Citizen Rules...Cinemaesque Chat-n-Review

Best of luck. I don't worry about grammar or spelling with mine as nobody reads them anyway

Director: Eric Lartigau
Writers: Victoria Bedos (original idea), Victoria Bedos (scenario)
Cast: Karin Viard, François Damiens, Eric Elmosnino
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Music
Language: French


A nice little film that I enjoyed watching. I liked the lead actress, she was able to convey many believable emotions while still feeling like a real person. I liked the story too, sure it's simple but these growing up and leaving the nest stories, happen to most everyone....The story is part of life and the film showed the family dynamics quite well, which then made the dilemma of the daughter's decision to fly away from them, all that much more poignant. I liked how her song in Paris reflected her life. It was like she was singing directly to her parents.

The French family farm in a rural town made a good setting for the Belier family. I thought the film was made well.

Foreign language comedies are usually hard for me 'to get', as reading the jokes isn't the same as if I understood the language. I did find some of it funny, and there were other parts that I instinctively knew were funny, but some of the humor was lost in translation. I have to say I wasn't a fan of naming the black calf Obama joke. Maybe that worked in France?....The singing was real good and I liked the entire Belier family, though I think mom had been sipping a little too much wine.

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Which scenes are you talking about? I haven't seen Assassination yet.

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I gosh! I don't remember which scene(s) it was now. I watched Assassination some months ago for the Foreign Language HoF. All I remember is I liked it, and it was an action type of film and the occupying Japanese army did some horrible things to the Koreans.

You're in Korea right? Did your school curriculum go much into the occupation of Korea by Japan?

The Age of Shadows (2016)
Mil-jeong (original title)

Director: Jee-woon Kim
Writers: Jee-woon Kim, Ji-min Lee
Cast: Byung-Hun Lee, Yoo Gong, Kang-ho Song
Genre: Action, Drama, Thriller
Language: Korean


This felt like a Korean version of a Hollywood block buster flick, with all the over the top gun fights and the silly 'pull off your toe that's just been shot' scene,...Didn't I just see a rotting finger being pulled off in The Shape of Water? That's why I say this feels like a Korean version of a popcorn flick, fun at times, but never deep.

I mean we really get no sense of the Japanese occupation and what it meant for Korea. Outside of a couple Japanese characters, it was like the film maker didn't even bother with the bigger picture of the occupation and the social consequences that it would bring.

Instead it plays out like a James Bond spy thriller, with the plot to turn a Korean police captain working for the Japanese, into a double agent, to smuggle explosives for the resistance fighters....That could have been fun, as there's nothing wrong with a movie made for entertainment, but at 2 hours 20 minutes this was too long, or at least it felt really long to me. Edit out 45 minutes and you'd have a fast paced, fun movie.

The last scene where the resistances sets off bombs at the Japanese/Korean officials party event, really made me hate the 'heroes' of the film. Because at the party there were many innocent people, young people singing, young women serving drinks...and they were all killed by the bomb blast. So at the end of the film, I feel like the resistance fighters are no better than the Japanese army who occupied their country, and I doubt that's the message the Korean film maker wanted to give.

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Korean students are taught that the Japanese during the occupation years were atrocious people, while the oppressed Koreans were saints, martyrs, and courageous fighters. There is some truth in that juxtaposition, however, it is pretty much pro-Korean propaganda.

Have wanted to watch this for awhile but your review has definitely bumped it up on my watchlist.

Will be adding this one to my watchlist.

Love you, Citizen and enjoyed reading your review but we have to agree to disagree on this one. I think this movie is brilliant and I think it is the best work of Sidney Pollack and Jane Fonda.

Didn't like this one as much as you did...if you have the time, would love you to read my review on this one.

The Bélier Family - I agree with you, i also likedthis small movie. Maybe it isn't something what I remeber to the rest of my life, but it was pretty agreeable

OMG Bachelor Mother might be my favorite Ginger Rogers movie, she's so wonderfully funny in this, and in a natural way. You have to see it

Downsizing...I will go read your review right now.

It was a nice film and was one of the nominations in the Foreign Language Hof. Most of my last reviews were from that Hof.

This looks interesting, I might have to check this one out, despite the fact that I hate Josh Hartnett.

Director: Joachim Trier
Writers: Eskil Vogt & Joachim Trier (screenplay)
Cast: Eili Harboe, Kaya Wilkins, Henrik Rafaelsen
Genre: Drama , Fantasy , Horror
Language: Norwegian

I liked this more than I thought I would as the story's premise didn't seem all that interesting to me, but the film maker showed great skill and care in making a beautifully filmed movie, that felt heartfelt. It felt like the director had great pride of workmanship in his movie.

