#been watching wong kar-wai movies | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

rongzhi · 2 years

Note

Any good Chinese LGBT drama/ movie recommendations? And where to watch it?

Hmmm I thought I would have a lengthy list of recommendations but limited to just Chinese-language films/dramas, and ones that I would actually recommend, I realise that my list is a lot shorter 😅.

These are pretty much all going to be gay (mlm). Sorry for the lack of diversity 😔. Summaries are taken from Letterboxd for the most part.

Film Recs

(in chronological order)

霸王别姬 || Farewell My Concubine (1993) - China (mainland), Hong Kong - dir. Chen Kaige

Personal rating: 4/5 || [HQ link, EN subs]

Abandoned by his prostitute mother in 1920, Douzi was raised by a theater troupe. There he meets Shitou and over the following years the two develop an act entitled “Farewell My Concubine” that brings them fame and fortune. When Shitou marries Juxian, Douzi becomes jealous, the beginnings of the acting duo’s explosive breakup and tragic fall take root.

东宫西宫 || East Palace, West Palace (1996) - China (mainland) - dir. Zhang Yuan

Personal rating: 4/5

A heterosexual Beijing policeman and a young homosexual challenge each other’s sexuality.

春光乍洩 || Happy Together (1997) - Hong Kong - dir. Wong Kar-wai

Personal rating: 4/5 || [link, EN subs]

A couple take a trip to Argentina in search of a new beginning, but instead find themselves drifting ever further apart.

自梳 || Intimates (1997) - Hong Kong - dir. Jacob Cheung

Personal rating: 4/5 || [link, ZH subs]

Set in Hong Kong and China in the early 1900s, an older Wan and Wai travel through China in search of Foon, Wan's true love. Wai, whose on-and-off status with her boyfriend leads her into a struggle with self-identity, slowly learns about the life of the aging Wan. Through flashbacks, we learn about Wan in her early days and Foon, who move in and out of each other's lives.

美少年之恋 || Bishonen (1998) - Hong Kong - dir. Yonfan

Personal rating: 3/5 ~ 3.5/5 (I flipflop on this lol)

Jet is a gay hustler who one night spots a young man walking with a woman, and falls for him instantly. He does some research, and discovers that the man is called Sam, and is an apparently straight policeman.

蓝宇 || Lan Yu (2001) - China (mainland) - dir. Stanley Kwan

Personal rating: 5/5 || [HQ Link EN subs] [HQ link, ZH subs] - Bear in mind these are both the cut version of the movie. There are about 4 scenes cut from this version, which is unfortunately the most easily found.

A love story between a country boy in Beijing to study and a wealthy businessman set against the backdrop of the 1989 Tiananmen Square incident.

春风沉醉的夜晚 || Spring Fever (2009) - China (mainland) - dir. Lou Ye

Personal rating: 3/5

Hired to spy on a philandering husband, Luo Haitao soon becomes entangled in a clandestine affair with the other man. Along with Luo’s girlfriend, they succumb to the delirium of drunken nights, but how long can their tryst last?

谁先爱上他的 || Dear Ex (2018) - Taiwan - dir. Mag Hsu, Chih-yen Hsu

Personal rating: 4/5 || [HD link, EN sub]

When Sanlian’s ex-husband passes away, she discovers he has altered his insurance policy, cutting out their son in favor of a stranger named Jay.

叔・叔 || Twilight’s Kiss (2019) - Hong Kong - dir. Ray Leung

Personal rating: 3.5/5 || [HD link, EN subs]

One day Pak, a taxi driver who refuses to retire, meets Hoi, a retired single father, in a park. Although both are secretly gay, they are proud of the families they have created through hard work and determination. Yet in that brief initial encounter, something is unleashed in them which had been suppressed for so many years. As both men recount and recall their personal histories, they also contemplate a possible future together.

刻在你心底的名字 || Your Name Engraved Herein (2020) - Taiwan - dir. Liu Kuang-hui

Personal rating: 3.5/5

In 1987, as martial law ends in Taiwan, Jia-han and Birdy fall in love amid family pressure, homophobia and social stigma.

Extra mentions (haven't watched these ones yet but they have decent reviews):

夜奔 || Fleeing by Night (2000) - China (mainland)

Saving Face (2004) - U.S.A

盛夏光年 || Eternal Summer (2006) - Taiwan

Drama Recs

Most of the LGBT dramas I've watched are trash or censored, sorry to say, and I tend to watch movies over dramas, so what's left for me to recommend is just from the HIStory (Linked: wiki with summaries) Taiwanese webdrama anthology:

HIStory1: My Hero (PR: 3/5)

HIStory1: Obsession (PR: 3/5)

History2: Crossing the Line (PR: 3.5/5)

History3: Trapped (PR: 3.5/5)

#text #answered ask #movie recs #long post #all the movies i recced are dramas basically #there are a few movies out there (that i've seen) that are more lighthearted but also.... not good lol #personally i don't think a movie has to be 'good' but this is a rec list so...#unrelated but i ended up rewatching farewell my concubine for the first time in a while yesterday and one of the top letterboxd reviews #is a terrible take lmao #shoutout to sally on letterboxd you uncultured swine lol #but that's what happens to most chinese movies on letterboxd -u-'#either barely anyone has logged it #or it's popular to the point of there being a bunch of white film bros writing reviews where they manage to add something #offhandedly sinophobic #or otherwise add how they think the director became a sellout later uwu but THIS film is pure bc blah blah (yes this is about zhang yimou)#(white film bros - speaking broadly)#anyway. lol.#my letterboxd rant no one asked for.#i just think we should be allowed to downvote reviews on there that's all

537 notes · View notes

lpvncnt · 6 months

Text

* ◟ : 〔 TAMINO , CIS-MALE + HE / HIM 〕 PHILIP GOFFIN-VINCENT , some say you’re a TWENTY-SEVEN YEAR OLD lost soul among the neon lights. known for being both DOGGED and DEPRAVED, one can’t help but think of STRUGGLIN' by TRICKY, MARTINA TOPLEY-BIRD when you walk by. are you still a CLEANER, ACTIVE ASSASSIN at THE BORDERLINE HOTEL, RED EYE even with your reputation as THE GARGOYLE? i think we’ll be seeing more of you and STUPID SHOW-PONY HIGH ROLLER, PATIENT LIKE THE HYENA WAITS, GET IN YOUR CAR AND RUN ME OVER INSTEAD OF WAITING FOR OTHERS TO DO IT FOR YOU, YOU LAZY FOOL, although we can’t help but think of JONATHAN CRANE (DC COMICS) + ERIC DRAVEN (THE CROW) + JASON DEAN (HEATHERS) + ANTON CHIGURH (NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN) whenever we see you down these rainy streets.

