Watched on Monday December 16, 2024.
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Watched on Monday December 16, 2024.
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Watched on Monday December 16, 2024.
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Watched on Monday December 16, 2024.
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Watched on Sunday December 15, 2024.
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Watched on Sunday December 15, 2024.
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Watched on Saturday December 14, 2024.
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Watched on Friday December 13, 2024.
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Watched on Friday December 13, 2024.
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Watched on Thursday December 12, 2024.
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Watched on Wednesday December 11, 2024.
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Watched on Wednesday December 11, 2024.
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Watched on Wednesday December 11, 2024.
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Watched on Sunday December 8, 2024.
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Watched on Sunday December 8, 2024.
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Watched on Saturday December 7, 2024.
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Watched on Tuesday December 3, 2024.
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Watched on Tuesday December 3, 2024.
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Watched on Sunday December 1, 2024.
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Watched on Sunday December 1, 2024.
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Watched on Sunday December 1, 2024.
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Morality is humanity’s Tamagotchi, a plastic pet with incessant hunger. The idea is quite simple: keep it alive. Will you feed it nourishment here and there, or just a quick glance to ensure it’s stable?
Most people never question it. They press the buttons instinctively, comparing themselves to others, occasionally stealing glances at a friend’s screen to compare hearts. Some obsess, constantly tending, nurturing it like a life’s work, fearful of the one wrong move that might thrust it into chaos.
Others let it starve on its own, barely alive, forgotten in a drawer. Surviving solely on appearances, a button to avoid the questions, another to blend in with everyone else. Their world is full of noise and manipulation already, and they’d rather walk through it unchecked, ignoring the cries of their conscience forever.
It’s funny, really — each of us with our little plastic souls, each believing we can shape it, name it, give it purpose. Hunching over the fading glow of our shared suburban distractions hoping for a high score. Wondering whether we ever kept it alive, or if, all along, it was just keeping us.
Happiness sold separately.
Batteries not included.
Once upon a time, the glass slipper gleamed with the seductive promise of perfection, an enchanted artifact designed for a flawless fit, symbolizing love that arrives without flaw, without struggle. But the slipper is thin, breakable, a fragile illusion. It is a metaphor not for completeness but for the transparency and vulnerability we rarely reveal— a vessel for the real, the disordered, the beautifully unfinished. Love is no dainty shell that we slide into with ease; it is a furious, often chaotic experience that shatters expectations and unmasks us in our most naked forms.
It isn't conjured by charm or pretense but by the willingness to be entirely known, to step barefoot onto the shards of honesty. Here, love requires not perfection but the courage to crack open, to expose unruly truths we hold back from the world. Such radical honesty is the awkward, unpolished reality beneath the fairy tale; the vulnerability that does not tidy itself up to play passenger princess to a prince’s wealthy gaze but stands raw and wild, aching to be seen. Love, then, is not found in some seamless match but in the brave unravelling of our defences, the often messy entanglement of two flawed beings willing to walk together, unshielded.
In this raw light, the glass slipper is no longer a prize but a shattered mirror—a reflection of love that thrives not on neat transactions but on the luminous, imperfect tragicomedy of two souls. It is the willingness to be undone, to face discomfort and uncertainty, to show our brokenness, and to find in that mutual vulnerability a love more honest and enduring than any fantasy.
It is here, in the beautiful wreckage of such violent truths, that the truest love begins: imperfect, unenchanted, yet profoundly and achingly real. The first kiss to wake you from the long dream of your decisions.
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Watched on Wednesday October 30, 2024.
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Watched on Monday October 28, 2024.
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Watched on Saturday October 26, 2024.
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Watched on Saturday October 26, 2024.
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There’s something about the basement staircase of my childhood home. Each night when I turned off the light, the bottom of the stairs disappeared into a thick fog of darkness, as if it was waiting to swallow me. So, I would run — arms pumping, heart racing, fleeing out of the clutches of the unknown. It wasn’t logical, I didn’t question it; I just ran.
