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bettsfic · 10 months

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i can't stay quiet about this anymore. for weeks now i've thought, noo i won't write about knights of the zodiac on my blog. nobody cares. BUT it is the weirdest fucking movie i've ever seen and i need to tell you about it.

knights of the zodiac is an american made live action adaptation of the anime/manga saint seiya. before this film, i'd never even heard of it, but that doesn't matter, because i watched an interview with mackenyu (who plays seiya) who said that the director told him not to bother watching the anime or reading the manga, because he wanted this movie to be its own thing. you know, which is always a great way to bring in your core audience.

with that said, i'm viewing this film entirely on its own merit, with no context of the source material. so saint seiya fans may not want to read this.

the movie came out this past may. i was excited about it for no other reason than mackenyu starring in an american action movie. i'm honestly a little surprised people weren't more jazzed about that. there aren't a lot of japanese actors starring in big budget american action movies.

other cast members include sean bean (who, spoiler alert, dies), famke janssen, and mark dacascos. in case you don't recognize those names, they are, respectively, boromir/ned stark, jean grey from x-men, and the iron chef. if nothing else, i think it's worth watching for the utterly bizarre casting.

the premise, sort of: mackenyu, who appears to be contractually obligated to play angsty younger brother characters (i think this is the 7th thing i've seen him in where he is an angsty younger brother), has an older sister who is missing. he's a poor orphan boy who gets by on winning cage fights. or something. so boromir finds him and tells him he's destined to be athena's bodyguard, and he gets on board with this alarmingly fast, but not after antagonizing athena (who is not yet athena) and throwing out some snarky one-liners. he trains in the middle of nowhere with a masked lady who repeatedly kicks his ass, and he never changes clothes the entire time. there's other stuff too but it's secondary to the absolute batshittery of this movie.

i saw it on premiere night, which was also the premiere night of the new guardians of the galaxy movie. again, A+ move by the promotional team. so there i was on a saturday at 7pm. prime movie going time. and my best friend and i were the only ones in the theater.

although i had no real expectations for this movie beyond Mackenyu Hits Things And Is Sad, i believed one of two things would happen: it would be as terrible as it sounded, or it would actually be phenomenal. but no, it was neither bad, nor good, but a secret third thing: it scratched a deep and rabid part of my id.

and by that i mean, it appeared to be a very high budget love letter to glaringly submissive men.

here's my letterboxd review that i wrote in the brief hypomanic episode succeeding my initial viewing:

okay so first and most importantly, this scene made me actually scream:

it's a joke line, sure, but 1) he definitely means it, and 2) he immediately calls her "princess," which if you've ever read my fic, you'll know that that's a one-hit KO for me.

(putting this under a cut because it's already long)

you see how athena is framed above seiya? that is one of approximately 1000 shots where this occurs. to every male character. at one point, mackenyu perches gingerly on the back of athena's motorcycle. in fact the only male character who attempts to be dominant aggressive and toxically masculine becomes the punching bag of the film.

in the beginning, seiya is in a cage match where people are getting angry at him for "dancing," which means he doesn't fight so much as avoids getting hit and looks pretty doing it. a solid third of the movie involves a very large lady beating the crap out of him. the premise of the film is getting him to devote his entire life to a goddess and obey protect her at all costs.

i'm probably the only one who watched this movie and was like, hmm is this kink coded? am i insane for seeing this? usually when i think of kink coding i think of quentin tarantino's foot fetish, these long gaudy shots of women's feet hanging out of car windows. it's in the imagery and shot composition and power dynamics.

here, the imagery is a lot of kneeling men, the shot compositions repeatedly place the men lower than the women, and the power dynamics are simply that the women have all the power, and the men have a little, as a treat. jean grey is a straight-up femdom, leather and all.

by the end of the climax, seiya is naked, having been stripped of his (magical and very powerful) armor as pre-athena becomes athena and uh, blasts his clothes off in the process. there's probably something to be said there about, you know, literally stripping him of his power.

i think what i find particularly remarkable about this is that the repeated feminization of the male lead is treated as a good thing. a self-actualizing thing. it's the process through which he accepts himself and his destiny. that's the reason i say it's a love letter--i've known a lot of submissive men and many of them really struggle to accept that part of themselves. i had a friend once who was so ashamed of himself--not just that he was submissive, but that submission was an integral part of his identity--that he had a breakdown in my car over it. so i think it's nice seeing a vaguely positive portrayal of finding oneself through (textually) devotion and (subtextually) submission.

god help me, seiya spends the entire film being irritating and bratty. this movie is my personal kryptonite.

don't get me wrong, it's a terrible movie. the writing is awful, the direction is awful, and if it gets a second film, i'll be shocked. it received a 1.9 (out of 5) on letterboxd and a 4.4 (out of 10) on imdb.

but i've also always been a lover of the star wars prequels (and oh boy there's a lot to be said there about submissive men) and so my patience for bad writing is infinite in the face of interesting things happening on a character level. in a world of disneyfied stock plots and bloated marvel franchises, i appreciate when a movie tries to do something different, even if it doesn't do it very well.

anyway, i can't in good conscience recommend it, but i for one plan to watch it at least a hundred more times.

#i would love to tag this so i can find it later but i really don't want it to show up in the official tag #so uhh #film meta

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sinclairstarz · 2 months

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for the cinephile byler truthers. i made the party’s modern au letterboxd accounts

in my head mike wheeler is the film bro cinephile of the party. hes a big brad pitt fan and fincher is his favorite director if you even care.. dirty dancing would be in his top 4 if he was honest. he went to see dune cause hes a scifi nerd, ended up hating it so much and complained about it to will but still gave it 2 stars cause it was pretty. did leave a very mean review. very critical rater but mostly leaves high ratings because he just doesn’t watch things he doesnt wanna see.

alternative movies i considered putting: pulp fiction (5 stars), the killer (1 star), se7en (5 stars), across the spiderverse (5 stars), nope (5 stars) , the batman 2022 (4 stars), once upon a time in hollywood (5 stars), inglorious basterds (5 stars), the matrix (half a star)

the thing is so good and he has a poster of it on his wall in canon so it felt right. it just feels wrong not to do ghostbusters (plus its one of my favorite movies…) and yall need to hear me out on brokeback 😭😭😭 ur telling me he wouldnt bawl his eyes out??? ur wrong. will byers is a jake gyllenhaal lover. he watches dirty dancing a lot for mike, and loves ghibli movies a lot. he cried during rain man. honest rater but doesnt take it too seriously, mostly 4/5 star ratings

alternatives: saltburn (half a star), asteroid city (5 stars), blackkklansman (5 stars), the force awakens (3.5 stars), the perks of being a wallflower (4.5 stars), back to the future (5 stars)

rogue one because lucas has taste. its the best star wars movie, if u care. he would love how fun and goofy ghostbusters 2 is. in my head Wes Anderson is like the party’s claimed director and they all watch his movies together and do marathons because the weirdness, comedy, and emotional commentary is a perfect mix for them. so. bottle rocket. lucas’ favorite wes anderson is the grand budapest hotel if u wanted to know. he rates things pretty highly and isn’t super critical.

