Movie Review: Ostinato 

November 18, 2019 By Leave a Comment

Movie Review: Ostinato 

Director: Luke Luoh

Writer: Paul Deichmann and Luke Loh

Stars: Barret Coates, Alina Levyz, Kyle Line, Paul Deichmann, and Daniel Wang. 

Rated: 5 Stars

Review by: Astilbe
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The first step is admitting you need help—but getting it kills. In this psychological horror short, John Fields dies by the hands of his “friends”, over and over… or does he?

There’s more than one side to every story. 

John’s character development was handled amazingly well. He had very little dialogue to work with, and yet he managed to show the audience dozens of hints about who he might be. No, I can’t go into any detail about what sort of person he was. This is something best discovered by each new viewer on their own. The clues are there for anyone who pays attention to subtle things like how he speaks to the audience or what facial expressions he makes. 

I’ll admit to being confused by what was going on in this film for the first half of it, but that turned out to be the best possible thing I could be feeling at that moment. This is the sort of storytelling that requires a puzzled audience in order to get its point across because we don’t know anything about who John is when we begin watching and the things he shares about his life don’t quite seem to fit into a coherent picture of who this guy was before violent things began happening to him. 

Speaking of the violence, this was definitely a horror flick from beginning to end. There was a psychological element to what John was going through, but the story had its fair share of gory elements as well. As with the other questions about who John was and why anyone would want to hurt him,  the film left a lot up to the viewer’s active participation and imagination. My interpretation of what was really going on could be wildly different from how someone else pieced together the same snapshots of this characters life. This was a good thing! 

Anyone who loves horror or tales that can be interpreted multiple ways as much as I do should definitely give Ostinato a try. 

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TV Movie Review: A Silent Voice (Koe no Katachi)

September 23, 2019 By Leave a Comment

imageA review of the movie “A Silent Voice (Koe no Katachi)”.

A young man is ostracized by his classmates after he bullies a deaf girl to the point where she moves away. Years later, he sets off on a path for redemption.

I’ve been a fan of animation all my life.  It was only natural to move from after school cartoons to more sophisticated anime as I got older.  Although, to be honest, not all anime is sophisticated.  A lot of it – and a lot of the stuff I choose to watch – is flat out silly.  This, however, is not the case for A Silent Voice. 

To the contrary, A Silent Voice is a much different, more serious sort of anime.  Which brings me to some content warning: this movie deals with bullying as well as suicidal ideation.   Although it is handled well, it can still be upsetting at times.

Shoko Nishimiya is the new girl in school and while she looks as normal as everyone else, she has one major difference – she’s deaf.  Unfortunately, this sets her up for bullying by her classmates, leaving her feeling ostracized and alone.  Despite this, Shoko never stops trying to make friends and to be a part of the group.  Things escalate and Shoko is eventually transferred to another school in hopes of giving her a better experience.  Sadly, this is all too common in our schools these days.  Kids can be the cruelest of people at times.  Brutal honesty at its harshest.
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tumblr_adc5b77edfeece1f62f24f54eae05045_ef4852d1_400Fast forward to high school.  Shoya Ishida, formerly one of Shoko’s biggest tormentors, finds himself on the other side of the fence.  After helping another loner being harassed by a bully, Shoya decides to search out Shoko in an attempt to redeem his past self.

He has a long road ahead of him because he was quite awful to Shoko in elementary school.  However, years of being a social outcast have changed him.  Shoya’s no longer able to look others in the eye and has no one he can call a friend.  Reuniting with Shoko changes everything for both himself and for Shoko and her family.  Slowly, they begin to build a lasting friendship that they never had the chance to start in elementary school.

ASF_01Beautifully animated, A Silent Voice is mesmerizing both visually and emotionally.  I often found myself laughing one moment at one of Tomohiro Nagatsuka’s antics and sobbing the next.  Every time a red x fell from someone’s face, I felt my heart skip with joy for Shoya.  Dark, and yet full of hope, this is a movie for families to watch together, or for friends to share with one another.  It’s all too true to reality which only makes it more of a must-see movie.  I saw so much of my own high school days in these characters, making me connect even more to them all in one way or another.  Parent or not, teen or not, I think most of us will be able to relate to the story of A Silent Voice.

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Movie Review: The Tattooist

July 8, 2019 By Leave a Comment

The Tattooist
Director: Michael Wong
Writer: Michael Wong
Stars: Yanhu Wang, Li Lu, Myra Mala

Rated: 3.5 stars
Review by Astilbe

Behind the acclaimed work of a renowned tattoo studio lurks an unimaginable evil.

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To be honest with you, at first I thought this was a trailer for a full-length movie. Just like in “The Story of 90 Coins,” the pacing of this tale was incredibly quick. The audience was given the exact amount of information we needed to know what was going on and nothing more.

