This review may contain spoilers.

"I know this is hard for you."
"Nah. It's easy."

*elbows plot aside* "I'm here for the food."

This review may contain spoilers.

A bit rough around the edges, but brilliant, beautiful, and hard-hitting. I love this film for grounding us in Ludovic's experience of the world, how she hides beneath tables, behind curtains, and sees gender for the performance (and dare I say "masquerade") that it is. The performative nature of gender is evoked symbolically in the opening scene–as the men and women costume themselves in dresses and ties–and literally, when Ludovic steals the role of Snow White in his school’s play. Ludo doesn't even want to disrupt the gender binary, she just wants the other role, and yet even that is met with such harsh treatment (not that Ludo existing outside the binary would warrant any more violence). And because everyone refuses to explain the unspoken scandal of 'switching roles' or being "bent" beyond violence and consequence, Ludo internalizes the consequences as her fault.

It's an incredible feat that the film remains anchored in Ludo's perspective while making every character sympathetic.

The grandmother is a relative beacon of acceptance amidst the rest of the family, but even she must delegitimize Ludo's desires as a phase (or pretend to) in her appeals to "let him wear the skirt, and he'll get over it".

Ludo's mother grows more resentful and lashes out at her child as her suburban haven is eroded, while Ludo's harsh father softens (albeit mostly off-screen) once he's lost his job and no longer has pressure to impress his boss. They feel the best way to protect their child is to stuff her in a box. They know the world will hurt her, so they hurt her first.

Ludo's sister feels stifled by her girlhood and is annoyed when Ludo naïvely romanticizes and asks about it.

Ludo's brothers are torn between standing up for him and preserving their own standing.

Jerome switches up on Ludovic in response to (implied) harsh talks from his father. Jerome shows the same reaction Ludo will eventually have as she internalizes the blame from her family. They're just kids, and kids are reactive, malleable, and look toward their family for behavioral cues.

The teacher discourages bullying, but also reinforces gender roles by pairing Ludo with Sophie.

Chris is presented as a potential mirror and validation of Ludo's trans experience, but his desperation overrides any kindness and he contributes to Ludo's humiliation.

The boss is angry and reactive, but when the father callously remarks that he doesn't know what it's like to have multiple kids, he looks wounded before he insists that "God took one of my kids. He's not taking two." He sees a gay son as akin to a dead one, but it is his desire not to lose his son that will likely drive him away.

There is plenty to be said about the way uncontextualized queerness drives religious and scientific questioning, too. After his sister gives Ludo a 'scientific' explanation of chromosomes, Ludo applies it to God, interpreting her male body not as a punishment or sign that she was mistaken, but merely that the "wise guy" had a case of butterfingers when tossing her chromosomes. (Ludo's TicTacToe analogy was also adorable.)

While the ending felt rushed and too optimistic given the characters' beliefs at the time, the impact of an optimistic ending that cements accepting Ludo as the empathetic and right choice cannot be understated.

Far more frantically shot and paced than the final 'polished' film wound up being, but there's something beautiful in its confusing chaos.
If anyone knows the song, hit me up, because it's entrancing.

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Love how the moon crashing into Earth subplot takes a backseat to the romance between two five year-olds.

Rewatched this for an essay. Here's an excerpt:

In most Ghibli films, humans and nature are intertwined, an ouroboros destroying itself, symbiotic and dependent. locked in a push and pull between friendship and war. Each film tackles similar themes, and each seems to reach a similar conclusion; humans and nature aren’t evil, but it is their fundamental differences in need–their creations, greed, and detachment–that bring them into conflict.

One such way the relationship between nature and humans is explored is the friendship between children (humans) and spirits (nature) in My Neighbor Totoro, Spirited Away, and Ponyo. In all three films, the children befriend spirits, but there’s a tension between their innocence and the ominous power they wield.

That ominousness is most present in Spirited Away, representing and testing Chihiro’s fear of the unknown. While she never befriends every spirit, the people in the bathhouse help her rescue her family, and she gains confidence.

In Totoro, Satsuki is shocked by Totoro when she meets him, but while he is presented as odd and vaguely terrifying, he is nothing but friendly, even if the form his friendship takes is odd. He gives her acorns, and eventually helps her find her sister.

And in Ponyo, the sweetness of Ponyo’s affection for Sosuke is threatening to him and the town, creating waves that Lisa has to outdrive. That tension is most palpable in the scene where Sasuke asks Lisa if his father’s ship is capsized, and she grimly replies that she can’t see it–all while Ponyo watches, obliviously, despite causing their concern. But Ponyo’s potential for destruction is balanced by the joy she brings Sosuke, and her ability to heal his cut and unclog their generator. Her powers, while incidental, do evoke the terrifying unpredictability of the ocean, which–for all the joy it brings–can quickly become deadly.

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If I had a nickel for every Ghibli romance that was not deterred by incest, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird it happened twice.

