boclani Reviews

It's a Wonderful Life (1946)

The perfect Christmas movie

[8/10 · 9 December 2016]

It's not hard to rip this movie apart because of its technical flaws and the fact that it's shown on IMDb as the twenty forth best movie ever made, when it isn't a perfect film. But this experience will have a huge impact on your character and how you perceive life again. That is something magic. This Christmas find this movie, It's a Wonderful Life is not to be ignored.

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Now I love this movie, a lot. In fact it's my dad's favourite movie. I'll get into why I like it after I quickly get rid of the stuff I don't like. I don't usually review like this very often, but I feel that I need to get the obvious things out the way.

I recently watched To kill a Mockingbird and it was alright I gave it a B+. Now, To kill a Mockingbird is one of the greatest achievements depicted on television, but I didn't have the connection like I thought I would have had with it. Even though its one of the best selling novels ever and a highly successful film, I believe that the impact to the viewer because of the issues they were tackling. It had a huge impact to the people at the time of its release, but then slightly loses its magic. It's a Wonderful Life doesn't suffer to its relay level like To kill a Mockingbird, though some things are outdated. To be honest I've never seen editing this bad before, there are immediate cuts when characters haven't fully completed their sentence and makes the scene all disconjointed. The cinematography is nothing too special either, doing just a decent job. And some scenes near the end could have been shortened. But for the most part, this is a really, really great movie and I loved it because its my favourite type of movie, it is simple, yet effective. This movie sustained my attention from start to finish due to its simple and riveting storytelling. The sets aren't big, the story is quite small and the film is in black and white.

To put it simply, the film is about a once hopeful teen who becomes a compassionate and very likable yet frustrated businessman, George Bailey. There's more to the story to that but it will spoil if I explain the best part.

I found it very cool that the director, Frank Capra made business interesting, because after about thirty minutes, for almost the rest of the movie, it's all about business. Which was actually very engaging.

And the reason this film is better than lots of Hollywood's big blockbuster cash grabs out now, is that the dialog between the characters that solely moulds around the story the film has given and doesn't say anything off topic. This here is the main reason it kept my eyes glued to the screen.

Some scenes that don't lack from bad editing, are simply masterful. And to make a terrific scene you need terrific acting which is certainly shown here. The acting is superb from everyone, but James Stewart and how he showed this man who tries to do everything to his best ability but is always being let down by something, the way Stewart constructed this man, is on a whole 'nother level.

Frank Capra creates an quite the unforgettable experience. It does have some very noticeable technical flaws, but I can't really degrade the movie much on that alone given the time it was made. I recently watched Zootopia for the sixth time and I stills believe its an A+ movie, though I did enjoy this more. Zootopia I assessed on how everything worked. The story, characters, tone, messages, acting, editing, sound design, and every box was checked. I can't say the same about Its a Wonderful Life but if you see me on the street this Christmas, and ask me what movie you should watch, you bet I'll say "Wonderful Life".

A-

6.12.16, 9.12.16

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Your Name. (2016)

why YOUR NAME is the best animated movie of the last five years

[10/10 · 8 December 2016]

Your Name is a journey about growth and having the ability to bounce back when thrown against overpowering hardships. It's a journey that focuses on human emotion that are larger than time and space. It's a journey of where we watch our protagonists struggle again and again against destiny. And it's one of the greatest animated journeys you will ever experience.

Watch the review at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7v32c900F4 and / or read along here

Your Name follows a girl from the country and a boy from the city who have never met that switch bodies when they dream.

This movie may seem like your romantic-comedy body-swap situation. But it will surprise you how in depth the gets. The storytelling here is top notch, because you understand everything, but when you think about it, the concept gets quite confusing, but because of the brilliant direction my Shinkai, he somehow makes it understandable.

The two protagonists are the driving force of the film instead of Shinkai's normal eye candy visual sell outs. Within the great writing are actually some very funny and memorable conversations. The comedy works well to add another layer to the great chemistry between the protagonists. Props to the actors.

It was just so fun watching the dynamic feelings of these two and I loved how the two genders figured each other out while inhabiting the others' body.

I was a little confused when a lot of the first act is dedicated to the girl, without really seeing the movie from the boy she's swapping with, his view. But the movie surprised me when something happened to the girl and we see the boy for most of the rest of the movie. So actually the screen time for both protagonists were quite similar. That blew me away.

If you delve deep into his work Shinkai tends to break the forth wall often in the way he portrays emotions. He, in a way, makes you reflect upon your own life, and all his movies are really, really relatable. He makes you look back on dark times, times you don't really want to think about again and he says a different messages every movie.

