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Short but informative. I have to be honest and say I was wondering if this was real. I assume it is but with American occupation of Afghanistan at the time, it'd be real easy to pay some people to play these roles to create propaganda to justify to the American population, see - this is why we must stay in Afghanistan.

Putting my cynical nature aside, this is really sad and disturbing. To be able to find young boys on the streets and wisk them away to become "dancing boys" for the sexual pleasure of supposedly religious Muslim men is really disturbing. That authorities are in on it and that the men who are on camera can appear without concern for punishment because of the corruption is disgusting, but that's the way the world works.

The West had Epstein and there is always a market for the evils of the world.

This was the PSA that Pee-Wee Herman had to agree to do as part of his sentence for the alleged, without proof, "crime" he committed in Florida.

It was discussed on the recent HBO documentary.

Watched with my brother and we both were very disappointed by this.

The beginning had promise, during the therapy session, but it didn't evoke more than some laughs and chuckles at other times.

I have no prior knowledge of or experience with Tim Robinson.

The music of this felt like a cross between Me, You, and Everyone We Know along with Punch-Drunk Love. Two movies I love.

Craig was a character who I held no sympathy for. He had no redeeming qualities and just came off as a total ass. Usually there is a heart to the person that can allow you to overlook their failings but he had absolutely zero.

I can't relate to the world of male-bonding but I have a feeling guys don't just sit around and break-out into song before having a boxing fight, the later I can imagine to be true with enough alcohol.

While I understand this isn't a serious film in any way, I still can't help but be baffled why this character would ever rise to any position of influence in the corporate world or why he would ever be able to end up with a wife and child. The guy should still be living in the basement of his parents house.

The attempt to immitate what impressed him by trying it on others is believable and the fact that all these attempts failed is believable because they weren't authentic but I don't buy that this guys co-workers would ever show up at Craig's house. I don't buy that his wife would follow him through the sewers / aquaduct and I don't buy that out of nowhere he claims to like punk music and is able to pull one over on his son.

And what's up with the mother and son relationship?

Whatever theme or themes this movie was trying to explore, it failed miserably at it.

Stumbled across this, thanks to Tubi suggestions, and thought I went in quite hesitantly, it ended up being a really great watch.

I wasn't aware that I was about to watch the story of a drag queen who through a speech got sucked into being the face of gay rights in Ireland and went on a touring campaign, with many other people, to fight for gay marriage / equality in Ireland. Her success - really, the communities success - made Ireland the first country in the world to bring about equal marriage rights through popular vote of the citizens.

At the beginning I wasn't sure why a documentary was made about this drag queen, who I had never heard of, but the documentary is truly earned. An amazing change resulted from the efforts of many people, though Panti (the drag queen) was the public face of many people's tireless efforts.

Watched with the Collab.

I have a lot of respect for what the film was doing and I am glad I watched it, though it may have been easier for me to get through as I watched it in three sittings, it's been a week where I have been travelling and so I got in 30 minutes here, 30 minutes there, while I had a break from my daily travel events. I want to give it four stars for what I took away from it, but, I feel had I gone through this in a single sitting, the single shot would have lessened my view. But perhaps not. Victoria, is a movie I compare to this, a fascinating film but one which is hurt by it's single shot structure, though, the last 30ish minutes of Victoria is 100% fully engrossing, it's building to it that slows it down, where here, you don't have the same pay-off for your patience.

Filmed in 2002, all in one take, thanks to the advent of digital video. It is a grand project to have a single 95ish minute take that roams through 33 rooms, es three orchestra's and places the art of the Hermitage on display. 

I was captivated through the first 30-40 minutes of the film.  The second half began to drag for me and I feel that was to properly give time to the 2,000 actors to be able to move around from scene to scene, where applicable.

Watching this made me think of the play Sleep No More, where your entire experience at the production is where you are immersed into the story. You actually walk around and there are actors all around performing. This atmosphere could have been interesting for the movie Russian Ark.

I, like anyone else, can not help but think of Noah's Ark and why the film would be labeled Russian Ark. If you think of Noah's Ark to preserve the world before the flood, before the destruction, then Russian Ark is preserving a grander (yet flawed) time period. There is a lot of credit given to the nobility and their love for beauty and art, architecture, fine foods and dining, even down to the style of plates that were eaten upon. The movie comes off as a large subversive film to critique what was lost with the Russian Revolution and all that followed. And, yet, while the movie acknowledges the flaws of the past, the appreciation of art and beauty seems to be on a scale of mythical proportions.

An interesting piece of history is that after the revolution, the country was in such a dire financial state, Stalin sold off a ton of the country's art work for money. Much of it secretly sold to Western collectors. The National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. is basically Russia's art collection sold off to survive. And here I have to give respect to the revolutionaries who did not destroy the art of the past, despite their intolerance for the system, they still honored and kept art alive. Most of the private collections were nationalized and are in the Hermitage, where the movie was filmed.

So, this "ark" is a preservation and the flood that is to come is the Russian Revolution. The closest we get to the revolution is what I assume is the scene with all the coffins being constructed due to the battle with the unified German Empire (WWI). So, while the movie does not flow in order the way time does, the movie flows with time unstoppable, not cuts, no breaks, a constant uninterruptible motion forward. We are ghosts in the film, roaming the halls of "our own" (Russia's) history, where we see Catherine the Great, Peter the Great,  Anastasia and Nicholas II before they were murdered by the Bolsheviks. We are in St. Petersburg, the capital of Russia until its relocation after the revolution. There is mention of Russia fighting off Napoleon Bonaparte, it's complex history with Europe, crossing across the continents of Europe and Asia, between the more stable and less stable worlds.

As we taker the tour, we hear that the rooms smell of formaldehyde - a preservation fluid. The religious imagery of Mary and john the Baptist and all that was lost when the revolution took place and became (in theory, not reality) an atheistic country. The Marquis who we tour with is offended that religious art shares space with non-religious art. Pushkin, the Russian poet is brought up. The art that was saved from the fire in the 1800s echoes to the art that was saved following the revolution.

There is reference to the time period of luxury, empire, and power. We see the apology from Persia to Russia for the murder of their diplomat in Tehran, providing Russia with the Shah's Diamond - which is still in Russia today.

As we come close to the end and we see Alexandra, Nicholas II and Anastasia there is a line where somebody says, "did you hear shots" (foreshadowing to the death/murder to be delivered to them in the near future).

We make it to the final scene - The Ball at the Assembly Hall of the Nobility in St Petersburg, 1913 - we see the people we arrived to the museum with, who entered the museum with us to run off in another direction, here they are with men, ladies, military officials all in celebration, in dance, in music, in joy, and as the orchestra finishes it's song and we turn to the Marquis, and ask if he is "coming with us" he says no - for how could he - this is a lament - a farewell to us as we move forward, for he knows where we are headed, to the wave of torment and torture just outside the doors. A flood is coming and it will engulf the entire country.

A masterpiece.

Always and forever ❤️

"Just one scoop of creamed potatoes, one slice of butter and... oh... four peas."

What Nymphomaniac could have been.

Maggie is great in this, playing this girl who is somewhat regressive in mental development. As with all humans, rational and complex thoughts are side-stepped by fight-or-flight and sexual arousal.

Why some may see such behavior and be able to rationalize away and critically evaluate what is happening, it can be because they don't find anything sexually appetizing in what they are seeing. However, some of us basically go through amygdala highjack when we see or come into with things that we find sexually arousing.

I really enjoyed the setup of the movie and how both people are struggling within themselves to find a way to be who they are. Self-identity is an important aspect in a fulfilling life and both of these people have characteristics that are not socially acceptable in a vast swath of society.

Yet, neither person is a complete servant to their desires. While in certain states, the prefrontal cortex is byed, in most states people can reflect upon themselves and try to understand why they are responding or behaving to things. And at other times you may not know and who cares.

Luckily for our characters here, their internal struggles can be satisfied by the other and the society that surrounds them may never know. It's not so easy for everyone to be able to camouflage themselves when they walk out the door.

This makes me want to watch Crash again. (Cronenberg film, not that Oscar garbage.)

I am giving this a four but I could easily rate it higher on a rewatch.

Is the spoon scene about how loose she is, or how much she's served cunt?

I much preferred Vol. II over Vol. I, it has Mia Goth and William Dafoe in it, that's enough right there!

Where Vol. I dealt with the insatiable need to fuck fuck fuck fuck and fuck some more - Vol. II was trying to recapture something you lost and to rediscover yourself and find out how to re-relate to your body as a sexual being.

The sex therapy with the women, the BDSM, the fucking two guys you can't even talk to in order to just try and be like, how do I get this feeling back? I could totally identify with all of this stuff far more than fucking until you literally go numb.

The back and forth between her and the guys house she was recovering in was more meaningful to me as well. I appreciated the dueling perspectives between them.

I got trauma-shock when the music from Antichrist started playing and her kid walked to the balcony.

She was in Uma Thurman's position in this version, losing what she wanted to somebody else.

Finding her tree.

Again, soooooo much here that didn't need to be, this volume was three fucking hours long! This whole story could have been conveyed in half the time, less actually.

This entire project probably, for me, could have been ranked way higher in my esteem for it if it was re-cut to a 2 or 2.5 hour film. (Maybe less)

Yet, I feel like giving this volume 4 stars, but I just can't. Way too much stuff.

Part of my 2025 Rainbow Challenge 🌈

"I can't feel anything! I can't feel anything!"

"We've always been anti-zioniats. It's not the same as being anti-semitic."

"So you were with all these men, and you still felt alone?"

Uma Thurman was the best thing about Part I.

Edgar Allen Poe's withdrawal and her sexual withdrawal.

Didn't realize I signed up for 5.5 hours of Nymphomaniac when I sat to watch it. Curious if the theatrical cut would be more to my liking.

I felt there were aspects of Part I that were interesting but I felt there was waaaaay more content than was even close to being necessary.

I appreciated how the guy was like a modern day twist on the Catholic confession, where instead of sitting and listening to profess what to do to return to the good grace of God, he basically was non-judgmental and non-critical of her experiences.

From going through the reviews of people I follow, either Part I was their favorite of the two, or they hated the entire thing.

I didn't find Part I as interesting as Part II but it's probably because I identified with Part II more than Part I.

I feel I'd need to rewatch this to really do any analysis or commentary worthy of making but I can't imagine I'd watch it again, at least not anytime soon. If I did, I may look for the shorter version.

In the catalog of Lars von Trier, it'd be something along these lines:

(In alphabetical order for favorites)
Breaking the Waves
Dancer in the Dark
Dogville

(In order of preference)
Melancholia
Antichrist
Nymphomaniac Vol. II

(Well defined gap)
Nymphomaniac Vol. I

As for Vol.II, I'll write that there.

