Okja

Okja is an action-adventure film co-produced by Netflix and Plan B Entertainment. It was the first time for me to watch a foreign movie without a subscript, however it is very easy to understand what is going. This movie is about a group of self-defined environmentalists who created super pigs by a series of technique like gene mutation, hybridization. These super pigs were sent to different countries and grown by the local farmers. Mija is a young girl who lives with her grandpa in a mountain area of South Korea raising their super pig Koja.  Koja is Mija’s only friend who saved her life. Koja was sent to New York and focused to breed a new pig, and suffered from cruel treatment. Mija started her trip of rescuing her friend Koja.   

There was a lot chaos between Animal Liberation Front (ALF) and the company which created transgenosis super pig. Okja was focused to breed a new pig and suffered a lot cruel treatment. The ALF posted the company’s inhuman behavior on the super pig in the company’s event of announcing the winner of super pig, which of course caused a much bigger chaos. At the end of the movie, Mija brought Okja from the company with her gold pig from her grandpa. When Okja and Mija left the slaughter, a couple of super pigs pushed their offspring out from the fence. Okja hid this small super big in her mouth, and took the small pig back to South Korea. Animal liberation is a very controversial topic, however, this movie did not promote either of the stands.

Mija was not depicted as an animal liberation supporter, and she saved only Okja and only because Okja is her only friend and Okja has saved her life. In the scene of buying Okja, the producer conveyed the idea that no matter what you believe and what you have experienced, you should respect other people’s legal property. The composition of the is very interesting in the end of the movie. Mija and her grandpa were having their meal within the square door frame, while Okja was looking at them from the square window frame behind them. People’s activities are limited within these squares which is also true in our real world.

The topic of animal liberation is also a topic of my other class which is more focused on the animal testing. There are many animal liberation extremists who burn the laboratory and threat the researcher’s own life or their family safety. It is hard to believe that a person who doesn’t care the human life would care about the other animal’s life. Due to the extremist, there only very few people stand out to talk about the benefit of the animal testing. People have their right to believe what is right for them, but they have no right to control other people’s believe and they should also respect each other’s believe. In this film, Mija respected the rule of the market. If she wants the pig, she has to buy it.

To be honest, I skipped some of this movie, but I still like this movie. The producers know animal liberation is a very controversial topic, so they just avoided to talk about this topic directly but promote the friendship between animal and human, which I enjoy most in this movie.

Wheelman

For this week, I decided to watch Wheelman, directed by Jeremy Rush and starring Frank Grillo (Captain America: The Winter Soldier, The Purge Anarchy) as a getaway driver who has one bad night where everything seems to go wrong. The film also features bit roles from established actors Shea Whigham (Silver Linings Playbook) and Garret Dillahunt (Deadwood).

To start off this review, I cannot skip over the brilliant style of the film. Much like the Tom Hardy vehicle (pun intended) Locke, Wheelman takes place almost entirely following Frank Grillo's character driving around. This is both brilliant and risky. On the positive end, when it is pulled off right, it seems unique, fresh, and can also help intensify the suspense. On the other hand, this style can also lead to an incredibly boring film. Thankfully the former is true, not the latter. I think the major reason the film is as enthralling as it is is due to the excellent editing, writing, and directing. This combination led to a well paced film that had me on the edge of my seat several times throughout. Additionally, the film feels very much like a gritty 1970s-80s crime film in the veins of Taxi Driver, Mean Streets, and Death Wish. As a sucker for this style, I very much enjoyed it and really wish more films had this kind of style to it. 

I also really need to give some credit to Frank Grillo, who was really good in the lead role. Grillo is in nearly 100% of every shot in the film, so it was vital to get an actor who could pull off such a hard role. While Grillo is a solid supporting actor, I never really saw him as lead material. That changed after seeing this. Grillo, in my opinion, has the potential to be the next big action film star with his strong screen presence and believability as a hard nosed, rouged bad ass. I honestly think he probably should would have been great as the Punisher for the Netflix Marvel Universe (apologies to Jon Bernthal). While no other actor has more than a few on screen scenes, whenever they do pop up they seem to do a pretty good job, in particular Whigham who is absolutely chewing the scenery as a lunatic bank robber and  Caitlin Carmichael as Grillo's estranged daughter. 

