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I wanted to discuss with you the redistribution of our parts in this fundamentally vulgar structure, the triangle.

Three times throughout Possession's assaultive mania, director Andrzej Zulawski returns to a similar composition. In each of these shots, the camera sits low behind a character's back with another character on their knees in front of them. Importantly, the person on their knees wraps their hands around the other character's torso. Simultaneously, these are images of supplication and desperation; unmoored individuals grasping for some kind of stability.

Like dying dogs, these are people yelping in terror for a last minute reprieve. Zulawski's own divorce fuels the deranged break-up between Anna and Mark, but that same obsession with reunion triangulates that crisis of marriage with a crisis of faith and a crisis of nation (East and West Berlin). In each case, there's a desperate grasping for the other, wayward party (as visualized in the three aforementioned shots) that cannot be returned. In a way, this is not dissimilar for a child reaching out to their parent, which likewise echoes throughout the film with Bob, but also Anna and Mark oscillating between wounded adults and childish infants in their outlandish behaviors. All that's left to confront by the end of this death yelp is that you can never fully regain possession of the one you lost, whether that's a romantic partner, an ethereal deity, or a fractured nation. They have already moved onto someone else exactly like you, but entirely different from you.

Is this faith that helpless? It needs to be protected. Like a child.

Final Reckoning is the film Neil Breen always thinks he's making.

And that's not only because Ethan Hunt's hair in this entry looks closer to Breen's than ever before. Rather, the damning similarity lies in the arc of Hunt across the three-hour runtime. When writing about Dead Reckoning two years ago, I pointed out that Ethan was set-up to out-God the Entity, finally canonizing his Impossible Mission Faith, in Final Reckoning, but I had no idea nearly the entire structure of this eighth mission would involve Hunt literally converting a series of characters to his cause. Just as Breen's films are narratives of ascendance to godhood through the dismantling of vast computing networks and world powers, so too does Hunt finally attain the ability to "choose" for all humanity by taking control of technology by and large. While Cruise oversells the "we do this for the audience" platitudes (even during a stilted pre-roll promo before this film), like Breen he only ever uses these productions as an ego boost for himself.

Despite having a theistic bent, Final Reckoning also has strains of a campaign. Cruise gets called a lunatic, a daredevil, and the last real movie star, but what he's actually closest to is a politician. Increasingly, the press tours for his films are littered with vague, generalized responses to specific questions (he'll never tell you a single film he's watched, even though he claims to constantly be watching movies), hubristic pantomime for his co-stars, and puff pieces about his legacy, work ethic, and dedication. Like an ouroboros, the franchise has concluded(?) by consuming its own promotional tail, as the narrative of Final Reckoning becomes Hunt embarking on a press tour for his own infallibility. Cruise running for office seems unlikely in reality (though, who the fuck knows anymore?), but he has been on a decades-long rehabilitation campaign trail since couch-jumping and bad-mouthing psychiatric medicine - *checks notes* - around the release of Mission: Impossible III. You know, when the franchise shifted into what it has become.

So, if all of the past films' choices have led to this entry, like a slow-burning, nearly twenty-year fuse burning down, I guess the question you have to answer for yourself, if you choose to accept it, is did he convert you?

Among the various medical emergencies encountered in Help!!!, one involves the lead trio of doctors having to cobble together viable organs from recently deceased patients to stabilize another one on the precipice of death. As an allegory for what Wai Ka-fai and Johnnie To have accomplished with Help!!! that scene could not be more appropriate. A common practice throughout their careers and partnership, the Milkyway Image duo have stitched together a selection of genres within the body of a medical drama, hardly any of which should function properly together. Parody levels of comedy sit beside brief pulsations of horror, the beating heart of a melodramatic love triangle (arguably a love quadrangle if the unhoused man pining after Dr. Yan is counted), the musculature of a disaster movie, and a faint whisper of the Chinese ghost picture. Nakedly a commentary on Hong Kong's broken health care system, under its epidermis Help!!! is an experiment in genre transplantation, even alluding to the rotation of conventions with a conclusion that sees everyone swap roles in a show-within-a-film-within-a-show(?) moment.

Serendipitously reuniting in a hospital waiting room, Gin and his daughter share a private heart-to-heart. During this scene, Kon Satoshi relies on what I'll refer to as the "peripheral line." A limited animation technique where key animators repeat linework at the periphery or in the background across multiple cels, relying on the human eye's tendency to fixate on movement; as the viewer's gaze is drawn to characters that are moving, it tends to ignore a lack of movement elsewhere in the frame. In this scene, when Gin or his daughter stop speaking, their linework immediately becomes static as the other character begins to move.

Given that Kon's other films typical prioritize complicated, fluid linework across an entire frame, Tokyo Godfathers prioritizing limited animation not only in this scene, but throughout the film was noticeable. Rather than being a cost-cutting, time-saving method, the film's themes about communities and individuals who exist on the periphery of a society makes this approach feel intentional. The surface text of the film vocalizes a comparison between society discarding trash with the way unhoused, trans, queer, and psychologically distressed individuals are ignored in Japanese culture, but this is a formal way of conveying the same idea. Kon repeats the technique so often that our eye does start to notice the stillness at the edges of the frame, encouraging the audience to do the same in reality by acknowledging those groups society typically overlooks.

Sidenote: Finally checking off my last unseen Kon film.

Dropping in unedited notes to try and clear out my backlog.

The camera becomes one of the ensemble body, ricochetting off of the other characters. Released during the hand-off between Hong Kong, Britain, and the PRC, the film turns a triad, crime premise into an exercise in the uncertainty of what comes next. In multiple scenes, the camera almost networks between characters, bouncing from one body to the next, sensorially capturing the reintegration of cultural bodies and the collision of different political ideologies. Taiwan gets brought in as the third Chinese node in the network, with the gang of “rascals” ping-ponging between these countries, like the camera does between them. All of this is brought together by a final scene where the “what if” narratives are revealed to be the result of Kai having his palm read. The criss-crossing of lines on our palms, replicating the networking of the camera, and the potentially chaotic reintegration of the PRC, HK, and Taiwan.

Spike Lee has always been a director that experiments with form, but Girl 6 sits alongside Get on the Bus and Bamboozled as artifacts of his interest in the rise of video tape formats. Shot largely on 35mm, Girl 6 prominently contrasts the rich resolution and grain of film with the dingy, lo-res texture of video tape.

Established during the uncomfortable, tense opening scene of Girl 6 - an audition that turns into sexual harassment (heightened by a sleazy (semi-)performance from Quentin Tarantino) - the first use of VHS tape footage is associated with the video camera recording the audition. Lee cuts to that camera's perspective when Randle's character is pressured into exposing herself, juxtaposing her single with the two-shot of QT and his female assistant shot on film. That difference in framing and footage separates Randle's objectification from the perpetrator at the same time that it underlines how the design of the industry (power dynamics, clearance to record vulnerable moments) enables abuse. The tracking shot that concludes the scene erases the distance created by the cross-cutting and different formats, revealing the intimate, close proximity of the space and thereby illustrating the pressurization of the scenario.

As Randle's character takes on the position of a sex phone operator, Lee switches the contrast from earlier. Now, it is the male customers who are shot on video tape, while the operators are on 35mm. This new arrangement seems to imply a remove from patriarchal control as well as an aesthetic commentary on the deceitful, private behaviors of these men independent of their families and partners. Michael Imperioli's threatening stalker, however, confirms this industry to be no different from movie-making; these are systems built to enable and justify male power fantasies. In the film's final crane shot, where the diegetic and real worlds collide (a meta "The End" plastered on an actual L.A. billboard), any sense of separation between Girl 6's narrative and the actualities of Hollywood evaporates altogether.

Despite the high octane competition playing out onscreen, the actual race occurring in Redline is the one between the intricate linework in every frame and your eyes trying to process all of it.

Part of what makes that race challenging can be contributed to Koike Takeshi and his team pushing the plasmaticness of animation to the breaking point. In moments like the collision between Funky Boy and the tentacle monster or the final elongated sprint to the finish line, any sense of stability within the line evaporates. Instead, Takeshi relies on the (inst)ability of the line as an intangible, inorganic object to create sensations of speed, bodily distortion, and personality.

While "the line" as an animation concept receives the majority of academic attention, there's not as much writing on "the shadow." To an equal or greater degree than the line, Redline's character models and aesthetic style depends on the heavily inked shadow, almost as if the characters' bodies have been injected with an entire ink pot à la the way JP drops a tiny tankard of speed boost into his TransAM20000. The sloshing, liquidity of matte black filling out each character lends them an extra essence of malleability, making not only the linework defining their silhouettes elastic, but also turning their entire mass into rippling plasma.

Unfortunately, as formless as the line and shadow are here, the narrative arcs could not be more rigid and predictable.

Operating at a throttled back speed to the deranged intensity Ôbayashi Nobuhiko usually exudes, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (just using the novel's original title to keep things simple) indulges in durational shots and formal experimentations with film time. Where Ôbayashi's signature film, Hausu, develops a feverish energy through rapid cutting and frequent compositing, TGWLTT practices a classical approach, favoring longer takes where the camera reframes within a single shot; Yoshiyama nocking her arrow at an archery range stands as an example, with Ôbayashi causing the audience to feel the shot's length as Yoshi meticulously prepares to fire in one static shot. In a film about time travel, these choices are a way of Ôbayashi experimenting with, showcasing, and emphasizing film as its own form of time travel. As Yoshiyama returns to her own past, Ôbayashi composes scenes identically except for subtle differences in Harada Tomoyo's performance; a means of underlining how film is inherently a return to past, recorded footage, always able to be replayed indefinitely in editing. The bravura set piece of the film, though, arrives in the final act, as Ôbayashi depicts Yoshiyama's experience first-hand through a series of POV still frames cut together to create a jagged, jumpy form of motion which exemplifies the foundational mechanism of motion picture technology; a simulation of forward progression through a succession of still images.