Part of the Rainbow Challenge 🌈 2025.

There was a point in this when I thought it was surely ending and it didn't, and aside from the very last talking point, I really wish it had. I didn't find anything else to expand on the message and in fact one aspect seemed to really hurt it - obviously, in my personal view - and that was a story about a knife and one person telling the other person to essentially run the knife through their throat. I understood WHY it was included - because of the larger message that was being given, but I think it completely puts the rest of the documentary's message at risk.

This came out in 1995 and I could tell a lot of it was filmed in 1993, so, It's been 30 years and so I was curious how much has changed for this community.

1990s = highly underground
2025 = more mainstream, just see Fifty Shades of Grey from 2011 and we're 14 years past that. Internet has created broader knowledge through online communities.

Going from "deviant" behavior to now being seen as an "alternative lifestyle". In 2013 it was removed from the DSM-5, unless causing harm and distress.

While consent is much more widely accepted, there are still some legal restrictions to these behaviors even with consent and can land people in jail, depending on their location.

Not as widely seen as a mental illness (see DSM-V), but more seen as being on a spectrum of human sexuality.

Underground communities now much larger and more organization (again, internet influence and media).

Never portrayed positively in mainstream culture.
Now in books, films, TV shows, and fashion. However, some of these portrayals aren't really "authentic" insights.

Could lead to job loss.
Now, in some places, protected under anti-discrimination laws and protections for sexual orientation and lifestyles in some workplaces.

Part of the Rainbow Challenge 🌈 2025.

Gene Hackman, William Dafoe, s McDormand, and "Ned" from Groundhog's Day.

Every year, actually, every semester, I show my students Inequality for All and in that documentary Robert Reich spends some time talking about his friend, Andrew Schwerner, who was on of the three people murdered in Mississippi in 1964 trying to get blacks to to vote. (Reich has written about him <a href="https://robertreich.substack.com/p/when-americas-real-bullies-murdered"here). Along with Schwerner was James Chaney and Andrew Goodman. This movie is based on that story.

It's a good film. A little longer than it needs to be. One I may show my students but I would shorten it, or I would show segments from it, at least consider it.

Nobody who ended up being convicted of the murders served more than 6 years in prison and one person didn't go to jail until something like 2013, he ended up dying in jail.

There are criticisms of the movie and they are valid, even when it came out the criticisms were made vocal. I am sure if this movie were made today it would be quite different.

The movie makes it seem like two FBI agents were running the entire operation and of course one of them "follows the law" and the other "plays by his own rules". All of that is fake.

It also holds up the FBI as some sort of anti-racist and pro-integrationist group (the Federal Bureau of Integration, as claimed in the movie). However, it is more than likely the F.B.I. was involved in the murder of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. They framed of the Black Panthers and executed Fred Hampton. J. Edgar Hoover was instructed to send agents to Mississippi by Lydon Johnson, who was no example of anti-racism himself. Many of his Great Society programs were more paternalistic and nanny-state to care for the poor and uneducated and those who may be seen as unable to be self-reliant than really giving true power, by setting up a society for autonomy and entrepreneurship and self-dependency.

However, he obviously would and should be credited for his effort in getting the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Acts through congress, which would ultimately cost his party the south.

While the movie does show that the black citizens of the south did help the FBI at their own risk, it downplays other things they did and were doing which did give the film a bit of a white-savior narrative. But, like I said earlier, for the time period, I can understand the choices. To what extent the script or final cut was modified to be a movie to earn money over a "true story" - I do not know.

However, it does present the segregation and racism of the south. It does have historic footage of the Klan in the south. It does represent how intertwined the klan was with every aspect of society and I think that is important to see.

Some of the shots were gorgeous. The acting was well done - though - I felt William Dafoe was restricted in this, especially knowing what absolute man he is. However, his role was the "by-the-book" character and he played that role.

Glad I finally got around to watching it, I've wanted to for decades. It came out when my brother was born.

Such an elegant lady. Earnings are 👌

15 minute interview with Valerie, sometimes talking directly to the film maker, or putting on her face, window-shopping, getting a client.

I does seem true, as she stated, people of a different race are less likely to know.

Part of my Rainbow Challenge 🌈 2025.

This was a trip down memory lane. I going to see The Locust back when i lived in Los Angeles. It was an experience for sure.

Apparently Justin and I grew up during the same time period because everything he was talking about as a child I was thinking, yep, same, same, same.

Fun to watch all the other work these guys have done and to see the wild antics and the Jerry Springer episode was hilarious.

It's amazing what some people are able to do and still put a roof over their heads.

I was obsessed with Pee Wee Herman as a child, but who wasn't if you were young in the 80's. Mainly his 'Big Adventure' movie, which I watched endlessly.

I had no idea about his life before that movie and I found everything from when he left his parents house up until 'Big Adventure' endlessly fascinating. He looks great in drag by the way.

The growing up stuff was not of much interest to me and it almost resulted in me fast-forwarding until I saw Pee Wee and I am glad I didn't as I think the first half of the film is where it shines.

Part 1 is basically early beginnings to super-stardom.

Part 2 is basically 'the fall from above'.

I was very familiar with the adult movie theater incident that basically destroyed his career. I watching the MTV Award show that he came out on to everybody's surprise and his "Have you heard any good jokes lately?" line. It has always been in my head ever since seeing it live. It reminded me of George Michael going out right after his bathroom incident and owning it and having fun with it. However, Paul did not have fun with it at all and seemed like he could have been suicidal.

I was completely unfamiliar with the pedophile accusations and the politics (partly) behind the false accusations.

I felt too much time was spent on the negatives - while completely essential to his story - it all took so much time that I felt it made the doc drag towards the end.

I also was completely unaware how close he and Phil Hartman had worked together and I had wondered if there would be a scene with how Phil Hartman's murder impacted Paul, but, there is not and I think there was too much bad blood between them, especially after Phil's interview on Howard Stern.

I was unaware that he never came out as gay. I had thought that was public knowledge by the time of his death but I guess not.

Debi Mazar was lovely for being by his side through such a horrible period in his life.

I had no idea that Natasha Lyonne was on Pee Wee's Playhouse and if you haven't watched her Criterion Closet episode, watch it because it is the best one that has EVER been filmed. I've watched it twice already. She's amazing.

Directed by William Wyler, who also did the unbelievably fantastic 'Best Years of Our Lives' and the superb 'The Children's Hour'.

The was a 3.5 movie for me until the last five minutes.

It stars Terrance Stamp, who has beautiful eyes and the alluring Samantha Eggar who looks like she could be Nicole Kidman's mother.

This movie came out in 1965 and every time I see a movie with a dark theme, I am always surprised it came out before the 1970s. However, I realized 1960 is when Psycho came out and so, I think Freddie Clegg is an outgrowth of Norman Bates, a shy and introverted individual who is an unassuming man of the neighborhood, but who has a dark psychological problem in his brain. He even more-so reminds me of Mark Lewis from Peeping Tom (a movie that, sadly, destroyed Michael Powell's career).

I guess it was from Peeping Tom onward that began to explore the male psyche - what causes some men to be monsters inside.

Freddie collects butterflies, he wants to possess them and in the same way that is his goal with Miranda in this movie. As another aside, the butterfly obsession reminded me of Humbert Humbert in Lolita, another twisted mind and the blue suit Freddie wears made me think of Adam Sandler's character in Punch Drunk Love - another lonely socially awkward character, though not a psycho in the sense that we've seen in the other movies I've mentioned (but not normal either).

The way Freddie drives around in his van, stalking his prey makes me think of Ted Bundy.

Freddie captures Miranda pretty early on in the movie which surprised me, considering it's nearly a two-hour film, I did not intend her capture to be the overwhelming majority of the film.

Freddy keeps Miranda in a hidden enclave of a type of cellar in this mansion he bought (which also reminded me of Eric Rohmer's La Collectionneuse (The Collector). Freddy is hoping Miranda will fall in love with him and marry him and they bargain for how long she must be captive to him (4 weeks). He legitimately believes that if she just gets to know him that she'll fall in love with him. He tells her that if more men were in his position, wealthy with free time, there'd be a lot more of these abductions - which made me think of the story of cave men knocking out women and dragging them to their home (whether true or not, I never looked into it). This seems to be a mental state in some men - the desire to possess women - that if these women could only truly see these men and get to know them, then they would fall in love with them.

It's interesting to think about how people are so self-doubting and struck by fear. Freddy is a very attractive man and I see no reason why Miranda would have refused a date with him had he approached her in a normal setting and a normal way. But fear of rejection is so paralyzing that the only option is to kidnap the object of your affection.

The movie is way too long for what it is, especially being in a single location, as if this were a stage play - maybe it was.

As I said, watching this was a 3.5 star experience for me, it's the end that made it four stars.

I had one-credit left on Kanopy so I needed to find a short film to watch and this is what I chose.

It's VERY short, you probably spend 2 minutes with each of the people in this, maybe 3 minutes. You have a lesbian, a non-binary person, a gay person, a trans-man, and maybe another lesbian??

Each person talks of the difficulty being the bridge between their old culture that is brought to America by their parents, their culture of growing up in America as a child of immigrant parents and in some cases, their own children who have zero connection to the grandparents culture and in some cases the grandparents themselves.

I wish we either got more time with each person to expand on their thoughts or more people. Whatever the case, I wanted more - which is better than wanting less.

Watched with the Collab.

The film that inspired Kill Bill, especially the eye-patch. (I was unaware of this until after I watched the film today.)

It was my turn to offer a series of movies to be voted on and I went with female protagonist films that had to do with the body in some regard. This film won the vote and as I sat watching it I said to myself, "oh my gawd, what have I done?"

I did nearly zero research into this film so you can imagine my surprise when all the sudden hardcore sex appeared on the screen, not once, but a few times.

I just finished watching an interview with the lead actress Christina Lindberg where she talked a bit about making this film and meeting Quentin Tarantino because he is her "biggest fan". I'll mention a few things from the interview later on.

The movies plot is basically about a very young girl who is raped (when she is like, 8 years olf or something - thankfully off-screen) and as a result she goes mute. We then meet her later in life, I don't know how old she is supposed to be in the film but often she looks like she is 14 or 15 years old, though in the interview I think she said she was 21 or 22. One day she leaves her farm to go to a doctor appointment in town, misses her bus, and gets a ride to town from a guy. Instead of taking her to her doctor appointment he takes her to dinner, then back to his place where he basically drugs her and kidnaps her. It made no sense why she went anywhere with this guy instead of to her appointment. 