As an action film, this is definitely one of the best I've seen this decade (excluding films like Star Wars and comic book adaptations). It's far too common nowadays to see films focus way too much on the action, leaving very little for other necessary aspects (think the Taken sequels). This is an action film without being "action-packed," which I think is great. The film also did a great job making me feel that Grillo and his family were vulnerable and very human, something most action films fail to do. I actually believed that these characters could die at an given notice. Another great aspect about the action: it was very realistic. When guns are shot, they feel powerful like they should. When someone gets shot, they are very much in pain and die. This isn't the kind of film to sugarcoat gun violence and make it seem like the protagonist can just soak up bullets while acting as if he were getting hit with pebbles instead of bullets. I personally am not a fan of action films in the least bit unless they are done right. This one does it right.

I want to finish this review by looking at the dialogue of the film, which is also very good. Mr. Rush also penned the film, making this both his directorial debut as well as his writing debut, something that should not be lightly glanced over. Being both an action and crime film, the dialogue could have gone in one of two bad ways: bad action dialogue that includes way too many puns and one liners or crime dialogue that is super pretentious while trying to replicate Goodfellas. This is something that these type of films do all of the time (Martin Scorsese who directed Goodfellas even did it himself with Casino). Thankfully, this film doesn't verge into either of these two territories. Instead, the dialogue here goes for a more realistic strategy. Characters curse when they would in real life, they're silent when the would be, and the shout, scream, and cry where they would. I don't understand why more films don't just go for this style as it to me makes the film far more immersive. Unless you're Quentin Tarantino or David O. Russell, the Goodfellas style usually doesn't work and the action style only works if the film has no intentions of being taken seriously. 

By no means is Wheelman going to be winning any Oscars come February next year nor it is going to become some kind of classic. That said, the film is very solid and, in my opinion, didn't seem like it much cared for a statue or status. To me, this film only wanted to be a fun, gritty thrill ride which I think it pulled off perfectly and was a very good start to Mr. Rush's young and hopefully bright career. So far, this is my second favorite Netflix original film that I have seen and would definitely give it a strong suggestion to someone wanting to have a movie night. 

The Spin Off Post

So for the uninitiated I'm going to let you in on a secret. We write for a class, and for weekly assignments we have to direct our posts to a certain demographic. This week we had to focus on writing to our parents. Which is incredibly funny, because I didn't realize this and chose to do Luke Cage in accordance with my last weeks blog. This is one of those shows that you may be able to turn into a drinking game, (if you're old enough, please drink responsibly). Take a shot every time some one gets noticeably uncomfortable.

The show is a spin off to the Netflix Original series, Jessica Jones. Following Luke Cage, the man with unbreakable skin through Harlem and some government conspiracy's. It feels like it takes a less comedic approach to the One Punch Man style of show. Where the main character is invulnerable so nothing should be a problem. In replace of that we get to see the other side of the daily struggles of their personal life like; paying bills, and holding relationships. I'm not all that familiar with the Defender's comic book line and I never finished Jessica Jones so I can't tell you where this fits in the time line. If I had to guess I'm going to say this happens before the original show.

How do I feel about this show? I think I can safely say that I like this show. Definitely more than Jessica Jones, and I think I can attribute that to a few things.

First of which is Luke Cage, I really didn't talk about him during my Jessica Jones post. He is definitely my favorite character in Jessica Jones. He's far more charming and fun to watch on screen then the rest of the cast. He does seem to suffer a little from being the main character. While he still has his charm it seems a little dulled down for the side characters. Which I will give a special mention to Pops, he's the sort of wise mentor character in this show, and he serves Luke by trying to get him to be a hero and move on from his dead wife. He also tries to keep all of the kids off of the streets and out of gang violence and harms way. All I know for real is that he will die and I will probably cry a little.

The next one is pacing and the ability to hold my interest. I do like slower and more thoughtfully put together plots. Jessica Jones was slow, but it wasn't thoughtful. It tried to be a noir, and a super hero story following some one with PTSD. This made the show have a sort of off putting pace, every time it would start doing something interesting with one of those ideas it would drop it and move on to one of the other ideas it had going. Luke Cage follows closer to the Daredevil style of pacing where a lot of plot is laid out in a well paced and interesting way. Balancing between the villains and the heroes personal and vigilante ventures.