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Catches lightning in a bottle, fumbles it for the second act, then drops it by the third. This feels like Mickey's reconstruction of his own experiences, disted and cheesy, but brimming with heart and potential.

The existential horror of the Expendables--presented with sickening comedy--is where the film shines (Mickey's hand waving hello to an indifferent cafe encapsulates it beautifully). Nasha and Mickey's infectious, mischievous escapades are utterly endearing, and Pattinson's narration is performed with such a dorky charm that it stops just shy of overstaying its welcome. And unsurprisingly, the costume and production design are tasteful and immersive.

Sadly, the film wanders away from the likes of Moon, Never Let Me Go, or even Blade Runner 2049 after teasing a body-swap direction that feels a much more fitting avenue for its slapstick-satire-psychological horror blend, instead leaning on its inflated cast to carry its painfully conventional third act.

On a plot and character level, everyone but Mickey is bewilderingly simple and frustratingly underexplored.

Toni Colette's sauce fanatic compelled me far more than Ruffalo's impotent, waffling dictator amalgam as both a performance and enabler of his ineptitude.

Nasha is an "agent" (and a commendable one!) is mentioned in ing, but serves to flavor her badassery, and is never explored, nore explained. Does she participate in intergalactic espionage? Is she a cop on the ship, enforcing rations and everyone's celibacy except her own? How does the crew feel about Nasha--the heel of the authoritarian boot--moving up a rung after all these years?

Steven Yeun's character could be cut for time, truly. He got Mickey into the debt that prompted him to become an Expendable, but for a symptom of Mickey's low self-esteem, his role is downplayed relative to the (much less personal and far less interesting) Nausicaä rehash.

Kai is genuinely baffling. She's happy with her 'best friend' but comes onto Mickey, her 'best friend' is killed and she comes onto Mickey again after seeing how he's tortured, asks Nasha to 'share' him like he's a Kit-Kat, is absent for the finale, then gets paired up with a short-haired girl off-screen?

The printing machine is exploded with a painfully dismissive moral handwave that ignores 1) everyone on that ship was happy for Mickey to be their Expendable, including the scientists who are still welcome on this ship, 2) more people will die in this process of colonization even if they walked it back from war and full-on genocide. 3) Marshall's ship was filled with his ers. Where did they go? They certainly did not participate in the final fight with the creepers, nor witness their figurehead's death.
The ending is not emotionally, morally, or logistically satisfying, yet it's played as this "Yay, we fixed it!" in a way that feels devoid of nuance and disingenuous to the rest of the film.

Yet, despite it all, I did enjoy myself, and will read the book at my first possible convenience.

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Outside a decent soundtrack, solid Malkovich performance, and a few genuinely disturbing puppets, I'm not sure what this was going for. There's not a character motivation in sight (besides nebulous 'was jilted once' attributed to Moretti by Ariel at the end), it's over-lit, the followers feel like AI-generated basic distillations of every cult shot possible, and seems to be trying to...vilify creatives? Because we have it too easy, apparently.

There's a somewhat compelling idea that Moretti tricked Ariel into publishing her story for fame to spread his faith, but unlike the pearls, the film is too lazy to string them together into something coherent, let alone compelling.

It reminds me of a writing professor's most common observation with college short stories: "The last sentence of your first draft is the first sentence of your second." The film spends the whole time clearing its throat to get to what it really wants to say by the end, but really needed to go back, refine the setup, sharpen the tone, and revel in the stakes.

As-is, it's a horror film without the suspense, a commentary scared of exploring its conclusion, a tale of ambition with none of its own.

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Makes for a hell of a double feature with I Am Ready, Warden, specifically involving the merits of lethal injection.

This was the film whose presence dragged me back to the theater in the dead of night. Sadly, despite the commendable amount of creative control placed in Sam's hands (according to the credits) and the provocative choice to obscure the killer's face, the narration felt oddly divested from the situation. It felt like the indignities someone from outside the situation would imagine and impose. It feels unfair to demand Sam bear her soul when this situation was already so public, but if there was ever an opportunity to do so, this was it, and it fell flat.

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The most elegantly shot and conventional of the Oscar noms in of subject matter and form, but stronger for it. I'm always wary the artifice of the content when documentaries are filmed immersively, so I appreciate that this includes the interviewer's obsession with perseverating on Orin O'Brien's status...though, it does call into question how she feels about the film's title capitalizing on exactly that.

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Makes for a hell of a double-feature with Death By Numbers. an unfortunate situation that somehow feels the fault of a larger system then those left to grapple with it in the end.

No one in the theater breathed that entire time. Undoubtedly the most affecting of the doc noms (which says a lot, given its competition includes a school shooting survivor confronting her would-be killer and a death-row inmate reckoning with his execution). My only hangup would be that it does feel more like a masterfully-compiled chronicle than a documentary filmed with the intent to be shown, and thus, isn't technically a documentary made with the intent to become one. But it absolutely needed to be.

