a selection of some of my thoughts written after seeing a film, less reviews and more a collection of assorted thoughts. some are edited to omit more personal details. listed in chronological order by watch date.
for a more complete list of movies I've seen, view my letterboxd account.
october 24, 2020
sort of a techno-rapture. techno-phanto-rapture. also maybe a zombie movie? ...are zombie movies rapture movies? definitely full of things I’m too dumb to understand. 2001 clothes and technology ^_^ empty, empty, empty city. running to nowhere in an empty city. empty even before people start dying. dying? disappearing? there’s someone standing behind you- across the room, behind you.
november 13, 2020
this is the velvet goldmine of dark academia. you get the feeling he means more to you than you do to him. he says I’d be nothing without you, he means you’d be nothing without me. things happen and they’re not your fault. I wish lucien carr wasn’t a real dude it’s fucking me up in the brain. has the feeling like it’s been adapted and abridged from a book but maybe I’m just used to seeing things that are literary in a literary format. thinking about edgar and lucas (derivative, elementary, stupid, plus [redacted]). thinking about being young and pretentious and dumb and hurting hurting hurting and wanting to die and wanting to be someone at the same time. thinking about the universal symbol of ennui (I am dying very slowly all the time and I don’t care). thinking about, I wish I was at school, but I know it wouldn’t be what I want it to be, but still, I do wish. I wish things were perfect. when you wish you could say such-and-such will happen, and it would just happen, with no bumps in the road. (strange coincidence: I was entirely intending to read naked lunch before this. I did not know of the relation.)
december 9, 2020
the japanese genre of middle schoolers saying and doing things that middle schoolers would never say or do. (just mouthpieces really.) but is that true? is this the real middle school experience, and I missed out? (really, they’re just mouthpieces. the thoughts you thought you were having… the things you thought you were missing out on at 13 14 15.) being young and believing you understand a musician more than anyone else. that they understand you more than anyone else. having a song be like a person, like a god, like the ether speaking to you directly… is it cursed?
the message board thing though. I get that.
happening upon that years later.
deaths and deaths and deaths. goodnight.
december 13, 2020
it is so easy it is so easy it is so easy to be a ghost in this world it is so easy for this world to make you feel like a ghost.
it is so easy to believe if you were, if you did, if you had, that maybe then you would exist and get what you want. it is easy to think this. these are the thoughts that this world has you think. it is the cruelness of the world that one feels they must prove they exist. it is so easy to believe there are two tiers to life. that some exist and some do not. it is very easy to believe others are more alive than you are. it is also easy to believe the opposite.
it MAKES SENSE that I have latched onto ghosts, at this time, when I am alone, I am alienated, I am isolated, I exist in intangible pixels and letters and fragments of speech sent out into the ether, no one is here to see or hear or feel the realness of me, you really could push your hand right through me. you could. it is so easy to believe that you could.
suicide notes are a kind of haunting.
december 15, 2020
watching movies is starting to get hard. it’s starting to be tiring. everything on earth is starting to be tiring.
that odd attachment dependency twins seem to have (in movies, in tv. not that I would know). love by proxy. more movies about doubles and replacements and switching out when it’s convenient. love when love is inconvenient (is love not always inconvenient). quite frankly didn’t pay attention for half the thing and I somewhat regret it but also I don’t because it was rather boring really. looked very nice though. can’t cronenberg get some better-looking leading men?
december 17, 2020
I suppose I liked it. yes, I liked it. I liked it in the way you like things that are good. and you finish and you say, alright that was fine, yes, I liked it. I did. I liked the second story more than the first although I preferred the character of the first cop. but the second one was rather funny and esoteric too and he talked to inanimate objects and I thought that was charming. I liked the idea of someone coming into your home solely to make things better for you. invisible. (phantom. angel.) switching out objects for nicer ones. what does that mean in the context of someone who sees objects as an extension/projection of themselves? anyways, I did like it. lights are very pretty. I dislike rating things. I don’t want to do it anymore. it’s tiring. I am so tired, and everything is a chore- nothing is fun when everything is a chore! I can’t do anything, I am too tired. difficult. I shouldn’t have written that. it doesn’t have anything to do with the movie. stupid. I liked the use of language in the first half especially. I feel like I need to rewatch this one. I was too tired to form any real opinions on it (not like I can do that usually anyhow).
