Movies I Watched September 2023

Love Hotel - dir. Shinji Sōmai

Pink Drama

Love Hotel features some of the most spellbinding cinematography I’ve ever seen in cinema. The colors pop in a way that enhances the erotic, desperate nature of its story, with contrasting hues of bright pink and dull grey. Equally brilliant is the framing, where characters are placed at strange angles within a shot. Especially that last shot, man. Whoah.

It’s more than just pretty imagery, though. It’s grief, isolation, desperation, all centered around two lost souls in Tokyo. 8/10.

The 400 Blows - dir. François Truffaut

Coming-of-Age/Drama

Started my Truffaut filmography dive, and wow, what a start. I watched Jules and Jim a couple months back and liked it in spite of some of its pacing issues, and I sort of feel the same way about this film, though I think this film’s strong emotional core more than makes up for how slow it can be at times.

At a certain point, I realized that that was the intention. The film is more documentary than narrative, portraying unsentimentally the joys and sorrows of a French kid who just can’t seem to figure it out. Antoine is inherently relatable as a character. We’ve all been there, I think, unable to get our grades together, watching as our home life falls apart, searching for freedom yet being disappointed with what we find. It’s the universal pre-teen experience.

Another mind-bending thing about Truffaut’s films (the two I’ve seen at least lol) is how ahead of their time they feel. The cinematography literally just feels like a more modern film with a black and white filter. The script is as coming-of-age as it gets, which caught me off-guard at first because I’m not used to old movies feeling that way? Take that with a grain of salt because my film knowledge is relatively limited, but when I got about halfway through the film and realized “hold on there’s no plot??” it took me by surprise. This IS a slice-of-life story. It’s a tragic slice, but that’s what it is.

Earlier I mentioned the film’s lack of sentimentality, which is another thing I’ve noticed about the (two) Truffaut films I’ve seen. They’re both incredibly sad, but they’re presented so loosely and lightly that the despondence washes over you. It doesn’t puncture your soul until after it’s over. At least not for me.

Really excited to get into the rest of Truffaut’s filmography. 8/10.

Shoot the Piano Player - dir. François Truffaut

Crime/Drama

This is a really dry movie. And I don’t mean that derogatorily, I mean that it doesn’t ever try to force an emotion out of its viewer. Truffaut will let a tragedy play out without any fanfare, and it’s honestly kind of refreshing to see. His movies allow the audience to come to their own emotional conclusions, without ham-fisted moral lessons.

Shoot the Piano Player functions as a character study (about gender dynamics), but it disguises itself as a crime movie. I mean, sure, on the surface it’s got these crime themes and noir-esque imagery, but really, it’s a film that’s a lot more concerned with the complicated emotional relationships between men and women. Charlie’s relationships with women define his life and his story, his internal monologue serving as our window into his psyche.

It’s not as fun a movie as Jules and Jim, and it’s not nearly as emotionally compelling as 400 Blows, but it’s a good movie. 7/10.

Bottoms - dir. Emma Seligman

Teen Comedy

It’s a funny movie, but it plays it pretty safe, and doesn’t leave much of an impact. Wish it was more violent, more subversive, more surreal, more intense, more absurd, more everything. 6/10.

The Soft Skin - dir. François Truffaut

Romance/Drama

Soft Skin is like Uncut Gems for unfaithful husbands. Actually, maybe Uncut Gems already IS that. Whatever. I digress. The point I’m trying to make here is that Soft Skin has palpable tension throughout damn near its entire runtime. Tension and eroticism, romance and malaise. Truffaut balances the two of them effortlessly. The ending completely caught me off-guard in the best way possible. 9/10.

Fahrenheit 451 - dir. François Truffaut

Sci-Fi/Dystopia

Just really dry, didn’t do much for me. The first Truffaut movie I’ve seen where it feels like nobody was enjoying being on set (they weren’t). 4/10.

The Bride Wore Black - dir. François Truffaut

Revenge Thriller

Though this film is in theory a revenge thriller, it honestly feels more comedic than thrilling. Watching these oafish, scummy guys get screwed over by Jeanne Moreau’s Kohler (an intriguing performance) is satisfying, and very funny. And the plot doesn’t go where you expect near the end. You’ll see. Trust me. 7/10.