Over time, you realize that there's a bad guy and a worse guy. And nothing else.

Trapped in the Void, made to witness traumatic memories on a loop, Yelena Belova runs. Until she hits a wall. A painted backdrop to be more precise, one of two instances in the Void sequence where the manufactured set design of a Marvel film becomes part of the diegesis; the manifestation of memory within the narrative intersecting with a meta acknowledgement of moviemaking.

As the academic argument goes, since Sam Raimi's first Spider-Man in 2002, the superhero film ascended to the highest echelons of box office success because of how the genre transformed the cultural anxieties of a post-9/11 America into a fantasy of victory. Of course, superhero comics had been doing that long before 2002, emerging during a time of world war to depict their colorful protagonists propagandistically forestalling the Axis powers. That same mediation of cultural and world events has continued since the appearance of Superman in 1938, with the Big Two wielding the grid, the gutter, the , CMYK printing, and universes brimming with flights and tights to sooth anxieties during the worst of times. The MCU has only continued that practice by wielding CGI, star-power, and, yes, sets bound by painted backdrops to symbolically represent, then punch in the face, the fears of our time.

Though, since Avengers: Endgame in 2019, the MCU has failed to resonate as deeply as it previously did with the movie-going public. There are innumerable reasons for that, but one might be that these films stopped providing a vicarious, fictional defeat of national anxieties; Shang-chi didn't use the ten rings to end a quarantine metaphor, Captain Marvel didn't halt the invasion of Ukraine, and, most recently, Captain America didn't go hard enough in punishing an elderly, bloated rage monster in the White House.

Thunderbolts* may not directly allegorize the "worse guys" currently running things (though, Valentina's deceptive, political/corporate Machiavellian figure certainly has echoes), but what it does do is capture the trauma of existence right now. Yelena uses "bored" as a synonym for depression, Walker masks rage and sorrow with cockiness, just as Bob's ive pleasantries conceal suicidal ideation. Right now, we're all the Thunderbolts, going through the motions to cover up the growing pit of uncertainty, anxiety, and concern sitting at the back of our minds. Though ultimately a hollow gesture from a massive conglomerate (a company that has actively participated in expanding that aforementioned pit), there is a semblance of vicarious relief in watching these anti-heroes console and one another.

In post-9/11 superhero films, the defeat of mass tragedy and external invaders did not correlate with a matching solution in reality, just as the group therapy of Thunderbolts* does not vanquish the current bad guys, worse guys, and pervading sense that there is nothing else beyond them. These are only movies, after all. Just digital effects, costumes, and sets bounded by painted backdrops. They cannot resolve our trauma, only emulate it. However, that doesn't mean they cannot help us to process our trauma, leaving a slightly better memory in our brains to blot out some of the darker ones.

|Marvel Ranked|

Among La Pointe Courte's numerous stunning moments of beauty, one scene sees the central, fracturing couple lying in bed, gazing upward. Once the lights are switched off, a rippling cascade of ephemeral moonlight spills across the ceiling. Initially hidden by lamplight, this reflective glow from the moon hitting the canal water outside the bedroom was always there, only revealed by darkness.

Lying at the intersection between La Pointe Courte's duel, intertwined concerns - a faltering marriage and the day-to-day rhythms of a seaside village - the notion of hidden beauty propels the conflict of the former and the mesmerizing cinematography of the latter. Where Agnès Varda's career would oscillate between narrative and documentary work, at her start the two compliment one another, with her attempting to meld a stagey, ponderous examination of tenuous love with a far more investing study of an intimate community. Cluttered by fishing accoutrements, populated by salt of the Earth types, thrumming with the lethargic drama of governmental inspections, town gossip, and resplendent routine, the film's setting has been brought to life by the eye of a keen, ethereal camera that patiently, silently drifts through the households and businesses which comprise it. Where most might not take a second glance at the messy mundanity on display, Varda has found the underlying moonlight, so to speak.

She begins the film with a close-up of a bisected tree stump, concerned with the rings marking its age, simultaneously a symbol of longevity and cyclicality. Like the couple turning off the lights to find something stunning underneath, Varda has elucidated the gorgeous interior of the cycles echoing through the years of La Pointe Courte.

During her morning routine, housemaid Maria strikes a match against a wall to light the kitchen stove. Highlighted in that moment are the marks on the wall not only left by that match, but hundreds of others from countless days before. Those markings convey a great deal about the struggles that Maria and Umberto Domenico Ferrari are confronted with throughout the film.

In one regard, they are an index of time, an accumulation of numerous previous mornings where Maria was compelled to perform the same duties for a meager paycheck along with modest room and board. Umberto, likewise, put in his time for the Italian government, only to end up in a similar position, an insubstantial pension and unreliable housing. At opposite ends of life, working in different fields the two both are a testament to the indifference of time; it does not matter what era the days were accumulated in - pre- or post-war Italy - the working class will always be expected to maintain the routine, to light the stoves each morning.

In another regard, the accumulated match markings reflect that homogenization. In the opening of the film, a city bus carelessly pushes through a rabble of protesting elders, one of various instances where Umberto is nearly hit by a ing vehicle. He, Maria, and others in their situation are like the match strikes; each individual divot gets lost in the accumulated whole. A government, a society has to make an effort to distinguish each individual's struggle or else none is greater than any other. Umberto's concern for Flike as well as his apathy towards Maria's plight (he prioritizes his troubles over her pregnancy) are models for how the State should be treating its citizens and how it is treating them, respectively. A plea made by De Sica during a troubled era that still goes unheard in our current one.

Only partially restored (as portions of Kurosawa Akira's first feature film have been lost to time), the omission of footage turns the film into a succession of training and fight scenes. Strung together by a fairly loose narrative framework, those vignetted scenes become something akin to a Zen Kōan. Take for instance the titular character jumping into a muddy pond only to become mired over a day and night; were he to resist, he would only be pulled deeper. Rather, what defies entrapment are signs of still, natural resilience, a withered stump and a blooming lotus flower. Mastering judo ends up teaching the same lesson: remain still, yet expand and you will always counter aggression levied against you.

As elegant as these lessons, the coordination between Kurosawa's staging, camerawork, and editing are stunningly masterful in their own simplicity. One of the film's first confrontations revolves around judo master Yano squaring off against multiple jiujitsu-trained aggressors. Cleanly, Kurosawa tracks with one of them as he side-steps down the line of his compatriots, succinctly establishing what Yano is up against. As Yano deflects one of the men, Kurosawa himself counters the man's projection backwards with a deft, swift dolly away from the action. When three other opponents step up to attack Yano, Kurosawa stages each of them at different depth of field layers, having individually move out of frame in succession. Witnessing cinematic control from such a young filmmaker becomes its own form of enlightenment.

Watched on a whim. Sits at the intersection of deifying and demonizing the excess privilege, entitlement, and depravity inherent to European wealth and colonization, all set within a feverish, limbo version of Kenya.

Okay, settle in, because I'm about to give Until Dawn way more consideration than it deserves.

Somewhere in the back half of the film, the repeatedly resurrected ensemble of the film gather around a phone screen to watch a succession of their past murders. The audience watches right alongside them, fed a series of un-contextualized kills, jump scares, and monsters. In essence, not that dissimilar from scrolling through a feed of HorrorTok videos.

In the past, I've written about the rise of Internet Cinema (here, here, and here), but the aforementioned sequence from this film as well as a conjuncture of recent events got me thinking about a potential shift into Meme Cinema. Here I'm thinking of the raucous screenings of A Minecraft Movie ("Chicken jockey!") and similar s of audiences laughing, cheering, and quoting along with the re-release of Revenge of the Sith. These are instances were a younger, often Gen-Z or Gen Alpha audience are attending and reacting to these films not because of the narrative, but because they want to perform a reaction to well-known memes in the presence of others who are familiar with them; a cocktail of nostalgia, (sub)cultural identification, and ritual.

Which brings me back to Until Dawn. The structure of the film - even outside of the previously mentioned smartphone montage - almost anticipates that kind of meme cinema. Essentially, a series of gruesome, inventive, sometimes even funny (the implosions-by-water kills are the best part of the film) deaths held together by a tenuous narrative framework, Until Dawn could have potentially pushed that further, delivering a full film that's closer to the montage. Since this film is based on a beloved video game that has a huge Let's Play culture, given it's choose-your-own-adventure mechanics, there's a world where a dumber, louder, shriller, more crassly marketed version of this film could have gained similar traction to what happened with the Minecraft trailer. That definitely didn't happen this time, but as Meme Cinema takes hold, it will for some horror film down the line.

In an era were a digital camera's hard drive can hold an immense amount of information, extended oners and single-shot projects have proliferated. On television, numerous series distinguish themselves with a one-shot episode or long take scene, such as True Detective, Daredevil, The Haunting of Hill House, and recently The Studio and Adolescence. In film, since 2010 we've received two versions of The Silent House, Birdman, Bushwick, Utøya: July 22, The Body Re When the World Broke Open, 1917, Boiling Pointe, and Victoria, to name a few.

Possibly because of that abundance, the gimmick has lost some of its luster. Watching Victoria, the weight of duration sits heavy in the first twenty or thirty minutes, as the audience questions the intentions of the intoxicated men surrounding the titular character. Despite sensing the growing delirium of the actors, exhaustion of the unseen camera operator, and complication of navigating the various locations, the bloom comes off the rose over the runtime. That should be the opposite. Yet, that's a fairly common response to most of the films listed above; the complication no longer comes from racing against diminishing film stock, but instead the complexity of staging and the endurance test to perform it efficiently. In many ways, that's not dissimilar from a play, except the mise-en-scène of the "stage" becomes an entire cityscape.