december 24 2020
trauma and sex and junk food is sex and sex is alien and trauma and memories and trauma and what is trauma supposed to be? what is that supposed to feel like? what if I don’t remember? what if I do? has one of the most heartbreaking ending sequences in any movie maybe ever. frowned throughout half of it. possible apostolary fiction, if I ever get around to reading the book. also maybe one of the most realistic and raw depictions of trauma in anything maybe ever? maybe? what do I know. was a little upset by the whole gay-guy-is-raped-as-a-kid thing at first but I trusted gregg and knew he would deliver and he sure did. I don’t know what else to say. cool score cool fashion cool characters. I wish they’d had a better story. want to read the script and/or the book for this one.
december 27 2020
maybe the most realistic portrayal of 15-year-old state of being in any media ever? I’ll have to read the book for this one too, if I ever get around to reading anything at all. I didn’t really have a teenage puppy love romance but I can say that if I did it would almost definitely be something like this. manages to both romanticise and realistically portray adolescence in a way that actually completely realistically portrays the way adolescents look at adolescence. the way that being 15 makes you both ashamed about everything and shamelessly self-centred; reading catcher in the rye and wearing a trench coat and a holden caulfield hat; everything good being transcendent and everything bad being soul-crushing; trying to make people think you’re insane because that’s how you feel- you feel insane because the world’s insane because you’ve been thrust into adult situations with the expertise of a child; figuring that if you just do the right things and say the right lines everything will work out like in the movies, not realizing that sometimes things don’t work because they don’t work, and sometimes things work out because they just work themselves out; being so totally absorbed in your emotions and the way you see the world that you bend the world to fit how you’re feeling; light arson; being simultaneously self-aware and self-indulgent (it won’t matter when I’m 38, but I’m upset.); fantasy fantasy fantasy is always better than reality- you make things up. 15 year olds are jackasses. it is known. richard aoyade needs to do more movies NOW like NOW why is nobody talking about this
december 28 2020
unsure what I think. it sort of reeks of the gender-heavy essentialist sort of thinking that tumblr was soaked in at one point (or at least it seems like the kind of thing that sort of person would eat right up) which I don’t understand or know how to navigate or really like thinking about at all. I wish someone smarter than me could explain what message was being sent here in a way that made sense to me and made me like the film. (on a basic level, I did like the film.) I’m unsure what the boys’ pov was supposed to mean. like, this poetic way they are looking at the girls, was that meant to be correct or incorrect? are we meant to condemn that? not as 70s as some other 90s 70s movies. as a matter of fact it was sort of hard to tell it was even set in the 70s at times (puka shell necklaces are now inextricably tied to the 90s). but that doesn’t matter. it was fine. I think I need to stop watching movies about romance, and suicide, and adolescence, which I think crosses out like 80% of all movies in existence off of “movies I can watch.”
january 1 2021 (it’s the new year!)
I don’t think I should have watched this movie. I AM glad that I watched it now, as opposed to watching it when I was 15, but I still don’t think I should have watched it. I am very selfish because I don’t like being put outside of my comfort zone. I’m not sure if I liked it (not because of its inherent quality, which I think was very good in nearly every way, but) because I’m not sure what it’s trying to say (again, not due to any faults in the storytelling)- in the same way that I wasn’t sure what the virgin suicides was saying, purely because what I want it to be saying and what it seems to be saying are polar opposites, and my brain is trying to make sense of both of them, and it makes me upset when both ideas are in my head at once. mainly, I am confused and upset by the notion of evil children. this is something that hasn’t really been resolved in my mind since I started thinking about it however many years ago (do bad people exist? are they created at birth or over time?). I’m upset because I don’t know what the film is trying to say about this idea (it’s entirely possible it’s not trying to say anything at all, but I doubt it) and by extension what it is saying about me (you might think I don’t have anything to do with this, but you’d be wrong. this is what I meant when I said I’m glad I didn’t watch it at 15). as I watched the movie, I kept trying to find reasons as to why kevin is the way he is. I realized partway through that this was what eva was also doing. I wanted to attribute his “evilness” to something that happened to him or was done to him, rather than something that just existed in him from birth. more specifically, I wanted to attribute it to something eva had done. (projection.) the problem is I don’t know if this is what the film expected or wanted me to do. I went into it with the foregone conclusion that something must have happened, which I can assume was the viewpoint of many people at least going into it, but I’m not sure, because I quite frankly have no idea what the general public’s opinion on good people and bad people is. I’m not sure if there even is one general opinion. what I’m trying to say is that throughout the whole movie, I was extremely invested in being on kevin’s side. which I don’t think is the point. yes, I think I missed the point. but if the point is “sometimes people are just born evil and awful,” I don’t think I like the point, and I’m glad I missed it. I’m unsure whether I’m just not smart enough to understand the complexities of it or if I’m just taking it too personally or if I’m purely too stubborn to try and see what it’s clearly telling me. again, as with the virgin suicides, I feel like I need someone else to explain it to me in a way that wouldn’t make me more upset. I feel like I’m too close to it. maybe I don’t know anything about people or psychology or children? does it matter? do I need to? I think one of the questions the film is posing is whether or not it’s eva’s fault. if this happened in real life, where someone (an adolescent, I think importantly,) who had had a relatively strifeless childhood and parents who loved him killed a bunch of people, whose fault is that? I think it is human nature to want to cast the blame somewhere. when I think about this, two responses come up.
