Miss Hokusai review

MISS HOKUSAI:

A TRIPPY BUT THOUGHTFUL TRIBUTE TO ART, AND AN EFFECTIVE AND EMOTIONAL ANIME FILM!

By Nico Beland

Movie Review: **** out of 4

GKIDS

O-Ei and O-Nao in Miss Hokusai

            Talk about a movie that I knew practically nothing about but completely blew me away, really all I knew about the movie, Miss Hokusai, based on a manga written by the late, Hinako Sugiura, was that it was a Japanese anime movie and it was made by the creators of Ghost in the Shell. I didn’t know what the movie was about, who the characters were, or what the film was based on.

            So I came into this movie with a very fresh mind, and why did I see it to begin with? Plain and simple, I love Japanese anime in cinema and the Ghost in the Shell movies were confusing but awesome. The same can be said about this movie, to put it simple the film is pretty much about an artist’s life, but add in a bunch of weird imagery and odd symbolism, and you got a very unusual product, in the best way possible.

            The film is beautifully animated, the characters are very interesting and engaging, and the story has plenty of odd narratives and heart to impact your feels. When I think of a great anime (or even animated movies in general) those are the elements I find the most important, I prefer impressive animation and good characters and story over what’s going to sell merchandise.

            The movie follows a young woman named O-Ei (voiced by Erica Lindbeck-Sword Art Online, The Seven Deadly Sins, Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans) who is the daughter of one of history’s greatest artists, Katsushika Hokusai (voiced by Richard Epcar-Ghost in the Shell, Digimon, Rurouni Kenshin). All the citizens of the then-named, Edo (Known today as Tokyo) flock to see Hokusai’s work, meanwhile O-Ei works diligently inside his studio on her own artwork.

            Her masterful portraits, dragons, and erotic sketches, sold under her father’s name, are coveted by upper crust Lords and print makers alike. O-Ei is shy and reserved in public but in the studio she is as brash and uninhibited as Hokusai.

            She smokes a pipe while sketching her drawings, but despite her fiercely independent spirit and attitude, O-Ei is struggling under the domineering influence of her father, and ridiculed for lacking the life experiences she is trying to portray in her work. Meanwhile Edo is filled with yokai spirits, dragons, and conniving tradesmen as she’s trying to prove what she is capable of with her father and take care of her blind younger sister named O-Nao.

            Overall, Miss Hokusai is a very inspirational film, whether you’re a fan of anime or not even if your dream is to become a famous artist in the future, this is pretty much your version of Tim Burton’s Ed Wood. Despite being animated, the characters feel real, especially when you watch the original Japanese dub, it feels authentic and natural when you watch the characters with Japanese audio, and thanks to is thoughtful storytelling and writing, these are some of the most realistic movie characters I’ve seen in a while.

            The animation is gorgeous, like most anime movies and shows, but as I mentioned before, it does get chaotic at times. Spirits, dragons, dreams, and visions that come out of nowhere that are surreal but symbolic to those who understand art.

            I saw two movies about art symbolism over the weekend and a Japanese anime movie about a young woman’s life as an artist was a lot more interesting than a Ron Howard thriller about Dante’s Inferno. I’m actually shocked Hayao Miyazaki didn’t have anything to do with this movie, the animation, story, and characters feel like something out of one of his movies, but it does show you don’t always need to be Studio Ghibli to make a great anime film.

            It’s a win-win, if you love anime, biographical movies, or have a passion for drawing and making art, this is a priority movie. Miss Hokusai is a uniquely beautiful and completely inspirational coming-of-age tale.

Inferno review

INFERNO:

TOM HANKS GIVES IT HIS ALL, BUT THE FILM IS TOO HEAVY ON EXPOSITION AND SHORT ON ANY REAL THRILLS!

By Nico Beland

Movie Review: ** out of 4

COLUMBIA PICTURES

Tom Hanks and Felicity Jones in the third installment in the Robert Langdon franchise, Inferno

            You know what’s really sad? When a lot of talented actors and writers, as well as a talented director end up making a lousy movie. Director, Ron Howard (Apollo 13, A Beautiful Mind, In the Heart of the Sea) and Tom Hanks (Apollo 13, Forrest Gump, Sully), two of cinema’s most beloved darlings have had their shares of wins and duds throughout their careers.