Of course, the presence of the frame distinguishes these one-take productions from theatre. The gimmick relies on an awareness of the frame, because that coincides with an awareness of the lens, of the camera. Yet, in the era of digital, that awareness differs from films like Rope. Besides the hard drive's capability for unbroken duration, the mobility of the digital camera retains the frame, yet evaporates the shot. Oners like those in A Touch of Evil or Oldboy still compose a frame, regularly bound to a crane or dolly. Yet, in the post-digital era, the operator regularly tracks with the subjects constantly, rarely settling into anything like a locked-down shot; the boundaries of the film frame are ed, but the framing of a shot is not.

Delta Slim recounts a gig he played where he intentionally "changed up the rhythm" to throw off the white audience. Shifting, arhythmic changes are a jazz mentality, they are a blues mentality, and in Sinners they are Ryan Coogler's mentality, as well. Churning through genre like a bluesman picks at his guitar, Coogler never lets the film settle into a single distinct set of conventions, instead letting horror, gangster, musical, drama, melodrama, Western, and comedy genres merge together and play out until the chord changes.

The topic of some toxic online discourse, that notion of changing up traditions also pertains to Coogler's business practices on the film, with rights reverting to the director after twenty-five years. While he likely wanted to push that ownership deal further, it nonetheless shows a resistance to settling, conforming to industry standards, and accepting a buyout. All of those ideas are likewise at play in Sinners, where vampirism equates to the pull of capitalism. Having sold his soul to studios before, Coogler understands that with money comes conformity; a conformity of creativity, ideology, and even race. Money is white, which is why it's so important that Annie accepts a separate form of currency and that the bar takes wooden nickels in the film. Smoke and Stack have, despite their good intentions, already been bitten before the film begins, except the vampire that got them was a stack of Irish and Italian cash. When you buy in - one way or another - you get infected, you conform, you give up your culture for the monoculture.

Right now, the story of Sinners revolves around the box office, around the money made, the profit. In twenty-five years time, though, the story will be about legacy, about how the film changed up the rhythm on Hollywood to retain a sense of control. Even when the barn burns down, the music survives, transcending time and money.

Racing to the finish, exerting all energy, frantically flailing until a body becomes a blur of motion. Does that describe cycling, animation, or both?

Directed by Kōsaka Kitarō, a former apprentice of Miyazaki and employee of Studio Ghibli, Nasu: Summer in Andalusia has a kind of self awareness about the impossibility of catching up to the best, whether that be an athlete or an animator. Try as he might, Kōsaka's lines and the work ethic behind them cannot outpace the master. Fittingly, Kōsaka stylizes the photo finish of the race in a way Miyazaki never would. The cyclists' faces become an erratic blur of sketchy lines, until still frames are literally being shaken to imply speed. Miyazaki would never stoop to using limited animation techniques to convey such a pivotal moment, but Kōsaka does so intentionally.

He cannot out race the best, so he outrés him instead.

Contains a similar scene to one in Joon-ho Bong's Memories of Murder where local police and media return a suspect to the scene of the crime. In both cases, the intention is to link this person with the crime in the minds of the public, even if they lack substantial evidence. Here, the suspect did commit the crime, but that does not discount Jackal of Nahueltoro's potent statement on how the State, the Church, the prison system, and the Media are equal cogs in the mechanism of conviction.

As the film, itself, is a staged recounting of an infamous crime, the implication of how a singular narrative gets sold to the public is inherent. Whether someone is guilty or innocent, the same process is followed: reduce the crime to its simplest components, imprison the culprit, claim they are rehabilitated, then erase the problem through permanent incarceration or execution, leaving the public satisfied and content to move onto the next noteworthy case.

Two distinct moments in the film - including its abrupt conclusion - cut on searing white flashes as the film strip runs through the camera's gate; a formal choice suggesting the system's limited ability to accurately present the nuances of a case. Once the narrative has been sold and the public is satisfied, the coverage ends.

Xu Haofeng's orchestration of his martial arts epics leave me dazed, as if concussed by a blow to the head. His sound design, staging, swooping camera, and editorial construction seem to be working at cross purposes half the time, leaving the viewer perplexed by the why even as they marvel at the how. The triangulation between bodies swiftly performing choreographed motion, a camera that glides with precision and force, and hyperbolic period sets designed to encase both result in moments of formal bliss. However, the viewer often feels as if they’re engaged in combat with those three elements, as well, winded by the effort to keep up with each successive assault. As laid down by the martial arts doctrine in the film, those outside the circle are not allowed to witness duels, yet here we are - the uninitiated audience - encouraged to gaze at them through our “circle,” the lens. Like the push/pull animosity of the two leads, we are being courted for combat while simultaneously being pushed away.

Should I go extinct?

By happenstance, an intimate conversation ambles to a shared fascination - say, ancient, extinct creatures - promising a synchronicity. Simple attraction gives way to elation, not solely from the charge of a budding romance, but also from the affirmation of having hidden corners of consciousness validated by another. Could my eccentricities be someone else's, too?

Then reality sets in. They don't even know your name, much less who you are underneath it all. Your heart shatters, you recede, you once again coil your inner thoughts into a tight, fossilized spiral; an ammonite of the mind, an extinction of personality.

Ohku Akikio's cinema understands the cognition of the young adult, Japanese woman, but in fixating on that topic she also brushes up against universalities of introversion, isolation, and anxiety. Yoshika in Tremble All You Want embodies the often self-enforced partitioning of a persona. In her own mind, she bubbles forth, energetically, warmly interacting with elders, shopkeepers, and waitresses; in reality, she shrivels under the pressures of social scorn or judgement. Before Ohku confirms the stark divide between Yoshika's inner and outer selves, Matsuoka Mayu clues in any viewer willing to pay attention with a subtle shift in her body language, gestures, and facial expressions; bouncy and boisterous in the imagined conversations, mousy and mild in reality. Only alone in her apartment does Matsuoka portray Yoshika at her most relaxed, charmingly talking to her decorations, solo dancing to music, or lost down a late night Internet rabbit hole.

Those are peak moments of identification in Tremble All You Want. Windows into the privacy of another mind, where the film's depictions provide the kind of synchronicity that evaporated in the previously mentioned conversation between Yoshika's and Ichi as well as an infinitude of others in our own lives. What Ohku's films manage to be is a mediator for minds. An equivalent to Yoshika's apartment, film becomes a communal space for the mutual eccentricities of Ohku, the audience, and her characters to breath, to be recognized and enjoyed before once again facing extinction under the public's gaze.

Like one of Kaguya's clueless suitors, on a first viewing I overlooked the Princess's immense beauty.

Upon a rewatch, the stunning accomplishment of Takahata's final masterpiece opened up for me in a new way. The late director has transformed the original legend into an allegory for animation, itself. Conscripted into restrictive bonds of etiquette, wealth, and gender, Kaguya's instructors, parents, and irers attempt to turn her into a still image. Caked in powder, her skin becomes like a white sheet of paper, her teeth coated with charcoal are akin to ink splotches, and expectations of femininity demand that the lines comprising her become still and stationary. Takahata represents that conflict through the form of his film, with Kaguya's most rebellious moments (largely fantasies) depicted as erratic, sketchy linework or sweeping moments of full animation, only to incorporate a series of literal still images during the film's final, elegiac sequence. Ever since his first Studio Ghibli film (Grave of the Fireflies) Takahata toyed with the idea of the still line, the still frame in animation as an allegory for death, so it's fitting that his final film - metaphorically about the difficulty of nurturing a work of art to fruition, only for it to leave you behind once it's complete - contends with the tension between motion and stillness, life and death.

A short runtime contrasting a long lifetime; a sweeping narrative told overwhelmingly through montages.

It takes a week to draw a four- manga strip, a year to draw an issue, nearly a decade to draw a volume, but a lifetime to become an artist. When adjacent lives become like s on a page, interacting and informing one another, that age of time becomes parallel. But s inherently have to be separated to remain s, a whole story told through division.

The conundrum of becoming a great artist is a cruel one, though. Endless hours can be invested into perfecting your craft; drawing, erasing, revising until you're happy. Life, not so much. A memory can be revised, an event can be reconsidered, a fantasy of what-could-have-been pondered. A line can be erased and redrawn, but a timeline cannot. You can only ever look back.

Beginning their lives as characters in Kit Kat web ments, Hana and Alice have been returned to twice since then by Iwai Shunji. Known primarily for prickly, avant garde cinema that challenges the audience, what fascinates Iwai about a duo of high school teens who get up to mischief?

Potentially, the answer lies in them being a duo. Hana & Alice emphasizes doubling as a motif from the start, with the titular pair encountering a combo of (what they assume are) brothers. Twin models conclude the film, providing a structural bookending, as well. Given that Hana and Alice - both here and in The Case of Hana & Alice - are constantly embroiled in misadventures hinging on the tenuous divide between fact and fiction, story and memory, fact and lie, maybe they embody that duality? Notably, the characters do swap names or get misnamed on occasion throughout the film, suggesting the latter couplets are never strictly separate.

What little narrative exists in Hana & Alice revolves around the friends convincing a mutual crush (who they name Mark) that he has amnesia, tricking him into dating both of them based on false memories they've supplied. Like Mark, Iwai keeps the audience in a state of confusion, revealing what we think to be a diegetic reality to actually be a misdirect. When introducing both of Alice's parents, the audience is led to believe neither has any relation to her at first; her mom’s on a date in a cafe with another man, while her dad appears to be a “letch” on a father-daughter lunch date. Likewise, Iwai’s cinematography - switching from stationary, crisp focus to bleary matted shaky cam as well as different color grading - never lets the viewer settle, always unsure about what type of film this is. Hit with so many contrasting details, the viewer does have a hard time keeping track of what they seeing and what has been told to them. Even in the final scene, the juxtaposition of Alice's slo-mo, elegant impromptu ballet dance could be a stunning moment of expression or simply an opportunity for the photographer she's auditioning for to look up her skirt.

Maybe Hana and Alice have been staples across Iwai's career, because they capture what cinema is to him: the pairing of authenticity and lie.

