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Quirky and kinda fun to watch. Has some incredible pieces that must've taken ages to coordinate the blocking and camera movement. Asteroid City wants to dip its toes into a very human and existentialist thought and I think the film somewhat succeeds with its vignettes of its character lives and appreciation for the mundane (within Wes Anderson's standards).

I'm happy that he's kinda starting to experiment with interesting story structures and themes within his stylistic narrative constraints. It's certainly a better watch for me than Isle of Dogs. Still, for me, Asteroid City lacked emotion. Characters ponder about their being, they grief, they think about death, they wonder about how to move on, they think about not being able to understand. But Anderson's deadpan style and emphasis on artifice and aesthetics just render these moments like words on a script.

When I think about grief, about loss, I think about not being able to get off the bed. I think about the ugliness in that final scene of Perfect Days. When I think of Asteroid City in hindsight, whatever it wants to say, I think it makes sense logically. The philosophical absurdity of life I think made its way across the silver screen. But did I feel it? I'm not sure about that.

Hard Truths is expectedly a hard watch. If anyone thought Mike Leigh's Johnny (Naked) or Poppy (Happy Go Lucky) were annoying, unlikeable characters to follow, Pansy truly, truly, takes the cake here. She's abusive to her family, always pinning the blame on others for her unhappiness, and usually doubles down on her behaviour. Seriously, those few scenes where she's just going about her business in public were painful to watch. But I have to it, the way she insults people is really funny.

Still, the magic of Mike Leigh' direction, 'writing' and of course, actress Marianne Jean-Baptiste who puts on a truly amazing performance, is that Pansy isn't just antagonistic for the sake of it. The film slowly pulls back the layers to unveil her anxiety, depression and untreated trauma that prevents her from leading a 'normal' life like her sister. The direction and performances are truly outstanding. As we watch on, our disdain for Pansy slowly transforms into empathy and understanding. I think the last time a moment like that worked so well for me was... (not) coincidently another Mike Leigh film - Life is sweet.

Sadly, Hard Truths I think could've cooked longer to really explore the character's family history and trajectory forward. I wanted to root for Pansy and see her change for the better or utterly fail to. I wanted to learn more about the people in the film. I thought more could be said about mental illness and its nuances. But the film ended before it reached that height.

I was waiting for a moment like what Leigh did in All or Nothing which I think has the most stunning moment of reconciliation in all of cinema, or even an unsettling point of nihilism like Naked, and while the film is masterful and has an exceptional lunch scene which is poignant and emotional, wherever the film stopped was not the moment to end. The story overall just lacked a special something to give the viewer a new human understanding to ponder about. It kinda felt like Leigh ran out of money mid production and sought a point in his footage during the editing phase that kinda felt like an artistic way to end a film.

A masterpiece of reality television. Who knows what the lines between real and fiction are in this finale for Nathan for You. How much is Bill acting up for the camera? Just how much are the so-called real people real and who are the actors? How much did Nathan and his team orchestrate these moments? You wonder these things as the people momentarily glance at the camera, as you watch the absurd reality-tv-esque moments unfold, as you listen to Nathan's deadpan voice over unveil yet another exciting twist to the story. And then the episode just hits you with a raw, compelling and sincere moment that is so filled with the disappointment and restraint of real life you can't help but think that what you're seeing is undoubtedly real.

I just had to binge this after seeing the masterpiece that is The Rehearsal Season 2.

Watched on Friday May 30, 2025.

Watched on Sunday May 18, 2025.

Watched on Monday May 5, 2025.

Watched on Sunday April 27, 2025.

A very, very competent political thriller. But not so much an exchange of ideas. Literally settles on a neither black nor white, it's just grey vibe. Which is true I guess. But I would've liked... more thought in such a religious and philosophically charged setting.

Exceptional. The surreal alien spaceships that speed away from the dam, bookending the different but similar stories of our two protagonists searching for people they once loved. A world apart it seems, of how and where they live - their class. The roaming camera that glides across the broken homes, spaces and hardened bodies of men who tear them down, weary men and women clinging onto old objects, searching for the people that they once treasured in their past. A masterpiece of memory, space, labour, class and history.

Colonialism metaphor goes brrrrr

A world disappears for the workers while an apartment complex arises. A genuinely incredible documentary-fiction that blurs the lines between truth and reality to unveil the history and subtle tragedy beneath a demolished factory.

Like Werner Herzog, Jia Zhangke seeks some kind of ecstatic truth. A kind of deeper understanding beyond fictional depictions and beyond objective happenings. It's the understanding we get as we watch fictitious scenes of the real factory workers play out, their emotional recounts as they speak to the disembodied voice behind the camera, and the actors and actresses posed as these workers, shot and filmed as if they were a real part of the world behind the factory walls.