This is the kind of pressure and fostering of competition that screws up every kid involved. Still an endearing story, if any of it's real (the kids' eloquence has me questioning how much is).

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Yorgos: "What if cult parents raised their kids as dogs--except the kids are conventionally attractive adults who only act like kids, so I can make them fuck?"

I do appreciate his commitment to genuinely weird dynamics, even if they seem so infatuated with their strangeness that they forget to ground it in reality, lest it become anything else. The same factor that makes his works unique also holds them back from becoming anything too relatable. They're thought experiments, meant to intrigue, not invest. They mimic mechanisms of our reality, but avoid populating it with individuals with mannerisms that nevertheless harken back to universally recognizable desires for power, freedom, and curiosity.

So I appreciate the ending. It's a welcome emotional anchor, grounding the film as a long unspooling of context for the potential tragedy that arises from that car hood staying down.

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Poster made me think it was gay, but testicles are only cupped in a brotherly way.

The dialogue and characterization felt pleasantly naturalistic, saturated with a compelling resentment that simmers but never boils over. The ending was subversive, but felt like it swung and missed at the elephant in the room; that perhaps, the hair transplants would not, in fact, fix their self-esteem issues nor strengthen their relationships.

Am I asking for the cliché ending? Maybe. But I feel a film so technically competent could muster up a conclusion that felt rewarding and original, neither of which I quite got from this. Not on a first watch, anyway.

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One of the few pieces of cinema that I can honestly say would be better if it escalated to cannibalism.

Based on all the hype this got, it was surprisingly underwhelming. The set design is expansive and gritty, but the gruesome centerpiece of the old man's body and figures' lack of food set up a cannibalistic Chekov's gun that never fired. (Though, perhaps the article that described it as "The of a show are left with their creator's body after he dies. What they eat to survive is not suitable for children" is partially to blame for my assumptions.)

The show footage was spliced randomly throughout and gave no added context to the characters' relationship or any symbolic value, so obviously at the editor's discretion, instead of motivated by the narrative.

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It's kinda sad that it took me so long to bury my hatchet of internalized resentment at this undeniably important film, just because I--someone who does not experience attraction--feel pressure to engage in it.

Growing up as an aromantic-asexual is like living in a society where everyone eats trees. It is a rite of age--proof of personhood--to want to eat trees. Something that seems alien, foreign, or just odd and would never occur to you is treated as absolutely vital to existing in society, and everything--from posters, to media, to jokes, to parental pressures--is filled with people humping tree trunks, biting bark, licking sap--except, half the time, you are the tree.

My childhood was basically the inverse of this film; I was the kid who said "blergh!" whenever people kissed, but performatively, because everyone else did, and what a funny joke it all was, that people expressed themselves in such a silly, tree-eating way.

Every time a character acted hot and bothered around their crush, I rolled my eyes and assumed it was lazy writing to get the character to bumble into the next scene. I'm still not entirely convinced all-consuming romantic feelings are not just one big societal gaslight, a psy-op, a scam invented by book companies to sell more romance novels.

It doesn't help that the genre is about as diametrically opposed from my penchant as possible; it's cutesy, child-centric, and of course, concludes that "everyone is romantically inclined and self-conscious about it!"

So, while I do feel fundamentally invalidated by that ending ("Oh no, won't someone think of the poor heterosexual kids who feel so scared to be attracted to each other!"), I do understand that there are probably kids who feel like this. And this is a very sweet way to make them feel seen. I just wish some day, someone would make something like that for me.

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The man dissolves and encircles the girl when she tries to leave, like all the love she knows he feels expresses itself at once, reminding her why she endures the pain of caring for him. It's manipulative, it's honest, it's painful, it's love. She stops, she sighs, then she tries to leave again. And yeah, that is how it feels.

The way he breaks the fish bubble, the mirror, the vases. A broken man breaking more things. Not because he hates them, but because the world fades and it's just him and his pain. And yeah, that is how it happens.

How saving a relationship that's burning at both ends is a bit like chasing seagulls away from a beached whale, like sleeping on a sinking ship because you're not safe around her.

The way she keeps diving in to save him, and he almost drowns to cut the whale free (to cut her free), and at the end, they reunite, and we are not sure if it is a mercy, or the beginning of another identical cycle.

This is narratively and artistically sublime. The way everyone has a slight curve, sprightly, how his shadow lines up with her, the way the father's legs fold beneath him like a towel, the (frickin adorable square whale) looks so calm and sweet, until its eyes start looking tired and it's clear its given up, but the girl won't let it. Everything functions perfectly, filled with poetic, idiosyncratic details, playing out like a fable, like a tragedy, and a deeply complex character study is simultaneously about these specific, fraught characters, but swells beyond them, speaking to a collective pain, love, and determination to try again.

