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Drewthecashew
Reviews
Violet Evergarden (2018)
A Timeless Masterpiece
Do yourself a favor: Stop reading reviews and go watch this miniseries. You're welcome.
Still reading? Seriously, just got watch the first episode. It will only take 24 minutes of your life and will serve as an excellent taste-test of what the show has to offer.
Story: 10/10
Visuals: 10/10
Music: 10/10
Voice acting: 10/10 (I can only speak for the English dub; stop hating, it's the way I first experienced it and that's what I've stuck with)
The best piece of fiction I've ever experienced. A perfect, timeless tale wrapped in one of the most visually-splendorous packages you can find. I've been watching and re-watching this series for years. After 9 times through, I'm barely getting started: I'll return to experience Violet's journey again and again for years to come.
Vaioretto evâgâden gaiden: Eien to jidô shuki ningyô (2019)
A long episode... and it's missing an important piece
I like to refer to episodes 4-7, 10, and the special (and arguably episode 3) as the "vignette episodes," as they each introduce new characters whom the central plot of the episode revolves around. This movie does something similar. However, it takes an hour and thirty minutes to do what the vignette episodes do in 20 minutes... and it's still missing a key ingredient.
While the central narrative of each of these episodes focuses on the newly introduced character(s), a clear subplot is present in all of them: Violet's journey to understanding the meaning of love and human emotion in general. The reason these episodes work so well is that the subplot of each is driving forward the primary narrative of the miniseries as a whole.
What this does for the audience is make you feel like both the vignette characters and Violet are gaining ground in their respective journeys simultaneously. The movie misses this aspect, and you will finish realizing you've learned essentially nothing new about Violet; and she's essentially learned nothing new about herself.
Overall, a charming movie in many ways and a brilliant artistic achievement, but mediocre at best in comparison to the miniseries. I may return to watch once again at some point. The miniseries, on the other hand, I'll continue to watch again and again to participate in Violet's journey.
Run Hide Fight (2020)
May's performance deserves attention
Plain and simple: May needs to be in more movies. She's excellent.
Gritty, moving, thought-provoking. Has a lot of heart without being cheesy. I heard that audience scores were really favorable, so I went in with high expectations. Still, I was blown away. Edge-of-your-seat tension, inspiring heroism, and just enough heart to leave you feeling like you gained something worthwhile. 10/10.
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
A visual masterpiece
The story was fun and interesting, but obviously, the true hero team here was the artsists. Amazing visuals!
Mother! (2017)
A swing and a miss...
As one who appreciates allegory and loves a good cerebral film, this film is not it. It doesn't take a genius to see the Biblical themes and characters in this movie. For one, Aronofsky obviously doesn't understand anything about the Bible, but setting that aside, the allegory itself fails completely. An allegory functions on two levels: the surface story and the hidden story. The problem with mother! is that it commits to neither, switching back and forth between the surface and hidden stories without rhyme or reason. It feels like Aronofsky felt that shoving all of his Biblical views (which again, are a complete misrepresentation of the Bible) into a two-hour movie about a couple with an unnatural-unrealistic relationship.
This movie is the most pretentious attempt as symbolism I've ever seen.
Inferno (2016)
An insult to Dan Brown and his brilliant narrative
I am not one of those people who hates every film adaptation of a beloved book. I recognize that film adaptations, by nature, cannot follow every detail of a book. Many that I've seen, however, have been able to follow the plot of the original narrative quite well. Others have made changes that I felt made the story better. However, I am disgusted to see such an incredible story completely ruined. It is a different storyline completely.
This adaptation introduces various plot holes and non-existent characters. Worse still, it completely changes the attitudes, characteristics, verbiage, and even actions of the existent characters.
The book was riveting, shocking, and completely revolutionary in ingenuity, style, twist, and thought-provoking power. The movie, on the other hand, descended to typical, predictable, and downright boring. The only thing that I couldn't predict was how badly the perfect plot was going to be altered.
To Ron Howard and David Koepp, I say one thing: Badly done, guys, badly done.