The guy gets her hooked on heroin so that she won't leave and will do anything he wants because of the body's craving for the drug. He writes a letter to her parents, has her sign it, and the letter basically says she never wants to see them again, which results in a horrible response by her parents. She goes through her days being a sex slave to the clients of this guy but on her free day she apparently is free to go anywhere she wants. Does she ever go to the police? Nope, she decides to start getting trained how to drive a car (which was real, she did not know how to drive and was taught during the filming), how to shoot a gun, how to engage in hand-to-hand combat, all so one day she could seek revenge on her abs.

The movie is labeled as an exploitation and revenge film - it's said to be feminist by some, and exploitative by others. It is claimed that she is mute because it  "is a striking metaphor for the voicelessness of victimized women." In the interview, she says its because the director thought she was a horrible actress. I looked up to see if she was in other films and she's been in a ton, and they are all basically her being naked. Some may say it was the 60's and 70's and this was a form of rebellion by feminists to take ownership of their bodies, show that they do enjoy sex and to change the framing around women's bodies, abilities, and sexual life, but... based on these movies being made my men and the fact that the director's follow-up film (according to reviews I read) is more "porn" focused, I'm going with exploitation of the young actress.

The scene where our protagonist loses her eye was explained during the interview, the director had a friend who worked at a hospital and so there was a very young girl who committed suicide and so they made-up her eye and what you see is 100% real, I had to look away. (it reminded me of Un Chien Andalou" by Luis Buñuel.)

The film is also known for its use of super-slow-motion, which at times is done very effectively but over-used in my opinion.

The hardcore sex is not the actress, she said it is from a theater production where a couple has sex in front of a live audience. Some say the use of harcore sex inserts was to heighten the shock value - I don't know if I buy that, based on his follow-up film and her saying his previous film, a children's film, left him completely broke. Perhaps it was a way to get publicity to make money, of which it never did in Sweden due to censorship laws but she said it was purchased by an American company and went to the US where it became famous, hence Quentin Tarantino seeing it.

One element I actually really appreciated was all the training she went through. Many revenge films have the victim do all sorts of things and be proficient in weapons and self defense by instinct, here you actually constantly see her spending her day off training. 

The music / score is unique and I felt it worked well. I'm not sure how long synthesizers had been in existence by this point but it seems like somebody playing around with getting sounds out of one.

The sex scenes, not the hardcore parts - the other parts - are never titillating or erotic which is good since they're all basically really rape scenes.

There were moments while i was watching this, wondering if the director was just stretching things out before getting to the revenge so he could have a feature-length film, but supposedly "the pacing is intentionally brutal to endure, aligning with the viewer's sense of entrapment with the character."

There are a lot of unexplained things in this movie - a lot - and these jumps in time where you just have to fill-in the blanks yourself.

As far as rape revenge movies go, I prefer I Spit On Your Grave, Straw Dogs, M.F.A., Revenge, Promising Young Woman and my favorite probably being Elle with Isaebelle Huppert . I did prefer this to Ms. 45, Martyrs, and Baise-Moi..I am sure I've seen others I am forgetting.

A 40 minute short(ish) film about a boy named Damon who desires to leave (?) and hit the road in the US and travel Route 66 just like in the book he's reading, On The Road.

He lives in his car and makes money as a male prostitute who hooks up with gay men.

One day he meets Emma, a Russian immigrant who works at a grocery store and seems a little unsure of her interest in him. (Dear gawd, look at the man, who wouldn't be?) She brings him into her world of which you can tell he is appreciative of but conflicted.

One night he abandons her and goes out to try to exercise his internal demons when he gets a call from a new client. Damon arrives at a man's home and it's the man's 65th birthday. In a very touching scene, Damon sings to him. The man also dreams of going to the US and Damon asks him why he hasn't gone yet.

The next day you can see that Damon is unsure of what the hell he is doing with his life and he's probably thinking about the old lonely man who wants to go to America but never does it. Damon returns to Emma, who left Russia and went to (?). She's full of life and full of action. She pursued Damon. She knows what she wants and goes after it. Damon embraces her, and she enjoys the moment but breaks it, asking if he'll take pictures when he goes to the US. You can tell he is a bit broken and you get the sense she doesn't wait around for boys to figure out what they want.

It's shit incredibly well. Sound design is great. I just really enjoyed this. For only being 40 minutes you can't get much depth but there is still warmth within. And Damon is fucking gorgeous. Emma is a cutie as well.

In a Gadda da Vida played and I realized, oh, I've seen the ending of this film on television.

Tom Noonan is awesome.

This is my 7th Michael Mann movie, I think.

Manhunter
Jericho Mile
Thief
The Last of the Mohicans
The Insider
Collateral
Heat

For me, there's a big gap between the first three listed and the last four. It's been too long since I've watch Mohicans, Inside, and Collateral to really be able to rank his movies but I imagine Heat is at the top.

This movie made me realize why sometimes you need a partner as a cop — so you can do exposition without making your lead cop seem like a fucking lunatic talking to himself and being waaaaay to emotional.

I might prefer Brian Cox as Hannibal more than Hopkins. I've only seen Silence of the Lambs. I didn't watch Hannibal or Red Dragon. SotL is far and away the superior film. Probably still the best thriller in my book, though I'd consider Zodiac.

Not a whole lot to say about this. I enjoyed it. I didn't love it like everybody I follow seems to. 🤷‍♀️

I don't even know if I can explain what I just watched. :D

The movie starts off with this guy who has a kid, has a wife in the hospital who has been in a coma for three years, and has this mundane job as a salesman selling furniture.

He decides to bring something new into his life and signs a year-long contract where at undisclosed times and undisclosed places these random dominatrix's will just show up and abuse him. This eventually starts to get out of control and he wants to break the contract, which the International Organization of Pleasure is against and then the movie just kind of goes off the rails in a rather entertaining way. I mean, it gets absurd. It reminds me of Rubber in some ways, but I don't anything can top Rubber.

I think it was 50 minutes and 33 seconds into the film where I just lost it and couldn't stop laughing for a while. The movie is over-the-top and I can't really say more than that. I don't even know how to rate this.

1) Best in Show
2) A Mighty Wind
3) Waiting for Guffman

Watched on Monday May 26, 2025.

I still have never watched a single episode of RuPaul's Drag Race which boggles my own mind.

Watching this reminded me a lot of the theater kids I hung out with in high school and college. Everyone is so over-the-top and fun but it can really wear on you.

I'm sure Jinx's story is not an uncommon one in his world. He reminds me a bit of a student I had a few years ago who also did drag in high school. I never saw him perform, not sure if he still does, but I'd love to see it.

Jinx is pretty stunning all dressed up but when in boy-mode, I feel would be somebody you'd either never notice or just see as annoying. But when in costume, it all works.

Watched with the collab.

This movie came out in 1988 and was based on a story, apparently invented by Frank Dux. He alleges he was trained in ninjutsu by a master named Senzo Tanaka and won a secret martial arts tournament called the Kumite in 1975. That is what inspired this movie, apparently no evidence for this exists and neither do his claims that he worked for the CIA.

The movie features Jean-Claude Van Damme, and the movie help make JCVD an action hero in the vein of Chuck Norris, and Steven Seagal. The 80's was a time of obsession with Asian culture, ninja movies were the rage, David Bowie was singing about his China Girl and The Vapors were 'Turning Japanese'.

This movie was popular among young boys at the time it came out and I imagine it inspired people to want to be involved in martial arts. I wonder if Joe Rogan was into this movie.

The movie basically is covering an underground secret fighting world and JCVD trained for this as a youth with a man who became his trainer and a father-like figure.

The first 18 minutes introduces this background and it plays on the idea that boys will get into mischief unless there is an adult there to train and guide them to a better path.

Once in Hong Kong, JCVD meet "The Ogre" from Revenge of the Nerds (Donald GIbb). They become friends and we watch them move through the tournament together until eventually we get to the final match where JCVD faces off again Chong Li, a very buff and menacing figure.

There's a brief love-interest story, Forest Whitaker is one of the military officials trying to capture JCVD, and there is a little exposition about Hong Kong and it's place in the British empire and ownership of the land at the time.

This was the only movie of note by the director Newt Arnold, though he has 30 assistant director credits on many notable films, 14 of which I have seen and one being Burn, Hollywood, Burn an Alan Smithee Film. I find the last thing interesting because I am running the poll this week and one of my ideas was to pitch a bunch of Alan Smithee films, Alan Smithee is a fake name for directors who don't want their name associated with the film they directed.

Three-stars for 80s memories. I still say Kung-Pow should have won the vote!!!

Somehow I feel this movie really comes down to a single scene, when the adjuster asks the gay guy the cost of his dog, what was it worth?

This is for people wanting to learn about different types of cats to see which breed will be right for you and your home.

I just wanted to look at cats so I had it on in the background and would look up, see cats, then look at my cats and smile and desire more cats.
😺

S: See, you can't just get rid of something. If you're going to have a revolution, you have to have a system to replace it.

H: Not necessarily, see, this system is so bad, it must be done away with, we can build after.

S: Well now, before you tear a building down you need to know what you're going to put in its place. You have to have plan.

H: Let me ask you something, when this country was built and they created the system, when did the Continental Congress meet, to make up the rules? Did they meet before the revolution, or after the revolution?

✅

Sad that since this time the police state that was shocking to the nation is now a common element and they're far more armed today than they were then.

Directed by Roman Polanski
Starring: Sigourney Weaver, Ben Kingsley, and Stuart Wilson

Cinematography: Tonino Delli Colli (The Good, the Bad and the Ugly; Life Is Beautiful; Once Upon a Time in America; Once Upon a Time in the West; Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom; The Decameron; Lacombe, Lucien)

This is a stage play adapted for the screen, which makes sense as 95% of the movie takes place in a sea-side beach house.

The story takes place in a Latin American country where Paulina's (Weaver) husband Gerado (Wilson) has just been assigned to a trial to work on bringing justice to the victims of the fascist regime. This information is not supposed to be known but has leaked to the media, potentially for the former fascists in charge to kill Gerado before the trial begins. Coincidently, or not, a man named Dr. Roberto Miranda (Kingsley) assists Gerado who has a flat tire and is given a ride to the home of Gerado where he (Dr. Miranda) will eventually stay and become a prisoner of Paulina.