Do television commercials follow a different logic from films? Since the mandate for any televised advertising prioritizes the selling of a product (usually pushing ideology, as well), they are allowed a far greater freedom to pursue whatever stylistic, visual, or tonal choices help to embed the product or brand in the viewer's memory. That's to say, if Budweiser believes a handful of singing frogs will help people the brand's name, the marketing team has the freedom to stretch that concept far beyond the rules of the rational world.

Why raise this question in relation to a Japanese film from the Eighties? In short, director Ôbayashi Nobuhiko infamously started his career making television commercials. His first film, Hausu has attained a reputation for its absurd randomness, but watching School in the Crosshairs made me realize Ôbayashi's work follows the unbound logic of a commercial minus the mandate to sell a product. A random monkey, a musical dance number, a spontaneous saxophonist? Isolated, any of these examples could be gimmicks used for laughs, memorability, or distraction in a TV ad, but here they are part of Ôbayashi's aesthetic; the stable logic of a film-world dissolved in favor of the "anything goes" freedom of a commercial. As a magical girl "idol film" built around promoting Yakushimaru Hiroko, she could arguably be seen as the product, but School in the Crosshairs feels more like an extension of Ôbayashi's career-long interest in dispersing the logic of a commercial across the framework of a feature film.

This review may contain spoilers.

As with The Twilight Samurai, the tensions of The Hidden Blade derive from a collision between class, honor, and ninjo (or personal emotions and desires). For this middle installment in Yamada Yôji's samurai trilogy, those tensions coalesce in a romance restricted by class boundaries, a friendship dissolved by duty, and the oncoming Westernization of warfare. The latter, in particular, suggests the erosion of a previous era, with the honorable swordcraft of the samurai replaced with European firearms, battalions, and canons. When Katagiri's duty to his lord demands he assassinate Hazama, he seems to accept that honor has already been lost, ultimately landing a fatale blow by using a deceptive sword fighting tactic.

However, arguably more important in that climactic battle is that Hazama's death does not ultimately come at the end of Katagiri's blade, but from a barrage of bullets from the newly acquired firearms. As shocking as Hazama's death from offscreen gunfire is on its own, Yamada adds an extra, meta layer to the moment. Counter to the classical, controlled camerawork and staging Yamada has utilized across this film and The Twilight Samurai, the first bullet to wound Hazama is depicted using CGI blood splatter and a digital hand being severed. The appearance of modern digital enhancement in a film that has been so beholden to an older era of cinematic storytelling is legitimately jarring. On reflection, though, the choice feels like Yamada's own acknowledgement that the film industry of the early 2000s was undergoing a change similar to the end of the Edo period depicted in the film. From the perspective of a director whose career began in the late Fifties, the onset of the digital era had to be similar to the samurai realizing their time had ed. Just as the European military tactics are seeping into Japanese warfare in this period film, so too does the future of digitally augmented cinema explode into the frame during that final battle. Yamada sees the change coming, just like his protagonists.

No, I don't really care for these American shopping methods. One has to move with the times I suppose.

Shopping trollies banging into one another, other customers blocking the way, food brands looking deceptively similar, all hazards of modernized capitalism at the market, but also impediments to the spycraft being attempted by Harry Palmer and his superior, Major Dalby. While foreign agents are still presented as the enemy, the real threat comes from within, from a society that's become so increasingly conformist that even military espionage bows to mundane bureaucracy. Just as Palmer and Dalby are distracted and disrupted by the rhythms of homogenized consumerism (American grocery store chains infecting the world), The Ipcress File's compositions are frequently obstructed, suggesting modernization impinging on everything. Telephones, desks, car doors, building architecture, all extensions of a modern world placed distractingly within the frame, hindering the act of spying. Palmer started as a criminal, conscripted into governmental service, but by the end of the film the system wants to push him further, attempting to bend him to their control. If one doesn't move with the times, the times will move against them.

Cure's unsettling existential terror springs from an acknowledgement that our societal programming can be so easily unravelled with only a minor push; "Chime" sees Kurosawa Kiyoshi inverting that idea, instead finding terror in the struggle to tamp down and ignore abnormality in society. When Takuji's grasp on reality begins to slip in the film's final minutes, his doorbell rings, causing him to straighten his posture from the contorted, strained physicality he's undergoing in private; he does not want to appear abnormal to whomever might be standing outside (spoilers, no one is). How do we all tamp down our own perceived abnormalities everyday to placate larger society? Part of why one of Takuji's students disturbs his classmates is that he openly refuses to appear "normal," insisting on hearing something no one else does (or will it that they do).

Rather than responding to that student's obvious mental distress or neurodivergence, Takuji and the rest of the class ignore it, until it's too late. Alongside concealing our own peculiarities, we also ignore those in others; think of how Takuji and his son disregard the cacophonous clatter of aluminum cans being taken out to the garbage, just like how the din of ing trains and the oppressive hum of cicadas become background static. Normality only arises by overlooking distress as well as suppressing it within ourselves. Takuji's student claiming he has a computer embedded in his brain only sounds ludicrous because societal pressure trains us to forget we're all computerized, that we all misfire from time to time. Hearing the chime isn't abnormal, ignoring it is.

Dropping in unedited notes to try and clear out my backlog.

As meditative as the film is, there is also something elegiac about it, too. Discussion of “twilighting” and the conversation about the fish only needing to die once, along with the fact that all of the women look like Taeko (Sakura-san and the high school teacher have glasses, similar lips, and are educators - in their own ways - like Taeko), makes me think this is a kind of liminal, limbo zone where one contemplates life before death.

There’s also a component that’s dealing with Japanese omotenashi or the system of hosting/mindfulness, as Taeko initially resists accepting the graciousness of her hosts, only to become synchronized with them by the end. Lovely film.

Also known as The Excitement of the Do-Re-Mi-Fa Girl, this early pinku eiga from Kurosawa Kiyoshi alludes to its jazzy formal musicality in that original title. Besides Akiko's motivation for traveling to the city being her guitarist boyfriend or the impromptu musical number that breaks out in the middle of the film, Kurosawa's abstract, non-sequitur structuring of the film contains its own sort of lyricism. Inspired by French and Japanese New Wave movements, Kurosawa resists Nikkatsu's mandates for a sexy, softcore distraction and instead engages in formal foreplay. If the film's threadbare narrative is about anything it's Akiko and her peers' exploratory excursion into - as Itami Juzo's (yes, the director of Tampopo) professor phrases it - "living naked." That same professor also encourages his students to stop asking why, which might as well be a request of the audience, too, as Kurosawa overcomes shame by crafting a film that "lives naked," indulging in whatever stylistic or frivolous inclination catches his fancy.

Espionage films have long used the spy trade as an allegory or parallel to romantic relationships (Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy), a tradition Black Bag deliciously embraces, while also turning that metaphor to the idea of genre, itself. The film's twisty, deceptive narrative hinges on the tensions within long-term relationships, affairs, and open-partnerships while the film's spy genre tropes flirt, cheat, and fool around with those of other genres. No strangers to the heist film, Steven Soderbergh and David Koepp engage in genre infidelity by setting up the film's climax with a bedroom scene right out of Ocean's Eleven, where George and Katherine concoct a plan that the viewer doesn't hear. Even more overt than heist tropes are the whodunnit flourishes of the book-ended dinner scenes, where George becomes a Poirot-esque sleuth deducing each suspect's motive.

What's in a name? Why Ani instead of Anora? Why Vanya instead of Ivan?

In an age where each younger generation has been shackled with debt, unstable financial markets, and inflation by the preceding generations, a growing sense of powerlessness has settled in. How can a twenty-something GenZ-er hope to establish financial independence when their inability to make a sustainable living has been impacted by older generations hoarding boons from possibly the last period of economic excess? Put another way, Vanya doesn't have money, his parents do. Ani - like her generational peers - has turned to self-exploitation to eke out a meager income, a shared living space, and the barest of luxuries, so of course she jumps at the chance to grasp even a modicum of the economic security of an older generation. Steadily that possibility slips through her fingers, as it has her whole life. Frantic, she attempts to convince her Boomer captor, then the Boomer parents of her beau to share, a generation negotiation. In an expedited coming-of-age, though, Ani learns what every young adult does when they transition from their twenties into their thirties nowadays; there is no negotiation, exploitation cannot produce an escape hatch, the chains of one generation to the next are unbreakable. A tragic last gasp, Ani's final scene suggest an attempt at producing blood from a stone, working - as she has for years at the Headquarters strip club - on the slightly older Igor, only to collapse into an acceptance that he's no better off than her.

Again, why Ani and why Vanya? Where these two cannot change their circumstances, they can change their birth names, one among many burdens ed down by their parents.

Who are you?

In a society - especially a collectivist culture based on tenets of omotenashi - we are expected to conform to our role, to act rationally, to answer when questioned, to behave. What are those expectations based on, though? Unspoken, often habitually learned rules we are taught from childhood, shaping us into who we are. Does that mean who we are is determined for us? Are we simply under a communal spell? Just monkeys twisting ourselves into knots doing what we're told?

Cure disturbs on an existential level because it reveals rational behavior to only be the result of a social contract. Mamiya continually frustrates and antagonizes his captors, because he shows how simple the whole system can be shattered, all by simply refusing to answer a single question. Cure, itself, takes up Mamiya's edict, becoming increasingly obtuse as it progresses; buses seem to float to their destination in a hazy fog, a previously unseen barn inexplicably becomes the climactic location, an illogical reverse shot of Takabe Fumie's corpse gliding down a hallway chills us to the bone. Like a society's citizens, a film is supposed to behave by a set of rules and structures. With each ing frame, Cure tells us who it is. Not hypnotizing indoctrination, but its irrational cure.

In our work, it's kill or be killed.