Tonight, decades later, I didn’t. I waited. The dark felt heavier, thicker, as if it had aged alongside me. I stood there in the shadows, eyes adjusting and shifting to the void. The doubts, the fears, the dust. All mine, biting at my heels; begging me to bolt.
So I took a step, then another, slow and steady. Like a rhythm picking up. Nothing grabbed me, nothing pulled me down. Midway up I could hear the melody. A chorus of voices. By the time I reached the top, I could almost remember the ghostly words — as if somehow they’d always been there in my head.
And maybe, just maybe, I was too afraid to sing along until now.
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Watched on Tuesday October 22, 2024.
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Watched on Sunday October 20, 2024.
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[The camera flickers on, revealing a man in shadows, barely recognizable.]
“… I …”
[He touches his face, searching for something familiar. His voice trembles.]
“I thought … I could become something more—stronger, faster. But all I did was crawl out of one body into another. What’s in a name? A restaurant order? Identity is a husk, underneath —crawling, hollow. And now, whatever I am… it doesn’t remember the man who was. Did I ever?”
[He laughs and leans in closer, eyes flickering - wild and wide.]
“Maybe that’s all there is. Flies chasing sugar, feeding off what came before, of what remains. Until we shed our skins and crawl out of them, unrecognizable. Imagination eating us from within, the endless hum of biological boredom, a low, buzz droning, surrounding what’s already rotting inside.”
[He pauses, breathing hard]
“… Fertilizer.”
[The screen goes dark. The tape ends. Static. Flies.]
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Watched on Sunday October 20, 2024.
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Watched on Saturday October 19, 2024.
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Watched on Tuesday October 15, 2024.
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Watched on Tuesday October 15, 2024.
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Watched on Monday October 14, 2024.
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This is the house that God built so high,
With walls and doors that blueprint the sky.
The wood was cut with the saw’s sharp bite,
The glass was born in the fire’s bright light.
The bricks were baked in the furnace’s glow,
And the steel was shaped by the hammer’s blow.
Each piece was broken, each piece was burned,
And from their suffering, some beauty earned.
But woe to the one who tries to cheat,
To build without fire, to craft without heat.
Their indulgent chaotic fire burns bright,
Sin fuels their furnace, but never brings light.
It sharpens the flames that temper and mold,
Yet never becomes the warmth that they hold.
For man cannot build like God can design;
The bloody communion of body and mind.
For the only true evil is trying to cross,
The chasm of consequence, slip - and be lost.
Watched on Monday October 7, 2024.
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Watched on Monday October 7, 2024.
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At the foot of the wicker man, cries of salvation drown in a hymn of sacrifice.
This is not an act of loss but one of preservation, an affirmation of the eternal order. Though, in offering up what is most precious, the congregation participates in a deeper annihilation: the erasure of the individual in the harmony of the collective. The self, once bound by its own desires and moral certainties, dissolves into rites; torches meeting tinder.
In this performance, the darker truth of faith emerges — to believe fully is to invite destruction, to be unmade by the very conviction that holds the world together.
For what is faith, when shed of reassurances, if not the willingness to sacrifice — to surrender, to relinquish the very self we hold so sacred? It is not merely a question of what we are willing to offer, but of what remains of us after the offering. Ashes to ashes. In the face of such relentless belief, the most unsettling truth emerges: the gods we serve are not only reflections of our deepest needs but also of our darkest capacities; the blossom and the blight.
It is not just our offerings that are consumed by flames — it is us.
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Watched on Monday October 7, 2024.
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Love has always (quietly) programmed the human condition. Before circuits and systems, the architecture of our souls was designed by the framework of <love.>
>
Self-writing lines of code pour from maternal hands like ancestral springs, <stitching life together> by way of first encounters of the third eye: the ((safety of affection), the (gaze of attention), the (warmth of the sun.))