alternatives: dodgeball (5 stars), scream 5 (4 stars), the matrix (3 stars), good will hunting (5 stars), jurassic park (5 stars), die hard (5 stars),

likes making lucas watch gone girl on valentines day and telling him shes gonna do that to him next time he annoys her. v for vendetta is her favorite romance movie and shes a big marvel fan (in a cool way. kind of .) but thor ragnarok is probably one of her fav marvels, along with spiderman far from home and iron man. i just know she watches Casino Royale and decided she hated James Bond and then ended up watching all the Daniel Craig Bonds with Mike and loved Skyfall so much. the song is on her playlist and she did cry after No Time To Die.

Alternatives: Superbad (5 stars), baby driver (5 stars), bottoms (5 stars), 10 things i hate about you (3.5 stars), scream (5 stars), kill bill (5 stars), lord of the rings: the return of the king (1.5 stars)

also a bit of a film nerd. i considered giving him a star wars and i know in my heart he’d probably have empire somewhere in his top 4. but star wars is lame and i wanted to give him se7en so he fucking gets se7en. he knows john wick is objectively dumb but he doesnt care hes just here for a good time. the party probably watched saltburn together and all fucking hated it. I just know hes a kurosawa nerd and always goes when the local theatres do very rare special showings of his movies.

alternatives: baby driver (4 stars), the ewok adventure (5 stars) hot fuzz (5 stars) harry potter and the sorcerers stone (4 stars) legally blonde (5 stars) spirited away (5 stars) dazed and confused (5 stars)

she likes movies that make her feel all warm and fuzzy and hopeful. i wanted to give her breakfast club, but i think she’d honestly like sixteen candles more (even though breakfast club’s better). she cried at almost every movie in her top 4 and makes max rewatch juno with her like once a month. she gives most movies 5 stars unless she really hates them, and loves any movie thats fun to watch, even if its bad. she likes movies with pretty girls and fun colors.

alternatives: barbie (5 stars), legally blonde (5 stars), inception (2 stars), heathers (5 stars) pretty in pink (4.5 stars (she was mad andi didn’t end up with ducky)) my neighbor totoro (5 stars)

in conclusion if you haven’t seen They Cloned Tyron (2023) go watch it it deserved the oscar

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joyce-stick · 4 months

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Here's my review of Bang Dream! It'sMyGO!!!!! on Letterboxd which incidentally is the only review of it on Letterboxd at this moment and I feel unreasonably braggadocios about having been the first one to leave a review for this particular show on that particular website

Okay so you should read that now but also I kinda want to mention a few specific things that really fucking got me in the show.

Scroll away if you don't want to spoil yourself or whatever.

First of all-ly. The live performances were really good. They surprised me a lot in that they actually very convincingly sold these girls as inexperienced amateurs who don't know how to work together.

When watching it, I was expecting the girls' first live performance to go like, y'know, big perfect hyper-well coreographed CGI anime girl song performance, like is normal in this genre generally.

Instead, THIS happens:

At this, I literally laugh-cried so hard so much. Like, god damn, the major anime music girls franchise let its girls just suck at the music, like actually seriously for real, just suck. And then they bounce back and do perform properly of course and get into a groove with each other, and it's really cool and energetic and stuff but

ALSO IT SOUNDS WRONG.

Like, the sound mixing is done wrong, on purpose. The instruments overtake Tomori's voice just a bit too much to still get across that they have still prepared really badly for this and are kind of still doing this sort of badly and that makes it cool when they give a good performance anyway.

Anyway. Then there's the whole arc with Soyo and her being emotionally manipulative to try and get her and Tomori's old band back together. And she's genuinely toxic and acts like an angry ex-wife who can't accept that her ex-wife has divorced her

(I need them to hatefuck about it. I need a hatefuck doujin of them now.)

And I kind of love-hated Soyo this whole time for being so emotionally manipulative and seeming almost hell-bent on burning all the bridges she has left but well anyway the thing that got me later is after Tomori gets everyone back together with her song poem and they all cry it out

And she's like "why??? I was so terrible and I used you" but even still Tomori expresses that it doesn't matter and she still wants them all together and just

AND IT'S SOO AAAAHHHHH

And that got me just because. Just. Forgiveness is just a really powerful thing and it takes a lot to do it and it's hard but sometimes you need to forgive your friends when they hurt you for things to move forward better than before and more often than not that's a losing gamble but it's so worth it when it pans out and aaahhhhhhhh

Oh, yeah, and then there's the ending reveal that Sakiko has an abusive father.

We'll have to wait to see how that plays into the Ave Mujica anime but that also really got me. That was something

And also um

I liked the gay aquarium penguins

Okay so anyway um

I have nothing more of significance to say at this time.

There. There's media talk rant ramble for that.

So here's our links etc if you want to leave a tip for this one

patreon | ko-fi

#bang dream #bang dream it's mygo #reviews #mini rant #media analysis #(ish)#ramblings

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isthefnafmovieout · 6 months

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isthefnafmovieout reviews the fnaf movie (SPOILERS)

Pre-movie thoughts (written 10/25):

I get to see it a day early! YAY!

I might have hyped this movie up in my brain a little too much, because I'm SUPER anxious.

The polarizing reviews i was seeing throughout the day were definitely a little nerve wracking! Lots of good and bad reviews, lots of weird contridicting statements. I saw lots of people complaining about the lore being "wrong" or whatever but... Eh. It has already been established that this movie won't have the same lore as the games, so I won't mind any lore changes. They're like the Silver Eyes books, in their own seperate canon but with similarities to the games.

Overall Im keeping my hopes reasonably high. Horror films and video game adaptations tend to get a bad wrap from even the fairest critics. I'm a die-heard fnaf fan, have been for all 9 years of its existence. If Dawko loves it then I will love it I think 🫡

Okay, now with that out of the way...

Spoiler free review, posted on my letterboxd:

Post-movie thoughts (written 10/26):

The way they incorporated Mike's dream sequences into the narrative was really interesting, how he tries to use his dreams to find out who took his brother. He and Abby were really sweet :) I like how their relationship drives the plot along, with how they befriend Abby but only as a front because they want her to "be like them," and how Mike is caught up in the past and realizes that he needs to focus on protecting Abby, not bringing his brother back. Its surprisingly emotional, i really resonated with their story. Josh Hutcherson and Piper Rubio both did well!