The uh... poster might've convinced me that this was a horror movie. Sometimes going in blind isn't the best thing. The whole time I wanted to shake this girl main character and yell at her to LOCK IN. Maybe its the inner adult in me. idk.

This is a rather typical Taiwanese rom-com / coming of age with half a liter of class consciousness in the mix. I am happy that mainstream dramas are beginning to incorporate class issues into its conflict, but this movie doesn't push far enough on that front and settles these problems quite easily as a nice digestible gummy bear. Meritocracy saves the day.

I also wished the movie dipped more into the problems of education - something the more stylish and gritty, Better Days does (until... it dropped the ball for some teenage drama). And I just wished the movie didn't use my most hated movie trope - the lying to fit in, or watch me make mistakes syndrome. Look, I know it adds tension into a story. But unless its fully incorporated into the film's themes, like Parasite or The Talented Mr Ripley, it's basically there to emotionally manipulate viewers into having a gut reaction to a problem that we already logically understand.

Still, the cinematography is nice and polished, and I think the art director did a nice job of creating nostalgia with the set design, props and costumes. And if nothing else, I think the movie does a pretty good job at presenting a kind of female fantasy of romance - the wealthy, handsome, smart and tall boy falls in love with the unassuming, 'peasant' girl. It's done with a decent degree of restraint and isn't unbearably in your face like Our Times was.

IMO vastly superior to the 2024 Chinese adaptation, Yolo. While Yolo plays out like a sentimental vehicle for its main lead to show off her weight loss journey (its impressive, don't get me wrong but still I watch movies for the story), 100 Yen Love commits to telling a story of weirdo losers who've been beaten down by life, yet somehow find the will in them to struggle toward some form of success.

It embraces the strange, the weird, the eccentric while keeping a starkly real and dark depiction of socially displaced stragglers who keep their heads down to get by in their day to day. There are some really dark moments in the film that I was surprised to see considering the humorous approach at the beginning. And luckily, the film has a good amount of restraint. It doesn't play up the characters' losses and failures to force an easy sympathy down the audience's throats. Sakura Ando's performance as Ichiko is a revelation and she fully sells her character's failures, disappointments, traumas, and eventual journey toward confidence.

However, the film does try to dip its toes into bouts of saccharine with an oddly shot slow motion sequence that tries to be triumphant and gritty at the same time and a strangely upbeat soundtrack to clearly show the positivity of Ichiko's transformation, which feels quite disconnected to the feel and tone of the film at the beginning. It's depictions of romance also feels... half-baked. The ending especially plays out quite contradictory to Ichiko's arc and the overall message of the film. I kinda wish this was a bit more thought out.

A requiem.

Footstep and housework asmr that boils the kettle under low heat, soft whistling, you'll have to watch closely and listen attentively to pick out the frustration bubbling beneath Jeanne's everyday life. And this really is wonderful and revolutionary. Akerman pushes beyond any kind of slow cinema that I've seen and crafted something truly unique, fully utilising cinematic medium's special qualities of manipulating time and space.

But the conclusion feels... underwhelming. At the last frame, I so wished the film wouldn't just cut to black but it did. The coffee metaphor was wonderful though.

Watched on Saturday March 22, 2025.

Fun, funny, a really cool world building exercise, and some relatively light but insightful critiques of capitalism, politics and how power is organised. Still, the film's utmost priorities are to entertain rather than explore some of its pertinent themes - which were by the end, mostly left behind for a blockbuster-esque bang that embraces an optimism cultivated by democratically borne dreams.

It is an entertaining, well crafted and nicely directed film that will guide you out of the cinema with little to think about. Still, fun watch, and very well made.

This does not feel like it's a documentary. The amount of coverage that the filmmakers got, the intimate situations that the camera and microphone picked up, and the degree of insight and pertinent soundbites that they captured to give emotional depth to all the parties involved is... just unreal. Absolutely masterful film.

Watched on Saturday February 15, 2025.

Confounding and artistically overwhelming. Some might call this brilliant. It's been a whole month since I saw this and I still don't know what to make of this. The first part of the film feels revolutionary as a found footage film. It was like I was watching a YouTube video - made before some of these stylistic traits were even popularised. The way the camera is integrated so wholly into the character's lives throughout a time period of their lives (beyond just one situation) with characters talking to the camera, the camera being referenced by other characters as situations unfold, traded back and forth to change perspectives, along with the editing style of jump cuts and abrupt flash forwards in time. I was literally watching a science fiction day in my life vlog.

