bradywen Reviews

The Legend of 1900 (1998)

Story about a genius

[8/10 · 1 December 2023]

This is a really old film, produced in the last century. When the time went by, the heat of the film rose again and during that period, I got the chance to see this film.

The story is about a man born on a ship, who teaches himself to play piano and becomes a piano master. During his lifetime, the pianist hasn't left the ship. The film shows his life through the perspective of his friend, a worker on the ship.

This film portraits a complete genius, all the action of him, the words he says all reveal the sense of talent. Since this is a film about a pianist, there're lots of music in this film. And they all reveals a taste of the last century. The actors also do a good job in this film, especially the one that performs the pianist, his performance is a good illustration of a jazzy master pianist.

If you are a fan of biographical film of very fond of musical, you definitely gonna love this film. All the artistic conception created by the director is very beautiful. The legendary life of the pianist is also very impressing.

The Pursuit of Happyness (2006)

Be positive, never give up

[9/10 · 5 November 2023]

You can say that this movie is about an impractical story. How could a person succeed after falling that deep? However, I believe that this could happen in reality. Actually , everything could happen. Also, after all , this is a film, we need films like this one to encourage ourselves, to gain courage, the courage of telling ourselves confidently that as long as we are willing to fight, we can get everything we want.

The main character has once been in a really really difficult situation. Her wife leaves him, he can't pay the house rent. Once he even has to stay the night in a public toilet. I remember this plot because in the movie the character has done a thing that really moves me. He imagines a product that he can't sell out as a Time Machine, and he tells his son that this machine has taken him to the period that dinosaurs existed. He then plays a game with his son to avoid the 'dinosaurs'. Then he takes his son to the toilet and imagines there as a shelter, at the toilet he and his son spends the whole night. This segment really moves me because after the main character goes through so much difficulties, after he tries so many ways in order to survive, and after all the attempts fail, he is still positive. How valuable this quality is! This is the main reason of his success. Never give up, never focus on the downsides. This is really a lesson for me.

The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)

A colorful and magical film

[8/10 · 22 October 2023]

My first feeling of watching this movie is that the color and structure in every scene is so fascinating. The bright color makes me feel that the story seems to happened in a fairy tale world, the symmetrical composition also makes the artistic conception very magical.

It is not only the scene that makes the film fairy, the story itself is also very fairy. The story is full of absurdities. Actually, the main theme of the movie is not about the story itself. Instead, the moral of the story is the true thing the story wants to tell. There are lot of opinions about what the movie wants to tell. For me, I think the hotel manager represents the old European gentlemen. However, as the war happened, the culture and civilization had been destroyed, but even at the most dangerous time, there are still human like the manager who still abided by their own moral boundaries.

Chang An (2023)

A animation about a legend poetry

[8/10 · 4 October 2023]

Though it is an animation, the technology is quite good, all the characters and background are created elaborately. Also, this animation is not like the animation made by Disney or DreamWorks, it has an unique Chinese feature.

This film is about the entire life of Libai, a famous poetry in China. However, the story is told by another poetry, Gaoshi, this makes the image of Libai more interesting.

After watching the film, I feel more admire to Libai. I've already known that he was a great poetry and know lots of things about him. However, it's a completely new experience to see the character alive on the screen, to see him living his life, writing his poems, making his friends. Of course, Libai is a legend, it is unbelievable for a person to experience loads of pain, failure, and even being discriminated by others and still lead a free and easy life.

The Martian (2015)

Surviving on a planet by planting potatoes!

[8/10 · 24 September 2023]

The Martian, this film is not the same with other science fiction space films. It's not about aliens or adventures to other galaxies or searching for other living things on the other planets. And it doesn't have the normal thriller atmosphere in the regular space movies. In this film ,there's only one easy understanding topic:to survive and wait for the rescue.

Actually, it is more like a movie about how a astronaut using his knowledge and strong psychological endurance to live on the deserted Mars rather than a movie about exploration. Since the movie needs to show a method of how to rescue a person on the other planet, and how a person can survive on his own on low-resource planet, there're a lot of interesting and innovative creations, especially the idea of colonizing the Mars by planing potatoes on it! Besides the living method, the way of rescuing the astronaut is also very exciting. The astronaut needed to ride a open-top rocket in order to get to the calculated height , and he also figured the method of pierce through his space suit to get the power to fly toward the spaceship!

