4v291o

Wanted this to have more laughs but it's not paced like a comedy. It's conceptually funny, like "wouldn't it be funny if we put Tim Robinson in an A24 movie about a bromance that has a score reminiscent of an Ari Aster film" but it struggles to maintain tone. It's hilarious that this got made, and I laughed some, but there were some pretty long beats that felt like dead air.

Personally I find it impossible not to laugh at Tim Robinson, but for a film with two very funny leads it ultimately doesn't utilize either of them to their fullest potential.

A really fun emotional rollercoaster that feels actually quite profound by the end.

There's several little moments where you go, "oh that's how he REALLY feels" and it keeps changing as the film goes on because the characters keep realizing things about themselves the longer they are forced to endure each other throughout the night. There's so much love, contempt, mistrust, and jealousy between these two. This feels mostly like a story about how sometimes the person you feel closest to is someone you hate and the person you love feels like a stranger, but it's also about the things we'll do when we feel small and the things we'll tolerate from someone just to get a bit of love and attention.

"Don't expect to like 'em" is such a hilarious tagline for this movie and I wish I'd read it before watching because whether or not these guys are likeable (they're not) is so far beyond the point that it's good to just get that out of the way from the jump.

I just love the messiness of this and I can't wait to rewatch it. I think I'm gonna make "I'm perforating!" my new distress call.

Not sure why this wasn't in my five star ratings list already.

Seen this a bunch and it still makes me emotional. Still makes me laugh. I always enjoy imagining the beauty and horror that awaits Truman on the other side of that door. And Natascha McElhone is so gobsmackingly beautiful I would half drown myself at sea in hopes of finding her too.

Watched on Sunday May 25, 2025.

Watched on Saturday May 24, 2025.

"You come from the future?"
"I come from the path behind you."

Could barely get through the last twenty minutes from all the tears. 🥹

A very sweet exploration of generational wounds that manages to successfully deliver a significant gut punch in such a short amount of time. It's cute but not overly saccharine as well as thoughtful and well paced. It makes the most of its limited set pieces and while not the most compelling child performances I've ever seen, still very memorable in how tender they were. Also a great example of saying a lot while saying very little. Loved it.

Lacks a lot of important context from the graphic novel, as many adaptations do, but is still great.

Some of the most traumatic beats from Marji's childhood are highlighted here, just without the extra context that makes them as upsetting as they should be. Many of the horrors don't land as appropriately heavy as they do in the novel because a lot of the people she bonded with as she grew up, and then subsequently lost to violence, are never properly introduced here. People just kind of appear without explanation and are killed. The depiction of dead bodies in her novel and the way she chose to illustrate them is so haunting, that their absence is extremely notable from this movie. I found myself thinking, "how did we get so far into this without seeing the dead?"

Most importantly, skipping over the fact that she learned to understand communism as a child from a comic book on dialectical materialism kind of skips over why she chose this visual style to tell her story in the first place. I was shocked at how little of the first book actually makes it into the movie, but I enjoyed it nonetheless and can't wait to get more into the details once I start reading volume two.

Riz Ahmed and Jessie Buckley: 0%

Painfully bad execution on a somewhat interesting idea. Feels like an overlong episode of Black Mirror. Actually, Black Mirror's "Hang the DJ" had a far more interesting take on the "what if we leave romance up to technology" angle already.

You can see the thread of an interesting thought, where warped fingernails often signify heart disease. As if there is some undefined link to our heart's condition and the concept of love, and by testing our nails we can confirm it somehow. A fun sci-fi concept that is dreadfully undercooked. This movie is pretty open about how it doesn't understand its own mechanics, whether it's questions about what happens if someone doesn't have arms or the fact that the only gay couple in the movie mysteriously broke the machine (?) but all of the possible hang ups proposed end up immediately shrugged off. Questions that should've been asked in order to make this a little more interesting would've had little to do with our main characters and more to do with the company itself and its founder, essentially shifting the focus and resulting in an entirely different movie.

Most of the actors are giving it their best shot, but the dialogue is awfully stilted and these characters are so flat and boring I frankly didn't care if any of them were in love or not. They all had conversations that randomly trail off and feel so contrived that you wonder if the writers have ever spoken to people before.

There is ultimately no comforting resolution for our main characters, and the film ends on what is obvious from the start: love is complicated and none of this shit makes any sense.

Watched on Monday May 19, 2025.

Watched on Sunday May 18, 2025.

Watching this on mute, subs on, half-asleep in bed this morning and I feel like the absurdity of it really kicks in when I'm not distracted by the amazing soundtrack.

This is probably one of the most obvious of the high school movies in of the fact that the characters are clearly 20-somethings adult women playing teenagers. The dialogue is so painfully self-aware, like when Courtney says, "It's high school, not Broadway" or when she's talking about how she doesn't care if her boyfriend goes on to coach little league after high school as long as he wins prom king. It's so funny and works so well to heighten the stupidity of what's going on.

A lot of teen dramas go the opposite route, where they are trying so hard to convince you that this 28 year old actress is REALLY a teen girl! De-aging them or trying to make them look awkward is one way, but the best way is to make them act like high school is the most important time in your life— because to a teenager that's pretty much how it feels. You're as old as you've ever been and you definitely don't have the foresight to know that your dumb jock boyfriend will probably amount to nothing. The idea that high school is somehow beneath these characters, yet they are still willing to ruin each other's lives to stay popular is so cartoonishly ridiculous. I love it so much.

They really don't try to make any of this seem plausible in any way. Like why does Fern park her car right in front of the steps to the school every day? Why does the cop never properly interview Fern about what happened when she went to Liz's house? And WHY do they make Fern out to seem like she "had no choice" but to agree to trade her silence about a murder for a seat at the cool table? And of course I love the himbo bf who just follows Julie around saying, "huh? what?" in order for the plot to get explained.

The final scene made me start thinking about a list of movies with the best dolly shots in em, but they'd all probably just be Spike Lee.

Just thinking about the scene were Nero insists that Mace watch the execution clip and how it foreshadows the experience of black folks today. How we are constantly bombarded with footage of ourselves being killed by police. And so of course, it just makes the ending of this movie feel like adding insult to injury.

This review may contain spoilers.

"You want me so bad it's like acid in your mouth" 🥵

Sincerely wish that Lori Petty wasn't given the damsel treatment, but as she said, "too much testosterone here".

For years I had no idea what this movie was about. I always thought it was just a cop movie (because of the infamous firing-his-gun-into-the-air-scene), nobody told me it was actually a homoerotic surfer heist flick where an undercover Keanu Reeves becomes obsessed with another dude so badly that he chucks his badge into the ocean and gives up the law. That information definitely would've had me seated sooner.

Watched on Wednesday May 14, 2025.

I'm so morbidly fascinated with Almodóvar. What a little freak.
(He's a Libra/Scorpio combo so that tracks.)

I've only seen a handful of his films so far, but you can't convince me that he doesn't have some sort of non-consent fetish that he likes to live out vicariously through his characters. I think he really tests the ability of an audience to accept fictional stories for what they often are— fantasies rather than ringing endorsements. I did find the extended rape gag to be largely unfunny but the way the police treat sexual assault as a nothing-crime was actually pretty dead-on satire.

The character of Pablo in this film is very similar to Ricky in Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! right down to the buzzcut and red shirt but a much lazier and more brutish depiction of someone with mental illness enacting harm on those around him. Where TMU!TMD! more earnestly explores that narrative, Kika merely attempts to use it for comedy.