It's basically everything I expected, and I liked it! I think it's story was good, with its focus on childhood innocence.

Vanessa is great too! Different from her game counterpart, but thats okay! And the twist that she's actually William aftons daughter? Holy shit I gasped like I was watching a soap. Thats so interesting!! I loved how she just FELT suspicious. I know it's very different from the game lore, but I expected the movie to be, and I liked what they did! I got chills when Vanessa showed the picture of her and William to Mike and you could see her holding the plane that Mike's brother used to have.... my dad thought that was the creepiest part. Speaking of william btw...

Matthew Lillard, man. wow. What a great William Afton. They do some subtle implications that hes William in the beginning and if i didnt know it was him already i would've been surprised. He hams it up like he did with Stu Macher and it's great! I wish he was in it a little more, and they expanded a little more on Williams character through Vanessa, but yeah, he was good! I hope to see more of him in any sequels!

I wish the animatronics showed up a little more, thats probably my biggest critique or whatever. But they are so well made and cute. I liked how they befriended Abby, and that they rlly honed in on the animatronics being possessed by kids and that their violence is from William Aftons influence. I wish they went more into depth about how William influenced them though, and why it's all the pictures drawn of what happened that control their vision of what happened. What we did get from them though was so cool! Jim Henson did so well with these guys, they're so cute yet can be so scary.

The kills were pretty tame on the surface, as I expected, but some of the implications were quite disturbing to a point where it didn't rlly take away from it for me. Especially Max's, it gave me a "Ada in the laser room in the re4 seperate ways remake" vibes. Same with the security guards death to the faz-trap in the beginning.

There were some pacing issues, theyve definitely cut some things i wouldve liked to see, there was some goofiness (that fort making scene made me laugh so hard im sorry, it was cute though), and some story elements that needed a touch more expanding upon, but this movie was still really fun! For non-fans, honestly i dont know how they'reresponding as a whole besides those really weird reviews im seeing on rotten tomatoes and such, but I saw it with my dad, who knew very little going into it, and he liked it, especially the story with the missing kids! For fans... well, If you like fnaf, are are willing to forgive some lore changes for the sake of telling a coherent story, then you'll love it!

Also why was Matpat there lol. isthefnafmovieout, out. See you on the flipside.

#fnaf movie #fnaf movie spoilers #fnaf movie review #off topic

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callmearcturus · 11 months

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Idk how you feel abt the Daniel Craig bond movies, but for me they seem like the next link in my personal Arc-Influenced Action Franchise Hyperfixation chain (in order of: John wick -> mission impossible -> DC bond). Have you ever seen any and do you have any opinions?

I've seen a lot of them and while I think Craig is a staggeringly good actor and he is Aware of the faults of Bond

i think......... how tf to explain this.

so Craig era Bond knows that Bond is an asshole. but he... doesn't stop being an asshole. its a lot of "look at us, acknowledging what a piece of shit this guy is" but he's..... still a piece of shit?

what i like a john wick and ethan hunt is that whole aspect is absent. which is not what i want from all media but it is what i want from this specific kind of media.

like, MI2 right? MI2 and MI3 actually are really weird to watch after the McQuarrie Trilogy because for the most part there is..... no sexualized violence in the McQuarrie Trilogy. it's just not really a thing there at all, which is super fucking refreshing. but when Punct and I watch MI2 and there's a very tacit sexual assault vibe going on, I was like "oh shit i forgot that's a thing" because MI makes me forget that's a thing! I don't have to worry about holding my breath in that way.

so like...... i'm very Meh on bond. also it just doesn't have the heart of MI and JW frankly and I want some fucking heart.

ETA: lmao i just remembered that screenshot i got from letterboxd, it was a review of MI: Fallout and it just said "james bond retire bitch" and that really sums it up for me personally. i don't need james bond, he doesn't give me anything interesting frankly. sorry to bond fans.

ah, found it

#Anonymous #mission impossible

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cowboycannibalism · 6 months

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i watched When Evil Lurks (2023) yesterday and I have thoughts! also this is literally just my letterboxd review copy and pasted with a bit more detail lol

spoilers!! ⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️

first of all, I am not the biggest possession horror fan. It's not my thing. But wow I was actually so into this movie I completely forgot about it being a possession movie! It was sort of a mix between zombie/disease and possession which was interesting. The very first Rotten we see is hard to look at, not normally a sight you think of when someone is possessed. Usually these movies tend to be more bone-cracking, spine breaking, unnatural bending and scary voices. Seeing the "demon"/evil manifest physically with bodily fluids and boils and rotting flesh made my stomach turn a bit which was awesome!

Secondly, I admit I'm very partial to sibling dynamics in movies, I love my siblings and I would die for them. The only people I would want to be in this apocalyptic-end-of-days situation with would be my siblings and my mom. I think the film did a great job bringing to life that tie between family, that you would do anything to protect them even if it means leaving your entire life behind including people who may be close but not willing to believe you (the ex wife and new husband). Also I couldn't help but compare them a bit to mario and luigi in my head but I blame that on me watching the Mario movie right before this 😅.

Jaime (Jimi) and Pedro are fun contrasting personalities in the scenario they get put into. Their priorities are different and even the belief they have is split, while pedro is more sure about the Rotten, Jaime is so doubtful he can't even admit if what they saw was real and that leads to problems with everyone else believing them. He's seen as the "good" brother so of course if he's saying he isn't sure of what they see, then all the other characters would believe him over Pedro, the "bad" brother with a troubled past. One of the things I loved about it was that Jaime never waivers in his faith in Pedro, he may not be sure of the Rotten/evil but he always trusts fully in his brother.

Pedro does get on my nerves with some of his choices but cmon would it be a horror movie if you weren't mad at some character for making stupid decisions? The desperation that seeps from the actor (Ezequiel Rodriguez) is so palpable that it brings out sympathy for him, he may be dumb but he's trying his best okay?

The whole story with the autistic son was a little weird and I know everyone's reviews of this say it's ableist but I saw it in a different light. The Cleaner says the demon can't figure out the minds of autistic people, get stuck in their bodies and that helps them from fully becoming possessed. To Me it feels like the opposite of what movies would usually do in where the son would be autistic BECAUSE of the demon, whereas in this movie he is "normal" when the demon takes over. It isn't a cure, it isn't saying autistic people have evil in them that needs to be fixed, but that is something that people have said for a long time and tbh its probably still a thing idiots believe in. it's interesting to see that his autism actually kept him safe for as long as it did.

