Some update posting...

 I haven't really been posting movies on the blog since 2022, and I haven't posted movies on Letterboxd since 2023, so I am posting some reviews I had written drafts of in the last two years, but not published yet.

My Review of A Guilty Conscience (2023) directed by Jack Ng Wai-Lun

A Hong Kong jurist named Adrian Lam gets on the wrong side of the hiss boss and decides to found his own law firm and take on a case involving a Hong Kong oligarch family. Adrian gets too cocky and over-his-head and is set-up into losing the case. Years later, he finds evidence that leads to a retrial and one more shot at redemption.

While I won't spoil the film here, this was such a big it because it uses every movie court-room drama trope in the book to commentate on the class divide (and possibly the sentiment concerning recent political events) in Hong Kong. Louise Wong's role as the wrongly-accused was worthy of Ruan Lingyu. Dayo Wong really does his job right as the magistrate turned lawyer. If you liked Witness for the Prosecution or A Time to Kill then you will like this movie. 

My Short Review of The Other Side of Hope (2017) directed by Aki Kaurismäki

Following-up the last Kaurismäki film I watched, La Harve, this is also about the fate of refugees in Europe—but this time in Kaurismäki‘s native homeland of Finland. Though this film is a lot more cynical than La Harve, Kaurismäki‘s idealism about how people should be towards each other ultimately wins out. Both this film and Le Harve harken back to Jean Renoir and the idea of the guy that just steps-up to be someone in need—no questions asked. 

My Review of ...And Life Goes On (1992) directed by Abbas Kiarostami

 This the Iranian New Wave at its peak. When Iranian film-makers decide to go to extremes of blurring fiction and reality in order to tell an honest story rather than a 100% accurate one, you get what Toni Morrison called "the site of memory." How much can you blend reality and fiction together until you gain the ability to almost change reality? On June  21, 1990 the Manjil–Rudbar Earthquake struck northern Iran and killed around 45,000 people. One of the hardest-hit places was the village of Koker where Abbas Kiarostami had filmed his movie Where Is the Friends House?                                         Kiarostami gets his son and immediately makes his way to Koker from Tehran to find Babak Ahmadpour—the boy who starred in WITFH?. The movie is a recounting of this journey.

As the title suggests, the main theme of this movie is that even after apocalyptic devastation, people keep on living. As Kiarostami traveled through the region, he was marked by the resilience of the people even as they were suffering and trying to collect themselves. This film also used a favorite filming method of Kiarostami; while he and his son were portrayed by actors, Kiarostami was always behind the camera interacting directly with people in the film. In doing this, he dares you to classify this as a realist film. The meta-nature of Iranian New Wave films of this era started getting criticized by the Iranian censors and this marked the beginning of Kiarostami's decline in standing with the régime (he never criticized the pre- or post-revolutionary regimes directly, so he was never explicitly banned or went into exile, but after 1999 it became much harder for him to show his films in Iran compared to internationally). 

Abbas Kiarostami always felt that the best films are the ones that look like they made themselves and that is on display here.

My Thoughts on Sinners (2025) directed by Ryan Coogler

 These are just some small thoughts I had on this great movie! It has been awhile since I have been to the theater to watch a movie, but this felt special. I was on the fence about going to see it, but the hype got to me and I decided to spend my birthday watching it. It is an amazing film that has really put the flag down for independent and original film-making. I am not a big musical cinema lover, but it is a great film about the blues and what one is willing to give to create art. Although I still prefer Jordan Peele for my horror fix, I was satisfied with this movie. The two musical sequences with Miles Caton and Jack O'Connel were excellent as was the Buddy Guy feature at the end. Michael B. Jordan showed why he is the Robert De'Niero to Ryan Coogler's Scorsese. Wunmi Mosaku was a revelation and the break-out star for me and Delroy Lindo was a solid character actor as always. The comedic favorite of the movie was Omar Miller who takes over nearly every scene he's in after his introduction. 

I did not see this an IMAX so I guess I won't gush over the cinematography like everyone else, but I will tip my hat to Ludwig Göransson for another excellent team-up. Göransson was just as important to this film as the lead actors. And of course the leader that made it all happen is Ryan Coogler, who has yet to make a bad film.