Still, I think the pace of the film is off. The film is long. But not long enough to cover all the plot beats of an epic science-fiction opera. The second half goes off the rails and becomes near incoherent to follow. I read the Wikipedia article after watching the film and boy, whatever was written there was not the movie I watched.

Still, the film is beautiful. The drama is poignant when it works. The costume and set design is astounding, and the performances are theatrical and spellbinding. A shame that this was not finished, but the incomplete nature of the film provides leeway to excuse some pacing and clarity issues.

Watched on Sunday February 2, 2025.

Watched on Saturday January 4, 2025.

Watched on Wednesday January 29, 2025.

Watched on Sunday January 26, 2025.

A generational movie that only hits its potential when screened in the cinemas as an event. Hi Johnny, see you again in the next screening! Spoons galore!

Watched on Sunday January 12, 2025.

Watched on Wednesday December 25, 2024.

There's a scene with snow. So I guess, this is a Christmas movie.

Really, Decision to Leave is a nice take on the noir genre elevated by stylish direction, symbolism, art design, and the performance from the two leads (Tang Wei's especially). It is the little things that gives the film it's panache and authorial veneer. The theme of understanding, infatuation, and love through distance and gaze is also expertly done with nuance. Still, Decision to Leave weaves through its story like checkpoints in a race. The film's visually stunning aesthetic does in some way cover up the lack of space between story beats like a plastic tarp covering a pit. But it never really fills those holes.

DAMN! The utter insanity and brilliance of Herzog's vision magnifies on the big screen. Where ego and ambition is isolated from civilised structures and put on a jungle platter where it can descend into madness. Where power structures are deconstructed both figuratively and literally. Where violence is made absurd and darkly humorous, reveling in a nihilistic perception of human life. The unsafe rafts and obscenity of the jungle that appeared minuscule and raw on the computer monitor are made unbelievably real, hypnotic and ironically, unreal (at the fact that this was actually done for real!) once its projected on the silvery screen.

Herzog is tackling on surface, an absurd but historically REAL look on man's destructive hubris. Where man becomes delirious with divine power, desire. Where religion spills into excuses for foreigners to take assert their greed and take power over who they deem unenlightened.

Also fascinating how the myth and legend behind the film can be felt on screen! The sheer absurd of Herzog's vision spills out from the fiction that he is attempting to build, and out to the chaotic production where Herzog, and his lead Kinski, become the Aguirre that they critique.

I was intrigued, bored, and mesmerised all at the same time. What a feast for the eyes is all I can definitively say...

But if I was held at gunpoint, I would not be able to really tell you what this film was really about other than the general broadstrokes of alienation, homesickness, apocalypticism, etc.

Words cannot describe how important this film is. Straightforward yes. But in its simplicity there is rawness, honesty. The subject matter is poignant and devastating. And by the end of it, the powerlessness felt by the Palestinian villagers are felt and transferred through the screen. This is the power of persevering journalism. This is the power of cinema.

Most interesting is how Basel and Yuval are divided by their nationality. How a friction between them persists despite their goals being one and the same.

An Unfinished Film is a fractured work. Perhaps by design. It starts out as an intriguing look back, exploring the drive of an artist to return to an old work that was left unfinished. This narrative thread is subsequently derailed by the COVID-19 pandemic which is rendered masterfully by Lou Ye as a pandemic-thriller of sorts. The film then settles into a documentary mode, embracing a rather simplistic humanist look at the pandemic, the experiences that Mainland Chinese people went through during this turbulent time, and rather mild political commentary on the Chinese government's decisions.

While An Unfinished Film quite wonderfully melds its fiction with reality and its recreations with fiction, it isn't really commenting on the constructed nature of cinema, fiction, and supposed 'objective' documentaries like other filmmakers who work within this docu-fiction vein. Lou Ye's creative decisions seems to have more to do with immersion than anything. I just wish the second half of the film had a whole lot more to say.

Another year, another Hong Sang-soo. You know you are deep into the Sang-soo cinematic universe when you get a jumpscare upon hearing non-diegetic music thinking the film is going to end right there.

Hong plays it light and breezy in By the Stream, once again dipping his hands into a comedy of manners (as all his films do); of awkward conversations and chuckle inducing interactions. The film is very vaguely about how people are really, unable to communicate properly. Art is misinterpreted as one form of political commentary, people make assumptions about another's love life, people attempt to interpret another's sincerity. And just like being put on a little canoe down a stream, we venture down a stream of awkward encounters through the lens of our female protagonist played by Kim Min-hee.

The film's casual nonchalance and absence of a clear conflict seems to assert that there is no treasure at the end of the journey. But neither is it trying to say something like the hugely memified 'the treasure is the friends we made along the way'. Just like most of Hong's films, the film ends as easily as it began. Characters share a lot about each other; their inner thoughts, feelings, aspirations, vaguely some past history, but there is this disconnect about the relationships forged in the film. It happens but it is only affirmed momentarily before things move onto the next thing.