Pacific Rim - dir. Guillermo del Toro

Action/Sci-Fi

Leans into its own cheese so hard that it becomes a blast to watch. Every performance here is middling except for Idris Elba’s, but I’m not here for Oscar-winning performances, I’m here to watch CGI robots fight CGI kaijus that are coming from CGI trans-dimensional portals and wreaking havoc on CGI cities. And I got that. So I’m chill. 7/10.

Stolen Kisses - dir. François Truffaut

Screwball Comedy

Jean-Pierre Léaud might actually be one of my favorite actors of all time. The 400 Blows was NOT a fluke–this man can really play cunty! There were so many moments in the film where I was legit just laughing my ass off because of his performance alone. It’s comforting to know that even back in the 60’s, guys in their twenties were being complete fucking idiots too. I’m glad to know it’s not just a me thing, or a Gen Z thing. Stolen Kisses is a life-affirming experience as a lost and confused moron. Could not recommend it more. 8/10.

No More Bets - dir. Ao Shen

Crime/Thriller

Very disjointed and one dimensional. 3/10.

Retribution - dir. Nimród Antal

Action/Thriller

These kids cannot act. 2/10.

Jurassic Park - dir. Steven Spielberg

Action/Sci-Fi

I have nothing too interesting to say about this besides the fact that Jeff Goldblum is the man I want to be. 7/10.

Mississippi Mermaid - dir. François Truffaut

Romantic Drama

Very weirdly dull for a Truffaut movie. I just felt nothing for the characters and the plot moved at such an unnecessarily tedious pace. 3/10.

The Wild Child - dir. François Truffaut

Drama

Truffaut’s compassion for the outcasts of the world knows no bounds. Victor is about as much of an outsider as can be–he’s plucked straight from the wilderness into society and learns to be ‘civilized’ at age twelve. In a lot of ways, the film lets the viewer into Victor’s mind. I could at least identify why a kid raised in the woods would find everything so strange, opaque, and alien. Seeing Victor grow alongside his mentor was strangely gripping and heartwarming to watch. 9/10.

Bed and Board - dir. François Truffaut

Comedy/Drama

It’s tough reviewing this movie, because on one hand, I really relate to the character of Antoine Doinel. In 400 Blows he fucks up childhood, in Stolen Kisses he fucks up young adulthood, and in Bed and Board he fucks up what seems like a perfectly good marriage. For obvious reasons, I see myself in him, and that made the scenes between Antoine and Christine feel a lot more emotionally resonant than they otherwise would. However, there’s a weird undercurrent of anti-Asian racism throughout the film that leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I don’t think it ruins the movie, but it feels unnecessary and lazy. 7/10.

Two English Girls - dir. François Truffaut

Period Romance

Melodrama doesn’t do much for me. I get why it’s here, it makes sense given the characters and the time period this film is set in, but it doesn’t make it any less eye-roll-worthy. Jean Pierre Leaud is great as always, but even he buckles under the weight of such a monumentally tedious affair. I will say that Truffaut is one of the best directors I’ve seen at presenting eroticism and love, but that’s where my positives end. 5/10.

A Gorgeous Girl Like Me - dir. François Truffaut

Screwball Comedy

Funny enough, I feel like this film manages to predict the true crime zeitgeist with startling accuracy. The commodification of the justice system, the whole media machine that surrounds it and the way we’re desperate as a culture to both demonize and deify criminals (represented in the characters of Helene and Previne respectively). I appreciate this film on an intellectual level more so than on an emotional level–while it gave me a lot to think about and was pretty funny, it just felt unusually mean-spirited for a Truffaut movie. Everyone just sucks here. While I don’t mind a cynical movie, in the case of the story this film wants to tell, emotional nuance would’ve helped make this a more transcendent watch. 6/10.

The Nightingale - dir. Jennifer Kent

Period Piece/Psychological Drama

Left me pretty unsatisfied by the end. There’s some great performances here for sure, but the plot is stretched beyond all reasoning, and the characters make some bafflingly stupid decisions that only serve to pad out the runtime. At a certain point, the movie’s brutality wears thin too. You can only show me people being complete scum until it loses its shock value. There are also some truly pointless subplots that could easily be trimmed. All in all, a very weak script carried by stellar performances, namely by Aisling Franciosi and Sam Claflin. 5/10.

