Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey

This is a documentary on Kevin Clash who was the main puppeteer for Elmo from 1985 to 2012.

Liked Kevin's passion for what he does and his willingness to share what he knows with younger people! Was amazed by the different types of voices that he could make.

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Roma

The story is about life in Mexico during the 1970s seen through the eyes of a maid.

Liked how the camera just panned around to show what was going on! Also liked how the family stayed together despite of the internal and external challenges.

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Bumblebee

The story is about how one type of alien robot came to earth and almost destroyed it if not for the help of another type of alien robot. The two types of alien robots lived in a planet called Cybertron and were able to transform into different objects.

Liked the friendship between Bumblebee and the human girl! The inclusion of the group of arrogant rich teenagers and the boyfriend was a bit unnecessary though.

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Wreck-It Ralph

The story is about the adventures of a bad guy in a video game called Wreck-It Ralph. He was tired of his life and travelled to other video games to gain recognition and to be a good guy.

Liked the friendship between Ralph and the little girl! Also liked how they depicted code and glitches in the film.

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Flavors of Youth

The movie consists of three stories connected by a common theme; what is it like to be a youth in China?

Liked the delicious noodles in the first story, the sisterly love in the second story and the innovative use of the tape recorder in the last story.

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AlphaGo

This is a documentary about how a team of computer programmers developed a program called AlphaGo to challenge one of the top Go players in the world, Lee Se Dol.

Liked the human aspect of the story for both the team of computer programmers and Lee Se Dol! I rejoiced when Lee Se Dol finally found a weakness in AlphaGo to win in game 4!

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Frozen

The story is about a queen who could freeze objects by shooting beams with her hands much like how spiderman shoots webs from his hands and her sister who longed to be closer to her.

Liked the nice songs in the film! The duet by the sisters was my favorite song followed by "Let It Go" by the queen. Was quite surprised by the twist towards the end that showed what true love really meant!

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The Tale of the Princess Kaguya

The story is about how an old couple came across a young baby girl in the bamboo forest and raised her to be a princess.

Liked the nice water color animation and the dream sequences! Was really surprised by the ending when the true identity of princess Kaguya was revealed!

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Still Alice

The story is about how a linguistic professor's relationship with her family changed after she discovered that she had Alzheimer's Disease on her 50th birthday.

Liked the leisurely pace of the movie and the inspiring speech at the care centre! Great acting by Julianne Moore! Thought the part where she watched her own video but forgot what she was supposed to do after she went upstairs was a little bit funny.

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In This Corner Of The World

The story is about a young Japanese woman's life during World War II.

Liked how the protagonist endured the hardships of food rationing and countless number of bomb shelter visits! She was mad only when she learnt that Japan had surrendered to the enemy. I also liked her creative paintings of the sea, the sky and the experiences that she encountered!

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Your Name

The story is about how a boy and a girl lived each other's lives occasionally when they switched bodies in their dreams.

Liked the nice soundtrack, the interesting incidents during the body switches and the complex plot that kept me in suspense on what would happen next! The girl looked beautiful with the ribbon tied to her hair!

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Senior Teacher

The story is about what happened to a teacher after a student whom he hit became deaf.

Liked the black and white cinematography, beautiful soundtrack and interesting plot! I also liked the use of hand written words on composition paper to divide the film into different parts.

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The Manifest

The story is about two astronauts taking part in an inter-stellar mission.

Liked the nice voice of the artificial intelligent assistant and the little arguments between the two astronauts!

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Beijing, Mumbai, Tampines

The story is about how recruits worked together as a team despite their different backgrounds.

Liked the realistic depiction of basic military training and the carmaraderie among the group!

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The Life of Bob Lee

The story is about how an ex photo-journalist coped with having an autistic son.

Liked the father-son bonding moments in the film!

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Sanjay

The story is about the encounters of an Indian couple who just moved to Singapore.

Liked the friendly neighborhood spirit of helping each other! Didn't quite understand what the boss of Sanjay was angry about though.

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Little By Little

The story is about two children who had to overcome the trauma of seeing someone falling to her death.

Liked the T-shaped paper plane and the drawings made by the little girl! Nice plot and great acting!

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Poor Bro, Rich Bro

The story is about how a brother and sister helped their grandmother collect old things to sell.

Liked how the grandmother taught her granddaughter to stay positive despite her classmates laughing at her! Nice plot and great acting!

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Remember

The story is about a son trying to put his father suffering from Alzheimer's disease into a home.

Liked the flashbacks and how the father and the son remembered about their past!