            Tom Hanks, an actor loved by many for films such as Forrest Gump, Big, and of course the Toy Story movies, and director, Ron Howard for Apollo 13, A Beautiful Mind, and Rush (and even some average movies like Willow and How the Grinch Stole Christmas). But then we get movies like The Ladykillers starring Tom Hanks and the dreaded Ron Howard directed Kevin James movie, The Dilemma.

            Tom Hanks and Ron Howard are capable of making a great movie together, they succeeded with the 1995 Academy Award winning space drama, Apollo 13. However, that’s not the case with the Robert Langdon series of movies.

            Yeah, you know what I’m talking about, the 2006 thriller, The Da Vinci Code and its 2009 follow-up, Angels & Demons, based on the novels by Dan Brown. While not the worst Tom Hanks or Ron Howard projects and they did bring in money, the films were criticized for being overlong, dull, and inaccurate to the original books, but with that said, you can tell Hanks is trying to work with the script and Angels & Demons is debatably an improvement over The Da Vinci Code.

            Well, seven years have passed since the release of Angels & Demons, and Ron Howard gained more success with the 2013 drama, Rush and most recently the documentary, The Beatles: Eight Days a Week, not to mention Tom Hanks’ most recent successes like Toy Story 3, Captain Phillips, and Sully. So, they collaborate once again for the third installment in the Robert Langdon franchise, Inferno, as well as the first Tom Hanks live-action film trilogy.

            And guess what, it’s four years too late and it’s much of the same, add in recycled plot elements from better thrillers, and you get another Tom Hanks/Ron Howard dud, which is very unfortunate. It’s not horrible, but the film comes off as unoriginal, heavy on exposition over decent thrills (it’s ironic that a thriller doesn’t have that many thrills), and a classic thriller movie cliché, amnesia (Yes, amnesia, what is this, a Da Vinci Code movie or The Bourne Identity?).

            The film follows Harvard professor, Robert Langdon (Hanks) suffering from amnesia after a fatal gunshot wound and wakes up in Florence, Italy. When he learns about a plan to unleash a virus called Inferno onto the world and create Hell on Earth, Robert must stop it by using Dante’s The Divine Comedy, with the help of a doctor who gets roped into helping him named Dr. Sienna Brooks (Felicity Jones-Doctor Who, The Theory of Everything, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story) as he slowly regains his memories in the race to prevent a “Satanic” global catastrophe.

            The film also stars Omar Sy (The Intouchables, X-Men: Days of Future Past, Jurassic World) as head of the SRS team, Christoph Bouchard, Ben Foster (Get Over It, X-Men 3: The Last Stand, 3:10 to Yuma) as scientist, Bertrand Zobrist, Sidse Babett Knudsen (A Hologram for the King, Westworld) as the head of the World Health Organization, Elizabeth Sinskey, Irrfan Khan (The Amazing Spider-Man, Life of Pi, Jurassic World) as Harry Sims, and Ana Ularu (Anacondas: Trail of Blood) as Vayentha.

            Overall, Inferno is simply another lousy installment to a disappointing film franchise, and it kills me to say it because a lot of good people are behind it. I respect Tom Hanks, Ron Howard, writer, David Koepp of Jurassic Park fame, and producer, Brian Grazer, co-founder of Imagine Entertainment and their work, and most of their movies are well received, sadly this isn’t one of them.

            It’s a generic thriller with a bigger focus on exposition and historical talk and a lack of engaging characters and interesting narratives. Basically this is probably what you’d get if a filmmaker like Christopher Nolan only had like 10 seconds to come up with a movie plot, minus the interesting material.

            Usually I save these complaints for M. Night Shyamalan productions, but the middle act of the movie is way too heavy on twists. Literally we get about three plot twists one after another with little development, if they were spread out more throughout the story, it probably would have been stronger, but it was a lot to stomach.

            When a character reveals to be an antagonist, a bunch of backstory clips are shown completely out of nowhere, if these were shown maybe as the character is explaining the origin, it could have worked better, but as is, it’s just awkward and distracting. For a filmmaker who is usually known for character driven and emotional film experiences, I really didn’t feel a connection with any of these characters, nobody talks much about how they feel, what their motivations are, not much aside from a few lines.

            I really can’t recommend this to the average movie-goer, it’s a confusing mess and a disappointing project from the usually talented, Tom Hanks and Ron Howard. If you’re a fan of the books or movies, you might speak differently about it, but if you want to see Tom Hanks and Ron Howard at their best, skip this, and watch Sully and The Beatles: Eight Days a Week.