Little Miss Sunshine - dir. Jonathan Dayton, Valerie Faris

Tragicomedy/Road Trip

Life really fucking sucks sometimes. It just does, there’s no way around it. Sometimes, your crush rejects you and fucks your worst enemy, and you decide to kill yourself. Sometimes, the book deal that you’ve been working your ass off towards falls through. Sometimes, you’re left watching your entire family fall apart, your son devastated by his crushed aspirations of pilothood and your daughter try in vain to compete with the well-trained pageant girls, doing her best but just not being enough. Sometimes, you can work tirelessly, you can put your heart and soul into something, you can want it more than anybody else, but it isn’t enough.

American cinema is afraid of this truth. It’s terrified of the idea that those who succeed aren’t the most deserving, that the world we live in ISN’T meritocratic. Little Miss Sunshine stares this truth in the eye, and it doesn’t blink. It doesn’t even flinch, or frown. It actually smiles. It looks cold hard reality in its gaping jaws and laughs.

This is a family that suffers. That knows dysfunction intimately. Each of them experience their own suffering. Grandpa does heroin, Dwayne and Richard drown out their suffering with work, Frank turns to suicide, and Sheryl tries desperately to hold them all together. But Olive is different. Olive just wants to dance. Olive just wants to do her best. Olive just cares. This is a family that suffers. Dwayne breaks down screaming and crying on the side of an anonymous California road, his dream ripped from his grasp by a cruel twist of fate. It’s not his fault he’s colorblind. It’s not his fault that he spent the last year of his life devoted to a goal that now sits impossibly out of his reach. And what else is he supposed to do but sob?

That’s where Olive comes in. Olive, who doesn’t offer any advice, any solution, any words. She just leans her head on Dwayne’s shoulder. Life fucking sucks sometimes. But she cares about him, and he cares about her, and that’s enough. He gets up, they continue their journey.

“I don’t wanna be a loser,” teary-eyed Olive says to her grandpa, her delightful, heroin-snorting guardian angel. Abigail Breslin’s voice quivers and cracks. She’s so young, and she’s so afraid.

Edwin Hoover responds, “A loser is someone who is so afraid of not winning, they don’t even try.”

I can’t tell you how often I think about this.

Life fucking sucks sometimes. But as long as you’re trying, you’re not a loser. 10/10.

Catch Me If You Can - dir. Steven Spielberg

Biographical Drama

A bromance in the form of a cat and mouse game. I thought it was a pleasant watch. The emotional beats didn’t really hit me, but it was a solid time. 6/10.

Hot Fuzz - dir. Edgar Wright

Action/Comedy

I can see why people love Hot Fuzz. It’s absurd, action-packed, it doesn’t take itself too seriously, it parodies the police genre, it’s directed by Edgar Wright, etc. And yeah, I liked it, but I didn’t LOVE it. Pretty much just a case of a movie not clicking with me. My reasoning would probably come down to the unnecessarily bloated runtime. The first 30 minutes of the movie feel like filler. Just a lot of needless exposition before we get to the real meat and potatoes of the story. The comedy was also pretty British. And frankly, British humor isn’t my thing. Hot Rod > Hot Fuzz. 7/10.

Run Lola Run - dir. Tom Tykwer

Experimental Thriller

As soon as I started watching this movie, I knew it was something my dad would love. And sure enough, when I asked him if he was familiar with Run Lola Run, he was like “yeah love that shit”. Which makes sense. It’s a weird experimental thriller with TECHNO music being its bread and butter. And fun fact about my dad, he fuckin LOVES techno. As for my thoughts on the movie, I enjoyed it. I like how it tackles destiny, but more importantly I just like the kinetic energy the film has. Despite its weirdness, it never feels opaque or too good for itself. Run Lola Run is just a blast. 8/10.

Day for Night - dir. François Truffaut

Comedy

Reminds me a lot of Living in Oblivion, with the difference being in how warm and approachable it is. Drama on set doesn’t stop these people from working together and forming a found family, which is something that one of the characters harps upon at one point. This idea that the movie set is a sacred place where love is formed only to be abandoned right when it’s at its zenith. Truffaut was a passionate lover of cinema, and this film is one of his most obvious tributes to the craft. If you want to make movies, I think this is a must-watch. 8/10.

