Coraline

The story is about the adventures of a little girl called Coraline when she found a secret entrance to a parallel world.

Liked the nice animation but found it a bit scary at times. Guess it celebrates the unique quirks in each one of us!

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Sky Ladder: The Art of Cai Guo-Qiang

This is a documentary on how a famous Chinese artist came back to his hometown to complete his dream project.

Liked how the artist explained his works using Chinese history as a backdrop! Nice tribute to his grandmother!

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Wall-E

The story is about two robots falling in love with each other and helping humans return back to earth in the process.

Liked how Wall-E made a cosy home for himself despite such difficult conditions! It pays to have spare parts for everything!

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The Redeemed and the Dominant: Fittest on Earth

This is a documentary of the 2017 Cross Fit games to find the fittest person on earth.

This felt like a sequel to "Fittest on Earth: A Decade of Fitness", same few athletes but one year older. I learned more about the actual Cross Fit games events in this film.

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Brave

The story is about how a Scottish princess improved her relationship with her mother through a series of adventures.

Thought this was a precursor to the film Frozen. Both films had someone exiled from the castle and both films were about the love between family members. Liked the action sequences in Brave better but the songs in Frozen better.

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Shirkers

The story is about a young woman's memories of an old film that she was making with her friends many years ago.

Liked the scenery of the old streets in Singapore and the scrapbook style of film making!

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The Bucket List

The story is about two cancer patients trying to complete their bucket list.

Liked the wonderful places that they visited and how they reconciled with their families before they died!

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Minimalism: A Documentary About the Important Things

This is a documentary on how to cut down on the useless things that we buy and to live more simply.

Liked the interviews with the experts as well as the person in the street who practices minimalism. The ending quote "Love people and use things. Not the other way round." was nice too!

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Angela's Christmas

The story is about what happened during the night of Christmas eve in a small Irish town.

Liked the nice plot with Angela trying to warm up the baby doll! How considerate of her!

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Golden Time

The story is about an old television who wants to get out of a dump. His friends are a broken wind-up toy, a spoiled fan and a small chair.

Liked how the old television remembered the good old days where the whole family would gather in front of him! Also liked how someone picked him up when he has already given up trying to leave.

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Fittest on Earth: A Decade of Fitness

This is a documentary of the 2016 Cross Fit games to find the fittest person on earth.

Liked the tough but interesting physical tasks! There were a total of 15 physical tasks completed in 5 days and nothing seems to faze them!

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The Breadwinner

The story is about life in Afghanistan in the late 1990s seen through the eyes of a little girl called Parvana.

Liked the stories told by Parvana that mirrored reality! The animation in those stories reminded me of shadow puppets. The ending was exciting too as we wondered what would happen eventually!

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Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World

The documentary is about the history and impact of the internet and artificial intelligence on society.

Liked the open ended questions posed by the director to his interviewees. Didn't realise there were people who were allergic to wireless radiation!

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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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