Judging Cinema

Hi everyone.  This is my first out-of-theatre video review. I'm planning to do more of these videos for any film  I see in the theatre, I hope you enjoy it.

William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is one of the famous romantic plays in drama. It depicts romance in its purest form and has wonderfully written characters and more wonderful scenes. The play has been an inspiration to many stories and plays. In fact, there is a genre in film that takes this play and places it in modern times. Today’s film takes the basic ingredients of the Shakespearean play and uses it to create its own unique story. Romeo Must Die is a film made in 2000, and it started Jet Li and Aaliyah, with Isiah Washington, Delroy Lindo, Anthony Anderson, and Russel Wong. The film revolves around Hang Sing, played by Li, investigating the murder of his brother while trying to survive a turf war between the Asian and the African American gangs.  The Shakespeare link As the title suggests, Romeo Must Die is inspired by Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet . With Han and Tish O Day, played by Aaliyah, are stand-ins for Romeo and Juliet, The Asian and African American gangs ar...

Professional wrestling has always been one of the fascinating programs on television, as it mixes storytelling with astonishing physical abilities and larger-than-life characters and presents them to different audiences. But every once in a while, we meet wrestlers who strive to go beyond the limits of the squared circle, some have ventured onto the big screen, like Dwayne Johnson, who goes by the nickname “The Rock”, John Cena, Dave Bautista, and others. Several films that revolve around wrestling were made to explore what goes on behind the scenes, such as Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler . In 2023, Sean Durkin directed The Iron Claw, a film that tells the story of the Von Erich family, who are legends in professional wrestling. The film stars Zac Efron, Jeremy Allen White, Harris Dickinson, and Holt McCallaney. In this review, we shall take a deeper look at this film and see if there is more to this film than its tragic tale. Themes: The film tackles three themes, the first is family...

Undoubtedly , Batman is one of the most complex characters in fiction. One of the things that make The Dark Knight so fascinating is the number of angles one can study him from, Allan More’s The Killing Joke brought a unique interpretation of Batman’s psychology as well as his arch nemesis The Joker, while Frank Miller provided a detailed origin of his early years in Year One . The same can be said for his adaptations in film, as Tim Burton brought him to theaters in 1985, and Christopher Nolan created his own trilogy starting with Batman Begins in 2005. Each brought his own interpretation and vision that provided a look at The Caped Crusader and his rouges gallery. One of the films that does this but gets overlooked often is Joel Schumacher’s Batman Forever . The film was released in theaters in 1995 and had an all-star cast starting Val Kilmer, Tommy Lee Jones, Jim Carrey, Nicole Kidman, and Chris O’Donnell. The film follows Batman as he tries to protect Gotham City from former dis...

 Hello everyone. A long time ago, I had a blog called The Literature Museum. There, I used to do reviews about books, films, and even music. While I did enjoy doing those reviews, it became a difficult task to keep up with what I was doing and balance it with my normal life. So, I made the decision to shift my focus to only doing film reviews and created this blog, Judging Cinema . Here, I shall do two reviews a week, I might change that in the future, but for now, this will be the standard. At the end of every review, I shall give the film a score out of 5 because it's a much easier grade to give in my opinion. I am excited to start this new journey into the world of cinema, and I hope you can enjoy it with me with every review I do. Here's to a new chapter.  Zack Alsolmi.  

Documentaries are one of the most diverse styles of cinema, they can be used for education, like David Attenborough’s wildlife programs, or as a cinematic masterpiece, like Asif Kapadia's documentary films such as Diego Maradona. This review will look at GeoChic , an aspiring documentary that aims to hit multiple targets, tourism and culture. Themes: While it doesn’t have a story like in films and television, GeoChick  still provides a narrative through its stunning images and interviews. There is a theme in this narrative, and that is to show the culture of Cape Town and South Africa and change the stereotypical view of it while acknowledging the past and current problems that it’s trying to surpass. The film manages to do this by relying on its cinematography and photography to deliver beautiful pictures of the city of Cape Town. It shows the buildings, the restaurants, the sights, the beaches, and some of the wildlife. One of the images is of the sunset with peo...