Almost Buddhist - 戲‧論

★☆☆☆☆ This is a video game adaptation. I didn’t play the game, and don’t intend to. It wowed when it first came out, but now it sucks. The film… just sucks! I almost dozed out watching it. The script wastes a bunch of good actors there. It mentions the Apple, the key to human’s free will, a lot, but it doesn’t seem to give a damn about it after all. I don’t know what’s going on there basically. Yea, there’re actions after actions but the problem is, they’re not at all watchable due to lousy editing and swift cuts. Guess there’ll be a sequel or something, but I doubt Michael Fassbender would like to star in such films ever again, unless he’s crazy! Apparently he’s not yet, because he said he might probably retire from acting afterwards. Alright, last but not least, the game trailers are far more awesome than the film itself. Go check it out!

★★★★★ Said that time can heal. Well, it’s not necessarily true! There’s wound time can never heal, pain you can never beat, damage you can never fix, past you can never get to live with. There’s always something! If there’s nothing left already, it’s probably not because it’s gone for good. It only means that part of you is dead with it. Thus, neither can you get used to it nor move on to find anything else to fill the hole in your heart. ‘Manchester By The Sea’ is a film about that! It’s not a motivational film to help you recover from whatever’s hurting you. It, on the contrary, makes you feel like you can’t no matter what! Matt Damon was to direct and star in the film in the very first place but it ended up his good friends Kenneth Lonergan to direct and Ben Affleck’s brother Casey Affleck to take the role of Lee Chandler. Casey is absolutely a better choice for his outlook and way of acting convincingly interpret a character that has been seriously traumatized by his bitte

★★★☆☆ I don’t know why I so disliked ‘ John Wick ’ though I really am a fan of action films and Keanu Reeves! Maybe it was my mood, or the motive that pushes John back to work wasn’t quite understandable to me. It’s not so bad to be fair, when you take it a cult action film that requires you to focus more on the action than the story to enjoy! ‘John Wick Chapter 2’, therefore, doesn’t let me down! In the sequel, stuntman-turned-director Chad Stahelski has done a pretty good job by pushing well-choreographed gun-fu to a whole new level in delicately designed setups, plus intense physical combats with knives and stuff, car-bike chases, and finally John’s pencil trick to kill men which indeed is awfully gruesome! Thanks to Reeves’s charisma, the way he walks and talks, the way he plays with guns, some unpredictable moments he pulls off, the sadness in his eyes as always, his taste in suits, the film’s definitely much more watchable. The scenario has become bigger and complica

★★★☆☆ Don’t get it wrong. ‘A Monster Calls’ is not a typical monster thriller in which monsters would come out of the dark to give you a heart attack, or some sort of heart-warming Disneyish adventure film fun enough for a family to watch together. It should, I guess, best be seen when you’re alone needing consolation! Kids would find the film too deep and complicated since there’s a lot of metaphors and philosophical talks! Some may feel like it lacks a focus as it seems to be bringing up many issues like childhood, illness, death, grief, moving on and letting go! It’s serious but not so engaging. There’s basically no fun or laughs but there’re moments that could somehow get ahold of you for a while. The one for me is the conversation the boy and his grandma have in the car about his dying mother when they’re waiting for the train to pass before them. It’s a beautiful yet heart-wrenching moment that gets me to realize that we’re in fact all related no matter how solitary we m

★★☆☆☆ The first film I checked out this year is a relatively old one from last year. BLHW, Ang Lee’s latest, tells how weird Billy Lynn, a solider just back from the War in Iraq, feels to be honored for the worst day of his life when he literally has to kill to survive but still fails to save his comrade’s life. Apart from its technical achievement (shot at 48 fps), the film’s indeed pretty boring! It focuses more on psychoanalysis of the characters than gruesome nature of the battlefield yet I don’t get to feel what they feel anyhow. If you take it a war drama, there’s nothing dramatic or emotional. If you take it a war action, there’s nothing mind-blowing to see. If it’s supposed to make me feel their pain and struggles, I don’t! The film reminds me of ‘ The Hurt Locker ’, another war film that has, I guess, a better insight into a helpless and pathetic situation where a solider has no choice but to go back to the dangerous battlefield again and again since that’s the only p