1. that wouldn’t have happened. there is simply no circumstance under which a life without any significant negative influences (mental illness included) would have produced someone capable of killing that many people, especially if they seem to be “disturbed” from a very young age. and, so:
- it is eva’s fault. knowing from a young age that one parent dislikes you will likely not have any positive effects. if you grow up with someone who thinks of you as evil, somewhere along the way the prophecy fulfills itself.
- it is both the parents’ fault. if a child is clearly having problems, the solution is not to ignore it and pretend it will go away. the only attempt at getting help for kevin the parents seem to make is checking that he’s not deaf. aggressive behavior seems to not be a red flag for anything for these people (especially the father).
- it is someone else’s fault. if a young child thinks of himself as having no personality, that comes from somewhere. if no especially prominent stressors are present inside the home, they’re coming from elsewhere and you just don’t know it. (in this case, it’s still the parents’ faults.)
^this one seems sort of naive.
2. it’s no one’s fault. sometimes things just happen.
^ this one reeks of the essentialist thinking I’m trying to avoid. it’s not quite all the way “it’s kevin’s fault,” which thinking about almost makes me want to cry. but if it’s no one’s fault, that means it was just… doomed to happen? something was just present in kevin from the start? why? why does this sort of thing bother me so much, anyways? the idea that you are born as any one thing, that things are inherent in you that you can’t control. even things like my physical features, the colour of my eyes, the shape of my face, being passed down to me, makes me incredibly uncomfortable. I can’t control these things, and I don’t like that I can’t control them. I don’t like that I can’t control what this movie is trying to say to me.
red and red and flesh and red. acquired taste. what personality? out, damn spot. a sudden growth spurt. for a moment, it sounds like cheering.
It’s easy to talk about fiction that makes you uncomfortable until something actually makes you uncomfortable. I mean, I know that that’s the point. the film isn’t trying to make things easy for me. I’m just a little too close to it. I think that’s the problem. if I was anyone but myself, I’d be able to handle it. maybe.
january 2 2021
fun strange felt like a dream dream dream dream dream. I’d sort of like to see how a child would react to this is it like a coraline situation. odd and weird out of place but makes sense when you’re inside it. thank you! I am so tired. may have replaced tim burton’s for my favourite alice adaptation but that one still holds a formative place in my mind. thankyou!
january 21 2021
ghosts are sad and lonely. more doppelganger seeing yourself seeing your corpse bad omens.. I liked this one. was a little unfocused but that’s how death is. grief on tape. read script
january 22 2021
another addition to the collection of doppelganger movies… actually kind of like someone watched dead ringers and went “yeah okay I can work with this.” so much so that I was surprised it was adapted from a book. it’s set in toronto too- city of doubles? actually the city itself is often a double… something to think about. though it’s nice to see it being itself every once in a while. more of that please ^_^
I don’t like not being smart! I hate finishing a movie and having no idea what just happened. need to rewatch this one.(maybe read the script?)
obsessed with eerily prescient lectures at the start of a movie
january 22, 2021
fun lovely I don’t know… don’t know… I enjoyed it
I think these sorts of movies aren’t really my thing they are Contemplative and perhaps somewhat Melancholy but not in the extremely adolescent manner that I like to think is my personal brand
[img placeholder] thinking about him
january 31, 2021
odd little movie in an odd little place with odd little characters and odd little things happening. felt like it sort of lost the plot a bit at the end, I kind of enjoyed how “small” the characters felt in the grand scheme of things and that sort of went away. but I still liked it a lot. any movie about suicide is a-ok in my book. usually the best way a movie can end is with suicide but when it starts with suicide I guess the best way for it to end is with coming back to life? I wasn’t really into the actual love story part of it until suddenly I was. I’ll always accept will arnett being evil in some way even if he says like 3 lines.
february 6, 2021
I wasn’t sure that I liked this until I did. don’t think I’m a big fan of sir yorgos’s style althou I can see why someone would be and that does not by any means mean he is a bad filmmaker.