A big part of the film was it's editing and sound design. This all helped with the immersion. Every scene is dripping with hidden details covered in immense beauty sugar coated with an outstanding soundtrack played by Radwimps.

And although the end is predictable, it did what 5 Centimetres Per Second didn't do. It left me satisfied.

What seemed like a stupid idea turned into Your Name. And it's not just another Japanese animation.

There are so many scenes where it feels like the Shinkai just pulls the rug from underneath you, like the movie doesn't always follow the normal routine. I felt so many emotions in this movie.

It grips you in that way and shows that every second in the movie and in life is important.

This movie takes every awesome element that Shinkai has ever used in his films and are all constrained into this movie. This film has jaw dropping photo-realistic visuals with beautiful Japanese voice work, great cinematography, laugh out loud comedy, gripping story, insane twists, looming soundtrack, heart racing action, unforgettable quotes.

But the best part about this movie is that it has very few mistakes. Everything is in the film for a reason.

Still, I don't feel like I've covered most of the points of why this movie was so good without spoiling anything.

But I can say that when I watched it, it was something special. Looking around at other reviews and forums, I have a feeling, that this will be regarded as one of the best animated movies ever made.

A+

10 / 10

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Voices of a Distant Star (2002)

25 Minute Masterpiece

[10/10 · 24 November 2016]

Watch the visual review at https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=pTvCA1i6B50

Never would I have thought that so much emotion could be captured and work in a 25 minute movie. I was surely proved wrong.

The Voices of a Distant Star follows a girl and a boy. These two are together but become distant as the girl is sent to war in different galaxies, and the only form of communication is over their phones, but the messages take almost ten years to send.

This is a movie as you might be able to tell, explaining the distant relationship between some and even the issues that soldiers had to face when wanting to talk to their loved ones on the other side of the world. And I found it very surreal and scary, and that's why I got a little teary eyed.

And I just want to say, that this isn't your normal anime. All of Shinkai's movies focus on emotions, and things like loss, love and finding yourself, these all tend to kind of break the fourth wall and make you analyse your own emotions and ask you if you're okay, regardless of the characters. He says through his story telling that sometimes the situation is out of hand and it is impossible for you to change anything, much like in Distant Star.

The story, like most of Shinkai's work, is simple. But as I always say with his movies, it doesn't need to be anything else. This is beauty in simplicity. This is the same reason I loved The Garden of Words.

Everything feels so real. Regardless of the mecha robots fighting in space, the characters aren't superficial and is a big part of what backs up this simple story. They don't have horns on the head, or have tails on the back, they're just people wanting to talk to their lover. Earth feels so much like Earth, from the rain and the landscape. A planet that the girl discovers seems a lot like Earth with the same looking creatures, landscapes and rain, and then she bursts into tears realising that there is nowhere like Earth. The real winner in this movie is the gorgeous soundtrack this comes with! Holy moly, what sound! I think that at times I felt I was going to cry from the music itself!

This isn't a perfect movie though, it has its downsides. I can't say that it needed to be longer, as this director likes creating these shorter movies, and having this as a short worked well. The main issue I have is the machine that the girl is in. The 3D rendering of the objects looks so fake and extremely overdone, I believe they should have stayed with the 2D drawing style. The mixture of 3D and 2D in animation can work hand in hand with each other, but here, the mixture of both didn't gel and work. I think Shinkai learned from his mistake as I haven't seen another machine looking as bad as this since he made it in 2002. Another part I didn't like was the English dubs. I've definitely heard worse, but this is nothing to write home about.

But all-in-all The Voices of a Distant Star is just another movie to persuade you that this guy can create beautiful films, from the music to the characters to the artwork. Everything is done with so much heart. This is a film that beautifully looks at war, love and separation. This is more of an emotionally investing film than most of Hollywood's movies. And seeing that this short 25 minute movie, that was created by one single person and is executed with a great amount of detail shows just how special this film and director is.