Paulina hears Dr. Miranda's voice and makes the connection to a man who tortured and raped Paulina many times while she was part of the student-resistance movement. She has no evidence, but recognizes his voice, his laugh, phrases he would use and even his smell. Hoping to get him to confess she assigns her husband, Gerado, to be the defense lawyer for Dr. Miranda since Gerardo is against her interrogating Dr. Miranda the way Miranda interrogated Paulina. For Gerado, in a democracy you have a right to defend yourself in court against accusation (something we once had in the United States, known as due process).

At the core of the movie is putting the desire for revenge up against the desire for justice. Paulina is going off of memory from 15 years ago, making accusations with no evidence to back it up, there are coincidences but it is all circumstantial evidence at best. Gerardo serves as the audience to some extent, caught between which side to take, the former victim or the accused and alleged rapist and torturer. Is his loyalty to the law and principles greater than his loyalty to his wife? (It makes me think of Woody Allen and Mia Farrow or Roman Polanski and Samantha Gailey; which might be why he was so interested in making a movie about being condemned by the opinion of others.)

I felt the movie was shot well, and for the most part, acted well. However, there was just something lacking for me. Maybe Weaver was over-acting or Gerado was too blasé.

The issue and question at hand is an important one, especially in cases of vigilante justice or people seeking retribution. For me the movie came off very heavy on the side of guilt and not as much speculation on the side of innocence. Also, it's a movie, not real life, so I was in the mood for catharsis, kill the fucking bastard and do it slowly and painfully. But, maybe that's saying more about my state at the moment, it's the end of the school year and a stressful time for everyone, so, any kind of release feels good right now.

This week's Collab Film.

I literally thought this was based on a true story, I guess not.

The movie was filmed by Michael Mann:
Heat
Collateral
Thief
The Last of the Mohicans
The Insider

It was a made-for-television movie that was followed up by Thief.

There are a whole host of familiar faces in this movie.

The story is about a man, Larry Murphy, who keeps to himself at San Quentin prison and just runs around the track, he's surround by segregated groups, divided up by race, but he doesn't want anything to do with that. He its to the crime he committed that left him in jail and he has no problem serving time for what he did. He is a principled person surrounded by people who are a bunch of scammers.

When a reported is visiting the prison, working on a story, he notices Murphy and takes note of how fast he can run. Eventually this leads to an attempt to allow him to compete to qualify for the US Olympic team. While a true potential contender, there is a question of whether a convicted felon should be allowed to represent the United States in the Olympics, because, obviously the Olympics if filled with very highly moral people an nations (sarcasm).

Murphy also has a friend who is just trying to get a conjugal visit with his wife and the constant focus on this for a while was a bit surprising for me, considering it's a TV movie. Not that things like this can't be on television, but I just thought, you could have had his focus be on something other than having sex for the first quarter of the movie. Boys will be boys, I guess.

Murphy would be considered an anti-hero based on the way he lives his life and you could probably do an analysis of the prison system as a microcosm of society, like in any prison movie.

I have seen many movies set in prisons and I didn't see this one bringing anything to the table of strong influence or that stands out. The movie accomplishes what it seemed that it intended on accomplishing.

I am broken right now. There aren't enough stars in letterboxd for the way I am feeling after watching this movie.

In the last minute wrap-up of creating my next list of films for the film club I am a member of to vote on, I pulled this one because it seemed a little to light in comparison to everything else I settled on.

WARNING: Do not read my movie tags to avoid spoilers.

Short Review: Where was this movies Oscar? (It went to Son of Saul - okay, I can accept that.)

Long Review:
Mustang is a 2015 Turkish film directed by Deniz Gamze Ergüven. It brings us into the lives of five orphaned sisters living with their grandmother who quickly loses custody of them to an uncle after the girl's "disgrace" the family on the last day of school when they are seen playing at the beach, sitting on the shoulders of boys as they wrestle. A neighbor witnessed this and the fact that the girls are accused of "pleasuring themselves on boys necks" calling them "depraved" and "disgusting," calling them "whores". There is great concern that they have been "sullied". As a result, the girls are taken away by their uncle to live under his roof, his rules, and his desires.

Though we are involved in all the girls lives, the primary girl is the youngest, Lale, who is the most defiant of the bunch, trying to resist or express in any way she can her displeasure with the confines and rules they all must live under in a patriarchal society. I don't like using that word, patriarchy, because I feel it is over-used, but, it really is the most fitting word and it is a movie like this where it must be used.

While the girls live in a highly religious and oppressive society, they are able to find comfort and joy in each other, however, this is short-lived as the uncle decides to start marrying off the girls in quick succession in the typical arranged marriage.

The movie focuses heavily on the female body in its camera work, but not in a perverted or exploitative way. It is also how the girls talk to each other, making fun of each others bodies and the changes they go through but all of this serves the narrative, that the woman's body must be kept pure and it requires heavy policing in order to not taint the sacredness of it. One of the most brilliant shots in the film for me was this one. It just completely exemplifies the cultural view. The girl, in a wedding dress, virginal white, a light, as if a holy presence appears to be beaming out of her vaginal opening, when in reality, it is a purity doctor examining her to understand why she did not bleed on her wedding night.

As you can see in the image, the girl is very young, it is a very abrupt movement from girlhood into adulthood, or womanhood, for in this society, womanhood is when you are penetrated, as it appears, not matter what your age. It is the man who bestows it upon you, taking your adolescence and "purity" from you. As if a God. You are now his.

As the girls are married off, acts of rebellion turn their new home into a prison cell, as more and more features are added to the home to literally imprison the girls within its walls.

The movie plays back and forth between day and night, between brightness and darkness, between freedom and prison.

The movie is utterly devastating in a number of ways - absolutely liberating in others - and glimmers of hope in a landscape of hell.

A movie the Criterion should bring into its library.

RIP Erica Andrews

Not gonna lie, I almost turned this off at three different times. Eventually, I was so far in I just stuck with it.

For starters, this movie came out in 2010, so, it's pre, what some would call "woke" period, if you define "woke" as overly sensitive people who see everything as problematic - which is not what it ever meant but what it eventually got classified as.

Is this movie inappropriate by modern day standards, without question.

For starters, you're probably not gonna see too many movies these days with the word tranny in the title, let alone even used in any dialogue.

There is race content and ableist stuff that some people might find objectionable by today's standards but this movie is such a total shitshow, in a semi-charming way, that I don't see how people can be so critical of it.

Superbad 2007
Tropic Thunder 2008
The Hangover movies
Ted
The Love Guru

Probably many more but those were never in my wheelhouse, not because of them being problematic, just because it's not my style of humor.

So, I don't care if this movie has content that doesn't stand in today's world.

What is hard to watch for me is just how utterly BAD some of the dialogue is. How over-the-top some of this is in a way that I don't find that enjoyable. How drawn out and absurd some of this stuff is.

I also just find some drag queens to be hit or miss for me and two of them were huge misses for me.

But, I actually loved Krystal Summers who is part of the trans community. She never bugged me, some of that may be because it was obvious she was not a guy in drag or wearing prop body parts that the drag girls wore. They weren't all "trannies".

There's a review on here by Randy Meeks who does a very thoughtful dive into drag and trans culture.

The change from transvestite to cross-dressers and transexual to transgender has been a long process but the change in a broad sweeping way is actually quite modern and I know some people, in the community, still embrace transexual over transgender, especially with the large increase in the "pronoun war" and non-binary community.

The term transgender has encomed so many communities that some people do not see any relation to somebody saying they are non-binary and under the umbrella of transgender when they're on television with a full-on beard and in a dress.

Some people feel such community have caused harm to the community, these people who hold this view might be seen as "transmedicalist" - essentially somebody who feels a gender dysphoria diagnosis is only valid if the person with the diagnosis wants to fully transform/transition to the opposite sex/gender (even which word used there is debatable); having all their male or female components disposed of, to the best of their ability.

Others see people with those views as exclusionary and not ing others who have valid forms of dysphoria and are discarding those people (non-binary) for their own personal benefits or "closed-off" beliefs.

Far be it from me to have any answers to any of these debates but my intention in even bringing ANY of it up is to show how complex and evolving the whole world is for people in those communities. It's far more nuanced than people sitting in Congress could even begin to fathom.

So, in this movie you have gay men, straight men, gay women, straight women, drag performers and who knows what else all coming together to make a campy and cheesy movie. And I appreciate that. So I have absolutely zero issues with any content or dialogue that may be "problematic" (or as Kim Petras would say, problematique) by today's standards.

It's an amateurish film, with a small budget, being camp and over-the-top.

Is it a three star movie? Fuck no it isn't. Like I said, I almost turned it off and gave it half a star. But, I respect somebody trying to do something and having fun doing it.

My fourth Bresson Film.

Previously seen:
Au Hasard Balthazar
Pickpocket
Diary of a Country Priest

All I could think is
1. I wish I had such strong convictions
2. When did we start using lawyers instead of letting the person on trial tell their story
3. Aren't all women soldiers dressed in men's clothing, are we to burn them all at the stake now if "A man is not to dress as a woman and nor is a woman to dress as a man, for it is an abomination to the Lord your God" (or however the verse goes)?

I appreciated the breaks from the trial. My second Joan of Arc film. I'm intrigued by her, but I don't find the movies I've seen to be amazing. I respect them though.

Yearly watch with my US History class. Should log it twice since I have two classes.

This is a documentary from Spain that goes on an excursion with six trans-women. They are of varying age and various points in their journey.

The young and the older are all together and they are all of a trans group, Ivaginarium. Some of these women are in the cast in the film My Emptiness and I, about a trans-woman.

If you have seen Dressed in Blue, this is similar but also different. Similar that it is various trans-women of various ages and circumstances coming together to share their stories. Different in that the stories are not separated out, where a camera crew follows on person around, then the next, then the next. Instead they are always together, sharing their pain, joy, conflicts, and celebrations as a group, all of whom each other on their journey.

The director of this is the same director who made the film My Emptiness and I.

Yolanda's journey is crazy crazy crazy. Her story is worth the watch alone.

This movie explores a trans girl in her early twenties. The movie opens with her taking a guy back to her apartment and when the time comes for sex, she breaks down. We then cut to her at a psychological clinic in Spain where she is being asked questions about her life. Afterwards she is diagnosed with gender dysphoria.

She is from , and her parents live there so she communicates with them via the internet.

What we follow is her going to group therapy, trying to understand herself, navigating a professional life and a dating life that seems to be failing with each new attempt. Each time we get to a moment of intimacy with a guy it is approaches from a different aspect and there is always an issue, whether it's anal sex, or discomfort with her male genitalia, there's always some as she is trying to understand how she works and what she wants. On top of that is dealing with the three scenarios faced by any woman:
1) be desired
2) be undesirable
3) being fetishized

In her group and from her doctor especially, she is informed that unless she has gender reassignment surgery, she is most likely to be fetishized by men who are curious what the experience is like.

