Tag: Facebook

DÌDI (弟弟,
translates as
‘little brother’)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 30 July 2024
No Comments on DÌDI (弟弟,
translates as
‘little brother’)
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Director – Sean Wang – 2023 – US – Cert. 15 – 94m

*****

A young, Taiwanese-American teenager must deal with issues of ethnicity, family and love in 2008, when social media has become a significant element of growing up – out in UK cinemas on Friday, August 2nd

2008. California. Summer. 13-year-old Taiwanese-American Chris (Izaac Wang), who prefers to go by the nickname Wang Wang, is rebelling. Mandarin is spoken at home by Nai Nai (‘grandma’; Chang Li Hua) and mum (Joan Chen), but that doesn’t stop mega-sweary English language shouting contests at the supper table between Wang Wang and elder sister Vivian (Shirley Chen) who is due to attend UCSD later in the year. When she’s out, Wang Wang hangs out in her room and posts as her on her Facebook (about which, amazingly, she never comes back to him). In the bathroom, he pees into her moisturising cream (leading to her threatening to period him in the mouth if he ever does it again).

Outside the house, he hangs out with his peers Farhad Mahmood (Raul DIal) and Jimmy Kim aka SOUP (Aaron Chang). Egged on by them in the manner of pubescents everywhere, he attempts to hang out with Madi (Mahaela Park), the girl he fancies.… Read the rest

Tags 13-year-old Izaac Wang, 2008, Aaron Chan, alcohol, amateur painter, autobiographical, bathroom, bedroom, brothers and sisters, California, Chang Li Hua, childhood, Chinese, Chiron Cillia Denk, coming of age, culture, Cynthia Lee, Dìdi, drink, drunk, ethnicity, Facebook, family, filmer, gaffe, grandma, grandmother, grandmothers and grandsons, high school, home movie, Joan Chen, little brother, love, Mahaela Park, Mandarin, moisturising cream, Montay Boseman, mothers and sons, Nai Nai, painter, party, peer group, peers, period, pubescent, puke, Raul Dial, rebel, room, Sean Wang, Shirley Chen, sibling rivalry, siblings, skateboarders, skateboarding, skill set, social media, summer, Sunil Maurillo, supper table, Taiwan, Taiwanese-American, teen, teenage rebel, teenager, throw up, UCSD, US, video

Documentary Features Live Action Movies

Disconnect Me

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 1 April 2024
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Director – Alex Lykos – 2023 – Australia – Cert. 12 – 87m

***1/2

A man attempts to live for 30 days without the use of his smartphone, tablet or computer – out on digital from Monday, April 1st

This documentary opens with an advisory to keep your phone handy during the screening, as you may be required to use it at some point. In the UK, it’s only available on digital platforms… but even so, that advisory marks it out as different from most films.

Lykos, who narrates his documentary, is old enough to have grown up without a smartphone or other digital devices, but kids today handle smartphones from a younger and younger age. What would happen, wonders Alex, if I disconnected myself for an entire month? His and his wife’s home contains their two smartphones, two tablets, and a TV. Learning that Alex wakes and checks his smartphone three or four times a night, Alex’s doctor wires him for a sleep test.

Like many of us, Alex finds himself spending an hour on social media and wondering, what just happened? He and others admit to feelings of envy when others post about good things in their lives. A near-tearful divorcee talks about it being hard seeing people having a good time with partner or family.… Read the rest

Tags 30 days, ADHD, advertising revenue, AI, alcohol, Alex Lykos, Amanda Third, anorexia message, antenna, anxiety, attention, Australia, authoritarian governments, binge-watching TV series, board game, body image issues, Bolivia, brain, brain chip transplants, brain enhance, bullying, check smartphone at night, child labour, cigarettes, climate change, clinical psychiatrist, cognitive impairment, colour-blind, computer, Cultural Research, cyborg, cyborg artist, Cyborg Artist Neil Harbisson, Dalek, data service provider, David Cronenberg related, depression, digital, digital alarm clock, diminished critical thinking, disconnect; access, distraction, doctor, documentary, Dr. Catriona Wallace, Dr. Danielle Einstein, driving, economics, envy, evolution, experiment, Facebook, feel valued, first world, flipper phone, flippy, friends, gambling, get a real job, golf, government services, Greek, human extinction, impulsivity, injustice, interaction with AI, international regulation, justice, kids today, killing machines, landline phone, laptop, lethal autonomous weapons, life expectancy, live without, loneliness, loo, low self-esteem, machines taking over, med, medicine, Meta, mining minerals, Monopoly, month, National Broadcast Network, NBN, neck position, need to talk, negative space, Neil Harbisson, news, newspaper, not answering the phone, OCD, paper, parents and children, phone snubbing, phubbing, poorer countries, posture, prescription, primary school, Professorial Research Fellow, QR codes, reach, reduced attention span, regulation, Responsible Metaverse Alliance, rotary, safe, security code, shopping, sleep disorders, sleep test, smartphone, smartphone production, smartphone use, smartphones in the classroom, Social, social media, sports results, Sydney, tablet, target, target audience, technology, technology specialist, teenagers, television, third world, Timothy Stackpool, toilet, traffic, traffic accident, transhumanism, TV, updates, view, vox pops

Features Live Action Movies

Souad
(So’ad,
سعاد)

Director – Ayten Amin – 2021 – Egypt, Tunisia, Germany – Cert. 12a – 96m

***

Home truths are revealed about a 19-year-old, social media-obsessed, Egyptian girl in this small independent film – out in cinemas on Friday, August 27th

Starting and ending with a (different) young woman riding a bus, this slice of life drama takes a look at the lives of teenage girls in Egypt. The older generation live according to traditional, Islamic values, including the subjugation of women to men, while their younger counterparts like many Generation Z-ers around the world have more contemporary Western concerns.

For Souad (Bassant Ahmed), 19, it’s all about fashion, boys and looking cool on and off social media. Riding on the bus, she regales fellow travellers with tales of her boyfriend whose identity changes as she talks to the next woman sitting next to her. She visits a clothes shop and successfully shoplifts an item of headgear.

Having established her as either a teller of tall tales or a pathological liar, we see her giving her younger sister Rabab (Basmala Elghaiesh), 16 going on 17, a pretty unreasonable grilling when the later complains, understandably, that Souad is late picking her up.

When Souad unexpectedly vanishes from the story, her shaken sister travels to Alexandria to meet and get to know better her sister’s former boyfriend Ahmed (Hussein Ghanem) in an attempt to find out more about sides of Souad’s life she didn’t really know.… Read the rest