The Meyerowitz Stories - dir. Noah Baumbach

Comedy/Drama

None of them listen to each other. They grew up with a dad who couldn’t be bothered to differentiate between them (misnaming a sculpture), who was so wrapped up in his own ego that most of his devotion toward his kids consisted of little else but pontificating and conversations more hollow than an empty fishbowl.

Meyerowitz is my first taste of Noah Baumbach’s filmography, and if the writing here is anything to go by, I can already tell I’m gonna be a huge fan. This is some of the best dialogue I’ve heard in recent memory, the only exception being Eliza’s. No idea what Baumbach was thinking there. She’s the weakest part of the movie by far, but I don’t wanna linger on the stuff I disliked, because there’s a lot I loved.

I mean, for one, Randy Newman’s piano score is terrific. Just magical stuff. It ducks and weaves through these awkward, empty conversations like a boxer trying to avoid the wild swings of the participants as they grapple their way through the family drama that’s been steeped into their sad, father-influenced dynamic. It’s really riveting to watch.

Ben Stiller and Adam Sandler deliver potentially their best performances I’ve ever seen? Question mark because I don’t like making those kinds of statements, but that’s how I feel after watching this film. Lest I forget Elizabeth Marvel and Dustin Hoffman, here’s their props, because they fucking own it too. This film is like Succession but a lot less depressing and a little bit more optimistic. Dazzling stuff. 8/10.

The Story of Adèle H. - dir. François Truffaut

Historical Drama

Just could not get into this film. The premise is something that intrigues me, but for some reason the execution just felt weirdly stiff. Where Truffaut’s OTHER period drama Two English Women drenches itself in sensuality, this film feels more dry and lifeless than anything. 4/10.

Small Change - dir. François Truffaut

Coming-of-Age

Movies about childhood have a peculiar vicegrip on my emotional investment. And I think Truffaut felt the same way, which is why some of his best movies are about children, specifically outcasts. The 400 Blows and The Wild Child are films that deal with protagonists who cannot seem to ingratiate themselves into society, for one reason or another. One of Small Change’s (many) protagonists, Julien Leclou, suffers in much the same way.

Leclou is born into poverty and abuse. You can tell, and I’m sure the other kids can too, that he’s just different from the rest. He wears the same clothes every day, and wears a new bruise on his face to go along with it. He wanders from person to person, never finding any true connection. He sleeps in class. His hobbies include sneaking into theatres, bartering shit at the pawn shop, and scrounging pittance off the floor.

I found a real deep sense of kinship with Leclou. Not because I grew up in poverty or with abusive parents, but because I too struggled with forging bonds. And I also looked pretty much identical to him as a kid. I know that’s a shallow connection to make, but I did. That scene with him at the fair? Jesus fucking christ. What a scene. What cinematography, what heartbreak!

This whole film is full of these little sad moments, but Leclou’s moments without a doubt punctured my heart the deepest. My only gripe with the movie is just how much the kid gets sidelined. Hell, even by the end, his story isn’t resolved on his terms, it’s resolved with a pretty cheesy monologue and a bunch of adults. So this film–and Leclou’s story–isn’t perfect, but… it is still very, very good. 8/10.

The Souvenir - dir. Joanna Hogg

Drama

Glad I gave this one a second chance to really grow on me. I see that some of the critique of the film is directed at the core relationship, but to me, they make sense. I can see why she’s attracted to him, in spite of his many, many, MANY faults. When she’s asked if she’s a user, she laughs it off, awkwardly. But in some ways, she is, only her drug of choice is Anthony. The highs are high but the lows are cripplingly low. Which… perfectly describes how I felt about this movie. I stand by thinking of the pace as ‘glacial’ (unnecessarily so) but there is profundity to be gleaned from the film, regardless. 6/10.

The Souvenir: Part II - dir. Joanna Hogg

Drama

A film by a filmmaker about a filmmaker, who is a representation of her younger self, making a film about a representation of a toxic relationship she was in. Still feel like the whole thing is just too slow for me. Had trouble connecting with it, but I really did like the themes it was getting at. People around her don’t understand her vision because of how personal it is. Feels like a meta-commentary on how people didn’t like the original Souvenir because they didn’t get how she could love such a shithead. The duology works very well together. But it’s painfully slow. 6/10.

