All of Us Strangers explores grief with such quiet tenderness that it lingers, sneaking up on you long after the credits roll. More than once, I just wanted to pause the movie, wake my sleeping son, and hold him forever. Time is never enough, not in this life or any other.
And yet, we go on. I still can’t quite understand how people live with such immense pain and longing, how they carry it. I dread the day I’ll have to. I’m not sure if the idea of revisiting people and memories after death is comforting or terrifying, but I’m glad to see I’m not the only one haunted by it.
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The only things I knew going into this movie were that it was competing as a comedy/musical at the Golden Globes and that my (Eastern European!!!) mother said there was too much yelling.
Sadly, there were no musical numbers (missed opportunity), but I did laugh—especially at the fact that my mom called this loud when every time I’m on the phone with her, people ask why we’re “fighting” (we’re not). Also, the movie reached peak Eastern European-ness when one of the characters said “You’ll get a nasty cold if you don’t cover your neck.”
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Watched on Thursday January 2, 2025.
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Watched on Thursday January 2, 2025.
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Watched on Monday December 30, 2024.
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Watched on Sunday December 29, 2024.
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Watched on Saturday December 21, 2024.
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Watched on Tuesday December 17, 2024.
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Watched on Monday December 16, 2024.
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Watched on Tuesday December 10, 2024.
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Watched on Saturday December 7, 2024.
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Watched on Saturday December 7, 2024.
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Watched on Saturday December 7, 2024.
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Watched on Sunday December 1, 2024.
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Watched on Friday November 29, 2024.
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Watched on Sunday November 24, 2024.
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Watched on Sunday November 24, 2024.
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Watched on Wednesday November 20, 2024.
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Watched on Sunday November 17, 2024.
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Watched on Friday November 15, 2024.
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Watched on Sunday November 10, 2024.
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Watched on Saturday November 9, 2024.
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Watched on Saturday November 2, 2024.
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Watched on Monday October 14, 2024.
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Watched on Friday September 20, 2024.
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Watched on Sunday September 15, 2024.
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Watched on Sunday September 1, 2024.
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Watched on Sunday August 25, 2024.
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Watched on Friday August 23, 2024.
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Watched on Friday August 16, 2024.
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Watched on Sunday August 11, 2024.
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Watched on Tuesday August 6, 2024.
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Watched on Sunday July 28, 2024.
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Watched on Saturday July 27, 2024.
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Watched on Friday June 14, 2024.
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Watched on Sunday June 9, 2024.
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Watched on Saturday June 8, 2024.
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Watched on Sunday June 9, 2024.
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Watched on Friday June 7, 2024.
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Watched on Saturday June 1, 2024.
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Watched on Monday May 20, 2024.
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Watched on Friday May 3, 2024.
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Watched on Friday April 26, 2024.
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Watched on Monday April 8, 2024.
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Watched on Tuesday April 2, 2024.
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Watched on Sunday March 31, 2024.
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Watched on Friday March 29, 2024.
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Watched on Sunday March 24, 2024.
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Watched on Saturday March 23, 2024.
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Watched on Monday March 18, 2024.
]]>Julian and I decided we needed a little extra motivation to get back into watching movies this year. We put together a list of miscellaneous categories and every week we will draw one at random and choose a movie we haven’t seen before.
1. Murder mystery
2. Period piece
3. Horror
4. A movie that won Best Supporting Actor
5. Written and directed by a woman
6. Animated
7. 80s
8. Quebecois
9. Early 2000s comedy
10. Around 90 minutes
11. Criterion
- Who Framed Roger Rabbit
- Dangerous Liaisons
- Carrie
- The Fugitive
- Waitress
- Encanto
- Heathers
- I Killed My Mother
- Shallow Hal
- Shiva Baby
...plus 1 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.
]]>In 2016-2017, I watched every single Best Picture winner and wrote down some informal thoughts on a personal blog. For those of you who are curious, my "reviews" can be found here: thebestpictureadventure.wordpress.com/
(Please note that I stopped after Moonlight - The Shape of Water and Green Book are coming... eventually)
So I made an attempt to rank these. Please keep in mind that this list is very much influenced by my personal preferences, biases and experiences. I am in no way saying that it should be interpreted objectively. I would also LOVE to hear from you, whether you agree with my ranking or not. I genuinely enjoy hearing different opinions and I'm always open :)
Finally, please note that I might revisit this list once in a while to change a few things around. I can't help it.