The third and final thing is tone. You know I started out wanting to talk about Luke Cage and somehow I started talking about all of the Marvel shows. Don't worry Iron fist, we'll talk about you soon. This does make sense seeing as they are all in an interconnected universe and have a whole show where they work together to fight crime. Luke Cage is a serious show like all of them, dealing with heavy and constricting themes. Luke Cage, like Daredevil, has it's moments of levity where you can just see the characters act like people. This allows the show to be serious while also being engaging and not exhausting to watch. Now I'm not saying Jessica Jones is bad, but I do think it is the most divisive of the Defenders shows, and I think there may be a correlation here.

I do very much like the show and to my Mom and Dad I don't recommend you watch it. It doesn't strike me as the type of show that either of you would enjoy. To everyone who is not my parents I would recommend this. It's quite engaging and still very fun to watch despite the show being incredibly graphic and heavy with violence. Luke Cage may not be as interesting of a character as the other Defender's characters, but he more than makes up for it with his screen presence. I currently am watching this as I put these words to page if that serves as an endorsement.  

Narcos: Encontrando Algo Nuevo

Mama, hay muchas diferentes cosas que te gusta ver en la television. Unas de esas cosas son telenovelas. Aveces es difícil porque trabajas y no pasan en los fines de semanas. Pero tengo algo que te podrá ayudar con esa problema. Recientemente, vi un nuevo show llamado Narcos. Tiene mucha violencia, pero es muy interesante. Se trata de la historia de drogas en relación con Columbia, pero también con los Estados Unidos. Tiene mucho que ver con el hombre llamado Pablo Escobar y lo que hizo para llegar al nivel de poder que tenia. 

Narcos empieza narrando de un punto de vista de un americano trabajando para el DEA. El empieza a explicar su historia y como llego a estar en Columbia peleando contra las drogas. Es muy interesante porque explica la historia de drogas en Latino América, pero también explica como los Estados Unidos fue afectado por las drogas, en especial Miami. Se que este show te gustara mucho porque de lo que he visto que ves en Netflix, te gusta cosas que son tipo telenovela. Pero si hay mucha violencia y ya se que no te gusta mucho la violencia, especialmente para mi, pero tu ya eres adulta y no es malo que lo veas. 

También se que el tercero época va a tener que ver con las drogas y como se relacionan con los carteles de México. Se que siempre que pasaban las noticia de carteles, las veías porque vienes de México y te interesa. Es algo que seria especialmente interesante para ti. Por eso, recomiendo que empieces a ver Narcos ahora y no esperar tanto. Pero no hay que preocuparse porque Netflix publica este show y por eso, nunca se va a quitar de Netflix. Ya se que como trabajas todo el día, lunes a viernes, no tienes tiempo para la tele, pero pienso que deberías ver este show en los fines de semana si tienes tiempo. Te quiero mucho y espero que te guste! Sino te gusta hay muchas diferentes recomendaciones de que puedes ver. Una otra cosa buena es que casi todo esta en español entonces nadamas necesitarías subtítulos para ingles, que desde que yo he visto, no hay mucho de. 

