Category Archives: Movies

Review: Road to Boston

Posted on August 30, 2024 by philipbrasor

It’s often said that South Korean storytelling in movies and dramas is based on one theme, revenge, which gives the impression that the national self-image is one of eternal victimhood. It’s not an entirely fair evaluation, but the country’s history … Continue reading →

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Review: Monkey Man and Polite Society

Posted on August 23, 2024 by philipbrasor

Though they have little in common except the setting and Dev Patel as the lead, it’s easy to recognize the stylistic and thematic centrality of Slumdog Millionaire in Patel’s directorial debut. The latter is a classic tale of retribution, while … Continue reading →

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Review: Menus-Plaisirs Les Troisgros

Posted on August 22, 2024 by philipbrasor

It’s safe to say that the overarching interest of the 93-year-old master documentarian Frederick Wiseman is how people work. He plants his camera in a work environment and just records people fulfilling their tasks. In many cases, the environment is … Continue reading →

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Review: 12.12: The Day

Posted on August 21, 2024 by philipbrasor

The portentous English title of Kim Sung-soo’s box office hit about the 1979 coup that replaced one South Korean dictatorship with an even worse one could have been convincingly changed to Amateurs, a more accurate description of the action that … Continue reading →

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Review: The Fall Guy and The Garfield Movie

Posted on August 16, 2024 by philipbrasor

The stated goal of this action comedy, based loosely on a 1980s TV series, is to get the Motion Picture Academy to inaugurate an Oscar for stunt people, and given that the Academy recently announced it will do such a … Continue reading →

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Review: New Normal

Posted on August 15, 2024 by philipbrasor

The framing story of Jung Bum-shik’s omnibus slasher flick is difficult to parse at first. The various stories spool out in Seoul over a four-day period in May after it snows unseasonally, and for some reason an element of “chaos” … Continue reading →

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Review: Sages-femmes (Midwives)

Posted on August 14, 2024 by philipbrasor

“Labor” in all meanings of the word is the subject of this medical movie. Ostensibly centered on the horrifically hectic first weeks of two new midwives at a public hospital in the French city of Toulouse, Léa Fehner’s film, which … Continue reading →

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Review: Tótem

Posted on August 9, 2024 by philipbrasor

Though the Mexican director Lila Avilés has a way of withholding information that gives her domestic drama a touch of mystery, she reveals her thematic hand very early on. The protagonist of Tótem, seven-year-old Sol (Naíma Sentíes), is driving with … Continue reading →

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Review: Exterior Night

Posted on August 8, 2024 by philipbrasor

Though Marco Bellocchio’s second film about the kidnap/murder of former prime minister Aldo Moro by radical leftists in 1978 was obviously intended as a six-part TV series, it premiered at Cannes and was featured at other international film festivals before … Continue reading →

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Review: Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman

Posted on July 25, 2024 by philipbrasor

Having only read a handful of short stories by Haruki Murakami, I don’t feel I’m in a position to make informed pronouncements about how faithfully filmmakers have adapted his work. I liked Lee Chang-dong’s Burning and Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Drive My … Continue reading →

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