This is a very visually striking movie with a complex plot that jumps back and forth between different times.

The premise is that Mr. Nemo Nobody is 118 and on his deathbed in the far future, being the last mortal man. He thinks back on his life and imagines how his life would have been if he made different choices in his life. There are actually many different branches of these choices, but we don’t actually know which one was his real life.

All these different choices are represented by the women in his life. There’s Anna, the real love of his life, there’s Elise (the depressed wife) and there’s Jean (whom he never really loved, but had 3 children with).

In between, there are other very short branches where he simply dies, but soon after he goes back in time and makes another choice, going off on another branch.

There are also some scenes in the future, which look completely sci-fi, with spaceships and trips to Mars. Those might be just stories he typed in his typewriter. The future of the 118 old Nemo is also very sci-fi looking, with flying eye-cameras, high tech windows, and it all looks clean and tidy.

In between, there are also references to the Big Bang Theory, the nature of time etc… In particular there’s reference to more dimensions other than the 4 we know of (x, y, z, time). That reference might also explain what’s happening to Nemo: he can travel back and forth through time, and create many different timelines. That’s the geeky explanation.

But this movie is also very grounded in emotions, in love. It’s interesting to compare the different lives Nemo has, though there’s a point made in the movie that it’s hard to make choices, but as long as you don’t make that choice, anything is possible. So it might be that 8 year old Nemo was imagining his future life when choosing between his father and his mother, but because it was too hard, he just ran away. That’s the poetic explanation, though it doesn’t make any sense logically.

In the end, I was both interested in the sci-fi aspects of the story, and in the love stories told about Nemo. There were a few spots in which I was almost bored, but then things suddenly changed and I was interested again. This was an ambitious script and it mostly worked for me.

Rating: 4 Stars

I first watched this film 15 years ago, and even then I remembered liking it. But my wife had never watched it, nor has she read the book, so I thought it was a good time to revisit this and watch it with her.

The structure of the plot is simple: four Chinese-American women deal with their Chinese mothers and the difference in culture. Each of these 8 women has their own stories, and they narrate them themselves. The mothers tell their stories of when they were in China, while the daughters tell their stories while growing up in USA.

So there are 3 main timelines: the mothers’ past in China, the daughters’ past in USA, and the present. Each story doesn’t necessarily end in one sequence, we cut back and forth between some stories. In fact, it’s only at the end that we find out exactly how Suyuan left her twins.

Seeing both the mothers and the daughters points of view was supposed to shed some light into their relationships, though I thought this worked better for some of the stories, less so for others. I thought Rose’s relationship with her mother worked best: her mother tried to teach Rose self-respect and independence, instead Rose became like her grandmother, putting herself below others.

Three of the mothers had really bad relationships with men in China, consequently their daughters had failed relationships with men also, and we see them struggle with them. However by the end they all have a happy ending, which was just a little too neat for me.

It’s also too much that all Chinese men are portrayed as pigs, while the white men are sensitive good husbands. But men were never the point of the story, this is about women. Even the only benign Chinese male role, June’s father, was there only to tell her about her mother.

Each story also sees the conflict between mother and daughter, but most of them have a nice reconciliation scene, where they laugh or embrace each other. That’s not very subtle, and to me some of those scenes felt a bit forced.

I had seen all four actresses portraying the daughters in other movies/TV, so I was familiar with them. Their acting was ok to good, though nothing special. I like that they’re not all model looking actresses, they each have their own look and feel real. I guess there weren’t a lot of Asian-American actresses to begin with, nevertheless they felt like real characters, even though one of them was actually Japanese.

The Chinese scenes taking place in China felt very Chinese, not different from an actual Chinese production. I don’t know if they filmed in China, but it looked and felt very authentic.

Overall it’s a good movie, mixing the usual tragic Chinese stories with some modern sensibilities. It obviously felt personal to me, even though my parents are from Taiwan, not China, and they certainly didn’t have such a dramatic past. And I wasn’t born in US either. But it’s still very familiar territory.