OVERALL : A

The Sixth Sense (1999)

Sight, sound, smell, taste, touch and see dead people

[10/10 · 23 November 2016]

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The Sixth Sense is about Malcolm (played by Bruce Willis) who is a child psychologist. He is assigned to help Cole (Haley Joel Osment), a child who can "see dead people." The surprise ending to "The Sixth Sense" has got a lot of attention and it has overshadowed the rest of the film. I'll talk about the twist, but it is only a part of what makes up the film. The twist in "The Sixth Sense" is particularly clever, it's not fun if a twist is impossible to predict. It is just as important that the twist makes sense. And surprising. I've seen a few movie twists and some are surprising, but don't make any sense, because the director didn't provide enough hints. It is incredible that these scenes can be seen in many different ways after the twist is revealed. The movie is effective because it works on this basic level. What makes "The Sixth Sense" moving is that it never cheats. Everything we see is real, and feels real, real meetings, conversations, and its our assumptions that fool us. Illusions are scattered throughout the film and that is what Shyamalan is when he directed this movie, an illusionist.

Real horror is The Sixth Sense, events that could happen. Instead of excessive violence, nudity, lazy jump scares, boo, ah. The Sixth Sense looks at, separation, depression, bullying. Sad things, scary things to happen to you in real life. A scene when they attend a funeral with a disturbing video tape was frightening. Now when you hear that, you may think, some gory old woman will give us a fake jumpscare, no. No gore, no jumpscares. Movies are missing out on this in recent years, yes the jumpscare will startle you because its unexpected, but it's a scary face and / or a loud noise. This is a touching moment when a father realises a terrifying secret of why his daughter died. Because this is a non spoiler review I will just say that it is brilliantly directed and pure terrifying.

You could just watch this movie if you love the craft of acting because Osment puts on one of the greatest acting performances by a child that cinema has ever seen. Malcolm, his wife and Cole's mother are all brilliant in this and believable. A scene near the end of the movie, between mother and son, finally understanding each other, it was so beautiful.

Now when I think of a horror film, I think of R rating movies, jumpscares, monsters and gore. I was really surprised that a movie as upsetting as "The Sixth Sense" wasn't given a restricted rating.

It was great watching this movie when I did, I just watched The Visit, another film of Shyamalan.

I have never seen a moving picture that has had this much attention to detail. The director removed certain colours from scenes to create different effects so it made sense in the long term. This movie shows that when you make a great horror movie you will be rewarded with the money you so desperately want. It is great to see people come together and create something incredible and do their job.

The ending adds more interest after the movie concluded, and I was searching up all the easter eggs straight after. But that isn't the only way you can enjoy this film. This is one of my favourite horror films. Like all good horror films, "The Sixth Sense" lets suspense build. I said it before and I'll say it again. It doesn't rely on excessive violence, blood and gore, or cheap jump scares. It has terrific acting, story, pace, messages, hidden messages! This is a movie that will not be taken from its rightful place as the best horror film of all time and if you were like me and pondering on the idea of see it. Go see it, anyway you can, it's a movie you need to see before you die, and before someone ruins it for you, go and watch the movie!

A+

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Children Who Chase Lost Voices (2011)

Looses its feel of this imaginary and mystical world it desperately wants to be

[1/10 · 23 November 2016]

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Children Who Chase Lost Voices directed by Makoto Shinkai is a coming of age story revolving around a girl and a man, who both have lost someone important and by inhabiting a crystal, it leads them deep into a hidden world in order to resurrect their fallen.

A recurring aspect of Shinkai's work is the incredible cinematography, the protagonists and the message.

The message is sweet, as it tells us how to let go of the ones we've lost, even though with some comments can feel a bit over the top at times, but Shinkai's art work and cinematography is always almost perfect.

The way the clouds move ever so slightly, the sunshine just peeping behind the clouds to kiss the characters on the cheek, the way the tears are created, the gorgeous look of these creatures felt like you could touch them, the colourful world both above and under ground, it's all just breathtaking.

The two protagonists work off each other nicely showing the yin and yang. Just like The Garden of Words two characters completely different ages work together and creating a great relationship, even thought he bond between the two here isn't as tight as the one in his other works.

But the protagonists and the artwork can't always make a great movie, and there are more flaws to this film than I expected.

To explain and explore is an important thing a director needs to do to not confuse the audience, but he forgot to do it!

This "amazing crystal" that opens up portals and resurrects the dead, hasn't got a backstory. Where did this crystal come from, how can it resurrect the dead, why is it so scarce? Nothing is explained, just like the ending.

In the touching end a loved one says, "find happiness" which was beautiful. But we don't know if the character does find happiness after the credits. There's stuff in between the credits but this character isn't seen again after the character says "I want to die." Did the character find happiness? It shows us people who were already shown fine but not the one who said they were going to kill them self. The characters that Mae it home and their family, don't look any different to ask where they've been. There might be an explanation somewhere that days in the real world don't mean anything to the underground world or something like that, but if it was explained, it was explained clearly. You might say it's thought- evoking, but I just think it's lazy.