This seems like it would be a positive movie for people who are starting their journey, or in the early stages and need something to relate to. There's something there for anyone in that community for sure. For others, it serves as a window into part of an experience trans-women go through.

I enjoyed the movie. There were a few moments where I felt it lost a little if it's forward motion but overall, a worthy film in the ever-expanding canon of femme trans experiences.

There is indeed a certain dead-end element in Gale's life. It was evident in everything he said and did, that he looked back on each episode as something guilt ridden. He was like a man on a toboggan slide, enjoying the sensation, unable to get off, and having no idea of what cliff or wall might lie at the bottom.I saw Gale as a man laughing to cover-up a desire to scream, as joking to keep from crying; as running to avoid having to stop and look at himself."

This is a documentary about cross-dressers in the 1950a and 60s. A group of college-educated men who would get together a few months every summer, with their wives, and live out their lives in a community of men who felt a compulsion to dress as women.

Some would remain crossdressers, some were transgender and would later take hormones and get sexual reassignment surgery (gender confirmation surgery). Some would have families, some would see their marriages end. Some would date men, some would date women. Some had children who accepted them, some had children who didn't.

Wherever they went, it was illegal to exist.

Some started magazines, some opened places where these people were free to be themselves. Some made it to old age, some died young (by their own hand in some instances).

Yet, whether accepted or not, legal or not, they found community and places to be themselves, even if only a couple of weeks each summer.

I think the club scenes are far superior here because there is a true are and set design, it's not just a stripper stage.

I think the plot of the first one is more interesting but this one is more beautiful.

Kay Lenz has kick-ass 80's hair.

Truly the best decade ever.

Not bad and it shows an unhealthy way of dealing with gender dysphoria.

Watched a bunch of this with my econ students. They were mad. 🤣

From the director of Glengarry Glen Ross comes... Who's That Girl?

What?

Yes, yes it's true. This is a 1980s version of a old school slapstick comedy and I don't care what anyone says. It was fun fun fun and dumb dumb dumb.

I want to give it four stars but I will go with 3.5 as I am surprised I liked this as much as I did. Was expecting a complete train wreck.

Besides, it's Madonna!

I don't know much about this movie, I just know Candy Darling is in it and that's all that mattered to me.

The first thing I will say is that this movie is endlessly quotable and I will absolutely be watching it again just for the laugh-out-loud dialogue.

There's a feeling of mockery to the whole thing. The movie was released in 1971, N.O.W. started in 1966. The film comes off as seeing the women's liberation movement as a comical joke, so, what better way to play at the joke than have three trans-women portray the offended women.

The director, Paul Morrissey attended a private Catholic school and private Catholic college (Fordham in both cases). I don't know if P.M. came from a well-to-do family but if often seems that many of the known people in art scenes are attached to money if not funded by somebody else. The real working class don't have time to spend their days making films people don't care about.

After Andy was shot by Valerie Solanis in 1968, this movie was a dig at her and her radical views.

Whatever the ultimate intention and point behind the film, I find the presence of the three main trans women to be a positive thing, considering you were not likely to see any kind of representation in film and back then, I can imagine even bad representation is still good representation for anyone living in the dark who could see people who portrayed their particular peculiarities.

The movie overall is not great in an artistic sense, many shots are stagnant, single takes, mistakes and all remaining. It is very low-budget. But, as i said earlier, the dialogue is worth the price of ission alone.

I know I will rewatch it just for the humor, though I am sure to fast forward through various parts of the film. And seeing Candy is just a delight in and of itself.

If you look at the poster for this film, you will see it is the statue of a woman lifting her skirt to expose her genitals while standing in the river. Anasyrma is such behavior, of lifting your clothing to expose your genitals.

The theme plays into the title of the movie because it focuses on a couple, one a man and one a trans-woman. There is a scene where the trans-woman is bathing off in the river, fully nude, and at one point the genitals are seen. It plays into the fixation of the genitals of trans-women and trans-men.

The movie is a Georgian film and it has French subtitles. However, 85% of the movie has no dialogue and I was able to pick up a lot of the subtitles through osmosis of watching tons of French cinema and commonality with the english language. However, understanding the subtitles is 100% unnecessary to understand the film.

Gabriel and Amaia live in squalor, hence the bathing in the river, they have no running water where they live (or so it appears), or perhaps no place to shower. Amaia's hair is somewhat dreaded as happens when you are not able to regularily clean your hair. It is unclear how they make any money but it appears that perhaps Amaia sells her body for money - though not confirmed, when we meet her it gives the idea that it is a possibility.

The movie opens at Amaia's funeral, so right away you know she will be dead by the end of the film.

Gabriel seems to care for Amaia but he does come off as a little reserved and perhaps somewhat uncomfortable with his relationship with her. There is a scene at home where his mother turns to the news and there is nearly a riot in protest of LGBT people and she and Gabriel's brother watch his reaction to the news more than the news story. When he kisses her dead body at the beginning the people near him turn and walk away. When he has his birthday party his "friends" mock him. So, while he chooses to be with Amaia, you can see everyone else in his life is not comfortable with it.

Upon returning home from his birthday he has found a stray cat and brings it to Amaia. Gabriel, bruised, broken and somewhat ashamed pushes Amaia away when she tries to treat his wounds. Amaia gets up, grabs her coat and walks out the door, unable to look at him but saying, "You knew this was going to happen."

She walks to the bus station where four men beat her, one stabs her with a switchblade knife while the other bus patrons just watch detached from what is happening. A bus arrives, everyone gets on, leaving Amaia's dead body on the ground. The movies closing credit play over all the cars that drive past her body, nobody stopping to see if she is okay.

Dazed Magazine did a tribute to the trans-woman in the film, Bianca:
www.dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/article/29740/1/paying-tribute-to-trans-actress-and-model-bianka-shigurova

She was found dead in her apartment, reportedly by a gas leak. Another friend of hers died, reportedly the same way. Another transwoman, Zizi, was beaten and her throat slashed around that time. Another woman, Sabi Beriani, was killed by a man. The court acquitted him and he later assaulted and set Bianka Shigurova house on fire.

The anti-gay riot in the movie was a real event, you can see some of the footage in this article:
www.theguardian.com/world/video/2013/may/17/georgia-anti-homophobia-rally-video

The recently defunded USAID (which did do a lot of horrible things, and also some good things) was a funder of LGBT rights in Georgia, "USAID s the human rights of LGBT persons in Georgia, working to ensure they are free from discrimination and persecution."

Georgia, if you don't know, borders Russia, as does Ukraine and Azerbaijan, so, there has been a lot of funding to these border countries of Russia and Russia has engaged in acts to prevent US influence (Ukraine being the most obvious example).

In 2024, Georgia ed a law that, "...bans same-sex marriage, adoption by same-sex couples, gender-affirming care and changing one’s gender on identity documents, and depictions of LGBTQ+ people in media."

So, while seeing trans-people murdered in movies is a common thing and one the community often wants to see less of, it is obviously still a huge deal in places like Georgia, where the movie is based.

While watching the movie I thought of Matthew Shepard, who was a young gay man brutally murdered by homophobic men in the United States back in the 1990s.

As far as the movie goes, even though I basically watched a movie I could not truly comprehend from a audio or subtitle approach, I did find it to be engaging (it is short) and I liked how it was shot.

R.I.P. to Bianka Shigurova, and the other murdered girls of Georgia.

Sadly it was just over a week ago where I watched the documentary about Ganda, the Filipino trans-woman murdered by a US Soldier in the Philippines.

The movie can be watched here:
vimeo.com/102449861

Short Review: It's not what you think. Don't read a thing about it, just put it on and let it gradually expose itself to you, the way a stripper would in a club. If you like psychological drama, this is for you. If you are seeking titillation, look elsewhere.

Longer-ish Review:
Girls! Girls! Girls! and Welcome to the Jungle, this ain't.

I really feel it's not a movie to write about because of how much I was rewarded for not knowing a damn thing about this before I started watching it. I didn't even read the Letterboxd blurb. This was chosen by the Collab Group, so I just put it on. My brother was a fan so it's been sitting on my watchlist ever since he saw it.

This is my first Atom Egoyan film and I am in the mood for more. It stars Bruce Greenwood who I am not familiar with. In fact, I am not familiar with almost any of these actors, though I have seen quite a few films with Victor Garber in them and Elias Koteas was phenomenal in Crash.

The first thing that that stands out about this movie is the two-way mirrors and how there is always something behind the surface, that is the main theme of this movie. My stripper reveal comment above works in the same fashion, layers are revealed slowly and over time.

The movie is called Exotica because that is the name of the strip club, which looks like it is a Vegas stage-show more than a modern style of strip club where there is just a stage and a pole. It made me want to open my own club if it I could get it looking like this place, a place of fantasy that really has a tone to it. Though, I still prefer my desire for an alpaca ranch and dog and cat rescue farm away from society.

The next thing that stood out to me is that two of the characters, Eric and Thomas, look like different versions of Trent Reznor, which is fitting because this move came out in 1994 and it has that 90's vibe to it.

The film is part of the Criterion Collection and I would be tempted to purchase it just to listen to the audio commentary.

Again, I really feel speaking to specifics of this film is a disservice to anyone who would read this before seeing it because, as mentioned, things just reveal themselves piece by piece. Even the babysitting, you realize, she's not hired to babysit, she's hired for the drive home from babysitting which was just a chef's kiss reveal.

The way Christina dances, it's still so child-like, like a kid trying to pretend to be sexy, not yet fully understanding her body and how to use it. Young women know their body has the power to temp and attract, but it takes time to understand it all and it's obvious, Christina is still a little girl in some ways.

Even when the movie was over, I still wanted more but more is absolutely unnecessary but I was really interested in Thomas' life. I wanted more about him, and did he ever resolve the theft?

Lastly, the song 'Everybody Knows' by Leonard Cohen has always been associated with Natural Born Killers in my mind. It's what I always think of when I hear that song, but the last time I attempted to watch that movie I found it unwatchable, so, to have it now associated with Exotica is a welcomed change.

Short review: It should have been 90 minutes long, maybe 110. The ideas in the film are good, but I feel like I'm watching, yet another, holocaust film.

Long Review: As a US history teacher, I spend year after year enmeshed in slavery, failed reconstruction, the Harlem Renaissance, 1960s Civil Rights, and the lingering subtle and overt racism of the modern age. Therefore, it is easy for me to see - yet another movie in a world of either slavery or sharecropping as a theme I am as tired of as I am holocaust films.

