Rotten Tomatoes-approved Film Critic. Also known as that handsome Asian guy you see in the cinema with a mask on.
What is it about stories about the rise to stardom that makes it so fascinating to audiences? Is it because it resembles a wish fulfillment fantasy? Or is it because it resembles a cautionary tale? Either way, it is a well-worn formula, that has been the backbone of well-regarded films, including 2018 films A Star…
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English-language live-action film adaptations of manga/anime source material have been quite problematic, to say the least. While most of the films just fail to capture the spirit of the source material due to bad filmmaking (eg. Fist of the North Star, Death Note [2017]), other examples fail just due to the fact that they did…
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Films that are for adults that revolve around children are becoming more uncommon these days. So much so that people have to differentiate films that are for children with films that are about children. Case in point, the 2004 fantasy drama Bridge to Terabithia. While the film does show a fantasy world and the story…
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It’s hard to believe but at this present time, whenever you ask young people who Liam Neeson is, they often tend to quote his action films and then not know or forget about his critically acclaimed films like Schindler’s List, Michael Collins, Rob Roy and others. But ever since the 2008 action film Taken, Neeson…
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Do good intentions make a good film? That is the question that has popped up in my head through the many recent films over the past year. Whether the film is about the commentary on major issues like racism, sexism and discrimination, the film itself still has to be well-executed in all areas in order…
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It’s quite amazing to know that there are many films out there that have been inspired by the story of the Arthurian legend. On the top end of the scale, we have the Disney flick The Sword of the Stone, the John Boorman cult classic Excalibur and of course the comedic parody Monty Python and…
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Family films have been a very mixed bag with me. While there are some films out there that really capture the spirit of what makes a family come together in both cinematic terms and emotional terms, most of the family films out there are incredibly cynical in how they are made i.e. a checklist of…
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Teenage films have been quite a huge staple for me in the past decade. Whether they would be quality films (like Heathers, Stand By Me), plain fun (Mean Girls, Easy A, Say Anything etc.) or just plain silliness (Porky’s, American Pie), this reviewer has always found some enjoyment for entertainment reasons as well as nostalgic…
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It seems that autobiographical stories that stem from the lives of film directors are in the spotlight in terms of critical acclaim lately. There are great films out there like the Spanish family drama by Carla Simon, Summer 1993; the relationship comedy-drama by Tamara Jenkins, Private Life; the semi-autobiographical rom-com by Eva Vives, All About…
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The Transformers film franchise has been in devastating lows these past years. Although one can expect that from a franchise that is based on a line of toys, any film based on a toy can be a good film like the LEGO films. Aside from the 1986 cult-classic animated film (which featured Orson Welles as…
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Jennifer Lopez has a pretty spotty track record when it comes to her acting career. The last great film in the past 20 years is still Steven Soderbergh‘s crime flick Out of Sight. While she still has her charismatic and likable presence on-screen, unfortunately her choices of scripts have been quite sub-par. Apart from some…
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French enfant terrible provocateur film director Gaspar Noe is back with his physically-impulsive, boundary-pushing sex-and-drugs approach. For those who don’t know, Noe is a prolific filmmaker who pushes the buttons of the audiences in extreme measures and beyond boundaries of good taste. His debut feature-length film, I Stand Alone, contained gruelling violence and references of…
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If there’s one franchise that I am utterly surprised that it is still ongoing at this point, it is the franchise of Rocky Balboa by Sylvester Stallone. Proving you can’t keep a fighter down (or you can’t stop beating a dead horse), writer/director Ryan Coogler came up with the idea to reinvigorate the franchise without…
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According to Webster’s Dictionary, the term fangirling is defined as a female fan behaving and obsessing in an overexcited fashion. You may or may not forgive me for finding this definition quite amusing, but it sums up my expectations of director Jessica Leski‘s I Used To Be Normal: A Boyband Fangirl Story perfectly. A film…
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This may be a bold statement to make but it must be said: every film out there would kill to have the presence of Emma Thompson. Whether it is for her acting capabilities like she can elevate even the most fluffiest of films like the rom-com Love Actually with her fantastic acting chops; or it…