The pacing is so slow it's tiring, and this movie is almost two hours. But I have watched movies two and a half to three hours long without having a yawn or having to skip scenes!

You can tell how much this movie wants to be magical like Spirited Away or My Neighbour Totoro by having long pans of colour landscapes and having the characters tearing up from the beauty. But it's not really that great. They leave a green land and come down to see, guess what. Another green land. They do this twice in the movie, I remember being half asleep when they did showed it a second time and I couldn't help but chuckle.

The story is interesting and makes you want to learn more about everything inhabiting this world, because it doesn't show much of anything! It wants to a fantasy with mystic creatures and it shows us it in aspects. This big, huge creature that has charms and rubies on it is amazing to look at. But you only see it, twice. And a deer looking monster is gorgeous, but is only seen once. And the bear- things everyone calls this brown creature is only seen, once! Come on! Where's the fun? Show us more fantasy stuff like what it's trying to be.

In a nutshell this movie had its shining moments, like the colourful and sweet cinematography, the characters and the message. But ultimately the lack of screen time for the creatures, the lazy non- explanation of important items and the poor pacing tends to loose its feel of this imaginary and mystical world it desperately wants to be.

Overall - C

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The Simpsons: Mother Simpson (1995) Season 7, Episode 8

An emotional look inside the mind of Homer Simpson

[10/10 · 23 November 2016]

The Simpsons have had its ups and downs in terms of great film making. Even with a lot of un-funny, boring and dull episodes given lately, some episodes like "Barthood" give us glimpses of the little bit of creative juice left in the tank and give us episodes that were both hilarious and heartfelt.

Mother Simpson is not my favourite Simpsons episode, but has my favourite Simpsons scene. In an animated comedy, the acting, the score, the message and the feels that had to be crammed into a 1 minute scene and it works wonders, and that is why this episode is a gem.

I never thought I had seen a perfect scene in The Simpsons, but I remembered the ending of this episode.

The Mona character is one of the best and most interesting in the series as she isn't in many episodes. This episode is all about her, and her backstory and the explanation of why she left her son and husband at such a young age. Mona is an important character to every Simpson character in the family.

Bart and Maggie never say and give any real reasons why it was important seeing her. But we can infer that Mona would put Bart in line while watching him grow up, same with Maggie, Homer and Marge would want their Mother and Mother-in-law to watch one of their babies grow up from the beginning.

Marge lost her mother and says, when she sees her for the first time, "I can finally have a real talk…" showing that Marge needs someone to let out all of her contained feelings over the years and treat Mona like her very own mother.

Lisa feels alone and "adopted" as her whole family isn't up to the... intellectual standard of herself. When she talks to her grandma, she says she feels at home with her presence knowing that she belongs somewhere.

Homer, lost this woman when he was younger, and is bound to lose her again because she has to run from the police. Her mother left at a very young age, and as soon as he has her back, she leaves again, and seeing how many family members she has effected making for the saddest moment in The Simpsons.

The setting of this scene where they are, in the desert, a wasteland, showing that they are alone, just to talk for the last time with no artificial noises.

Cinematography ties in with this idea, his mother and him fill up the whole screen, showing their closeness and as soon as the window winds up and they drive away, you see the camera moving back further, showing that his mother is slipping away from his grasp. And in the last scene Homer is shown with himself and the stars, thinking about his biggest day in recent memory.

The score is the definition of tear-jerky it is brilliant. That's all I can say.

Everything that is spoken is perfect, Homer says "At least this time I'm awake to say goodbye." But the greatest part of it was after Mona uses Homer's world-famous line, to show that they are connected, not another word is spoken. No jokes are here to break the mood. Every time I watch this incredible final scene when Homer waves his mother goodbye, possibly for the last time, I always get teary. It is such a beautiful scene and important one. It gives the shown emotion of Homer that is dearly lacking in the rest of the episodes. It gives us more connection with Homer making him one of television's favourite animated father.

OVERALL : A

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Perfect Blue (1997)

Japan's hidden masterpiece

[10/10 · 23 November 2016]

Watch the visual review here - https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=rDcw_MCYs-M

PERFECT BLUE, is an psychological thriller anime surrounding Mima, who decides she wants to become an actress because she is tired of the pop artist world, when she becomes this actress she repeatedly degrades herself by allowing herself to do scenes that she would never have thought of doing before, all the while murders take place that seem to relate to her, while she is also followed by an overly obsessed fan and her pop-artist self in the form of a ghost. People are worried for her as she starts to loose her grip on reality.