The Sound of Music - dir. Robert Wise

Musical/War

If we sent this to aliens as an example of ‘music’, I wouldn’t blame them for genociding our entire species. 1/10.

The Man Who Loved Women - dir. François Truffaut

Comedy/Drama

Lot of reviews calling this film misogynistic. Honestly, I’m not seeing it? While the character of Bertrand has misogynistic qualities to have I feel as if the film is well-aware of this fact. This film reminds me of Five Easy Pieces in that it’s an honest portrayal of a man who has a weird relationship with women (stemming from a troubling relationship with his mother). While you may not like what’s being portrayed, the fact that it’s being portrayed is not in of itself an objectification of women. Sure, a lot of the narrative revolves around this main guy objectifying women, trying to fit them into his life like puzzle pieces, but that’s the point, and that’s why he dies alone. He’s trying to make up for his mother’s neglect by shoehorning sex and faux-romance into his life, but it’s never enough, and it never WILL be enough. 7/10.

The Green Room - dir. François Truffaut

Drama

I get what Truffaut is going for, and it’s a bold thematic departure, especially this late in his career. For the first time, Truffaut really meditates on death. Not just death but the survivor’s guilt surrounding it. And yeah, thematically it IS interesting, but sadly, the main character is just too one-note for me to be compelled. The dialogue and performances here are also stiffer than normal. Truffaut does tend to direct his actors this way, but here it feels suffocatingly boring. 6/10.

Love on the Run - dir. François Truffaut

Comedy

Twenty years. Four features. One short. The Antoine Doinel saga is without a doubt Truffaut’s magnum opus, and the love he poured into the character is palpable with this entry. I get why one would be bothered by the usage of flashbacks, but it honestly didn’t bother me, because that’s what this movie is–a piece of closure on a story of a boy who just couldn’t stop running. Until he finally did.

It was only once this movie ended that I realized just how sentimentally attached I’d become to its central character. I’ve watched Doinel fuck up, fall in love, fuck up again, fail to hold down a job for more than an act break, and fall in love. Doinel has never been able to conform or stay still and content. And for three movies (I never watched the Antoine & Colette short), I’ve seen his character bounce all over the place, never quite examined as much as observed.

Truffaut crafted the youngest iteration of Doinel after himself and his own turbulent childhood. But the older Doinel got, the more of a life he took on of his own, courtesy of an incredible multi-decade performance by Jean Pierre Leaud. Easily one of my favorite actors of all time. Doinel went from being a representation of Truffaut to becoming an artist himself. He ran from job to job, place to place, woman to woman, but it is in this film that Doinel finally finds some sense of closure.

Back in The 400 Blows, Doinel witnessed his mother cheating on his father. This was never addressed, until now, when he has a long, revelatory conversation with the man he saw his mom with. Doinel is now finally able to get closure on his strained relationship to his parents. As the man notes–he sees Gilberte (Doinel’s mom) in Doinel.

Doinel is also confronted by truth in the form of Colette, who lays into him bare and raw, telling him off for his self-centered nature. And it is Sabine, a girl we haven’t even met before this film, who finally settles him down, and whips him into shape. At least, I’d like to think she does. I desperately want to believe that this movie represents some form of peaceful finality for our lovable fuckup. But as with all things Doinel, it’s ambiguous at best. Sabine and Doinel are cute as fuck together, though, so I wish them the best.

Watching Truffaut’s filmography has been a ride. Three movies left. What a joy it’s been. 9/10.

The Last Metro - dir. François Truffaut

Period Piece

Eagle-eyed readers of my reviews will recall my Inglourious Basterds review, where I talked about how refreshing it was to see a story about the Jewish struggle without casting Jewish characters as nebbish victims. You might’ve been wondering–what the hell is he talking about? Is that a thing that happens?

Yeah. Exhibit A right here.

The most compelling character here is EASILY Lucas, and yet he gets barely any screentime. When he does, he’s just reduced to the done-to-death Jewish trope of the neurotic, unpleasant spouse. It’s really fucking disappointing. Movies like this make me understand why representation matters, because 99% of the media I saw growing up that featured prominent Jewish characters portrayed them like this.