FILE: LIP VINCENT

STATUS: ACTIVE. HEIGHT: 6'2". SEXUALITY: PANSEXUAL, AROMANTIC. DATE OF BIRTH: 12/25/1995 HOMETOWN: MALMEDY, BELGIUM. RESIDING: BROOKLYN, NY. ROOMMATE WITH [TBD WANTED CONNECTION].

Instead of the usual biography, I felt like the following poem captured the energy of the past a bit better than I could ever express:

INSOMNIAC

THE night is only a sort of carbon paper,

Blueblack, with the much-poked periods of stars

Letting in the light, peephole after peephole --

A bonewhite light, like death, behind all things.

Under the eyes of the stars and the moon's rictus

He suffers his desert pillow, sleeplessness

Stretching its fine, irritating sand in all directions.

Over and over the old, granular movie

Exposes embarrassments--the mizzling days

Of childhood and adolescence, sticky with dreams,

Parental faces on tall stalks, alternately stern and tearful,

A garden of buggy rose that made him cry.

His forehead is bumpy as a sack of rocks.

Memories jostle each other for face-room like obsolete film stars.

He is immune to pills: red, purple, blue --

How they lit the tedium of the protracted evening!

Those sugary planets whose influence won for him

A life baptized in no-life for a while,

And the sweet, drugged waking of a forgetful baby.

Now the pills are worn-out and silly, like classical gods.

Their poppy-sleepy colors do him no good.

His head is a little interior of grey mirrors.

Each gesture flees immediately down an alley

Of diminishing perspectives, and its significance

Drains like water out the hole at the far end.

He lives without privacy in a lidless room,

The bald slots of his eyes stiffened wide-open

On the incessant heat-lightning flicker of situations.

Nightlong, in the granite yard, invisible cats

Have been howling like women, or damaged instruments.

Already he can feel daylight, his white disease,

Creeping up with her hatful of trivial repetitions.

The city is a map of cheerful twitters now,

And everywhere people, eyes mica-silver and blank,

Are riding to work in rows, as if recently brainwashed.

— Sylvia Plath

AESTHETICS

Repugnant amount of weed smoke filling a suspension-lacking 1966 Cadillac Coupe DeVille, that only a 100% masochist would drive in New York. You were not born to cry. Leopard print BB belts stacked on the waist. A soul, emptied. No pride, no pleasure, no desire. Life is just like a Wong Kar-Wai movie. You've got two fists comically full of metal, the weight shifts you off your feet when that punch is thrown, your poorly welded home-made 'rings' -- made from a chunk of all the old silver jewelry you've collected from the bodies over time, all these precious keepsakes melted onto a fork -- made to hurt -- should be illegal. Lots of little projects like that scatter what you call 'home'. An angel dies every time a shitty fuckboy like you flashes his mid-section in local Bodega for no reason. Recently adopted a Belgian Malinois, Osiris, who is still in training and needs a muzzle (an excuse for enabling bad behavior, could be symbolic). Egregiously loud mumble-rap. When stressed, likes watching ballroom dancing while chainsmoking cigarettes.

Hi, I'm Samuel, 24, PDT, a sweet little Californian baby boy who will do tricks for treats, gee whiz am I glad to be here. All of this is a bit vague but will be fleshed out with time -- if you've got any questions on specifics I'd be super happy to clarify. Huzzah !

#lawlessintro

9 notes · View notes

sneezemonster15 · 2 years

Text

Okay but like WHY would SNS think Kishimoto is homophobic? Some fans do and I wanna ask them Why???

What's wrong with you?

Writing the trials and tribulations of gay people in a conservative homophobic society, portraying a closeted homosexual person in a conservative heteronormative society (Naruto is, whose own homophobia so obviously stems from his closetedness, which is a very logical and realistic portrayal of homosexuality, like please watch other gay media for fuck's sake), and writing a careful, respectful, and freaking Shakespearan gay love story in a shounen fucking manga while consciously deviating from the highly problematic tropes that so many of his contemporaries use where they treat homosexuality as offensive or a joke, DOES NOT make Kishimoto homophobic.

It actually makes him empathetic to homosexuality. He actually understands homosexuality and the struggles of a gay person living in a traditional heteronormative society. He treats the subject with sensitivity and a deep sense of pathos. It couldn't be clearer that this man knows what he is writing about.

A hell lot of creators who create homosexual media, especially in mainstream media, end up cheaply fetishizing or exploiting homosexuality the same way heterosexual media has been treated, by writing insincere, common tropey cookie cutter bullshit because it sells. Because a majority of the audience doesn't care about or even begin to understand complex narrative or visual nuances. But if you have seen enough gay media, you can easily tell who is being sincere about storytelling and characters and who is just after making some easy dough.

Stories about homosexuality in mainstream cinema were very rare and scattered earlier. During the eighties and especially nineties, most creators who wrote homosexual characters and narratives used to make it offensive or to facilitate cheap comedy. We have all seen Friends, haven't we? The sitcom.

Enter Wong Kar Wai. When his film 'Happy Together' was released in 1997, so many fans in the gay community were immensely grateful to him. It was like a milestone in Asian gay media. Because finally gay community had a realistic, respectful and honest to God portrayal of a gay couple in cinema. There was no unnecessary exploitation of the subject, just a straightforward story about love. Between two people. Only in this case, they happened to be men. This was the kind of representation the Asian gay community at the time was looking for but didn't get it because the heteronormative film industries didn't cater to their interests.

My gay film maker friend was in his early twenties when he saw this film in a special screening in the city. And he was transported. And so overwhelmed. It was like a spiritual experience for him. Because he had never seen such a sincere portrayal of homosexuality and gay love in media ever. He still remembers everything in such detail, he couldn't help but cry and he wasn't the only one crying in that hall. He felt seen for the very first time in media. He could relate. And his resolve of making sincere and honest films got even stronger. He has won a lot of accolades and awards since.

