South Korea’s “The Hill of Secrets” is a seemingly simple coming-of-age tale that turns out to be more complex than it first appears. Set in a small city near Seoul in 1996, the film revolves around Myeong-eun (Lee Ji-eun), an 11-year-old elementary school girl who is very sensitive about how her schoolmates and their classroom … Read more
Sotnikov stands on the cusp of death. He is among a small group of individuals awaiting death by hanging. We notice an old man among the condemned. His gaze is fixed inward, as though already retreating into the quiet depths of memory. Next to him, a woman breathes in uneven gasps. Her cheeks are stained … Read more
Mainly for getting rid of Pupkin, Langford makes a little inconsequential promise in the end. Alas, this leads to more delusion in Pupkin’s troubled mind, and then the movie begins to blur the line between reality and delusion. As his delusion is getting bloated more and more, Pupkin’s pathetic reality is much more obvious to … Read more
As the school is disturbed by more concern and suspicion, Carla decides to take care of the problem for herself. She sets up a little trap for the culprit at the teachers’ lounge, and what do you know, her laptop video camera captures another incident of theft during her absence, though the identity of the … Read more
The main job of Will and his colleague/best friend Kyo (Benedict Wong), who lives in a house not so far from the one belonging to Will, is monitoring the everyday lives of souls who were born into our world after being evaluated and then selected by them. Via a bunch of old-fashioned televisions assembled in … Read more
Franklin Schaffner’s “Planet of the Apes” (1968) is still the best and most memorable “Ape” movie ever made, truly a classic. Three astronauts travel in time and space according to Eistein’s theory that claims the former accelerates when a body travels at great speed. They land on an upside-down world where talking apes are the … Read more
During the first act of “Under the Skin,” time is subordinated to action or movement, while in the second act, movement and action are subordinated to the flow of time. In the first act, The Woman has a clear mission, she routinely picks up men, seduces them, and takes them back to her den. In … Read more
Not so surprisingly, none of these new experiences help Watanabe much, with his approaching death remaining as an undeniable fact to face. During one particularly haunting scene, he flatly but sorrowfully sings an old song at a nightclub, and everyone around him becomes silent, sensing a lot of melancholy and sorrow from his quiet singing … Read more
The movie also highlights how Soo-kyeong reaches for a nice chance for a better life. There is some widower guy who may marry her someday, and it seems that all she will have to do is be nice to him and his adolescent daughter, though that turns out to be not so easy at all. … Read more
One of the most astounding scenes in the movie comes when a seemingly unremarkable, shy nurse enters a courtroom. The impact of this scene is such that when comparing it to the very similar moment in “A Few Good Men” when the great Jack Nicholson (in a monumental role that terrifies everybody in his wake) … Read more