Michael Ngwa

Borden and Angier should have kissed at the end of the prestige

Favorite films

  • The Prestige
  • Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
  • La La Land
  • s Ha

All
  • The Phoenician Scheme

    ★★★

  • Mountainhead

    ★★½

  • Friendship

    ★★★½

  • Sinners

    ★★★★★

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The Phoenician Scheme

2025

★★★ Watched

No rating (just yet), just some general ramblings. We all know what we're getting with Wes Anderson at this point: cool pastel coloring, whip pans, super symmetrical mise-en-scène, uncanny, quirky characters and interactions, etc. So am I surprised? No, but I do have something to say about movies in a more general sense.

There's an argument as to whether art can prioritize style over substance, i.e., some things exist to look pretty while conveying nothing. I don't necessarily subscribe to…

Mountainhead

2025

★★½ Liked Watched

Guys, my goat might be washed 😔

Jesse Armstrong has created some of my favorite pieces of media ever, honestly. Cringe comedy with Peep Show, one of the funniest dark satires in Four Lions, and then, in my opinion, the greatest show of all time in Succession (which honestly might be my favorite piece of media ever). So I was so, so excited when news finally came out about his first project after Succession.

It seems like Armstrong, still bursting…

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Princess Mononoke

1997

★★★ Liked 5

First Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli. It’s kinda crazy how it took me this long to get around to watching one of his films.

Honestly, I wanted to like this, I really did. I don’t know, it felt sorta underdeveloped? The narrative is really meandering and all the characters feel flat. Sorry 😕

Perfect Blue

1997

★★★★★ Liked 2

Yo....

A lack of self-assuredness, self-confidence, and lucidness is exploited at every stage. Somehow this extends beyond just Mima; you too eventually feel yourself slipping into a psychosis, unable to discern what you have imagined, what the movie wants you to believe, and its actual events. There's a groundhog-day sequence that messes with your perception so much, that you are left wondering if the movie's conclusion is genuinely the truth, or if you have allowed yourself to create reality from an illusion.

I would write more, but honestly, I'm still speechless and reeling.