That's the power of storytelling and meaningful representation.

And I can say the same thing about Kishi. He broke the mould. He wrote a realistic gay love story with a gay protagonist in love with a gay anti hero and made them kiss, never been done in the history of shounen before.

His hands were tied so he couldn't write it all that explicitly but seriously, he didn't need to. It actually ended up making this story even more nuanced and heartbreakingly beautiful.

So how does that make him homophobic? Do you even understand what homophobia means?

By your logic, Spielberg making a movie about Nazi atrocities makes him a Nazi? Or Spike Lee making films about the struggles of black people in America makes him racist? Wtf?? What's even your logic?

You admit Sasuke and Naruto, the two mainest characters, the hero and the anti hero, are gay and in love with each other and you ship them because their story is so heart touching and splendidly beautiful. But the person who wrote them that way with such immense effort in his Magnum opus is a homophobe?? Do you not see how contradictory that is?

Seriously, please think for ONE second before you say things. You are accusing an amazing writer of something grave, that he is the opposite of.

Yes, I have heard and read worse things in this fandom. But seriously, I don't want to expect something like this out of the SNS fandom. Use your head, it's not just for show.

#sns fandom #sns #naruto #kishimoto #uzumaki naruto #uchiha sasuke #sasunaru #narusasu #wong kar wai #happy together

93 notes · View notes

horsepostingakimbo · 1 month

Text

I watched Madame Web

Fuck that was bad

I stopped caring about the plot about halfway in

I've never seen a movie so tonally at odds with itself. The cinematography and flat acting feel like they're meant for a script with a different tone and premise altogether. This is a deeply dour screenplay about an orphaned woman and three minors being stalked by a psychopath who casually murders an NSA agent in bed, and it comes off like a watered-down Netflix action-comedy without jokes and little action

No really I have to harp on the acting here, when the entire cast, several of whom have been known to put in good performances in other movies, all speak in the same cutesy, mildly-annoyed tone the entire movie, that's a problem with the director/script, not the cast.

The editing veers from "boilerplate 2000s b-thriller" to "My brain refuses to parse the geography of what just happened"

there are shots where the color grading and framing can best be described as looking very, very off. This movie is attempting to look slick and stylish, but it pursues this goal in a simultaneously undercooked and overdone way that my brain refuses to explicitly verbalize. The best I can say right now is that it looks like if Matthew Vaughn puked over a Wong Kar-Wai remaster

What's truly impressive about Madame Web's ineptitude is that in trying to make a retro-2000s thriller, they perfectly recreated what terrible b-grade cape movies of that era were like. It's Bad 00s Movie Simulator made entirely by accident.

I'm sure that sexism had something to do with the collective overreaction this movie got, but let's be real, even bracketing out the simmering misogyny within geek-bro culture, this is still just a bad movie that got loudly shoved down our collective throats, just like Morbius. The internet was always going to viciously mock it accordingly, especially given that we are officially at the Popping Of The Cape Bubble

You know, I actually want to elaborate on the above. Yes, there's sexism involved in how some of these recent women-led cape movies are received, but I think to say that sexism is the only factor here is reductive. In fact, given the broader context of what's happening here, I don't think it's even the primary factor here. The enthusiastic reception of Wonder Woman in 2017 shows that a woman-led cape movie doesn't have to suffer this sort of reception. Strong female leads in movies are not new, and have been accepted for a long while - just think back to Alien or Terminator. We're at the tail end of a cinematic trend that's been going for close to two decades, and this movie is part of a larger problem with Marvel/Sony trying to scrape the bottom of the IP barrel. All the famous characters in their vault have been used up and overexposed to death, and now they're making a series of desperate hail-mary passes in an attempt to pull another surprise hit like Iron Man. The machine is sputtering, audiences are sick of this genre being flooded with subpar corporate products meant to race against time for a return on investment. This isn't a sexism problem, this is an economics problem that loud sexists are dogpiling on and exacerbating in a cynical attempt to push their own narrative, so that they can force the conversation to be about women and gender, and have it be on their terms. It's not helping in the slightest that self-described "feminists" are taking their framing of the issue for granted isn't helping. Baiting alt-right incels and intersectional feminists on the internet is, at this point, basically a new marketing strategy these movies and shows use, and it politically helps weird misogynistic freaks by letting them dictate the terms of debate.

I laughed my ass off when the truck hit that guy

#madame web

3 notes · View notes

angfdzfilm · 1 year

Video

In the Mood for Love, 2013, Wong Kar-Wai

This is the third time I’ve watched In the Mood for Love (itmfl), and I’d say the older you get the harder this movie hits. I’ve been thinking a lot about the social rules that make up our society, all the little rules we come up with in order to make our lives easier, or more understandable at least. I think “the marriage state” is one of the biggest of these, and infidelity is one of its cardinal sins.

So here we have a movie about two people on the brink of that sin, waltzing around it, attracted to each other but held at bay by this rule: We wont be like them. Itmfl is a movie that plays in this space, where desire and loneliness are almost a physical presence that moves the characters towards and away from each other. Only here, they are in opposition: While loneliness brings them closer, desire pushes them further away.

#In the Mood for Love #itmfl #wong kar wai #wong kar-wai

13 notes · View notes

persistent-wallflower · 2 months

Text

I was tagged by @demonrunningwild to do this "get to know you better" thing ✌️ (Thanks!)

Last song you listened to:

Been listening to a bit of Bowie lately, there's a lot to choose from but so far this album's my vibe

Currently watching:

No shows as always, as for films the last one was Days of Being Wild. First big movie from Wong Kar-wai. It's already very signature with the plot and the aesthetics, and I liked it, but it feels a bit undercooked compared to his later films (7/10 but probably better on second watch as it usually seems to be with his films for me!)