Also, it's a shame that this film is named after Kika when Andrea is the far more interesting character, as she appears on all the best posters and gets to wear those amazing Gaultier costumes. I understand the humor of centering Kika as a hapless bystander idst all of this insanity but it doesn't really serve to strengthen the overall story. I would much rather have followed Andrea as she attempted to get footage for her scandalous and exploitative show using dubious methods. Or at least found out more about that scar on her face.

After a while it felt like the connection between the rest of the characters was so forced and paper-thin that I didn't even care to try and understand. Like why did Andrea have to be Ramón's ex? And what was the deal with Kika's blonde friend whose name I don't even ? The summary for this movie also says that Nicholas wanted Kika for himself but that angle is also barely explored...he seemed to just be a horny psychopath with no specific interest in Kika at all. I was also hardly convinced that Kika's relationship with Ramón had any real feelings on either side making the whole thing feel pretty low stakes.
Ultimately it feels like a lot of character and plot connections were either reduced or cut out in the edit or they were never adequately explored in the first place.

Overall a pretty messy movie but not totally hopeless.

Entertaining, whimsical and yet relevant, with an underlying revisionist conceit that belied the film's emotional attachment to the subject matter.

〰️

Genuinely no idea how I'd never seen this until now. This is exactly how I felt after I finally watched Pee-wee's Big Adventure. I love when something so stupid has so much heart.

I've basically already heard all the best lines a thousand times but that doesn't mean I laughed any less. I can't help but brace myself for an "oof" moment in a comedy that's as old as I am, but I'm actually shocked (and relieved) how well this holds up, and is mostly wholesome, harmless fun. I especially love that Wayne & Garth are specifically portrayed as being more than just their stereotypes. They also don't reduce Cassandra to a racist stereotype, and mostly the jokes in regard to her nationality are really just them trying to learn her language in order to impress her. I know the bar is often on the floor for comedy, but it clearly makes a concerted effort not to be cruel while still being witty and absurd.

Undeniably cool.
Pretty much every dark and whimsical movie I've loved since childhood can be traced straight back to this one.

Easily the most stylish silent film I've seen so far, but I really haven't seen that many. It's hard for me to say how innovative this may have been, from the use of color filters to the various vignette shapes and the way they are used for clever transitions, but of course the highlight is the set design. What can I say about it that hasn't already been said in the last one hundred years?

The influence on Tim Burton's work is utterly undeniable but he seems to have little to no personal reference for German expressionism and was likely either influenced second hand or perhaps strong similarities like Edward Scissorhands, the Beetlejuice set design, and Penguin from Batman Returns are all just the collective knowledge of his collaborators. Art designer Tom Duffield and makeup artist Ve Neill worked on all three films along with other repeat crew. It just makes you want to happily throw auteur theory out the window, as nothing is truly created in a vacuum.

This review may contain spoilers.

"You...want me to order you to, Judd?"

Didn't think I would enjoy this as much as Rope, but I actually like it a little bit more. Rope had Jimmy Stewart of course but this has Orson Welles. Rope was ever-so-slightly homoerotic but Compulsion pushes the boundaries a bit further. Rope is a chamber piece which is my favorite, but Compulsion is a partial courtroom drama which is also my favorite. They're both so good!

Ultimately I think Compulsion provides stronger and more complex social commentary with Welles' anti-capital punishment speech and the inclusion of a character like Ruth. I love the effort taken to highlight how bloodthirsty people get when crimes are committed. How "good people" are so eager to kill those they perceive as "criminals" with or without due process. Artie and Judd believed they were of "superior intellect" but everyone else believed themselves to be of "superior morality".

I loved that the term 'insanity' was specifically clarified as a legal definition and not a medical diagnosis. At this point, narcissistic personality wasn't yet recognized and anti-social personality was still a new concept. I think often about how cruel the concept of a personality disorder even is. We exist in a society that practically encourages sociopathic behavior in order to thrive and succeed in life. We are supposed to be okay with other people starving and dying in the streets and believe it's their own fault and they deserve it. To be normal is to accept the worst parts of humanity without flinching. Is that not insane?

I also loved the glasses as a sort of character motif. Judd, Marshall, and Wilk all wore similar round glasses, notably excluding Artie. I feel like the glasses represent both egotistical intellect mixed with doubt and questioning for those men. Judd clearly had repressed feelings for Artie and was willing to do anything to impress him. He had similar beliefs about the world, but he felt shame about inflicting harm on others. Marshall was driven by doubt in the boys' alibis, and then blindingly confident that he could get the death penalty. Wilk was also known for his competence and intellect, even respected by Judd, and his strong sense of comion for humanity leaves him with doubts as to the existence of a higher power in this life. Artie, all the while, would rather have just been hanged from the beginning. If he couldn't prove his superior intellect by either outsmarting the system or escaping it, then he saw no point in carrying on.

Watched on Saturday May 10, 2025.

Likeable enough, good antagonist, but predictable along the way to the point that the ending didn't really matter to me by the time it arrived.

I also felt like some of the most interesting scenes cut away too soon, right when they were starting to get interesting, like when the mother started to get emotional or when things were heating up between the two leads. If I were being generous I'd say that the relentless optimism of the characters, their naivete, and how the film shied away from the heavier beats was all part of its larger statement about "ordinary" people. By fading to black instead of sitting with the tension, you're allowed to continue living a happy lie, much like this average family wishes to do. Unfortunately for me I enjoy a feel bad movie a little too much to fully appreciate this oddly optimistic one.

Made me realize how severely I underrated some of Hitchcock's other films.

This review may contain spoilers.

I went into this not really knowing what to expect. I certainly wasn't expecting this documentary about lost film reels to dredge up memories of the man who groomed me as a teen.

Because while this is mostly about a lost Singaporean film called Shirkers, it's also about the man who stole it, maimed it, and ultimately killed it. He lied to and manipulated these young girls, who were just trying to make a cool movie, in ways that felt hauntingly familiar to me. The fantastical stories about his life, the film worship, the jealousy, and the creepiness all wrapped up inside of a strange sense of charm— all reminded me of someone I had the misfortune of meeting when I was sixteen.

First of all, I want to say how cool this documentary is and how frustrated I feel for Sandi Tan and everyone who worked on Shirkers. I've always had a weird sort of obsession with lost media, or just the idea of things (or people) going missing in general. I've always been deeply afraid of loss, in any context, without closure. What happens when something is gone but it still exists somewhere? It's maddening to think about and even more so to experience. The way that everyone involved in this project was haunted by it for over twenty years before being reunited with the remnants of their hard work is disconcerting. It was especially upsetting when Tan started talking about seeing glimmers of her own work within later films like Rushmore and especially Ghost World. The silent footage that remains of this ion project looks stunning and I quickly found myself mourning what could've easily become a cult classic.

It's hard to watch the beginning of this story, which begins with three young girls being chosen by their much older film class teacher to be part of his "inner circle", and not feel a little alarm bell going off. And I want to be clear: I believe teacher/student, or more generally, adult/youth mentors are important. Kids and teens need trusted adults, and not just parental figures but people they trust in a more casual way (basically people who aren't threatening to punish you), to them and inspire them and advise them sometimes. It's just so hard to know who to trust at that age, because the red flags haven't been painted for you yet.

So let's just say this man's willingness to drive around with these teenagers all night when he had a wife and child at home was a big red flag. Or when he went on a road trip across the US with Sandi, just the two of them, and made an awkward advance towards her that she was at least smart enough to ignore. Then there are his grandiose tales of his impressive life story, which of course cannot be easily debunked but are hardly believable. She speaks about how those stories were transportive for her, placing her closer to the fantasy life she desired as a young artist. Manipulators really will tell you just about anything, just to see if you'll believe it.