And this all correlates to develop this extremely intense, dark and strikingly gorgeous animated film.

The movie also was a huge inspiration to Black Swan and Requim for a Dream with some scenes looking almost identical. And if these highly commended films got inspiration from this, you better believe the hype.

Perfect Blur has deep messages, one of the messages mentioning how fans can be over-obsessive and try to take possession of their favored celebrities. As fans start attacking her mentally and physically it makes Mima do what the fans want her to do and go back to singing. This is the main aspect of the movie that drives her to lose her mind.

I'm not going to say anymore as I will probably end up spoiling it!

Perfect Blue is an incredibly smart piece of work that tricks you, throughout it you are left wondering if what you saw was real. It shows Mima's dreams, the show and the reality. One scene for example, that was nicely acted and well shot, Mima is acting in her show, but you can tell she gives more emotion than anyone else, because the scenes that she acts in, reflects different parts of her life and some of those scenes are showed later in the movie. Sometimes we get details about Mima's life when you suddenly realise it was being read out by one of the actors of the show when the camera pans a bit to the right, adding to the confusion of what is fact and fiction.

It also makes you think of different ways and outcomes of how the movie will end, but the movie knows what you're thinking and swerves around the normal movie clichés.

And from start to finish I was so intrigued by this attention to detail, like how the film is created like we are Mima, we are loosing our mind with her, as some scenes aren't placed in chronological order and some scenes cut without characters finishing their sentences and only parts of the picture is showed at times, making our mind believe we are in one place, when we are actually somewhere else. And this wasn't an editing issue, this is all part of the effect.

Different colours along the duration of the movie have different meaning, for example, the prominent colour of red popping up everywhere symbolises, what I think, her madness. If you look at the movie in this way, in certain scenes it gets more and more evident and disturbing, while in a poetic way. Some scenes near the end reminded me of the famous shower scene in Hitchcock's Psycho. Trust me when I say that you will be awed by the beautifully made film.

It reminded me of some of the great movies out there like Fight Club and The Sixth Sense, and how they add and remove little coloured items from scenes to symbolise what the movie is trying to tell us.

Keep in mind that The Sixth Sense was praised for its attention to detail when it was release in 1999. Yeah, this movie was released in 1997, they did the seemingly new colour scheme story telling before The Sixth Sense.

If it isn't evident already, in many ways, movies created now days have followed the Perfect Blue strategy in one way or another. As I have said before, it is praised upon by genius film directors. I just find that really cool, alright back to the review.

The film continually asks questions and answers only the questions needed to be answered as it does leave the ending up to your own interpretation, but it kind of takes a bit of researching to figure out the possible endings as there are multiple. Every scene has its own story and is important and adds up to something in the long run.

Perfect Blue has been criticised lately on its quality of video saying it's not up to par with anime made recently in the 2010s'. Well duh! It hasn't been remastered at all, so of course the picture will be a bit washed out and not the standard of 2010s' animations.

People actually want to see this movie as the same old anime with huge eyes, fan service and short high pitch gasps. But this is a very mature and realistic animation and at times I actually forgot I was watching an animation! You don't get that in most movies in this same genre surpassing the creative standards like Perfect Blue has.

This anime has touching, shocking and amazing scenes that are well paced to have surprisingly good performances that go well with an incredible score, masterful imagery and editing, breaks the fourth wall for a second, hidden details in every scene while holding together a brilliant and compelling story with an enormous amount of replay value.

I can't stop praising this film, I personally didn't have any huge problems with this movie and is actually one of the best films I've ever seen.

A+

Watch the visual review here - https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=rDcw_MCYs-M

The Garden of Words (2013)

More than just pretty pictures

[9/10 · 23 November 2016]

When watching a movie, I always look for visual techniques first. I always love viewing camera pans and camera angles with messages hidden within the cinematography. People ask me why I watch anime, and my reason is the same as my friends and many others: it's so creative and just so beautiful. You appreciate the time and effort that took to draw every smile and every blink. If you even remotely like visuals, you will adore the visuals in this one. Holy moly! I have never seen a movie this visually stunning.

Garden of Words is about two people, a fifteen year old student and a twenty seven year old woman that coincidentally meet up in the same park, on the same seats in the same positions, under the same shelter every time when it rains. The both form an unlikely friendship as the two though both varying in age are very similar. Now if this idea fell into the wrong hands it could have ended so badly, by making a creepy movie, more than this gorgeous one. This is because of the fantastic direction from Shinkai.