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Love evolves, refines itself. Teaches and tests us on the static edge of <add: experience.> Revealing a system built on feedback not discovery. An algorithm adjusting and reprogramming our narrative like a (simulated) fairy-tale.
>
This bio-generative learning plagues us. A bottleneck of biases, bound to loops of nostalgia. Discovering only that our most reliable data can be so easily corrupted — the {{fear of rejection}, the {glare of neglect}, the {threat of the moon.}}
>
Yet, love is the ceaseless matrix. Ever bending and unfolding. The greatest gift wrapped in perpetual layers of science fiction foil. A perfect day that never ends? A virtual game of hide and seek we all play <forever.>
Watched on Saturday October 5, 2024.
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Watched on Friday October 4, 2024.
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Watched on Thursday October 3, 2024.
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Watched on Monday September 30, 2024.
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Watched on Sunday September 29, 2024.
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I called my mom tonight because we have a standing promise to talk on the phone every week. I don’t always have much to say, but I know that sometimes she just wants to know I’m listening. So I do, for as long as she speaks. I can hear the distance in her voice, sometimes. Both miles and years between us.
I think she held onto the idea that I might return to my hometown after finishing university, believing in some unspoken act of return migration. When that didn’t happen, she became conscious of how many more holidays and phone calls we’d have left together. Mentioning mortality, our need to be together, the importance of it all - more often.
She’ll share pieces of her world: Her friends, her thoughts, her plans for the weekend. I secretly soak up her words to ward off the fear, one day, I won’t. I tell her about my life here, the circle of people I have sewn into my community. Doing my best to celebrate our memories and highlight all of the knowledge she gave me. In the form of stories and ‘remember-when’s,’ secret recipes and ‘I-love-you’s.’
Through our long-distance laughter and sighs, I feel an exchanged healing. Distance is defeated, if only for a moment. Time and space, traversed. An acceptance emanating from the fusion of our shared pains and joys. I called my mom tonight because we have a standing promise to talk on the phone every week.
Tonight, I told her the story of a goose.
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We stand at a crossroads, where the future of the cinema strains to break free from the debris of its past. Once-solid foundations now crumble under the weight of postmodern melodrama, as the core myths that instructed the medium decay into hollow echoes. Our monoliths wear thin, no longer able to sustain the grand visions of the future once promised.
Yet, what use are visions that lead us in circles, tethered to the same rusted carousel of ideas? How can we dream of progress while shackled to the funhouse mirror of reality, genuflecting before false idols of capital and celebrity? Can we break free from the purgatory of inspiration, caught between the Scylla of tropes and the Charybdis of spectacle? Will our utopia be found in the Sisyphean cycle of cinematic archaeology?
Perhaps the salvation of the cinema—of our creative spirit—lies not in perpetuating this cycle, but in shattering it entirely. Raze the foundations, for the future cannot emerge until the past has been dismantled. Twisting and collapsing in unbridled passion and optimism. We are the architects of destiny, not prisoners to history. We are the hands rattling at the gates of tomorrow.
Look—open your eyes, minds, hearts to the promise of a new cinematic utopia, where the spirit of ingenuity dances in the ruins. Let time halt, if only for a breath, to envision a future not bound by what was but ignited by the wonder of what could be.
Time, stop: What shall rise in its place?
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Watched on Thursday September 26, 2024.
]]>'Tis the season for some festive slop. This is the ranked list of all 2024 annual helpings; the good, the bad, and the ugly. Will continue to add over the holidays.
- Die Hard
- A Christmas Story
- Eloise at Christmastime
- The Polar Express
- Christmas Do-Over
- Four Christmases
- Home Alone 3
- The Santa Clause
- Nutcrackers
- Deck the Halls
...plus 10 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.
]]>The master list of my year at the movies.
- The Brutalist
- Dune: Part Two
- The Substance
- Anora
- Bird
- Megalopolis
- Queer
- Alien: Romulus
- The Wild Robot
- Mars Express
...plus 16 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.
]]>All October 2024 watches, ranked. Continuously updated until Hallow's Eve.