When she was able to interview people who knew him, who also fell victim to his charms and his lies and his jealous manipulation, I know exactly how cathartic that felt. To find out that he had also sabotaged someone else's project, someone else's dream, made her feel less alone. I knew I wasn't the only one being abused by my ab, but I denied myself the catharsis in favor of rarely speaking about it. He harassed me for years, to the point where even now, I'm paranoid that he's gonna read this and try to me again. Even though I blocked him and ended our "relationship" almost fourteen years ago, he's continued to find ways to message me for his own entertainment. The last I heard from him was 2019 or 2020 when he messaged me from one of his many fake s, not interested in actually talking to me but just wanting to reinsert himself into my thoughts again, denying me the ability to forget. I was in a relationship at the time which likely triggered his jealousies and insecurities. The way Georges clung onto the film reels all those years, across several big moves around the world, seemed eerily parallel to my groomer's relentless obsession.

I don't know. I love this lost movie and this documentary about this lost movie. Sometimes you meet people in life and they really fuck your shit up. If you're lucky, you live long enough to see them dead.

Watched on Wednesday May 7, 2025.

I haven't watched any of the most famous American war movies. I rarely watch war films at all, honestly. I'm not interested in a story that is attempting to justify any of it, or convince me that it's ever worth it or that we (Americans) are the heroes of the story or that we (Black Americans) ever gained anything as a result. However, I am interested in deeply human stories, portrayals of history that are as unbiased as possible, and representation for the underdog's perspective. In a seemingly endless sea of white American wartime propaganda films, Da 5 Bloods is offering an important story that continues to not only be untold but erased. The current istration tried to wipe Jackie Robinson's military history from the record, meanwhile Netflix won't stop showing me military recruitment ads featuring black actors.

So is this a perfect movie? No. It borders on becoming one of those cringe old-guy comedies for a decent portion of it. The love interest storyline felt very out of place, but I respect that the entire point of its inclusion was to highlight wartime babies and their struggles. Unfortunately, this echoes a flaw that I find in a lot of black films, where the filmmakers are trying to shove SO much of our history into one movie because we so rarely get the opportunity to share it. I always respect and appreciate the effort even when its execution is less than seamless.

Ultimately, I liked this way more than I expected to.

"Sons get the goods. Daughters get the genes."

Oof. A lot of thoughts and feels about this one that I can't even begin to articulate right now.

Imagine if you took Before Sunrise, 500 Days of Summer, and Past Lives and put them in a blender.* How many cups of tears is that??

I really thought this one wasn't going to get me— how naive. It didn't really start to hit until about a third of the way in, but after that I was done for.

〰️

Living in poverty puts an incredible amount of strain on your relationships, and that's a reality that I feel like romantic movies rarely dramatize, at least not to this degree. It was nice to see some actual real life melodrama in a story that, on the surface, feels pretty typical for a romance.

What makes it seem unique is that it has a lot of sappy cliches but it doesn't feel stale. It's very easy to invest in these characters, even if I didn't necessarily feel that right away in the beginning, and there are a lot of stylistic choices made that make it feel special. Obviously the black and white gimmick has been done before, but the way it's woven into the narrative here adds meaning to the flair. There's also a really cool aerial shot that breaks the fourth wall in a totally unexpected way as well as some really stunning cityscapes and landscapes. There were a few moments that felt a little Hallmark-cheesy, but by the end of the movie I didn't even care. I'd already used up half a box of tissues at that point.

Even the end credits don't let up, as there's an additional sad montage and deleted scene there too. No rest for the teary.

〰️

*Before Sunrise because it's a happenstance train romance (it actually kind of crams elements of all three Before films into one), 500 Days of Summer because of the immaturity of both characters in the beginning and how they both wanted different things and couldn't really see each other or their relationship in an honest way, & Past Lives because this love story spans over a long period of time in a similarly bittersweet way.

Watched on Monday May 5, 2025.

Watched on Sunday May 4, 2025.

Watched on Saturday May 3, 2025.

Cute! Felt like Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person 🤝🏽 One Cut of the Dead, though I can see the Beetlejuice comparison too.

I'm glad this film didn't rely solely on humor, because I honestly found it to be more touching than funny, though I did laugh a good bit. The show being called "Saturday Night Alive" probably got me the most tbh.

The messages about the importance of found family and coping with the pressure to succeed in life were great, and I loved the idea of the afterlife being turned into just another vehicle for chasing fame.

Super fun, do recommend. 👻

This review may contain spoilers.

Well fuck, what do I even say?
I mostly want to gush about the brilliant significance of that sandwich in episode three.

The single shot experience was unfortunately kind of fucked up for me because I only pay for the ad tier and Netflix absolutely LITTERED each episode with ad breaks. Talk about capitalizing on your best material.

Either way it's undeniable how technically impressive this is, from the continuous takes (one of which seamlessly transitions into an aerial shot and then grounds again!?) to the fact that the child actor is a first-timer delivering some serious heat. But, as usual for me, it's the very nuanced and purposeful writing that sends it into masterpiece territory in my opinion.

From the very first episode, the necessary function of the continuous single take is abundantly clear. As viewers we have just as little information as everyone else, namely the parents, and we're being thrust right into the chaos. Every piece of evidence that is revealed to us is also revealed to them simultaneously and the confusion, frustration, shock, and stress of the situation effectively digs its teeth in. I couldn't help but watch episode two immediately.

I've seen some people dump on the second episode, and it's the lowest rated one of the four, but I actually enjoyed it quite a lot. The way the school is depicted as if it's a prison (even before they come out and say as much at the end of the episode) is an important piece of the overall puzzle here. The whispers of installing metal detectors, threatening kids with time in "isolation", the fire drill rallying them all together in a fenced in area that essentially functions as a cage. This is where kids spend most of their adolescence, what exactly are they learning besides survival of the fittest?

When I was in high school, teachers were bullies just as much as (if not more than) my peers. Half of my teachers were just coaches who were required to teach a real class in order to be employed there full-time so they just read material from books they didn't understand and showed us movies every week. My freshman year, three boys physically held me down in science class and nobody did anything. My gym teacher used to call the students sluts. If a fight broke out in the lunchroom the teachers looked on and laughed. A holding pen indeed.

Episode three is where Owen Cooper shines, delivering a wildly competent performance as a teenager who's never been on a film set before, but this episode is all about the writing for me. The scene starts as his psychologist offers him half of her sandwich— cheese and pickle. He accepts the sandwich after thoroughly inquiring about its ingredients, only to later it he hates pickles after setting it aside. He still insists he will eat it later.
Throughout the session, the psychologist is clearly trying to get a better understanding of the boy's perception of not only masculinity as a concept but his self esteem as it relates to it and his overall perception of women. Jamie clearly doesn't even consider that women could be friends with men. He's confused when he's asked why he would post pictures of himself on Instagram if he isn't popular and thinks he's ugly. The thought had never occurred to him before, it's just what people do. Seeking positive reinforcement through likes/comments isn't even a conscious goal for so many of us, but that's what we all want, right? We just want to be liked.
After repeatedly attempting to establish dominance over his psychologist, yelling in her face, throwing his drink and his chair, standing over her as she sits in her chair, he tells her that he likes her. He likes her as a person and wants to know if she likes him, even a little bit. How exactly do we treat people that we like? What does that mean for the people we don't like? Let's go back to that sandwich.
After itting that he felt morally superior to other boys for not taking further advantage of Katie, he eventually unwraps the sandwich and takes a bite. He thought Katie was "not his type" and "flat-chested" but he asked her out anyway, in her weakest moment, hoping she would acquiesce to him. He hates pickles, but he accepted it anyway. He took a bite, even though he didn't like it, and left the rest for garbage. He claims he understands the permanence of death.