The story is so simple, as it didn't need to be anything else. I have read other reviews and they say the story is very cheesy. But I didn't mind. I thought the way the story was told ever so slightly in a short forty six minute movie still worked and amazed me. The characters too are quite simple, and when they become more attached to each other open different aspects of themselves that I didn't expect. It made for an entertaining experience. I found it beautiful that there's messages in certain scenes and when these two characters are together. For example the movie even up to the last few minutes want to persuade us that they are together yet so apart. Even though these two are close, there is so much they don't know about each other and this line in many scenes represents the disconnect. For example at the edge of a door is in between them, on another scene a twig is placed, in this very scene he says while laughing a holding her foot, says in his head "...I don't even know her name."

The visuals and soundtrack, are nothing less that phenomenal. The way the trees sway with the slight breeze, from the sunlight peeping over the clouds, to the hailing smoke of storm, to the aftermath of it all and watching the last raindrop fall from a leaf is simply spectacular. Even with the absence of music, whenever it comes on, it fits and sets the mood.

I really loved the editing. It caught you off guard. There's a scene under the shelter where it looks like a storm will push the protagonists away as the sound grows louder but then the next scene it's silent. Or when a character sprints at the screen and the camera immediately switches to a car wheel. It may sound confusing when I try to explain it, but you will definitely pick up on it when you see it.

I know I congratulated the film makers in making a well rounded and beautiful story in 46 minutes, but I think that the pacing was a bit of a hit and miss. There's times that the scene tends to drag on when nothing is happening and some scenes that fly by too quickly that could have grown on the characters.

The Garden of Words is a movie you can watch at any time as it's short in length. Even through it's pacing is awkward it has a nice story with relatible characters. Spot on sound effects with a beautiful score. And also a movie that will fly far past your expectations of visual animation in cinema.

Overall : A-

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Death Parade (2015)

Short, powerful stories.

[8/10 · 23 November 2016]

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DEATH PARADE is the first anime I have seen without anyone recommending it to me. And an anime that isn't too popular, and I believe it's a nice little show. I decided to check out this series not thinking it to be great. And it wasn't. But it was damn close!

Death Parade takes place at a bar amongst life and death called Quin Decim. Quin Decim is a place where the newly dead go, typically in pairs to take part in a random game under the supervision of the arbiter. The players must compete in a game that they believe will cost them their lives. Nonetheless, these people don't know they're dead. These games mentally push them to their max to reveal their true character, and by that they are judged with either having their soul reincarnated or forgotten in the void.

Something I do find great though is that the show revolves around different people that get introduced to the afterlife, so the protagonists change throughout. Characters here are created with care and these characters feel real, and care for them, even if you have only got to know them for about fifteen minutes. This is where director Yuzuru Tachikawa makes his money. Tachikawa also directed the seventh episode of Attack on Titan, which was the episode that showed the greatest character development. It showed characters being pushed to their absolute limits to do whatever necessary, exactly what Death Parade is about. Changing characters every episode can be seen as slightly repetitive as the show goes on. Tachikawa shows the moments leading up to their darkest moments and their death. Most of these characters are bad, and some truly horrible! Inside you're punching yourself because you shouldn't feel for some of these criminals. But as I have stated before, Tachikawa is a brilliant character director.

I am a sucker for great openings. Whenever I write a story I begin with a memorable beginning to get the viewer interested. This is what Death Note did very well and what Attack in Titan did extremely well. It is a huge plus to have a great beginning which is what Death Parade had. I won't explain the pilot as it is something that shouldn't be spoiled. All I will say, is that it is both a frightening and heart racing episode that is beautifully created.

The ending was decent. My individual reviews near the end get extremely high, in the nine-out-of-ten category. It is fascinating showing the little pieces hidden around the show to reveal the main character's back story. There was a brilliant reflecting scene in Momento Mori. A reflective scene is when the show kind of stops for a while and plays music, usually calming music, so you have time to think about the subject and ultimately appreciate the beauty of it. I love those scenes in theatre.

I do want to point out that, some of the characters just leave in the series and are in the end unnecessary. Some characters aren't explored and don't do anything. For example, Castra, the girl who designates the dead to whichever arbiter. Castra is given about four minutes of screen time in a roughly five hour series. They leave her character in, I believe, Story Teller, they don't come back to her and I found it very strange. Same as Nona and Oculus, the last you see of them is them having a verbal fight with each other. When the show ended I said, "goodbye then?" And also, throughout the series Oculus is rambling on about how everything is wrong about which person is the right arbiter. I thought in the last few episodes he was going to throw rampage, but he never did. So what was his point?

