REELYDOPE @reelydope - Tumblr Blog

The Train To Busan Sequel Is A Filling Buffet Of Zombie Carnage

It’s been four years since Train to Busan introduced the world to the KTX, South Korea’s high-speed rail system. The trains are fast, the seats are comfortable, and the bookings can be changed at the last minute with no penalty. During a zombie pandemic, it’s definitely how you’d want to get around.

Thanks to its tense action scenes, emotional performances, and big beautiful trains, Train to…

View On WordPress

Fatal Affair Is An Enjoyably Messy Time

#FatalAffair Is An Enjoyably Messy Time

In the quiet–fictional–city of Oceancrest, successful lawyer Ellie (Nia Long) is not quite comfortable with her new life on the beach with hubby Michael (Being Mary Jane’s Stephen Bishop). After a chance encounter with a past college mate David (Omar Epps), during a client meeting, she finds herself in what grown folks are calling, “an entanglement” at the clerb. What follows in Fatal Affairis a…

View On WordPress

How Much Trouble Does John Lewis: Good Trouble Let Itself Get Into?

It seems like every name-drop worthy Democrat politician has a documentary these days. Hillary over at Hulu. Running with Beto which…ran at SXSW. “The Squad”’s prominent features in Knock Down The House. There’s even an upcoming documentary on Kentucky Rep Charles Booker in the works. Now, latter-day Civil Rights legend and long-running congressman John Lewis gets the docu treatment. Or at least,…

View On WordPress

The Wild Capitalist Fantasies Of Itaewon Class

Can you name a hit American TV show from the past 20 years with a rich, heroic character? I don’t think there are any. The American TV “golden age” has plenty of brooding capitalist antiheroes, the Don Drapers and Walter Whites, as well as sitcom characters who are too rich to function as people. But our TV doesn’t seem proud of our free markets. You have to go to reality TV to find the…

View On WordPress

The Invisible Man Asks Us To Trust Victims Of Trauma

When she opens her eyes, we can tell she’s been awake for a while, waiting for the right time. Over the hammering of the Stinson Beach waves, she removes herself from the grip of the man sleeping next to her and executes a perfectly planned getaway through his cavernous, glossy mansion. We feel every footstep—she’s drugged him, but she’s still terrified that he’ll wake up. She passes through a…

View On WordPress

Weighty Subjects And Discussions Find Their Doors Opened In Locke & Key

Weighty Subjects And Discussions Find Their Doors Opened In @Netflix's Locke & Key

Netflix’s recent decision to adjust its metrics so that “making partial eye contact with the person on a preview card” now counts as a “view” are worrying for the media industry at large. But if the streaming juggernaut keeps offering up interesting shows like Locke & Key, that may not be a problem in the long-run. Based on the horror-fantasy comic series of the same name by Joe Hill (née Joseph…

View On WordPress

Watchmen's Torture Problem

Watchmen’s Torture Problem

Last week, HBO’s Watchmen went big for its finale. The time-bending, solar-system-spanning episode tied up most of the show’s loose ends and gave a cathartic sendoff to Angela Abar and her grandfather Will Reeves. For many, the show’s approach to subjects like intergenerational trauma, white supremacy, and Black resilience was an emotional and valuable corrective to the mostly white superhero…

View On WordPress

BIFF 2019: book-paper-scissors

When Marie Kondo told people to throw away their books, I was as outraged as any other lit nerd with an internet connection. You want me to only keep twenty or so books that “spark joy?” What about the paperback of Lunar Justice my mom’s friend gave me in high school, the one I’m definitely gonna read some day?

I need it!

But I wonder if she was only addressing Americans with that advice.…

View On WordPress

#2019 #Adobe InDesign #BIFF #book cover #book-paper-scissors #Brad Thor #Busan International Film Festival #James Patterson #kanji #KonMari #Lunar Justice #Marie Kondo #Nanako Hirose #Nobuyoshi Kikuchi #Shinto #spark joy

BIFF 2019: The Traitor

The Godfather movies and The Sopranos made us armchair experts on the American branch of the Italian Mafia. But what about the Cosa Nostra in the home country? How much do we know about the rituals and codes that govern the secretive criminal organization? Are they just excuses for violence and greed, or is there something to their romantic aura?