Planning to snipe his contracted target from a distance, Hanada conceals himself behind a massive billboard for a lighter brand. An oversized lighter adorns the billboard, designed to flick its top open to simulate igniting a flame. When the top of the lighter rolls back, Hanada inserts his rifle through a gap in the lighter, provided a limited window to make the kill. Anyone with a cursory knowledge of how a camera functions might notice a similarity between the lighter and a camera shutter; both opening briefly, providing the opportunity for a bullet to swiftly fire out the barrel of Hanada's gun, the inverse to how light travels down the lens barrel when recording an image. In both cases, the shot has to be perfectly timed.

Last year, I wrote briefly about the attraction of hitman characters to filmmakers from a gendered perspective. While that masculine metaphor is still present here, Suzuki Seijun additionally uses the archetype as an allegory for the aging filmmaker. Unceremoniously fired by Nikkatsu after Branded to Kill underwent a messy production, thoughts about future, legacy, and career had to be on Suzuki's mind at the time; no wonder all of the hitmen here are so preoccupied with who among them is ranked as No.1. While one character suggests that "women and booze" lead to downfall, Suzuki's images and narrative suggest an obsession with reputation actually precipitates self-destruction. In the foreground of one shot, reels on a film projector are overlaid onto Hanada and No.1 in the background, suggesting the former and latter as endpoints, the beginning and ending of a film (career). That they end up tied back-to-back, becoming a symbol for the intertwining of the self and the mind's unconscious death drive, only completes that thought.

The butterfly-like metamorphosis narrativized here is not one between hitman and filmmaker (they are already one and the same), but between the start and end of a career. The camera barrel can be like a gun barrel, with each shot leading to one's own demise.

It sounds crazy, don’t it? Worrying about your wife making good with another guy.

Underneath the femme fatale archetype of film noir, there lies a degree of male fragility. Manipulative, unfaithful, murderous, the femme fatale arises from the fears, insecurities, and hostilities of male creators in a post-WWII climate; men who were worried their wives, girlfriends, or fiancés might cozy up to someone else while they were shipped overseas. Of course, those concerns stem from hypocrisy, because those men were likely doing the same thing prior to, during, and after the war themselves.

An intriguing curio, Nocturne critiques those masculine insecurities in the moment they were most prevalent. Arguably because the film was produced by Joan Harrison (former secretary to and co-writer with Alfred Hitchcock), the narrative brims with gendered tensions about adultery, objectification, and fragility. A good deal of those qualities are distilled in the character of Vincent, a womanizing composer whose death incites the plot. Not only does Vincent literally objectify his female conquests by hanging their portraits on his wall, writing songs about them, and referring to all of them as "Doris," but also his opening monologue paints him as an inversion of the male fears described above, indulging in transparent infidelities. A red herring femme fatale seems to affirm post-WWII male fears, only for a last minute twist to reaffirm masculine fragility as the culprit within another male musician. Interestingly, George Raft's lead detective lives with his elderly mother (brimming with Oedipal energy) and, though he seems to proposition each woman he investigates, remains largely toothless as a sexual being.

This review may contain spoilers.

As Diao Yi-nan has done throughout his career, a narrative conflict - here an adulterous romance between a prison guard and the husband of an inmate - allegories the relationship between the State and its people.

In this case, ebbs and flows are the central visual motif. Diao integrates that idea across the film as shadows rippling through a train car ing through a tunnel, men and women hesitantly criss-crossing a dance floor, and the gentle lapping of waves on the shore in the film's final moments. All echo the exchange between affection and abuse in Wu Hongyan's affair, leaving her and the audience uncertain about her partner's oscillating intentions. In one moment, the two are tenderly comforting each other against the harsh realities of their existence in an authoritarian culture; in the next, Li Jun unleashes repressed rage during their sexual encounters, not dissimilar to the group of men flogging a horse seen in the film's closing act. That ambiguous behavior mirrors the State's inhumanity towards citizens who have disobeyed, captured not only by the desolate industrial landscape of the film, but also the cruelty of the prison system.

Before the two are meant to go boating, Wu discovers a hatchet and knife in Li's bag. Are these implements for the trip or intended murder weapons? The film's final image leaves the audience to ebb or flow toward whichever interpretation they favor, caught on the shore in a permanent limbo.

An actual lord or only an imitator, the masses bow the same; it's all just (Noh) theater.

A true masterpiece would be a sauce that could appeal to even an ignorant cretin, like you.

it it. It's what you want. It's what everyone wants.

Housed in a literal brick, Mickey's memories - not his re-printed body - are what the system exploits.

Okay, wait, let me step back. Before arriving on Niflheim, Director Bong provides a glimpse of the 2054 Earth the colonists are fleeing. In particular, one image stands out. As a barrage of sandstorms assault the exterior of the departure terminal, an automated voice comes over the loudspeaker to placidly encourage travelers to remain calm and purchase safety masks at the gift shop. Acceptance of mundane chaos. Relatable, too, since 2025 Earth has become ively accepting of wildfires, mass shootings, fascism, the list goes on.

Numbing the proletariate to the whirlwind of disasters constantly encircling them as they are - brick-by-brick - used to construct a safe haven for the elite takes work, though; being satisfied to breath in noxious air because, hey, it's a living, requires indoctrination. To engender acceptance requires the lure of hope, the possibility that one day we'll get to press the button and blow up the whole system. At least then exploitation is tolerable. For Mickey, that hope gets force fed into his memories every time they are re-ed into a newly printed body; for us, we have the movies, narratives of hope, of revolution, of resistance. That's the sauce, baby. Drink deep.

Calibrating that hope within a cultural consciousness can be tricky, though. Archetypal heroes and villains can be inconsistent, narrative beats conflict with one another, humor and pathos make for awkward bedfellows. Sometimes the Purple Joe recipe - a mix of red and blue - can be imbalanced. Mickey 17's version of the sauce may not have been Director Bong's masterpiece - far from it - but, then again, maybe it wasn't supposed to be? Maybe it's more about alerting us to how the sauce is made.

I'm an old man. I'm tired of always having to serve others.

No wonder one of The Mission's set pieces takes place in an empty retail center, where the film's ensemble of bodyguards are statically staged like misplaced mannequins. These men are guns for hire in the purest sense of the word, drawn into service as a replacement for "guns" who misfired. When they are empty, when they are made to sacrifice themselves, they can be changed out for new weapons, as a moment near the end suggests where a previously unseen hitman appears to silence the boss's wife.

As elemental an action film as possible, Johnnie To uses his actors like hired guns, depleting them of backstory, layering, or complexity. Instead, they are deployed as bodies to be staged, bodies barely indistinguishable from the guns they hold, ready to be fired in car-packed alleyways, shopping centers, or derelict buildings. They are there to serve the set piece, the filmmaker, and the audience alike.

Stray Dog's inciting incident takes place in an uncomfortably cramped city bus, with Toshirô Mifune's Detective Murakami packed against other riders, like bullets in a clip. Discovering that his service weapon has been pilfered, Murakami fires out of the bus after the thief. The bullet is out of the gun, the gun is out of the holster, a cop without a gun is not a cop, a city without cops is without order.

The Zeno's Paradox-esque search that follows - sending Murakami and his superior (Chief Detective Sato) on a delirious search from metropolitan cityscape to bucolic countryside - resembles a bullet colliding with bone, a dispersed fracturing. While the detectives are partially motivated by the desire to stop a series of murders committed with the gun, Murakami's desperate desire to repossess his weapon stems from how it makes him a protruding nail in a collectivist culture. That same idea gets echoed in the "needle in a haystack" set piece where the cops try to track down a culprit in a crowded baseball stadium, looking for the one person who stands out.

Protruding nails may normally be hammered down, but especially in a freshly post-war Japan, where the entire culture has been dispersed, struggling to reintegrate, grasping at a sense of normalcy. The bullet has already been fired, though, meaning it can never fully be put back into the gun.

Brothers-in-arms, the Long-Armed Devil, the One-Armed Swordsman; the interrelation, deployment, and absence of appendages as uniting theme. Training under a sifu from an elite class, only to hide out as a farmer and originate from a servant class, Fang Kang's arc within the film turns it into a class commentary; what is one class without the others, one arm without its opposite? Fang Kang's absence of privilege gets replicated in the loss of his arm (to the flippant whim of his master's pampered daughter) and the halving of his sword. Ultimately, those absences (class) motivates Fang Kang to excel and (appendage) to survive, namely in the final showdown where the Long-Armed Devil's spear misses its killing blow. Could the class hierarchy similarly benefit from some severing?

Set in the real Kowloon City (my mouth was fully agape finding that out), the pervasive logic of Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In revolves around compression. Compression implies a crushed proximity, yet not a merger; two things can be compressed together, but they do not become the same thing, only an intimately close thing. A former military fort that was overtaken by triads, the impoverished, and other communities, Kowloon City resembles a massive, porous Rubik's Cube, with a dense population crammed together in claustrophobically close apartments, businesses, and narrow corridors; lives compressed.

Compression first becomes apparent in the way the film blends genres, namely triad/crime films, martial arts movies, wuxia, and even flat-out drama, supplemented by a compacting of generational HK, Chinese, and Taiwanese action stars (Sammo Hung, Louis Koo, Philip Ng). The agile, active bodies of these actors - famous for their ability to fluidly perform choreographed action while traversing a space - are consistently impeded here by the narrow, tight restrictions of the sets, which becomes the appeal. Set pieces and emotional beats have been tailored to that notion of compression, frequently staging characters close together yet just out of reach; notable instances occur twice, with the younger generation of characters unable to save a mentor figure from death, even though they are only separated by a security door, while the vengeful origins of another character hinge on him having to witness his wife and daughter being murdered only a few feet away. Even the defeat of the ultimate villain comes from forcing him to swallow a sword shard, placing the danger invasively close while still being unreachable.

A period piece released only a year ago, the final variation of compression exists in the commentary on the present. In a narrative endearing lawbreakers who enforce their own system of governance in defiance of their British stewards, what feels ominously close are echoes to current HK's struggle against the tightening mandates of the PRC.