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A sweet (pun intended) jaunt with a whimsical and heartfelt story about a boy learning to break out of his shell.

Very neat animation texture (wooly sweaters, clay-like faces with visible scratches). The movements had a staccato to them where the characters would freeze, then move to the next pose. Like a game of statues. Some great Dutch angles and close-up shots, too. 

Narratively, it could’ve been more thematically focused (less couch, more kids playing at the end), but a really solid and enjoyable adventure.

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It was so close--so close--to being by favorite Ghibli movie. Combining a whimsical setting and friendships of Miyazaki, with the layered character psychology of Takahata. The incredible sound design (Anna clambering into the boat, and the droning of the silo come to mind), the most consistent character animation in the Ghibli repertoire (Marnie's hair is bouncy without being supernaturally floaty), how Anna smiles and acts sweet around others, but turns cynical and self-critical when alone. The background paintings, the cooking animations, the childish bullies, the girl with glasses who treats meeting 'Marnie' like meeting her favorite fictional character, Anna's mother and extended family not always sure how to treat her but always welcoming her, the critical adults who never come between them.
And, at the center, the beautiful romance between these girls, able to meet in this house where the barrier between past and present wore thin--or perhaps, they never met, because Anna created Marnie to love her when she couldn't love herself.

I was grinning ear-to-ear and absolutely beside myself. I was overjoyed at seeing these girls (Anna, for sure) so sweetly and unabashedly in love, the earnest connection threaded with the tension of the foreboding mystery of Marnie's disappearances, the lilacs and violets (both flowers the lesbian poet Sappho gave to her lady lovers) dotted throughout the fields and in the flower basket, the contrast between Marnie's forwardness and confidence with Anna's introversion and awkwardness. I couldn't believe I was actually watching a queer Ghibli movie, with all the romance tropes, done so thoughtfully, and wondered why Ocean Waves was labeled "Ghibli's Accidental Queer Movie" by some when this existed.

And then, we got the twist. Not that Marnie sometimes saw Kazuhiko in place of Anna. Not that Anna no longer knows how much of that love was ever hers, or whether she was only ever a ing fancy.

Nope, the twist is that Marnie was Anna's grandmother, and left the house not because she died as a child and her ghost still haunts it. She just grew up, married Kazuhiko, and her life was one tragedy after another, until she, too, died.

Anna connecting with her grandmother's younger self is a beautiful idea. ANd usually, when a film pulls such a jarring twist, I try quite hard to reason my way into understanding it. Open-mindedness always opens up a world of possibilities.

But I cannot understand for the life of me why they used every romantic trope in the book to depict their relationship! Anna blushing when they're close, jealous when Marnie dances with a boy, their dance outside, Marnie asking Anna to "keep her secret, because they'll ruin it", both of them saying "I've never loved another girl as much as I've loved you" (and the Japanese audio apparently uses a term for the most ionate, strongest, romantic form of "love"), only to twist it like this.
Was the point the dysfunction? Was that why Anna cried again when she found out? What was the point?
I dislike crying "Queerbait", but I really struggle to find another word for this. And I have the feeling that is going to sour any rewatch I attempt.

But when it lasted? before that shimmering bubble popped? It was so beautiful.

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Anton: points gun “Your place, or mine?”

Excellent movie, unsurprisingly. A hint of “women whose only role is to fret and be oblivious”, the usual “every Mexican character is either cartel, mariachi, or dead”, and a handful of convenience (the border crossings come to mind), but otherwise? Masterpiece.

I can’t stay mad at the off-screen deaths. Even knowing going into it that they’d happen (but not when), and still being jarred and initially upset, it undercuts the heroism beautifully. “Llewelyn never asks for help. Even if he needs some” just wouldn’t hit the same with a heroic, on-screen death. And we got the exposition anyway, via Uncle Mac’s death; “shot in his own doorway.”

Still unsure about a few things. Like whether Cara Jean was Llewelyn’s wife or daughter. CJ pouted and Llewelyn orders her like a daughter, but Anton called her otherwise at the end.

And did Anton or the cartel get him (and Cara Jean’s mom, too). The cartel was driving off in a hurry—even after they’d shot Llewelyn—but there were no cops that they were running from. Kinda wish we knew, especially since the other off-screen murders are so effective. But the intrigue’s in the mystery.

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I haven't seen this in about a decade. What I :

1) Everyone looked "gross and creepy". The blind man's elephant-nose disgusted me so much I refused to look at it on every rewatch.
2) I cracked my knuckles like one of the Mayor's mobsters (stretching the finger) for years after this, hoping to channel one-tenth of the movie's badassery.
3) When the spotted owls said Rango was going to die, my interest piqued, because I'd never seen a movie where the protagonist died. So I felt jilted when he survived.
4) As usual, I identified the obligatory romance, and lamented that Beans, in all her earnest and fiery glory, was damseled and domesticated by the end.

