6u532b

Watched on Saturday June 7, 2025.

there’s a very specific kind of awe I used to chase as a kid, staring up at the stars until they made me dizzy, letting the vastness of it all press in until I felt small in the best way. the life of chuck cracked that part of my brain back open.

flanagan (my king) in his most delicate work yet crafts a story that’s both massive and intimate, and beautifully still. it's about legacy and about being present in the right now, because there’s no guarantee of a later. it's about the mundane and the cosmic blending into one.

I was crying within minutes, and not because of anything sad, but because of the feeling I love most in movies: like I’ve tapped into humanity’s quietest, deepest frequency. the score sounds like the echoes of the universe itself, soothing, eerie, my kind of holy.

this surely won't be for everyone, but it found me at the right time.

Watched on Sunday June 1, 2025.

Watched on Thursday May 29, 2025.

Loved the idea of a serial killer shark movie, but in the end I wanted more chomps and less creepy killer. Jai Courtney is either a real-life psychopath or deserves an Oscar (I’m being so serious).

Watched on Tuesday May 27, 2025.

Watched on Monday May 26, 2025.

Tim Robinson’s Craig is in I Love You, Man while Paul Rudd’s Austin is in The Talented Mr Ripley 

Watched on Friday May 23, 2025.

Watched on Friday May 23, 2025.

portman and krasinski bantering like exes even though they’re siblings

Watched on Tuesday May 20, 2025.

I love melodrama, I love NYC

Watched on Monday May 19, 2025.

Watched on Sunday May 18, 2025.

Watched on Monday May 19, 2025.

Watched on Saturday May 17, 2025.

Kristen Stewart’s The Chronology of Water comes out swinging. messy, jagged, and unapologetically bold. she’s not here to play it safe. she’s here to make something with a beating heart, even when it risks pushing you away. (I saw at least 10 people near me walk out of the Cannes premiere).

adapted from Lidia Yuknavitch’s memoir, it tells her story in fractured, sensory bursts. there’s no clean arc, no easy throughline. just a series of raw, disted moments that somehow add up to something bigger. Imogen Poots is the glue that holds it all together. she doesn’t just carry the film, she thrashes through it. every breath, every breakdown, every burst of laughter is electric in her embodiment.

it’s overwhelming by design. not every choice lands. it’s not easy to hold onto. it feels, at times, like the rough cut of something even greater. but it’s exciting to watch a debut this bold, this unsanitized, this unwilling to play it safe. I can’t wait to see what she makes next.

Watched on Friday May 16, 2025.

middle school is hell, and The Plague gets it. that sick, sinking feeling of trying desperately to fit in. the panic of saying the wrong thing, standing too close, getting noticed for all the wrong reasons.

set at a water polo camp in 2003, it follows ben, the new kid, trying to find his place. the other boys have already decided who doesn’t belong: eli, the kid who has "the plague" -- a disease no one can explain, but everyone’s afraid to catch. they avoid him. they scrub their skin raw if they happen to brush his hand.

charlie polinger takes the psychological torment of youth -- the relentless anxiety, the unabashed cruelty, the fear of being ostracized -- and channels it through horror, turning social dread into something that hits you in your body. the camera presses in so tight it’s suffocating. it’s a lot, occasionally overwrought, but the excellent, grounded performances from the two young leads keep it from tipping over. in their hands, it's all heartbreakingly real. it sent me right back to the age of shrinking myself small enough to disappear.

sirat feels like standing too close to a subwoofer. low, steady, almost nothing, until it rattles your chest and lights up every nerve ending in your body.

a desert stretched so wide that we slip off the axis, off the plane of existence that we know. a father and son driving straight into the unknown, looking for a lost child. the soundtrack hums beneath it all, pulsing, grinding, like something building just out of reach. and then it snaps to silence, a reprieve that you didn't know you desperately needed.

you think you’ve figured out what this is, and then a scene happens that feels like getting punched in the throat, kicked in the chest, dropped into freefall. one of the most viscerally upsetting sequences I've ever seen.

after a moment of "where is this possibly going", it just gets stranger. sirat refuses to sit still. it tears down every rule you expect it to follow.

I don’t know if it all works, but I felt every second of it humming (sometimes screaming) through me.

Watched on Wednesday May 14, 2025.

there’s a stillness to Dossier 137 that feels almost clinical. cold rooms, white walls, empty streets. dominik moll keeps everything sharp and spare. the tension isn’t in what’s going to happen -- you know that from the start. it’s in the gut punch of watching it all slowly, methodically, unfold anyway, despite your yearning for a different resolution.

léa drucker is fantastic. every gesture is lived-in, never overplayed. you buy her as someone who’s good at her job, but stuck inside a system that won’t actually let her fix anything.

by the end, though, I couldn’t shake the feeling that this isn't doing anything more than telling us what we already know and believe. it’s about violence, about complicity, about the futility of ability. and while it nails that discomfort, it's content to stop there, never pushing the conversation somewhere new.

there’s a low hum running through Sound of Falling. more a feeling than a sound, like gravity tightening in your chest. mascha schilinski doesn't give us a clear narrative, instead, drops us into four tangled generations of women, all orbiting the same creaky farmhouse. time doesn't flow how you expect it, and moments stutter just to be reborn in another era. it's heavy with shame and silence, loaded with things no one says but everyone carries. abuse, obsession, desire, survival-- it’s all tangled together in looping echoes that stretch from postwar to the eerie stillness of the present.

as a non-linear film, it's definitely... long. but it engrosses you so thoroughly, you're stuck in the dust with them, you're feeling the rocks beneath your feet, tasting the cold of a popsicle. holding your breath waiting for something. sometimes you're left waiting, but often you're left breathless.