I think that there is no treasure. It is not a matter of it being material or emotional. There is simply a journey where one will forever be tied to where they once came, and where the journey leads to might be nothing at all.

Hong seems to have no conflict about making films of a niche quality. Slow, conflict-less, with intentionally diffused meanings. As a big follower of his films since I was in school, I am surprised to sit in a small cinema that was about 75% filled when the last time I went to a Hong film at a festival, the cinema is rather empty. Cynical old me thinks that Hong's yearly follow up endeavors seems to be a nice way for film festivals to lure film goers back in to catch up with Hong's hour long cinematic masterclass and therapy session.

Well, Hong Sang-soo may not surprise much anymore thematically, but there is certainly something appealing about coming back to something familiar year after year. I do still wish for something more exciting from Hong Sang-soo (which does pop up occasionally). But, this is nice too.

Watched on Sunday December 1, 2024.

Watched on Saturday November 30, 2024.

Watched on Saturday November 30, 2024.

Yeo Siew Hua is really pushing Singaporean cinema into another level. It does not simply lead viewers toward a simplistic manichean idea of surveillance and human privacy where surveillance is bad and we need our privacy and all that, but instead delves into more heady ideas of how our identity and beings are cultivated by our acts of seeing and being perceived. Be it by another in real life, through the lens of a camera, in social media, or by some Other viewing these images and videos through the cloud of security cameras.

Still, while Stranger Eyes is incredibly dense intellectually and thematically, its insistence on exploring these ideas and themes, particularly in its 3rd act, led me to feel rather unconvinced about the motivations and emotional concerns of some of its characters.

Definitely another watch is needed.

Watched on Sunday November 24, 2024.

Watched on Sunday November 24, 2024.

Seriously incredible. Incredible, incredible film. If you thought the cynicism and despair of The Terrorizers was too much to bear, Mahjong plays it a little lighter, funnier, and maybe slightly more optimistic... (the film is still highly depressing)

Human relationships are as transactional as they come in Edward Yang's Mahjong. People trading and playing with people for posessions, for respect, pleasure all so they can win in this game of dupes and excess. All like mahjong tiles thrown and exchanged for that group of matching tiles you need to win.

Seriously, Edward Yang is a masterful, masterful filmmaker. Years of not seeing any film from him has left me with such a thirst. A thirst I never knew I had until I saw Mahjong. Yet another great film.

A simple yet effective look at the alienating effects of the city/prevalence of technology/conduct of labor today. Aloners is fully committed to building up its this sense of (self) alienation present in the main character's experiences and rather problematic stoicism to the circumstances of its life in order to reach a wonderfully potent, tense and emotional catharsis near the end. The film is really, quite perfect in what it sets out to do.

However, I do think the film reaches a little too hard at the end to showcase character change.

A breezy animated feature that endears with its off-beat sense of humor, and slow, slice-of-life beats that allow us to get to know its colourfully mundane cast of characters. While it never dips its toes into nihilistic territory despite the rather devastating character situation its main character is really in, Ghost Cat Anzu manages to find that nice balance between character drama, comedy and fluffy happenings that makes this film such a pleasing watch.

Follows that Shakespearean subversion where the comic relief bows out and tragedy strikes. Million Dollar Baby boasts great performances from its leads, and it has some incredible directorial choices from Clint Eastwood - lean, patient, efficient - it fully trusts in the nuances of its few rounded characters, their relationship, and the overall subversive tragedy present in the latter half.

Still, while the film looks into the hearts and minds of its central characters, and this is done well, the film's endless montages, the purple prose monologue of Morgan Freeman to let the film swim through time and get to the key beats of this story, and the caricature villains planted into the film to spin the film's story into irredeemable sadness made my overall experience watching the film feel narrow. Like I've been made to walk down a corridor specifically made to lead audiences toward that tragic ending. For better or worse, the film is only that and nothing else.

Watched on Friday October 11, 2024.

The first half of Exhuma is near perfect K-horror with an intense mystery and atmosphere that will keep you glued to your seat. While the second half may disappoint with its more conventional creature-feature style horror angle, it brings in the historical and cultural circumstances of Korea in a digestible, if not, slightly too in your face way. While I am a little disappointed that Exhuma did not remain consistent in its approach, I appreciate the film's commentary on the condition of the Korean people, particularly their collective feelings of hatred and suffering (Han) and how it is derived from the time where they were subjugated by Japan. Still, I felt like the filmmaker could have tossed some more insights into this condition rather than accepting a conventional family picture ending.