A black-and-white answer to that question would…

View On WordPress

#2019 #Cosa Nostra #Fausto Russo Alesi #Giovanni Falcone #Mafia #man of honor #Marco Bellocchio #Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney #Pierfrancesco Favino #Second Mafia War #the godfather #The Sopranos #The Traitor #Tommy Buscetta

BIFF 2019: Good Windy Days

In 2019, the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival went to Korean director Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite. The black comedy/thriller is now primed to be a genuine Oscar contender, no small feat at a ceremony that Bong calls “very local.” Parasite’s massive success might come as a surprise to people who haven’t been paying attention, but the past twenty years have seen Korean films go from unheard of…

View On WordPress

REELYDOPE RECAP: Mill Valley Film Festival 2019

The REELYDOPE RECAP: Mill Valley Film Festival 2019, is finally here

MALIK Cool so, I feel bad about this year because I missed a couple events due to scheduling conflicts. Unlike De La, I lack the herculean strength to persevere. Is this…me getting old? Alas, disregard my foolish peering into the truth of human frailty. What you can get from me here is that MVFF is good as always. And, perhaps, MVFF has outdone itself this year simply off the strength of…

View On WordPress

#2019 #California Film Institute #CFI #De Lo Mio #Dolemite is My Name #Honey Boy #Just Mercy #Marin #mill valley film festival #Motherless Brooklyn #mvff42 #my friend fela #parasite #san rafael #Telluride #The Kingmaker #varda by agnes

MVFF42: Parasite

“Economic anxiety” is often a dog whistle in America. In political arenas and equivocating essays, it’s used to conjure up images of a new silent majority; downtrodden white people who live in a forgotten and decrepit heartland. They’re the patron saints of stump speeches and the continual reference for excuses about racist behavior. But what the fuck is economic anxiety truly? If we were to step…

View On WordPress

#2019 #Bong Joon-ho #economic anxiety #mvff42 #parasite #South Korea #the mill valley film festival #thriller #tragedy

MVFF42: My Friend Fela

“Fela Kuti is more than just Afrobeat.”

While I’m heavily paraphrasing, this is something biographer and filmmaker Carlos Moore says emphatically about halfway through My Friend Fela. This conversational documentary by Brazilian director Joel Zito Araújo follows Moore as he recounts Fela’s life and labors. Having been a personal friend, and later biographer, of Fela Kuti, Moore conjures Fela.…

View On WordPress

#mvff42

Theo's Fall Movie Rundown, 2019

Theo’s Fall Movie Rundown, 2019

There’s been concern. “How could you just drop a definitive 10-Movie Fall Movie Guide out of nowhere?” “Is this really appropriate?” “This could change everything…” Truthfully, I can’t help myself. It’s just the nature of the film critic. It’s not a duty, it’s a reflex. A spasm. A heartbeat. An exhale. A highly anticipated 10-Movie Fall Movie Guide. A lodestar in the dark night. Solace. A…

View On WordPress

#2019 #maradona #mill valley film festival #mvff42 #pain & glory #telluride film festival

BIFF 2019: Hearts And Bones

There’s a sub-genre of movies that has fallen out of fashion in the past few years. You might recognize it if I list some entries. To Kill A Mockingbird. Gran Torino. The Help. Machine Gun Preacher. Dallas Buyers Club. Green Book. It’s the “white savior” narrative in which a well-intentioned white person tries to help members of an oppressed minority achieve freedom and dignity. Maybe they…

View On WordPress

The Oakland Drunken Film Festival Brews Up Cinema Everyone Can Enjoy

The Oakland Drunken Film Festival (Oct 4-12) Brews Up Cinema Everyone Can Enjoy

If you’ve been in or around Oakland, you know it’s a vibrant city. Vibrant food. Vibrant people. Vibrant history. And, vibrant bars. The Town may not have the all nighter culture of a New York (thanks to Gov. Newsom, that 4AM dream is still far off), but it makes due with a revolving family of funky haunts that breed their own devotees.

What’s interesting about all this is that the team…

View On WordPress

#2019 #bars #bradford #documentary #film festival #filminquiry #founding team #Oakland #oakland drunken film festival #short films

Ms. Purple Paints A Multicolored Picture Of Family Ties

Kasie (Tiffany Chu) looks good in purple. At least that’s what the shopkeeper tells her when she tries on the hanbok, a traditional Korean dress, about halfway through Justin Chon’s family drama, Ms. Purple. Kasie smiles uncomfortably at this compliment. Presumably, the last time she wore one was as a child. In a flashback, we see her father (James Kang) dressing her and positing that her mother,…

View On WordPress

#2019 #Artificial #Asian-American #Chris Dinh #doumi #family drama #hanbok #interview #Justin Chon #korean #Koreatown #LA #los angeles #Ms. Purple #Ronnie Kim #sundance #Teddy Lee #Tiffany Chu

Trending Blogs

Recently Viewed Blogs

REELYDOPE