- The Sound of Music
- The Godfather
- All About Eve
- Gone with the Wind
- Midnight Cowboy
- The Godfather Part II
- Titanic
- The Silence of the Lambs
- Schindler's List
- Chicago
...plus 81 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.
]]>My best film for each letter of the alphabet.
A,G,L,M,S offered the best selections and I wish I could have picked more than one.
Had some trouble with F,J,V,Y.
Had A LOT of trouble with U,Q,X,Z.
Moral of the story? Let's re-write the alphabet and remove a few letters to duplicate others.
- All About Eve
- Blue Valentine
- Chicago
- The Devil Wears Prada
- Erin Brockovich
- The Full Monty
- The Godfather
- The Holiday
- Inglourious Basterds
- Juno
...plus 16 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.
]]>This ranking is strongly influenced by my personal emotions and experiences. I am not necessarily suggesting that any of these movies are objectively better than others.
]]>2017 was a pretty fun year. To be honest, I can’t pinpoint one movie that stood out by far; there were many amazing ones for different reasons. Here’s an attempt at a ranking.
Note: This list used to be my “2017 So Far”- I think I finally watched all my major 2017 movies, or at least enough to narrow it down to my top 10.
I worked pretty hard on this and yet I'm still fairly certain I forgot a bunch. Also, I have quite a big gap between 1962-1990. I'll try to add more eventually.
WARNING: I quote the monologues in the notes and if you haven't seen the films, some of them might contain spoilers.
- La La Land
Mia (Emma Stone):
“Because I’ve been to a million auditions and same thing happens every time. Where I get interrupted because someone wants to get a sandwich. Or, I’m crying and they start laughing. Or, there’s people sitting in the waiting room, and they’re, and they’re like me but prettier and better at the…because maybe I’m not good enough. No, maybe I’m not. Maybe I’m one of those people that has always wanted to do it, but it’s like a pipe dream for me. You know, and then you, you said it. You change your dreams and then you grow up. Maybe I’m one of those people and I’m not supposed to. And I can go back to school and I can find something else that I’m supposed to do. ‘Cause i left to do that. And it's been six years and I dont want to do it anymore.”
+ Mia's "Audition (Fools Who Dream)" performance, not necessarily for the words, but for Emma Stone's raw emotion.
- Gone Girl
Amy (Rosamund Pike):
"Nick loved a girl I was pretending to be. "Cool girl". Men always use that, don't they? As their defining compliment: "She's a cool girl". Cool girl is hot. Cool girl is game. Cool girl is fun. Cool girl never gets angry at her man. She only smiles in a chagrined, loving manner. And then presents her mouth for fucking. She likes what he likes, so evidently he's a vinyl hipster who loves fetish Manga. If he likes girls gone wild, she's a mall babe who talks for football and endures buffalo wings at Hooters. When I met Nick Dunne I knew he wanted "Cool girl". And for him, I'll admit: I was willing to try. I wax-strippe my pussy raw. I drank canned beer watching Adam Sandler movies. I ate cold pizza and remained a size two. I blew him, semi-regularly. I lived in the moment. I was fucking game. I can't say I didn't enjoy some of it. Nick teased out in me things I didn't know existed. A lightness, a humor, an ease. But I made him smarter. Sharper. I inspired him to rise to my level. I forged the man of my dreams. We were happy pretending to be other people. We were the happiest couple we knew. And what's the point of being together if you're not the happiest? But Nick got lazy. He became someone I did not agree to marry. He actually expected me to love him unconditionally. Then he dragged me, penniless, to the navel of this great country and found himself a newer, younger, bouncier cool girl. You think I'd let him destroy me and end up happier than ever? No fucking way. He doesn't get to win. My cute, charming, salt-of-the-earth Missouri guy. He needed to learn. Grown-ups work for things. Grown-ups pay. Grown-ups suffer consequences."
- Les Misérables
Basically every/any monologue/song performed by Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman), Fantine (Anne Hathaway) and Eponine (Samantha Barks).