The final episode is A LOT for anyone who grew up around people who were emotionally unstable and erratic. You try desperately to soften and smooth the situation so they don't get more angry, but sometimes you just have to stay quiet and out of the way because they're going to explode no matter what. The show does a great job of expressing how this, by most s, is a "normal" family, and also showing just how normal it is for adults to be unable to control their emotions and regulate themselves. How do you teach your children to calm down and control their anger if you're unable to express your own anger in a healthy way? Must it always be either silence or violence? They could barely even discuss it all. His new shirt looked nice. He should've fixed the windows himself.

I appreciated the perspective that this took with the family, but the ending left me with an empty feeling. I'm truly not sure what they could've done differently, but it felt too sappy almost. I read that, originally, the father was supposed to cover himself with the blankets of his son's bed in order to mirror Jamie's imprisonment (rather than kiss the teddy bear) and I think I would've preferred the original ending. It was already clear that he loved his son, and could've done better, but I just don't think the ending should've been so sweet.

There's nothing sweet about how this cycle continues to happen, because at the end of the day, he has no idea what exactly he should've done differently, or if he even could.

Unexpectedly emotional, dark yet vibrant, heavy and still hilarious at times. Any documentary that ends with 'Life on Mars?' is inevitably going to tear me to shreds.

I went into this naively assuming it would be mostly about the future of Funky Town, but instead this documentary is propped up not by the story of the club itself but the stories and the lives of those that populate it.

What a wise choice to capture the intimate moments and hardships of the people that breath life into a nightclub that is facing down death. The cinematography alone is breathtaking, but then you listen as someone tells the story of how they tried to commit suicide during quarantine or watch as a young drag performer sits through an uncomfortable family meal and you just feel completely deflated. That feeling doesn't last long though, as the sun sets and you head back into the neon and the feelgood. The next sunrise in Chengdu threatens once again to reveal everything you've been dreading, but not without an undeniable beauty of its own.

The nearby construction edges closer and closer to Funky Town's doorstep, and you wonder where the collective pain of our protagonists will migrate to next. Both naturalistic and heavily stylized, The Last Year of Darkness will leave you with a bittersweet taste.

"Believing in yourself is part of worshipping God in Senegal."

Mati Diop knows all about mood and tone and I can't wait to watch more from her.

Watched on Wednesday April 30, 2025.

This was more tense than any thriller I've ever seen.

From the beautiful scenery to the aggressive innuendo and the discordant piano throughout the score, I couldn't look away. Those two hours flew by and I was hooked.

What the hell, I gotta read the book now.

An ment that felt like an ment the entire time.

I usually don't take too much issue with short films functioning as ads, as a lot of the time the director is working within their style and is able to imbue something watchable and enjoyable into the advert. I've mostly enjoyed the few NWR films I've seen so far, but this was off-puttingly sterile and commercial.

Watched on Wednesday April 30, 2025.

Watched on Wednesday April 30, 2025.

Watched on Wednesday April 30, 2025.

"We want your memories and your music."

For a while now I've been joking that I miss the days when white people hated rap music. You knew who you were dealing with and there was no pretending. "That noise isn't music" easily translated to "Your stories don't matter" and that was that. The simple downhome southern racism in which I was raised.

Now I have to listen to every type of white man attempt to explain hip hop to me as if that's going to win me over or impress me. As if their love of Kendrick Lamar invites them into my experience and grants them access to something. They can say nigga 'cause it's in the song and they bought the album.

The statements in this film about what is stolen from us, what is forced upon us, and what we willingly give away are sprawled across an insanely sexy vampire story that dares you not to get goosebumps. Delroy Lindo & Michael B. Sexy are incredible, but Miles Caton as Sammie is especially noteworthy in his debut. As soon as they started breaking apart chairs I felt From Dusk Till Dawn in the room and the tightrope this film is walking between comedy and terror became clear. I was also so psyched to see one of the greatest still-living blues guitarists appear. If you love vampire flicks, music history, and eating pussy, go see Sinners.

As I was leaving the theater, I couldn't stop thinking about this song:

"We're coming out to get you
We're oh, so glad we met you
We're eating you for profit
There is no way to stop it"
— Childish Gambino, "Zombies"

This really expanded my perception of what a film can do and how it can do it. Movies are so fucking cool.

My thoughts and feelings throughout the almost three hour runtime of the film went from, "I don't think I'm gonna like this as much as I'd hoped" to "wait, this is cool" all the way to, "okay, this is incredible."

A black and white road movie, intercut with mirroring scenes in color from a 1980s Romanian film that inspired this one, where the original actors from the 80s film appear towards the middle of the runtime and the parallels collide. Angela drives around in her car, road rages, listens to tons of different music, and handles her various personal affairs all throughout the course of her 16+ hour shift. She argues with a bunch of corporate assholes, tells crude jokes, shares random historical facts and quotes from literature, & makes satirical tiktok videos as an Andrew Tate-esque character named Bobita. There's a LOT going on but also not much actually happens. It's a great time.

As a character, Angela feels real and very lived in. You can feel her exhaustion and frustration. She's whip-smart and vulgar, absurdly silly yet strangely grounded, and also so cute. Her sense of humor hits like a hammer to the skull and you could say the same about the entire film. Nobody is spared from bark or bite in this carefully constructed "fuck you" aimed towards, well, a lot of things. But more than that, this is a movie that really cares about humanity as much as it hates it.

Going into this totally blind, I felt unsure about it's direction. When you realize you're basically about to watch two movies at once it's hard not to think, "there's no way this won't be tedious" and then the film pulls off the coolest trick. (I felt the same way when I realized Nickel Boys was entirely POV. Skeptical at first and then blown away.)

This movie creates its own stylistic language in the way it uses so many different approaches to deliver the narrative. Radu Jude has created a masterful collage of sociopolitical commentary and you just have to see it to understand. The final sequence added the extra half-star for me. Fucking painfully hilarious.

Wendell & Wild doesn't have quite enough time to flesh out the world it introduces us to, but I enjoyed every second I spent there. The plot is a little busy and far from perfect, with quite a few conveniences and exposition dumps, but this film has enough heart to make up for its flaws.

The love for blackness and afro-punk was immediately clear and abundantly represented. Highlighting marginalized groups typically lacking from stories like this, it feels like a reclaiming of the spooky aesthetic that I grew up on. We all know that Tim Burton's comments when asked about a lack of diversity in his films were pretty unsavory.* It's good to be reminded that 'alternative' black folks have always been here, and we've always influenced culture in more ways than one.

The blended animation and artistic styles was such a treat and although they bit off a bit more than they could chew with the narrative by attempting to take on generational trauma and the prison industrial complex, I'm glad they went there. Raúl was a pleasant addition as a trans character that actually felt like a whole person with their own story, it's just a shame we didn't get more of it. The casting choices felt defiantly diverse, not just diversity that pats itself on the back for daring to include us.

One of my favorite aspects of the story is that Kat was an oddball before the trauma happened, she didn't dress that way or look that way because she had a hard life. She was always different, happily ed by her very punk rock family. It intentionally defies the common suggestion that kids are using their style as a cry for help or it's just a rebellious phase. Kat's just a little badass.

The soundtrack is probably the best thing about the movie, but it also works against it. Serving up a very black and very punk track list that cannot be ignored is bold and sets this apart from other similarly animated films in that it doesn't have as much of an atmospheric score as something like Coraline or especially Nightmare Before Christmas would. X-Ray Spex are so special to me, and I teared up at the end when TV on the Radio started playing, but these songs do sort of remove the audience from the mystical world in a way that hinders a more immersive viewing experience. Perhaps if there had been more original songs, and more development of the plot and characters, this movie could've felt as transportive and impactful as it deserved to be.