Currently obsessed with:

Hmm nothing really special comes to mind right now. As always exploring music, movies, art, to find more excitement in the world. Kiiiind of working on my thesis so photography as well. Was listening to some Mongolian throat singing cause some of it was in a game I was playing (however pretentious this may sound lol), so that was new. Oh a yearly Contrapoints video came out a few days ago, that was good ✨

Thanks again! Tagging @ether-blooms @privateschoolfeline @bonk-bonk-tom if you guys want to xx

#Spotify #about me

3 notes · View notes

blysse-and-blunder · 1 year

Text

in lieu of a commonplace book

10pm sunday, jan 29, 2023

your gentle blogger has entered her next decade of life, thank you to @dying-suffering-french-stalkers and @redstar-winterorbit for the good birthday wishes last week!

reading not a ton if i'm honest, i've been deluged with gift books and library loans while at the same time crashing back into the semester, and the overall effect has been, uh, to freeze my recreational reading a bit. stuck trying to finish things like my audiobook of through the whispering door and ebook of maybe you should talk to somebody (have i talked about this one? it's a memoir of a therapist and reading it is like reading an episode of the gossip podcast, but i can also tell it's giving me occasional useful ideas and perspective on things to think about or ask for in therapy. but i can only take so much of it at once). the gift book i'm most into right now it lindsey ellis' axiom's end, which is a first-contact, aliens are real and the government has been hiding them scifi-- it's quick and readable, lindsey does a great job for a first novel, and i'm loving the alternate-history flavor of it being set in the Bush era and the southern california details i actually appreciate now. also the way the aliens are described, i love the design of them. beautiful and terrifying. but i haven't made progress in a few days.

through the whispering door is perplexing me right now, in that the gentle romance has developed pleasingly (predictably), but there's been a lot of talk about the main character 'having changed' and 'not being the same as he was when he arrived' and i can't actually. point to why or where that happened. this is part of the problem with me and audiobooks, i think, because i don't care enough to go back and re-listen to the parts where i tuned out.... there's been a new heightening of the stakes now that there's a time-limit, and i always like the flavor of an eldritch stag character.

EDIT: finished the monster baru cormorant, still recovering, immediately checked the third one out of the library though the psychic damage this series does to me without warning (dear seth: i'm taking away the word 'clotted' from your lexicon for a bit. also ‘lobotomy’.) is hard to rectify with how smart and good some of the new narrative details are. the introduction of ‘trim’ and its associated reliance on / trust in other people, to a story where the main character's stated weakness is thinking about things from others' perspectives? or anticipating others' reactions? chef's kiss. and the navy full of rugged, determined, salt-weathered women is just very good to me, personally. aminata my incredibly violent beloved. the end of this book was- devastating. not in the same way as the last one: this time i have the kind of fascinated-horrified-sickened-fixated feeling that i get about horror stuff sometimes, and i’d say body horror is what i expect from book three.

watching i got unlucky with weather-based flight cancellations last week, and spending a night in a random detroit hotel room created a great opportunity to check out my university's criterion collection access. for some reason i decided that this was the right moment to experience wong kar wai's in the mood for love (2000), which i have since finished in slightly calmer circumstances. despite knowing that tony leung and maggie cheung were both active in the 90s i somehow totally thought that this movie was like. actually a historic film and not a period piece? probably because of how much the visuals / how it’s shot and colored / the overall design feels so classic, feels like old school film in the best possible way. having now read the wikipedia page for this film i can tell i missed a lot of the actual plot, or rather, thought that there was more experimental / nonlinear story-telling going on than there might actually have been-- but that’s okay, it just means i’ll have to watch it again.

listening i don’t remember when this song first popped up in my spot ify, possibly on a discover weekly playlist a while ago? but it landed for me last week, somehow brand new and meaningful as i was contemplating the musical direction of my next playlist. listening to it with better headphones revealed lots of nice layers, depth and harmony, i like that bass throb under the chorus, it’s produced well and rewards paying attention to the extra stuff-- the contrary motion of the background vocal line in the opening to the chorus is nice.

something something i will get up regardless. currently repeating to myself, all you gotta do now is walk.

playing had the pleasure of hanging out with my Dnd friends on my birthday last week and playing a whole new style of game with them! Y introduced us to gloom, which is very Edward Gorey-core and therefore was delightful, and got our game-design nerds all excited about the cards themselves, and then K skunked us all at anomia. the adrenaline in this one is addictive? it is somehow so fun and yet so infuriating, and I have yet to regret suggesting it to a group or party.

making cleaned my room finally (somewhat) and have a stack of mail to send and cards to answer, now with the help of the beautiful fountain pen my roommates gave me for my birthday! It’s one of these, and while I can try to promise not to become a fountain pen nerd, time will tell…

working on this award letter for a prof is somehow the hardest thing to just fucking finish. I think because I want it to be better than just okay, and am worried that it’ll counteract its own message if it’s not? But also—I have palaeography homework now! and the abstract of a talk to finish, and that talk + associated chapter to outline! not to mention finishing reading and commenting on a friend’s chapters! taking it slow last week was nice and probably needed, but fuck.

#in lieu of a commonplace book #ilcb #weekly roundup

18 notes · View notes

lookwhathappenedtomack · 1 year

Text

Ladies, gentlemen, and interesting people, welcome to...

The Mackolades are my personal annual film awards, awarded to my favorite (for the most part) movies, performances, and people from all the movies I watched for the first time in 2022, regardless of release year. This is more or less a companion series to Brendan’s Pink Bettes, as most of our movie watching is together. You can see the first and second Mackolades here on my tumblr, now let’s get started on the third!

FAVORITE DRAMA

WINNER: tick, tick...BOOM! (2021) dir. Lin-Manuel Miranda

FINALISTS:

Avatar: The Way of Water (2022) dir. James Cameron

Dramarama (2020) dir. Jonathan Wysocki

Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022) dir. Daniel Scheinert & Daniel Kwan

TÁR (2022) dir. Todd Field

NOMINEES:

The Batman (2022) dir. Matt Reeves

The Godfather (1972) dir. Francis Ford Coppola

Klaus (2019) dir. Sergio Pablos

Pride & Prejudice (2005) dir. Joe Wright

The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) dir. Anthony Minghella

Three Thousand Years of Longing (2022) dir. George Miller

GREAT year for the Favorite Drama category! I knew from the first few minutes of tick, tick...BOOM! that it was winning, but two of the finalists (Dramarama and Everything Everywhere All At Once) gave it a real run for its money. And then TÁR was just impeccable in every way (CATE!!!!!!). Special shoutout to The Godfather for actually living up to the hype and The Batman for being a genuinely good superhero movie. Highly recommend Dramarama in particular to any of my theatre friends that see this.

