The Guardian: Zhigang Yang

To read this review, go to: https://www.theyoungfolks.com/review/123619/the-guardian-boasts-beautiful-art-and-brave-politics-but-also-an-unfollowable-story/.

Rating: 5/10

Mori, the Artist's Habitat: Shûichi Okita

To read this review, go to: http://www.unseenfilms.net/2018/07/nate-hood-wanders-through-mori-artists.html.

Rating: 9/10

Night Is Short, Walk On Girl: Masaaki Yuasa

To read this review, go to: http://www.unseenfilms.net/2018/07/nate-hood-on-night-is-short-walk-on.html.

Rating: 8/10

Tourism: Daisuke Miyazaki

To read this review, go to: http://www.unseenfilms.net/2018/07/nate-hood-ponders-merits-of-tourism.html.

Rating: 8/10

Kushina, what will you be: Moët Hayami

To read this review, go to: http://www.unseenfilms.net/2018/07/nate-hood-on-kushinawhat-will-you-be.html.

Rating: 6/10

Violence Voyager: Ujicha

To read this review, go to: http://www.unseenfilms.net/2018/07/nate-hood-wants-no-part-of-violence.html.

Rating: 4/10

We Make Antiques!: Masaharu Take

To read this review, go to: http://www.unseenfilms.net/2018/07/nate-hood-ponders-we-make-antiques-2018.html.

Rating: 6/10

Born Bone Born: Toshiyuki Teruya

To read this review, go to: http://www.unseenfilms.net/2018/07/nate-hood-looks-at-born-bone-born-at.html.

Rating: 7/10

Amiko: Yoko Yamanaka

To read this review, go to: http://www.unseenfilms.net/2018/07/nate-hood-on-amiko-2018-fantasia-2018.html.

Rating: 5/10

Blank 13: Takumi Saitoh

To read this review, go to: https://www.theyoungfolks.com/review/123425/blank-13-is-the-most-original-and-moving-film-on-death-mourning-and-grief-in-years/.

Rating: 8/10

Unbeatable: Dante Lam

To read this review, go to: https://www.theyoungfolks.com/review/123161/nyaff-2018-dante-lam-mini-retrospective/.

Rating: 7/10

Beast Stalker: Dante Lam

To read this review, go to: https://www.theyoungfolks.com/review/123161/nyaff-2018-dante-lam-mini-retrospective/.

Rating: 7/10

Operation Red Sea: Dante Lam

To read this review, go to: http://www.unseenfilms.net/2018/07/nate-hood-on-operation-red-sea-2018.html.

Rating: 8/10

Eighth Grade: Bo Burnham

Adored Eighth Grade! But lemme clear a misconception about this movie up: it’s not cringey. Cringe is all about humiliation. The film puts Kayla in humiliating situations, yes, but never to make her the butt of the joke. What the film is is honest. It’s a more truthful examination of young adulthood than any number of misanthropic “teenagers-are-literal-monsters” dramas I’ve seen recently. (Looking at you, Liverleaf. Go sit in the corner and think about what you did.) Yes, teenagers can be cruel, but they can also be achingly kind, compassionate, and empathetic. And this movie gets that on an instinctive level. It’s also very telling for a male-directed film about female adolescence that the women in my audience responded much more happily and vocally than the men. The collective gasps of “No!” during the banana scene; the knowing exasperation when Kayla mentions Instagram nudes to her crush; the coos at Gabe trying to impress her with his archery award; EVERYTHING about the truth-or-dare scene...the women’s reactions made this one of my favorite viewing experiences in recent memory.

Rating: 8/10

Cyclo: Tran Anh Hung

Well, I suppose that'll learn me. I went into Tran Anh Hung's Cyclo thinking it'd be some meditative, introspective contemplation on working class ennui and desperation. Instead I got a meditative, introspective contemplation on working class ennui and desperation...with a huge helping of hallucinogenic imagery, savage gang violence, sexual neuroticism, and drug-fueled insanity. It's a dazzling blend of cinematic techniques I can't say I've ever seen attempted before, let alone successfully. I need to see this film again before I can write more successfully about it...preferably on a big screen.

9/10

Buffalo Boys: Mike Wiluan

To read this review, go to: http://www.unseenfilms.net/2018/07/nate-hood-rides-with-buffalo-boys-2018.html.

Rating: 8/10

Sid & Aya: Not a Love Story: Irene Villamor

To read this review, go to: http://www.unseenfilms.net/2018/07/nat-hood-falls-in-love-with-sid-and-aya.html.

Rating: 7/10

Men on the Dragon: Sunny Chan

To read this review, go to: https://www.theyoungfolks.com/review/122941/what-happened-to-the-new-york-asian-film-festivals-main-slate-a-bewildered-retrospective/.

Rating: 7/10

Microhabitat: Jeon Go-Woon

To read this review, go to: https://www.theyoungfolks.com/review/122941/what-happened-to-the-new-york-asian-film-festivals-main-slate-a-bewildered-retrospective/.