*Technically, Burton has had black actors in his films before Sam Jackson in Miss Peregrine's if you count some of the minor characters in Mars Attacks. But the issue is that he has clearly represented that pale white gothic aesthetic quite prominently in his work, and all he had to do was acknowledge that. Instead he got defensive and said what a lot of racist white people say: "I don't ask to be in your movies." Sure, Tim. And Sam Jackson coming to your defense doesn't exactly say much, he likes to be the n-word presenter to every white guy he collaborates with.

Watched on Saturday April 26, 2025.

Watched on Saturday April 26, 2025.

I haven't watched this since it first came out and I feeling a bit disappointed by it at the time. I would've been in my early teens, and probably expecting something gorier and more exploitative, with Se7en and of course Fight Club being my favorite Fincher films back then. They probably still are now too, I've just seen enough movies at this point to understand that Fincher doesn't make my favorite directors list in general. I do still really love Se7en though.

Where Se7en highlights the horror of the kills, I appreciate Zodiac's broader focus on destructive obsession rather than violence and spectacle much more now. I would argue that the film makes the police overall look way more competent and concerned than one would ever reasonably assume, considering y'know, all of history, but most police procedurals do. There was an insane amount of media pressure in this case, so the pressure to at least seem like they were on top of things was ever-present. Yet still, we see how much of the legwork was done by the journalists and the public.

I also knew very little about the Zodiac killer before seeing this film, and it's wild how much of the investigation hinged on handwriting analysis (now largely debunked in of being a legitimate process) and how that derailed so much of the case. I thinking the cyphers were a much bigger deal than they were, not realizing that it had pretty much immediately been cracked (not by police, of course). I had always thought part of the mystery was that the cyphers were never solved, so I think going into the film for the first time I had expected a more puzzling and mind-bending angle than what there was in actuality.

But this is often true, that the serial killers that become legends are not actually highly skilled murderers or "evil geniuses" but just people who manage to evade teams of barely competent investigators in plain sight, even with the taunting and the letters and the volunteering of information, begging to be caught. How many more of these instances do we need to see in order to accept and believe that the system and its enforcers do not prevent crime? That the police are too busy either creating violence themselves or simply chasing their own tails?

"Don't you feel sorry for her?"

In a nod to the story, I'd say that Decision to Leave is very dignified for a modern movie.

So much of it unfolds via a phone screen, but that doesn't hinder it from being an incredibly affecting old-fashioned love story. Park Chan-wook is absolutely playing with the camera, to the point where it feels like its own character. It makes the story feel alive in a way that it otherwise wouldn't, bringing so much kinetic energy to a murder mystery turned romantic drama. You watch for the mystery at first, but you definitely stay for the drama.

This is a very erotic film with very little actual physical intimacy, just heaps of voyeuristic yearning. The plot ties itself in knots, but is actually pretty straightforward. However, there's still a lot to unpack beneath the obvious, about policing and our capacity for empathy, about punishment and justice. The penetrating camerawork and the needlessly twisty storytelling inflict a kind of seasickness onto you while you watch everything unfold and it never quite lets you off the hook. As you witness these characters become completely marred by each other you can't help but feel a little helpless and at the mercy of the filmmaker in the most captivating way. Ultimately this film fused the best parts of noir and romance and delivered something I won't soon forget.

Watched on Thursday April 24, 2025.

Watched on Wednesday April 23, 2025.

still very interested in hearing more about how cassandra smuggled that frozen turkey out of piggly wiggly in just her tube top and daisy dukes

Are you trying to save my soul?

Oh, this got me SO bad.

It reminded me of Big Fish if it were blended with Pan's Labyrinth. Not only is this film visually stunning but I was tearing up the entire time. Alexandria's little voice and smile was too sweet. Each time she chimed in and Roy would edit the story to appease her, only for her to adjust her story about touching his big toe. I thought my heart was going to explode.

There are so many references to various fine artists and painters, from Dali to M.C. Escher and maybe even a little Magritte. The brief stop motion scene towards the end was also great. I've never seen a film that instantly made me want to start painting again. I can't stop thinking about the old man's teeth tucked away inside of an orange peel.

I could go on and on about the visuals— narratively speaking, I'd say Roy absolutely did NOT need to put that precious girl through all that but Lee Pace is so sad and hot in this I wasn't even mad at him.

This review may contain spoilers.

Cube is fun if you don't think about it too hard and don't know anything about math. I'm about to overthink it though.

IMDb claims this movie was inspired by one of my favorite Twilight Zone episodes, but I can't really find any reputable source to confirm this despite the similarities being quite strong. The director is actually noted saying he was inspired by Hitchcock's 'Lifeboat' for this single-set project.

The whole thing is just so perfectly late 90s, with the weird angles, cuts, transitions, and the horrible effect used to represent the cubes "shaking". The film thinks it's much smarter than it is, yet I applaud the attempt at such a big existential metaphor contained within a 434ft² box.

The problem is that the film tries to debunk "big brother" conspiracy by basically saying it's all an accident? Like all the cruelty in the world just happens via repeated blunders and carelessness, which isn't entirely false but is also so insultingly far from the whole truth. As individuals we certainly play our own small role in an oppressive system, whether knowingly or not, but there are definitely people who make it their life's mission to ensure the prisons keep the lights on and the horrors continue.

Worth insists that their cubic prison couldn't possibly be created by the military because it's obviously just some "rich psycho's entertainment" but is it not obvious that those same rich psychos have political motivations? Oppressing people beneath them to maintain wealth and power because the exploitation is what props everyone else up? It's so wildly cartoonish to think that wealthy people are only cruel to amuse themselves. How can you look around you, at any point in history, and think all of the suffering is blameless and uncalculated? I look at the current system and see incompetent billionaire idiots, yes, but they know exactly what outcome they are hoping for.

And on the surface I have issues with Kazan's character being a "savant" type but I don't think the film specifically promotes the idea so much as it uses the concept of him surviving by becoming "useful" to the characters as a pretty accurate representation of how disabled people are so quickly discounted and left behind if we aren't able to contribute in a way that society deems as valuable. And in the end, the cop, the antagonist who represents the enforcement of the prison system, the entity that feeds the complex, destroys himself and takes almost everyone with him.

All in all I still love this horribly flawed, low budget, sci-fi horror thriller jam. Probably because I'm so bad at math.

First film is the most recent.
Growing up, I only saw movies at the drive-in theater with my grandparents. Scooby-Doo was the first movie I ever saw in an indoor cinema.

• Friendship

  5.27.25
  (Regal, Hamilton Mill, GA)
  with sister

• Sinners

  4.29.25
  (Regal, Hamilton Mill, GA)

• Mickey 17

  3.25.25
  (Regal, Hamilton Mill, GA)

• Nickel Boys

  (Regal, Mall of GA)

• One of Them Days

  2.4.25
  with my sister
  (Regal, Hamilton Mill, GA)

• The Room Next Door

  1.23.25
  (The Broad Theater, NOLA)

• Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

  9.10.24
  (Regal, Hamilton Mill, GA)

• Blink Twice

  9.3.24
  (Regal, Hamilton Mill, GA)

• Coraline

  8.22.24
  15th anniversary screening with my sister 💙
  (Regal, Mall of GA)

• Tarot

  2024.
  With my sister - her first horror movie in theaters 🖤
  (Regal, Hamilton Mill, GA)

...plus 34 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

~we're sisters and we watch movies~

This is my active diary of every film I watch with my sister. We both show each other things that the other one can never unsee. We specifically watch any movie that features a former New Girl cast member. We laugh, we scream, we cry, we throw up, etc. etc.