FAVORITE HORROR

WINNER: The Menu (2022) dir. Mark Mylod

FINALISTS:

All About Evil (2010) dir. Joshua Grannell (aka Peaches Christ)

Nope (2022) dir. Jordan Peele

Pearl (2022) dir. Ti West

Scream (2022) dir. Matt Bettinelli-Olpin & Tyler Gillett

NOMINEES:

Arachnophobia (1990) dir. Frank Marshall

Barbarian (2022) dir. Zach Cregger

Fresh (2022) dir. Mimi Cave

Hellraiser (2022) dir. David Bruckner

What Keeps You Alive (2018) dir. Colin Minihan

X (2022) dir. Ti West

GREAT year for horror, too! The Menu is such a fun ride, almost more of a dark comedy than horror. I had a lot more actual scares this year than in 2021, particularly in Nope, Scream, Arachnophobia, and Barbarian.

FAVORITE COMEDY

WINNER: Barb & Star Go To Vista Del Mar (2021) dir. Josh Greenbaum

FINALISTS:

Do Revenge (2022) dir. Jennifer Kaytin Robinson

Glass Onion (2022) dir. Rian Johnson

Hello, My Name Is Doris (2015) dir. Michael Showalter

Kissing Jessica Stein (2001) dir. Charles Herman-Wurmfeld

NOMINEES:

Burn After Reading (2008) dir. Ethan Coen & Joel Coen

Fire Island (2022) dir. Andrew Ahn

Little Miss Sunshine (2006) dir. Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris

Mrs. Harris Goes To Paris (2022) dir. Anthony Fabian

My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002) dir. Joel Zwick

See How They Run (2022) dir. Tom George

Hey guess what. It was a great year for comedy, too. Barb & Star is destined to join Romy & Michele and the Tragedy Girls as a pair of gal pals that live in my head for the rest of my life. They’ve had this win sewn up since I first saw the movie in August, but there was still plenty of competition. Do Revenge is probably my unofficial runner up - those twists and turn and goops and gags and outfits!

FAVORITE SERIES

WINNER: Before Trilogy (3/3)

FINALISTS:

The Godfather (3/3)

Hell House, LLC (2/3)

Wong Kar-wai’s Love Trilogy (3/3)

X/Pearl/Maxxxine (2/3)

God, what can I say that hasn’t already been said about Richard Linklater’s Before trilogy? It’s just two people talking, but it’s perfect!

THE THANKS! I HATE IT! AWARD

WINNER: Whiplash (2014) dir. Damien Chazelle

FINALIST: Fall (2022) dir. Scott Mann

This new category is for movies that are good, but I hate them anyway! And there’s no movie that quite fits that bill like Whiplash. What an incredible work that I never wanna see again. Or dwell on for long here.

BIGGEST SURPRISE

WINNER: Halloween Ends (2022) dir. David Gordon Green

FINALISTS:

Brothers (2009) dir. Jim Sheridan

The Invitation (2022) dir. Jessica M. Thompson

Nerve (2016) dir. Henry Joost & Ariel Schulman

Uncle Peckerhead (2020) dir. Matthew John Lawrence

NOMINEES:

Fall (2022) dir. Scott Mann

Hatching (2022) dir. Hanna Bergholm

Hello, My Name Is Doris (2015) dir. Michael Showalter

Kissing Jessica Stein (2001) dir. Charles Herman-Wurmfeld

The Lost City (2022) dir. Adam Nee & Aaron Nee

Valentine (2001) dir. Jamie Blanks

After Halloween Kills won Biggest Letdown at last year’s Mackolades, I went into Halloween Ends with rock bottom expectations, but was pleasantly surprised! From the opening scene it showed it was completely different from any Halloween movie that came before it, and I was mostly delighted by what followed. It’s far from the best Halloween, and has some major problems, but it’s leagues ahead of Kills, and that alone win it Biggest Surprise for me.

BIGGEST LETDOWN

WINNER: Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness (2022) dir. Sam Raimi

I’ve engaged in a fair bit of MCU hate over the last few years, but I’ve held onto the belief that I’d probably enjoy them if I gave them a chance and just didn’t think too hard about it. Well... I guess I was wrong. I really thought I’d like this, the trailers looked interesting and Sam Raimi has a pretty good track record with me. But yeah... Martin Scorsese was right, these are just flashy theme park rides. Absolutely zero substance worth engaging with. What a disappointment, for me and for general culture. Anyway, somehow this was the only movie I watched in 2022 that I went into with expectations that were significantly let down, and I figured I’d give it its own multiverse of mediocrity with the myriad of posters available.

FAVORITE LEAD ACTRESS PERFORMANCE

WINNER: Cate Blanchett, TÁR (2022)

FINALISTS:

Mia Goth, Pearl (2022)

Janelle Monae, Glass Onion (2022)

Keke Palmer, Nope (2022)

Michelle Yeoh, Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022)

NOMINEES:

Jessica Chastain, The Eyes of Tammy Faye (2021)

Sally Field, Hello, My Name Is Doris (2015)

Natasha Lyonne, All About Evil (2010)

Lesley Manville, Mrs. Harris Goes To Paris (2022)

Thandiwe Newton, God’s Country (2022)

Anya Taylor-Joy, The Menu (2022)

Okay I have to bullet point this one so I can talk about all the finalists.

Cate is THE performance of the year for me. Her take on Lydia Tár is nothing short of amazing - even from the opening scene, with that TED Talk-like scene where she just talks about music for a few minutes, had Brendan and me grabbing each other and whispering in the (otherwise empty) theater about how breathtaking her performance was. I can’t believe I’m giving her lead actress two years in a row (out of three total!) but she really does deserve it.

Brendan and I loved Mia Goth in 2020′s Emma, but she reached new heights in X and, in particular, Pearl. The monologue! The face journey! The everything else! She’s now on the We’ll See Anything She’s In list, and I can’t wait for MaXXXine.

Janelle! I don’t have as much to say for her, but damn she picks projects well! Incredible lady and fantastic performance(s) in Glass Onion.