Rating: 4 Stars

This second installment of this franchise is very similar to the first one. This time it’s Woody that gets taken away into the world, and it’s up to Buzz and other toys to rescue him and bring him back before Andy comes back.

The first one went into Buzz’s background as a toy, but this time we learn more about Woody as a toy. An expensive collector’s toy, it turns out. It was fun to see Woody’s own old cartoon, as well as meeting his own cast, Jesse, Bullseye and Stinky Pete.

Meanwhile Buzz and the gang are out in the real world, trying to get to Woody. On the way, they end up in a toy store, where lots of fun things happen. They meet Barbies, as well as the alien toys from the first movie.

But even better, Buzz meets an entire alley of Buzz toys, and one Buzz takes his place, believing to be a real astronaut. This is a repeat of the first one, where Buzz didn’t know he was a toy, but this time there’s also Buzz’s enemy: Zurg. I enjoyed the fight between Buzz and Zurg in the elevator, but the funniest things is that Zurg turns out to be Buzz’s father, parodying Star Wars. Brilliant scene, followed by Buzz and Zurg playing ball as father and son.

It’s all a lot of fun, but Pixar movies always have an emotional anchor, this time it’s about a toy’s future: being played with by the owner, than being discarded as they grow up; or being a collector’s item, displayed in a museum.

I particularly liked the musical montage of Jesse, first being happily played by her owner, than being given to charity once she grows up. It was beautifully sang by Sarah McLachlan, accompanied by very touching scenes.

In the end the toys obviously chose to be played with as long as possible, because that’s what toys are made for. The end action scene is again fun, with the toys trying to save Woody and Jesse from flying to Japan. It takes place at the airport, and it’s again lots of fun.

Two more things to note here: the old guy who repairs Woody is the same one in the Pixar short XXXX. I watched that short hundreds of times with my son, so it was neat to see that familiar face.

The end credits contains fake blooper reels, as if the toys were real actors making mistakes while performing. These are all real funny, and there’s even a cameo of ants from A Bug’s Life. A great way to end this fun movie.

This being the sequel, it’s repetitive at times, so I still prefer the first one. But there’s plenty to like in this sequel. I’ll be waiting to watch the recent third movie.

Rating: 4 Stars

This film was written and directed by Gus Van Sant, and it was inspired by the Columbine massacre.

The structure of the plot is very interesting: for the first 2/3 of the movie, we follow several different high school students in their own separate threads. Slowly we begin to see how these threads cross with each other, and that they all take place at the same time on one day, leading up to the shooting.

Many of the actors were not professional ones, and they got to improvise on set with the director, which to me is impressive considering there are many scenes that are repeated in the movie from different point of views, depending on which characters we’re following. These scenes help us put together the puzzle, showing us how the characters are related.

The camera is mostly hand held, and we usually look at the back of the characters we’re following, while they walk around the school. This style really make us feel we’re part of the group.

Trying to make those pieces of the puzzle fit, was what interested me in the first 2/3 of the movie, because there isn’t much else going on. The kids go on their normal everyday life, discussing about mundane things. There isn’t anything dramatic happening, just normal everyday high school life. Which is exactly the point.

Once the shooters enter the picture, we realize this is not going to end like a normal day. At first we see them going about their normal activities, but even those activities are related to the shooting. For example they play video games, and it’s a first person shooting game. Then they even order guns online, and they start playing with them. We even see them planning for the shooting, as if they were planning to play a video game.

Van Sant doesn’t go in detail into the reason why they did this, they simply say they were picked on at school, and the teachers didn’t seem to do much to help them. I don’t think it’s the point of the film. We can discuss all we want about the why, but this is just to show us the horror of that day, to make us feel about it even more, other than reading about it in the news.

And when the shooting starts, it really does make a big impact. Despite the mundane nature of the film so far, we’ve been anticipating that moment ever since the beginning, so when the first kid dies on screen we feel it. We don’t know these kids too well, but we’ve been following them enough to feel bad for them when they’re shot.

The shooting felt real, not like a fictional movie at all. In fact, one thing I noticed is that nobody fought back, they all just tried to run away. I found myself wanting them to fight back, or expecting it. But this is not a normal movie where people are courageous and fight the bad guys. This is real, and when you see a gun pointed at you, you just freeze.

