Under Southern Eyes

Under Southern Eyes – What Is It About?

Under Southern Eyes is my personal blog of reviews of films I’ve seen which I find interesting or significant. What I look for can vary from one movie to the next but what I look for in a movie will usually involve any of the following:

  • themes: what is the movie trying to address? what issues is the movie trying to raise awareness of?
  • plot: what is the story? how is it structured (eg linear / linear with flashbacks / going backwards)?
  • acting: how do the actors carry out the action of the plot? how successful are they in performing the plot? if they’re not successful, why not?
  • format: if the movie format is anything other than live-action, why might the director have chosen a different format? how does the format match or enhance the plot and the themes?
  • genre: if the movie is a genre movie, how well does it stick to the genre conventions? and if not, why not?

I try to keep my reviews succinct and to get them to come to the point quickly and not dwell too much on one particular aspect of the movie.  But as some readers will know, it’s easy to get carried away on things that strike a chord with your feelings and beliefs and to end up with a review that resembles an academic essay more than a review! There’s no compulsion though on readers to read the entire review if they don’t wish to and I may consider with very long reviews (more than 2,500 words) to structure them with sub-headings.

About Nausika 

I write music reviews for The Sound Projector, a music fanzine established by UK comic artist and music aficionado Ed Pinsent based in London and for Encyclopedia Metallum, an online database for heavy metal music genres based in Canada. I did suffer review burn-out in mid-2011 so I stopped sending reviews to www.metal-archives.com. I took up reviewing again partly as a way of dealing with depression I had for some years from 2007 onwards.

My interests include reading, listening to experimental music, watching interesting films (and writing about them!), perusing news and current affairs websites and blogs (and sowing sedition and upsetting people on them) and trying to fit in some drawing practice. At present I’m also trying to upload various short stories I wrote from 1998 to 2007 to Scribd.com so I can keep my manuscripts in the cloud and not have to rely on hard copies.

Hope you enjoy reading my movie review posts!

Cheers,

Jennifer Hor aka Nausika Dalaz Blindaz (my black metal name brought over from www.metal-archives.com – it’s Proto-Germanic for “Nausikaa of the Valley of Winds”, after the Hayao Miyazaki film)

10 comments on “Under Southern Eyes

  • July 1, 2016 at 12:40 pm

    Hi, I wanted to send you a message but couldn't find your email address or anything. Just wanted to say thanks for your thoughtful review about my music project (Laws of Nature) on MA! It was great feedback. I'm glad you thought it was halfway OK. I know it was lacking a lot (I didn't even use a guitar, just bass, and the electronic parts were extremely amateur). I love electronic/house music as well as black/death/doom metal so when I was hiking, those two worlds kept blending in my head in an interesting way and I wanted to make some attempt at presenting that idea, with the hope that someone else (like actual musicians) would be inspired to make a better version of the style than I did. I'm pleased that I spliced it as well as I did in certain parts, but there's a hell of a lot of room for improvement. Anyway. Thanks again. You seem like a thoughtful person and prolific writer so I want to be friends with you haha

    • July 1, 2016 at 4:45 pm

      No problem, I like reviewing something unusual and your recording was good. No-one is perfect of course, and when reviewing I try to be fair and give some positive criticism. Yeah, I'd have liked the singing and lyrics to be clearer. Don't worry, loads of vocalists have crap singing voices. I actually prefer to hear bad singing than singing cleaned up with autotuning.

  • October 2, 2017 at 6:44 pm

    You might enjoy critiquing The Counselor. McCarthy tries so hard to be bleak. No one is that bleak forever. The movie itself is interesting simply because it is so deeply and obviously technically flawed and self-dissonant. It would be interesting hear your take on the characterisation. Your reviews are interesting because they are individual and reject the aesthetic of criticism. Sort of opens them up to comment on things that other reviewers can't. I suppose opinion is more illuminating than criticism.

  • June 6, 2022 at 12:37 pm

    Hi, I want to send you an email but I cannot find your contact. I just discovered your reviews on MA reading about the legendary LLN from France and reading about another artists as Burzum, Forest and Ildjarn and your criticism is very analytical. I would like to ask if you can receive CDs for your consideration review. I would be happy to send you a package with 2 or 3 CDs. Thanks for your time and let me know.

    • June 7, 2022 at 5:02 pm

      Hello David, At present my CD player is not working well and I have yet to replace it. If you have a Bandcamp page, let me know and I'll check it out. Thanks for your kind comment and support!

      • June 8, 2022 at 1:38 pm

        Hello Jennifer, thanks for your kind reply. I believe that you can get a more complete experience with the physical CD but of course, I can provide you a bandcamp link or if you want I can send you the album on MP3 or WAV files. Which email address can I send information to? Or can you write me an email to the address that appears in the format below (hidden in this page) and I will write back to you. Please let me know. Best wishes!

  • June 16, 2022 at 2:46 pm

    You can check this bandcamp link: https://lacavernarecs.bandcamp.com/album/i-ii

    • June 18, 2022 at 3:40 pm

      Thanks David, I will certainly check your Bandcamp link! Sorry I didn't reply to your previous comments but I've been busy and have had health problems to deal with.

  • June 21, 2022 at 3:26 am

    Hello Jennifer, no problem! thanks and take your time. Best regards!

  • December 5, 2022 at 9:02 am

    Hello Jenny ! So long time I wanted to thank you for reviewing my project Daughters of Sophia, I finally find where to do it ! Hope we'll keep in touch ! Regards, AzVs

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