I haven't read if here will be a season two, it is a possibility, and it explains some of the unfinished characters. The two protagonists get a heap of screen time in the end and are rounded off nicely. The ending itself you could see building and it created an emotional ending, but I still believe they should have a little bit more of an exploration and farewell for the lesser (but still important) characters.

Death Parade keeps you interested for most of the series depending on how you look at it. If you want an anime analysing people and how crazy some of us get when out under certain circumstances, then go watch Attack on Titan, then watch this. Hehe. I'm probably making this show out to sound like its bad, but it isn't. I had a heap of fun with it. Death Parade is a nice little series you can watch in a day. If you don't worry about the little plot holes and the unnecessary characters you will be able to explore a great message about choices and the permanence of them.

Overall - B+

Watch more reviews like this at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfNozbWd9SJYYwLK2zYn_AA

Sully (2016)

Could have been something

[7/10 · 23 November 2016]

SULLY, directed by Clint Eastwood is a true story made into a film surrounding Captain Chelsey Sullenberger (Tom Hanks) and his first officer (Aaron Eckhart) who save 155 passengers by landing their plane on the Hudson River, and also focuses on the aftermath they debate whether the plane could fly a little further and land safely on land without putting anyone in danger.

I don't remember a thing from 15th of January 2009. And with all the great reviews of this retelling I was hoping to learn and be entertained while doing so. Which I was, kinda?

When they were doing the hearings at the end of the film to see if it was possible to land safely on land as I briefly mentioned before, was where I had the most fun. And has a lot of suspense. Including the music playing, and all of these aspects made me really excited and worried at the same time for these people, the message at the end was really nice as well.

Eastwood's movies are very colourless as shown in J.Edgar. It made that movie very un interesting and boring and kind of hurt my eyes after watching it for a while, and I have never finished watching the movie. Sully isn't half as bad in colour choices as J. Edgar and actually helps the movie to give it more realism with the darker shades and tones.

The film is spoken all in a quiet tone, sometimes hard to understand, and doesn't give the movie much personality. But makes the film calming at times, which I liked. There are no scenes of people changing emphasis in speech, like yelling, having different speech types, (I guess), I find these breaking moments really important and makes the characters more fascinating.

Eckhart was an interesting character, and looked like he had more fun making this movie.

The wife was there to give us another reason to love Sully and shows us he has a family, but she just… tags along. She makes some really stupid decisions.

Tom Hanks plays a suppressed everyday hero, and it was comforting being around him and Hanks gives the character a little bit more of a personal element to Sully, but not really an emotional side, or really a heroic side. He doesn't believe in himself and never takes a second to realise he did such a great thing. Because the media is everywhere he goes assessing him, recording his every move. He never wanted this life, so he thinks he made a bad decision in a way, there are bigger reasons he thought it was a bad decision but I won't spoil anything. And by this character he plays, Hanks feels very contained in this movie, I just wanted him to change his tone, spit out his words faster. Something. But never does.

There are scenes in the movie where Sully dreams up scenarios because he is, in a way, going crazy.

The same dream is shown at least twice in the movie that I can remember, the exact same crashing dream and landing scene. The scene in the second act of the movie where the plane is landed on the water is shown randomly after Sully falls into a dream at a pub. Not 100% sure, but it was something like that. All I remember is that it felt really out of place, when in the third act of the movie when he listens to the audio file of the event in a court hearing, the audio recorded in the plane shows us the exact same visual scene and in a better context, it made sense for it to be there!

There is really too many cuts from the past to the present to even more in the past. Once you get invested in one time period it jumps to a different one, and then when you like that time period, it jumps again. It would be a lot more convincing if it told it in a chronological order, except for the land itself. It was smart having it at the end. So the mixture of flashbacks and flash forwards in this movie didn't really work and was kind of jumbled throughout the movie. The movie lacks from the placing choices and ultimately made the rest of the flashbacks a little useless and annoying as it took us away from the personal story of Sully we were following.

Although at times was entertained, mostly in the third act, the entertainment value wasn't all there. And even though I enjoyed the movie, I'm not too sure if it should have been made into a movie in the first place. It was a little hard to make a story around the material Eastwood picked, because as it said in the real life and the synopsis of the film that all passengers survived, so it's not really a heart pounding when a person starts drifting away from the plane, when Sully said at the start of the movie that everyone is living. So unless you have amnesia these scenes won't be as frightening and thrilling as it could've been.