My first time watching a Wai Ka-fai-only directed film. I can see where the Hong Kong Milkyway Pictures, and especially, Johnnie To films get their genre-blending subversive qualities. While this concept is completely off the wall bonkers, and the writing can be very in your face and cringe, making this film incredibly, and I mean, INCREDIBLY, difficult to take seriously, this is still great fun to watch.

Sadly, I think there is a great concept in here somewhere. One that would flourish if the interior struggle of its main character is set within a more grounded and down to earth tone, and not just tossed into a plot where story conveniences pile up like pancakes in a dessert restaurant.

Oh wait, maybe I'll watch Mad Detective next.

Watched on Saturday October 5, 2024.

Watched on Friday October 4, 2024.

A directorial showcase that riffs on some of Ozu's themes but dips it in a tub of honey for an additional saccharine dose. Yamada Yoji is really a master filmmaker and craftsman and you can see it even in this lesser film of his. While this film has some delightful insight into the Japanese condition, especially this collective WW2 trauma that plagues the Japanese people, at its heart, this movie is a feel good, and kind of inconsequential film (especially when we have Ozu movies that dive deeper into this theme). I still liked it a lot, but maybe it could have been cut by a half hour or more.

Nobuhiro Yamashita proving once again that he is perhaps the best comedic Japanese director working today.

While his comedy films are typically conventional, Yamashita stands out from the crowd by balancing genuine humour with the core humanity behind his characters. Never getting too caught up with the comedic absurdities that he forgets the reality in the setting and his characters. And he does it all while retaining an easy light-hearted tone; not casting his characters and their circumstances into darkness despite some of the very real conflicts he deals with.

Let's Go Karaoke continues this trend of incredible comedies directed by Yamashita. While the film revels in its ridiculous setting of a Yakuza member asking a school kid to teach him how to sing, it understands that the heart of the film is the coming of age of its main protagonist, a pre-pubescent boy trying to find the courage to confront the future and its many uncertainties (to put it vaguely).

Part of the film's appeal is also Go Ayano's performance as Kyouji Narita. Ayano is so incredibly charismatic and animated that when he is on screen, it is hard to take your eyes off of his performance. Sadly, the film is let down by rather stiff performances from its younger cast, and that includes the main character.

It was only after watching the film did I discover that this was an adaptation of a manga. Just like Kore-eda's Our Little Sister, this was so well-adapted for the screen that I could not tell.

Too many good films.

1. All or Nothing
2. Naked
3. Life Is Sweet
4. Happy-Go-Lucky
5. High Hopes
6. Vera Drake
7. Mr. Turner
8. Another Year
9. Secrets & Lies
10. Career Girls

...plus 3 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• On the Beach at Night Alone
• A Tiger in Winter
• Microhabitat
• Good Time
• The Day After
• Nathan for You: Finding s
• Lady Bird
• Wormwood
• You Were Never Really Here
• Scary Mother

...plus 13 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• Sinners
• The Ugly Stepsister

• F for Fake
• The Unknown Known
• Into the Abyss
• The Fog of War
• Night and Fog
• Sans Soleil
• The Act of Killing
• Wild Grass
• The Thin Blue Line
• 24 City

...plus 4 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• Still Walking
• Tokyo Sonata
• Love Exposure
• In Bruges
• Happy-Go-Lucky
• 24 City
• Let the Right One In
• Night and Day
• Sparrow
• The Class

...plus 3 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

by my subjective tastes.

1. Memories of Murder
2. Mother
3. Parasite
4. The Host
5. Okja
6. Mickey 17
7. Barking Dogs Never Bite
8. Snowpiercer

movies released in 2024 that I really liked

• Universal Language
• No Other Land
• Mistress Dispeller
• By the Stream
• Look Back
• Don’t Cry, Butterfly
• All the Long Nights
• Stranger Eyes
• Anora
• Exhuma

...plus 2 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Still Walking
2. Maborosi
3. After Life
4. Shoplifters
5. Nobody Knows
6. Our Little Sister
7. After the Storm
8. I Wish
9. Monster
10. The Truth

...plus 6 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

movies released in 2023 that I really liked

• Perfect Days
• The Shadowless Tower
• Anatomy of a Fall
• Killers of the Flower Moon
• La Chimera
• The Adults
• Monster
• If Only I Could Hibernate
• Art College 1994
• Tiger Stripes

...plus 5 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

movies released in 2022 that I really liked

• Small, Slow But Steady
• The Banshees of Inisherin
• Joyland
• Everything Everywhere All at Once
• Decision to Leave
• Broker
• The Menu
• Garden Sandbox
• Glass Onion
• Fast & Feel Love

...plus 2 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1 & 2 are pretty much interchangeable. I'm not sure if On the Beach at Night Alone is the best because it is the best, or if I'm just nostalgic cause it's the first Hong Sang-Soo film I started out with.