Keke - #ReleaseTheSpinCut! What a joy.

Okay I adore Michelle Yeoh and if Cate doesn’t win the Oscar I hope it’s hers. Truly wonderful and deserves everything good that’s coming her way right now.

FAVORITE SUPPORTING ACTRESS PERFORMANCE

WINNER: Hong Chau, The Menu (2022)

FINALISTS:

Jamie Clayton, Hellraiser (2022)

Courtney Cox, Scream (2022)

Stephanie Hsu, Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022)

Brittany Snow, X (2022)

NOMINEES:

Margaret Cho, Fire Island (2022)

Tovah Feldshuh, Kissing Jessica Stein (2001)

Vanessa Hudgens, tick, tick...BOOM! (2021)

Andrea Martin, My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002)

Alia Shawkat, Being The Ricardos (2021)

Tandi Wright, Pearl (2022)

Hong Chau is another 2022 addition to the We’ll See Anything She’s In list, and she got an Oscar nom for the other one! Yay! But this is about my favorites, not objectivity, and I prefer her in The Menu. What a treat! I don’t have much to say about the finalists and nominees that wouldn’t require this becoming far too long, so I’m just gonna move on.

FAVORITE ACTOR PERFORMANCE

WINNER: Paul Dano, Little Miss Sunshine (2006)

FINALISTS:

Marlon Brando, The Godfather (1972)

Austin Butler, Elvis (2022)

Alton Brown, Elvis (2022)

Ke Huy Quan, Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022)

NOMINEES:

Rohan Campbell, Halloween Ends (2022)

Ralph Fiennes, The Menu (2022)

Andrew Garfield, tick, tick...BOOM! (2021)

Robin de Jesús, tick, tick...BOOM! (2021)

Haley Joel Osment, Sassy Pants (2012)

Conrad Ricamora, Fire Island (2022)

I started watching Little Miss Sunshine for Toni, but I remember it for Paul, particularly the sequence pictured above. Special shoutout to Alton Brown for stealing the show for a scene or two of Elvis (a difficult task when Austin Butler’s Elvis is present!)

THE TONI “SHE HAS THE RANGE” COLLETTE AWARD FOR MULTI-GENRE EXCELLENCE

WINNER: Jim Carrey, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)/Sonic The Hedgehog (2020)

FINALISTS:

Jamie Dornan, Barb & Star Go To Vista Del Mar (2021)/Belfast (2021)

Idris Elba, The Dark Tower (2017)/Sonic The Hedgehog 2 (2022)/Three Thousand Years of Longing (2022)

Jenna Ortega, The Fallout (2021)/Scream (2022)

Tilda Swinton, Burn After Reading (2008)/Constantine (2005)/Three Thousand Years of Longing (2022)

I mean, Jim Carrey was basically born to play Dr. Robotnik, and when you contrast that with Eternal Sunshine, well, that’s basically what this category is for!

THE CARLY RAE JEPSEN “SHE MAKES MY BLOOD FEEL CARBONATED” AWARD

WINNER: Elaine Stritch, Original Cast Album: Company (1970)

During the Ladies Who Lunch sequence of the Company documentary, I must’ve turned to Brendan at least three times to say “I love being gay” - Elaine’s an icon and a queen and I hate I didn’t get into theatre soon enough to appreciate her while she was alive. (NOTE: If I’d started this category a year earlier, Carol Channing certainly would’ve gotten it for the documentary Larger Than Life, and it felt wrong to not mention that here)

HOTTEST DADDY

WINNER: Russell Crowe, The Nice Guys (2016)

FINALISTS:

George Clooney, Solaris (2002)

Guillermo Diaz, Bros (2022)

Thomas Forbes-Madison, The Lost City (2022)

David Harbour, Violent Night (2022)

NOMINEES:

Daniel Craig, Glass Onion (2022)

Idris Elba, Three Thousand Years of Longing (2022)

Ethan Hawke, The Black Phone (2022)

Martin Henderson, X (2022)

Peter Sarsgaard, The Batman (2022)

Bradley Whitford, tick, tick...BOOM! (2021)

Someone ask me what kind of guys I like. I dare you. I downloaded six entire movies to get enough usable shots of these men - definitely the most work I did for any single category.

Anyway, that’s the 2022 Mackolades! 65 movies honored (or dishonored) from an eligibility pool of 205. Now you know what I love - any recommendations of what to watch in 2023?

#mackolades

17 notes · View notes

whotaughtyougrammar · 7 months

Text

comfort movie tag game

thanks for tagging me @odd-kid-42 ! list 7 comfort movies and tag 7 ppl idk if i'll be able to list 7 movies or tag 7 people but i'll try! also idk how everyone else was defining "comfort movie" but i'm defining it as "movie that i can put on at any time with no hedging and no hesitation, you suggest it and i'll go 'sure'" anyway, in no particular order: 1) kiss kiss bang bang

it's where my username comes from! as a teenager/young adult who loved black comedies and film noir as a teen/young adult finding a movie that combined the two was formative and life changing for me and i quote it endlessly to this day and watch it every christmas

2) hot fuzz

acab and all that but this movie is so fucking funny. also a formative film of my late teens/early twenties, i also really loved deconstructions and affectionate parodies and still do so this is right up my alley, and i'm convinced both kkbb and hot fuzz has informed my sense of humor and will continue to do so

3) tim burton's nightmare before christmas

this movie was my personality as a 13 year old and might have been my first fandom where i actually talked with other fans and actively participated with other people. i remember all the OCs of Jack and Sally's kids that were made with amused fondness. also this movie used to have a bafflingly large and extensive wiki page and to this day i have no idea why. i actually watch this movie not on halloween or christmas, but thanksgiving -- it's right between the two holidays

4) who framed roger rabbit

i fucking love this movie, this movie might have made me give live action movies a chance as a kid/pre-teen because i hated live action movies for the longest time (like i hated e.t. and the goonies and a lot of live action 'kid' films, i still hate e.t. tbh that thing was NOT cute!) and as an adult i am blown away at the amount of love and effort that went into making the toons look so real and interact so organically with the live action world and of course bob hoskins is a king and he was robbed of an oscar nom, change my mind

