Tag: Movies

REVIEW: Spy x Family Code: White

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Spy x Family is one of my favorite anime, so I was super excited when I heard there’s a movie, especially since the end of the last season felt incomplete. Spy x Family is a comedy anime that follows the daily life of the Forger family. As the agency’s most talented spy, Loid Forger is tasked with Operation Strix: a high-risk mission that requires him to form a fake family to maintain world peace. He marries Yor Forger, unknowing that she’s a top-tier assassin, and adopts Anya Forger, a telepath.

In the new movie, Spy x Family Code: White, Loid is told by his superior that mission Operation Strix is to be transferred to a new agent, meaning that the Forger family is no longer needed. To stay in charge of Operation Strix, Loid must prove that he and his fake family are the most fitting for the role. The movie isn’t written by the author of Spy x Family, Tatsuya Endo; I didn’t know this beforehand, but it became obvious halfway through. While Loid and Yor didn’t seem any different, Anya’s shift in personality is what gave it away. I think the out-of-characterness was a tool to be more humorous but at some times it was too much. To be completely honest, it lacked the same charm the anime has in terms of storytelling and plot. The creators did a good job setting it up in the beginning, but in the homestretch, it became rushed and had some unexpected (not necessarily in a good way) twists.

It’s possible to watch the movie without having seen the anime, but it would help. I’d recommend watching the anime over watching the movie, which feels more like a fun addition rather than an essential story. I still had a lot of fun watching it though! 

REVIEW: Tales from the Realm of Pops

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This semester’s Michigan Pops Orchestra concert, Tales from the Realm of Pops, has been my favorite concert of the past six I’ve attended. The theme this semester was fairytale and fantasy, and the repertoire was full of my personal favorites that are both famous in the classical world and familiar with most audiences: from Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet to The Legend of Zelda to Sleeping Beauty, the orchestra certainly took us on a magic carpet ride.

The first piece to capture my heart was Tchaikovsky’s notoriously hard Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 35, performed by this year’s High School Concerto Competition winner Minji Kim, a Junior studying at Skyline High School. The past three High School Concerto Competition winners have all been violinists, but she’s left the biggest impression on me so far. The first movement of Tchaikovsky’s violin concerto, the Allegretto, features intense lyrical runs up and down the violin, which Minji nailed each time. What impressed me the most were her double stops. Double stops mean two notes are being played at the same; this requires the bow to be completely evenly balanced on the strings while the fingers are to be a precise distance apart. It’s very easy to be out of tune when playing double stops, especially while shifting, but Minji made it sound incredibly easy with her crystal-clear tone and perfect intonation. This was my first time listening to this concerto live, and it couldn’t have been any better.

Right after came one of the unarguably best orchestral works to ever exist: Scheherazade, Op. 35 by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. Pops played the third movement, The Young Prince and the Young Princess. Just like the title suggests, it’s an incredibly romantic movement that passes the melody between the strings and winds, as if they were lovers conversing. The lyrical line evokes so many feelings, such as yearning and passion before turning into playful flirting when the tempo picks up. I highly recommend listening to all of Scheherazade. It’s truly a piece that shows music can weave a colorful story and brings out the violin’s full potential during the many concertmaster solos, which Katie Zhao did an amazing job of.

I’m so glad I got to attend this concert despite being busy with finals and the coming end of the semester. It whisked me away from my stress and worries and was the best refuge I could get. I’m now all the more excited to come back to another Michigan Pops concert next year, and I wonder if they’ll be able to top this semester’s amazing collection.

REVIEW: Saltburn

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The psychological thriller Saltburn seems to be social media’s new indie-film hyperfixation. The movie was brought to theaters in November of 2023, but the commotion surrounding the movie remains rampant. It was written and directed by Emerald Fennell, a skillful curator of dark comedy and playfully uncomfortable eroticism. The film’s controversial critical acclaim and its obsession with TikTok seemed enough of a reason to tune in. 

We are introduced to Oliver Quick (Barry Keoghan), an awkward and lonely young man attending Oxford College in 2006. He meets the luxurious Felix Catton (Jacob Elordi) and they hit it off as an unbalanced pair of friends in vastly separate social worlds. When Oliver mentions his father has passed, Felix empathetically invites him to spend the summer in his lavish family estate at Saltburn-by-the-Sea. 

Felix casually introduces his sumptuous summer home to Oliver, and an uncomfortable aura begins to sweep through the air. The story unfolds as Oliver is introduced to Felix’s highly affluent family: the lustrous Venetia (Alison Oliver), the disarmingly charming mother Elspeth (Rosamond Pike), cousin Farleigh (Archie Madekwe), and patriarch Sir James (Richard E. Grant).

Saltburn tackles obsession, excess, and the extremes of human desire. Some moments force you to recoil in the embarrassment and repulsion of the scene. Although, the true uneasiness that plagued the film was rather from its lack of self-definition. There were moments where it felt like three different movies: a queer young adult romance, an erotic horror flick, or a gripping family drama. Somehow it dabbled in all three universes, but never quite decided on one.  

The plot may have been less original than the articulately manufactured design, but the details will not leave you uninspired. Fennell nearly fetishizes these aspects of the house in interviews—and for good reason! There are dozens of minute features within the set, lighting, and architecture of the house that drag you alongside the cynical plot. 

Keoghan and Pike’s praised performances offered up two Golden Globe nominations. The family ensembled well against Oliver’s perceived naivety, but I felt these characters existed to embody an emotion or a “vibe” from Fennell—often their intentions seemed indirect and underdeveloped.