Traditions and tendencies of Peking/Beijing opera reverberate into the golden age of wuxia cinema. On top of training their voices, performers in Chinese styles of opera rigorously memorize a litany of traditional gestures that accompany the storytelling. Effectively, these nuanced bodily movements stem from and lead to distinct poses to signify narrative beats within the performance. That careful balance between stillness and controlled motion feels highly relevant to how King Hu and his contemporaries staged, shot, and edited the action in films like Come Drink with Me.

Confronted by a horde of bandits in a stereotypical jianghu inn, Pei-pei Chang's Golden Swallow displays her expertise through a series of swift defensive movements, not unlike the gestural qualities of Peking Opera. In one instance, bandits toss a handful of coins into the air to taunt her, only for Golden Swallow to pin the coins to a rafter with chopsticks, then catch them with a fan once they fall. Hu depicts this action in a montage of quick shots featuring Chang either entirely still (holding out the fan) or completing a singular, swift gesture (elevating her arm to throw the chopstick). In effect, the assemblage generates a cinematic equivalent to the balance between gestural motion and poised stillness in Peking Opera.

Likewise, there are instances where the "off-screen" intentionally highlights the artificiality of the staging, retaining an aspect of the proscenium. During the closing moments of the confrontation between Drunken Cat and Liao Kung, the latter falls offscreen into an unseen body of water only for streams of water to be hurled onscreen by unseen crew . The excessive spray of water, illogic of its directionality, and felt absence of the crew ' bodies enhance the performative nature of the moment, harkening back to the constructed design of Peking Opera mise-en-scène.

What begins as a rhythmic coalescence between the residents of a farming village in Kerala deteriorates into something like the deranged kineticism of Mad Max: Fury Road, but with a single bull instead of a fleet of cars.

Jallikattu opens with an extended montage cut to an almost metronomic cadence, suggesting a unified synchronicity to the villagers, even if there are squabbles and disagreements. However, when a lone buffalo escapes a butchering, that tempo becomes cacophonous. Where previously every aspect of the society was keeping time with one another, a competition of speeds emerges. Out front, the evasion of the buffalo, ambling away from its captors, yet always remaining elusive. Behind the animal, a swiftly growing mob of pursuers, disordered yet expansive. Given the calamity, local police are called in, but they arrive far too late. Another resident attempts to file a legal complaint, but the lethargic pace of governmental action remains the slowest speed of all, eventually stalling out completely in the film. Out of these competing, discordant races, the speed that ends up accelerating quickest is the frothing, wild-eyed primitivity of the mob, climaxing in a complete breakdown of social order as the community is rebuilt as a glaring visual metaphor on humanity's desperate grasping for limited resources.

As increasingly relatable as that pile of bodies is becoming, the creation of Jallikattu stands as its own counter to that primal competition. A production that inherently involves elaborate coordination between masses of actors as well as deftly elegant camera movement, the participation required of the performers, camera operators, ADs, grips, and other crew - in the midst of inhospitable terrain, no less - counters the frenzied greed onscreen with a communal collaboration offscreen.

As with Lan Yu, Stanley Kwan's compositions frequently incorporate mirrors, starting with the opening shot where Anita Mui applies make-up towards the camera, turning it into a mirror. Once the film jumps ahead to the present day, there's a pervading sense of reflection on the remnants of 1930s Hong Kong, now paved over by Westernized shopping arcades and other businesses. Just as that era has been diminished, has romantic love lost its intensity in the modern world?

Sidenote: Wish I could write more than that or give this one a rating, but I restarted this twice and kept falling asleep somewhere in the middle. At a point, I just pressed ahead to the end, but I'm left mostly with hazy memories.

During the protracted hospital sequence that comprises a majority of Hard Boiled's third act, Chow Yun-fat's Inspector "Tequila" pauses in front of a poster that reads: God is the wind beneath our wings. A background detail easily dismissed as standard set dressing. Except that this poster displays John Woo's signature dove, basically identifying the phrase on the poster as a mantra or distillation of the film's aesthetic. How, then, does Hard Boiled operate on a logic of wind, of air, or the divine?

Woo's first images in the film are of a chemical reaction brought on by oxidization, as a carbonated drink gets added to alcohol, then shaken until it produces a vitriolic fizz, announcing the juxtapositional chemistry about to be on display throughout the film; an explosive montaging of bodies, bullets, and blow-ups violently jostled together. Shortly thereafter, "Tequila" takes the stage, blowing into a clarinet. That detail may have long been discarded as an eccentricity of this signature Hong Kong action film, but importantly it likewise relies on a control of breath, of air. The gusty, yet rhythmic deployment of action throughout Hard Boiled, then becomes Woo unleashing his own kind of jazz solo, turning editing into embouchure, a carefully orchestrated chaos exhaled as images akin to notes mouthed by a master musician.

Part of that breath control entails the airless, graceful way Woo choreographs Chow Yun Fat and Tony Leung's bodies (not to mention hundreds of henchmen) during these relentless set pieces. Wearing stereotypically Nineties attire, the loose fitting pants and suit jackets billow, flail, and extend, uplifted by the air produced from these bodies flying through space. The actors slide, land, and glide across sets as if untethered from physics, alongside those same sets - walls, windows, everything - shattering into particulate matter, a forceful exhaling of mise-en-scène.

And God? Well, he's right there on the screen, John Woo himself advising "Tequila" as a sort of mystical, barroom sage, setting him on a windy path. Less a Christian God, more a contemporary updating of a kung fu master, Woo's meta role here lampshades the wuxia history that Hard Boiled updates, breathing new life into the way that genre relied on an airy control of actors and montage to lift its mystical heroes, like doves sent aloft on a gust of wind.

Dropping in unedited notes to try and clear out my backlog.

Naked propaganda. Overflowing with low angle shots of tattered women resiliently hefting the Communist flag, standing against ghoulish Nationalist villains caked in white make-up. Further entrenches Communist ideologies as having always been powerful, dominant, and correct by rewriting history. Not dissimilar to strategies that currently are reframing Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a terrorist who initiated the War in Ukraine.

Propaganda always seems obvious and transparent when viewed with hindsight or from outside the culture. Helpful to watch something like this in an era where freedoms of the press are being curtailed and replaced with propagandistically aligned outlets. Learn to see it in the moment.

Why are you turning the lights on?
Because they’re about to go off.

An excursion into limbo. Each day Yuwen walks by a collapsed wall around the city, a shattered barrier between the past and the present. The family exists in a liminal space between the end of WWII and the Communist revolution, living in rubble yet affluent in a way that will be impossible in another decade. The central love quadrangle also speaks to the faint glow of past promise - a romance unrealized - before the lights go out. Yuwen narrates from an omniscient POV, which is interesting; as if she sees all aspects of the present moment, while being unable to return to the past nor foresee the future. Form comprised of dissolves and steady pans, all contributing to the ethereal, liminality.

Dropping in unedited notes to try and clear out my backlog.

In an article entitled "Superhero Fan Service," Bart Beaty extols a strength of the MCU's design he refers to as modularity. To Beaty, the modular entails Kevin Feige and his producing partners' ability to swap in successful elements of previous Marvel films as the phases progress. For instance, the way Guardians of the Galaxy's classic rock soundtrack and neon aesthetic are ported into Thor: Ragnarok.

However, in true superhero fashion, that strength has become the MCU's greatest weakness. Modularity has now become microcosmic, with these productions no longer simply incorporating successes from the past (like this film's naked attempts to openly repeat beats from Captain America: The Winter Soldier's plot), but now modularly swapping footage from the original shoot, the re-shoots, digital augmentations, green screened goop, and who knows what else, like DNA being reconfigured by gamma radiation. The result replicates the worst kind of comic book, one where several fill-in artists take turns drawing various pages throughout an issue, creating a stylistic whiplash; but even issues that bad don’t intermix art styles in the same . A pivotal scene with The Leader (though, never named that in the film) and Sam Wilson feels like different artists working on a single , as Tim Blake Nelson feels composited into a non-existent location where Anthony Mackie performed off of no one.

Most damning here, though, is how modularity has begun to apply to Disney's politics, as well. In an age where corporations capitulate to whatever ideology seems popular - whether that be progressivism or fascism - Marvel has utilized their former experience with modulation to sand off any political messaging that might scare away, uh, I don't know, Proud Boys, the Klan, technocrats? Since these are their new favored audiences, Sam has no character arc, Isaiah's tragic past becomes a one-off joke, and President Ross becomes the hollowest cipher of a politician, even though he transforms into a glaring symbol of chaotic, far right rage.

|Marvel Ranked|

Framed as a faux-documentary, Bakita Byaktigato synthesizes a cinéma vérité approach with a mockumentary tone. As such, moments where Pradipta Bhattacharyya dips into surrealism are telling, like a scene late into the film where a forest spontaneously and impossibly fills up with ionate lovers.

In this regard, I am fixated on an early instance of parallel editing where the film cuts between an interview with a local palm-reader and wide-angle shots of his wives elsewhere in the village. Unlike the typical dynamics of a documentary - footage from varying time periods intercut and juxtaposed against one another - the cross-cutting here intentionally feels impossible. The film makes a point of establishing the limited production crew for the faux-doc (including only Pramit, the director, and his sole camera operator/friend), almost so that during this early moment the audience is highly aware of the operator's unseen, yet felt body. With that in mind, his presence at the time of the palm-reader interview and the inability for him to simultaneously (or even successively) record the footage of the wives rests underneath the montage. What's more, the shots of the wives break the film's established visual language to that point, repeatedly featuring them directly addressing the wide lens of the camera. In that way, the shots of the wives become ethereal, as if recorded onto the DV tapes without the filmmakers knowing.

Considering that much of the film is about Pramit trying to "attain a woman" - both romantically and as a recorded object on camera - these shots (where the first wife breaks into tears thinking about her marriage) and the final shot, where Shompa puts her hand over the lens, seem to suggest a resistance to the undercurrents of a traditional patriarchy within the film's premise. These are visions of women commandeering the footage, invading the framework of the film to provide perspectives Pramit - potentially as a stand-in for a larger cultural inclination - ignores in his filmed quest.