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It is incredibly hard to believe that we have a new Hirokazu Koreeda film coming out so soon after his last one, the 2017 courtroom drama The Third Murder, and yet we have one in 2018 called Shoplifters! Heralded as a film that goes back to socially relevant roots, similar to the 2004 heartwrenching drama…
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If there’s one film in 2018 that is guaranteed to garner Oscar buzz due to director recognition alone, it’s Mexican director Alfonso Cuaron‘s Roma. Ever since making his mark with his critically acclaimed drama Y Tu Mama Tambien, Cuaron has gone on to making fantastic films that are commercially viable as well as technically proficient;…
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Lisbeth Salander is back! In another reiteration! Over the years, we have had four films revolving around the characters created by acclaimed Swedish author Stieg Larsson, and each have been hits in their home territory, as well as receiving rave reviews from many critics. Many people have complimented the Scandinavian cinematic thriller tropes (i.e. winter settings,…
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Biopics are a dime-a-dozen these days. And when one considers the marketable possibilities about them, it’s not hard to see why there are so many of them. Particularly when the subject of the biopic revolves around the entertainment industry. In the case of the music industry, we have had so many biopics revolving around that…
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When one praises a film, one of the many positives that one would say is that the storytelling is incredibly immersive from a visual perspective. Films with such praise would include Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk, J.J Abrams’ Star Trek Into Darkness and Francis Lawrence’s The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. But what all those films mentioned have…
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Night School is a film with a very well-worn premise that has been done many times before (Billy Madison and Old School to name a few), but there factors here that could make the film transcend my meagre expectations. One is the paring of Kevin Hart and Tiffany Haddish, two of the biggest comedy stars right…
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If there’s one director that needs a true change of pace out there, it’s comedy director Paul Feig. He started off great making a successful string of comedies, starting from the romantic-comedy hit Bridesmaids to the buddy cop-comedy The Heat and the espionage-action comedy Spy. Then he hit a big of a snag with his…
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According to a book by renowned author Christopher Booker, there are seven different plots in stories, which are: Overcoming the Monster Rags to Riches The Quest Voyage and Return Rebirth Comedy Tragedy And since we have so many stories that essentially are encapsulated in one of these plots, what would make a story stand out…
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It is quite amusing to think that we have many films released over the years, regardless of genre, that span across many imaginative worlds, planets, fantasy settings and so on. With the vast amount of superhero films and blockbusters, it’s hard not to see why. But, the world that has not been mined more than enough,…
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Oh, look! We have another Berg-er joint coming in cinemas! Mile 22 is the fourth collaboration between actor Mark Wahlberg and director Peter Berg after the three dramatic films that were based on true stories i.e. the biographical war drama Lone Survivor, the disaster film Deepwater Horizon and the crime drama Patriots Day. All of…
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A film like Crazy Rich Asians is a long time coming. For the past 25 years, since the release of Wayne Wang‘s expansive drama, The Joy Luck Club, there haven’t been a lot of films in the Hollywood system that featured Asian-Americans in substantial roles; let alone managed to assemble a talented ensemble cast. Whilst, the…
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It is perfectly reasonable to believe that the majority of the world sees cinema as a temporary reprieve of the burdens of the outside world. We all see enjoyably bombastic things that would never occur in real-life like dragons, magic, aliens, sea creatures; features that are proven to provide examples of powerful cinema. But on…
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If there was one sequel this year that people did not see coming, it’s Mamma Mia!: Here We Go Again. The sequel to the 2008 blockbuster hit has the entire original cast reprising their roles and we have welcome newcomers into the mix like Cher, Andy Garcia and of course, Lily James. The reaction from…
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The superhero film boom continues! After the gloom-and-doom of Avengers: Infinity War, we now have the sequel to the miniature superhero franchise, Ant-Man and the Wasp. Free from the shackles of predetermined disappointment after the absence of original director Edgar Wright from the first film, returning director Peyton Reed and lead actor/co-writer Paul Rudd truly…
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“Live-action family movies are somewhat of an endangered species these days as most family entertainment is now animated.” That is a line that is spoken by the director of the film Show Dogs, Raja Gosnell, who has a long pedigree (pun intended) of films that involve canines, as well as family entertainment. Starting off with…
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