- Take This Waltz
Margot (Michelle Williams):
"I remember when Tony, my niece was a newborn. And when I'd babysit sometimes she'd cry - like babies do, and I'd do everything I could to identify the source of the problem. Was she hungry? Was she tired? Did she have a rash? 9 times out of 10 I could solve the problem and figure it out. But sometimes...I don't know. Sometimes I'm walking along the street and a shaft of sunlight falls a certain way across the pavement, and I just want to cry. And a second later it's over. I decide, since I'm an adult, to not succumb to this...momentary melancholy. Sometimes I thought with Tony, that she just had a moment like this. A moment of not knowing why or how, and she let herself go into it. And there was nothing anyone could do to make it better. It was just her, and the fact of being alive, colliding."
- Crazy, Stupid, Love.
Cal (Steve Carell)
"My son's graduation speech sucks. In fairness, I don't know where he was going but I think we can all agree it was heading in a pretty depressing direction. And I basically wrote it for him. I mean, I didn't literally write it but I sure as hell influenced it, and the kid's already a spitting image of his mother and I'll be damned if this is what he's going to get from me.
My son -- not him, my actual son -- he believes in grand romantic gestures. He believes that people have soulmates. And we always want to tell our thirteen-year- olds that they're wrong, that `one day you'll understand, young man.' But maybe it should be the other way around.
I met my soulmate when I was fifteen years old. Our first date, we went for ice cream. After, my dad started teasing me about my 'first date' the way dads do. And I told him: 'stop making a big deal, Dad. I'm going to go on lots of dates with plenty of girls.' That was the first time I ever lied to my father.
I met my soulmate when I was fifteen years old. And I have loved her with everything I have for every minute, of every day, ever since she let me buy her that first mint chip ice cream. I have loved her through the birth of our three perfect children, and I have loved her even as I've hated her -- only married couples can truly understand that one. And I don't know what will wind up happening with us -- I don't, Robbie, I'm sorry I can't give you that -- but I promise you this: I will never stop trying. When you find `the one' you never give up trying... and I love you, my amazing boy, for reminding me of that."
- The Social Network
Erica Albright (Rooney Mara):
"You are probably going to be a very successful computer person. But you’re going to go through life thinking that girls don’t like you because you’re a nerd. And I want you to know, from the bottom of my heart, that that won’t be true. It’ll be because you’re an asshole. … You called me a bitch on the Internet, Mark. … It didn’t stop you from writing it. As if every thought that tumbles through your head was so clever it would be a crime for it not to be shared. The Internet’s not written in pencil, Mark, it’s written in ink. And you published that Erica Albright was a bitch, right before you made some ignorant crack about my family’s name, my bra size, and then rated women based on their hotness."
- Never Let Me Go
Kathy (Carey Mulligan):
"I come here and imagine that this is the spot where everything I've lost since my childhood has washed out. I tell myself, if that were true, and I waited long enough, then a tiny figure would appear on the horizon across the field, and gradually get larger until I'd see it was Tommy. He'd wave and maybe call. I don't let the fantasy go beyond that. I can't let it. I remind myself I was lucky to have had any time with him at all. What I'm not sure about is if our lives have been so different from the lives of the people we save. We all complete. Maybe none of us really understand what we've lived through, or feel we've had enough time."
- The King's Speech
King George VI (Colin Firth) - I mean, the film is literally called The King's Speech. This was such an emotional moment, to see him deliver this speech and overcome his fears/struggles:
"In this grave hour, perhaps the most fateful in our history, I send to every household of my peoples, both at home and overseas, this message, spoken with the same depth of feeling for each one of you, as if I were able to cross your threshold and speak to you myself: For the second time in the lives of most of us, we are at... at war. Over and over again we have tried to find a peaceful way out of the differences between ourselves and those who are now our enemies, but it has been in vain. We have been forced into a conflict, for we are called to meet the challenge of a principle, which, if it were to prevail, would be fatal to any civilized order in the world. Such a principle, stripped of all disguise, is surely the mere primitive doctrine that "might is right." For the sake of all that we ourselves hold dear, it is unthinkable that we should refuse to meet the challenge. It is to this high purpose that I now call my people at home, and my peoples across the seas, who will make our cause their own. I ask them to stand calm and firm and united in this time of trial. The task will be hard. There may be dark days ahead, and war can no longer be confined to the battlefield, but we can only do the right as we see the right, and reverently commit our cause to God. If one and all we keep resolutely faithful to it, then, with God's help, we shall prevail."
