"Persepolis" a 2007 animated movie based off of Marjane Satrapi's book of the same name. It was directed by Satrapi, as well as Vincent "Winshluss" Paronnaud, a French comic and artist. It follows Satrapi's childhood and adolescence, from her innocent youth as a child prophet wannabe, all the way until her move to Paris as a young adult. It deals with topics like war, xenophobia, and death, as Marjane tries to live her life in Iran and different parts of Austria. In Iran, Black Friday, the Iranian Revolution, and the Iran-Iraq War all take place when Marji is growing up. To help Marji live a better life, her parents send her to Austria to live in a convent, where she is eventually kicked out and begins living with different people. As news of the War spreads outside, Iranians are looked on very unfavorably by the Austrians, with people outcasting Marjane because of her history in Iran. While living in Iran, Marjane experiences the death of her uncle by execution, whom she was very close to. She loses one of her best friends, Neda Baba-Levy, in a bombing that took out her entire building. Satrapi and Paronnaud did a great job adapting the book into a movie. It depicts Satrapi's different stages of childhood and adolescence very clearly, and it's pretty easy to see how she changed and what events changed her. As a child, Marjane Satrapi is full of life and wonder. She's happy, she's young, and all she wants to do is be a prophet and help people. As she gets older, we see that kind of innocence very quickly fade into Marji's adolescence. She begins thinking for herself and exploring her individuality, and starts listening to Western music, especially punk rock. She carries these characteristics with her well through the end of the movie, praising themes of rebellion and freedom. I thought this movie was pretty good. I think that even though it moves through her life very fast, it paces itself pretty well and it's very easy to follow. The film was originally made in French and then dubbed in English, so the voices usually didn't match what it looked like the characters were saying, but other than that I don't really have any issues with this movie. I think it does its job well, and that's telling the story of a little girl who was forced to grow up a little too fast. 8/10
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I've got a bad habit of getting on my phone during movies. Even when I'm watching a movie in the theater, I'll turn the brightness all the way down and check a couple apps before putting it down for the next 30 ish minutes. Edgar Wright's 2010 masterpiece "Scott Pilgrim vs. The World" was so incredibly eye-catching and entertaining I don't even think I thought about my phone the entire time. I watched it in two parts, which was a mistake on my end, but this is one of the most energetic and enjoyable movies I think I've ever seen. One of my favorite parts about it is the fact that the actors are all incredibly dramatic the entire time, despite the sheer chaos happening in the world. Another thing I noticed is the action. When Scott fights, he seldom uses just brute force like in the fight with Matthew Patel. He often uses the world around him and specific weaknesses of his enemies in order to gain the upper hand or win entirely, like using Lucas Lee's ego against him, and tricking Todd Ingram into drinking dairy as a vegan. I will note that as the movie reaches the end, the pacing picks up a little bit too fast, and it kind of pushes one of the fights, the one with the Katayanagi twins, to be a little bit too short. Other than that, I loved every second of this film's strange, quirky chemistry between two characters that didn't want to admit they had feelings for each other. 9.5/10I like to call this movie the British version of "Zombieland," because that's essentially what it is. Minus all the guns. It's a horror-comedy style zombie movie directed by Edgar Wright and released in 2004, directed in the style of an action movie. There's suspense and action, directed and acted in the most Britishly reluctant way possible. The movie follows a man named Shaun as he tries to reconcile his relationship with his (for most of the movie ex) girlfriend, Liz. He lives on the outskirts of London with his two roommates, Ed and Pete, the latter of which becomes infected and killed off pretty early on in the movie. Shaun and Ed slowly make their way to where Liz lives, along with her two friends Dianne and David, to pick them up and get to safety. Shaun convinces the rest of them they need to make their way to the Winchester, the bar Shaun and Liz always went to for "dates", which was the reason they broke up in the first place. Shaun argues it's because the bar has a gun, namely a Winchester lever-action rife. After a grueling journey to the bar (the five blend in with the zombies), they make it inside, board up all the windows, and are sure to not make any noise once in there to avoid attention. Ed makes the mistake of getting bored, so he begins making noise with the arcade machine located in the bar. Zombies begin breaking in, infecting both Dave and Dianne. Shaun, being British, is a terrible aim with the gun in the bar, missing most of his shots. After Dave and Dianne are killed, the three remaining make their way behind the bar, set it ablaze, and then to the basement of the bar, where they find out that Ed has been bitten, and eventually, zombified. Shaun, unable to kill his best friend, flees the bar with Liz through the cellar straight into the British Army. Shaun and Liz prove they're still human, and are escorted to safety. After Z-Day, Shaun and Liz are back to dating, while Ed is still "alive," zombified and kept as Shaun's "pet." Incredible. I really loved this movie. I think it was my first Edgar Wright movie, and it's not only a fundamentally great movie, but it's a ton of fun to watch. I'm still confused whether or not this is connected to "Hot Fuzz" and "The World's End" somehow, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. 9.5/10 |
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April 2024
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