DON’T CALL ME SON ★★

Might be that I’m hitting a wall but I walked out. The story is about a boy who discovers his mother actually stole him as a baby and what happens as he gets to know his biological family. At a point around halfway through seeing daylight felt like a better option than remaining in the theatre.

ZERO DAYS ★★

Oh, Alex Gibney, I think I’m ready to give up on you and your ‘documentaries’. This two hour film talks about the Stuxnet virus and its history, as well as looking to the future. Alex has done a film about Julian Assange which was more editorial than fact. He did one about Steve Jobs which was more imagination/outright incorrect factually, and for this one, he introduces someone from the NSA whose identity had been protected at the beginning as his sole source of fact (since no one else would talk about it, other than the antivirus vendors who stand to benefit by scaring people into buying their product). Then at the end, reveals that this person doesn’t actually exist but is representative of an amalgamation of statements he got from people. I’m disappointed. He does documentaries about topics that are interesting to me (and which I often have knowledge of), but they just seem to be twisted, biased, and sometimes outright incorrect. 

THE HANDMAIDEN ★★★☆

This is the first film I’ve seen by South Korean director Park Chan-wook, and it was great! The story was interesting enough to let the over two hour film go by without concern, and nicely made. There was some pretty strong erotic scenes if that floats your boat, and a bit of gruesome moments too. Very well executed telling of a story about two con artists trying to take advantage of a rich recluse woman. There are twists, some which I guessed and others that I was pleasantly surprised by.