Change Your Image
kempersandra98
Reviews
Minari (2020)
Worth the time spent
This was the first film I watched in a movie theater since last March and it was a good choice. Layered and rich, it is a truly universal story told with restraint and a balanced hand. Full shout out to both the child actors in the film, especially Alan Kim, the weight of the film hung on him and he delivered.
Yes, it is slowly paced but life itself is slowly paced and the story moves along enough to break your heart at just the right time. The strength and magic of familial love is hard enough to express in real life and this is a love letter to all the families that deal with that struggle. Hang in there the payoff is more than worth it.
Hector and the Search for Happiness (2014)
Uneven film with some good moments
Hector is a forty something psychiatrist with an enviable life. He has a beautiful apartment, a gorgeous girlfriend who does everything for him, and a thriving, although according to the voice-over, under charged practice. But he's not happy, which may have something to do with the decades old picture of an ex girlfriend that he hides in his sock drawer. So in order to find out what makes people happy he takes off on a around the world trip in search of the intangible.
Part travelogue, part comedy, and part pathos, the film never seems to come together despite a few good moments. Perhaps it is because it is trying to be too many things at once. Simon Pegg attempts to hold together a film that seems at best an exercise in navel gazing, but despite his ability to make us root for his everyman character the film just doesn't click. Not a complete disappointment but not something I would run out and see again.
The Sapphires (2012)
A little gem of a film
A film with a true heart. I heard about The Sapphires during a film festival that I volunteer for. It had only one screening as it was going to wide release, I missed the screening but I heard raves from everyone that got a chance to see it. So when I saw it was showing in a nearby theater I went the first weekend. A truly uplifting film, my only criticism would be the fairly telegraphed romance between a couple of the characters. It would have been a nice surprise had it been a little more subtly set up, however, other then that, the music is great and the story is compelling. Take a trio of Aboriginal girls from the Australian outback, toss in a stolen cousin, light skinned enough to pass for white she is taken by government agents,raised in the big city, and taught to deny her own identity. Bring them back together during the Vietnam War to tour military outposts with their special brand of American soul music, add in a Irish ex-pat manager that likes his whiskey but loves and understands his little troupe of Dream Girls and you have a film worth seeing. They saved the best for last when you learn about the inspiration for the film, I left the theater with tears in my eyes. I can see why it won so many awards at the Australian Academy of Film and Television.