Right Now, Wrong Then (지금은맞고그때는틀리다) (2015)

This is a story told twice, with small differences that butterfly into vastly different endings. The key difference is honesty. The lesson is to be honest with yourself and to be honest with each other. The structure is interesting and engaging. It takes two excellent performances for a movie like this to work. The acting differences are so subtle but have profound implications. It's kind of slow at times but in retrospect it was quite beautiful. Perhaps made even more so by the fact that they never consummate their brief affair in either version.

I admit it is a little awkward watching this story unfold knowing about the affair between married director Hong Sang-soo and lead actress Kim Min-hee that began in the production of this movie. The premise of the movie is there is a married movie director who falls in love with a beautiful woman he encounters while in town for a local film festival. There's something Woody Allen-esque about it, in that life imitates art imitates life (imitates art?).

Ready Player One (2018)

Ready Player One is a very entertaining ball of fun, abound with clever references (in homage?) to pop culture high and low. I can only imagine the legal nightmare it was to acquire rights to use all of these references. I think there is perhaps a little disconnect with the audience. No one is going to understand all of the references, it simply runs too wide from Citizen Kane to Minecraft.  The book was originally written by a man of a certain time for whom these references were very relevant to his life. A lot of these references were dropped or changed or made anew and now even a man of his age would not understand all of the references. The target audience of children and teens will not understand many of the references that predate their births. And it's a real shame because a lot of the fun is spotting the Easter eggs. I'm almost certain Samantha's birthmark is a reference to something, but I've yet to figure it out (it is otherwise an oddly specific character trait that doesn't really matter to the plot).

The plot is a quest, to acquire the three keys and win the game (quite similar to Spy Kids 3 plus a dystopian future with debtors prison and trailer park cities). From what I understand, the plot was condensed and simplified from the book. And for the most part, it was pretty cohesive. There was not much lag time between discoveries--it's constantly moving forward, but the consequence of that is they figure out the clues too quickly to be believable. Something I really appreciated was the emphasis on research. There is no brute forcing through this game. You have to hunker down at the library and do some good old fashioned research.

The best part of the movie is the middle. The quest for the second key in a recreation of The Shining. I've read a lot of criticism about character development and plot. The most fully developed character is the dead one, Halliday, the tragic Wozniak. The plot of the movie interestingly builds his character as we discover more about him by advancing in the quest, and in that sense the plot is actually quite clever. Though I can understand that we don't know too much about the rest of the characters, including the protagonist. We don't fully understand what drives him other than the purity and sanctity of nerd culture. Oh, and the immersive CGI is pretty cool.

The Room (2003)

Notorious for being the worst movie of all time, that's really not an exaggeration. Highly quotable because it is utterly ridiculous. The acting is just awful, maybe with the exception of Chris-R, a very minor character with just one scene. It is so terrible it's hilarious. The plot makes no sense...until you watch The Disaster Artist. Having now actually watched The Room through, I can really appreciate The Disaster Artist so much more. It's downright brilliant, the scene-for-scene recreations, and the clear analysis of the film's plot.  "I made this for you, Greg!" There are 3 versions of Greg in The Room; the obvious one is Mark, the ideal Greg is Denny and traitorous Greg is Lisa. This might just be the worst movie that I'd watch again. What can I say, it's fun.

The Wiz (Ford's Theater) (2018)

I wasn't really expecting much from the regional theater best known for a production of Our American Cousin 150 years ago. But Ford's Theater put on a spectacular production of The Wiz. The black re-imagining of The Wizard of Oz is actually quite funny. There were a few tweaks to the script to incorporate the times, references to Wakanda required. The all-black cast is full of excellent performances, particularly from the expressive Ines Nassara (Dorothy) and the phenomenal Hasani Allen (Scarecrow) in his Ford's debut doing his best Michael Jackson. The Wiz is full of catchy music in different traditionally black styles, some gospel, funk, soul, and R&B. The small 8-piece band nails them all.

The design of the show is lots of fun. The costumes are way over the top, which is really kind of perfect for Oz. The Wiz dressed as and acted as Prince was an interesting choice. The theater makes extensive use of projections on the walls and on a circular screen at the back of the stage (that later brilliantly converts into the balloon). The projections work particularly well for the Wiz, whose uncanny Prince-face in multitude is quite intimidating.

Mimosas (2016)

Suffice it to say I didn't get it. It's very pretty to look at the expansive landscape shots. I often lost the tiny characters on the backdrop of sand and rock. The film is divided in 3 acts, the first sets the scene and is coherent. We are dropped in two different Moroccan scenes: a city and the mountains, and we are unsure how the two will come together. But there is enough there to piece it together. But once the second act begins, it loses all coherence. It was unclear to me what drives these characters? Without fully understanding their motivations, it was hard to decipher what they were even doing. Not to mention the very slow pace. And why is it called Mimosas?

Mozart in the Jungle (2014-18)

Amazon took a chance on a niche show, a romantic comedy centered around the dynamic world of classical music. It is admittedly a pretty terrible show but it has its moments. I think the biggest problem was that it focused on the romance between Hailey and Rodrigo, which was decidedly less interesting than the relationship between the orchestra members. The show shone best just watching the inner workings of an orchestra, including the quirky musicians, the union issues, the funding issues, and their day-to-day struggles. Gael Garcia Bernal deserved all the praise he got, playing the Gustavo Dudamel-like conductor, a hard-to-handle musical genius. However, the protagonist was arguably Hailey, played by Lola Kirke. I found that I didn't really care about her story, which sort of revolved around the orchestra but was never within the orchestra. She eventually ditched the oboe for conducting and her conducting acting was entirely unconvincing. I understand it's hard, but she looked kind of spastic.

I binged the first three seasons within a couple days. Despite it not being great TV, it's very watchable, it goes by very quickly. It has its moments. There were some excellent episodes: Ichi Go Ichi E, The Rehearsal, You Have Insulted Tchaikovsky, and the Pilot. And there's some fun traveling episodes, in Mexico, Venice and Japan. It is a fun show, even if not a great one.