Coco

Pixar knows it's movies. Pixar also knows how to make people cry, how to touch their hearts and move them, better than many non-animated movies.

The plot isn't all that unpredictable, in fact I was sure of several key elements and many others I guessed might happen and yet still it is a good story. I like that the used Mexican folklore? beliefs? as the basis of this and went and built their world on that. It was cool and refreshing, yet I had so many questions like, if the whole, going to the living world works on the premise of photos being put out then

• How did their crossing to the living world system work before photography? 
• What about people of whom there are no photos? Surely they are not all forgotten?
•  Do paintings work? But there are mostly only paintings of rich people, weren't there? In the older days?
• How come the whole family hates music so much? I understand the reasons originally, but Coco's great-grandchildren? How were all except one so well persuaded?
• If Coco remembered and loved his father all along. it seems a biiit unlikely he never told ANYONE of him, but okay

But that aside it was really touching, a cool premise, cool universe and designs. Even if you'll know how the story ends, it's easy to still get involved and there were some surprises even for me.

Better tomorrow than today

PÖFF post


As much as I try to avoid seeing depressing stuff at PÖFF I didn't this time manage. Well,  as far as depressing human dramas about teenage girls go this one was pretty good. I'm just honestly not sure if I liked it more, because it was good or because it was Korean and I enjoy anything from these parts of Asia more.

It didn't depress me terribly, but neither was it fun. Neither was it boring, stuff happened and I was reasonably engaged even if I didn't like any of the characters a whole lot. There were some nice ones. There were some I hated. One in particular. The mother. The dad and his family were very nice. It was okay. I liked how the main character had a very consistent clothing style and I liked the insight into this part of Korean life, education and problems. Provided it was realistic. Which it seemed to be, but then again Estonian life always seems more depressing in Estonian cinema, so who knows.

King Cnut

PÖFF post

This film is absolutely brilliant.  I saw it as part of PÖFF, but if you have the chance to see it -  Go for it. It easily the best documentary I have ever seen. I like the Fashion Cinema programme at PÖFF anyways and I like this sort of classic fashion cinema documentaries too, but this was something totally different and man was it wonderful. I liked the topic of copyright  laws and parodying itself, but the fact that it's sort of a comedy documentary makes it so unique and wonderful. Those are not the two things you'd think to combine easily.

I think the storytelling was amazing. To the point where I started to almost wonder if they manipulated the truth to get a more captivating narrative. It was fantastic, fun, clever and everything wrapped up really nicely. It is a classic David and Goliath story and man was it satisfying. One man goes against a giant corporation in his own unique, witty and clever way and doesn't completely fail. Justice prevails! More or less.

Also, to look at this critically - it's a hell of a good advertising for his clothing brand.

But really, it was awesome and it was great to have the main character (you can't really call him an actor when it's a documentary) and the director there as well.

Mother!

Well, let me tell you - if you like close-ups of Jennifer Lawrence you will love this film. I like Jennifer Lawrence rather a lot, but I must admit the constant close-ups gave me a bit of headache.

Otherwise I loved the aesthetics of this movie. I generally don't like it when all people talk about after seeing a movie are the clothes the people wore or the rooms and landscapes it was all filmed in, but I loved the fact that this film had a very constant colour theme that was really noticable and cool. I liked that the main character had a very distinct style of clothing, despite the fact that it didn't fall under any pre-established style category. I mean that she wasn't a goth or something similar. Her clothes were very casual, but she still had a style.

I also liked the effects, they were very - effective and different from any I had seen. Visually the film was very very pleasing. 

Did I actually like the film as a whole now? I think I did. Maybe. The story wasn't too pleasant and if it hadn't been told so beautifully and visually I wouldn't have liked it. It had some metaphors and sub-text and hidden meanings into it, but they were very unclear and difficult to decode. You might think that's the point, but with some movies its very easy to think of things that the author might have meant. Here, you wonder of they tried too hard.

i liked the ending, it was satisfying, but I think, once again, more visually, than story-wise

Paris can wait

This film ... was not my cup of tea. I'm not saying it was bad. Although I think if it had been exceptionally good I would have enjoyed it despite the drama/romance genre. I can, after all, enjoy such films as well.

This, however, it was pretty average. Not terrible, but not good enough to make me feel it was worth my time. Perhaps I was not its target audience, but I feel that in a good film we can relate to all kinds of characters.

I found nothing relatable in this. Nothing. I didn't really like any of the characters. I couldn't relate to any. The main lead pissed me off, because I would have done everything completely differently that her and as a result her actions irritated me. I don't watch a lot of romantic drama and yet nothing about this felt particularly fresh.  Once again, I can't say it was bad - there were some cool visuals, some neat ideas, a lot of nice food. I just didn't like it.

Kingsman: The Golden Circle

Honestly, I didn't expect to love it as much as I loved the first part and went into it thinking:"Ah, I bet this won't be as good as the first one." But really - I think it was pretty much just as good. It was - similar. I even liked the callbacks to the originals, the scene that was the same, but the outcome was different. It was clever.  Sure, they used some famous people like Elton John purely because they can do that now with the first part having been successful, but I don't really mind.

I was skeptical about them bringing Harry (Colin Firth) back and how they would do it, but I think plot-wise it was just plausible enough and didn't feel like a huge cop-out. And really, the film doesn't hold very well without him. He is just an amazing actor. Julianne Moore was really great too.

Fun, enjoyable watching, the plot was pretty cool too, it had some tropes, some things you could expect, but it was a fairly clever jab at the US president at least.

The Square

I went into this with high expectations. I heard great things about this film from a person who sees a lot of cinema and reviews films for a living so when she was in love with it I decided to check it out.

It's one of those rare films that is both artsy, different, unique and..fascinating, thrilling and actually relateable.  It has a plot, that moves, for a most part, with a pleasant speed. It grabs your attention, there is something everyone can relate to or at least - recognize and say:"Yes, I know other people like that."

It's interesting, multi-layered and has a lot going on in it. The characters are just likeable enough that you can feel a bit sorry for them here and there. I wouldn't call it a comedy. It is classified as one, but it certainly isn't the sort of humour that makes you laugh. It's dark, satirical and certainly very clever and intelligent, but I didn't feel in any way uplifted or humoured leaving the cinema. It is obviously a great movie. Anyone can tell you that, it was awarded highly at Cannes after all, but better than that (for me personally), it was one that I actually liked.