• Over the Garden Wall

  - date unknown.
  She didn't take to it much at first, but then she watched it again by herself and fell in love with it. 🎃🐸
  - watched again 9.22.24

• Spirited Away

  Fall 2022.

• Totally Killer

  10.24.23

• Scream

  10.26.23

• Jennifer's Body

  10.27.23

• Coraline

  12.26.23

• The Boy and the Heron

  12.30.23 - first time in a theater together 💙

• Self Reliance

  1.23.24

• The Devil Wears Prada

  2.11.24 - this was my sister realizing she is grateful to have not been alive in the early 2000s

• Desperados

  2.18.24 - this was insufferable!

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

Feature length films only.

• The Banshees of Inisherin
• Secrets & Lies
• Microhabitat
• The Grand Budapest Hotel
• My Dinner with Andre
• My Man Godfrey
• The Truman Show
• The Kid
• Anatomy of a Fall
• City of God

...plus 18 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

I'm working on it!

• 2001: A Space Odyssey
• Good Will Hunting
• Casablanca
• Apocalypse Now
• A Beautiful Mind
• Boyz n the Hood
• All the President's Men
• A Clockwork Orange
• Die Hard
• The Color Purple

...plus 89 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Feature length films only.

1. The Power of the Dog
2. Marcel the Shell with Shoes On
3. Petite Maman
4. Titane
5. On the Count of Three
6. The Tragedy of Macbeth
7. After Yang
8. The Harder They Fall
9. Pig
10. The Lost Daughter

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

A list of films that I think were ruined by a stupid ending. These movies definitely aren't created equal in of overall quality, but they all had potential to be favorites if they hadn't beefed the landing in my opinion.

My commentary about each specific ending is in the notes, all tagged for spoilers.

• Betty Blue

  We're meant to believe that Zorg was "freeing her" from her torment and doing her a favor or something but he doesn't have the right to decide that. Why does he get to go home and hang out with the cat and continue writing, essentially freeing himself of his "burdensome" girlfriend as if her life was nothing? Absolutely shits all over what is otherwise a beautiful, sexy, funny film with an incredible leading woman struggling with complex problems.

  Probably the most infuriating ending on this whole list.

• She's Gotta Have It

  Nola's rape was such a flippant way to make a point and it was handled with no depth or consideration whatsoever. Lee consistently shortchanges the women in his films, even when they are the lead character.

• Strange Days

  Corrupt police systems are not going to correct themselves. There is no single "good guy" that swoops in and saves the day. What a complete fumble of an ending for a movie that otherwise feels accurately dystopian.

• Carmen Jones

  The tragic ending for this movie feels so incredibly rushed and hollow the way it plays out. But this is something I personally struggle with in regard to musicals, where I often feel like the true heaviness of the storyline is undercut by the melodramatic singing.

• The Women

  About 45 minutes in I said, "If she goes back to him at the end, after all this, I'm gonna be pissed" and then she did.

• Love Lies Bleeding

  I get that you don't wanna become your father and stuff but it makes no sense to leave him alive, this man you're so afraid of, and expect the viewer to just accept you running off into the sunset. I just felt like the film didn't lean hard enough into its themes and the ending felt like a copout.

• Baby Driver

  The only reason the cops didn't shoot him full of lead at the end is because he's a little white boy. Like the happy ending he gets is WILD to me. The movie is fun but it's such a childish fantasy where the main character literally gets everything he wanted and everything goes his way in the end. (So basically it's an Edgar Wright film.)

• Suspicion

  They wanted to preserve Cary Grant's good guy image SO badly that they just decided to ruin the movie.

• The Last Supper

  ittedly this movie was starting to piss me off about half-way through, and it's not exactly the ending that bothers me, but the moment the film decides to make the only black character an antagonist. It seems like, at best, they included a black character because they "had" to, or at worst so they could make an example of his anger. This could've been such a perfect political satire if they had actually gone a little deeper and showed any awareness of how these corruptions actually impact people in a real way. But then again, it perfectly captures that shallowness of "well-meaning" white liberals so pick your poison I guess.

• The Wedding Banquet

  The fact that she raped him wasn't taken seriously enough for me. It's hard to get behind the feel good ending when that scene was so sour. I know that, in reality, people don't always cope with things in a way that feels perfectly aligned with the heaviness of the situation. I can personally attest to that. But from a narrative standpoint, it just felt entirely skipped over.

...plus 2 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Feature length films only.
List features films according to their release year on Letterboxd.

1. Perfect Days
2. Anatomy of a Fall
3. All of Us Strangers
4. Problemista
5. Rye Lane
6. Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World
7. Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person
8. Fallen Leaves
9. Past Lives
10. May December

...plus 32 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• Finian's Rainbow
• Hairspray
• A Mighty Wind
• Trick
• AAA 10th Anniversary Special Yagai Live In Fuji-Q Highland
• The Wizard of Oz
• Painted Faces
• Muriel's Wedding
• Happyhappy Divorceparty
• Spring Breakers

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

arranged by poster

• A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night
• Psycho
• Sunset Boulevard
• Coffee and Cigarettes
• Diabolique
• Funeral Parade of Roses
• Paper Moon
• The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
• The Night of the Hunter
• Night of the Living Dead

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

• Dawn of the Dead
• Boys on the Side
• Fever Pitch
• Pearl Harbor
• Coach Carter
• Cats & Dogs
• Casper: A Spirited Beginning
• Casper Meets Wendy
• Cheaper by the Dozen 2
• The Santa Clause 2

...plus 33 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• Shōgun
• Normal People
• Future Boy Conan
• When They See Us
• Penance
• Irma Vep
• Dead Ringers
• Dekalog
• Roots
• The Vampires or, The Arch Criminals of Paris

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

Feature length films only.
List features films according to their release year on Letterboxd.
(Some 2024 streaming releases are featured on the 2023 list.)

1. Challengers
2. The Substance
3. Monkey Man
4. Exhuma
5. How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies
6. Stress Positions
7. Oddity
8. Love Lies Bleeding
9. Dead Talents Society
10. My Old Ass

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

• Paris Is Burning
• I Am Not Your Negro
• When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts
• 13th
• The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975
• High on the Hog: How African American Cuisine Transformed America
• Kokomo City
• The Last Year of Darkness
• Summer of Soul (...Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)
• Amy

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

• All the Beauty and the Bloodshed
• A Band Called Death
• The Celluloid Closet
• So Unreal
• Beyond The Visible - Hilma af Klint
• All the Colors of Giallo
• BaadAsssss Cinema
• Samsara
• No Half Measures: Creating the Final Season of Breaking Bad
• Won't You Be My Neighbor?

...plus 119 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

An ongoing list of some of my favorite short films.

• Illusions
• Tome of the Unknown
• Under Covers
• Cat Soup
• Catopolis
• Kitchen Sink
• Uncle Yanco
• 86'd
• White Men Are Cracking Up
• The Potluck and the ion

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

Feature length films only.

1. The Banshees of Inisherin
2. Decision to Leave
3. Aftersun
4. Mars One
5. Saint Omer
6. Barbarian
7. Talk to Me
8. Nope
9. Wendell & Wild
10. The African Desperate

...plus 21 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

In order of release date.

• Merrily We Go to Hell
• The Lost Weekend
• Smash-Up: The Story of a Woman
• Drunken Angel
• I'll Cry Tomorrow
• The Noose
• Days of Wine and Roses
• Long Day's Journey Into Night
• The Fire Within
• Edna: The Inebriate Woman

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

In no particular order.
List only includes films that are specifically tagged as both "horror" and "comedy".

