"John Wick - Chapter 2 (2017)"

-A film review by Catsmando

    First off, a warning. It's really hard to talk about the technical ingenuity of this film without dropping to spoiler territory, but I still will because; a) It's John Wick. Nobody goes to watch John Wick expecting an original story. And b) With those said, I just HAVE to expound on those because it this film is just a wonderful, art-grade, proper action film...it's just so rare to have such gem.

"The Wailing \ Goksung (2016)"

-a film review by CatsMando

"See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have." -Luke 24:37-39

    Been a while I've seen a film that really delves deep into the supernatural. Maybe it's because of the fact that this isn't an American film. I often feel American horror films have this urge to try and make sense of things at the end, no matter how otherworldly it gets. And yeah it's good when they work, I got no qualms with the approach. I'm just saying, this film makes a point that sometimes, it's okay to be confused, to be thoroughly afraid of the senselessness, frustrated with the unknowable. Because some horrors simply relish in such chaos and senselessness.

    It's a police investigation-horror film, sometimes funny, sometimes unsettling, always entertaining. The story at times is a bit loose on parts, but it's held strong by its overall theme/point. It's a pleasant surprise to know that with this and Train to Busan, South Korea proved it could dish out horror flicks of such caliber.

"Star Wars : Rogue One (2016)"

a film review by CatsMando

"Shin Gojira/Godzilla Resurgence" (2016)

a film review by CatsMando

    Monster films, as they closely tie with horror movies, works best when they mainly work being a commentary to something. Dracula works best when it focuses on being the representation of the threatening form of ambiguous, emasculating, masculinity. The Wolf Man is essentially the fear of man losing his control with his base urges. The Mummy and King Kong is the peril of adventure, Frankenstein and Jurrassic Park is punishment to man's arrogance towards science and nature, zombies are a violent, satiric take on the human collective, Xenomorph Aliens are layers upon layers of analogy about rape and violence against women, The Predator is the ultimate unknown enemy, the cyborg/android motif(think Terminator/Westworld) are based around the fear of man-made technology turning against them.

    It's often strongly about the commentary. Everything else, like Frankenstein's iconic look, King Kong's scale, zombie genre's strong ties with body horror; are secondary. A complementary feature, never the main.

"Kubo and the Two Strings" (2016)

a film review by CatsMando

 

    If I were asked what would be my top three companies-not in terms of my personal fave, but in terms of honest-to-goodness craftsmanship-levels in animated feature films-easy, it's Studio Ghibli, Pixar, and Laika. These are the big name studios that actually puts out real art-forms. A combination of fresh perspective as evidenced through their stories, and years of technical masterwork as shown through the quality of execution. It's not an always case, mind you, all three of them have their  pieces of passing works. But more often they get to deliver works that are just visually draw-dropping, emotionally resonant, thematically solid, and overall inspiring.