Let's talk about the kills! When the wife of the landowner whacks into him with the axe, I was caught so off guard, same with the dog attack on the little girl. oh god, the throwing up of the hair and necklace by the son got to me, I probably shouldn't have been eating while watching this. This may sound weird but I LOVED the scene of the mom eating her son's brains as she's walking alongside the car Jimi is in.

The movie was so bleak and nihilistic that I felt the need to repent so this doesn't happen in real life. I wish it could have expanded a bit more on the universe, some of the characters and the disease/possession but for pacing reasons I think they did a solid job of dropping enough hints to fill in information. I love foreign horror movies and Argentina you are on my watchlist now, i enjoyed this and I think its definitely worth a watch!

Be warned there are animal and child deaths in this movie so know your triggers. It has English subtitles that aren't 100% accurate so it can get a little confusing sometimes, just pay close attention and if you want more insight the reddit threads on this movie are so great.

#sorry for this long ass post #i just really enjoyed this movie!!#when evil lurks #horror #yami's movie thoughts

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byebyelemonpie · 8 months

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byebyelemonpie's may 2023 recommendations

My may top 5 movies:

Kung Fu Panda trilogy (2008, dir: Mark Osborne, John Stevenson; 2011, dir: Jennifer Yuh Nelson; 2016, dir: Jennifer Yuh Nelson, Alessandro Carloni) [Rewatched the first two after a decade and watched the third for the first time] Listen, I don't know what happened to me or to the world that made me uninterested in these movies somewhere between the second and the third one, but I'm glad that went away because these are actually really good. Like, the animation, the aesthetic, the story: they're all great and enjoyable, and a lot of fun! -

Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again (2018, dir: Ol Parker) [Rewatch after five years] The songs are still bangers and a lot of fun, even though this is way more sad than the first one. Wacthing it with friends is even better! -

13 Going on 30 (2004, dir: Gary Winick) [Rewacth after seven years] Still a cute and fun rom-com. The time-travel and the moral consequences of a 13 year-old in her own older body are never even thought about, but that's probably for the best, because I genuinely enjoyed it as a kid, even though I didn't want to grow up. -

Sky High (2005, dir: Mike Mitchell) [Rewatch after more than a decade] Just okay, I remember liking this a lot as a teen, but never seeing it again. Loved the whole character of Warren Peace, his name and his backstory and to be honest I wish the whole thing would have been about him. But still not that bad! -

So I Married an Anti-Fan (2016, dir: Kim Je-young) [First time watch] No idea how I found this, but it was pretty fun. I haven't really written anything on my notebook about it other than "not that bad", and all the letterboxd reviews are about this k-pop idol whom I don't know, I'm so sorry.

Favourite series in may:

Spy x Family (Japan, 2022) [First time watch; anime] A spy needs to infiltrate the family of an important political figure to stop the war between the two prominent regions of his nation, but to do so, he needs to have a wife and a daughter. He finds them in a secret assassin and a mind reader respectively. This anime is so much fun!! It's hilarious and even heartwarming at times. I decided to read the manga as well because I fell in love with the characters so fast. -

Ted Lasso - season 3 (USA, 2023) [First time watch] This series has been a very nice comfort show since I started season 1 last year. I loved how everyone had a character development and I very much enjoyed the positivity and feeling of hope throughout the series and especially in the end. -

Schmigadoon! - Schmicago (USA, 2023) [First time watch] This musical series is still one of the most innovative around and I LOVE the songs and the references to the musicals it parodies. I think I might have enjoyed this second season more than the first because I like more musicals from this era than the ones referenced in season 1. I still wish they will eventually make a thrid season, because if they manage to make parodies of all musical eras, they will have my whole heart, although this had a perfect ending, so I am conflicted on this. -

Dark Blue Kiss (Thailand, 2019) [Rewatch after a year] This was the first Thai series I've ever watched, but I had overrated it, so I decided to revisit it with a better knowledge and some more place for comparison. It turns out that it's still pretty good! Pete and Kao's story and its stupid jealousy, their cute bickering, and Kao's will to come out to him mum but fear of rejection is still very well done. Their breakup phase is still so sad! New's little pouty face should be enough to make people forgive him, especially when Kao didn't do anything outwardly terrible. The communication problem in this couple is still annoying, but the last scene makes up for everything and they have my heart. I'm not the greatest fan of the second couple - when a lot of fans would say the opposite - but I still love fellow Pokémon Go fan Mork and I still think he deserves better, I'm not sorry. -

Quacks (UK, 2017) [First time watch] As usual, six-episodes-long British sitcoms that are about specific time periods were cancelled after one season, and so was this gem. This series was about several doctors working at a Victorian hospital and trying new ways to cure patients. It was very interesting other than pretty funny.

[byebyelemonpie's 2023 recs]

#a post #byebyelemonpie's 2023 recs #about movies #about series #kung fu panda #mamma mia! here we go again #13 going on 30 #sky high #so i married an anti fan #spy x family #ted lasso #schmigadoon #dark blue kiss #quacks

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jadespadegames · 2 months

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My ★★★½ review of Kung Fu Panda 4 on Letterboxd https://boxd.it/612w3d

It was tough to figure out my feelings for this one. I want to start off by saying that I have been a major fan of the Kung Fu Panda films since the beginning. While I would love it if every film in this series could be as spectacular as the first two, I think after the third film I grew to accept that this would be a lot to ask from for a series of this length. Frankly, I'm surprised I enjoyed this movie as much as I did—the trailer really did show the worst parts of it—but I found it to be very fun and enjoyable with incredible animation and background scores. The action scenes were great as always and surpassed the third's in my opinion. Ultimately, I didn't feel disappointed coming out of it and was in fact pleasantly surprised, though I think that was because everything else leading up to the movie made me lower my expectations a lot.

I think that this film's biggest weakness is its mediocre use of its runtime. I was genuinely astounded when I looked up the movie's length and found that it was the same as the previous three—it kind of had the same vibe as a person rushing through a Powerpoint presentation. It took me a while to figure out why things felt rushed despite the same amount of runtime, but I think this is because most of the scenes in this movie lacked significance. The previous movies, especially the first two, did a much better job of making the most out of almost every scene and drawing out its emotional potential.

I don't think every Kung Fu Panda movie needs to have a lot of depth and emotion, but the lack of substance in this one makes it stick out compared to its predecessors, and I find that to be a shame because I think its story and characters had a lot of potential for more. I actually enjoyed this movie's villain much more than Kai as her screen presence was far more interesting, but she was barely in it and barely interacted with any of our main cast. I actually liked the sidekick character and thought Awkwafina did a good job voicing her, but her scenes didn't do enough to flesh her out, so her character arc feels rather cliche and predictable. Also, the lesson that Po learns in this movie felt rather tacked on compared to the previous movies' lessons which deeply impacted Po as a character.