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Close Circuit

The story is about how a Lego child grew up in a Russian doll family.

Liked the tension between the mother's expectations and the child's desires! Great special effects!

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The Leader

The story is about how two young kids in a childcare center learned to co-operate with each other while their parents who happened to be colleagues had a small argument.

Liked the nice plot about how people with different races worked and played happily together!

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Hanging On

The story is about an old man trying to hold on to old voice mail recordings of his daughter as the telephone company phased it out just after she died in an accident.

Liked how the film showed the human side of technology! Thought this was quite similar to Emoji except that one was about voice mail and the other was about messaging apps.

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Crumb

This is a documentary about Robert Crumb who is an American cartoonist.

Liked the interesting interviews and how Robert brought the viewers through several of his cartoons! It made me question if there should be bounds to freedom of expression as one man's view could be offensive to another.


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Like Someone In Love

The story is about different types of love: a student's respect for his teacher, a girl worrying for her grandmother's safety, a grandfather's longing for his loved ones and a boyfriend's concern for his girlfriend.

I was browsing through the Criterion catalogue and this title caught my eye as it was directed by an Iranian director but filmed in Japan. Liked the interesting conversations and the pretty actress! The film taught me not to judge a person too quickly by first impressions. I thought the boyfriend was a good for nothing initially but changed my mind after seeing him working diligently in his uniform. Similarly, I thought the professor's neighbor was just being nosy until I learnt more of her situation later in the film.

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PSLE-GO

The story is about the stress that children and parents face when taking the PSLE exams.

Liked the happy go lucky father who saved the day in the end!

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B Mine, Would you?

The story is about how a fat guy dated the new girl in class.

Liked the nice beauty and the beast plot! A bit skeptical that running is faster than driving though.

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Second Chance

The story is about a woman reminiscing about her past as she chit chats with the nurse at a nursing home.

Liked how the director showed two different perspectives of the same scenario! Think people usually choose to remember the good parts of their past.

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Grandfather

The story is about how a spoilt little girl changed her attitude towards her grandfather after staying with each other for a few days.

Liked the close ups on both characters and how the little girl managed to discreetly passed a gift to her grandfather towards the end!

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The Longest-Distance Relationship

This is a documentary about four girls' attempt to understand each other's religion better.

Liked the informal approach to a serious topic! The interviews were interesting and I especially liked how they included their own responses seamlessly to the interviewer's answers towards the end!

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Sunflowers

The story is about how a makeup artist found a job beautifying the dead.

Liked the nice plot and the carmaderie spirit of working together like one big family!

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32°C Fall in Love

The story is about how the cashier at a mini-mart and a security guard who liked her encountered a robber in the middle of the night.

Liked the interesting plot and the twist towards the end! I wonder where the robber managed to get the gas mask?

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Otosan

The story is about a father whose daughter is getting married soon and he is reminded of the happy times that they spent together in the past.

Liked how the film is able to convey the father's mixed feelings without the use of much dialogue!

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Yukuharu

The story is about a little girl's sadness towards the impermanence of things or mono no aware in Japanese.

Liked the conversation between the protagonist and the little boy who is his classmate as they walked home from school! They reminded me of Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke in "Before Sunset". The dream sequences were interesting too! The ending was a little bit too sad though.

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Lollypop Love

The story is about the friendship of two pairs of couples in the hospital.

Nice music and pretty actresses but not much of a plot. Think I preferred the director's earlier film.

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Cine Twilight

The story is about two actors finding difficulty acting in an intimate scene.

Found this film when I read the newspaper. Thought the monologues by the two actors were quite interesting! The gigantic videos on the wall reminded me a bit of "Persona" by Bergman.

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To Mum (Love, Me)

The story is about how a mother learnt that her daughter was a lesbian and slowly accepting this fact.

This film helped me to understand the anguish felt by the LGBT community when they were treated as abnormal people.

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Emoji

The story is about how a mother tried to communicate with her workaholic daughter through messaging apps on the phone.

Liked the interesting plot and the reminder to spend more time with our loved ones!

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Farewell September

The story is about how the lives of two unwed mothers are inter-twined together.

Liked the nice plot but thought there was a little bit too much narration.

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FYP

The story is about how a woman who thought she was dying in three months time followed her passion to learn the piano. FYP stands for "follow your passion".

Liked the good chemistry between the protagonist and her piano teacher!

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Sweet Day

The story is about how a band struggled to stay together after many years.

Liked the little details that showed the bond among the band members and how they managed to keep their passion alive!

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God Knows

The story is about how a man fell in love with a deaf girl who plays in a band.