5) the truman show

this might also be a contender for movie that made me give live-action movies a chance, and i can't even use the 'jim carrey is a live action cartoon man' excuse because he's at his least cartoony (at the time) here. i think i just like my comedies to have a hint of darkness in them, and a man unknowingly trapped in an artificial world for the amusement of millions is a little bit more than a hint i guess

6) everything everywhere all at once

i agree, this is a warm quilt of a movie, about family and the lengths we go through to achieve some modicum of understanding but also i am so SO weak for a wong kar wai/in the mood for love homage and also also i've said this before but i think people forget how genuinely fucking FUNNY this film is, like gut-bustingly hilarious

7) spotlight

OKAY I KNOW this is a weird choice for "comfort" since it's literally about the abuse in the catholic church and the team that helped uncover it, but i think that's partly why i consider it a comfort movie, like even the worst, most well-hidden things in the world can eventually get uncovered and laid bare for the world to see, and i guess that puts my mind at ease, at least a little what people decide to do with that information is a whole different story though i tag @electricxmayhem @spelviin @simplyfroggy @eels-eels-eelsrobot and anyone else who wants to do this

#thanks for the tag!#this was hard but not for the reasons i thought #i thought i'd have trouble choosing 7 because i wouldn't be able to name 7 #turns out i had trouble choosing 7 because i could name more than 7

3 notes · View notes

rubyfire777 · 7 months

Text

personal update 9.30.2023 🌷🌻🌼🐛🦋🍀

good things that happened this week:

i took lily out for her early birthday dinner, since she was going to be out of town. we shared a fancy grilled cheese and an order of scotch eggs at a fantasy themed bar ❤❤❤

we got to hang out really late together before her really early flight. we watched fallen angels which was a really beautiful movie, then g4m3rs which was not a beautiful movie but was still fun to watch with her. we snuggled a lot 🥺❤❤❤ i ended up falling asleep before she had to get ready to go but only for a couple hours, and i was able to wake up to (coherently) say goodbye and that i love her and give her a kiss :)

i prepped a big meal that was kind of a mess but ended up being really good and feeding me for several days without having to worry

movie night with quint! the movie we watched, oldboy, disappointed but i was glad to watch it with him all the same

i had a very efficient chores day on thursday where i got lots done and pretty much cleaned the whole house. i felt really accomplished without feeling like i pushed it too hard

i finished up a chunk of writing ive been putting off! and feel a little more in the writing mood as a result

bowling night was just me and darren this week so we went to that really good barbecue place again instead of getting pizza and bowled a couple games and played some air hockey :)

hung out with my dad for a few hours on saturday! i got to show him f-zero 99 and talk to him about cool modern indies and eat pizza with him and be reminded of how much he has and continues to learn and grow. i feel very grateful that we've come so far and very happy that hes becoming a happier person

i had time to listen to lots of new stuff this week!! and some of it was really really good

my wife just generally having fun on her trip :) <333

noticing ptsd progress this week :)

new art experiences:

albums:

surgery (machinery of the human heart, 2022)

hang-ups (phone call, 2016)

shrapnel flux: veiled terminal (purity filter, 2022)

digital princess (keisari / turbo, 2019)

club angels ep (jensen interceptor & dj fuckoff, 2022)

mocomoco (plissh, 2011)

welcome to aloe island (aloe island posse, 2014)

blood eagle (sabrepulse, 2015)

platonic planet (koto, 2015)

bye bye teens lullaby (koto, 2018)

magical metamorphosis (ghost data, 2017)

movies:

fallen angels (dir. wong kar-wai, 1995)

g4m3rs: a documentary (dir. kiyash monsef, 2002)

oldboy (dir. park chan-wook, 2003)

#meant to post this yesterday i was just wiped and went to bed early lol #personal #/#food

5 notes · View notes

luckyspacerabbit · 1 year

Text

Also as i have been watching a lot of wong kar-wai movies i cant help but believe thane makes a habit of speaking to inanimate objects on a regular basis esp given his lack of company

#thane krios

18 notes · View notes

not-so-rosyyy · 9 months

Note

I remember watching shangchi and simu liu is not attractive tony ate him up was embarrassing like throughout the whole movie was was rooting for him and not the main protagonist

no you're absolutely right and you should say it with your whole chest!

I'm a Wong Kar Wai girlie in college so Tony has been part of my (movie watching) life for the longest time. he was the only reason I watched Shang-chi in theaters instead of just waiting for it on vod and I was devastated when they killed his character in the end. I'm hoping they have some plot twist lying around that would get him to come back on future films because he truly was the best part of that movie. sorry to simu but he does not have an iota of charm in his body it's actually embarrassing

anyway, it's kinda wild to me how most of the western world these days only know him from kid-friendly Marvel. not only because he's one of the living greats in Asian cinema, but also because his illustrious film career here is decidedly not very kid-friendly lol

#tony leung

3 notes · View notes

vwhi · 10 months

Text

a week ago we put on fallen angels by wong kar wai, me & my 3 uni girl friends from the milan days, and by half of the movie all three had quietly suggested to switch it off because it was too disturbing, i was there laughing and watching amused, feeling seen even. did wonder for a while if tastes are just tastes or if i have been taking all the unfortunate turns at every crossroad

2 notes · View notes

gillianthecat · 2 years

Text

thanks for the tag @lelephantsnail. I feel honored; this is my first one of these!

NAME: it's not Gillian, but you can call me that if you want :-)

I will say that my real name reached it's peak of popularity as a baby name in the 1960s, which was several decades before I was born.

SIGN: one of the signs that's an animal. I feel that's vague enough to be non-identifying :-) I don't really follow astrology, but from what I do know I don't particularly fit the characteristics of my sign

HEIGHT: a little under 5'5. (I feel like a little kid "i am 6 and three quarters years old", but for some reason that extra 3/4 of an inch is important to me)

TIME: started this at 11:30 pm, don't know when I'll finish.

BIRTHDAY: i tend to treat it like a special day and am generally Aware that it's my birthday while it's happening. i don't particularly like a big celebration, but for many years I've had a tradition of taking a dance class on the day, no matter where I was (did this on a trip to London once!)