As an adult with a newfound appreciation for surrealism and gritty animation, this movie was an absolute delight.
As usual with Westerns--and most American movies--it's got an egregious case of Main-Character-Stranger-Savior syndrome, and a quirky character who loves the sound of his own voice.

But the movie knows when to shut up and hand us over to the scenery. The textured vocal performances, sound design, character designs and ribald meta-humor invigorate the well-worn premise. Rattlesnake Jake's design has remained the most talked-about, but every character is strikingly and refreshingly textural, selling the dryness of the town and fully embracing the eccentricities of their animals, without being smoothed out, overly humanized, or drifting into uncanniness. The way the light pools in their eyes, shifts in their fur, scales ripple, skin folds, and sand cascades...it's transcendent.

In the behind the scenes video, Yukia Animation revealed that every charcoal frame of (hand-drawn) animation would smear the one preceding it, so they had to animate straight-ahead, with no tweaks. Absolutely remarkable feat of impressionism that feels Oscar-worthy.

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The film's at it's best when it's haunting, surreal, nightmarish, its characters lost, angry, but still trying to do something. The villain is played a bit too straight, his cartoonishness shattering the ominous haze of angst and reminding you this is a reconstruction. But reading this as a revenge fantasy, that contrast reads as deliberate, or at least, aspirational.
Fantasy, fables, and memories, butting up against each other to reveal a fraught and fragmented reality through which love and pain are the only constants.

“Mei” is short for “Meid-it-worse”. (Said with love) 

This is more tightly-written and perilous than I . Love how this undermines the “spooky haunted house = evil things that want to cause harm”, while keeping the spooky and haunted elements. 

Setsuki deserves to be a kid, and it’s so interesting to see her run around and play, while also being forced to grow up too quickly. Mei’s stubbornness being the ‘antagonist’ is quite familiar.

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It was this close to being a masterpiece, and actual competition for my top four.

The dialogue and delivery felt incredibly naturalistic. The tension of them continuously ruining everything because they refused to leave it alone just ratcheted up and up, even more so when the “we have to find our original reality before sunrise” deadline was posited. 

I was even on board with the blonde woman leaving. 

But, then we got the ending. The absolute unbelievable sheer escalation of her body-snatching and replacing her happy self so ‘she’ could be happy, then being trapped with that consequences, is interesting, but lacked the cosmic, nightmarish inevitability of all the actions before. It felt like we were building to an escalation, a merging of all realities where continuity completely broke down, but it just kinda…fizzled. 

Fantastic writing, though. Hard for me to really be mad at it.

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I think this is the only Ghibli film that's not merely sardonic, but ironic in its commentary of work culture.
It's a hell of an allegory for assimilation, showing exactly how the racoons' ability to express their culture is stripped from them, bit by bit, yet never falls into tragedy porn, instead contrasting each raccoon's response and never losing sight of the desire for joy and play that the racoons are fight for. It takes the subject seriously without being too serious or sanctimonious. And the ending is, as always with Takahata, a bittersweet blend of hopeful and tragic.

I'm surprised how lukewarm the overall reception to this movie was. I agree that the narration provides emotional emotional distance; I actually replayed a transformation scene without audio, and it was easier to be swept up in the grandeur of the moment. But--aside from the narration lending this all a mythical feeling and grounding it in inevitability (especially when we learn the narrator Schinokô)--I'd argue that the emotional distance is necessary to reinforce the subject. We know Takahata is more than capable of sharpening the film into an emotional dagger to the heart (Grave of the Fireflies), but Takahata says himself the sadness is never the primary goal of his film, but a means to an end:

"Saying 'I cried' becomes a compliment to the film. All the creators need to do is to get their to root for the hero...The power of a film to move audiences will always overwhelm its capacity to awaken reason and good sense."

Notice here that Takahata places our emotional investment in the characters as an obstacle to our action, because if we take the film as a personal journey, we can feel comfortable ignoring its blatant call to action. Grave of the Fireflies or The Tale of Princess Kaguya can be character studies because the issues they express are less rectifiable through protest than internal reflection. But Pom Poko did not swap between realistic racoons and cartoons or show their human forms hugging trees, sabotaging excavators, or de-cop-itating effigies so we could marvel at the character depth. It is clearly a call to arms, to care about the species.

Because we will not hear the racoons' side of the story. But we still need to care. Because we, the humans, are the racoons. We're the ones who did this to each other, to ourselves. And we are all suffering for it, because we can only ever empathise with things that have transformed themselves to look like us. We only empathise with those who can demonstrate a degree of familiarity, but that familiarity is a concession, takes constant strain to maintain, and came at a cost; invisible for one side, but it was everything for the other. We must learn to look beyond solving individual plights, because some people cannot transform. It's not enough to allow assimilation; those who cannot transform, can't , can't mask, and those who refuse to assimilate must be able to exist with dignity. Pride must be a viable, survivableenjoyable option.