Rating: 7/10

The Looming Storm: Yue Dong

To read this review, go to: https://www.theyoungfolks.com/review/122941/what-happened-to-the-new-york-asian-film-festivals-main-slate-a-bewildered-retrospective/.

Rating: 7/10

Respeto: Treb Monteras II

To read this review, go to: https://www.theyoungfolks.com/review/122941/what-happened-to-the-new-york-asian-film-festivals-main-slate-a-bewildered-retrospective/.

Rating: 7/10

Crossroads: One Two Jaga: Namron

To read this review, go to: https://www.theyoungfolks.com/review/122941/what-happened-to-the-new-york-asian-film-festivals-main-slate-a-bewildered-retrospective/.

Rating: 5/10

The Blood of Wolves: Kazuya Shiraishi

To read this review, go to: https://www.theyoungfolks.com/review/122941/what-happened-to-the-new-york-asian-film-festivals-main-slate-a-bewildered-retrospective/.

Rating: 6/10

Liverleaf: Eisuke Naitô

To read this review, go to: https://www.theyoungfolks.com/review/122941/what-happened-to-the-new-york-asian-film-festivals-main-slate-a-bewildered-retrospective/.

Rating: 3/10

One Cut of the Dead: Shin'ichirô Ueda

To read this review, go to: http://www.unseenfilms.net/2018/07/nat-hood-take-one-cut-of-dead-2018.html.

Rating: 8/10

Sad Beauty: Bongkoj Khongmalai

To read this review, go to: http://www.unseenfilms.net/2018/07/nate-hood-ponders-sad-beauty-2018-nyaff.html.

Rating: 6/10

Won't You Be My Neighbor?: Morgan Neville

Every morning, Fred McFeely Rogers—ordained Presbyterian minister, child development expert, lifelong Republican, and unlikely television icon—would swim a mile at an athletics club before weighing himself. And every day for decades the scale reportedly read 143 pounds, the news of which filled him with joy. As he explained to his friends, family, and colleagues on his groundbreaking public access show Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, there are respectively one, four, and three letters in the words that make up the phrase “I love you.” For Fred Rogers, 143 was numerological shorthand for an idea that informed every aspect of his life and work—that of ceaseless love for all people. And just as 143 became a shorthand for him, the very idea of Fred Rogers has become a shorthand in American culture for a kind of empathetic compassion and caring that has become all too rare in this age of social media and a rabid 24-hour news cycle. When the first trailer was released for Morgan Neville’s Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, a documentary exploring not just the history of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood but the philosophies that motivated its star and creator, many of my fellow critics predicted it would be one of the most moving and emotional films of 2018. Having just seen the film, I feel their predictions were insufficient. Won’t You Be My Neighbor? is nothing short of an emotional crucible that left my theater full of jaded New Yorkers of every race and age weeping like the very children they were when they first visited the Neighborhood.

The documentary begins with the astounding revelation that Fred Rogers went into television specifically because he hated it. While visiting his parents one day after completing his studies at Rollins College, he encountered his first television set. What he discovered when he turned it on left him horrified: juvenile, immature programming for children featuring cruel, slapstick violence. Incensed, he delayed his enrollment at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary so he could go into the industry and create a show he felt would properly aid children in their emotional and psychological development. After working on a series of musical programs for NBC, he finally scored his first show on Pittsburgh’s WQED, an unscripted live program entitled The Children’s Corner where he pioneered many of the characteristics that would define his career: puppetry, musical interludes, and a slower-paced contemplativeness that favored measured introspection and silence. Though successful, the show left him restless, and after completing his theological studies and ordination he began his run on the show that would make him a household name: Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood.

As producer Margy Whitmer explains: “You take all of the elements that make good television and do the exact opposite, you have Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood. Low production values, simple sets, unlikely star. Yet, it worked!” But why did it work? Perhaps due to its radical idea of treating children like human beings with deep feelings and emotions that need to be nurtured, not talked down to. In the decades after his death, many have forgotten how patently revolutionary the show’s approach was to child psychology, not just in its adoption of a disarming and quiet earnestness but in its determination to directly address difficult subject matter. As the documentary recounts, the very first week of the show’s existence included an episode where puppet Daniel Striped Tiger—Mr. Rogers’ alter-ego—reacted to the news of Robert F. Kennedy’s killing by asking a human character “What does ‘assassination’ mean?” As the show continued, it directly confronted issues like divorce, death, and tragedy. (Two of the most heart-breaking moments of the film see a visibly shaken Mr. Rogers do special segments addressing the Challenger explosion and the 9/11 attacks, both of which rocked him to the core and made him question his ability to reach and affect people in an increasingly dark and violent world.)

