I got to introduce this at TIFF, as part of TIFF Next Wave Film Festival who asked me to screen a movie I loved and talk about it. Thank you to the commitee and to Joanne Sarazen for being a lovely .
Things that are fun/interesting about this movie:
*David Lynch was the first filmmaker approached to direct it
*It was rated NC-17 at first because Amy Heckerling wanted to show full frontal male nudity (!!)
*Of course, the first…
Chicago’s infamous housing project, Cabrini-Green, is the perilous setting for intimate early-90s period piece We Grown Now. Renewing the coming of age roots she planted in her debut feature Hala, writer-director Minhal Baig captures two Black kids navigating systemic racism, brutal policing and broken promises, while imagining an unlikely better life. An unassuming character study set to poetic rhythms makes for an empathetic study of Black life, full of resolve. This evocative coming of age film premieres at the Toronto…
A poetic, earnest love letter to the Chicago Cabrini-Green projects that reminded me of my youth in Crown Heights. Once said in my Belfast review it was Kenneth Branagh listening to Stevie Wonder’s I Wish. Minhal Baig was listening to the entire “Songs In the Key of Life”
magnifique !! the kind of animation that makes film critics want to use gustatory adjectives like “sumptuous” to describe it. silly and chaotic but not at the expense of heart and depth. possibly a perfect film and definitely one of my favorites this year (and perhaps of all time)
-a perfect mother's day weekend companion that is equal parts colourful, wholesome, heartwarming, and endearing! a great weaving of single mother woes, independent daughter responsibilities, neighbourhood fiascos, and young female friendships!! <3
-loooved the music in this!! so much clarinet used throughout and i especially loved the mix of orchestral and electric bass??? they complement each other so well surprisingly
-teaching children about strikes since they are young,, land of the french revolution for real (also i was only today years old when i realized that the korean word 데모 (strike) is actually not korean at all and comes from 'demo')
had such a great time watching this 😭 there was a good amount of comedy which made me, my friends, and practically everyone else in the theater audibly laugh. loved those scenes to lighten up the mood. i do have to say that it felt like there was maybe too much violence and blood? i get that it’s an action movie and this is what follows with that but there were some moments where i felt that it was too…
Absolutely loved that, Ma Dong once again twats the bad guys with his fist. What I have loved about these films is that Ma Dong doesn't actually know anything he just gets told where to go, then knocks out everyone. This was really funny. Loved that Park Ji-hwan was back the wife absolutely loved him. Great ending. I felt that, jesus christ. Cannot wait for the next installment. These movies will now be events for me.
This is the most one man Lethal Weapon movie if there ever is one except with the South Korean mob & crypto bros with the Philippines being a unknowing patsy.
Don Lee plays the perfect stoic cop who is mostly by the book with a strong sense of justice and moral code whom promised a mom who lost her son that he would bring in her son's killers and boy howdy is that exactly what he's going to do, not fully…
starting to see Hamaguchi’s trademark of throwing singularly cinematic curveballs at the end of his films to punctuate the naturalism that precedes them. also what the hell was going on with the shutter speed
The world must have been offered up to Ryusuke Hamaguchi after the success of Drive My Car, and I love that for his follow-up he stayed completely true to himself and made this unbelievably powerful fable about conservation, and mankind’s destructive relationship with nature. Takumi, seen by everyone as this man of the earth, the purest inhabitant of this land, understands completely that even he is not native to this soil. We’re all visitors, we’re all forces that disrupt and…
There is a circular motion to this that flows like the seasons and like the seasons the flow of nature is disturbed by human interactions. A glamping site, with the math of how much sanitary pollution is acceptable to a stream, is the obvious intrusion in a community that has conformed to their natural surroundings, pulling their water directly from the stream. But its the dichotomy of characters that works magically in Ryusuke Hamaguchi's construction. There are dismissive corporate bosses,…