If I have more to add, I may follow-up at a later date.

My Goodreads Review of My Love Story with Yamada-kun at Lvl. 999, volume 3 by Mashiro

 First review of the year is one I have been wanting to talk on for awhile.

My Love Story with Yamada-kun at Lv999, Vol. 3 by Mashiro
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A winter storm and black-out means that it was a perfect time for my first completed read of the year. Which is not exactly a re-read, but sort-of is. This volume recounts episodes 7-10 of the anime. I ended-up following the manga and even going back and purchasing a physical copy of this volume because of chapter/part 30 of the manga that ends this volume. To me it is one of the most startling mature philosophical expressions of love that I have seen in anime or manga.

I won't do a full-recap, but to give some backstory: this series is a shoujo romance manga about about a college student named Akane whose life is sort-of a mess after a recent break-up as she falls in love with a professional gamer named Akito Yamada—the title character (her ex was a gamer as well). In this volume she and Yamada are not yet a couple, but we are all but assured by the end of the chapter that they will become a couple (I am currently on volume 8 in which a lot more pivotal things have happened).

I want to highlight this volume because of chapter 30. During the typical "sick day" trope where one love interest becomes sick and the other takes care of them. Akane overworks herself and becomes sick, so Yamada comes over takes her to the doctor and stays by her side while she is resting. When Akane wakes-up and her and Yamada are talking about what happens they come to talk about love. Yamada has never fell in-love with anyone and instead has turned-down many girls pretty-coldly during his life and as he does finally fall in-love with Akane—he feels intense guilt for the people whose feelings he has hurt. Akane, whose ex left her for somebody else he met while online gaming, surprisingly has compassion for Yamada and Yamada questions why given her experience with her boyfriend. She states that she was glad that her ex was up-front to her about the fact that he loved someone else and didn't try to just two-time her (most of what she says here we see in happen in volume 1/episode 1 where she accepts the breakup stoicly and with a pained-smile despite being hurt by it as we would see later, but now we learn what she was thinking as this awkward/painful episode transpired). What she says next is the moment I knew this was one of the best shoujo series I have ever encountered:

"No matter what I said, I knew it wouldn't change anything, so when he broke up with me, I accepted it right away.

If he ever thinks about me or feels nostalgic, I want him to remember me smiling not bawling.

I want him to think that he had a great woman, and that he regrets leaving me. Don't you think it's better that way?"

Yamada thinks over his past, and easily agrees. While Akane is not a perfect protagonist, she is the heroine required for this story. Despite this obviously being a story of the soujo demographic-category, our lead has a lot of shounen hero personality traits. I tell you I was knocked out of my seat when I first heard those lines from above, and I still get chills reading them now. A lot of "serious" novels can't give you insight on how to deal with the end of a relationship that is equal to this. I have much that I can say about this series in its totality, but I just wanted to highlight this pivotal scene which would be a foreshadowing to another scene that would occur later on in the story (view spoiler)[when the two finally consummate their relationship (hide spoiler)]. It was nice looking back on this early part of the story again.

Al Green - For The Good Times
The irony of posting a breakup song on a review of a book that is leading to the main couple actually getting together is unusual, but I feel it works on what I was talking about.

In the Afterword, the author says that this was the volume where it started being a true romance manga. Amen

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2024 on Goodreads for Me

 Happy New Years🎊

A lookback at what I was and was not reading in 2024:

2024 on Goodreads by Various


My 2024 Year in Books

Been wanting to do one of these again for awhile. Nothing fancy here, just going to do a staight report.

I read 13 "books" this year on Goodreads. After barely reading anything in 2023 and 2022, I wanted to get back into reading-shape. I started the year out strong by reading The Origin of Others by Toni Morrison. This book was penultimate book published during her lifetime based on a series of lectures and serves as a meta-bookend to Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination. I had been wanting to read it for awhile and decided to do so in January.