- An Education
Jenny (Carey Mulligan):
"Studying is hard and boring. Teaching is hard and boring. So, what you're telling me is to be bored, and then bored, and finally bored again, but this time for the rest of my life? This whole stupid country is bored! There's no life in it, or color, or fun! It's probably just as well the Russians are going to drop a nuclear bomb on us any day now. So my choice is to do something hard and boring, or to marry my... Jew, and go to Paris and Rome and listen to jazz, and read, and eat good food in nice restaurants, and have fun! It's not enough to educate us anymore Ms. Walters. You've got to tell us why you're doing it."
- The Great Debaters
James Farmer Jr. (Denzel Whitaker):
"In Texas, they lynch negroes. My teammates and I saw a man strung up by his neck -- and set on fire. We drove through a lynch mob, pressed our faces against the floorboard. I looked at my teammates. I saw the fear in their eyes; and worse -- the shame. What was this negro's crime that he should be hung, without trial, in a dark forest filled with fog? Was he a thief? Was he a killer? Or just a negro? Was he a sharecropper? A preacher? Were his children waiting up for him? And who were we to just lie there and do nothing? No matter what he did, the mob was the criminal. But the law did nothing -- just left us wondering why. My opponent says, "Nothing that erodes the rule of law can be moral." But there is no rule of law in the Jim Crow South, not when negroes are denied housing, turned away from schools, hospitals -- and not when we are lynched. Saint Augustine said, "An unjust law is no law at all," which means I have a right, even a duty, to resist -- with violence or civil disobedience. You should pray I choose the latter."
...plus 21 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.
]]>Creatures, real or imaginary, fluffy or not, make any movie better.
Here are some of my personal favourite creature features (sorted by release date).
I realize Paddington 2 might not count but I don't care.
- Paddington 2
- The Shape of Water
- Arrival
- Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
- Minions
- Ponyo
- Pan's Labyrinth
- Signs
- Lilo & Stitch
- Monsters, Inc.
...plus 5 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.
]]>This ranking is strongly influenced by my personal emotions and experiences. I am not necessarily suggesting that any of these movies are objectively better than others.
]]>This ranking is strongly influenced by my personal emotions and experiences. I am not necessarily suggesting that any of these movies are objectively better than others.
]]>I’m turning 25 in three weeks and after seeing @StormofCuteness and @OfficialUFOs’s lists, I had to make my own.
The films aren’t necessarily my favourites, and I realized that for some years I had little to choose from (and then conversely, I also had to make the toughest decision ever in 2009 between An Education and Fishtank). However, they’re all significant to me when it comes to women/girls, both real and fictional, both in front and behind the camera.
- Lady Bird
- Toni Erdmann
- Room
- Gone Girl
- Saving Mr. Banks
- Pitch Perfect
- Take This Waltz
- The Kids Are All Right
- An Education
- The Reader
...plus 16 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.
]]>So happy to live in a town that hosts a decent film festival. Just skimmed the lineup and there's a great selection of films, from unknown gems to Oscar buzz generators.
I'm aiming to watch 4-5 and I'll probably go with my availabilities and the preferences of those who would go with me, but here is a list of the top 10 (in alphabetical order) that caught my eye.
Note: Festival opens with Blade Runner 2049, invite only.
Full lineup: www.nouveaucinema.ca/en/films?type=Feature+film&page=1
Suggestions are welcome!
]]>This ranking is strongly influenced by my personal emotions and experiences. I am not necessarily suggesting that any of these movies are objectively better than others.
]]>These are my five favourite Disney animated classics. Will eventually rank more as soon as I get a chance to rewatch them.
]]>This ranking is strongly influenced by my personal emotions and experiences. I am not necessarily suggesting that any of these movies are objectively better than others.
]]>This ranking is strongly influenced by my personal emotions and experiences. I am not necessarily suggesting that any of these movies are objectively better than others.
]]>This ranking is strongly influenced by my personal emotions and experiences. I am not necessarily suggesting that any of these movies are objectively better than others.
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