Reviews

Mr Miao could have done with a better title.

This film has Middling animation quality and some excellent effects, the music is beautiful throughout, and the visual style is a miss marsh of various other names of animation leaning heavily on studio ghibli. The characters move in a typical wuxia fashion and the action scenes, though lacking the tight animation to really punch, are well directed despite this.

The real strength of Mr Miao though is its plot and characters. The story is cosmic in scope and it's ambiguous morality is unique. The cast of characters is diverse and you empathize with almost every single one of them. Although there are many clichés, the constant questioning that the heroes are doing the right thing or that it serves any purpose really adds to the gravitas that these are people making choices rather than puppets, which the film promptly flips on its head at the very end in a highly intelligent way.

Besides the lacking animation quality, the film does lose a little bit of pace halfway through but it regains it towards the end, and admittedly the whole thing could have been 20 minutes longer.

All in all I can't fathom why this film is so poorly rated, it's one of the best animated features I've seen in a very long time, and it reminds me of Zhang Yimou's Hero, which is as flattering a comparison as I can make.

I love this film and I think if it had a blockbuster budget then it would have been a critical success.

With a beautiful score and some incredible cinematography, Silk communicates an industry in it's time. The geopolitics and economics of the silk industry is shown to us, and it is made fascinating even if you know nothing about it.

Although some heavy-handed dialogue and a propensity towards the saccharin sensual is present throughout, make no mistakes, Silk shows you things as they are, life as it quite possibly was. Good drama this might not be, but a good portrait it certainly is, and having seen plenty of English, French, and Japanese films, I can say I was thoroughly impressed by this film, and you should watch it.

Samurai Jack has it's limitations. Some gimmicky shots, repetitive structures, self-satirising techniques that verge on the bizarre, and some episodes with so much potential that only disappoint. That being said, Samurai Jack also attempts something that no other show attempts: the timelessness of the journey, the many forms life takes, the humour, isolation, and scale of the world.

SJ's episodes can feasibly be watched in any order, there are no tacky developments as the writer runs out of ideas, no gaining of new powers, no new plot dynamics. Each episode tells a different story, where Jack undergoes a new trial, in a new environment, engaging with new characters. There are recurring characters, the Scotsman being the third under Aku, but on the whole this is about Jack exploring a world, remembering his history, experiencing the new and realising the importance of everything from his sword, his clothes, his shoes, and even the necessity of his enemy and something to struggle against.

Over the course of SJ Jack's relationship with Aku develops subtly, so that over time we come to realise how weak Aku really is, as well as cowardly, and how willing Jack is to indulge him. In many ways they are closer than they seem, the stereotype of the noble warrior and the evil enemy dissolves as we see the mockery Jack engages in, the sadism Aku revels in, the concessions they both make and how close each comes reveals the weaknesses of each, so that two characters that at first appear superficial, reveal surprising degrees of humanity.

The world of SJ is epic in scope, taking in as many clichés that it plays with, mimics, subverts, and incorporates in many ways to whatever end, striking the strongest balance when it appropriates the best and disregards the worst. It isn't always a balance SJ gets right, and as far as consistency SJ isn't the go-to show, but for ambition and occasional startling originality, Samurai Jack competes toe to toe with the epic poetry of old, and sometimes possesses an incredibly mature and literary quality.

But it is this inconsistency which adds to SJ's appeal, some episodes function as action shows, others as comedy, others as domestic drama, horror, short stories, exploration of environment, allegories. I can't name a show which attempts to do the same. Animation lost something important with Samurai Jack, and as a grown man I keep on hoping something will come to take it's place, but we'll see. If Jack teaches you anything it's that the struggle never ends; until it does, abruptly and unfairly.

I went into this film without expectations and have ten minutes I already knew what would happen and when, even scene by scene it was transparent what would happen and I found myself preempting the events from start to finish. It is supposed to be about a woman who is progressive and educated but she thinks of nothing but her man, with seemingly nothing original to say and who sets herself up to be disappointed constantly. The film is not badly acted, not badly scored, not badly shot, but so contrived that every scene felt like I'd watched it before a dozen times, and so by the end I was exhausted with repetition. This is a waste of your time if you have seen any other war romance, don't bother watching it.

At first I thought this film was about Phoenix trying to fool the world into thinking he was becoming a rapper, but about halfway through it seemed that Phoenix was playing a character that wanted to fool the world and was failing. His behaviour becomes increasingly erratic and volatile as he makes himself and everyone around him look like an idiot. I don't know what kind of person could put so many other people through such uncomfortable situations for the sake of a film, and laugh in the face of a public who genuinely think a great actor has been lost (for whatever reasons) and has turned into a bit of a prick, but although the film is made at the expense of the public, Phoenix's acquaintances and Phoenix's figure, I considered this movie worthwhile, if only to point out that it's all an act really, just some are better at acting.