15 or 12 episodes at any rate), please correct me if I'm wrong, but I read adults recommending this and I must have understood them wrong, they must be recommending it for pre-teens. So viewer beware
Orange: Mirai (2016)
Only watchable if you watch the series first
There's only one other review for this movie and it's very negative. I think this movie is an interesting addition to the series, which is great. But it does fall short on pretty much everything.
If you didn't watch the series first, this movie has huge spoilers and will be awful anyway. It's only worth watching if you know the series and want some more of it.
If you don't know the series, I'd give it 1 star. I'm giving it 7 just because it does a nice recap (brings back good memories) and it's a continuation that I wanted to see, but a very bleak one. It could have been much better developed. So I'm only giving it 7 starts due to the merits of the series, that makes this still movie relevant, even if disappointing and underwhelming
Isshuukan Friends (2014)
Disappointing end
The series starts well enough as a slow paced, pretty story about friendship, with gorgeous and very soothing visuals. The problem is that it doesn't develop much from there, it just stays at this point basically... The ending is particularly stupid and wastes all that the story had been building up. I find the main character very annoying, though this is somewhat on purpose. But even though he must be annoying, the story doesn't do much with it (like a coming of age story that would have him surpassing his difficulties) and he just remains annoying till the end. Definitely a show for kids, though the first episodes are pretty and it could have developed into something much better
Song of the Sea (2014)
Better than Disney, more shallow than the Japanese
It's a pretty film, I imagine it goes well with children, though I found it slowly paced.
Beautiful graphics, but in terms of story it doesn't compare to Ghibli. It talks a bit about Irish mythology (I guess? Celtic?), but you don't learn anything really.
All these people saying how the film is super deep (for an animation! gosh, there ARE deep animations out there) never saw Princes Kaguya or, for example, the Wind Rises, Garden of Words, there are so many deeper Japanese animations.
Bottomline: better than Disney (what isn't?), less funny than Pixar (but more beautifully animated), shallower than Ghibli. Now take your shot
Kokuriko-zaka kara (2011)
"It'ls just like a cheap drama"
One of the main characters says at one moment that he felt like he was "in a cheap drama", and he wasn't wrong. The movie has funny, exciting and overall enjoyable scenes, and there are interesting points in the plot, but they are all wasted to nothing. The story has nothing of Hayao Miyazaki's depth and humanity and is, therefore, hardly touching. Which is a shame coming from Ghibli, specially because it could have been otherwise with a little more effort. But except for the bleak and cheapish story, it is an OK flick to watch your time slipping quickly by, and not coming back.
IMDb doesn't let me publish a review so short, so let me add one positive thing (though not much necessary): usually Ghibli's films are quite conservative when it comes to romantic relationships, this film tries to make the girl a little less submissive and embarrassed than the usual, which is a big plus for me, but it doesn't really chase it to the end, it just rather "suggests" it and that's it. The same goes to other positive points in the plot, none of them are developed, they are only hinted at (why? the film is short after all, there was time to improve it). The story is such a cheap trick that one wonders what happened to the idealism seen in the other animations from Ghibli.
The Fifth Estate (2013)
The Filth Estate: Hollywood
I'll just leave to Wikileaks's response the task of identifying all the gross factual mistakes done by the movie (just search for 'wikileaks internal memo fifth estate').
This film is a joke, the objective of tarnishing Assange's image is obvious from beginning to end. It keeps portraying him as a paranoid, egoist, narcissist, sexual maniac, manipulative person, that has no principles whatsoever. Sometimes it even shows him as having some ideals, as a lapse, and then he comes back to his psychopath persona. Really, with so many factual blunders, there's nothing to comment except that it's a poorly written fairy tale.
If you have any interest in this topic, I'd rather spend my time and money on the 'Mediastan' documentary.
Skyfall (2012)
Hoist the flags!
Help! Homosexual terrorists that once were secret agents want to bomb London (and what not)! Please secret services everywhere, take away our rights and as much money you'd like, oh please! Don't listen to annoying Ministers concerned with lack of oversight of intelligence agencies (for things like being able to use every camera in town)! After all, what do they know about the "shadow" world, where villains exist that can hack or explode whatever they want to and are defeated by one single old agent and an old couple, using "Home Alone" tactics. Please protect us from foreigners before they become homosexual terrorists, and please don't mind about breaking the internet by spying on us, censoring and disrupting content, the world was better without it!