1. On the Beach at Night Alone
2. The Day He Arrives
3. In Front of Your Face
4. The Day After
5. Ha Ha Ha
6. The Day a Pig Fell Into the Well
7. The Woman Who Ran
8. Night and Day
9. Oki's Movie
10. Hotel by the River

...plus 12 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

One loved film for each year.
26 now. Has it been 6 years since I began logging on this site?

1. 8½

   Watched this twice. Was really impressed the first time but during my second watch, I found something transcendent within the film. It's dreamlike quality seeped into my mind like a haze of questions asking the meaning of our existence - like the artist in the film, struggling to find it as well. Without knowing the meaning of his life, what can he impart into his films?

2. All or Nothing

   Absolutely beautiful. Especially those final moments. They are truthful and raw. Mike Leigh has his ways to work his magic.

   At some point in life, love just runs out before you even realise it. The film depicts this sad truth. But it does not decide to adopt a cynical outlook, something perhaps a lesser film might choose to take. Instead, the end is filled with hope and humanity... it's a hard thing to still keep hold of these days.

3. An Autumn Afternoon

   Perhaps Ozu's masterpiece is Tokyo Story. It's hard to disagree. Still, An Autumn Afternoon, has a special quality. Yes, it is much more direct. Yes, it perhaps overstays a little. Maybe it's also because this is Ozu's last film that's why it hits differently. But in the end, this is Ozu at his most affecting and quietly tragic. He works his magic in the subtlest of ways. Before you know it, you are in the film and you are seeing yourself grow old and alone.

4. A Brighter Summer Day

   What more is there to say? This four-hour epic left me in awe. From start to end, it is an absolutely marvellous watch. A time capsule of simpler times on the verge of transitioning toward a bleak and uncertain future.

5. Certain Women

   Certain Women is minimalism at its most affecting. Human relationships, our loneliness, our longing... are crucial things in our lives that often are not given a voice. Cinema knows these things are important subjects to touch on, we've seen many films employ such things - but I've rarely seen it done with such nuance and insight. Most of us go through life uneventfully, and when eventful things happen, the outcome is typically less exciting than assumed. The quiet quality found in Certain Women is hypnotising, touching and true.

6. Come and See

   War is horror. Come and See may not be able to change Truffault's thoughts on anti-war cinema (not that any war movie would be able to), but it may come the closest.

7. Cure

   The lines between insanity and sanity are paper-thin - as it should be in a world, in a society like this one. (sorry for the meme)

8. Flowers of Shanghai

   It captures a moment of time but never truly replicates it. Despite the emphasis on the struggles of irreconcilable desire, love and relationships, in Flowers of Shanghai what remains is not the human struggle, but the things material.

9. Full Metal Jacket

   Kubrick showed me what Film can do. My obsession with cinema began with Kubrick, and it began with this film. While perhaps not as devastating as certain other war movies, it is gut-wrenching in a more cerebral way.

10. Hiroshima Mon Amour

    Trauma takes hold of you. It shakes you up. It never leaves you.

...plus 16 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

by me.

1. Life Without Principle
2. The Mission
3. PTU
4. Triad Election
5. Sparrow
6. Election
7. Exiled
8. Breaking News
9. Loving You
10. Drug War

...plus 7 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

i participate! - Daughters of the Dust

• The Cloud in Her Room
• Microhabitat
• Pop Aye
• The Meetings of Anna
• Mr. Roosevelt
• The Golden Era
• Close-Knit
• Scary Mother
• A City Called Macau
• Seder-Masochism

...plus 10 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• The Other Side of the Wind
• Shoplifters
• An Elephant Sitting Still
• Hotel by the River
• Ode to the Goose
• Burning
• Grass
• The Nightingale
• The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
• Leave No Trace

...plus 10 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

by my subjective tastes.

1. 5 Centimeters per Second
2. Your Name.
3. The Garden of Words
4. Suzume
5. She and Her Cat

   Not a feature, but I watched it.

6. Weathering with You
7. Voices of a Distant Star

   Not a feature. But damn, is this long.

8. The Place Promised in Our Early Days
9. Children Who Chase Lost Voices

   I'm sorry. I could barely finish this. This was a beat by beat imitation of a Ghibli-Miyazaki adventure. The problem is that these films are usually a tad messy structurally and too simplistic narratively. What makes each one stand out is how it weaves more complex thematic concerns with not only metaphorical subtlety, but also transcendental beauty - in visuals, attention to detail, character moments. Children Who Chase Lost Voices just lacked interesting substance.