I know everyone’s losing their minds about Catherine Deneuve, and sure, while she’s good here, I can’t help but feel cheated by this movie in the way that it teased a Jewish-centered narrative and wound up being pastiche threesome-core period piece Truffaut. Like, yeah, she’s fine, but the only time I ever cared about what was happening was when Lucas was on screen. Why can’t Jewish people be heroes? Seriously, why the fuck not?

The moral of the story is go watch Inglourious Basterds instead. 4/10.

The Woman Next Door - dir. François Truffaut

Romantic Drama

If you asked an AI to generate a run-of-the-mill François Truffaut movie, this is probably what it would come up with. The two lead actors are stiff, the script is middling, the plot is cliché after cliché, and any intrigue I had was all but gone by the time the second act ended. Oh, and also the cinematography is just plain dull. Very disappointing that Truffaut’s penultimate film is a dud, but this of course does not tarnish my view of him. It’s just not a very good Truffaut movie, that’s all. 2/10.

Everything Is Illuminated - dir. Liev Schreiber

Comedy/Drama/Road

Had no idea that one of my favorite books of all time had been adapted into a movie. My hopes were high going into this, because… look at that poster. Look at Elijah Wood. It’s got indie charm written all over it. Unfortunately, this was a pretty severe letdown. It’s one of those things you’ll only understand if you read the book, but the reason I never thought anybody could adapt it was because the book is extremely weird and just not very plot-heavy. Most of the beauty gleaned from the novel is in the way it flows and feels. It’s sort of like poetry–you’re not supposed to attack it rationally, you’re supposed to FEEL it first and foremost.

And, well, this movie just doesn’t make me feel very much. The shots are repetitive, the music is solid but overdone, and it just doesn’t have that viscerally surreal weirdness that the book has. Nor would I realistically expect it to–after all, I said that the book was pretty much unadaptable, and I stand by that. I can’t even blame Liev Schreiber for fudging it. Beyond making a totally un-mainstream avant-garde experimental film, there’s no way to even approach the beauty of the book. This is a pale effort, and while I do respect the effort, I didn’t enjoy the film. 4/10.

Prey - dir. Dan Trachtenberg

Sci-Fi/Action

While the acting from the lead is meh and a few of the story beats felt contrived/cliche, I enjoyed this. Some of the best action sequences I’ve seen in a while and gore that goes very hard. The real villain was colonialism. 5/10.

Confidentially Yours - dir. François Truffaut

Noir

Wasn’t vibing with this one at all. Starting to suspect that the noir genre simply isn’t for me.

New Rose Hotel - dir. Abel Ferrara

Erotic Neo-Noir

Very bleak, very horny. I think this is gonna be one of those films that takes me a while to think about, but my first impressions are that thematically it’s all about insecurity. The whole movie has this real… hazy dialogue. I mean the vibes are hazy all around but the dialogue in particular is hard to parse sometimes. Well-written, but esoteric. There’s this one scene that stands out as exceptionally blunt and to-the-point, and that’s when X confronts Sandii after she does her job. You can really feel both of their insecurities, and their inability to break past them to reach the truth. 8/10.

Ginger Snaps - dir. John Fawcett

Teen Horror

Crazy just how much this film took me by surprise. I don’t think I have anything new or revolutionary to say about Ginger Snaps, but I do wanna say that this sinks its teeth (no pun intended) into the whole idea of puberty really effectively. Just feels like a very brilliant take on growing up, and goes to way darker places than I expected. Also an easy film to recommend. It’s got the gore, the themes, the camp, the action, and some dank-ass setpieces to boot. 9/10.

Obvious Child - dir. Gillian Robespierre

Just a very sweet movie. One of my favorite subgenres is the coming-of-age film about being in your twenties. James White, Obvious Child, just a great genre all around. Jenny Slate is really likable here, and Jake Lacy works great as this straight-edged antithesis to her. 7/10.

The Conjuring - dir. James Wan

Starts off pretty goofy but actually ends up SORTA scary? The fact that this is based on a true story is hilarious though, like I’m sorry but yeah no fucking way man. Not a bad schlocky horror movie, but definitely not great either. 3/10.

