About Fate (2022) - Adapting Russian stories to reflect the world we live in today

 

After watching Hotel For the Holidays I decided I needed more Madelaine Petsch and followed it up with About Fate, a New Year's movie starring another of my favorite actresses, Emma Roberts. It allegedly had a theatrical release in September 2022 with nearly all of its limited box office coming from Russia (so much for the sanctions) but the main purpose of the production was to provide streaming content, indeed I saw it on Amazon Prime.

более подробно об этом plus one or two spoilers after the jump...

Hotel For the Holidays (2022) - Amazon checks in on the Christmas movie craze

 It is after Christmas now but I didn't have time to watch this until Christmas Day itself. As an enthusiast of Madelaine Petsch, the preeminent star of the CW's "Riverdale", I had this movie circled as soon as I heard about it. Petsch stars as Georgia, an ambitious and industrious hotel manager  who finds herself at the center of a love triangle, torn between the lovelorn hotel chef and a wealthy, smooth-talking foreign prince. You will never be able to guess who eventually wins her heart.

Some hints after the jump?

Wolf Warrior (2015) - In a word, preposterous

Wolf Warrior was written and directed by Wu Jing, a wuxia actor who got his start in Hong Kong but made his name in China. He plays the lead character, a maverick sniper in the PLA who is reassigned to a special division outside of direct combat situations after killing a drug dealer without waiting for instruction. The title kind of gives it away - I thought this movie was kind of dumn, but it turned out to be a pretty important launching pad. 

Read more about it after the jump...

Lost and Delirious (2001)

The first thing to note about this poster of course, and this is a complaint with many, many movie posters is that the names don't match the actor they're listed above! If one of them is Tom Cruise or Hanks or someone like that, ok no one is gonna get confused, but for a movie like this where none of the headline actors are well known and arguably still aren't to this day, it can really mess you up. For the record L-R it's Mischa Barton, ironically famous for being committed to a mental health facility after having played a lesbian on TV, Piper Perabo celebrated on everyone's most underrated actresses lists and Jessica Paré, of Mad Men Season 4 finale notoriety.

The film is loosely based on the Susan Swan novel The Wives of Bath but while that novel deals more with the suppression of feminism and gender roles, Lost and Delirious seems to have its eye on societal repression and the ineffectual way authority handles troubled children.

Mischa Barton plays Mary, appropriately nicknamed "Mouse", a timid young girl sent to an girls boarding school by a cold father who is too busy with his second marriage to concern himself with her. There she rooms with two older girls, Tori (Paré) and Paulie (Perabo) who Mary comes to understand are more than just close friends. However, terrified of being ostracized by her religious parents Tori breaks off the relationship and Mary finds herself caught between an increasingly unstable Paulie and Tori with whom she empathises, feeling unloved by her own father.

Conclusion after the jump.

The Ramen Girl (2008)

In honor of the late Brittany Murphy, or more specifically because I only just heard of it yesterday and was entranced by the theme, I watched small time production "The Ramen Girl" and couldn't help but be entranced. I'm sure you're all familiar with The Ramen Ronin, the legendary tale of a ronin in search of the perfect ramen. At the core of this film is a similar story of the hidden depths within the nourishing broth and noodles.

Murphy plays Abby, an American woman who followed her boyfriend to Tokyo but is left distraught when he dumps her. Trapped in a job she hates in a country she knows little about where they speak a language she doesn't understand, she's seduced by the homely feel of the nearby noodle bar and finds salvation in a bowl of traditional ramen. At that moment, everything crystallizes for the up till now wishy-washy Abby as she realizes her destiny in life - to learn how to cook the perfect bowl of ramen. Offering herself as a student to the grouchy, tyrannical owner of the shop, Maezuki, she embarks on a journey of the soul that will change her life forever...

Conclusion after the jump.