Plays like an overlong SNL sketch premised around how (un)funny it would be if the next Hallmark movie turned out to be a slasher.

1. Raiders of the Lost Ark
2. The Evil Dead
3. The French Lieutenant's Woman
4. Outland
5. Blow Out
6. Ms .45
7. Possession
8. Mad Max 2
9. Body Heat
10. Thief

...plus 10 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Mission: Impossible
2. Mission: Impossible III
3. Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation
4. Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol
5. Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning
6. Mission: Impossible – Fallout
7. Mission: Impossible II
8. Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning

Films will be added and ranked as I see them.

1. Sinners
2. Thunderbolts*
3. One of Them Days
4. Black Bag
5. Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning
6. Presence
7. Mickey 17
8. Captain America: Brave New World
9. Until Dawn
10. Heart Eyes

Made this list for an Adapting Literature to Film course I taught in Fall of 2023. Making it public on here now that the class is over.

Shows Not Listed on Letterboxd
Only Murders in the Building
Afterparty
The White Lotus
Murder and Other Details

• The Cat and the Canary
• The Canary Murder Case
• The 9th Guest
• Murder at the Vanities
• The Thin Man
• The Case of the Curious Bride
• The Cat and the Canary
• Who Done It?
• And Then There Were None
• The Verdict

...plus 56 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Almost Famous
2. Memento
3. High Fidelity
4. O Brother, Where Art Thou?
5. In the Mood for Love
6. The Isle
7. Suzhou River
8. t Security Area
9. American Psycho
10. Snatch

...plus 78 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

After finding other s' "About Me" lists to be fun reads, I thought I'd create one for myself. However, I'm going to keep things pretty superficial.

Though I have tried to discern a format to these things, it seems like everyone either a) lists off films that define them without any context or b) uses film titles as headers for notes about their life, history, and personality. I'm still a little unsure whether people are using only films they've seen, films they love, and/or films that fit the theme. So, I've decided to go with films I have seen that have titles which act like headers. These are not my All-Time Favorites© by a long shot.

• The Rules of the Game

  To start, I figured I'd provide some insight into how I use Letterboxd.

  I'm not a "log-er." So, if I rewatch a film, I tend not to add it or write anything about it. The exception to that rule are films that I watched so long ago that I only have a vague recollection of them or films that I have never reviewed on here that I have "thoughts" about. I force myself to write something about any film I watch that I have previously not seen. Usually I restrain myself to something between one and three paragraphs. Writing that much will often take me an hour or so to construct, as I am very picky about my wording, formatting, and content; I really try to provide an original "take" on a film, rather than list off the standard talking points ("Acting was bad/good," "Pretty cinematography," "I like so-and-so's direction"). While I find some of the snarky/humorous/meme-y one to two sentence reviews on Letterboxd funny, that's never something I have had the proclivity or talent to do.

  Star ratings are kind of useless most of the time; I've even considered doing away with them. You'll never see one of those rating guides on my page (Four Stars = Excellent, Three Stars = So-so), as I cannot generalize in that way. Ratings are not based on overall, broad comparisons, but ones within genre, type, form, and personal taste. So, I might give The Dark Knight Rises and Playtime a full five stars each, but that does not mean they are equal; they've earned those within their own categories and in relationship to their peers.

• The Favourite

  Too often people ask me who my favorite (or favourite) directors are, usually resulting in me stumbling for a clever answer. In an effort to stop that from happening in the future, here's a general listing of filmmakers whose work I rewatch often, have seen all of, or am regularly in awe of what they accomplish.

  Boring, but True
  -Paul Thomas Anderson
  -Sofia Coppola
  -David Fincher
  -The Coen Brothers
  -Bong Joon-ho
  -Park Chan-wook
  -Wes Anderson
  -Hayao Miyazaki

  A Bit More Unique
  -Céline Sciamma
  -Kelly Reichardt
  -Julia Ducournau
  -Jonathan Glazer
  -Richard Linklater

• Pulp Fiction

  Prior to teaching college classes, I worked at a comic book store for ten years. Like any retail job it could be frustrating at times, but I would never trade one bit of that decade for anything. I met some of my best friends through the store. And it made me the person I am today.

  As you can imagine, I am a huge comic book fan. Been reading comics consistently since I was around ten years old, beginning in earnest with Grant Morrison's run on JLA. Aside from that, some of my favorite series and graphic novels include:

  Preacher
  Y, the Last Man
  This One Summer
  The Immortal Iron Fist
  Sex Criminals
  Animal Man
  Kingdom Come
  Watchmen (obviously)
  Top Ten
  Batman: The Long Halloween
  The Ultimates
  Locke & Key
  Nextwave: Agents of H.A.T.E.
  And so, so many more. . .

• Kansas City

  Born and raised in Kansas City, Missouri, but was never the biggest fan of BBQ, which is the one thing the city gets boiled down to. Gates is good, I've had some Arthur Bryants in my day, and Jack Stack is wealthy white folk BBQ. Before moving, I was becoming a big fan of Char Bar in Westport, but, honestly, I don't know if it's even still there.

• Network

  While I used to spend whole days flipping channels in my youth, I barley keep up with even the hit shows today, whether network, cable, or streaming. If I find the time to watch an entire season of television, it's usually because it's something I'm interested in, not something I have been recommended. It's very difficult to commit to anything that's over three seasons, so I usually keep to anthologies or shows that clock in at less than an hour per episode.

  Favorite shows include (in no particular order):
  LOST
  Justified
  Six Feet Under
  Doctor Who
  Seinfeld
  Fleabag
  Parks and Rec
  30 Rock
  Scrubs
  Gilmore Girls
  The Chris Gethard Show: Public Access Era
  Taskmaster

• The Music Room

  I rarely listen to music anymore. Instead, it's mostly podcasts that are playing when I'm cooking, taking a shower, or driving. "Filmspotting," "Pop Culture Happy Hour," "This American Life," and "James Bonding" have been regulars for, in some cases, over a decade, while "Blank Check," "Podcast the Ride," "The Flop House," and "The Weekly Planet" are new favorites.

  That said, I listened to a lot more music when I was younger. My tastes were also pretty mainstream and out-of-sync with others my age (I had older parents). I had a country phase in high school, but mostly loved classic rock (with Springsteen being my #1), but as I have grown older I've gotten into artists that I missed out on in the nineties and some folksy bands from the aughts (City and Colour, Glen Hansard, Lucero, The Head and the Heart, and The Civil Wars). Lately, though, if I'm listening to music, it's probably HAIM or KC's own The Greeting Committee.

1. Memories of Murder
2. Oldboy
3. Lost in Translation
4. Kill Bill: Vol. 1
5. In the Cut
6. Tokyo Godfathers
7. Elephant
8. The Dreamers
9. Open Range
10. The Station Agent

...plus 68 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Perfect Blue
2. Cure
3. Jackie Brown
4. The Game
5. Boogie Nights
6. Princess Mononoke
7. Starship Troopers
8. Lost Highway
9. Too Many Ways to Be No. 1
10. Rosewood

...plus 54 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Bound
2. Fargo
3. Hard Eight
4. Nenette and Boni
5. Mission: Impossible
6. Trainspotting
7. Waiting for Guffman
8. Crash
9. Lone Star
10. Bottle Rocket

...plus 57 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

An incomplete ranking of Spike Lee's filmography.

1. Do the Right Thing
2. Malcolm X
3. She's Gotta Have It
4. 25th Hour
5. When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts
6. David Byrne's American Utopia
7. Girl 6
8. Bamboozled
9. BlacKkKlansman
10. Da 5 Bloods

...plus 6 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Mother
2. Dogtooth
3. In the Loop
4. A Serious Man
5. Thirst
6. The Road
7. Fantastic Mr. Fox
8. Jennifer's Body
9. Bright Star
10. The Informant!

...plus 69 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Videodrome
2. My Brother's Wedding
3. The Dead Zone
4. Return of the Jedi
5. Christine
6. Zelig
7. The Hunger
8. The Little Girl Who Conquered Time
9. National Lampoon's Vacation
10. Never Say Never Again

...plus 13 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Made this list for a course I taught in Fall 2022. Making the list public now that the course has finished.

As defined in the class, oppositional westerns take up the kind of critical vantage point bell hooks describes as the "oppositional gaze" in order to critique the colonialist mythology of the Western as well as depict narratives that are traditionally marginalized in the history and storytelling of the American West.