This movie was a visually stunning (magnificent cinematography by Linus Sandgren) reminder of the early 2000s with a deeply unsettling undertone of the evil within us all. It’s now up to you to decide if Fennell hit the mark by conveying erotic class warfare in a beautifully constructed mansion. Saltburn is available for a limited time in select theaters, and on Amazon Prime streaming. 

Jacob Elordi (left) and Barry Keoghan.

 

131 minutes. Rated R for intense themes, language, and drug use. 

Photos thanks to Charlotte Sometimes and The Seasonless.

REVIEW: Dr. Seuss’ The Grinch

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I loved Dr. Seuss’s books growing up but never watched the movies, so to celebrate the end of the semester and the coming of Christmas, I watched The Grinch at the Michigan Theater on Sunday, December 10th. I haven’t watched any of the previous adaptations, but they seem pretty different. The first version, How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, came out in 1966 as a cartoon that’s 30 minutes long. The second version, also titled How the Grinch Stole Christmas, came out in 2000 as a live-action that’s 1 hour and 55 minutes long. The most recent one is what played at the theater: the 2018 animation that’s 1 hour and 30 minutes long, which is simply titled The Grinch.

This version is essentially the Grinch’s origin story and the audience gets to learn who the Grinch is as a person rather than a thief. The best part is we get to see his relationship with his dog Max, who is youthful and energetic in the film but old and weary in the book. Another character they redesigned was Cindy-Lou Who, the little girl who catches the Grinch in the middle of his act. In the book, she was less than two and only on a page or so; in the movie, she’s much older and one of the main characters.

The animation was fun and very fitting for a children’s Christmas movie. The palette was bright and the characters were cute, even the Grinch. I enjoyed hearing the narrator’s lines and rhymes because they added more of the book elements too. His voice surprised me though because he sounded relatively young when I was expecting an old man reminiscent of Santa, which I wish they went with instead. Because I knew the plot beforehand, it felt like a very long movie and some parts were dragging on, but I enjoyed it overall and would rewatch it again once it’s closer to Christmas.

REVIEW: The Boy and the Heron

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Studio Ghibli has released multiple iconic works such as Princess Momonoke and Kiki’s Delivery Service, and they just dropped their newest film, The Boy and the Heron. Like Totoro, The Boy and the Heron is a semi-autobiographical fantasy story written by Hayao Miyazaki, one of the co-founders of Studio Ghibli. The main character’s name is Mahito, whose mother died in a fire. After a couple of years and still mourning her passing, he and his father move from Tokyo to the countryside. There, he meets a suspicious heron, and as suggested by the title, the plot thickens.

In my opinion, quite a few of Studio Ghibli’s works are rather abstract and The Boy and the Heron is no exception. However, I do think this movie was easier to understand and had more reasons for all the fantasy involved than some other films like Howl’s Moving Castle and Spirited Away (both are still my favorite Studio Ghibli movies though). When I watched the films as a child, I was fascinated by the world-building and unexpectedness of it all, but once I grew older and re-watched the films, I wanted more background information and explanation. I think this movie includes both elements well and thus reaches a large demographic. Furthermore, there are themes of life, death, family, and friendship that anyone can learn from. 

I was surprised that Studio Ghibli released a new movie. Honestly, I thought the last animation they ever made was Ponyo in 2008, but they’ve been releasing works until 2014 with When Marnie Was There, which I’ve never seen or heard about. I would watch this film multiple times, and it’s showing at the State Theatre until December 14th with screenings in both Japanese and English. I watched the Japanese Dub with English subtitles version, and I noticed that the Japanese title is very different from the English one. In Japanese, the title is 君たちはどう生きるか (Kimitachi wa Dō Ikiru ka) and translates to ‘how do you live?’. I wish they hadn’t changed it, because I feel like the Japanese title has more meaning and inquisition to it. But now you guys know, so when you watch the film, keep in mind that the story is about more than just a boy and a heron.

REVIEW: Life on Planet Pops

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On December 6, 2023, at the Michigan Theater, the Michigan Pops Orchestra presented “Life on Planet Pops.” I’ve been to every Pops concert since my freshman year, and I was especially excited for this one after seeing this semester’s poster that teased The Lion King, Star Wars (which they somehow manage to play every year), Princess and the Frog, and more. As the theme and poster suggest, all of the music they chose was related to animals, though there surprisingly wasn’t much classical repertoire. However, it was my favorite program out of all of the Pops concerts I’ve seen.

They opened with a medley of Beauty and the Beast and they sounded exactly like the soundtrack of it on Spotify. I loved the concertmaster’s solo so much it gave me goosebumps, and once the melody of Tale as Old as Time played, the strings all together really shined. The song they chose from Princess and the Frog was “Almost There” with a guest student singer from SMTD, and she was very talented. I loved how she opened with dialogue that transitioned into song and that she maintained her character’s cheerful flare throughout the performance.

After a brief intermission, they returned with Hoe Down, a piece with a fun syncopated tune. I’ve heard other orchestras play it before, but I loved that Pops included a good “Yeehaw” in the middle. To end the night, they played the William Tell Overture. I feel like it’s a piece everyone knows. Though I didn’t recognize the title, I immediately recognized the tunes, especially the latter half. 

As always, Pops includes movies to play alongside their music. This semester, they chose to film Pokémon and Jaws, and the way the actors portrayed the animals was hilarious. Pikachu was taller than Ash, his trainer, and the shark in Jaws crawled out of the fountain by the Michigan League. 

I highly recommend going to the Michigan Pops Orchestra concerts. They’re always amazing and enjoyable for people who aren’t well-versed in classical music and I always have a lot of fun at their events!