Secondhand Danger

Dear my friend who shall not be named,

This week I watched Travelers. That thing was freaky. It had the longest intro I think I have ever experienced of a pilot and I felt anxious and confused throughout it. It had a very thriller-esc mood or vibe to it. They kinda just throw the audience in the middle of it. We jump from one unpleasant situation centered around one character to an entirely different unpleasant situation with another character. This show uses a wide array of tools to influence the audience's experience. In the first scene, we see there is a blonde girl that seems the be the character of focus. She seems to be a grown woman. She is in a dim lit building. We subconsciously infer that it is closing time based on the conversation she has with another woman and the window that depicts a dark night and the ground wet from recent rain. We get a little short scene of her trying to read, telling us that she has some sort of mental handicap. Before a group of at four men start physically harassing her female co-worker as she watches and yells in horror. She starts banging on the glass yelling at them, but then seems a little disoriented when they turn their attention to her as her friend escapes. Like somehow she didn't realize that if she did that, it would call her to attention. She runs away from the big glass window after they throw a bottle of alcohol at it. Now, this is all just a play by play of the first sequence we see and I haven't even finished it. The sounds, the lighting, and camera angles make the audience feel as if we are there. We hear muffled screaming as her friend is attacked until it catches the main character’s attention, then the audience is suddenly outside of the building watching and hearing the assault first hand and then back inside as the main character responds. Which is pretty explanatory of my own personal discomfort watching the intro because the audience experiences four different scenarios with four different characters that are equally dangerous, but two of them are particularly frightening. The first is the one I began describing above which we will just summarize in short as Woman almost getting gang-raped and the second, we will just put in short as BabyDaddy under the influence smashes Young Mother’s head into the wall. Now the other two scenarios were just as dangerous but didn't have as much power to them. Now some might say that the reason the other two aren't as significant is because the main characters are guys and I disagree. The reason why the other two aren't as powerful is because the two characters are in danger by choice or at least more so than the other two. In the two scenarios where the main characters are guys, the first is a guy that looks to be getting his ass handed to him in an underground fighting ring and he chooses to ignore his friend urging him to stop and the other is a guy in a house or something with a friend sitting in chairs and injecting themselves with what I assume is heroin. Now I stopped watching not long after that, but I thought it was very interesting and frustrating how they put the audience in and make us feel scared, helpless, anxious, and confused. At least that was how I was feeling watching all these horrible situations play out and not being able to intervene. Whelp, that's all I've got for this one. I could probably talk a ton more about this show, but considering how it's not my favorite I think I'll end it here.

Till next time,

happylittlepenguin

A Narcos Letter

Dear Titus Andromedon,

This week I watched something that I can’t decide if you would like or not. I watched Narcos. Narcos is a show based off the true story of Pablo Escobar and his drug trafficking ring. While I think you would like this show because the entire thing is a drama, and therefore dramatic. I don’t know that you would enjoy the violence and greed that come with the show.

Anyone who knows you knows how much you love drama. Drama makes you happy. This show, while not the epitome of drama, is pretty dramatic. The way the camera follows Pablo and shoots quite a few of his scenes from below, makes him seem more powerful. Now don’t get me wrong, he was powerful. The camera angles just make him seem a little more dangerously powerful. When the camera isn’t shooting from below it is shooting at eye level. This makes Pablo seem more approachable because you see him at the level you would in everyday life.

The other thing that intensifies the drama in Narcos is the voice over. The voice over, that is supposed to be one of the DEA agents, is very intense. This intensity would be great, if it weren’t going overboard sometimes. Don’t tell me, show me. The voice frequently tells you things that you could have inferred or would be better just shown. People say a picture is worth a thousand words. Well, what is the point if you aren’t just experiencing? Suspense. The DEA agent is trying to build the suspense to leave you on the edge of your seat. This is great. But, in the intensity it is  good to also have someone filling you in. Without the voice some scenes might lose their touch or leave you confused.

Stories can be confusing sometimes, especially true ones. This is where I think you would not enjoy this show. While, dramatic, it is based off true lives. Albeit, the show has taken some liberty with the story. That doesn’t make it any less true, and in that regard, I find myself almost wanting to look up where they took those liberties. I don’t think you would enjoy that by it being a true story, that means other people know it, and that you could easily just look up the information and spoil the entire show for yourself. That waiting, the suspense, is what you live for in a TV show. Having the information available about what could be next  whenever you want it is a dangerous game to play.

The thing I know you would have the most though is the fashion. The show is set in the 70s-90s for the most part. That means that all of the following were in: big hair, tight miniskirts, horrible prints, and other things from the 70s. The wardrobe in this show, while accurate was not very appeasing. Pablos wears sweaters to go to drug related activities. The moms/women are all wearing dresses, skirts, or pantsuits. The police wear hideous prints and Pablo does too. While I appreciate the authenticity, I don’t appreciate the every changing patterns and colors. I think if you looked at some of the outfits the characters wear you would cry and refused to watch.

Overall Titus, it is a good show and is dramatic enough to be up your alley. There are some downsides but everything has those and so I say try it. Give it a shot.

Sincerely,

Taylor Shanders

Puss in Book: Trapped in an Epic Tale

One more week of thinking what to see on Netflix, and I still have no idea to choose. There are many comments which suggest me to watch House of Card, White Collar, etc. However, because I am a fan of the cartoon, especially I like Puss in Boots, another movie which relates to Puss is my first choice. Therefore, Puss in Book: Trapped in an Epic Tale is my movie I choose this week to write about.