I'm sorry if I just told you the film's entire plot, but I couldn't help myself, so much action. With this coming from a post-Wikileaks, pre-Snowden world, I wonder if on the sequel there will be not only terrorists posting leaks (even though, by the Pentagon's own admission, the "cyber-terrorist" leaks from Wikileaks resulted in no deaths), but if there will be an ex-agent leaking info that needs to be terminated.
Please Vote for Me (2007)
Fiction or documentary?
This can't be a documentary, as another reviewer already said. For starters, there are many "intimate" moments caught on tape in the most unrealistic way (e.g., a kid telling his machiavellic plans to destroy another candidate's reputation - all steps of his planning and executing are recorded), the camera shoots sometimes at angles that would be impossible to shoot without the cameraman looking really awkward, the characters fit perfectly well into their roles in the plot (which is odd for a documentary), etc., so this casts serious doubts on whether many of the film's good points are real or fake.
But as a fiction, is it interesting? Well, more or less, because the main interest in the film is to catch a glimpse at contemporary China, and a fiction destroys this unbiased objective. The film rather reinforces some stereotypes and doesn't show anything new. The novelty would be that the problems of western elections can also happen in China, but this is discarded if the film is a fiction.
We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks (2013)
We Steal Secrets: The Story of the NSA
In short: just a handful of misquotations and easily verifiable lies.
I want to give this the best and most impartial review I can, so here goes my disclaimer: I've been following Wikileaks work since circa 2009 and I admire it a lot. I never got much information on the organization's personnel though, just the regular news on Assange, and also some news on Bradley Manning (not a member of WL, but a self-confessed source for the Iraq/Afghanistan war logs). Having watched some of Alex Gibney's previous documentaries (Enron, Taxi to the Dark Side, Park Avenue - all quite good, although a little biased to the left, esp. the last one), I was looking forward to watching this one, since I also knew beforehand it'd focus on Assange and Manning, not so much on the organization itself, so that maybe I could finally shed some light on their personas.
Unfortunately, it was just a waste of time, I got out of it with basically the same information I came in with. That's because, specially from the middle to the end, there are so many factual mistakes that you learn nothing; there's no new data, just smear. And this is easily verifiable, in fact so easy that Wikileaks published the full transcript of the film (just google "transcript we steal wikileaks"), with annotations on the side pointing to where one can find the original material (eg. the link to the guardian or nytimes site) that bases what is being said by the narrator or interviewee, and showing how the source material irrefutably contradicts what is said upon it.
There are also cases where crucial information is lacking. For example, Assange's "rape" affair. The justice4assange website covers the issue thoroughly, mentioning that there was no trace of Assange's DNA in the condom he allegedly teared, that the Swedish authorities only want to extradite Assange for questioning (no criminal charges were filed against him) but do not allow him to be questioned at the Scotland Yard by a Swedish authority nor accept that his questioning is undertaken via internet in real-time (Skype), that Assange accepts to fly to Sweden if the Swedish authorities guarantee that he won't be extradited to the USA once in Swedish soil (such guarantee was denied), etc. None of this is mentioned in the movie, though it is at hand for anyone that searches 5 mins for it.
There are so many dirty tricks in the edition of the movie that makes it impossible to think that Gibney didn't make the misquotes on purpose. I don't know what his reason was, but he surely knew too about most, if not all, the factual mistakes highlighted in WL's transcript. Anyone that researched WL or Manning for some days would end up knowing it.
My humble opinion: this film is just a 2 hours long ad hominem fallacy on Assange and Manning, trying to portrait them as "troublemakers" coming from difficult childhoods/backgrounds so to shift the focus out of the politics that created the leaks and into these "troubled souls", reckless children that act out of hybris and not moral principles. I think even this could be worth watching if it had any factual support, but it surprisingly manages to ground itself only on lies. As it is, it's only interesting to watch if you compare it with WL's transcript, because there you can get some facts and see how skewed a documentary can be. As a conclusion, I'd say don't waste your money on this, specially supporting it.