If you want to watch this movie, you'll have a much better time if you treat this like a well-animated TV movie rather than something like the previous movies. For all my criticisms of it, I really did enjoy watching it and will be mildly interested if a fifth one does arise.

(To end with my hot take: I enjoyed watching this more than the third one, though the third one is still the better film of the two.)

#jade speaks #jade reviews #kung fu panda 4

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falsenote · 10 months

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ok finally one good update that you can put a read more on posts in the app like you don't need to see this yessss

anyway i watched la piscine and face to face yesterday bc i had a realization recently that when i was binge watching the romy filmography and during that i've read her biography it really made me lose all motivation to watch la piscine in particular so i skipped just that one and when i was doing the same w the gian maria filmography and read his bio also the same thing happened w face to face jsvshwnjs. and it was such a funny connection to make so i was like what if... i watched these after all, back to back, even though i still don't care about either films? like the line of thought was that bc of this experiment it would make the films at least a little bit interesting. like two negatives making a positive. well did the films turn out to be good? no they were fucking annoying i was right all along. was making myself watch two films that i was sure i would hate, funny? yes a bit.

although they varied a little like w face to face i knew it'd be a blatant didactic eye rolling moment and in the first place i didn't want to watch bc in the bio they say almost a comical amount of times how much he hated doing these westerns and i was like fine fine i won't watch any more of them then. on this note there's almost something sad about reading the letterboxd reviews calling this his best performance but what can you do. and well the film in question was not very good yes. rather annoying i would argue. the way it was put together was kind of sending me like the unbelievable dialogue, gian maria blue eyes moment (i was very hurt by that) tomas milian in an absurd wig leading the people out of the desert jshzvsubsjzjsjs uh purgatory city? random sex crazed underage girl who i think was supposed to be the mary magdalene of the group?gian maria fascist speech? him eating those weird little outfits up? so it had the potential to be trashy fun but it was too much of a mess that it became kind of a drag. but i won't lie looking back it's almost a fun film in its own bizarre way. in a sense a two star classic

but what was more enraging actually was la piscine bc i was expecting a lot of bad things (namely the presence of the lead actor in question hence my reason for not watching it before. like i really don't care to see them together. at least in christine there was jean claude brialy camping it up and in the assassination of... uh. there was richard burton also. camping it up. anyway.) but the final straw was not giving romy enough screen time like are we out of our minds. like yes the (barely existent) plot was annoying, the characters made no sense, the dialogue was verging on terrible, i only care about 2 people out of the 4 in here, but i suspected all that. and to think even in her limited screentime she tried her best and there is that confrontation at dinner scene where i was like yesss finally go give us everything queen but then we're back to alain delon staring at nothing with a nondescript expression. maurice ronet at least tried to do something, i like his performances and he had a good chemistry w romy in all their films. but people always have to hype up untalented people so tragic. and like it's literally miserable that this is one of romy's more famous roles like this is not all that she can give.... the people need to wake up. eh. also i really don't get why this film has so many remakes like what reason is there to watch besides the cast (ehhh) and the late 60s vibes. well one star for romy being cute but otherwise this was. torturous!

all in all wasn't really worth it that much but at least it reinforced in me what i already knew. and we must take all the little scraps of entertainment while we can i suppose. this was me to myself while watching these

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pastamansta · 10 months

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A Beginner's Guide to Finding More Films

I don't recommend reblogging this post, as I will update it frequently as I find more tools and hone my craft. This post will gain traction by being referenced in the posts I make using these tools and methods, hopefully spreading some much-needed information in an engaging, interesting format. Only time will tell if this experiment will work, but if even one person finds their new favorite film, discovers a film they just can't quit thinking about, or even just gains a better love for cinema, I will be happy knowing that the time that I have put into this will have been well-spent.

If you are looking to diversify your film diet or can't find something to watch, just do some research. It's easier than it sounds.

Oftentimes, there are those who recommend lists, to start at the top of and work your way down. While I do not believe this is a horrible way to go about such a task, I believe there's something unapproachable about this to a beginner. It's cold, it's factual, and it's entirely impersonal. I believe that learning to truly love film is a journey, a journey that most have already started on. This guide is made with the idea that you've seen a movie before. If you haven't... well, maybe those cold, factual, impersonal lists are for you! In order for this guide to work for you, it is working under the assumption that you have seen, without "truly investing yourself in the world of cinema," a few films before; some that you liked, some that you disliked, some that you loved, some that you hated, some that you think about, some that you've forgotten about, but definitely at least a few films.

Letterboxd is where I think everyone should start. It's free. Create an account, download the mobile app, if you prefer, and, from this point forward, log every film that you watch. How you rate them, how you write about or review them, that is a method you'll form for yourself over time, but the point is to have a documented list of every film you've seen, starting from when you created the account. Don't bother trying to log every film you've seen before creating the account, there's little to gain from that, but, when you watch a film that you know you've seen at any point before, simply mark that you've "watched this film before."

Now, pick a film that you've seen before and would watch again. If you watched that film with someone else, anyone else, I would recommend you ask yourself if you would watch it again by yourself. This is an attempt at forcing you to be critical for your own benefit. It can't just be a film that you "liked," or "didn't hate," or even "had a good time with." It needs to be something that you enjoyed, in some way, so fully, that you would watch it from beginning to end a second time with no prompting. This will be the first film you research. If you have many of these, that's a good thing.

On Letterboxd, every film has its own page. That page has many different categories, but under the "crew" section you will be given a list of the people who helped create the film, from directors and producers to cinematographers and choreographers. Every contributor to the project will be listed by name. If you're just starting out, I'd focus on three key elements; director(s), writer(s), and the actors that you personally enjoyed seeing on screen. You could already know some of these names, but it doesn't hurt to double-check! In the future, if you find that you are truly passionate about film and every aspect of it, look into other crew members, look into editors, cinematographers, and composers, but try to pace yourself.

There are other places to find this information, most notably IMDb and Wikipedia. IMDb has, as of 2023, gotten worse than it used to be, but there's still information that, occasionally, can only be found there, if one is only willing to learn how to navigate the site's revamped interface. You should also never be afraid to simply read the Wikipedia article for a film that you enjoy; oftentimes there is a great deal of information on a variety of topics from the general critical consensus upon release, the budget compared to how much it made, and sometimes even a summarized retelling of the film's production.

However, the reason I recommend Letterboxd for research, not just the logging system, is that it offers a visually appealing, poster-based viewing of the information and multiple options on how to sort through the works that an individual creator has worked on.