Was really surprised by the twist in the middle of the film! The director tried to explain what really happened towards the end but didn't think it was too convincing.

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Florence Foster Jenkins

The story is about how a rich amateur singer called Florence Foster Jenkins loved operas and sang to a large audience despite negative reviews.

Liked the positive can-do attitude of the protagonist played by Meryl Streep! Thought the singing lessons would start from basic, so was surprised that she knew quite a bit of the song already!

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La Ronde

The film consists of several inter-connected short stories about affairs by different couples.

Liked how everyone was linked together in one big circle! Thought the maid and the girl who loved to eat looked quite pretty!

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Our Time, Our Story

This is a documentary about Taiwan New Wave cinema that is packaged together with the "A Brighter Summer Day" criterion DVD.

Liked the interviews and the old film clips that showed how people lived more than twenty years ago! Learnt quite a bit about Taiwan film history from this documentary!

The Adventures of Prince Achmed

The story is about how Prince Achmed fought against a wizard to save a beautiful princess with the help of a witch.

Liked the interesting shadowy effects in the animation and the exciting fight scene towards the end!

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Cybercrimes with Ben Hammersley

This is a British documentary on different types of cybercrimes around the world.

Liked how the presenter slowly introduced the audience to the subject on location and the interviews with the relevant people!

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Somm

This is a documentary on how a group of young men prepared for the master sommelier exam, one of the most difficult test in the world.

Read about the exam in the newspaper some time back so was interested to learn more about it. Liked the glimpse into the history of wine making around the world!

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Blind Date

The story is about two neighbors falling in love with each other despite not having seen each other. Their wall is not sound proof and they could talk to each other.

Liked this charming little film! Can't really tell how great the piano performance was though except through the audience's reaction.

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After Porn Ends

This is a documentary on a group of people formerly from the porn industry.

Liked to hear how different people coped with the stigma of being in the industry and it affected their relationship with friends and family! Quite amazed to hear that one of them even ran for the governor of california elections!

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Tesla: Master of Lightning

This is a documentary about Tesla the scientist who enabled electricity to be distributed to the masses in the early 20th century and who was a pioneer in radio communications.

I have seen the lightning demonstrations at Science Center but didn't realize that they originated from Tesla. I was impressed by Tesla's contributions but I thought some of his ideas could be far too ahead of his time to be implementable.

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Why Planes Vanish

This is a documentary about the science behind the mystery of the disappearance of flight MH370.

Liked how the scientific principles of airplane tracking are explained in simple terms for the layman to understand! Didn't realize that there were so many gaps with present technology!

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Airplane!

The story is about how a series of incidents almost led to an air disaster.

Liked the visual gags and the play on words comedy! Might be a little bit politically incorrect at times but the auto pilot looks quite cute!

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Fantastic Mr Fox

This is an animation film adapted from Roald Dahl's short story of the same title. It describes how a fox family managed to outwit a group of business owners.

Liked the nice stop motion animation and how the wild animals worked together as a team!

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Particle Fever

This is a documentary on the large hadron collider (LHR) at CERN and how it helped to discover the Higgs Boson in 2012.

Liked the interesting computer animation of how the LHR worked! Thought the acne spot on one of the postdoc's face was a bit distracting though.

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Secrets of Her Majesty's Secret Service

This is a documentary about the British Secret Service MI6.

Liked the account of the cracking of Enigma during Second World War and the interviews with the former agents!

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Back in Time

This is a documentary on the "Back to the Future" series.

Learnt about many interesting "Back to the Future" related events such as theme parks and car shows!

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Atari: Game Over

This is a documentary about the rise and fall of the video game company Atari.

Liked how the director presented the view points from different groups of people: fans, programmers and historians! Quite amazed by how the protagonist could develop a game in just five weeks!

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Goodbye CP

This is a documentary about cerebral palsy in Japan during the early seventies.

Liked how the director dived deep into the personal lives of a few individuals to show us how it was like to be inflicted with cerebral palsy! Felt sad for one of them who had to cancel his poem reading session as the authorities called it a freak show.

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Wrestling

This is a documentary about wrestling in Canada during the early sixties.

Liked the exciting sporting action and narration! The reactions from the audience were interesting too!


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My Neighbors and Their Japanese Ghosts

This is a documentary about old people in China discussing about the Japanese during the Second World War.

Liked the interesting personal accounts told by the interviewees! They contrasted with the modern peaceful setting in Beijing.

The Green Wave

This is a documentary about the events that happened in Iran around the period of the 2009 Iran elections. Animation is used to recreate personal witness accounts from social media such as blogs and twitter.