If it seems like there are some glaring omissions, like maybe Scream or Beetlejuice, take it up with Letterboxd's genre tagging decisions.)

• Shaun of the Dead
• Clue
• Vampire's Kiss
• Death Becomes Her
• House
• What We Do in the Shadows
• Elvira: Mistress of the Dark
• The Rocky Horror Picture Show
• Jennifer's Body
• The Stuff

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

Blu-ray and VHS are specifically noted. The rest are DVDs. Alphabetical order.

• 50/50
• (500) Days of Summer
• 50 First Dates
• The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad

  VHS

• Airheads
• Almost Famous
• American Beauty
• American History X
• American Psycho
• Before Sunrise

...plus 101 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

While not necessarily the most commonly quoted lines in film history, this is a collection of the quotes I'm mostly likely to blurt out involuntarily when prompted by some unsuspecting person or otherwise unassuming situation. Or maybe they're just words I've thought about ever since I heard them, lines that gave me some perspective that I needed.

I challenged myself to only choose one quote per movie.

• Romy and Michele's High School Reunion

  “Would you excuse me? I cut my foot before and my shoe is filling up with blood.”

• Mean Girls

  "Danny Devito, I love your work!

• Legally Blonde

  "What, likes it's hard?

• The Truman Show

  Good afternoon, good evening, and goodnight.

• True Romance

  It ain't white boy day, is it?

• Heathers

  "Well they, uh, seem to have an open door policy for assholes though, don't they?"

• Mrs. Doubtfire

  "I do a great impression of a hot dog!"

• The Big Lebowski

  "Am I the only one around here who gives a shit about the rules!?!

• Zack and Miri Make a Porno

  - Excuse me, can I get a cup of coffee? Black.
  - Can't you see we talkin? White.

• The Doom Generation

  Wake up and smell the cappuccino, geek.

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

• I Want Your Sex
• Wild Horse Nine
• Father Mother Sister Brother
• Untitled Jordan Peele Film
• Friendship
• Die My Love
• The Running Man
• The Chain
• I Know Catherine, the Log Lady
• The Memory Police

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

• Born in Flames
• Portrait of a Lady on Fire
• Donyale Luna: Supermodel
• Wanda
• Thriller
• Killing Time
• Caprice
• Lady Bird
• Girltrash!
• Strange Days

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

If there's any word I could use to describe all of black cinema it would be underseen.

Check out the Black Film Archive.

• Saint Omer
• The African Desperate
• L'avance
• Losing Ground
• B.A.P.S
• One of Them Days
• You Hide Me
• Dahomey
• 13th
• Hair Piece: A Film for Nappy Headed People

...plus 24 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• The Man Who Knew Too Much
• The Man Who Knew Too Much
• The Vanishing
• The Vanishing
• Funny Games
• Funny Games
• A Story of Floating Weeds
• Floating Weeds
• The Ten Commandments
• The Ten Commandments

...plus 47 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• Cat Soup
• Perfect Days
• Paprika
• Night on the Galactic Railroad
• Good Morning
• Night Is Short, Walk On Girl
• One Wonderful Sunday
• Ani*Kuri15: Good Morning
• Grave of the Fireflies
• Women of the Night

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

"I've always loved the idea of fairy tales, but somehow I never managed to completely connect with them. What interests me is taking those classic images and themes and trying to contemporize them a bit. I believe folk tales and fairy tales have some sort of psychological foundation that makes that possible."
— Tim Burton

- Feature length films only.
- Rankings are based on a combination of my personal favorites vs their "best" overall quality. These choices will no doubt be debatable.

Unseen:
- Frankenweenie
- Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children
- Dumbo
- Planet of the Apes

1. Beetlejuice
2. Edward Scissorhands
3. Pee-wee's Big Adventure
4. Big Fish
5. Batman Returns
6. Mars Attacks!
7. Ed Wood
8. Batman
9. Sleepy Hollow
10. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

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

I was fairly loose with my requirements for this list, and at times I was kind of arbitrary in my selectiveness. I was initially aiming for girls & women as leads with the story centered around our experiences - basically as far removed from straight male fantasy as possible. That's annoyingly difficult to find in large quantity, so I improvised and made exceptions.
A lot of these films were written/directed by men. A lot of these stories center men more than I'd prefer, but so it goes. That obviously doesn't mean it's bad, but it isn't always what I'm looking for here.
I wanted LGBTQ+ representation. I wanted to balance people of color and our stories as much as possible. I wanted comedy, drama, horror, thrills, tears, and probably some confusion or disgust.
I haven't seen most of these films and I'm sure I don't agree with some of the ideas displayed in them. Some of these films I grew up with, some I discovered in my formative years, and the rest I'm looking forward to seeing.
I will probably keep adding to this, so I'm open to suggestions. There are also many that I intentionally left off and I will not explain.

• Bend It Like Beckham
• Ghost World
• D.E.B.S.
• Aquamarine
• Nancy Drew
• Judy
• Losing Ground
• Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen
• Crush
• Party Girl

...plus 1161 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

"Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is nonexistent. And don't bother concealing your thievery - celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always what Jean-Luc Godard said: "It's not where you take things from - it's where you take them to." "
— Jim Jarmusch

- Feature length films only.
- Rankings are based on a combination of my personal favorites vs their "best" overall quality. These choices will no doubt be debatable.

• Coffee and Cigarettes
• Night on Earth
• Down by Law
• Paterson
• Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai
• Mystery Train
• Only Lovers Left Alive
• The Dead Don't Die
• Dead Man
• Stranger Than Paradise

...plus 3 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

my spooky season viewing agenda

• Uzumaki
• Possession
• I Saw the Devil
• Eyes Without a Face
• Häxan
• Funny Games
• Tetsuo: The Iron Man
• Eraserhead
• Maniac
• I Know What You Did Last Summer

...plus 21 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Iconic wardrobes that I'd like to commemorate in costume. Specific characters listed in the notes.

Costumes I've Done:
✔️ Leeloo Dallas (2013?)

• Audition

  Asami Yamazaki

• Kill Bill: Vol. 1

  Gogo Yubari

• Barbarella

  Barbarella

• Santa Sangre

  Alma

• True Romance

  Alabama Worley

• The Doom Generation

  Amy Blue

• Batman & Robin

  Poison Ivy

• Eyes Without a Face

  Christiane

• Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me

  Laura Palmer OR Lil the Dancer

• Vamp

  Katrina

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

• Sweet Bean
• A Boy and His Samurai
• Patisserie Coin De Rue
• Estômago: A Gastronomic Story
• Boiling Point
• Waiting...
• Tortilla Soup
• Chef
• Eating Raoul
• Cat Ramen Taishou

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

A collection of narrative films about real life painters only. No documentaries.

• Love Is the Devil: Study for a Portrait of Francis Bacon
• Basquiat
• Downtown '81
• Paula
• Bonnard, Pierre and Marthe
• Rosa Bonheur
• My Left Foot: The Story of Christy Brown
• The Mill and the Cross
• Caravaggio
• Caravaggio

...plus 87 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

It brings a sort of (curse out your boss) (unionize the team) (quit your job) (burn down the office) vibe to the workplace that folks don't really like.

• Ikiru
• Patterns
• Putney Swope
• Network
• Norma Rae
• Nine to Five
• Vampire's Kiss
• Glengarry Glen Ross
• Swimming with Sharks
• Clerks

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

Film history's best burgers.