Feature films to be watched for class or tutorials. Recorded here for recording sake. Also somewhat arranged according to my preferences.

• A Touch of Zen
• In the Heat of the Sun
• Farewell My Concubine
• Ashes of Time
• Made in Hong Kong
• Hero
• Ilo Ilo
• The Love Eterne
• Fist of Fury
• Once Upon a Time in China II

...plus 7 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

The man has retired, but his legacy will be ed.

1. Flowers of Shanghai
2. A City of Sadness
3. Dust in the Wind
4. Millennium Mambo
5. Café Lumière
6. Flight of the Red Balloon
7. Three Times
8. The Assassin
9. Goodbye South, Goodbye

• The Witch
• Cure
• Rosemary's Baby
• Let the Right One In
• Eraserhead
• [REC]
• Pulse
• A Tale of Two Sisters
• Possession

4 & 5 are pretty much interchangeable. They are incredibly fine films.

1. The Tale of The Princess Kaguya
2. Princess Mononoke
3. Spirited Away
4. Whisper of the Heart
5. Kiki's Delivery Service
6. The Secret World of Arrietty
7. The Cat Returns
8. From Up on Poppy Hill
9. My Neighbors the Yamadas
10. Only Yesterday

...plus 13 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

i participate!

• Flowers of Shanghai
• Good Time
• Goodbye, Dragon Inn
• A Land Imagined
• Like Someone in Love
• Naked
• Night on Earth
• PTU
• The Trial
• Victoria

• A Sun
• First Cow
• 37 Seconds
• Uncut Gems
• Portrait of a Lady on Fire
• Marriage Story
• Moving On
• Parasite
• The Irishman
• Fukuoka

...plus 11 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• In Front of Your Face
• Yanagawa
• Drive My Car
• Pig
• Barbarian Invasion
• A New Old Play
• Cliff Walkers
• Yuni
• The French Dispatch
• Belle

...plus 1 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Films I enjoyed that came out in 2020.

• A Balance

  In hindsight, this was the film from 2020 that I think about the most. Absolutely masterful.

• The Woman Who Ran
• The Cloud in Her Room
• Never Rarely Sometimes Always
• Sometime, Sometime
• Minari
• The Kid Detective
• Night in Paradise
• A Leg
• True Mothers

...plus 2 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• The Fog of War
• Memories of Murder
• Zatoichi
• Café Lumière
• Oldboy
• PTU
• A Tale of Two Sisters
• Lost in Translation
• Goodbye, Dragon Inn
• Tokyo Godfathers

...plus 2 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• The Day He Arrives
• Wuthering Heights
• We Need to Talk About Kevin
• Into the Abyss
• A Separation
• The Tree of Life
• Life Without Principle
• Contagion
• The Kid with a Bike
• Jiro Dreams of Sushi

...plus 2 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• Tony Takitani
• Vera Drake
• Bad Education
• Nobody Knows
• The Incredibles
• Five Times Two
• Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
• Hana & Alice
• Shaun of the Dead

• Ha Ha Ha
• Confessions
• Oki's Movie
• Another Year
• About Her Brother
• True Grit
• Meek's Cutoff
• Au Revoir Taipei
• Certified Copy
• The Secret World of Arrietty

...plus 1 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• The Tale of The Princess Kaguya
• Young & Beautiful
• The Unknown Known
• Inside Llewyn Davis
• 12 Years a Slave
• All Is Lost
• Moebius
• Nobody’s Daughter Haewon
• Our Sunhi
• A Touch of Sin

...plus 2 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• Linda Linda Linda
• Man Push Cart
• A Bittersweet Life
• Pride & Prejudice
• No Direction Home: Bob Dylan
• The 40 Year Old Virgin
• Election
• Grizzly Man
• Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles
• Caché

...plus 1 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• The Piano Teacher
• Millennium Mambo
• Mulholland Drive
• All About Lily Chou-Chou
• Spirited Away
• Pulse
• Gosford Park
• Millennium Actress
• Amélie
• Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

Note: Watched too many damn good films from that year

• Certain Women
• In This Corner of the World
• Harmonium
• Toni Erdmann
• I, Daniel Blake
• Creepy
• Elle
• After the Storm
• Things to Come
• Little Sister

...plus 6 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

I just had to make one for Morris after seeing Wormwood...