Liked how the director covered different perspectives of the events! Learnt more about modern Iran history from the interviews and the nice animation!

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Three Sisters

This is a documentary about three sisters living in a mountainous village of Yunnan.

Liked the nice mountainous scenery and the peaceful village life! Quite amazed by how the kids were able to do complex household chores like maintaining the fire by themselves!

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Devil's Town

The film consists of many inter-related short stories that happened in Belgrade.

Liked how the director slowly introduced the characters and brought them all together towards the end! Some parts were a bit too weird for my taste though.

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Hopscotch

The story is about an ex-CIA employee trying to write a memoir while staying one step ahead of the people who wants to stop him.

Liked how the protagonist managed to outsmart his ex-colleagues! Great action and comedy without too much violence!

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The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On

This is a documentary about a Japanese war veteran's search for the truth behind the execution of two soldiers in New Guinea shortly after the second World War.

Liked the protagonist's determination to uncover the truth to console the dead! At the beginning of the film, I thought he was just an obnoxious old man but I slowly began to understand his actions as the film progressed.

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Von Trier's 100 Eyes

This is a short documentary about the making of "Dancer in the Dark" by the Danish director, Lars Von Trier.

Liked the in-depth interviews with the director and the simple children's story of "Golden Heart"!

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Railroad of Hope

This is a documentary about peasants taking the train from Sichuan to Xinjiang to earn more money by harvesting cotton.

Liked the interviews with the train passengers where they talked about their hopes and dreams! Quite amazed at how the train can pack so many people and luggages!

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Teddy Bear

The story is about a shy bodybuilder who lived with his oppressive mother looking for love in Thailand.

Liked how the director managed to paint a convincing image of a shy bodybuilder as I have always imagined them to be fierce and tough! Great acting by the bodybuilder and his mother!

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A Dedicated Life

This is a documentary about a famous Japanese novelist.

Liked the interesting reconstructed flashbacks to the novelist's childhood days!

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The Makes

This is a pseudo documentary about an interview with a French critic about an Italian film director's work in Japan.

Liked how the director used photographs and speech to tell a story! I could then use my imagination to visualize how wonderful these films were!

Dream Work

The film tries to capture how the dream of a girl might look like.

Liked the special visual effects that created the dreamlike atmosphere!

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Sic

The story is about a girl working in a Japanese bookshop as a censor of photo-books by scratching bits of images away.

Liked how the protagonist brushed the book with a giant feather in the end as it looked elegant!

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Following Diana

The story is about an Indonesian couple slowly drifting apart after the husband announced his intention to marry a second wife.

Liked the quiet moments that featured the interaction between mother and son! Took me quite a while to realize what the husband was showing to his wife on his computer screen as I thought they were just a bunch of mind maps.

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Immoral Tales

The film consists of five short stories set in reverse chronological order: "The Tide", "Therese Philosophe", "The Beast", "Erzsebet Bathory" and "Lucrezia Borgia".

Quite surprised that the last two films were based on actual historical figures! The beast looked scary in "The Beast"!

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It Happened Tomorrow

The story is about the adventures of a reporter when he realized that he had information on the next day's news.

Liked the interesting plot and how everything fell into place in the end! Wonder if "Back to the Future II" was inspired by this film?

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Junun

This is a documentary about a group of musicians from different countries collaborating to make music in an Indian palace.

Liked the nice music played from exotic looking musical instruments! The aerial view of the palace and the street views looked interesting too!

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Parade

The story is about how the performers prepared for a circus performance and the audience's reaction to it.

Liked the amazing juggling performance, the nice songs and how engaged the audience was to the show!

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Minions

The story is about how a group of small yellow cylindrical shaped creatures called Minions searched for an evil master.

Liked the cheerful attitude of the Minions! They could always find something positive out of the worst situations!

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Trafic

The story is about how a camping car company tried unsuccessfully to travel from France to a big car show exhibition in Amsterdam.

Liked the interesting encounters during their journey! The car was an amazing invention, full of gadgets! I also liked the scene where they simulated the movements of the astronauts!

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Execution in Autumn

The story is about the transformation of a man who became a murderer because his grandmother spoilt him from young.

Liked the interesting plot and characters in the film! I learnt that discipline is a key parenting skill!

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Where The Seagull Flies

The story is about the love hate relationship of a couple.

Liked the scenes of Singapore in the 70s and the pretty actress in the film! Great plot with lots of twists and turns!

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Beautiful Duckling

The story is about the father daughter relationship of a family who raised ducks for a living.