There are scraps of happiness to be stolen, yes, dancing in the golf course in the moonlight, a week of vacation a year. But they are only scraps. And they--we--deserve more.

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Sometimes a family is two grannies, two twinks, a child, a sassy heater, and a frumpy dog.

I forgot how utterly endearing the chemistry between the found family is, and the delightful whimsy and awe of every use of magic. The war is more of an inescapable and persistent shadow than the main focus. the ending always feels a tad abrupt--specifically, Prince Turnip's sudden transformation--but now, I wonder if the film intentionally juxtaposes the Prince and King's chipper dismissiveness with the droning of the war and toll it takes on the rest of the cast.

English dub is certainly an experience. Christian Bale as Howl, Harkl sounds more like Aang than Josh Hutcherson, Billy Crystal Calcifer is perfect, and Sophie switches between Old and Earnestly British.

I definitely want to read the novel. I hear Howl wears a jacket that says "Welsh Rugby".

Using this to announce to myself and my five followers that, from here on out, I will express my opinions on films solely through words, and not star ratings.

I ed Letterbox reluctantly, when my sister, tired of me peeking over her shoulder to read "those funny movie reviews", refused to show me more till I ed the site myself. I made an , read and liked a few reviews of Paddington 2, and ignored it.

At the time--and even now--I avoided it because I struggle to mediate my social media intake, and I knew another text and opinion-heavy critical site would be another drain on my psyche. Not because I hate reading reviews, but because I love them so much, once I was hooked, I knew I'd never put my phone down.

The internet is like gambling; you know, logically, that it's addicting, and you spend most of your time 'losing', doom-scrolling or flicking past drivel that you immediately forget. But you go back, because rarely, you find a poignant piece of poetry, a useful life hack, or your new favorite song. The internet rewards you just enough to keep you coming back.

Letterboxd is no different. I love dissecting my response to a film and hearing about yours, and as an artist, it's incredibly enriching to be enveloped in the type of analytical responses I hope people have to my work, someday.

But, nothing is so seductive as collective criticism. The past few months, I've found myself turning away from the movie to whisper a witty potential Letterboxd one-liner to my sister, or note an odd sound choice or cut and think oh, that'll cost it a star. I've started quantifying my experience with films, looking for reasons to withhold a five-star rating, lest it lose its meaning. Because that number would retroactively morph my perception of the film.

But as an artist--and, frankly, a spoiled consumer--I don't want to see a film as a number, don't want to seek the flaws and dull the delights. I want to treat it as its own experience, as a game playing by its own rules, as something not to attack or defend, but to learn from, and appreciate merely for existing. Instead of labeling its effect on me as "good" or "bad" effect, I want to challenge myself to explore the nuances of its effect. And words allow for more nuance than numbers do.

Every skill is a muscle, and muscles are only strengthened through constant use. Criticism is a muscle, but so is appreciation, and I think I've been relying on stars to establish a question, a judgement, which my review will then answer. I know few people take them too seriously as recommendations, but I don't want my subjectivity to potentially sour or skew another's experience (which happens even if we try to diminish the importance of outside opinion). Once our brains snag on a 'flaw', it gets hard to detach. That runs doubly true with words than with numerical ratings, but at least the act of writing incentivizes deeper reflection, asking "what IS there?", instead of merely whether it was "good" or "bad".

I think this shift is important in me in pointing my inner critic towards a more productive use of its observations. The shrewd voices in the back of my brain no longer bat a number between them like a tennis ball, but work together to shape something new. To reflect, contemplate, question, and in this act of appreciation, create something new.

I'll keep my old ratings, for now. They're part of my footprint, my first step into cinema, and one I'm grateful for. But I think that's how they'll stay.

This review may contain spoilers.

A charming addition to the beloved series! Flounders a bit in the second half where both antagonists make the truly bizarre decision to wrestle the pendant from Paddington instead of just...letting him open the wall. But the multimedia animation really is beautiful, and all of the whimsey--and most of the heart--is as present as ever.

This review may contain spoilers.

Exactly one year ago, my visual arts professor introduced us to the Dafen village--China's 'Copy Colony'. As an artist doubting my contributions in the midst of the vast quantity and quality of internet artists, it immediately resonated with me. The world simultaneously praises art by attributing it a single, ingenious mind, and now with AI, seeks to divorce the human mind from the skill. Now, more than ever, the question of reproduction as art, the value of human handed imperfections, timeless subject matter, and individuality is a pertinent question.

As my work piled up, I put off watching this documentary. But now, in an oil painting class and my visions outstripped by my abilities, my exhaustion growing, my mind returned to the predicament of these artists. And after an hour of financial finagling and finding the only version that includes the full gallery scene, I finally sat down to watch this.