Just one last thought on my "summary" title: "We steal secrets" is not a phrase from Wikileaks, it comes from Michael Hayden, former NSA and CIA director, and I think it fits perfectly the American intelligence motto, to steal secrets even from its own law-abiding citizens. This "documentary", just like this phrase, fits strangely well to NSA's narrative of the case, which makes one wonder why the director made so many gross factual errors.
Autoreiji: Biyondo (2012)
a great follow up to the first 'outrage'
i'll try to be as short as possible. essentially, this is a good yakuza film, that picks up different angles from where the prequel left off. eg., in the first 'outrage', the focus is on the yakuza discipline, or a romanticized yakuza clan struggling with modern times. on this film though, the focus is on the "macro-level", the interactions with police, politics, other clans and business.
unfortunately, although this seems very promising, it's not as brainy as other flicks, like 'the godfather' perhaps, and doesn't have the psychological depth or intricate plot of, say, the 1st 'infernal affairs'; it's a rather superficial action/yakuza film, but a very enjoyable one.
if you're a kitano fan: it's not avant-garde like 'sonatine', or kind of experimental like 'hanabi' or 'violent cop', or even a different take on the hollywoodian style like 'brother' - it's more a regular kind of movie. but if you liked the 1st 'outrage', like i did, you'll definitely like this one.
TPB AFK: The Pirate Bay Away from Keyboard (2013)
bad documentary
i've been waiting for a long time for this film, since i don't speak Swedish and i always thought most of thepiratebay's history is still untranslated. as the director had private access to all founders and to many important events, i took for granted that the film would be very informative and shed light on misconceptions. well, my mistake.
the doc basically follows thepiratebay's trial on Sweden and shows the human side of tpb, i.e., that it's made of three common guys with vices and virtues (maybe more emphasis on the vices), leaving aside most facts that prove beyond reasonable doubt that tpb's case was mishandled by the judiciary. and that's all you get, a doc about a trial that doesn't show its crucial facts, and about some boys that you never really get to know.
if you want an informative account on what happened, forget the film and head to peter sunde's own version of the story (just google "aftermath of the pirate bay trial peter sundes plea in his own words"), this was until now the best information i found (*to be fair, the link is posted in the documentary, but only if you watch the linklib internet version - and even so, abandon all hope for in depth information on any subject).
A-leum-dab-da (2008)
NOT kim ki-duk
horrible direction... bad acting... silly dialogs... there's not much to say about this film, except that it's a disaster from the beginning (except for the first 10 seconds, good shot there) till the end. and this coming from a great fan of kim ki duk's work, the premise is good but the film fails miserably to achieve any sensible result, it just drifts from one attempt to another without getting a good point - logical, aesthetic or anything at all. all "points" made by the film are pretty obvious, and silly, lacking any depth whatsoever. really, there's not much to say besides it is a bad effort to talk about beauty, it even has OK ideas, but they drown in the messy amateur execution (not dreamy/avant-garde/surrealistic, just bad execution).
i mean it, don't waste your time. or if you do, don't relate it to kim ki duk.
2 stars: one for trying to do something somewhat new, plus one for almost being able to say something meaningful about beauty
Tilva Ros (2010)
9/10 film about contemporary youth
it's a great movie about youth. period.
if you insist in reading further, id say there is a very interesting play with video interfaces and focus on sociotechonological transitions. it's a film about boredom, without being boring, and youth without being coming of age, just passing through their lives and struggles, perhaps a 'fight club' jr. the director managed to grasp in a picture the ethics and surroundings of youth movements, like the skater lifestyle, which is really hard, so congrats for doing it in a not canned and fake style. i think it does show an honest picture of our youth's reality.
it's full of critics, if you think for a moment you see this. i read in another review someone complaining about the love relationships (spoiler), but the lack of immersing the film in this shows not only a different approach, but also a real difficulty of the youngsters getting into love affairs. also the apathy, self-destruction or sadomasochism, the different perception of crimes and political life, if you want to think about this you can, i believe the movie was edited for this.
my score: 9 out of 10, 1 point is taken for not displaying more fully the social interactions (not only love affairs, friendships and family are covered, but there could be more depth in the contrasting "life conceptions" and less hit and run), but many were given for being able to show in a realistic way a lifestyle very uncommon for many people, and the beauty of such a lazy, or bum's life