Thankfully, the setting was not the focus of the film, but I will it it somewhat soured my mood from the start.

As others have rightfully pointed out, this is a movie influenced by From Dusk Til Dawn. For me, the first half of Dusk til Dawn was great, the second was of little interest. Here, it's the reverse. Why?

The beginning of From Dusk Til Dawn has a conflict, two brother criminals trying to flee the US and get to Mexico after committing a crime. There is tension, conflict, and a whole hell of a lot of humor, thanks to the writing of Quentin Tarantino. The later half, turns into a Robert Rodriguez film of over-the-top, drawn own, wasted time on a vampire film that just won't end soon enough.

Here, we have a beginning that really has no conflict or tension at all. It's just two brothers driving around town trying to entice people to come to their new juke t that they opened up and the gathering of supplies. The purpose is obviously for you to spend time with the characters and get to know them so that you are invested in their story. That's great but it was done in a rather boring manner. The highlight being the singing of the young guitar playing and blues singing Sammy, who is in rebellion against the wishes of his father, a southern Christian preacher. Once we arrive at the Juke t in the evening, it's nearly another 30 minutes of content before the white guests arrive. It's at this point where the movie starts to finally have tension. The transition into the vampire section works and doesn't over-stay its welcome and elevated the viewing experience tremendously.

One of the scenes that people talk about, and rightfully so, is the scene where the music of the past and future all merge inside the juke t, showing the impact of black music, which has always been ripped off, stolen, or exploited by others. It's in this place where the black residents have something of their own and they want to keep it that way.

I appreciate the role of Mary in the film (is this Mary the pure virgin mother of Christ or Mary Magdalene, the woman of sin?) Mary is a woman of mixed race, too white to fit in with black culture, one-drop of black blood to bar her from acceptance in white culture. She was probably my favorite character of the film.

The Juke t serves as a place of sanctuary, a place you would assume would be the church at this time, but the church is too judgmental, the juke t has sin and musical salvation combined. Love and sex. Gluttony and greed. The church may provide a good basis and foundation but it doesn't seem to prepare you for the modern world, it may concern itself with saving your soul, but not with getting by on earth.

One of my favorite parts of the film was the credits / after credits scene with Buddy Guy.

[I just fed my cats dinner, they were demanding it, so my "flow" of what I was writing about has left my head, but I think you get the idea.]

If somebody could take the creativity of the first half of From Dusk til Dawn, and infuse it with the second half of Sinners, you may have the perfect transition story around.

Watched on Youtube:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNmEqgK-eCs

Absolutely beautiful!!!!

Made me cry.

They need to do a follow up. Where are they now?

Youtube watch:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ET6jsTt7BBQ

They out there killin' them trans-girls.

The opening to this is just straight action and it was great,

Props to showing the collapse of Tower 7 on 9/11. A fire, my ass.

A collage of horror themes all rolled into a 20 minute short film.

Watched on YouTube:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuM152a5HAo

It has Candy Darling in it. Good enough reason to watch.

Watched on Vimeo:
vimeo.com/1055695193?=true

A transwoman is obsessed with recording and documenting her life. The obsession for her art turns her into a rather unpleasant character. She comes across as being unable to live in a moment that is not recorded, as if nothing exists that is not on film.

A confrontation with, I believe her mother.
Dancing at a club.
Sexual activity.

It seems like a catharsis for her but it also seems to destroy her real relationships.

There's another scene where she is eating with her partner (I believe) and her partner has headphones on and is watching something on her phone while she eats - it makes me think of how people seem to be losing the ability to sit in silence or to be able to have a conversation - this sense of needing to be entertained and that our attention is focused on the visual medium, that there is real life.

Her art piece, a photocopied scan of her body (the cover for the film) hangs like a sacrificial christ.

I lost sympathy more and more and more for Alice as the film went on, that her disconnect from real life hurt real people and I wanted to like her - in part she really really really reminded my of a childhood friends sister.

I enjoyed it. It's a short 20 minute film.

BREIF Review:
This is a movie that is so over-the-top that it borders on comical in the absolute absurdity.

LONGER Review:
Directed by Kathryn Bigelow (Point Break, Zero Dark Thirty, Hurt Locker, Strange Days, and more)

Starring:
Jamie Lee Curtis
Ron Silver (Romancing the Stone)
Elizabeth Peña (I've seen six movies she's been in)
Louise Fletcher (Nurse Ratchet from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest)
Philip Bosco (recognizable, seen ten movies with him in them)
Kevin Dunn (Seen 7 of his movies)
Richard Jenkins (Seen 16 of his movies)
Co-Written with Eric Red (The Hitcher)
Shot by Amir Mokri (Seen five fo his movies)
Music composed by Brad Fiedel (Terminator 1 & 2)

The movie opens with Curtis entering a room where a man holds a woman hostage - he lets the hostage go and points the gun at Curtis but before he can get a shot off, she shoots and kills him (forshadowing), the girl he was holding hostage was his girlfriend and she reaches into her bag and shoots and "kills" Curtis. (Allusion to her abused mom protecting her ab, Curtis' father).

What we learn is that this was a training exercise, it's all fake and Curtis failed the exercise because she was shot and killed. What does NOT come up is that she shot and killed the shooter before he fired upon her. This will come back to haunt her very very very soon in the film.

We get a title sequence that runs over an almost erotic fixation on a gun (symbolic of America's obsession with weapons).

This is immediately followed by Curtis putting on her uniform for police academy graduation. The scene opens up and she is buttoning up her police shirt, we start with the bottom button, her bare skin and navel occupying center screen as the shirt enters frame to be buttoned up, we follow her hands moving up her body as she buttons the shirt, the frame is a tight shot, not expanding beyond her frame. We move up to her bra, the buttoning of the shirt continues over her bra, and then we finish watching her get dressed.

As I watched this, and she is in the locker room with other female officers, it made me wonder, when did police stations get female locker rooms, when did they get female bathrroms? It reminded me of the first women who went to Harvard and there were no bathrooms for them, they had all been men's bathrooms. These institutions needed to modify themselves to accompany women, though they would not take them seriously.

That's kind of one of the undertones of the movie, is that she is a woman (single) in a man's world, 1990s New York - a police officer in a predominantly male industry.

Her parents are not present at her graduation from the police academy because her father is disgusted his daughter would become a police officer. Her father obviously doesn't like strong women as he abuses her mom which is probably a large reason why she went into the police academy, wanting to be strong and not abused. She mentions on her first day at the job that she wanted to be a police officer because she wanted to shoot people, ever since she was a child, probably her dad.

While on her first assignment she witnesses a robbery taking place and in the most ridiculous way (and time wasting way) sneaks up on the robber and in a replay of the opening scene, he turns the gun on her and she fires upon him, killing him. His gun falls to the ground where Ron Silver is and Ron steals (Blue Steel... steal?) the gun. This results in Curtis being suspended from the force because no weapon was recovered at the scene of the crime so there is skepticism if he was even armed, even though one witness says there was a gun and the clerk "can't recall" even though the gun was pointed in his face for a good 10 minutes with how long it took Curtis to sneak in and up on the guy.

Much of the movie from this point plays out in a rather absurd fashion. For one, there are a number of times where I had to ask myself, is this a dream or is this really happening. Oh, this is really happening, it's just absurd.

On top of that Ron Silver is like a possessed soul, a man with a split personality, a Wall Street trader by day and now a killer by night and he has these fits and over-the-top scenes where he is externally showing the wrestling he is doing in his mind and none of it is explain, it's like the film makers saying, well, nobody who wasn't totally insane would do these things.

The number of times he and Curtis confront each other and he gets away is ridiculous. Of course he can get shot, slammed with a car, and just keep on moving forward like he's the Terminator.

There may be a message in here about women not being taken seriously and how trying to get by in a "man's profession" or to want to have a profession instead of being a housewife is all up for critique but the way it is done is just silly.

I'm still giving it three stars because, despite the ridiculousness of it all, if I just do my best to ignore the absurd elements (of which there are many), it's still a decent suspense/action/thriller movie.

• Bianca

  Trans

• Cinderela

  Trans

• 702

  Trans

• Rio Mumbai

  Trans

• Roommate

  Trans

• Night

  Trans

• Subterrânea

  Trans

• Elon Doesn't Believe in Death

  Trans

• Light in the Tropics

  Trans

• Fluidity

...plus 206 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

A group of Letterboxd s who all watched a voted upon movie every week and discuss, post, and comment on each others reviews.

• The President's Analyst

  "Russia is slowly becoming more capitalist, while the USA is becoming more socialist. Soon we will meet in the middle and shake hands."

  This 1960s romp is a satire on society, foreign relations, government agencies like the FBI and CIA, and the Phone Company.

  After setting up the film, our main character who knows the presidents mind better than anyone, being his therapist, becomes the biggest target to foreign nations and the largest intelligence risk to the US Government. As a result, every nation wants to abduct him and our rouge FBI and CIA want to eliminate him. He is a man on the run.

  While on the run he hides with some liberals, not leftists, who are self righteous for taking in a black family but they have guns. Why? One reason inferred & the other directly stated.

  1. You can't turn your back on those uppity blacks (showing they're just as prejudice as anyone else but lying to themselves that they are any different from outright racists, like their neighbors).

  2. Their neighbors are right-wing Republicans so, until the neighbors get rid of their guns, this liberal home won't get rid of theirs (a mini-cold war stand-off between neighbors).

  As our analysts' life becomes threatened by everyone who wants to capture or kill him, he ends up on tour with a band of hippies. I truly thought they were going to be a Manson family but they weren't just a basic mocking of hippie culture. Soon enough, we're on the run again.

  The movie carries on in this way until we end up with the final enemy, The Phone Company (TPC). This part is the most foreshadowing of our post 9/11, Patriot Act, and Section 702 of the Foreign Surveillance Act world we currently live in. The Phone Company wants his analyst so they can know the mind of the President so they can lobby him to convince Congress to change a few laws to basically allow TPC to monitor and track every American. They'll model it as convenience to the public (like our cell phones today).

  This was actually quite entertaining for a good portion of the film and I was laughing along but some moments became too much and the slap-atick nature was too over-the-top, especially the analyst. He should have played it straight the entire time and let the world around him show it's absurdity. And this is kind of awful to say but his jawline and smile or so unattractive to me that I kind hated looking at him.

  This was the first movie I watched for the Collab Film Club.

• Bedevil
• In Order of Disappearance

  This was the third movie that Film Club has watched since I ed and the first one where I got to participate in the voting process. I can't what my number one choice was, it may have been this.

  This movie was remade into a Liam Neeson 'Taken' style movie and it totally makes sense.

