What I can suss out from the muddied plot is that Kite is the tale of Sawa (played by The Secret Life of the American Teenagers’ India Eisley), an orphaned young woman who goes after the human traffickers she thinks are responsible for the deaths of her mother and policeman father. Is it supposed to be an action romp? A thriller? A stylized bloodbath? An homage to the exploitation films of the 1970s? A dystopian warning? I have watched the film almost two times, and I have no clue. I still don’t know what Kite set out to do. Or you accidentally clicked on the link to something I wrote when you actually meant to click on a piece Jason wrote.Īnd all of that is my rambling way of saying that art is subjective (insofar as we can call piece of pop culture art-another discussion for another day) and folks put a lot of work into that art, which makes me uncomfortable to completely eviscerate that art. Or you could just be reading what I’ve written as a means to confirm your suspicions of the quality of a film, etc. And you, the reader, go out, if you so choose, to watch or read what I’ve reviewed based, in part, on my opinions of the material, if you trust my opinions enough to sway your actions. And it just seems cruel to say, “Way to miss the mark, assface,” no matter how sensitively you express that sentiment.īut that’s my job, right? As a reviewer of films, movies, and so on, part of my job description is to tell you what I think of a piece of pop culture I’ve consumed and let you know if it manages to accomplish what it set out to do or what I think it set out to do. I like to acknowledge what a TV show or so on gets right even as I point to holes in the craftsmanship. That doesn’t mean they always succeed, but it’s not for lack of trying. While the creative folk who set out to make a movie like Kite might have to contend with heavy-handed influence by producers and financial backers, they still put their time and emotional and physical reserves into completing a project. While I’m sure there’s an exception to the rule, I don’t think anyone sets out to produce something that is, unkind as it might be to say, a piece of shit. It took me a bit, but I finally learned the lesson of the old adage “It’s easier to tear something down than it is to build it up.”Īnd, as I get older and learn more about the creative process-one I engage in with more and more frequency-I start to have more understanding of the time and energy and mental fortitude that is required to make anything, a film, short story, whatever. However, more often than not, that humor at another’s experience is about drawing the attention away from the piece being reviewed and onto the reviewer. Being snarky affords a writer the opportunity to flex his comedic muscles and, honestly, snark has its place. I have a PhD in snark, with a minor in sass. When I was younger and full of piss and vinegar, I reveled in dispensing harsh criticism at books, movies, and TV shows that I thought I had more than missed the mark. Finally, I had no choice but to view the film in its entirety because, well, obligations.īut before I get into the meat of the movie, here’s something you should know: I don’t like giving scathing reviews. The second time, something else seemed to be more pressing than viewing the film, like balancing my checkbook. The first time I attempted to make it through the live-action adaptation of Yasuomi Umetsu’s 1998 cult anime, I made it about 20 minutes in before having to walk away, as my attention span had, not coincidentally, turned into that of a coked-up squirrel. It took me three times to watch Kite all the way through.
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