Ouija: Origin of Evil review

OUIJA: ORIGIN OF EVIL:

THE HORROR FOLLOW-UP THAT NOBODY ASKED FOR IS THE GO-TO SCARY MOVIE FOR HALLOWEEN!

By Nico Beland

Movie Review: *** out of 4

UNIVERSAL PICTURES AND ALLSPARK PICTURES

Something is wrong with Doris in Ouija: Origin of Evil

            Wow, talk about a movie that completely surpassed everyone’s expectations, the 2014 horror movie, Ouija, produced by Michael Bay (Transformers franchise, I Am Number Four, The Purge trilogy) and Jason Blum (Paranormal Activity franchise, Oculus, The Gift), and based on the Hasbro board game was notorious for its critic reviews at the time of its release. They as well as audiences flat-out despised the movie, earned a 7% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but brought in the box-office receipts during its theatrical run.

            Seeing how Michael Bay, Hasbro, and Universal Studios are complete money whores, it makes perfect sense to do a follow-up to the movie, financially. In comes, Ouija: Origin of Evil, a prequel to the first film with Bay and Blum returning as producers, but with Mike Flanagan (Absentia, Oculus, Hush) replacing Stiles White as the director.

            I appreciate Mike Flanagan’s work with Oculus, but I was ready to hate this movie when I saw the trailer, I’ve never seen the first movie due to the reviews literally “Scaring” me away from it. But really, what could you do with this movie? A prequel to Ouija, a movie produced by Michael Bay that nobody liked.

            Well, I assume Bay, Blum, and the rest of the producers and writers must have listened to the complaints people gave regarding the first movie, and decided to put two things into the production that Michael Bay normally doesn’t think about “THOUGHT AND EFFORT!”. The result, a legitimately chilling and entertaining scary movie, and it helps that you don’t even have to watch the dreaded predecessor to appreciate this one.

            The film works as a prequel to the first movie, if you’ve seen it, and as a standalone horror movie. Since I haven’t seen Ouija prior to this, I was able to come in with a fresh mind and let the movie surprise me.

            The movie follows a single mother named Alice Zander (Elizabeth Reaser-The Twilight Saga, Young Adult, Hello, My Name is Doris) who works as a fortune teller in her suburban home. She hosts séances that, unknown to her customers are staged by Alice and her two daughters, Lina (Annalise Basso-The Red Road, Constantine, Captain Fantastic) and Doris (Lulu Wilson).

            When Alice decides to purchase an Ouija board for her job, Doris starts to play with it, thus causing a lot of supernatural activity to go amuck. Doris begins communicating with spirits, one of which is supposedly her dead father and Alice’s husband, Roger, when suddenly she gets possessed by a spirit one night and Alice and Lina realize that something is wrong with her.

            It’s up to Alice and Lina to extract the spirit from Doris’ body and get their little girl back before it becomes a family haunting.

            Overall, Ouija: Origin of Evil is a solid horror movie, it delivers supernatural scares, atmosphere, and pacing. The movie doesn’t jump straight to its scares, but rather takes its time to develop the characters and make you grow attached to them, and for a horror movie to do that that’s an accomplishment.

            Most horror movie characters are usually stock characters and stereotypes who are there just to die, instead you feel for the mother and older daughter and you want them to succeed in lifting the spirit from the little girl. I cared for these characters a lot more than any of the characters from Platinum Dunes horror projects before.

I thought the characters were more effective in the movie than the actual scares in the film, which, while they’re not bad by any means, the scares are pretty generic, it doesn’t do much new with supernatural terror. But it kind of feels like an homage to classic horror and ghost movies like The Exorcist, Carrie, Poltergeist, and The Haunting, there’s even a little bit of Nightmare on Elm Street in there, and that’s always welcome.

            Ouija: Origin of Evil doesn’t stand as one of the greatest horror movies of all time, but it shows that even when a movie is bad, the follow-up can be a huge improvement. The film alone allowed me to be more open-minded towards follow-ups to movies I didn’t like, especially Michael Bay productions, I hope he takes notes from what worked in this movie when Transformers: The Last Knight comes out.

            Not to say all of Bay’s movies are bad, despite people giving him a lot of crap in his career, but it seems like whenever his name is slapped onto something, even when he’s producing, there always seems to be a lot of backlash towards it. He is known for directing and producing critically panned movies, but he is capable of pulling off a miracle once in a while, and 2016 is without a doubt a strong year for Michael Bay productions.

            This is the go-to scary flick for Halloween, if you haven’t seen the first movie, skip it, and just watch Origin of Evil, you won’t be disappointed.