• The Unknown Known
• The Fog of War
• Wormwood
• American Dharma
• The Thin Blue Line
• Gates of Heaven
• Tabloid
• Standard Operating Procedure
• The B-Side: Elsa Dorfman's Portrait Photography

• The Witch
• Taxi
• Our Little Sister
• The Big Short
• Victoria
• Son of Saul
• Carol
• Beasts of No Nation
• Right Now, Wrong Then

• Mr. Turner
• Lady Maiko
• Hill of Freedom
• Black Coal, Thin Ice
• The Grand Budapest Hotel
• Leviathan
• Whiplash
• Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
• Kyoto Elegy
• The Theory of Everything

...plus 1 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• Amour
• The Hunt
• In Another Country
• The Act of Killing
• Like Someone in Love
• Wolf Children
• Zero Dark Thirty
• Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry

• Wild Grass
• Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call – New Orleans
• A Serious Man
• A Brand New Life
• Up in the Air
• Mother
• Inglourious Basterds
• Redline
• Fantastic Mr. Fox
• The Garden of Sinners: A Study in Murder (Part 2)

• Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
• Little Moth
• Persepolis
• Flight of the Red Balloon
• Encounters at the End of the World
• Eastern Promises
• There Will Be Blood
• No Country for Old Men
• The Garden of Sinners: Overlooking View

  And basically the rest of the films part of the series.

• Hot Fuzz

• A Scanner Darkly
• Still Life
• Paprika
• The Host
• The Go Master
• Triad Election
• Rescue Dawn
• Children of Men
• Friends with Money
• Exiled

• All or Nothing
• Punch-Drunk Love
• The Pianist
• The Cat Returns
• Adaptation.
• Blue Gate Crossing
• Hero
• Dolls

• Yi Yi
• In the Mood for Love
• Dancer in the Dark
• t Security Area
• O Brother, Where Art Thou?
• Memento
• Séance
• Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
• The Vertical Ray of the Sun
• Traffic

• Ratcatcher
• The Mission
• Eyes Wide Shut
• Not One Less
• Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai
• The Color of Paradise
• The Road Home
• The Talented Mr. Ripley
• Audition
• Being John Malkovich

• Flowers of Shanghai
• After Life
• The Celebration
• The Big Lebowski
• The Power of Kangwon Province
• The Truman Show
• Run Lola Run
• The Last Days of Disco
• Mulan

Films to be watched for class or tutorials. Recorded here for recording sake. Also somewhat arranged according to my preferences.

Missing films (all shorts):
Autograph Book Dir. Wee Li-Lin
My Secret Heaven Dir. Sun Koh
The Call Home Dir. Han Yew Kwang

• 12 Storeys
• Singapore GaGa
• Eating Air
• Money No Enough
• Homerun
• Forever Fever
• Bujang Lapok
• Hang Jebat

A list of my favorite animated films. My opinions within this list.
I watch quite a lot of animated films from Japan as I was an avid anime watcher when I was young, so I'm rather biased towards watching such films.

• The Tale of The Princess Kaguya
• Whisper of the Heart
• In This Corner of the World
• Watership Down
• A Scanner Darkly
• Persepolis
• Paprika
• Fantastic Planet
• Ghost in the Shell
• Kiki's Delivery Service

...plus 2 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• Memento
• The Prestige
• Inception
• The Dark Knight
• Batman Begins
• Tenet
• The Dark Knight Rises
• Interstellar

The 2010s have come to an end. There were good films and bad films, and there were some great films. These are some of them.

• The Act of Killing
• Amour
• Burning
• Certain Women
• Confessions
• Creepy
• The Day He Arrives
• The Grand Budapest Hotel
• The Hunt
• I, Daniel Blake

...plus 19 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

So many good movies

1. Fargo
2. No Country for Old Men
3. Inside Llewyn Davis
4. The Big Lebowski
5. A Serious Man
6. Barton Fink
7. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
8. True Grit
9. Hail, Caesar!
10. Blood Simple

...plus 3 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Why get stuck in the past, listing out the great filmmakers that are already dead. Here is a list filled with people who are still living!
(Because Letterboxd does not accommodate the listing of filmmakers, in the list are films that I think best represent the filmmaker's body of films)

[Also you'd notice that most of the directors below are from asia. That's where the more exciting stuff is coming out from I guess.)

1. Right Now, Wrong Then

   Hong Sang-Soo

2. Still Walking

   Kore-eda Hirokazu

3. All or Nothing

   Mike Leigh

4. Cure

   Kiyoshi Kurosawa

5. Memories of Murder

   Bong Joon Ho

6. Linda Linda Linda

   Nobuhiro Yamashita

7. Ratcatcher
8. A Bittersweet Life

   Kim Jee Woon

9. Fargo

   Coen Brothers

10. Sonatine

    Takeshi Kitano

by my subjective tastes.

1. The Scent of Green Papaya
2. The Vertical Ray of the Sun
3. Eternity
4. Norwegian Wood
5. Cyclo
6. I Come with the Rain