The actress who played Thelma was the perfect choice for an un-experienced Christian girl who goes off to university in the big city where she meets the real world head on. I liked the way the film set up the mystery in the opening shot during the hunting scene (no pun intended). From there it kept building the mystery, in an effective but subtle way.

I liked the way it explored Christianity beliefs vs the modern world. It felt like it was going to make a statement about that, but then it never did, that I perceived.

As much as I liked this, the ending felt rushed and for me was a bit of a let down. After Thelma arrived back home under her dad's care, I was expecting the film to hit it's mark but instead that's where I started losing some interest. Still a beautiful film to look at and shot and edited very nicely.

Director: Pan Nalin
Writers: Pan Nalin (story), Pan Nalin (screenplay)
Cast: Shawn Ku, Christy Chung, Neelesha Barthel
Genre: Adventure, Drama, Romance
Language: Tibetan


I liked this it was quite unique...The best part was the deconstruction of the wise & virtuous Buddhist monk myth. By that I mean, our boy, the former monk becomes a dumb ass when he ventures out into the real world. It's a world he knows nothing about because he's been sequestered in isolation on top of a mountain monastery. But when he gets the chance to call the shots, he makes just about every blunder that he can. And the film is not afraid to show that either, which I found refreshing.

Some might think of this film as a serene & peaceful meditative look at wise Buddhist and how a safe life in a monastery is much better than the real world. But IMO that would be missing the point of the film maker. That point is: you can't know wisdom if you ain't experienced life. I realized that when the former monk falsely accuses a villager of setting the wheat on fire and the villager tells him, he would never do such a thing and has told him that he doesn't understand life in the valley and that he needs to grow up.

But he's incapable of understanding the consequence of his own actions as he goes into town and falsely accuses the grain buyer of starting the fire, and then later seduces the farm girl despite the fact that he loves his wife and she loves him. He's a dumb ass.

I liked the actor as he often looked a little loss in the world outside of his monastery, I think he fit the part well and did a good job. The actress that played his wife was beautiful, almost too much for the movie, but she was very good at being strong especially in the end scene.

Mostly the movie looked good and the locations and cinematography were good too. The rock dropping on the goat was lame. I hate the cliche of invoking a reaction by killing an animal in a movie, it's a tired idea that needs to be retired from use.

I didn't like how several times when people left the scene, they just disappeared, as the film was edited so that they poofed out of the frame, which made me think it was suppose to be a dream sequences, but it wasn't.

The Leopard is a film all dressed up with no where to go...A grand epic without life. Sure it's filmed prettily but without an engaging story line. It was like somebody filmed a book page by page, without including the spirit of the book. The scenes drag on forever, many of them could have been cut for better clarity. The film did not engage me, it did not evoke any emotions in me.

The film's main draw is the time we spend in the stunning palace & the sweeping Sicilian countryside and of course the beautiful costumes. But take away the grand theme of Italy's unification, take away the grand sets and costumes and you get a film that's emotionally distant, with long stilted monologues where nothing much really ever happens. It's a soap opera, but not nearly soapy enough to add any zest.

I might have liked this better had Burt Lancaster (a favorite of mine) not been dubbed in Italian. The dubbing erased part of his performance, and so the main character never seemed quite real. With him being dubbed, it made it hard to feel much from his performance. Add to that the fact that most of the acting is in monologue form and done rather mater of factually, and there's a number of characters it was a hard film to stay focused on. It's beautiful to look at but I didn't get much out of it.

Intrigued by this premise. Nice review

I edited out the good stuff! I watched Samsara for the Foreign Language Hof. Originally the review include this:

Pan's Labyrinth (2006)
El laberinto del fauno (original title)

Director: Guillermo del Toro
Writer: Guillermo del Toro
Cast: Ivana Baquero, Ariadna Gil, Sergi López
Genre: Fantasy, Drama
Language: Spanish


I liked it OK. It seemed like an odd mix of two genres and to be honest I liked the fairy tale aspect, but didn't care for the one dimensional fascist captain story line.

I'm not sure why a fairy tale in the style of Harry Potter, was combined with R rated violence. To me both styles got in the way of each other...An R rated, serious look at fascist Spain during WWII and the resistance fighters that they pursued, would've made for a good serious film.

OR, the fairy tale story with the little girl and the underground secret kingdom would have been cool if done by itself. But the two stories got in the way of each other. I didn't buy the fascist Captain story as it was so cliched and predictable that I was bored with that. But I did really like the story and adventures of the girl. I thought that was all well done. The journey into the dead fig tree with the giant toad, was pretty cool! I wanted more of that kind of stuff.

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