I followed that major read with some lighter fair: Diana's Tree by Alejandra Pizarnik, Chihayafuru, Vol. 3 by Yuki Suetsugu, and The Malefector by Anton Chekhov. A volume of poetry, a volume of manga, and a short story, respectively. The poetry here and later in the year were to-do items that I got to cross off my list after a few years of wanting to get to them. I liked Diana's Tree, but it did not hit me with the same intensity that I got from reading here for the first time in The FSG Book of Twentieth-Century Latin American Poetry: An Anthology. Chihayafaru, volume 3 was the last book from the series that I decided to read befor watching the series' anime adaptation (I have watched season one, so far, and plan to hopefully watch season 2 this year) when I have finished the anime adaptations I will pick-up the manga from where the anime stops. Every year I read at least on Chekhov sort story on his birthday and this year I decided to read The Malefector. I can't say I really remember what it was about besides something to do with how the Russian Imperial judiciary treated Russian peasants.

The second major read that I completed this year was Black Skin, White Masks by Franz Fanon. Though I always think myself too seasoned a bibliophile veteran to get caught in the expectations-trap, it still happens. I feel various intellectual-types and hoteps have sold this book as one thing, and it read to me as a very different thing and I was slightly disappointed, but I think I understood what Fanon was saying...I just didn't fully agree with it. One interesting thing about that review is that it got attention from some interesting places.

After that I took a break from Goodreads (and reading anything not manga-related) for about 10 months. I was persuaded to come back on here after the hype and controversy over what would become my favorite read of the year: The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates. The outrage over this book is legendary at this point, but it convinced me to start reading again. Though I knew and agreed with much of what Coates talked about in the book already, reading it in journalistic detail on the page made me angry and as outraged as he was. It had been awhile since I read a book that struck me to care in such a way. I have to say that while I was keeping up at the controversies on this site over fake reviews, review-bombing, and sock-puppet accounts with the different YA books—seeing all three methods being utilized by right-wing trolls for this one book was startling and something I had never seen happen in real time since I first joined this site in December 2010. That's how you know this book was the read deal!

Since then I have been back on my reading grind. Not a lot of big literature was read by me, but more of the lighter-stuff as I gradually get back to using Goodreads again. I read Copacetic by Yusef Komunyakaa, the other volume of poetry for this year and it was decent. I had been curious to read Komunyakaa for awhile, and after reading his selections in Angles of Ascent: A Norton Anthology of Contemporary African American Poetry, I decided to read a short volume of poetry by him and came upon this book.

Al the other books I closed the year on where comic books that I had in my backlog to read. I tend to mostly read manga that I like and find as they are translated. And I mostly read them digitally unless it is a volume I really like in which case I will buy a physical copy like I did with American comic books. I have a physical manga volume that I bought over the holiday and plan to re-read and review this year (a little preview for y'all). I don't keep-up with superhero comics anymore, but I have enough of a backlog in my Comixology Kindle archives that I will continue reading and putting out reviews when I get to them.

Of the comics I read to close-out the year, I will spotlight two here:

Marvel Masterworks: The Uncanny X-Men, Volume 2 by Chris Claremount, Dave Cockrum, and John Byrne. This is the second volume of Marvel Comics' special trade paperback collection of Chris Claremont's 15 year tenure on the Uncanny X-Men comics with illustrators/co-writers John Byrne & Dave Cockrum (among others). This was a good look at the stories that are now part of contemporary American mythology at this point (and bein saturized to death by Hollywood). It was good to read these stories myself as they were originally meant to be read and I look forward to reading more.

The Promised Neverland, Volume 20. This is the last volume of one of the best-selling manga of the century, so-far. Despite the catastrophe of the second season anime adaptation, the manga itself remained just good-enough to keep me coming back for more and ended on a bittersweet, but hopeful note. This manga, along with One-Punch Man and Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, got me to start reading manga seriously in the first place so finishing this was a special milestone for me. I do hope they include the actual epilogue chapter in an official English volume one day.

Well, besides a very cynical Christmas short story by Langston Hughes, that was my year in books according to Goodreads. I was glad to keep doing this and not totally give-up on reading. I am currently reading Black Theology and Black Power by James H. Cone and hope to have it finished by the end of January. Happy New Year.

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