Automatically, Letterboxd sorts the works by popularity, what the creator is best known for, but also gives you options to sort by "highest average rating" or "latest release date." If you're looking for the best hits of whichever director, writer, or actor you've chosen, "popularity" and "highest average rating" will suit you well. However, if you find yourself obsessed with a particular artist, sorting by release date will give you a frame of reference to watch them grow in their field… or perhaps decay, depending on the person. There's also another fun tool, which is a little more obvious on the mobile app, but just as findable on the browser version, in the top left, under the individual's name, where you can sort through the different fields in which this person has worked on films. Most filmmakers don't stick to just one field; many directors are also writers, and many actors have tried their hand and directing. You'll never know, unless you look, but if you're really interested in a creator, a quick trip to Wikipedia can prove just as useful.

Going through the other works that the creator of a thing you already enjoyed will usually provide interesting results. Interesting is the key word, as you're not guaranteed to find something just as good as the film you found, but there's no telling what you might find. Perhaps, earlier in their career, they contributed to something so different from the thing you discovered them from, it borders on humor. Perhaps, after contributing to the film you discovered them from, they proceeded to make a film that looks so horrible you just have to see if a creator that made something you enjoyed so much could make something so bad! Perhaps, they also contributed to ANOTHER film you've seen and, suddenly, a few things about it make a little more sense! There's a million possibilities, and if you don't go down the rabbit hole, you'll never see where it goes.

Every now and then, you might be interested in a particular genre more than others. This is perfectly natural and there is still a way to research this as well! Try these quick search terms into your web browser of choice!

"best/influential GENRENAME IMDb"

"best/influential GENRENAME Letterboxd"

"best/influential GENRENAME Reddit"

If you've never used either platform before, you might not have known that Letterboxd and IMDb both allow users to curate their own personal lists, which work perfectly for just such a request! Reddit's a lot more individual-based in their recommendations, but it usually won't steer you too wrong, thanks to the upvote system and, sometimes, you'll find incredibly dedicated users who write out some really impressive guides to the genre. Browse through those and see if you find anything that catches your eyes, but, remember, either before or after, you have to do a quick browse of what the director, writer, and the actors that stood out to you have done over their careers!

However, you might realize that your particular genre of choice could feel a little small or, perhaps, the film doesn't seem to particularly fit into any individual genre. Maybe it's an amalgamation of multiple genres, or so distinct that it seems that there's little truly like it. This is where the fun really starts.

Both IMDb and Letterboxd have algorithms that recommend films at the bottom of every page. While it would be easy enough to stop here, and, trust me, the algorithm is usually good enough that you could stop here, I would ask you to push further, and read some of the user-submitted reviews on Letterboxd of that film of yours that you could rewatch at the drop of a hat. Read over some positive reviews. Find some that really speak to you, that like the same parts of the films that you do, maybe some that saw something in it that you didn't see. Then, look at their profile. If that person saw the same thing you saw in that film, then there's a good chance that they're the prime person to recommend a film to you. Read over their "reviews" or browse their "diary" and look over the things they recommend. Then, while you're at it, look at the things they don't. Most of us have our pet peeves and soft spots, our things in movies that really work and really don't. Learn a little about how they enjoy film, and you'll read their reviews in an entirely different light. Along the way, you'll gain incredibly personalized recommendations, often for films you might never have found or considered, learn a little about modern film critique, and hopefully understand how you like films a little better.

If it sounds easy, that's because it is. If it sounds hard, I promise it's easy.

These are about all the tools I can give you, but here are a few more things that I've learned from my journey with film;

Stay away from the fandom culture. Learn to love an art form, not an artist, not a franchise, not a brand.

Enjoy the films you enjoy, support the films you enjoy, discuss the films you enjoy, but don't stop once you've found a thing you like. Keep going. Keep researching. Keep watching. It doesn't benefit you to stop.

Don't forget to look into the directors, writers, and actors of films in a franchise. It's easy to forget, but a franchise with nine films could have anywhere between one and nine directors, and that's assuming that each film only had one!

Don't be afraid to dislike a film. It says nothing about those who like it, those who made it, or even the film itself. Your personal, subjective, individual take on a film should not upset anyone.

Film is a highly American-oriented art. You will have to go out of your way to find foreign films, but that should never be a chore. You can, and will, find a new favorite, if you get past "the one-inch-tall barrier of subtitles."

Film is a highly straight and a highly white field. You will have to go out of your way to find minority-made films, but that should never be a chore. You can, and will, find a new favorite, if you get past the fact you might love a film that few know of. You might just be able to help change that.

Never cut yourself off from a genre. Every genre of films has something worth liking. EVERY genre.

CERTAINLY, NEVER cut yourself off from a DECADE. Let alone DECADES. Older films may have to be appreciated differently, but you cannot allow yourself to simply not explore them at all because "they're old."

Listen to recommendations for films often, but listen to recommendations against films rarely. Positive recommendations get people to watch films for themselves, then come to their own conclusions. Negative recommendations get people to stay away from films, then parrot that information whenever asked about the film in question.

Bad people make good art. Don't support them, but experience the art anyway.

Good people make bad art. Be honest, but don't be cruel.

Occasionally, watch a "bad" film. Watch something that critics hated, watch something that the average viewer hated, watch something that your friend hated. You could surprise yourself, and realize that something that doesn't work for everyone else really works for you. If it doesn't, no biggie! Now you have a prime example of what a bad film looks like. It will only help your comparisons in the future!

Revisit films, whether you liked them or not. You are not perfect, you will never be fully objective, and, sometimes, your feelings will change. Allow yourself to.

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opanchu · 1 year

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adrien!!! pspspsp!

i just watched bad guys and they won’t leave my head. do u have any hcs to dump or thoughts on the movie? i’d love to hear them ^^

lmk

hey mistu, of course! i don't really have headcanons yet (except for autistic wolf. partly because of the "me and the bad bitch i pulled by being autistic" meme and because i relate to him) but i do have a couple of thoughts on the movie:

i really liked it, it's great! it's not in favorites section but it got a solid 3.5 out of 5 from me on letterboxd. it's not like, mid or anything, i just couldn't find myself getting as invested as other dreamworks movies like shrek or kfp

obviously the animation is AMAZING. I'm so happy to see dreamworks really experimenting with stylized models and bright colors, I think the last time they did that (before the bad guys) was in kfp 3? either way I adored the overall look and animation of the whole movie! very cartoonish and expressive, very cute, very endearing

I really loved the characters, not sure I could even pick a favorite cause the main cast were all great! (maybe diane though lol) I loved their distinct designs and unique personalities, I loved how even the smallest of habits (especially with snake) held so much personality, not to mention their mannerisms and body language. also i'm just gonna come out and say it: wolf is so gender envy