Dumb Money - dir. Craig Gillespie

Not a very subtle film at all, and that’s for the better, I would say. Dumb Money is more of an incendiary piece, more of a call to action, more of a reflection on the pandemic and the plight of the working and middle class in that timeframe. It’s a movie that I can imagine future kids looking back on in history class as a political piece of the ’20s. I can see why someone would find this movie corny, but I found it to be pretty fucking exhilarating. 8/10.

Funeral Parade of Roses - dir. Toshio Matsumoto

I really tried to immerse myself into this. I am a straight cis guy, so I am 100% not the target demographic of this film, but I don’t think that disqualifies me from having an opinion on it. And my opinion is–this isn’t for me. It’s art cinema. It’s image, it’s form, it’s more of a collage than a story, and sadly, the collage just didn’t click with me. That’s not to say it’s bad or shoddy or anything like that, it just didn’t make me feel much. 4/10.

Paddington 2 - dir. Paul King

Gives me the same feelings that watching Ted Lasso does. I watched Paddington as a kid with my family and we all liked it, and for some reason as a cynical adult I thought I wouldn’t enjoy Paddington 2? Yeah fucking right. This movie is so fucking cute, man. I do have a couple of minor gripes but I’d be lying if I said this movie didn’t put a huge smile on my face. 8/10.

Playground - dir. Laura Wandel

I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to explain why my childhood was so hard. I can try to conjure up the words but it never feels adequate. Playground communicates how I felt in a visual language, but even then, I’m at a loss for words with describing WHY exactly this movie registers for me on so many levels. I suspect it might be a result of just how much it’s able to thematically chew on in such a short runtime. Masculinity, social norms, systems of oppression, there’s just so much that the film is able to communicate through its very barebones premise.

Playgrounds become a medium through which Laura Wandel can showcase the brutality of human nature. And no, that isn’t hyperbole, that’s the reality of what the playground represents in this film. It’s in this playground where boys test and experiment with their physicality, where girls learn the do’s and don’ts of patriarchy, and where your latent principles are first formed and tested. This is exemplified perfectly by the scene where Nora tells the teacher that helping just makes things worse. The teacher does a pretty piss-poor job of reaching through to Nora, though she does try her best. I get the sense that regardless, the lesson that Nora will probably (and sadly) carry for the rest of her life is that HELPING causes HARM.

But, I mean, maybe there’s hope. The ending is left very ambiguous. The hug brother and sister share in the beginning is sort of turned on its head by the end, put into a new context. Does Nora view benevolence and kindness as weakness, or is she able to help Abel in the end? It’s not clear, and it shouldn’t be; kids grapple with this stuff on a day-to-day basis. That’s why Nora and Abel can fight and hate each other one day but hug it out the next. Kids can be cruel, but they’re fickle at their core.

Speaking of which, I think I’ve got a real soft spot for movies that are able to delve into the psychology of children with precision and care. Playground 100% falls into this category. The camera LITERALLY moves with Nora, following her through everything, never letting her out of focus. We are with Nora every second of the film, and the result is that, thanks to Maya Vanderbeque’s phenomenal performance, we pretty much always know exactly how she feels, even if it’s shown rather than told or exposited. We can see Nora wrestle with every dilemma in a way only a child would. We can see her struggle with how to explain the pain of exclusion to the adults. She hasn’t wrapped her mind around that kind of stuff yet. She might feel hurt but she can’t rationalize it and break it down yet. In that sense, being a kid can be hell because you have no way of outsmarting your suffering. Everything feels much more meaningful and intense than it really is.

Going back to the first paragraph, the scene I particularly identified with was the aforementioned exclusion scene. A similar thing happened to me as a kid when one of my friends told me there wasn’t enough space in his birthday party for me. Looking back on it, that might be one of the biggest reasons why I am the way that I am today. Reflecting further, I can’t help but understand now with the gift of hindsight that I was a socially inept neurodivergent kid. And of course, when you’re a kid, getting excluded from a birthday party is traumatizing. It literally changed my behavior, permanently. I became more observant of social norms, I practiced being funny, I practiced putting up my walls, wearing masks, until I became the man that I am today, and… isn’t that just a little bit tragic? Not to turn myself into a martyr, but just broadly, isn’t it SAD that boys and girls get their weirdness and sensitivity beaten out of them? Isn’t living in a carceral patriarchal society just fucking awful, man? For EVERYONE?

But again, maybe there’s hope.