• The Symbol of the Unconquered
• The Bull-Dogger
• The Wind
• Harlem on the Prairie
• Two-Gun Man from Harlem
• The Bronze Buckaroo
• Harlem Rides the Range
• Gunslinger
• The Dalton Girls
• Sergeant Rutledge

...plus 46 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

From Beginning to Endgame: MCU 2019 Rewatch:

Phase One
Iron Man
The Incredible Hulk
Iron Man 2
Thor
Captain America: The First Avenger
The Avengers

Phase Two
Iron Man 3
Thor: The Dark World
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Guardians of the Galaxy
Avengers: Age of Ultron
Ant-Man

Phase Three
Captain America: Civil War
Doctor Strange
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
Spider-Man: Homecoming
Thor: Ragnarok
Black Panther
Avengers: Infinity War
Ant-Man and the Wasp
Captain Marvel
Avengers: Endgame
Spider-Man: Far From Home

Phase Four
Black Widow
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
Eternals
Spider-Man: No Way Home
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
Thor: Love and Thunder
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

Phase Five
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
The Marvels
Deadpool & Wolverine
Captain America: Brave New World
Thunderbolts*

1. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
2. Iron Man 3
3. Captain America: The Winter Soldier
4. Avengers: Infinity War
5. Avengers: Endgame
6. Captain America: The First Avenger
7. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
8. Thunderbolts*
9. Spider-Man: No Way Home
10. Captain America: Civil War

...plus 26 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. The Night of the Hunter
2. Pather Panchali
3. Kiss Me Deadly
4. Rififi
5. Night and Fog
6. Rebel Without a Cause
7. The Seven Year Itch
8. Bad Day at Black Rock
9. To Catch a Thief
10. La Pointe Courte

...plus 7 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. High Noon
2. Umberto D.
3. Singin' in the Rain
4. The Narrow Margin
5. Bend of the River
6. The Bad and the Beautiful

1. The Master
2. The Dark Knight Rises
3. Killing Them Softly
4. Drug War
5. Silver Linings Playbook
6. The Cabin in the Woods
7. Skyfall
8. Dredd
9. Django Unchained
10. Mosquita y Mari

...plus 43 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
2. Do the Right Thing
3. Kiki's Delivery Service
4. Batman
5. Lonesome Dove
6. The Abyss
7. Road House
8. No Life King
9. Glory
10. Field of Dreams

...plus 26 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Shadow of a Doubt
2. The Ox-Bow Incident
3. Sanshiro Sugata
4. I Walked with a Zombie
5. Stormy Weather
6. The Leopard Man
7. The Seventh Victim
8. Jane Eyre
9. The Ghost Ship
10. Lady of Burlesque

...plus 1 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Walker
2. The Untouchables
3. Full Metal Jacket
4. Evil Dead II
5. RoboCop
6. Near Dark
7. The Living Daylights
8. Predator
9. Lethal Weapon
10. Planes, Trains and Automobiles

...plus 23 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Movies will be added and ranked as I see them.

1. Mad Max: Fury Road
2. Happy Hour
3. Mustang
4. Ex Machina
5. Inside Out
6. Star Wars: The Force Awakens
7. It Follows
8. Kaili Blues
9. Creed
10. Songs My Brothers Taught Me

...plus 55 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. The Wild Bunch
2. On Her Majesty's Secret Service
3. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
4. Funeral Parade of Roses
5. Jackal of Nahueltoro
6. Play Dirty
7. Easy Rider
8. Midnight Cowboy
9. True Grit
10. 100 Rifles

...plus 1 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Films will be added and ranked as I see them.

1. The Boy and the Heron
2. The Zone of Interest
3. Monster
4. Beau Is Afraid
5. Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret.
6. The Killer
7. Past Lives
8. Saltburn
9. Showing Up
10. Scream VI

...plus 46 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Films will be added and ranked as I see them.

1. Columbus
2. Phantom Thread
3. Get Out
4. Raw
5. Lady Bird
6. Microhabitat
7. A Ghost Story
8. Star Wars: The Last Jedi
9. Blade Runner 2049
10. The Florida Project

...plus 60 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Before Sunset
2. Collateral
3. The Hidden Blade
4. The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
5. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
6. Throw Down
7. Shaun of the Dead
8. Mean Girls
9. Sideways
10. Birth

...plus 73 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

I have a separate ranked list for Miyazaki, but I wanted to make a list for the studio's entire output to see where the other films fell.

(I know Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind was made before Ghibli formed but, at this point, it is part of their library.)

1. My Neighbor Totoro
2. Porco Rosso
3. Kiki's Delivery Service
4. Whisper of the Heart
5. The Boy and the Heron
6. The Tale of The Princess Kaguya
7. Grave of the Fireflies
8. The Wind Rises
9. Spirited Away
10. When Marnie Was There

...plus 15 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. The Tale of The Princess Kaguya
2. Grave of the Fireflies
3. Only Yesterday
4. Pom Poko
5. Chie the Brat
6. Gauche the Cellist
7. My Neighbors the Yamadas
8. Horus: Prince of the Sun

1. The Spy Who Came In from the Cold
2. For a Few Dollars More
3. House of Terrors
4. Alphaville
5. The Sound of Music
6. Thunderball
7. The Ipcress File
8. Doctor Zhivago
9. Dr. Who and the Daleks

1. No Country for Old Men
2. There Will Be Blood
3. Zodiac
4. Water Lilies
5. Secret Sunshine
6. The Darjeeling Limited
7. The Mist
8. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
9. Gone Baby Gone
10. The Lookout

...plus 69 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Brazil
2. Clue
3. Tampopo
4. Smooth Talk
5. Back to the Future
6. After Hours
7. A Zed & Two Noughts
8. Lost in America
9. Witness
10. Pale Rider

...plus 28 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. I Saw the TV Glow
2. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
3. Love Lies Bleeding
4. The Beast
5. The Brutalist
6. Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In
7. Challengers
8. Janet Planet
9. All We Imagine as Light
10. Deadpool & Wolverine

...plus 23 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Bonnie and Clyde
2. PlayTime
3. The Young Girls of Rochefort
4. Branded to Kill
5. Cool Hand Luke
6. The Graduate
7. Dragon Inn
8. In the Heat of the Night
9. Hombre
10. The Firemen's Ball

...plus 12 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. My Darling Clementine
2. Notorious
3. The Big Sleep
4. Duel in the Sun
5. The Killers
6. The Stranger
7. Nocturne
8. The Postman Always Rings Twice

1. The Empire Strikes Back
2. The Shining
3. The Blues Brothers
4. Raging Bull
5. The Stunt Man
6. Altered States
7. Dressed to Kill
8. The Fog
9. The Elephant Man
10. Caddyshack

...plus 16 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Films added and ranked as I see them.

1. Mother
2. Memories of Murder
3. Parasite
4. Snowpiercer
5. The Host
6. Barking Dogs Never Bite
7. Okja
8. Mickey 17

1. Beau Travail
2. Payback
3. The Matrix
4. Election
5. eXistenZ
6. Eyes Wide Shut
7. Ratcatcher
8. Peppermint Candy
9. Three Kings
10. Ride with the Devil

...plus 66 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. The Third Man
2. Stray Dog
3. Late Spring
4. Criss Cross
5. Abandoned
6. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

1. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
2. Persona
3. The Professionals
4. Wings
5. Blow-Up
6. Harper
7. The Quiller Memorandum
8. The Shooting
9. Black Girl
10. Come Drink with Me

...plus 6 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Films will be added and ranked as I see them.

1. Portrait of a Lady on Fire
2. The Lighthouse
3. The Farewell
4. Parasite
5. Little Women
6. Uncut Gems
7. Knives Out
8. The Irishman
9. The Souvenir
10. Avengers: Endgame

...plus 55 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Porco Rosso
2. The Player
3. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me
4. Malcolm X
5. Unforgiven
6. Hard Boiled
7. Glengarry Glen Ross
8. Rebels of the Neon God
9. One False Move
10. Reservoir Dogs

...plus 41 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Yojimbo
2. The Innocents
3. West Side Story
4. The Misfits
5. The Hustler
6. The Red Detachment of Women
7. One Hundred and One Dalmatians

1. Bicycle Thieves
2. Red River
3. They Live by Night
4. The Red Shoes
5. Spring in a Small Town
6. Rope
7. Raw Deal
8. Yellow Sky

At the suggestion of Amy Hensarling, I'm creating this list to compile a subgenre I'm referring to as homecoming-of-age. These are films where someone in an early to midlife crisis returns to their hometown or another setting from earlier in their life; they rekindle old friendships, flirt with past romances, and revert to past behavior. Tonally, these films are regularly wistful, reminiscent, and comfortingly nostalgic. Often the settings are suburban or rural.

Watching Kris Rey's I Used to Go Here was what originally inspired me to find the words to describe this subgenre. If you have suggestions that are not listed here, please, please, please throw them out in the comments below!

[Columbus may not technically count, but it feels like it should to me.]

• His Three Daughters
• The Adults
• Somebody I Used to Know
• Causeway
• The Year Between
• Cha Cha Real Smooth
• Red Rocket
• Happiest Season
• I Used to Go Here
• The Cloud in Her Room

...plus 28 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Alien
2. All That Jazz
3. Stalker
4. The Marriage of Maria Braun
5. Apocalypse Now
6. Mad Max
7. Lupin the Third: The Castle of Cagliostro
8. When a Stranger Calls
9. Manhattan
10. Life of Brian

...plus 13 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Chungking Express
2. The Shawshank Redemption
3. To Live
4. U.S. Go Home
5. Shallow Grave
6. Ed Wood
7. Léon: The Professional
8. Pulp Fiction
9. The Hudsucker Proxy
10. Pom Poko

...plus 43 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. The Conversation
2. Chinatown
3. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
4. Murder on the Orient Express
5. Martha
6. Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia
7. Blazing Saddles
8. Young Frankenstein
9. The Godfather Part II
10. Lady Snowblood 2: Love Song of Vengeance

...plus 11 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

At the request of Harrison, here is a list of films that either inspired or are being shown in a course I am teaching this Fall.

• Supernatural
• The Uninvited
• Peeping Tom
• The Innocents
• The Haunting
• House of Terrors
• Kill, Baby... Kill!
• Whistle and I'll Come to You
• Even the Wind Is Afraid
• Let's Scare Jessica to Death

...plus 37 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Films will be added and ranked as I see them.

1. Shoplifters
2. Burning
3. Thoroughbreds
4. First Reformed
5. Widows
6. Asako I & II
7. Annihilation
8. You Were Never Really Here
9. Cold War
10. Hereditary

...plus 49 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Buck and the Preacher
2. Solaris
3. Roma
4. The Heartbreak Kid
5. Aguirre, the Wrath of God
6. The Godfather
7. Female Prisoner Scorpion: Jailhouse 41
8. The Getaway
9. The Mechanic
10. Images

...plus 12 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. The Piano
2. Jurassic Park
3. Dazed and Confused
4. The Ballad of Little Jo
5. Farewell My Concubine
6. Schindler's List
7. Poetic Justice
8. Menace II Society
9. Cigarettes & Coffee
10. Black Rider

...plus 44 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.