List requirements:
- Burger must be on screen, not just mentioned. This means the whole burger as a sandwich, not just someone grilling a patty or something.
- The burger doesn't necessarily have to be "real" or edible.
- Burger needs to have a decent amount of relevance to the plot, or at least a primary character acknowledges/interacts with it.
- Feature length films only.

Unfortunately, this means that the hilarious Mr. Smiley's scene from American Beauty doesn't qualify, nor does Steve Martin's desperate attempts to pronounce the word 'hamburger' in Pink Panther. It's also a shame that when Lily offers Jarrod a Big Boy Burger with free cheese in Eagle vs Shark, the burgers themselves stay in the box. Even in Kevin Smith's fictional (except for that one time it was real) fast-food chain Mooby's, burgers never actually make an appearance— just some nondescript looking thing that apparently tastes like piss and flies.

Thanks to my millionth rewatch of Pulp Fiction for inspiring this list.

Now that I've spent an embarrassing amount of time compiling these movies, I'm gonna go get myself a whaburger and some french cries.

• Good Burger
• Good Burger 2
• Pulp Fiction
• Juno
• The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie
• The Bob's Burgers Movie
• The Founder
• The Menu
• Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle
• Hamburger: The Motion Picture

...plus 29 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Do you like to get pie after you see a good movie?

• American Pie
• Twin Peaks
• A Ghost Story
• The Help
• Pi
• Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
• The Battle of the Century
• Waitress
• Labor Day
• My Blueberry Nights

...plus 20 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

": it costs nothing to encourage an artist, and the potential benefits are staggering. A pat on the back to an artist now could one day result in your favorite film, or the cartoon you love to get stoned watching, or the song that saves your life. Discourage an artist, you get absolutely nothing in return, ever."
— Kevin Smith

- Feature length films only.
- Rankings are based on a combination of my personal favorites vs their "best" overall quality. These choices will no doubt be debatable.

1. Clerks
2. Chasing Amy
3. Mallrats
4. Dogma
5. Red State
6. Clerks II
7. Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back
8. Zack and Miri Make a Porno
9. Tusk
10. Yoga Hosers

"If I wasn't a filmmaker, I'd be a film critic. It's the only thing I'd be qualified to do."
— Quentin Tarantino

- Feature length films only.
- Rankings are based on a combination of my personal favorites vs their "best" overall quality. These choices will no doubt be debatable.

1. Pulp Fiction
2. Jackie Brown
3. Reservoir Dogs
4. Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair
5. Django Unchained
6. Death Proof
7. Inglourious Basterds
8. Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood
9. The Hateful Eight

"I'm not going to make movies that tell children, "You should despair and run away". ...
Personally I am very pessimistic. But when, for instance, one of my staff has a baby you can't help but bless them for a good future. Because I can't tell that child, "Oh, you shouldn't have come into this life." And yet I know the world is heading in a bad direction. So with those conflicting thoughts in mind, I think about what kind of films I should be making."

"The concept of portraying evil and then destroying it - I know this is considered mainstream, but I think it is rotten. This idea that whenever something evil happens someone particular can be blamed and punished for it, in life and in politics is hopeless."
— Hayao Miyazaki

There is no bad Miyazaki.

- Feature length films only.
- Rankings are based on a combination of my personal favorites vs their "best" overall quality. These choices will no doubt be debatable.

1. Spirited Away
2. Kiki's Delivery Service
3. Howl's Moving Castle
4. My Neighbor Totoro
5. Castle in the Sky
6. Ponyo
7. Princess Mononoke
8. The Wind Rises
9. The Boy and the Heron
10. Porco Rosso

...plus 2 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

"That's the kind of movie that I like to make, where there is an invented reality and the audience is going to go someplace where hopefully they've never been before. The details, that's what the world is made of."
— Wes Anderson

- Feature length films only.
- Rankings are based on a combination of my personal favorites vs their "best" overall quality. These choices will no doubt be debatable.

1. The Grand Budapest Hotel

   The Grand Budapest Hotel deserves every ounce of hype. It just has everything: laughs, drama, adventure, and of course style.

2. The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
3. The Royal Tenenbaums
4. Bottle Rocket
5. Rushmore
6. Asteroid City
7. The Darjeeling Limited
8. Fantastic Mr. Fox
9. The French Dispatch
10. Moonrise Kingdom

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

Must a movie always be good?

Sometimes you just want sexy villains, gore, Nicolas Cage, and to laugh at something that may or may not have intended to make you laugh in the first place.

All films on this list have an average rating lower than 3.5, sorted from lowest to highest rating.

• Batman & Robin
• Wild Wild West
• The Haunting
• Vampire in Brooklyn
• Batman Forever
• Flubber
• Transylvania 6-5000
• The Man with the Iron Fists
• Joe Dirt
• Cursed

...plus 29 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

satire sun, deadpan moon, absurd comedy of errors rising

• Living in Oblivion
• Hot Fuzz
• Clue
• Romy and Michele's High School Reunion
• The Daytrippers
• Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead
• Harlem Nights
• Scrooged
• The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie
• Seven Psychopaths

...plus 5 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Aspiring artists, shadow artists, artists experiencing blockages, all finding ways to figure out their lives through various journeys that can be both healing and/or destructive.

• Being John Malkovich
• The Artist
• Black Swan
• Secret Window
• Naked Lunch
• Dead Poets Society
• Pain and Glory
• The Wolfpack
• The Devil Wears Prada
• Synecdoche, New York

...plus 62 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert

  I'm glad I ended up watching this before To Wong Foo, as I much prefer this film overall. TWF is fun, but very American. By that I mean it's not very honest. This movie, in contrast, is fun and unflinching. Glamorous and earnest. I ended up giving both films four stars, but to me 4 stars stretches a long distance.

• Chocolate Babies
• Desert Hearts
• Naz & Maalik
• Happy Together
• The Silver Screen: Color Me Lavender

  I had my expectations set much more broadly than the scope of this documentary. I also mistakenly assumed that women would be mentioned at some point, as I tend to associate "lavender" with mostly anti-lesbian rhetoric.

• Entre Nous
• The Wedding Banquet

  The first half of this is so wholesome and funny, a seemingly perfect gay rom-com, and then there is a pivotal moment that gets so horribly fumbled it ruins the entire rest of the film.

• To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar
• Shortbus

...plus 2 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• Almost Famous
• Raiders of the Lost Ark
• Signs
• The Mummy Returns
• The Mummy
• A Brighter Summer Day
• The Boat That Rocked
• Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle
• Charlie's Angels
• Friday

...plus 85 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

I'm fighting very hard to keep this alliteration theme going.

• A Bug's Life
• Nuts in May
• Bambi
• A Tale of Springtime
• Harold and Maude
• After Yang
• Ever After
• Early Spring
• The Banshees of Inisherin
• Moonrise Kingdom

...plus 51 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

What to watch for the winter

• Catch Me If You Can
• American Psycho
• Groundhog Day
• Edward Scissorhands
• The Shining
• Citizen Kane
• A Christmas Story
• Pinocchio's Christmas
• The Year Without a Santa Claus
• Frosty the Snowman

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

Weird how autumn goes from cozy to creepy and then back to cozy so quickly.

• James and the Giant Peach
• Practical Magic
• The Silence of the Lambs
• Halloweentown
• Edward Scissorhands
• The Shining
• School of Rock
• Kiki's Delivery Service
• You've Got Mail
• Death Becomes Her

...plus 50 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

There's a little something here for everyone. Happy Valentine's Day!

• Wristcutters: A Love Story
• Moonstruck
• Bound
• The Loveless
• The Wedding Singer
• The Love Witch
• Cruel Intentions
• Diabolique
• Moulin Rouge!
• High Fidelity

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