actually he is rather good and in some ways it adds to this film at the same time it takes from it. feels like the odd stilted language works at the end but not the beginning. I don’t know. maybe I just don’t like his style cause it makes me feel stupid. very good example of another obvious filmmaker- in the hands of another, these verysame characters events words would be completely different… maybe if ari aster had made this movie I’d like it (this is a self-burn)
sacrificial biblical decisions decisions teenage god mystery curses curses
february 10 2021
my letterboxd review:
first lanthimos movie where I felt like the style actually made sense and "clicked" for me. a little kafkaesque. colin farrell looks like the social studies teacher you feel sort of sorry for when you see him walk into school. happy valentine's
also, I enjoy the sense of humor in all this guy’s movies. subtle enough to not take away from the experience but still. you know, be funny.
a world that is very unforgiving of inbetweens. the rules are very strict here. this is how it is.
I felt like it lost the plot near the end but I’ve been feeling that about a lot of movies lately so maybe it is I, who is losing it, that is… the plot… is lost…. By me
lately everything for me is all about love, I need this month to end!!!
february 12 2021
my letterboxd review:
yeaaah I'm bisexual.
really enjoyed shannyn sossamon's fucked up haircut and the gay little microexpressions ian somerhalder makes
sex and drugs and drinking and masturbation and parties and drugs and travelling and love and SEX… ahh so this is what college is supposed to be like. great way to experience a brett easton ellis novel without actually having to read brett easton ellis’s writing. fast paced and odd and fantastic… really just an experience, didn’t slow down or lose itself once. specific state of being where you’re rich and young and don’t care about other people except when you think you’re in love with them. people read dark academia novels and think that’s what they’ll get when they go to private school but it ends up being this (this is a self burn (except I don’t go to private school? (anymore.))) loved it a lot. but watching movies about college might start making me cry.
march 18 2021
my letterboxd review:
we were in one parking lot and we went to another parking lot...?
do I even have to give this one a rating I mean it's lady bird.
every time I watch this movie I’m never sure how to feel about the ending. I think there’s a problem inherent in creating-or perhaps watching- a film that is so drenched in realism and sticky with actuality that it makes it hard to see the story for what it actually is. too much of lady bird’s life is like mine, and that’s a good thing, but it’s a problem; I find myself projecting my own relationship with my mother onto hers, and smoothing over the parts that don’t fit, and then getting confused when I’m dissatisfied with the ending. I feel as though it’s calling me ungrateful, rude, a bad child, which isn’t true, obviously, because the movie doesn’t know me and it isn’t about me, it’s about lady bird. I want the film to tell me, it’s okay, you can hate your mother, you can hate her even though she’s kind sometimes, even though she loves you but doesn’t like you. but it can’t tell me that, because I’m not its protagonist. I’m too close to see this movie properly. here’s what I think the ending is about, anyway: I think it’s about how you can love things that hurt you. you can miss things you didn’t think you’d miss, and don’t want to miss, and don’t want to love in the first place. in the same way a sinner loves god, you can love someone you hurt, and someone who abandoned you who wasn’t supposed to. I can’t tell you if the relationship between lady bird and her mother is good or bad or abusive because I’m too close. it’s too close. maybe that’s a good thing.
march 23 2021
I’m always like “history sucks” until I watch a movie that I know is very good but I don’t have enough knowledge about the historical context in which it was made to fully understand what it’s trying to tell me. anyway history sucks!
when you treat war like a game, it’ll feel like a game. war and death and ROT ROT ROT- disease bacteria it’s an infection. (diseases of the mind- contagious ones like war- spread more easily among the youth.)
feels like it’s based off of a book in the way it seems to meander; wants to give attention to various side stories, but only for a moment, perhaps it’s a distraction? far LESS grounded than I thought it would be, given the setting- there should be more surrealist things set in places like these- they are very odd places I think, inherently. something something small small is off about certain things. makes me feel a little stupid, I don’t think I fully “got it.” that’s alright though. VERY british. visually appealing. I’m not going to say dark academia but umm HE*GUNSHOTS*
june 21 2021
too tired to properly think about this but I feel I must or I’ll forget. thinking about, if more people thought the way everyone in this movie thinks, maybe I wouldn’t feel so alone all the time. thinking, maybe they do, and the loneliness is self-imposed. another case of utmost serendipity- if I had watched this movie at any other point in my life… well, I’m glad. I’ll have to rewatch and take catalogue of the recurring subject matter; I only looked out for the ones I already think about. meandering in a good way… just take it easy… death and ennui and dreaming dreaming dreaming… well… I’ll continue to think about it