n8_m_nguyen Pro

Favorite films

  • The Wailing
  • Parasite
  • A Bittersweet Life
  • Burning

All
  • The Life of Chuck

    ★★½

  • Materialists

    ★★★½

  • The Phoenician Scheme

    ★★★½

  • Ballerina

    ★★★

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Thunderbolts*

2025

★★★½ Liked Watched

In a post-Endgame era where the movies have diminished in quality with the storytelling, and resort to CGI explosion fests in the third act, Thunderbolts dares to be different and subverts expectations by flipping the script. It puts real effort into its characters and tackles the conflict in the third act from a psychological angle instead of CGI action sequences. It feels like a two-hour therapy session on loneliness, depression, and existential nihilism, in a good way. It’s not your…

Ne Zha 2

2025

★★★★★ Liked Watched

There was so much hyperbolic praise around Ne Zha 2 that I figured there was no way it could live up to the hype. But imagine my face, jaw wide open, when it actually did. A completely mysterious animated production from China I had never even heard of suddenly became impossible to ignore due to the word-of-mouth, the box office records, the sheer phenomenon of it all. And now I can confidently say I haven’t seen an animated film this…

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The Life of Chuck

2024

★★½ Watched

I think I got gaslit by the TIFF crowd who voted this to win the People's Choice Award. The marketing called it a life-affirming masterpiece with deep existential themes. But after all that hype, I walked away pretty disappointed. I get what the film is about and what it's trying to go for: a multi-generational, coming-of-age existential epic, almost like Mike Flanagan doing Magnolia, but more cheerful and saccharine. But the execution is just bizarre and unintelligible that I could…

Materialists

2025

★★★½ Watched

There’s something about Celine Song’s tender, meditative writing that felt perfect in Past Lives, but in Materialists, it just comes off as forced and awkward. Not gonna lie, some of the dialogue actually made me wince. It felt unnatural and kind of cringe. The themes are compelling (modern dating being approached by society as a transactional, algorithmic process), but the execution falls flat. The script is too contrived to really land. Celine Song has proven with her previous filn that she's a prodigy, an exciting new talent in filmmaking, but her latest film here didn’t come together like I hoped. Yet, it's still pretty enjoyable.

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One Life

2023

★★★ Watched

TIFF 2023

It felt like Oscar bait. Basically a watered down Schindler's List. The execution is ordinary. The film itself is formulaic and leans hard into sentimentality, though it did make the audience tear up. Anthony Hopkins shines, as usual, with a devastating performance. But what truly made it special was the TIFF premiere with a deeply emotional crowd who sobbed at the end. Even real life Jewish survivors from the Kindertransport rescue operation in Prague that the film depicted, revealed themselves to be in the audience, to which we warmly greeted and applauded. The movie might be forgettable, but that TIFF experience was something else.

Fingernails

2023

★★★ Watched

TIFF 2023

Under the hands of a more experienced director, I actually think this sci-fi romance drama could have potentially been a 9/10 or 10/10. Because the concept is actually inventive and intriguing, essentially functioning as a critique on relationship matchmaking and dating in the modern era. It just fumbles due to poor writing, not taking the idea deeper, and then the third act I'm kind of lukewarm on.
NSFW warning: If you're squeamish towards fingernail-pulling, avoid this movie altogether.