  My biggest appreciation was when anyone would die they'd put their name in the screen with the symbol of their religion. It started to become comical in a good way.

  My biggest disappointment is that the "worst" character who was killed had the Humanist symbol. I mean, we get so little representation in movies and we gotta be the worst of the worst?

  This is not my style of movie, though I voted for it because the trailer won me over. This really is a one man seeks revenge movie and this older humble dad all the sudden becomes a vengeance killer who takes out so many bad people. It was just death after death after death and it dragged out for too long.

  However, I did appreciate how his actions led to a gang war which was amusing that one gang blamed the other for the murders of their men and took revenge which meant the other gang had to retaliate and it just kept escalating.

  I recently put a childhood favorite of mine in my rewatch list, and it's basically the same premise, a father taking in a gang for what they did to his daughter, and that movie is Commando with Arnold Schwarzenegger. However, that movie now has sentimental value to me and was something I watched as a kid and saw movies as pure entertainment over something that could be more. Nowadays if I am going for pure entertainment, I prefer comedies.

• The Rat Savior

  The book starts off with an author who wrote a book about a plague spread by rats (is this a nod to Albert Camus?).

  Imagine living in a country so small your phone number is only 4 digits.

  Mayor - take care of you, nanny state.

  Yugoslavia, 1976.

  1946 liberation by communist Tito.
  The kingdom was replaced by a federation of six nominally equal republics: Croatia, Montenegro, Serbia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Macedonia.

  1974, however, a succession of new constitutions created an ever more loosely coordinated union, the locus of power being steadily shifted downward from the federal level to economic enterprises, municipalities, and republic-level apparatuses of the Communist Party.

  distinctive feature of this new “Yugoslav system” was “workers’ self-management,” which reached its fullest form in the 1976 Law on Associated Labour. Under this law, individuals participated in Yugoslav enterprise management through the work organizations into which they were divided.

  Under the new system, remarkable growth was achieved between 1953 and 1965, but development subsequently slowed. In the absence of real stimulus to efficiency, workers’ councils often raised wage levels above the true earning capacities of their organizations, usually with the connivance of local banks and political officials. Inflation and unemployment emerged as serious problems

  Such defects in the system were patched over by massive and uncoordinated foreign borrowing, but after 1983 the International Monetary Fund demanded extensive economic restructuring as a precondition for further .

  Tropes of the time and historical = Jews as rats and men of money.

  
  Sonja not at the market but sees a rat staring at him.

  Mr. Rupcic closed his business due to debt and now works for the government in public service.

  Taken underground to get into a building to sleep. Library? No abandoned central bank.

  Cabinet of wine and cheese, a rat in it. Bread, sausage.

  Calls Sonja and gets her address.

  Party, table is half swastika.
  Public sex. Man eating cheese like a rat.
  All dressed in nice clothes.
  Man called savior.
  Enemies will disappear.
  Professor Boskovic - what is with him? He is to die, it's the father of Sonja.
  Protagonist is discovered. Escapes.

  Professors house ransacked.
  Returns to central bank with police, all evidence of the party/banquet scene is gone and good that was in the cabinet is gone. It's as if he was delusional.

  The protagonist, Mr. Gojski = Mr. Vegetable.

  No, it's Gajski which means grove.

  He's followed.
  Goes into a pub where the banquet group now is.
  He calls them out and they gather him but the man following him takes him away. That man is Mr. Boskovic. They go to his new home where his daughter Sonja is.

  Asks if he's heard of a 400 year old book by Eri Ertrus 'Layer of the Rat King'.
  Rat King refers to a reported phenomenon where a bunch of rats become entangled by their tails and form a grim rodent mass.
  Boz = god or king.

  Sonja = wisdom.

  38 minutes in, except from book.
  Basically the rats sound like greedy capitalists, is this the socialist version or response to Invasion of the Body Snatchers?

  Gojski and Sonja go to a store to get chemicals for rat poison. Bayer was founded in in 1863 - it was a pharmaceutical company founded by a chemical salesman and owner of a dye company.

  Rat in store.

  Sonja bit by rat

  Dr makes chemical that turns rats into rat cannibals

  Sonja tries to strangle Gojski

  Sonja escapes

  Sonja having sex with some Gojski. What? Woman strangler was not Sonja but a look-a-like.

  Sonja doctor dad killed. If you kill the savior, rats become what they are/were.

  Police investigate.
  Funeral.
  Strangers give condolences
  They go to the mayor.

  Crashes banquet with chemical that turns them back to rats

  Chases rat king.
  Gets away.
  Mayor appears.
  Sends Gajski off with men whi take him back to the abandoned bank.

  A guy who provided a place for someone to live rent free is guilty and attacked by a bunch of rats. Rupcic is guy attacked.

  Saviour is mayor, no surprise

  He escapes
  Kills sonja
  Fails to kill fake sonja
  Mayor destroys chemical label.
  Splashes chemical in mayors face
  Mayor dies but says a new savior will come in a time of crisis.

  He sees somebody that looks like Sonja from behind and heads after her but we dont get to see if its really her. But hes going towards/after wisdom (sonja).

  Times of crisis the capitalist will raid you and times of crisis people will put their trust in people who are not good for you.

  Crashes banquet with chemical that turns them back to rats

  Chases rat king.
  Gets away.
  Mayor appears.
  Sends Gajski off with men whi take him back to the abandoned bank.

  A guy who provided a place for someone to live rent free is guilty and attacked by a bunch of rats. Rupcic is guy attacked.

  Saviour is mayor, no surprise

  He escapes
  Kills sonja
  Fails to kill fake sonja
  Mayor destroys chemical label.
  Splashes chemical in mayors face
  Mayor dies but says a new savior will come in a time of crisis.

  He sees somebody that looks like Sonja from behind and heads after her but we dont get to see if its really her. But hes going towards/after wisdom (sonja).

  Times of crisis the capitalist will raid you and times of crisis people will put their trust in people who are not good for you.

• First Snow

  THIS IS A SPOILER WRITE-UP.

  Watched with the <ahref="https://boxd.it/ruzRo">collab club.

  A good cast for somebody who wrote and directed this movie and has never done it again, though he has wrote/adaptes blockbusters like Children of Men and Iron Man That may be a warning for some to stay away. Supposedly it cost around 8 million to make and only brought in $573,000.

  Guy Pearce - Memento
  J.K. Simmons - Whiplash
  Adam Scott (briefly) - Parks and Recreation and the amazing Severance
  William Fitchner - you'll recognize him. Tons of character acting.
  Piper Perabo - Looper and others.

  I was wondering if my take on this was shared by others and in the reviews I've read, nobody shares my view.

  The story is bookended by a line about how people think their choices have led them to where they are in any given moment and the gods laugh at such thinking, implying that there is no choice or free will (really, physical or theological determinism) and everything is mapped out for you. While I don't believe in free will, it's not the kind of free will put forward by the movie. I reject the movie version of free will.

  So, does the book-end quote give away the story, or does it make you ask yourself that question?

  Our protagonist, Jimmy (one who supplants) Starks (severe [like where he finds himself] or bare [like the place he finds himself]), visits a fortune teller (J.K. Simmons) who provides him of his impending death. He doesn't believe the guy until a couple of things happen that give pause to the truth of what was said. Jimmy goes to another fortune teller who is obviously doing it for show.

  Worried, Jimmy speaks with his friend and business partner about the experience and his partner says it's luck, or chance. For every person he gets this right on, there's 50 he gets wrong. One of the predictions had a 50/50 chance of happening, the other much less likely - but did he know or is Jimmy the one out of 50 where it just happened to be correct.

  The possibility sends Jimmy on a spiral of trying to fight against his impending demise and in fact makes him crazy and obsessed about avoiding death. Meeting again with the psychic, Jimmy is informed there is nothing he can do to stop what's coming and instead should just square up his life, say his goodbyes to people and live out his life. Supposedly Jimmy is "lucky" to know when the end is because so many people die before making everything right and saying what they need to say to everyone before nonexistence.

  There are a number of things that could take Jimmy out, his heart valve problem, a co-worker who he betrayed and who is angry and possibly vengeful, an old childhood friend and former business associate who Jimmy sold out to avoid jail time. Any number of things could be his demise and he's trying to stop them all to the point that he is destroying what he has now (job and girlfriend) in the possibility of a coming demise, a demise that if true, would really have the memory of him tarnished by his behaviir during his last days.

  While I watched this I would often think to my own life and if I was in this situation. This is what I actually appreciated about the movie, that it did cause me to go down this thought process. So many movies I watch feel like surface level movies, something to entertain, to distract, something that in a month I'd say, "what was that about?".

  Eventually Jimmy takes a turn in life and really does put others ahead instead of always focusing on himself and his wants. He does start to let people know they have meaning and are appreciated, something one does not need to wait until they are about to die to do but what so many actually end up doing. Again, it is a way for you to ask yourself - Why don't I do that more often? Why do I assume it's a given? And if it is a given, does it not still feel good to say it and make somebody feel good?

  After accepting his fate, he carries out the rest of the story, at peace. He is in his car, heading back home after surviving the death he assumed was going to come from an old friend, and the radio warns of the unsafe driving conditions. Regardless, he drives on. The next day we hear on the radio that there was an accident with a car and a big-rig, killing the driver of the car. And here is where I seem to be alone. I don't think it was his car.

  I think this ending is really for you to ask yourself what you believe. Do you believe everything is fated out and destined to happen no matter what you do? Are you on the side of the fortune teller who may have said something to the 1 and 50 people where he was right on two things, meaning he has to be right in the third? Or, do you assume the fortune teller can be wrong, either he can't really predict or that you have zero control over your destiny.

  I think the report was another car. We don't see that it was Jimmy's car. Then it gives the line about the gods laughing. Do you believe it? Does that saying resignate with you? Do you believe that there could be a god or gods or some scientific physics that has a plan and everything just is unfolding like a programmed machine?

  Or, do you think the fortune teller was wrong (or not even somebody with any psychic abilities) and Jimmy got his life in order, realized what he valued most, and went off to buy that plot of land with his girlfriend? I choose the second.

