It’s been far too long since my last post and so, in an effort to ease myself into the rant essays that are the signature dish of this site, not like Gordon Ramsay’s Wellington, but more like McDonalds’ burger; something that upon consumption makes you ask, wait, what was the point of this? And that brings us to Cutting Chai, a new series of short writes essaying my fleeting opinions on film. And speaking of fleeting opinions, let’s revisit some of the reviews on this site where my opinion has changed.

Joker

A psychological evaluation attempting to answer the question, ‘What on earth was I thinking when I wrote this review?’ would prove considerably more compelling and sincere than Todd Phillips’ pseudo-intellectual Joker. Doing his best impression of ‘film bro who has watched exclusively Scorcese and Louis Litt’s therapy sessions in Suits’, Todd Phillips’ exploration of Joker’s psyche is remarkably juvenile and somehow offensively so. For a moment it feels like Phillips may actually have pulled off a satire with a somewhat superficial focus, but he can’t even seem to commit to that with a perplexing third act, which, while consistent with the character that we know, proves entirely incongruous with the points Phillips attempts to make. The colour palette is garish and music, while brilliantly atmospheric, sounds like what a 10 year old would call avant-garde. Joaquin Phoenix saves the movie, but I’d take Hangover 4 from Phillips over this pretentious problem.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

My enthusiasm gets the better of me sometimes, and perhaps being in the minority of people who highly rate The Last Jedi, I felt obliged to like a movie that in reality somehow made its preceding films look worse. JJ Abrams continues his streak of not being able to finish what he started with a film rescued by ILM’s staggering visual effects, Dan Mindel’s ‘look like a million bucks’ cinematography and the great John Williams’ score. Appealing to the lowest common denominator of angry Star Wars fans and presumably children, Abrams’ Star Wars: Matlab Kuch Bhi (I guess whatever goes?) is the most forgettable entry in the entire franchise (a franchise that includes the Phantom Menace), and for that, I’m surprisingly grateful. My brain couldn’t handle the stress of this memory.

Was this article simply an apology tour for my earlier opinions parading as a new review? Perhaps. Maybe it’s important to apologise; to reflect on the person that you were and the person you are now, to understand how your ideas are initially shaped and what has changed them, to understand how your views affect the people around you, and to understand if you are closed off to opinions that aren’t your own. Maybe.

Or maybe every once in a while you can smile and tell yourself, ‘Wow, I was an idiot!’.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to rescue a drowning Parle-G biscuit.