This is a powerful movie, definitely worth watching.

Rating: 4 Stars

This is a unique film that delves into meta-fiction and existentialism. The premise is that Harold (Will Ferrell) realizes he’s a character created by a writer, Karen (Emma Thompson), and that Karen is going to kill him off soon.

While trying to find his creator and convince her to not kill him off, he also learns a lot about himself and manages to grow and change into a better person.

The narration really works here, because it is actually part of the plot itself. It starts off normally, like many other movies with a narrator, but once Harold hears the narrator, it becomes weird, almost absurd and simply a comedy.

It was pretty funny when Harold first hears Karen narrating everything he does. However as we go along, it’s clear this is not a simple comedy, Harold is a real person and he’s trying to live his life, maybe for the first time.

With the help of Prof Hilbert (Dustin Hoffman), Harold starts on a journey of self discovery, learning what his life is about from a literary point of view (is it a comedy or a tragedy?), but also from a personal point of view.

Ana is a character that is the focus of his new life and change. Maggie Gyllenhaal is perfect fort his role, she’s feisty at first, but also sweet. Ferrell helps to sell the believability of the story, by making us care about Harold, instead of only wondering about the absurdness of the story. In the end, even though there are many “leaps of faith” to be taken, we just want Harold to be fine.

On the other side of the narration there’s Karen and her assistant Penny (Queen Latifah), but their scenes are rare, they just help break up the Harold scenes. It’s only at the end that they are more relevant.

That ending wasn’t that surprising in hindsight, but this story was just so surreal that I really didn’t know what to expect while I was watching it. That’s always a good thing. I hate when I can always predict what happens next.

Rating: 4 Stars

After reading the comic, I checked out the movie. I must say the movie script seems more polished, but at the same time more “safe”.

The action scenes are fun to watch, Matthew Vaughn can certainly direct action. The characters are also more developed, certainly we remember them more than in the comic. This is true for Red Mist especially.

In the comic, Millar used him as a twist to reveal who he really was. But in the movie they remove that twist and instead try to develop him into a more rounded character, somebody who’s not totally evil like his dad, but who’s also not a good guy at all. A more ambivalent character.

In the movie there is also less back and forth between “superheroes exists” and “superhero can’t exist”. I think they accept that Big Daddy and Hit Girl are in fact superheroes, so their origin is not revealed as a lie. Which makes the last battle emotionally relevant.

That final battle is also all-out superhero style, complete with a jetpack for Kick-Ass. That was so over the top that I enjoyed it.

Another big change from the comic is that Dave does get the girl, which could be seen as a Hollywood ending. But in general, it does feel like Dave actually accomplished something, instead of the empty feeling at the end of the comic.

This is not a great movie, but it was fun to watch and it solved some of the big problems in the comic. I understand the comic and script were completed in parallel, so the ending felt very different.

If you’re not offended by a little girl cursing and killing people, this might be a fun movie to watch. I was surprised that even my wife kind of enjoyed it.

Rating: 3 Stars

After watching Cache’ I had to check out Michael Haneke’s latest film. This is a German/Austrian film that takes place right before World War I, in a rural village. It’s in black and white, which helps set the mood of those times.

It is narrated by the teacher of this community, who tells us of the strange events of that time. First the doctor is injured, then some children are kidnapped and tortured, other women die, a barn burns etc…

SPOILERS FROM THIS POINT!!

The village people (and the audience) start wondering who is doing these terrible acts, but what’s important here is what really happens in the village. We slowly learn that some men in power positions in the village appear kind from the outside, but at home they are tyrants, especially to their kids.

I think that’s the key to this story, these fathers (with the mothers watching) are horrible to their kids. Some think they are righteous (the pastor), but some are just abusing their kids (the doctor). Throughout the film we see the various kids trying to rebel, to find an outlet for their frustration. But in the end they still have to obey their parents.