But these all seem to pale in his treatment of Officer Clemmons (François Clemmons), an African-American cop character, in the wake of the Civil Rights movement. Following a string of incidents where black families were splashed with bleach and other dangerous cleaning chemicals while swimming in “white pools,” Mr. Rogers filmed a segment where he shared a foot-bath with Clemmons, making a powerful statement on interracial harmony that hearkened back to the biblical story of Jesus washing his disciples’ feet. But the story with Clemmons only gets more powerful from there. Later in the show’s run, news reached Mr. Rogers that Clemmons—a closeted homosexual—had been spotted frequenting a local gay bar. Aware that the news could lead to the loss of sponsors, Mr. Rogers ordered him to stop. But as Clemmons admits in an interview where he breaks down into tears, Mr. Rogers eventually grew to love and accept him exactly as he was, even becoming his surrogate father.

One of the most surprising insights of Won’t You Be My Neighbor? was Mr. Rogers’ struggles with self-doubt. From his early childhood days where a stern upbringing, near-constant illness, and incessant teasing for his weight made him introspective and shy, he grappled with the idea that he was failing both himself and his personal mission in life. Near the end when he was dying of stomach cancer, he asked his wife Joanne if she thought he was a sheep, referring to the biblical prophecy that during the final judgment all mankind would be divided into sheep and goats. Amazed by the question, she answered that if anyone in history was a sheep, it was him. But it seems to have given him spare comfort. This is the great tragedy: that he was never able to truly appreciate the depth and breadth of his impact on millions of lives. But if Mr. Rogers was never able to, a new generation of children will with the release of this new documentary. And hopefully it will remind a generation of embittered, angry, and exhausted adults that while feelings like anger and sadness are important, treating others with love is the most important thing of all. All it takes is a little effort, a little compassion, and just a touch of make-believe.

Rating: 8/10

Premika: Siwakorn Charupongsa

To read this review, go to: http://www.unseenfilms.net/2018/07/nate-hood-and-craziness-that-is-premika.html

Rating: 7/10

On Happiness Road: Hsin Yin Sung

To read this review, go to: https://www.theyoungfolks.com/review/122899/nyaff-2018-on-happiness-road-and-the-cost-of-cultural-fluidity/.

Rating: 8/10

Dukun: Dain Iskandar Said

To read this review, go to: http://www.unseenfilms.net/2018/07/nate-hood-on-dukun-20062018-nyaff-2018.html.

Rating: 7/10

House of the Rising Sons: Anthony Chan

To read this review, go to: http://www.unseenfilms.net/2018/07/nate-hood-sings-along-to-house-of.html.

Rating: 8/10

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Peyton Reed

To read this review, go to: https://www.theyoungfolks.com/review/122893/ant-man-and-the-wasp-movie-reviewa-pleasing-low-stakes-palette-cleanser-for-the-marvel-cinematic-universe/.

7/10

Sorry to Bother You: Boots Riley

I haven’t seen such a ragged, uneven debut film as Sorry to Bother You in a long time. But I also haven’t felt as ecstatically excited about the debut of a new cinematic talent as Boots Riley in an even longer time. Combining the class metaphors of Ballard, the misanthropic transgressiveness of Palahniuk, and the stylistic aggression of Spike Lee, it feels like a callback to the 70s when American cinema wasn’t afraid of confronting audiences with surrealist allegories for race and poverty. It also hearkens back to the DIY punk-rock indie cinema of 80s Alex Cox. But it isn’t just an accumulation of cinematic debts—it beckons towards a new horizon of American cinema eager to burn everything down. Sorry to Bother You is too messy in all the wrong ways, but I can’t wait for what Riley does next. Hopefully this will be his Boxcar Bertha and his next film will be more focused, more polished, and more personal. If he succeeds, he’s gonna tactically nuke the landscape of cinema.

7/10

Sekigahara: Masato Harada

To read this review, go to: http://www.unseenfilms.net/2018/07/nate-hood-takes-on-sekigahara-2017.html.

Rating: 5/10

Counters: Ilha Lee

To read this review, go to: http://www.unseenfilms.net/2018/07/nate-hood-on-vitally-important-counters.html.

Rating: 8/10

Leave No Trace: Debra Granik

Oh my. LEAVE NO TRACE was very, very much my jam. As anyone familiar with my rapturous love of BEASTS OF THR SOUTHERN WILD and THE FLORIDA PROJECT can attest, I’m a sucker for humanistic stories of children and parents living on America’s economic margins.

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) July 2, 2018

I do sorta miss the more centralized and propulsive narrative structuring of Granik’s Ozark-noir WINTER’S BONE, though. As much as I liked this movie it sometimes felt like it was pulling the pacing’s drag chute for the sake of pulling the drag chute.

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) July 2, 2018

Still, I’d be lying if I didn’t say that its leisurely accumulation of emotional details didn’t lead to a DEVASTATING finale.

— Nathanael Hood (@NateHood257) July 2, 2018

Rating: 8/10