One of the first things that struck me was the irony. Back in Europe in the 1700s, apprentice painters were taught to copy the works of masters in their studies, but the 'masters' who painted vast, sprawling frescos were only required to paint 30% of the image (usually the central characters), while their apprentices made the decorative embellishments and the rest (ex: the Sistine Chapel). Coping the masters was a key aspect of study, though the students were permitted to paint in the Louvre, directly referencing the masterpieces. They were welcomed guests, studying dutifully to hone their individual genius--unlike the Dafen painters, who work in cramped conditions, so dark that Zhao, in an article published after the documentary), distinguished between 'artistic' painters and 'labor' painters by the presence of sun in their workspaces.

The 100,000 immigrants in Dafen paint for a variety of reasons, mostly financial, though some compete for citizenship. For three years, beginning in 2004, 110 artists competed to paint "Portrait of Vladimir Stasov", with the ten winners receiving registration of residents in the city of Shenzhen, and thus, access to its civil rights (known as "houko").

This film also doesn't mention the website where buyers can specify alterations to the paintings, nor how even trained painting students are slowly pushed to make imitations, as the market for original paintings is so small (and has simultaneously alleviated and worsened with the increased tourism brought by this documentary).

It's a rather reserved portrait, certainly simplified, using Zhao Xiaoyong as a stand-in for all his employees. After twenty years of his life spent painting the darkness in a stranger's eyes, it's no wonder he wonders what stares back. "Now it's not me. I've turned into Van Gogh now. It feels so good."

It's a shame that the only version which includes the scene of Zhao confronting Van Gogh's paintings (and his friend's encouragement after he saw the state of his replicas) is cut in all versions except on Vimeo. It is the apex of this film. It's well worth the $4.99 rent for those extra seven minutes.

This review may contain spoilers.

Sappho’s The Oddpussy

Jokes aside, I would hardly call this a lesbian romance. We watch the protagonist laze about in an exhibitionist, despondent haze, narrating her future actions, then performing them.

We watch her listen to her truck driver talk about his sexual frustrations with his wife, and his attraction to his eleven-year-old daughter.

We see a silent war of domestic wills over bread and Nutella, culminating in a twelve-minute gratuitous long-take lesbian sex scene that’s about as arousing as a child mashing play dough. 

It’s all infused with naturalism, but the point of every action goes no further than the act itself. If I find myself wondering if I should leave to print out class work, perhaps the film is not offering any ideas that the world would miss.

"Tell me what it’s like to live without
curiosity, without awe. To sail
on clear water, rolling your eyes
at the kelp reefs swaying
beneath you, ignoring the flicker
of mermaid scales in the mist,
looking at the world and feeling
only boredom. To stand
on the precipice of some wild valley,
the eagles circling, a herd of caribou
booming below, and to yawn
with indifference. To discover
something primordial and holy.
To have the smell of the earth
welcome you to everywhere.
To take it all in and then,
to reach for your knife."

-- Matthew Olzmann, "Letter to the Person Who Carved His Initials into the Oldest Living Longleaf Pine in North America"

Doesn’t fully rise beyond its satirical roots until the third act, but even then, the film gets too scared to stray too far from them. Truly bizarre ending, with a good concept, but weird final shot. Gorgeous cinematography and production design, though!

The dialogue and characters are less of a draw than the film’s dissection of hierarchy…which was alright with me, except my teen-movie loving roommates, watching purely off a recommendation from a coworker, were alienated, baffled, and frustrated by the “unlikable characters” and runtime.

This review may contain spoilers.

Eve creating that family photo made me cry. Being the eldest sister of several siblings, I knew exactly what she missed.

This review may contain spoilers.

Allegorigator.

I did not expect this to be as dark as it was. What a powerful choice to film in POV for the majority of the film, though it did get confusing at times, and hide the otherwise remarkable performances. The shots of adult 'Curtis' (revealed to be Turner, taking on his friend's name as if to live for him) hid his identity, and created this sense of dissociation--one that began when his other half, Elwood, was shot in a field, and as he runs, we get the first shots of Turner's back while in his own POV. Every shot was striking, nostalgic, and immersive, aided by phenomenal, ethereal, ominous sound design--but broken by the jarringly trite and telegraphic dialogue. It steadily improved as the film went on, but the film's strength is really its sensory sequences, its intercutting, avoidant gaze, the way it catches on details, how you can feel the love, the fear, the disgust all directed at you. It positions the viewer as the target of this ire. The disbelief, the grief of a world determined to hate you, and neither you nor it have any idea why.

And the ending ties it all together in a sweeping bow, with Turner visiting the 'school'. The view, from his POV, staring up at the trees as Elwood did at the film's opening and at his death. The trees, full of leaves, and Elwood, reaching down, smiling as he helps his friend up. Both in a field, both in a grave, both seeing each other and free to embrace.

