I, TONYA
Recommended. Totally not what I expected. Not just a sports movie but a crazy criminal mockumentary comedy. The story spun by the media 24 years ago was that figure ice-skater Tonya Harding hired someone to break her friend-competitor Nancy Kerrigan's kneecap before championships. It turns out they weren't really friends, the incident was a prank played by morons and she wasn't so sporty either - she smoked. The movie is her perspective. Looks like she got a raw deal in life. She didn't fit in with the high-brow crowd of other figure skaters and jurors. Years of training and extraordinary skating prowess never brought her as many victories as they should. Direct as she was, she confronted a juror about it only to hear it was in fact about a "wholesome American family". "I don't have a wholesome American family" was her reaction and her predicament. Battered first by her own mum, then by her love partner, never getting any help, even a policeman once ignored blood on her face, she doesn't get the injustice of the Nancy Kerrigan incident: "She got hit once and all that shitshow?!" Unlike some other people involved, whose memory of the incident got distorted, Tonya has no illusions in life. She calls herself a redneck who she certainly is, using vocab like "the awesomest". The brilliant skater won her first championships when she was... 4. Her mum is adamant that "Tonya was American" and rightly so: she made herself. Well, first her mother brought her to trainings, later claimed to have made Tonya a champion and finally betrayed her. Both are quite mouthfulls ("I don't swear, you cunt!"). Apart from the abusive mother-daughter relationship, we have the morons in the skater's circle: her husband and his best mate as well as the dumb criminals hired by them to scare Nancy. First the attacker moved his car every 15 minutes meaning to... avoid suspicion and it took him 2 days to realize his victim was in a different city. Allison Janney kills in the supporting role of the mother. Deserves the Oscar she's been nominated for even more than Margot Robbie does. Real interview and skating shots are shown during early credits.
光 (HIKARI aka RADIANCE)
Watchable. A quiet movie with plentiful close-ups of the main actress's (水崎 綾女 or Ayame Misaki) beautiful, expressive face. Unfortunately the subtle story of striving not to forget and of how each person perceives the same things differently is shambolic, tedious and the love far-fetched. You can see what it's like to create audiodescription and how hard it is to please the focus group. One of protagonists remarks she likes interpreting people's motivations in movies. This one is hard in this matter: it simply doesn't ring true.
KOTONOHA NO NIWA (THE GARDEN OF WORDS, 2013)
Recommended. Delicate animation. A heart-wrenching story of love filled with longing, barriers imposed by other people's rules but not the couple's (her being a 27 year old teacher and him a high school student). Psychologically true: the love develops imperceptibly and when the boy feels rejected he reacts with anger and denial. At the same time both are trying to find their feet in life. There's a post-credit at the end of the beautiful song ending the film.
THE DISASTER ARTIST
Watchable. Several big names dressed up and made up beyond recognition. A movie based on a film about a film: a tragicomedy based on a making-of documentary on "The Room". Tommy Wiseau, the main protagonist, is an idiot but what permeats through the story is the love of the cinema and a proof that where there's a will there's a way. Tommy's attempt at building up the hype around the premiere as well as footage from "The Room" made me laugh out loud. There's a post-credit.
Watchable. A quiet movie with plentiful close-ups of the main actress's (水崎 綾女 or Ayame Misaki) beautiful, expressive face. Unfortunately the subtle story of striving not to forget and of how each person perceives the same things differently is shambolic, tedious and the love far-fetched. You can see what it's like to create audiodescription and how hard it is to please the focus group. One of protagonists remarks she likes interpreting people's motivations in movies. This one is hard in this matter: it simply doesn't ring true.
KOTONOHA NO NIWA (THE GARDEN OF WORDS, 2013)
Recommended. Delicate animation. A heart-wrenching story of love filled with longing, barriers imposed by other people's rules but not the couple's (her being a 27 year old teacher and him a high school student). Psychologically true: the love develops imperceptibly and when the boy feels rejected he reacts with anger and denial. At the same time both are trying to find their feet in life. There's a post-credit at the end of the beautiful song ending the film.
THE DISASTER ARTIST
Watchable. Several big names dressed up and made up beyond recognition. A movie based on a film about a film: a tragicomedy based on a making-of documentary on "The Room". Tommy Wiseau, the main protagonist, is an idiot but what permeats through the story is the love of the cinema and a proof that where there's a will there's a way. Tommy's attempt at building up the hype around the premiere as well as footage from "The Room" made me laugh out loud. There's a post-credit.
No comments:
Post a Comment