FAVOURITE ARTIST/BAND: oh god, this question always feels scary to me for some reason. I think I return to my adolescent self and worry about having the right, cool answer. I'm also terrible at picking favorites in general. I love a wide variety of music and admire musicians, but I don't tend to closely follow bands or artists.

LAST MOVIE: I've been watching tons of tv shows/drama series and very few movies. According to Netflix, the last movie I watched on there was Hail, Caesar! many months ago, which I watched with my dad. It was entertaining and silly, and felt more like a collection of vignettes rather than a movie with a plot.

Oh! I recently watched Lan Yu (藍宇), a 2001 openly queer Chinese movie, set in mainland China but made in Hong Kong. I found out about it through Tumblr user @/rongzhi who hosted a viewing party on discord. I recommend it, it's beautiful and sad, in the style of Wong Kar-wai. It's unfortunately really hard to find, the only online version I could dig up is one on youtube titled "new slime video again! totally not lan yu (藍宇) made in 2001." Hopefully it stays there, it's low resolution but good enough to be worth watching.

LAST SHOW: Last show I completed was The Devil Judge. I'm watching War of Y and The Eclipse as they come out (unusual for me, I'm almost always a binger). I've started a bunch, and currently have tabs with Vincenzo and Lovely Writer open but I keep getting distracted so I'm not really watching either.

WHEN I CREATED THIS BLOG: Around the beginning of the pandemic, maybe summer 2020? I joined tumblr to follow a hockey romance writer (Taylor Fitzpatrick) and then started following various others, mostly fanfic writers, as a lurker. I didn't start posting until a month ago (July 21, 2022), inspired by KinnPorsche and then other BL shows I got into.

WHAT I POST: So far it's been mostly reactions to and analysis of BL and BL-adjacent shows. And occasionally videos of dancers (ballet & tango so far). But I have ADHD, so who knows what the future holds.

OTHER BLOGS: I started a sideblog @iamthinkingaboutvariousthings to use as a storage container for reblogging posts I want to keep track of but not overwhelm my timeline with. At the moment its all The Devil Judge meta.

DO I GET ASKS: I've only had a few so far, but I got so excited! I would love asks.

AVERAGE HOURS OF SLEEP: so erratic (see ADHD), but I probably need about 9?

WHAT I'M WEARING: dark blue sweatpants, a light blue t-shirt, and glasses

DREAM JOB: This is an emotionally fraught question right now, so I'm gonna skip it :-)

DREAM TRIP: ooh boy. I've been fortunate to travel a lot with my family (my grandmother loved to travel and would take us all over the world). I'd love to travel more on my own, I haven't done that much. I can't pick a place though, the world is too big and amazing!

I went to England with my mom and did most of the planning myself, so that was a past dream trip. We got to see Stonehenge up close, which was amazing! (Unsolicited advice: it's worth paying for a special after hours tour that gives you the history and lets you actually enter the circle. From the public path it looks kinda blah, but from afar and from inside its quite magical.)

FAVOURITE SONGS (and quotes from them, just for some spice): it's stressing me out to think about it (see previous music question) and this is for fun, so I'm going to skip it too.

I don't know if y'all like ask games, but I'll tag @heretherebedork @absolutebl @markswifesblog @moonchildridden @negrowhat @little-arcadia @technitango @thedeviljudges @bitletsanddrabbles and @veemark. No pressure to respond! And if anyone else wants to play, consider yourself tagged!

#ask game #tag game #about gillianthecat

11 notes · View notes

panicinthestudio · 1 year

Text

What a strange timeline to live in, where minorities, ethnic and otherwise, are really hitting their stride in representation across media and the starkest contrast of bubbling reactionary backlash is not even concealed.

Watching some of the press for the latest round of awards has made it clear we are not in the post-racial world some seem to think we've arrived at. One memorable comment on a video of Michelle Yeoh discussing the importance of giving women, ethnic minorities, and other narratives a chance to succeed in a still very ethnocentric landscape was that now we can "stop the emotional blackmail" of supporting and praising these "foreign" films--as if they did not speak to a broader domestic experience of the immigrant, working class, and generational or cultural gaps and that it's simply a brilliant adventure of a movie. The failure of imagination and empathy continues to underline the need for more quality representation to widen the availability and diversity of perspectives.

The critical success of Everything Everywhere All At Once is just one stepping stone, building on decades of a trickle of roles and stories that were often undermined by the need to bend their appeal into something that was unrecognizable to the experiences of the actual people living it. Even some of the most absurdist gags in the film are direct references to some niche jokes and tropes from the last half century of Asian pop culture (I'm looking at you hotdog hands).

Films like Crazy Rich Asians and Shang-Chi, always struck me as strange hybrids because the draw for a broader audience seemed to rest a lot on their source material while banking on many younger Asian American (and Canadian) faces. The real draw in the community has been in stories centered on experiences as immigrants and the children of immigrants, all while including incredible seasoned actors like Tony Leung Chiu-wai and Michelle Yeoh. Despite their long careers, their success and name recognition outside of their popular reach in Asian cinema has been limited arbitrarily despite their obvious talent. James Hong is just one example of the limitations of typecasting, which has followed him for nearly seven decades. Even into the 2010s it was easy to recognize the relatively small circle of seasoned Asian American actors that would reappear across media to fill bit roles, and fewer still taking on main or even regular supporting characters.

The last time it felt like there was a domestic breakthrough for Asian stories was in the late 1980s into the 1990s when films like Joy Luck Club garnered some attention. Taiwanese directors like Ang Lee; Hong Kong New Wave in the films of Tsui Hark, Stanley Kwan, John Woo, and Wong Kar-wai; and the action films in the stream of Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, and Jet Li while popular in the Western sphere seemed to translate to limited individual crossover into international success. The strengthening of the perpetually "foreign" as a label became even harder to shed as a barrier to entry for the international audience and those creating the work.

It seems as though it has only been with the 2000s Mainland Chinese domestic film boom, as well as renewed popular interest and access to broader Asian pop culture, has there been some momentum to inform and capture a updated view from the perspective of the wider diaspora. For many of us, seeing more of ourselves in the world is exactly the kind of healing we need and need to share with others.

#pop culture #representation #media #film #diaspora #asian american #writing #ethnic minorities #racism #sexism #visibility

4 notes · View notes