Watched on Monday May 12, 2025.

very French in the way it’s a musical but feels like it shouldn’t be. oddly a jukebox musical, at that

Watched on Friday May 9, 2025.

Watched on Friday May 9, 2025.

Unbearably dumb but Charithra Chandran and Josh Harnett are innocent 

would’ve been 2 stars if it hadn’t ended that way

and you thought your Thanksgiving dinners were contentious

Watched on Monday April 28, 2025.

Watched on Sunday April 27, 2025.

Watched on Sunday April 27, 2025.

when the only thing scarier than the killer(s) is realizing none of it actually matters

could’ve been like happy death day (albeit minus the comedy) but forgot to give me a reason to care between resets

Watched on Sunday April 20, 2025.

Watched on Thursday April 17, 2025.

I adore this movie

Watched on Thursday April 3, 2025.

Watched on Tuesday April 1, 2025.

Watched on Sunday March 16, 2025.

I knew this was a loose adaptation but I yearned for the aspects of the book that had something interesting to say. Like about encountering alien life, instead of just making the aliens into animals with mammalian tendencies. or the philosophizing of what makes you a human / can a copy still be you? or the ethical implications of human cloning. 

But, the movie itself. every time we would be left to guess at context, instead we get an exposition-heavy narration dump of a backstory. the cartoonish Ruffalo and Collette are grating and are in service of a frustratingly broad satire. I can’t even say there was definitely a better movie possible in the edit but they obviously did chop this thing up a bunch.

people would’ve been talking about this movie nonstop if it came out 5 years ago, but we’re all numb to the violent spectacle of horror-satire now.

expectations though, are everything, as I prove to myself again and again, because I had heard this was terrible after Sundance, and I was quite pleasantly surprised to find out that it was not, in fact, terrible. 

derivative sure, scattered yes, shallow in its actual messaging, also yes. malkovich is miscast. but I’ll watch a cult satire where people do weird shit like around a single bread loaf any day. Ayo needs more lead roles - she is so fun to watch and perfect in the role of person who can’t stop calling out that everything happening is weird as fuck

opus’s worst offense though is not enough Tony Hale.

A pulpy noir wrapped in prestige-thriller packaging, Holland sets up an enticing mystery but stumbles in the telling. Nicole Kidman is effortlessly compelling, and Matthew Macfadyen dials up the unease, but the film’s self-conscious twists unravel into something far less interesting than its premise suggests.

Still, Mimi Cave crafts an intoxicating atmosphere—oppressive yet picturesque, where the quiet hum of small-town life masks something far more sinister. The early tension simmers in dimly lit diners and suburban streets, thick with suspicion. But as the story unfolds, that unease gives way to reveals that feel too neat, too obvious.

a locked room mystery is always a fun time, and Meghann and Brandon do the most with their thinly sketched characters.

self-aware enough to call itself out for some of the plot holes, and with enough humor to offset what would otherwise be an overly self-serious story. The B plot keeps it from being as fun as it should be but it doesn’t spend too much time there. 

definitely has direct-to-streaming energy but watching it in a rowdy theater at SXSW for the premiere made it a lot more enjoyable

Watched on Friday March 7, 2025.

Watched on Sunday March 2, 2025.

Like if a folk ballad about a hero’s journey got reimagined through the lens of an 80s glam rock fever dream. Except Sadie Sink is still in the first version and everyone else is in full tilt camp mode. 

This is saved by the sheer talent of Sadie and the maniacal beautiful charm of Murray Bartlett. I’m a sucker for a harmony and I could listen to Sadie’s voice all day, even if the pieces around her were largely not working. 

I saw this at SXSW and the audience clearly wasn’t vibing with it, so there’s no chance it does well going directly to Hulu.

I loved this ironically and I can’t tell anymore where that ends and where my actual appreciation of it starts. 

The first act is delightfully witty and self-aware, with Anna Kendrick’s comedic timing doing a lot of heavy lifting. 

It becomes less and less coherent from there, with a twist so awful that it nearly ruins any enjoyment I got from the lead up, but that’s par for the course with the Simple Favor movies, it seems. 

Watch it for how ridiculous it is but it’s a good thing that it’ll be direct to streaming.

Succeeds on every level — as a look at a 10 year long relationship, as a truly scary genre flick, as a grotesque body horror spectacle, as a showcase of Alison & Dave’s range, as a mystery, as an Australian horror-comedy. 

I’m so happy I got to see this at midnight at SXSW and I can’t wait to watch it again.

eat the rich meets jurassic park — this was made for me

What I watched at Cannes 2025, ranked

1. The Chronology of Water
2. Sirât
3. Die My Love
4. Sound of Falling
5. The Plague
6. Highest 2 Lowest
7. The Secret Agent
8. Alpha
9. Case 137
10. Urchin

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

• Elf
• Love Actually
• Happiest Season
• Klaus
• The Holiday
• The Santa Clause
• Arthur Christmas
• The Night Before
• Violent Night
• A Christmas Story

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

• Klaus
• Love Hard
• Love Actually
• Single All the Way
• Holidate
• The Noel Diary
• The Knight Before Christmas
• Falling for Christmas
• The Princess Switch
• A Christmas Prince

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