I'm gonna be honest I don't remember much of like, specific songs but the soundtrack in the movie is sooo good. i need to listen to it again honestly

the twist villain was pretty predictable to me but honestly? its not half bad. better than disney twist villains at least LOL. i actually think i kind of liked it because the whole "fake nice" persona was set up well in a way that felt, ironically, real

if there's anything that kind of threw me off it was the humor sometimes. i could kinda tell dreamworks was trying their best to write good humor again though so i'll give them credit for that. then again to me the best part of this movie is the adventure and drama so it's easy to ignore moments when I'm not a fan of the humor

soooo my final review is i really liked the movie! definitely will rewatch it sometime and if you wanna discuss it more i'm up for it 🤗

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spacesapphist · 1 year

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"we are lady parts" review [spoilers]

writing this here because 1) I like writing reviews of things because my brain is a sieve so it's the only way to actually remember details of what I thought about something 2) letterboxd, tragically, only tracks movies

binged S1 in one night! I don't bingewatch a lot but this was so engaging

disclaimer that I'm not Muslim so I was watching this from an outsider's perspective

thoughts:

the show comments on the difficulty of performing satire about one's marginalized identity (risk of being misinterpreted by your own community and by outsiders)

I feel like Saira and Amina both had well-done arcs - they clearly changed (especially Amina) over the course of the season but not in an unrealistic way.

personally, I'd love to see Saira and Amina get together but the budding romance written for Amina and Ahsan is really sweet

love Amina's parents! I loved that her Mom was already changed into her punk outfit when Amina said they needed to leave.

the conflict with Zarina was clever. It gave a chance for the show to further its theme about these characters facing both Islamophobia and misinformation from people outside the community and intracommunity conflict about what it means to be Muslim.

the bit where Zarina pressures Ayesha into talking about her sexuality in the news article was also well done

loved the bits where the show goes into a "daydream" or theatrical world (if that makes sense). like the old hollywood fantasy between Amina and Ahsan, the dating show (with a Matthew Holness cameo??), and the Creep performance.

The season ended in a good place - resolved the main conflicts but there is still a lot to explore in future seasons

such a great show, so glad I watched it!

#we are lady parts #we are lady parts spoilers #reviews #my reviews #my posts

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silenthillmutual · 2 years

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Here's a hot take ask for you 🔥: 5 films you feel are overrated (and maybe 5 underrated films you think deserve their praise instead)

overrated:

Bonnie and Clyde - i had to watch this for a film class as well and just did not understand the appeal of it? maybe it's because i was watching it in the 2010s instead of the 1970s. maybe there's some cultural context i missed that made this feel so fun and romantic to others.

Psycho - i'm not totaly bashing it because i do understand how improtant it was to the genre and all, but i don't think it's hitchcock's best work. and i feel like i have to warn people when we watch it that there's ableism and transmisogyny in it, but the last time i watched it i didn't like it as much as i did Rear Window or Rope or Strangers on a Train.

Giant - i tried watching this when i had my own James Dean Moment(TM) a while back and i just found it boring. i know people feel that way about East of Eden but i cared way more about those characters than i did about the characters in Giant. also it's like three hours long and it's so hard for me to sit through that kind of thing. i even struggle to sit through two hour movies i actually like.

Dirty Dancing - it's been a while since i've seen it so maybe i need to give it another go but i genuinely don't understand how people find it romantic? i have this problem with a lot of romance movies and could say the same about, like, Pretty Woman and You've Got Mail. i tried both of those too and just felt confused.

1900 - yes yes i watched the movie where those two characters look like artemy and daniil. yes i did. it was over three hours long and my adhd brain hated it. so much. my friend dj had to give me a whole list of warnings about it too. i do not understand how letterboxd reviewers are giving this almost four stars. i'm mostly just baffled by this film like it tried to focus on way too many things at once. and the ending, yeah, okay i agree with your politics! but do you have to say them directly to the camera like we're all fucking idiots.

there are so many more i could mention becuase i can be a real Hater when i want to be, but i'll just leave off with ONE honorable mention to Melancholia - the cinematography was nice, i guess, but people really overhyped how difficult this depiction of depression was to watch. yeah, she's depressed, but she's also a rich white girl who had plenty of opportunity to get help. and it also committed the crime of just being boring as shit and wasting all its best shots in the beginning showing you exactly what was going to happen instead of letting us get those nice shots when they actually happened chronologically.

underrated:

i'm not actually sure what counts as underrated because i... do not pay much attention to what is popular? but these are films i don't really see people in my friend circles talk about, so these are more along the lines of 'i'd love to see more people talking about this'

Mandy (2018, dir. Panos Cosmatos) - i actually heard about this on the Dead Meat podcast i think and they had it in our library and i am so glad i checked it out, it was freaking wild! i loved the whole dreamlike vibe of it and the color scheme. i am also, admittedly, a Nic Cage fan, so if you like to see him losing his shit there is one scene where he just flips out. and it's so good.

Attack the Block (2011, dir. Joe Cornish) - i recently rewatched this and found out from holla that there's gonna be a sequel and i am so pumped for that. i think the whole idea was unique because i haven't really seen 'inner city kids beat the shit out of aliens' before. (if that's a subgenre i've been missing out on i guess that's totally possible, i don't tend to watch a lot of alien invasion films).

F for Fake (1973, dir. Oroson Welles) - if you like video essays i definitely recommend checking out F for Fake. it's almost an hour and a half, it discusses the nature of forgery and art, and it's just kind of fun? it's not quite a documentary, i think the wiki page actually considers it the grandfather of video essays because it's way more in line with that kind of thing. it's neat!

Her (2013, dir. Spike Jonze) - we watched this for a women's study class in undergrad to talk about the evolution of technology and its place in feminism and i remember just being really intrigued with the way the film presented the ideas of 'what do we consider human? what do we consider relationship? what do we consider life?' (looking at it on amazon it apparently won for best original screenplay the year it came out...shrimpresting...)

Tucker & Dale vs Evil (2010, dir. Eli Craig) - for as much as i have friends who love silly horror i never see enough people talk about this one. i don't even remember who recommended it to me in the first place but as a guy from the south i do appreciate the way it makes fun of classist stereotypes about southerners in horror films!

honorable mention here to Gaslight (1944, dir. George Cukor) because for one thing, i think it is good, Charles Boyer is super creepy and absolutely reminds me of people i've known in my life and two, i think way too many people use the term gaslighting when that's not what the hell is happening and i think would benefit from watching a version of where the terms comes from.

thank u for the ask :]

#go-go-devil #harker.txt

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burchills-ramblings · 1 year

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Copying this directly from my Letterboxd review cause I wrote a fucking essay inadvertantly and I cant post it in just one place. There are no spoilers as I mostly just talk about the themes and what Kon's work means to me.