Besides the creative part, the movie also shows the strong will of a person. It's really a hard thing, trying to surviving alone on a alien planet. There's even accident happened that made things worse. It's amazing that the astronaut can bear all this and lived hundreds of days on the planet. Also this is a science fiction film, I think this movie teaches me a lot about what I should do when I in difficult situations, what should I do when I have to confront a bad thing alone and how I can put all the things I know together to solve a problem.

Just like the astronaut said, when facing a difficult situation, just begin solving the problems, one after another, when you have solved enough problems , you will achieve your targets.

Inception (2010)

Very creative idea with epic plot

[10/10 · 17 September 2023]

From my point of view, Inception is the film that lies at the second place of Nolan's films.

Like Interstellar, Inception is a film about an adventure. This film also has a very creative background story, and many of the settings in the film is rather novelty. Some people say that this film is very brain-burning and hard to understand. However, I think it is just because the film has lots of high-level factors and it is not easy to understand them. 'Time' is a very important factor in the film (even the theme song of the music is called 'time' too!) . There are different levels of dreams and the time in those dreams are different (just like 'Interstellar'!) . The characters in this film must try to keep the 'falling point' of different levels of dreams happen at the same time, and this is actually a very difficult task. To express this idea to the audiences is also a hard job. However, I think Nolan had done a great job. It is his strength to tell a story that has several timelines, he did excellent well in this film. Every timeline has been shown clearly and the film is tight paced, especially when reaches the back part of the film, the fast switches between different timelines create an exciting atmosphere. The music is also very shocking. At the end of the film, when the characters wake up on the airplane, and the theme music rang, I even wondered whether I'm in the real world or still in a dream!

Interstellar (2014)

Fascinating, amusing, astonishing, shocking

[10/10 · 10 September 2023]

This definitely without doubt the most impressive movie I've ever seen. It is so wonderful that I can't exactly explain why I love this film so much, I can only say that this film is a complete work of art. In my opinion, every aspect of this movie is perfect and all of the factors combine to make this remarkable film.

First of all ,the story. It's a science fiction movie but it is also a movie about humanity. The film raises questions about human's attitude toward the universe, and questions about humanity. Well, I'm not trying to say that this movie is very profound and difficult to understand, it's just this movie can call for deep thought and it is really impressive. The plot of this film is being well designed , all the emotions will accumulate until almost the end of the film, and when the music rings, you will definitely get deeply blown away.

About the filming skills, Nolan is always good at multi-line narrative. He combined the story on the Earth with the events happened in the space together. Especially at the back part of the movie, the quick shot change connect Cooper's experience with Murph's experience together, and these shots make the film reach its climax.

Now let's talk about the music, it's so so so so so so so so so amazing!!!!!!!!!!!! To be honest I will still get astonished by the music like the first time I heard it. Hans Zimmer is such a genius, the music written by him makes the film rise to a complete new level.'Cornfield chase', the most spectacular one is the best film music I've ever heard, like other music in the film the music is very layered, the melody is repeated over and over again, and this makes your emotion become more and more intense. Also, the music fits the movie so well that it's just like an embodiment of the emotion in the movie.

Oppenheimer (I) (2023)

A really good movie

[8/10 · 3 September 2023]

I come to see this movie because of the director, I personally love Nolan's movies , I have watched lots of his movies and get astonished by his amazing and unique filming skills, also, the music in most of his movies are good(the music in Oppenheimer is also brilliant, it creates the "feeling" and matches the scene very well).

About the movie, the main plot is not only about how Oppenheimer created the bomb, but also focus on Oppenheimer's life after he made the bomb , there are many things actually related to politics. Also, the movie tries to show the feeling of Oppenheimer himself, like the changing attitudes toward the nuclear weapon. It is not a war film but a film describing Oppenheimer's life, the experience of him before making the bomb, the events happened when making the bomb, and most importantly, the provoking situation he is in after he became famous.

The quality of this movie is very good, I watched this movie in an IMAX theater where the sound system is extremely striking, you won't feel noisy, instead, you will feel you body shaking with the sound which is very shocking. Also, many scenes showing the microcosm are very creative. The film lasts for three hours, but you won't feel boring , the plot is filled with important events one after another .

Here's some draw backs about this film, watching this movie need to have a certain threshold . Since there are lots of famous scientists appear in the film , remembering all their names is a difficult thing. Also this film is something very literary which has many conversations through the whole film, so if you want to see a popcorn movie, than this one won't satisfy you. And you should know something about that period of time.

All in all this is a great film worth watching.