Puss in Book: Trapped in an Epic Tale is an extra story following the series The Adventures of Puss in Boots. Unlike the series, this movie has a special detail: a storyteller. Books are better than movies in some ways. When we read a book, each word describing the character as well as the scene help us to have the clearest images. By using our imagination, the images will be more beautiful,  more lively, and may be more fiction. Furthermore, a storytelling in every book helps us to understand easily the meaning of the plot. However, in the movie Puss in Book: Trapped in an Epic Tale, a storyteller plays an important role in explaining what happens during the movie. He helps to have a clear purpose of what the movie is about. Without him, the watchers may be struggled a little bit in figuring out why Puss was trapped inside an Epic Tales.

Timing is another important factor which makes the movie become better. Following the plot, Puss has to find the evil Queen in order to break the spell which curses the lady. It will take Puss many months to find out the castle of the Queen. However, with the shortcut technique, a long journey which takes a few month only last a few second in the movie. Furthermore, the movie is based on some famous epic tales which are very long, and some of them take a movie to tell a whole story. In Puss in Book: Trapped in an Epic Tale with five or ten minutes each tale, the movie can easily tell several stories at once. Shortcut technique may be dangerous because if the filmmakers use it too much, it is very difficult to the audience to understand the movie. However, the filmmaker in Puss in Boots has been clever use of this technique so that the audiences could still understand the content accurately, although it includes many epic tales.

In the series The Adventures of Puss in Boots, music and visual involve a crucial role in depicting the meaning of the scene. Once again, the effectiveness of those elements continues to be promoted in this movie. After the kiss between Puss and the Queen, a romantic music is emerging. They are flying into the sky with pink clouds behind them and the hearts of love flying through them. A romantic scene is built up helps the audience to understand that they are in love with each other. At the end of the movie, the storyteller is actually Puss old enemy, a tiny white mouse. A fight between them happens. To make the battle more dramatic and repetitive,  the filmmakers make use of the intense music. With the drum and the horn, the audience will get excited to the battle and want to watch till the end.

Daredevil

This week, I decided to take on the pilot episode of the series Daredevil as it had been recommended to me by one of my friends. I am a fan of the movies based around Marvel characters, so I had rather high hopes going into this. Granted, I did not watch past the first episode, which I may decide to do in the future, but I found the start to be just okay. Had I not known this show was from Marvel, I wouldn't realize we were about to follow a superhero.

Yes, the show was not my favorite, however the directors did make some interesting choices. One of the better aspects was the usage of lighting. In most of the scenes, the lighting is dim. Pretty straight forward. However, I felt it was used to reflect the main character, Matt Murdock. He is shown as being more mysterious and closed off, to the point. He doesn't need lavish things and prefers the lights to be darker. It's also fair to mention he is blind. The director most likely added in this detail in order for us to relate to our main character more, and see and appreciate things from his perspective (no pun intended). We better understand what it's like to live in a darker world.

One thing I felt as though the pilot struggled with was figuring out what genre it was. At many different points, I felt like it was a completely different premise, and almost made the viewer get lost. There were fight scenes, displaying the show as an action, which I had assumed the whole show would be for the most part. Yet even then, while the show is about a supposed "superhero", it still showed him as a guy fighting local thugs. Later, Matt and his friend Foggy Nelson started up a law firm together, and during scenes of their practice, it seemed like they wanted it to be more political and law-oriented. The show almost tries to take up a good cop/bad cop dynamic between the two, but doesn't quiet get there. Every now and then, the show would throw in comedic elements, almost as though just to say there were comedic moments. And after all that, there is already romantic tension between Matt, and, ironically enough, Murdock and Nelson's first client, Karen Page. While most shows don't focus on one specific genre the entire time, this one seemed to get lost in itself and didn't truly establish what it wanted to be. Going away from the first episode, I wasn't really sure what section I would put a show like this in.

The show itself was not terrible, don't get me wrong. However, had I not heard great things from my friends, I'm not too sure if I would consider watching on. While the pilot typically tends to be the worst and most chaotic episode, this one doesn't seem to show much potential for a pick up. Any positivity about the show would be appreciated, as I would like to be able to watch a stellar series from the Marvel universe!