However I think they do find an outlet, which is taking revenge on whoever they hate. The teacher himself plainly accuses them of this, but even though we don’t get a definitive answer, I think he was right. However, the real problem is not the kids, but their parents. This might be Haneke’s way of showing us where evil people come from, or what could lead them to an “evil” path. Ultimately parents have a big impact on their children.

The more I think about it the more I get, which is something Haneke does very well in his movies. I’m sure there many more hints that I missed, I admit I watch this in 3 separate sittings and a few days apart, so I was definitely confused at times as to the identity of the characters. I could barely make out the adults, but the children were hard to identify.

Which means a re-watch would definitely be rewarding. This is another good movie that makes you think, which I’m always up for. However the pacing was a bit slow and it felt so distant that I didn’t feel very connected to the characters.

Rating: 3.5 Stars

This is the second highest grossing film in Taiwan (after Titanic), and it’s about the creation of a local music band, with flashbacks to an old love story told through letters.

I can see why it appealed to Taiwan, there are many elements they’d enjoy, which I’ll try to list below.

The lead actress playing Tomoko is Japanese, and she has some scenes talking in Japanese, but mostly she talks in Mandarin with her heavy accent. Taiwanese just love Japanese people, and their accent (for girls) is endearing (even to me).

The lead actor playing Aga has that typical “bad boy” look, even though he’s actually a good guy. He seemed to have a good chemistry with Tomoko, especially when they were fighting all the time, before they hooked up.

When Tomoko is not present, the characters speak the Taiwanese dialect, which makes sense considering this takes place in the south, in Hengchun. The place actually looks beautiful, one of those resorts by the beach, which is not what I see when I think of Taiwan. All this I think appeals to Taiwanese national pride.

Then there’s the music, which appeals to everybody I guess. There’s not a lot of it, but after so much practice, we had to see them play at the end, and I think it mostly worked.

The love story told in the old letters felt a bit cheesy to me, and being narrated in Japanese didn’t feel particularly poetic, which is what it was intended. The English translation was fine, I just didn’t find those scenes “touching”.

In the end, I can definitely see why it was so successful in Taiwan, and since that was the intended audience, this is a successful movie. I wasn’t born in Taiwan, but I’ve been there many times. Even so, I wasn’t in love with it. It’s an ok movie, but nothing special to me.

Rating: 2.5 Rating

Before YiYi, Edward Yang directed this weird comedy/drama movie. It stars a variety of characters, including a French girl (Marthe) and a British man (Marcus).

Then there’s a group of friends who share an apartment and seem to have sexual adventures. There’s a comedic tone throughout, even though the subject is serious (relationships, prostitution etc…).

However towards the end things get more serious, as if to tell us that even though these boys take life very lightly and joking, sooner or later life will catch up with them. The movie ends with a certain sadness that I didn’t see coming.

It’s an odd movie, I don’t think I enjoyed it much (the humor itself wasn’t laugh out loud funny), but it certainly has some message behind it about Taiwan of the time, even through the eyes of foreigners. I just didn’t enjoy it in general.

Rating: 2 Stars

I know I’m late to the party, but what a fun movie this is. I watched this with my whole family, and we all enjoyed it (well, my 2 year old daughter was distracted throughout the movie).

Visually it’s stunning, even though this is 10 years old and the first Pixar feature film, it still looks very modern. I was surprised that many toys were actually real toys before the movie (though not living in US I didn’t recognize them all).

But I think the story was key to its success. Seeing the toys’ point of view when their owner is not around is a genius concept. Even I was curious about it. But there are also some mature themes that probably only adults can appreciate.

Kids these days change toys so often that they appreciate them even less than when I was a kid. I used to treasure my toys and kept them even after I grew up. They became almost collectibles that I would only look at, instead of play with.

Apart from that, this is just a thrilling exciting movie. It was fun to see them in the outside world, and even scary to see them in the bad boy’s room. There was a real sense of danger, especially with those monstrous looking toys.

The main characters were also well developed, Tom Hanks and Tim Allen did a great job at giving them a soul. They might be only toys, but they’re just as human as we are.

I’ll be watching the sequel soon.

Rating: 4 Stars