JANUARY WATCH PARTY - Shutter Island (2010), The Farewell (2019), Citizen Kane (1941)
"Two US marshals are sent to a mental institution on an inhospitable island in order to investigate the disappearance of a patient."
- IMDB
This was a Leonardo DiCaprio classic that I've been very excited to experience given it's reputation. Now, the film is quite famous for its major plot twist.... But in Yoda's voice - there is another, and it's not so obvious as it took another person's review for me see it. Scorsese & DiCaprio go well together and this surely applies to this psychological thriller drama. I'd love to talk more, but I really don't want to spoil it if you haven't seen it. Please give it a shot!
My Rating: ★★★★★★★★☆☆
"A Chinese family discovers their grandmother has only a short while left to live and decide to keep her in the dark, scheduling a wedding to gather before she dies."
- IMDB
Is this actually a thing in Chinese culture? Trying NOT to tell someone they have cancer while they are dying is just a crazy concept to me so I very much aligned with Billi's conflicts on this situation. The Farewell is also another great film for Chinese American representation. Joy Luck is still my #1, but we have to appreciate films like these because there aren't as many as you'd think and they're all pretty good. I still managed to resonate with the film as someone who is very close to my own grandmother, so this made it easy to connect with the main character despite background differences. Awkwafina earned a Golden Globe for her role and I'm very proud of her for this. There was a lot of meaning in this movie, specifically from writer & director, Lulu Wang, and I think Awkwafina did a great job leading the ensemble cast in telling this heartfelt story.
My Rating: ★★★★★★★★☆☆
"Following the death of publishing tycoon Charles Foster Kane, reporters scramble to uncover the meaning of his final utterance: 'Rosebud.'"
- IMDB
During my time in college taking different film related classes, Citizen Kane seemed to come up often, even being cited as a favorite film from one of my teachers. I think it will take a couple watch throughs to really delve deep into the different aspects of the film, but I’ll just go through my first impressions here.
The beginning of the film is a quick biography of Charles Kane, who I couldn’t help compare to Logan Roy, who himself, was a news tycoon of sorts amongst other things. So I was like, okay, here’s the analysis of the monopoly man of this chapter in America or whatever.
After speeding through the synopsis of his life, we start the rest of the film as we go through a series of flashbacks as modern day conspirators try to understand who the hell is Rosebud and why was this Kane's final word before he died.
Kane’s story is a solid retrospective of the powerful influence of media and news and its deep ties into the realm of politics. This is still such a relevant topic to modern media - another comparable topic explored with Succession’s Logan Roy.
Now reading about the film further, it seems that it was the technical aspects of the film that made it so prevalent in film history over the years, more so than the actual story itself. So if that’s an area you’re interested in, definitely take time to research the film to learn exactly what made this film so revolutionary for its time.
The story itself is also seen as extremely well written, I believe it’s only Oscar win was for best original screenplay. There’s definitely a lot of character analysis to deep dive into, knowing that the mysterious Rosebud was just the name of his childhood sled. The fact that such a worthless piece of wood was so significant to this ridiculously wealthy man can inspire quite the essay about the real worth of wealth, what money can and cannot buy. For me, Citizen Kane isn’t exactly unique with this concept, but is still good example of such a concept if you’re looking for a film to include in your thesis for such a topic. Leonardo Dicaprio’s characters in Wolf of Wallstreet and Great Gatsby are also solid examples as well as literally every character in the Succession. So if you’re ever in need of a starting point for your rich a-hole character analysis thesis, there you go, I’m happy to provide.
My Rating: ★★★★★★★☆☆☆