Movies Watched -- Three Identical Strangers (2018)

Added on by C. Maoxian.

Documentary. 96 minute running time. SPOILERS … interesting story about a psychiatrist named Peter Neubauer who ran an experiment of separating twins (and one set of triplets) at birth by giving them to different types of adoptive parents to raise to see what the results would be … he used a Jewish adoption agency in New York City to help with this task. Ethically questionable but fascinating, the final study has never been published, apparently locked up until 2066, when all the participants will be dead (study ran from 1960-1980).

This is like Nazi shit

This is like Nazi shit

Movies Watched -- Shoplifters (2018)

Added on by C. Maoxian.

In Japanese. 121 minute running time so at least 20 minutes too long … slow at first, all of the revelation happens in the last 30 minutes or so, and it turns around everything that came before … I liked it in the end and can see why it won the Palme d’Or, although it did indulge the fantasy that these people living on the margins are truly happy, much happier than any conformist squares, which is nonsense of course. Sakuro Ando is beautiful and gave the most impressive performance, I thought. This is a winner, a green-go.

But sometimes, it's better to choose your own family.

But sometimes, it's better to choose your own family.

Movies Watched -- You Only Live Twice (1967)

Added on by C. Maoxian.

117 minute running time so at least 20 minutes too long … my buddy reminded me that this Bond movie was written by Roald Dahl so I had to see it again … I liked the Japan setting, it was interesting to see late 1960s Japan … they featured a Toyota 2000GT Roadster, which was nice to see … plenty of corny double entendres … nice to see Blofeld and his white cat and Aryan bodyguard (Franz? Hans?) … the most interesting thing to me was one of the Bond girls, Kissy Suzuki, looks like a mixed-race person to me, not “pure” Japanese. Weird.

Some honeymoon

Some honeymoon

Movies Watched -- Night Comes On (2018)

Added on by C. Maoxian.

86 minute running time…. not sure how this ended up in my queue, but I wasn’t thrilled … it was depressing and sort of pointless … dysfunctional (poverty, ignorance, violence) American black culture movie (made by a beautiful blonde white woman), a teenage girl sets out to murder her father for murdering her mother (his wife), and her little sister tags along … partly a cycle of violence thing. 98% at RottenTomatoes led me astray, mainstream white critics lap this stuff up from their safe perches, I guess. I didn’t find it hopeful or inspiring like Edelstein did. You can give it a miss.

No Angel

No Angel

Precious Basket Case

Added on by C. Maoxian.

These guys (Dallon Weekes and Ryan Seaman) seem to be my kind of smartasses … I DONT KNOW HOW BUT THEY FOUND ME playing Choke.

Movies Watched -- Parasite (2019)

Added on by C. Maoxian.

In Korean … 132 minute running time, which means it was at least 30 minutes too long … I don’t know why this movie was so loved by the critics and got both the Palme d’Or and Best Picture Oscar, c’mon, spare me … even John Farr fell for it … but it was a dumb story, completely unrealistic, esp. for the internet age … there were some funny bits, I admit, but I don’t recommend you see it … maybe if it had been under the sacred 100 minute mark, I’d say it’s a dumb, sort of funny movie you might want to see, but not at 132 minutes. Don’t buy the hype!

Rick Kisonak correctly wrote: “… the film offers zero thoughtful comment on capitalism or inequality. It simply gives us poor characters gaming rich characters and assumes we'll side with the poor. That's not ‘savage commentary.’ That's condescension. This is by far the filmmaker's most commercially successful work to date. Getting fat off a fractured fairy tale about class, Bong acts like a parasite here if anyone does….”

Family of cretins

Family of cretins