Liked the cute little ducklings and the kampong spirit shown by the people in the film! The ending was very well done too as I was surprised by what happened!

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Jour de Fete

The story is about how a French postman became inspired to shorten his delivery time after watching a documentary about American postmen at a village fair.

Liked the interesting stunts in the film! The bicycle seemed to have a life of its own at one point in time!

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Morning for the Osone Family

This is the last film of the Kinoshita and World War II collection. The story is about what happened to the Osone family towards the end of World War II.

Liked how the director helped us understand the hardships that the ordinary Japanese people faced through one family! I could tell he was very unhappy with the Army from his portrayal of the uncle!

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Army

This is the fourth film of the Kinoshita and World War II collection. The story is about how a Japanese family with military background raised their eldest child to join the Army and fight in the front line during the second World War.

Liked how the director encouraged patriotism through his characters! Great acting by Tanaka Kinuyo, the actress who acted as the son's mother! I was surprised by how stern she could be when her son accidentally stepped on his textbook!

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No Woman, No Cry

This is a documentary on the healthcare services for pregnant women in four different countries: Tanzania, Bangladesh, Guatemala and the United States.

Liked how the director weaved the statistics with the personal stories of these women and her commentary at the end of the film!

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Jubilation Street

This is the third film of the Kinoshita and World War II collection. The story is about how a group of people living in Tokyo gradually moved out from the city to live in the countryside in preparation for American airstrike during the second world war.

Liked the interesting people who lived in the neighborhood! A pity we didn't get to see more of the pretty mail lady!

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The Living Magoroku

This is the second film of the Kinoshita and World War II collection. The story is about how a group of villagers decided to break old traditions to plow a piece of sacred land passed down from their ancestors.

Liked the two pretty actresses in the film!

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Port of Flowers

This is the first film of the Kinoshita and World War II collection. The story is about two con artists trying to cheat a group of people staying in an island of their money by getting them to build a ship but gave themselves up in the end.

Liked the interesting plot and how the film portrayed that con artists could also be patriotic!

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Little People Big Dreams

This is a documentary about dwarves in China who are either current or past employees of a theme park called Dwarves Empire.

Liked how the director helped us to peek into the lives of these little people! I was quite impressed by one of them who even knew how to drive despite being so small!

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Shaun the Sheep Movie

The story is about how a dog and a group of sheep saved the day when their shepherd ended up in a big city with memory loss.

Liked the nice animation and the funny moments! Reminded me a bit of the Wallace and Gromit films!

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I love Hong Kong 2013

The story is about a restaurant owner who is being forced to sell his restaurant when his ex-employee ran away without paying his debt.

Liked the inspiring story about a hardworking man who was willing to help his friends at his own expense!

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The Iron Lady

The story is about the life of Margaret Thatcher who is a former Prime Minister of Britain.

Liked how the film showed the ordinary citizen side of Margaret Thacher through her interactions with her dead husband and the hardworking career woman side of her through a series of flashbacks! Great acting by Meryl Streep!

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Midnight in Paris

The story is about a writer travelling back in time to meet famous writers in Paris during midnight on his vacation trip with his rich fiancee.

Liked the interesting idea but I wished that the director could give some brief introduction to the famous writers as I was not familiar with most of them.

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Life Is Beautiful

The story is about how a Jew fell in love with a pretty Italian woman during World War II and how the whole family was sent to a concentration camp till the end of the war.

Liked how the father was able to look at the bright side of things in difficult situations and the nice soundtrack!

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Big Hero 6

The story is about a group of nerds and a big huggable robot became superheros by accident when they were trying to solve a mystery.

Liked the nice friendship between Hiro and the big huggable robot! The gadgets were pretty cool too!

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Revivre

The story is about how a middle aged executive coped with the stresses at work and taking care of his wife at the hospital at the same time.

Liked how the protagonist quietly went about his work but was quite puzzled why he would want to avoid meeting his pretty ex-employee in the end!

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Leave it for tomorrow for night has fallen

The film consists of four short stories in Philippines when Marcos was a dictator there.

The stories were pretty abstract and hard to understand but I liked the antique sound effects of firing guns!

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Leviathan

The story is about the consequence of one man trying to battle against the authorities for his rights to stay in his own home.

Liked the nice cinematography of the small Russian town and the depiction of human psychology!

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Stage Sisters

The story is about how two stage actresses remained good friends despite some misunderstandings over the years.

Liked the interesting plot and the pretty stage costumes! I thought the political propaganda message was quite well conveyed through this film!

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