This review may contain spoilers.

A haunting tale, brimming with delightful details of daily life; weaving, shaving bamboo, plucking berries, scrambling up and down hills.
This film also marks Ghibli's most drastic departure from its house style, breathing life into fine calligraphy lines and pale brush strokes. Every scene where Kaguya runs dissolves into a whirlwind of fabric and hair, pure joy or anguish.

It's slower than I ed, with a lot of the dialogue almost painfully one-note. But the vocal performances (in the english dub; the only version HBO had) were spectacular. Chloe Grace Moretz has twisted my heart as Nimona and Princess Kaguya, and both her parents as well; quiet, sincere, speaking with a halting awkwardness that feels so human. The scene where they sit all poised and made up--then giggle and break 'character'--is incredibly endearing.

The second act absolutely makes this movie for me--especially that ending and the build up to it. To me, it started with Kaguya's hands trembling as she tried to trick the suitors into quests for their impossible gifts, and escalated with her eerie escape from the perverse emperor. It is indescribably sad to me that one moment of fear sealed her fate, and that her father fought it, running away to 'fix' the problem like always, while her mother understood and stayed with her daughter till the end.

Now, that ending. The sinister jubilation of the procession, simply brushing aside every obstacle, stealing Kaguya away, and snuffing her out mid-speech, inevitable and inescapable, benevolent but wholly unreachable. Not human, in any sense of the word. Divinity, made cold while wearing a soft smile.

The first time around, I ed it being far more depressing than it was. I thought it was the tragic demise of Princess Kaguya. But now, I think it marked the end of one part of the cycle; a cycle, like the moon, that begins again and again. She has been to Earth before, as the woman in the city of the moon has. That is why the baby appeared in the moon by the end.

If this is an allegory for terminal illness, or depression, or simply growing up, I believe the film--like the princess's final lines--insist that this world is worth staying in, worth the pain to experience the love. Depression is not a terminal illness, it is treatable. Arriving or existing in this world in an unusual state does not prevent you from experiencing its wonders; in fact, it makes them all the more apparent. And if someone left it all, if they numbed themself intentionally, they would long for it again. When the world longs for you (which some part of it always does), you will find your way back. And it will be waiting to love you, over and over again.

This review may contain spoilers.

I really love how Tiana's character juxtaposes the (perhaps unintional) early Disney movie message "Wish to be saved, and it will happen" by overcorrecting; convincing herself she has to earn everything, which society is all too eager to . She has to let herself settle for what makes her happy now.

Movies that contain at least one gay piano scene. (The harpsichord counts, dammit!)

• The Talented Mr. Ripley
• TÁR
• Everything Everywhere All at Once
• Carol
• Portrait of a Lady on Fire
• Kajillionaire

Franchises with a beloved first film, but the sequel(s) or prequels outdo it.

• Home Alone 2: Lost in New York
• Paddington 2
• Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
• Shrek 2
• The Empire Strikes Back
• Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
• Puss in Boots: The Last Wish
• Thor: Ragnarok
• Kung Fu Panda 2

Listed in of their emotional impact on me, NOT a subjective judgement or measurement of quality.

• Incident
• The Only Girl in the Orchestra
• I Am Ready, Warden
• Death by Numbers
• Instruments of a Beating Heart

Movies where the main characters are the same actor, but doubled.

• Mickey 17
• Sinners
• The Parent Trap
• Moon
• Enemy
• Adaptation.

Non-biographical, original stories that draw directly from the experiences of those who made it.

• Moonlight
• Aftersun
• Baby Reindeer
• The Fabelmans
• Not an Artist
• Grave of the Fireflies
• Dìdi (弟弟)

People escaping their limited bodies through whatever means necessary.

• Cyberpunk: Edgerunners
• Blade Runner 2049
• I Saw the TV Glow
• The Remarkable Life of Ibelin
• The Substance
• Queer
• Gattaca
• Titane
• Lucy
• It's Such a Beautiful Day

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

Movies that were displaced from or didn't make my top four, but are certainly my fifth.

• Speed Racer
• The Florida Project
• I Saw the TV Glow
• Illusions
• RRR
• The Fall

• In the Shadow of the Cypress
• Wander to Wonder
• Beautiful Men
• Magic Candies
• Yuck!

Ranking the Ghibli films I've seen, based on personal preference.

• Grave of the Fireflies
• The Tale of The Princess Kaguya
• Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind
• Howl's Moving Castle
• Pom Poko
• Kiki's Delivery Service
• When Marnie Was There
• Ponyo
• Princess Mononoke
• Spirited Away

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

Embodiments of summer, bliss, and bittersweet nostalgia.

• The Florida Project
• Aftersun
• Dìdi (弟弟)
• Beasts of the Southern Wild
• Where the Wild Things Are
• Kiki's Delivery Service
• Nim's Island