My Satoshi Kon obsession over the last week climaxes with his only series, and what a series it was. I'll have to stew on it a bit before i say it definitively, but this very well could be my favorite anime I've ever seen, and a strong contender up with Mr Robot and Sopranos for a favorite series period.

I have a troubled relationship with tv. I think most stuff these days that tries to emulate film (prestige tv so called) fails to capture the clarity of vision of a good film while maintaing the traps that hold tv back (having to structure itself around getting you to watch the next episode for one example). At times I feel like I wish tv never left its episodic phase, at least then you were guaranteed a complete story in 20-40 minutes.

The shows I mentioned before, including this one, all do something that most dramatic tv fails to do; and actually use the episodic format to divert from the core narrative and explore themes and characters in ways that a movie just really cant. You can have an entire episode that follows three characters who never show up again, you can have an episode structured like a play (Mr Robot), you can just have the characters get lost in the fucking woods for an entire episode and have it be one of the most memorable in the series (The Sopranos). Using the medium to experiment and take swings at different ideas and ways of conveying intentions to the audience, imo, is what tv needs to be if it really wants to elevate itself to something akin to or above the best films.

Paranoia Agent, as you can probably surmise from the five star rating, does just that. While the show is complete narrative with a defined beginning and end, the format is mostly episodic, typically following one or two characters, some of whom who never really play a big role in the series again. Kon has said that PA was his way of testing out ideas he had for films that he couldn't work in, and it definitley shows here.

I can see why some may be frustrated with the show taking the scenic route on a lot of things, i think its a testament to Kon's dedication to his own themes and ideas that he is able to explore them in so many different ways within a single series, and still have it all imo add up perfectly at the end. The show manages to cover themes of class and work anxiety, social exclusion, mental health struggles, personal responsiblity, escapist culture, responsibility, generational trauma, the fear and anxiety around the youth, and a littany of other themes that still manage to tie all together in a coherent way.

Kon's playfulness when it comes to the line between reality and imagination is core to this work as well. The central message of the show is explained explcitly, perhaps moreso than id like but the work still has enough elements open for interpretation that I don't think it crosses the line into beating you over the head with it.

Oh and the animation and music are great of course, I think that's a given with a Kon work tho. Having now seen all of Kon's major works I'm of course a bit let down that I'll never seen anything new from him. But if i've learned one thing from all that I've seen in the past week, the last thing Kon would want is for people to wallow in misery and wondering what could have been. Something doesn't have to be forever for it to mean something to you and better your life for having experienced it. I and countless others can say that Satoshi Kon's far too short life on this Earth is one that made an impact on us, and we're certainly better for being able to experience the art of such a thoughtful and creative person.

#paranoia agent #satoshi kon #anime review #tv review

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girlfriendsofthegalaxy · 2 years

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there's been an uptick in people asking if they can do tuesdayposts too (yes, hi hello yes, my god, please do i want to read them, the format isn't copyrighted or anything) which made me think about how i use the tuesdayposts as an excuse to go looking for weird shit and why i'm so annoyed when something is recommended to me but the rec doesn't give me a good pitch. this grew into a digression about the function of a critic and what i use reviews for. and what like axes of things i find important or what i use various sources for. so it's a separate post now bc there's not a real...point to it, mostly getting my thoughts in order. also it is very long

while i would not wish the title of "culture critic" upon my worst enemy, let's sidestep “oooh all critics/tastemakers/influencers are bullshit”. imo you’re supposed to find one whose taste aligns with yours and THEN use their reviews to find new things. if my taste aligns with yours, cool! if you're just here to see what weird shit i made or pulled out of an estate sale this week, also cool!

i think the most successful discussion of a work is "what is it/what's the pitch, what is it TRYING to do given the context of the time and people who created it, does it accomplish its goals or tell its story in a coherent fashion" and then finally what i think most people get most hung up on is "do I PERSONALLY think this work accomplished its goals or storytelling in a manner i found reasonable/understandable/liked".

i really, really, really hate the style of review that tells me nothing about the work except there's a token gay person in it. i saw zero useful reviews of OFMD before i gave up and watched the first ep myself.

here are some people who fulfill the above useful criteria, i pay attention to, and why their recs work for me: gita jackson, a culture/games critic over at vice knows the difference between a movie being Good and a movie being Fun, and is a queer person under 30 with a film degree so our needs align on several important axes. so i waited to watch the rpatz batman until they wrote an article and they said if it was fun or not.

cyberexboyfriend on instagram and i think mainly tiktok (lots of crossposts) has opinions i agree with about mcmansion architecture, and an eye for the weird late eighties through early oughts fashion and art that fell through the cracks. like the media that fuels the Extremely Online art i generally find annoying, but the source media of edited anime or fantasy movie screencaps on tshirts is generally pretty cool. this fills an important function to me bc i like going "ah! i know where that's from" when i see a hot girl in joanns wearing a shirt from vapor95.

i follow exactly four people on letterboxd and they are the aforementioned critics plus two mutuals bc i already know their general media tastes align with mine. wendy @dying-suffering-french-stalkers is very very good at finding things that have a certain quality of emotion to them. not full horror, not full tragedy, and not full melancholia either, but a catharsis or a putting an era to bed gently and turning the lights out when you're done. honey @birdcfparadise is willing to sit through a lotta goddamn nonsense in order to report back about the good ones and we both have a finely honed taste in the dilfs of the silver screen. where the fuck else am i going to get vital intelligence like this

furthermore these two are the only people i trust about Classic Movie (tm) Opinions. like, they will tell me if a movie that is very much a Product of its Era (tm) is worth sitting through the things that make it very much a Product of its Era (tm). i haunt the letterboxd activity page to see what they've added to their watchlists

i pay more attention to @morrak's book recs and shove them to the front of my list bc we have the same not-quite-engineer-but-enough-to-be-dangerous kind of brain and literally all of his recs have hit, including the ones where i'm like "ough this is very good but i need to come back to it later". i pay more attention to whatever the fuck @believerindaydreams is up to be we both like the same sort of heavily allusive, love letter to pulp kinds of stories.

my point is not "everyone needs to make more friends and if you don't have a richly layered online friend group of nearly a decade in some cases funneling art to you through the medium of tumblr then you're toast" but like. along with critics, friends' recs and things i found while trying to find friends' recs are a huge driver of the tuesdayposts. people fundamentally want to share the cool new shit they've found. that's why we're all here, blogging

#tuesdaypost meta

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