Not as solid as I hoped. It's confusing for sure, but they could have done so so much more with this concept and world. But they didn't. It has left us with a story that is interesting, yet unrelatable. Things move way too fast and I would have preferred a longer runtime because it is that intriguing. And while the ending is great, the way that Nolan tries to merge the two viewpoints isn't done well. Leaving me feeling like my dad when he watches Transformers (2007) and asks who is who.
It needed to be simplified a little more because everything else is amazing. The effects, the overarching story, the acting. The music, however, is terrible and overblown to give a sense of action when there isn't enough happening. The only part where it worked well was in the final fight, but even then it needed to be quieter.
The cinematography is good as always, but I feel it is lacking compared to Nolan's previous work.
When it comes to action and the draw to this movie, the reversal shots. They deliver, but they are too and far between. It gives us great scenes of reversal action, then one drawn-out segment at the end that doesn't feel rewarding as like I said before, it isn't merged well.
This movie may grow on me more after a second viewing, but it left me in a state that I don't wish to see it again any time soon. It is not fun enough to see again, it is not engaging enough to associate and learn from. Something that Nolan has done well at in the past is his ability to leave questions with the audience after they finish his films. Here, it just provides answers and left me unsatisfied in that regard.
7/10
The intricate narrative structure of this episode is truly fantastic.
Not only is part of the past of Mizu revealed, but it's woven in a subtle pattern between Akemi's future, and the present, each feeding the other and revealing a wonderful tapestry.
This is a masterful tale, and I can't wait to see the rest
I can only guess I came in with expectations too high, as I'm watching this in the period between it being nominated for Oscars, and them actually being announced.
It's an interesting enough story. It kept me following and enjoying the whole way through. But I'm struggling to see what the levels of praise it's receiving are for. And this is why I feel I'm probably watching it with too much of a hype cloud around it. In the end I was expecting more.
Pretty boy got jouzu'd at the job interview and he said "thank you"... facepalm.gif
I don't get why they chose to move the timeline to 1999, almost 10 years later than the book. Doing so, the story loses a lot of its historical/political/economic context and nuance, and becomes dangerously anachronistic. The blatant xenophobia (even though almost every Japanese character seemed to speak fluent English and is getting along just fine with the protagonist lol), the stifling conformist work environment, the asset bubble collapse, the Yakuza loansharks, the political and police corruption etc. were all things characteristic of the very early 90s, before the reforms of the mid and late 90s.
Also, the explicit, voyeristic cinematography feels very hamfisted and clashes arrogantly, to the point of disrespect, with the "saving-face" Japanese mentality.
I was expecting a more nuanced approach from HBO.
Anybody else think the color grading looked strange in parts of this episode? The saturation specifically. It's like certain colors were oversaturated, and the almost everything else in the shot looked undersaturated. Like, it almost gave the look of being colorized. Perhaps it was a strange type of film that handled color poorly, and they pushed too hard to try to correct for that?
This show loves cutting up their characters just to shove something inside.
Coming on March 10 Netflix
Not really sure about this one. It's a well-crafted, bleak, and generally unpleasant film with subject matter that's unsettling to think about. It does a great job at building a tense and dramatic atmosphere in the most minimalistic way with decent performances at its center. I just don't see why this needed to be made. Why bringing up a national tragedy when the result is a film that doesn’t really say much. Why not just leave it alone. Most of the film is just a retelling of the day-to-day life of Nitram, which I didn't find that interesting, without shedding light on anything. The criticism of Australian gun control is very brief and comes out of nowhere.
Great acting and directing but the writing is lacking sadly. Target audience who is here just for the fact that it’s gay and weird will enjoy it, that’s not for nothing. But the story didn’t make sense and wasn’t funny enough (to me) to outweigh that