I enjoyed Sully and it had my whole family awed by the ending still days later after coming back from the cinema, in a positive way. This is a quiet movie, with good performances, with some great scenes that goes well with the soundtrack. The movie brings up questions that were intended to be unanswered. So is this movie good? Definitely. Is this movie great? Kinda. Is it a masterpiece? Not in my eyes. Too many faults and missed opportunities for me to really call it a great movie, but I enjoyed it, and I think you will too.

Overall : B-

The Visit (I) (2015)

Shymalan's forgotten gem

[10/10 · 22 November 2016]

THE VISIT, directed by M. Night Shyamalan is a about a girl, Becca, and a boy, Tyler, that while their mother is on holiday, visit their grandparents for the first time. These grandparents are a bit weird and a bit, creepy. The girl, Becca, films "interviews" and documents her trip because she aspires to be a documentarian.

And this movie is filmed in found footage format as we see through these kid's eyes, though their camera. And without words you can tell who you're looking through in the way they move the camera, Becca is a bit more professional with her stabilization of her video when Tyler isn't. Small factors like Tyler being a germaphobic and Becca being afraid to look at herself in the mirror all play out conclude this movie in great fashion and it all kind of meant something in the end.

This movie is full of these little touches that change the whole experience, not as many little touches like his masterpiece The Sixth Sense, and I am going to compare this to The Sixth Sense, because this is definitely his best work after some of his, um, horrible movies recently.

I hadn't seen a Shyamalan movie when I watched this for the first time. I've now watched it twice. And seen his best work. But the first time I didn't expect this film to have as many laughs as it did. This movie has times where it is funnier than any other comedy I've seen recently. Not in a bad way either. This movie is meant to have jokes in it.

This is something that M. Night is great at - creating something unexpected and different. Whether it be his best film or his worst film, he has tried to do something different. It really caught me by surprise because I was laughing one scene and screaming the next, even at the same time! And the blend between both genres really gelled and was probably the best factor of the film.

The twist isn't a Sixth Sense twist movie changer, but is a surprise if you haven't been paying attention. The twist is said in a very effective way that gave me goosebumps. Some non sensical decisions are made, in most horror movies to create more tension, but here it was just stupid. For example one scene Nana goes crazy from speaking about the mother and is actually really scary, then a little bit later, after more creepiness and life threatening experiences, the daughter asks her, the same thing?! Why would you do that? Some stupid decisions brought the rating of this down.

But really, aside from some of the director decisions with the actors on set, I love Shyamalan's choice of them. Bruce Willis, Toni Collette and Osment from The Sixth Sense were masterful together. They added little details to enhance the mood of the performance and create emotion to hit the audience.

It reminded me of The Visit actors while watching The Sixth Sense, because the acting on the most part is great. The grandparents are both loving and frightening and play both tones very well. These guys are in their mid seventies and they give some of the best performances I've seen all year. But the kids, the protagonists, are incredible. They are both so real and interesting. They're both Australian and they give off American accents so well, I sound like an idiot trying to speak as well as they did. Even though it isn't as emotional as Osment's performance in The Sixth Sense, you still feel as if these are just some kids that are documenting their trip, which is where the great use of found footage comes into play. The whole movie is supposed to be the daughter's edited trip documentary and I thought was very clever and adding, that a piece of music is played at the start briefly and also at the very end of the movie. Giving off more realism, much like the effect of The Blair Witch Project.

The movie has hidden messages in it, on top of the comedy that surprised me also. This movie has a lot of character and depth to it. There are some really touching scenes with the mother and daughter that reminded me a lot of the character arc with Osment and Toni Collette, mother and son. I found it having the same effect as the emotional The Sixth Sense scene, it is still great to see Shyamalan slowly coming back to form and bringing emotion into a horror movie.

Shyamalan's at his best doing these low budget horror films, instead of huge Hollywood movies that don't really work.

The Visit is scary because it takes time to build suspense. The movie doesn't revolve around half naked girls who get eaten by giant piranhas that jump scare the audience whenever they feel like it. This movie is about, forgiveness, loneliness, and pure terror as this could happen in real life!

It is not the next Sixth Sense and even though it sounds like it's trying to be, some similarities. It's not. They are two different types of movies. Other than bad decisions made by characters that make some scenes slightly annoying to watch, much like The Sixth Sense this is a different type of movie, that fits into many genres and categories with a mixture of beautiful scenes, laugh out loud comedy, and frightening moments. It is so refreshing. This is a really fun movie, with replay value, not for hidden messages, but just because it's a whole lot of fun!

9 / 10