Mr. Wong is a director I’ve discovered pretty recently, and I’ve become a big fan of the way he weaves scenes together. He expects his audience to pay attention and do a little bit of work putting the pieces of the plot together. Those are both good things in my opinion, and I’m looking forward to seeing what he might come up with next.

The background music was surprisingly cheerful and the exact opposite of what I would generally expect to hear while watching this genre. It provided a nice contrast to the truly frightening things happening to the characters, especially since the audience was given so much leeway in coming up with our own theories about why such happy music was chosen for this tale.

I should warn you that this is a dark and gory story. Don’t be fooled by the short run time. Every single second is important, and many of those moments contain images of people being seriously harmed. This is only something I’d recommend for mature viewers, but it is definitely something worth checking out if you’re an adult who loves horror.

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Movie Review: The Story of 90 Coins

May 20, 2019 By Leave a Comment

The Story of 90 Coins
Director: Michael Wong
Writer: Bai Xuedan
Stars: Dongjun Han, Zhuang Zhiqi, Jose Acosta

Rated: 4 stars
Review by Astilbe

How much is a promise worth these days? An aspiring fashion designer finds out when she has to choose between fulfilling her promise and realizing her dream.

Young love is beautiful, but it can also be unstable.

The Story of 90 Coins explored the lives of Chen Wen and Wang Yu Yang, the man who wanted to marry her. At the beginning of this short film, Wang convinced Chen to continue dating him for ninety more days after hearing how hesitant she was to get engaged to him. He agreed to give her one coin every day. At the end of the trial period, they’d either use those coins to pay for a marriage license or buy drinks together and then part ways forever.
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Their relationship was trimmed down to the bare essentials of what we needed to know which was a great choice for this film. It was interesting to see these highlights and fill in the gaps with my own theories about what might have happened between scenes.

The audience did see these characters going on creative dates, cuddling, and doing other ordinary but quite sweet things together. I loved seeing them interact. Even though we knew almost nothing about their backstories, they both seemed to be gentle, wholesome people who were well-suited for each other.

There wasn’t a lot of time to go into why Chen was unsure about his proposal because the run time for everything was less than ten minutes. This was one of the few things I would have changed about it. Wang was handsome, kind, and empathetic. Honestly, he seemed like the perfect boyfriend to me, so I struggled to come up with any rational reasons why she’d turn him down other than the fact that they both seemed to be pretty young.

With that being said, I loved the romance. These characters really sold me on the idea that they were a good match for each other, and I couldn’t help but to root for them even when life circumstances seemed to be tearing them apart.

Do be sure to pay close attention to the English subtitles for this film if you don’t speak Chinese. There were a couple of important plot points that happened so quickly I would have missed them if I’d glanced away from the screen.

I’m glad I watched The Story of 90 Coins, and I’d recommend it to anyone who enjoys the romance genre.

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TV Review: Dumplin’ – a Netflix original movie

January 12, 2019 By 5 Comments

Review of Dumplin’ – a Netflix original movie

The plus-size, teenage daughter of a former beauty queen signs up for her mum’s pageant as a protest that escalates when other contestants follow in her footsteps, revolutionizing the pageant and their small Texas town.

Review by Poppy

Willowdean Dickson is a larger sized Texas teen who has a girl crush on all things Dolly Partin and who lives in the shadow of her pageant winning mother, Rosie, former Miss Bluebonnet. She’s been pretty much raised by her Aunt Lucy, a fun-loving but obese woman who teaches Will how to love, laugh and fangirl over Dolly Partin. Sadly, as the movie begins, her Aunt Lucy has passed away, leaving Willowdean one more thing to weigh her down.

On the outside, Willowdean (aka Will or, aka the unfortunate nickname her mama gave her, Dumplin’) seems confident and well adjusted, but things happen which make it clear that’s not true. When the “hot boy” at work shows interest in her, she doesn’t believe he’s genuine. When her mama calls her Dumplin’ in front of the entire school, unsurprisingly it leads to bullying from kids at school. The final straw is listening to her mom getting ready to co-host the upcoming pageant and all but ignoring Will. As a protest, and because she stumbles across some items from Aunt Lucy’s things that inspire her, she signs up for the pageant. So does her best friend, Ellen, as well as another large and insanely upbeat girl from school, Millie (who is my favorite character in this movie) and an emo/goth feminist named Hannah.


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With a little help from from drag queen friends of her late aunt, these unlikely candidates prepare for the pageant.


I won’t give any more of the story away, but while it might be a bit predictable and clichéd and occasionally cheesy, it’s fun and it’s sweet and it makes a heart happy. It’s not something I’d watch over and over again, but it was so touching and adorable. I loved the character development in Will and Hannah in particular, but also Rosie. Rosie never meant to make her Dumplin’ feel poorly, she just got wrapped up in other things.

I admit, I cried a tear or two… yes, I’m a crier at movies, it’s true. But it genuinely touched me. This movie is worth a watch. Here’s the trailer, if you’re interested in a peek:


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