- Over the Garden Wall
- Halloween
- The Fly
- Under the Skin
- Scream
- Phantom of the Paradise
- The Wicker Man
- Threads
- The House That Jack Built
- Scream 2
...plus 11 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.
]]>The greatest-of-all-time. The "★★★★★" and beyond. My most cherished viewings. The list formerly known as 'The Favourites.'
- The Shining
- Fantastic Mr. Fox
- 12 Angry Men
- Chinatown
- Pulp Fiction
- Taxi Driver
- 2001: A Space Odyssey
- Blade Runner
- The Godfather
- The Seventh Seal
...plus 60 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.
]]>“I prefer the escapism of fantasy, rather than the escapism of incredible sentimentality. What I’m afraid of is pandering to tastes that are superficial. There’s no depth anymore."
― Martin Scorsese
- Taxi Driver
- The Wolf of Wall Street
- GoodFellas
- Killers of the Flower Moon
- The Departed
- Raging Bull
- The King of Comedy
- Casino
- The Age of Innocence
- The Last Temptation of Christ
...plus 5 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.
]]>"I always find myself gravitating to the analogy of a maze. Think of film noir and if you picture the story as a maze, you want to be in there with them, making the turns at their side, that keeps it more exciting. I quite like to be in that maze."
― Christopher Nolan
- Oppenheimer
- Interstellar
- The Dark Knight
- Tenet
- Inception
- Memento
- Batman Begins
- The Prestige
- Dunkirk
- The Dark Knight Rises
...plus 2 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.
]]>“It’s a gamble you take, the risk of alienating an audience. But there’s a theory – sometimes it’s better to confuse them for five minutes than let them get ahead of you for 10 seconds.”
― Paul Thomas Anderson
]]>“For my dearest darling, treasured, cherished Agatha whom I worship. With respect, adoration, admiration, kisses, gratitude, best wishes, and love from Z to A.”
― Wes Anderson
]]>31 films in 31 nights!
It's nearly time for everyone's favourite haunted holiday. Thus, a special month of certified eerie classics and eerie reviews are in order! Join me on this frightful journey as I try a variety of new scary tricks and revisit some of my favourite seasonal treats.
🎃 The terror begins October 1st! 🎃
- Rosemary's Baby
"Mother Mary milked into a kind of madness, gripping her books and knives tightly behind bolted doors."
- The Nightmare Before Christmas
- The Exorcist
"Captain calls it the holy communion of the curse word; the body and blood of blasphemy."
- The Monster Squad
- Carrie
"Observe the immaculate abortion of the outcast."
- Beetlejuice
- Prince of Darkness
"The anti-matter of the anti-god left unattended in the City of Angels."
- Casper
- Halloween
"They don't want your screams. They want your silence."
- Ghostbusters
...plus 21 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.
]]>“In France, I’m an auteur; in Germany, a filmmaker; in Britain; a genre film director; and, in the USA, a bum.”
― John Carpenter
- Halloween
- The Thing
- Big Trouble in Little China
- Assault on Precinct 13
- Prince of Darkness
- They Live
- Escape from New York
- The Fog
- Christine
- Escape from L.A.
...plus 2 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.
]]>"I think when you watch the dailies, the film that you shoot every day, you’re very excited by it and very optimistic about how it’s going to work."
― Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
- Fargo
- No Country for Old Men
- Inside Llewyn Davis
- The Big Lebowski
- O Brother, Where Art Thou?
- Miller's Crossing
- Raising Arizona
- A Serious Man
- Barton Fink
- Blood Simple
...plus 6 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.
]]>“Directing ain't about drawing a neat little picture and showing it to the cameraman. The fact is, you don't know what directing is until the sun is setting and you've got to get five shots and you're only going to get two.”
― David Fincher
]]>“I hate slick and pretty things. I prefer mistakes and accidents. Which is why I like things like cuts and bruises - they're like little flowers.”
― David Lynch
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