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jethrosa
Reviews
Avatar: The Way of Water (2022)
Greatest Visual, Blandest Story
Yes, I know James Cameron is a great director who is great at delivering stunning visual excitements to the audience in the cinema. But movie is not only about visuals. Creativity, story, messages, dialogues, story telling skills, and more, are part of it. Avatar is nothing but visuals.
The story is far-fetched to be an actual story. The villains are single dimensional. The creatures they create are not as imaginative as Avatar 1, not even to compare Star Wars. The messages brought out are so cliche and shallow to be easily forgotten. I can understand it is an all age friendly movie and they want to deliver some good messages to the children. But it doesn't mean it can be that cliche, see what Pixar can do as children movies maker?
Maybe that's the reality of box office, to get a box office success with an average, bland story. But i really doubt such story can attract people to watch Avatar 3,4, or more.
Faan hei gong sum (2022)
Best Comedy Film Since Stephen Chow
Hong Kong has become one of the most depressed cosmopolitan cities because of political environment, unaffordable housing, and many other reasons. To be honest I really can't think of how long I haven't watched an even above-average comedy in the cinema. Most of the films in Hong Kong in the past years are either serious and depressing local films, or crime films. They may be good or bad, but sometimes, in a city like this, I want to escape from having a laugh at a comedy film. I do think Hong Kong people are so unhappy that we can't make a good comedy again like we were in 90s. Luckily, in 2022 we have Table For Six.
The script is one of the best in Hong Kong history. The dialogues brought out a very Hong Kong style but unique jokes that play Cantonese so well. The scenes are smooth and you won't find some awkward and embarrassing moments like other Hong Kong badly produced comedy film. It's a non-stoppable laughing experience for me.
And there are some touching moments and brought messages talking about the importance of families to the audiences. I guess director may want to imply the migration issues happening in Hong Kong as well. It is a comedy, the touching scenes mix with the hilarious moments, but also let you ponder.
This is not the black humor masterpiece like Parasite, that Hong Kong people can be so proudly to have an academic award, but Hong Kong people should be glad that this is an almost pure comedy, and very local one, that let you enjoy your 2 hours in a cinema, and we have long lost for. At least I enjoy this film so much. We may never have a Stephen Chow again, but we can have more unique comedies like Table For Six, to let us take a breathe from the pressure.
School Tales the Series: Q (2022)
WTH is this
This episode simply does not make any sense from the beginning to the end. The dialogue is really ridiculous. If this is kind of fable, I don't even know what it teaches the audience. 1 mark is for some descent shots and 1 mark is for some jumpscares. Story is BS.
Inventing Anna (2022)
Good backstory, bad execution
The backstory of Anna Delvey is actually fun, but the character portrayal is really bad. Anna Delvey shows no intelligence in the drama but acts like an extremely annoying spoiled kid crying for candy and toys. The writer of Inventing Anna be like if others characters say Anna Delvey is intelligent, the audience will be convinced Anna Delvey is so intelligent to scam all the rich people.
And how the social issues brought up in the show is bad. Every time the social issues are brought up so suddenly and so awkwardly. It is so cringy every time I saw Vivian discussed Anna Delvey with her colleagues and suddenly blamed Donald Trump so seriously. Writers can put their political stance in the TV for sure but there must be much better ways.
Good backstory, good production. But bad writing ruins.
Seaspiracy (2021)
Exposing hypocrisy of NGOs
I really like the way they expose the hypocrisy of those NGOs. I am always annoyed by those NGOs, especially the "green" NGOs, keep telling me "don't use plastic straws" kind of minor things yet obviously and intentionally ignore those bigger threats. Moreover those NGOs intentionally mislead people because they are probably funded by the related industries to conceal the real threats. How hypocrite and ironic is the world. This is not a perfect documentary film (maybe too few resources to make a series ), but this is by far the most meaningful documentary delivered by Netflix.