• Groom Lake
• D.O.A.
• Don't Look Now... We're Being Shot At!
• Empire of ion
• One Deadly Summer

...plus 23 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• Alanis
• The Hourglass Sanatorium
• Cape Fear
• All That Heaven Allows
• The Human Condition I: No Greater Love
• The Human Condition II: Road to Eternity
• The Human Condition III: A Soldier's Prayer
• The Tribulations of Balthazar Kober
• The Balconettes
• Zola

...plus 47 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• Call Me by Your Name
• All of Us Strangers
• Maurice
• Milk
• Pariah
• I Love You Phillip Morris
• Of an Age
• Paris 05:59 / Théo & Hugo
• The Raspberry Reich
• Lil Nas X: Long Live Montero

...plus 94 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• The Rocky Horror Picture Show
• Dog Day Afternoon
• All About My Mother
• Tangerine
• Paris Is Burning
• Pink Flamingos
• Euphoria: F*ck Anyone Who’s Not a Sea Blob
• Laurence Anyways
• Boys Don't Cry
• The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert

...plus 185 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Pick movies from your watchlist based on their cover art, 5 movies per color.
No deadline! Just has to be movies from your watchlist.

5 red
5 orange
5 yellow
5 green
5 blue
5 purple
5 pink
5 white
5 black

letterboxd.conexionsite.com/cesiousblue/list/watchlist-rainbow-challenge/

• Pride
• BloodSisters: Leather, Dykes, and Sadomasochism
• Her
• Some Like It Hot
• Dial M for Murder
• Black Is… Black Ain’t
• C.R.A.Z.Y.
• Lilies
• Mississippi Burning
• A Single Man

...plus 37 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

A list of the collection of movies I have at home.

• 2046
• 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
• (500) Days of Summer
• 9 Songs
• About Time
• Aladdin
• Alice
• All Quiet on the Western Front
• The American
• American: The Bill Hicks Story

...plus 613 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

I ed a bunch of film challenges this year and instead of "following the rules," I am just going to try to complete them all by the end of the year. In an attempt to do so I have created this list which will get shorter and shorter over time until I can delete it.

The purpose is to randomize this list and then watch whichever movie comes out on top, if I see it's available. If not, I will just move on to #2 on the list.

This list is composed of films from the following challenges:

2025 Queer Film Challenge: https://letterboxd.conexionsite.com/sonicwarhol/list/2025-queer-film-challenge/

2025 Criterion Challenge: https://letterboxd.conexionsite.com/sonicwarhol/list/the-criterion-challenge-2025/
2025 Horror Challenge: https://letterboxd.conexionsite.com/sonicwarhol/list/horrorx52-2025-challenge/

2025 Honey I Shrunk the Watchlist Challenge: https://letterboxd.conexionsite.com/sonicwarhol/list/honey-i-shrunk-the-watchlist-challenge-2025/

Shuffle - Round 1
1. My Brilliant Career ✅
2. Laura Hasn't Slept ✅
3. The Untamed ✅
4. Martha ✅
5. Society ✅
6. Roommate ✅
7. Happy End ✅
8. This is Spinal Tap ✅
9. The Captive ✅
10. Elevator to the Gallows ✅
11. Punishment Park ✅
12. Dracula: Dead and Loving It ✅
13. Chavela ✅
14. Two Days, One Night ✅
15. Island of Lost Souls ✅

Shuffle - Round 2
1. The Cremator - 101m - Czech ✅
2. When Evil Lurks - 100m - Spanish - Hulu ✅
3. Event Horizon - 95m ✅
4. The Tenant - 126m - Kanopy ✅
5. Firebase - - 27m - own ✅
6. Once Bitten - 94m - Tubi ✅
7. Confessions of a Sex Addict - 57m - Tubi ✅
8. Woman On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown - 88m - Spain ✅
9. I Can't Think Straight - 80m - Tubi ✅
10. Tomboy - 82m - - Own ✅
11. In the Mouth of Madness - 95m ✅
12. The Story of O - 97m - French - own ✅
13. La Pointe Courte - 80m - French - Max ✅
14. Tokyo Story - 137m - Japanese - Max ✅
15. The Assignment - Tubi - 95 Minutes ✅

Round 3
1. Vance - Youtube - 12 minutes ✅
2. Army of Shadows - Own - 145 minutes
3. Suddenly, Last Summer - Tubi - 114 minutes
4. Duel - 89 minutes ✅
5. Making The Boys - TBD - 90 Minutes ✅
6. Humanoids from the Deep - Tubi - 80 minutes ✅
7. Late Spring - MAX - 110 minutes
8. Salt of the Earth - Tubi/Kanopy - 94 minutes
9. All the Beauty and the Bloodshed - Max - 122 minutes
10. Long Weekend - Kanopy - 92 minutes ✅
11. Revenge - 109 minutes ✅
12. Doctor Sleep - TBD - 152 minutes
13. [Rec] - 78 minutes ✅
14. F for Fake - Max - 89 Minutes
15. V/H/S/2 - Tubi - 96 minutes ✅

• The Long Day Closes
• Outstanding: A Comedy Revolution
• Regrouping
• A Florida Enchantment
• Dope Queens
• The Happiness of the Katakuris
• Blue
• Tongues Untied
• Down the River
• Tahara

...plus 78 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• Lincoln
• When the World Breaks
• Wild Boys of the Road
• The Grapes of Wrath
• The Journey of Natty Gann
• Annie
• Paper Moon
• Ironweed
• Cinderella Man
• Bonnie & Clyde

...plus 168 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• Saturday the 14th
• Munchies
• Zombie High
• Private School
• Joysticks
• Surf Nazis Must Die
• Inseminoid
• Darkroom
• Next Door
• Goodnight Mommy

...plus 36 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Films I find around the web.

• Supermarket Woman

  Made by the director of Tampopo.

  Listed by people in the 5 best Japanese films.

• The Young Girls of Rochefort

  Showed up in friends recently watched and rated very highly by many people I follow.

• A Bittersweet Life

  By the same director as I Saw the Devil.

• The Man Who Sleeps

  77 minutes long.
  Described by somebody I follow as like watching a Joy Division song.

  The isolation component intrigues me based on our modern world.

• Rosetta

  Stumbled upon on Reddit.
  It's a movie that caused laws to be changed.
  Was hesitant but a viewers review pushed me to add it.

• La Chinoise

  Goddard mocking leftist values

• Day Night Day Night

  Critiqued as the opposite of Eli Roths film The Hreen Inferno that mocks activists (like those in to blow up a pipeline)

• The Green Inferno

  Eli Roth mocks leftist activists.

• Things to Come

  Brother quite enjoyed it.

• A Thousand and One

  People I follow liked it.
  It's streaming on Amazon.

...plus 64 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• House of Tolerance
• EO
• You Won't Be Alone
• The Green Knight
• Swallow
• Shoplifters
• I, Tonya
• Personal Shopper
• Youth
• Girlhood

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

My list of movies to watch when Halloween hits in 2025.

1. Kids vs. Aliens

   From the guy who made Treevenge, a masterpiece.

2. Suspiria
3. Suspiria
4. Dracula's Daughter
5. Night of the Demons
6. The Cabin in the Woods
7. The Haunting
8. [REC]
9. Fright Night
10. Night of the Creeps

...plus 36 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

I got curious what would happen if I read a review of a film I liked and had AI try to imitate that style with a review I had already written.

I may do this for a few films to see what happens. Basically it will have to be my longer reviews though.

• Lovesong

  My review reworked by AI:

  In the quiet ache of early adulthood—where dreams go to smolder and every conversation is a minefield of the unsaid—we find The Feels (unofficial title, but it might as well be). A film that, for most of its runtime, hums along at a respectable three-star level—softly tugging at the heartstrings without quite tearing them. But then something strange and familiar happens. A shift. A flicker. And suddenly, it’s whispering directly to the part of you that still aches for someone who was never quite yours.

  At its center are Sarah and Mindy, two souls tethered by the kind of intimacy that never needed a label—until time, weddings, and unspoken longing demanded one. They reunite at Mindy’s wedding, a glittering event draped in unresolved tension and flower petals, with the ghost of what-could-have-been lurking behind every polite smile.

  Sarah, our reluctant protagonist, once had a child at 21—a plot point whispered through glances and offhand comments, never shouted. Now 24, she’s in a marriage that feels more like a long-distance roommate arrangement, her husband frequently away on business, phoning in his fatherhood and, presumably, his affection. When she and her daughter Jessie set off on a spontaneous road trip, Sarah invites Mindy along—a collision of past and present that sets the real story in motion.

  Mindy, untethered and unapologetic, is everything Sarah isn’t: carefree, curious, maybe a little chaotic. She’s sleeping with one person, cuddling with another, and would probably flirt with a tumbleweed if it rolled the right way. But beneath her mischief is a rawness, a hunger for connection—particularly with Sarah.

  They talk. They play a rickety game of truth-or-drink. They peel back layers like two people circling a truth too heavy to hold. There’s a threesome that never happened, a husband who never asks the right questions, and a night in a hotel room where something unspoken finally surfaces—only for Mindy to vanish by morning, hurt, perhaps humiliated, buying a bus ticket back to the life she knows.

  Cut to three years later. The wedding. Jessie’s the flower girl. Sarah and Mindy haven't spoken. Everything is pristine and picturesque, except for the two women who once almost loved each other, still caught in the gravity of a single moment that was never allowed to bloom.

  The film never yells. It barely even speaks. It lingers. It watches. It asks the audience to fill in the spaces between glances and half-formed smiles. And if you’ve ever been there—loved someone at the wrong time, in the wrong way, only to be left holding a suitcase of “maybes”—then this film hits somewhere deep and tender. Right in the solar plexus.

  This isn't a story about grand declarations. It's about the ache of almost. About the ache of what you couldn't say and what you both knew anyway. It's not flashy. It doesn't need to be. It's quiet, human, and quietly devastating.

  It’s the kind of film that would destroy you if you caught it on a night when your heart was already half-broken. But catch it from a safe emotional distance, and you’ll simply nod in recognition—eyes a little misty, soul a little bruised, thankful for the reminder that you once felt that deeply.

  So yes, it was a three-star film. Until it wasn’t.

• Casino
• Before Sunrise
• The Danish Girl
• Where the Wild Things Are
• Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
• The Best Years of Our Lives
• My Night at Maud's
• Edge of Seventeen
• Prince of the City
• Lacombe, Lucien

...plus 115 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• It's Such a Beautiful Day
• Tomboy
• The Children's Hour
• Pleasure
• The Wild Boys
• Kokomo City
• The Story of O

• Coherence
• Primer
• Twelve Monkeys
• Triangle
• The Infinite Man
• Edge of Tomorrow
• Looper
• Timecrimes
• Predestination
• Tenet

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

My second year participating in Nina's challenge.

Tag your films and lists with #watchlistchallenge and/or #histwc2025

My 2024 Completed Challenge.

Progress: 0/35

Prompts
1. Watch the movie that was added first
2. Watch the movie that was added last
3. Watch the movie that is the longest
4. Watch the movie that is the shortest
5. Watch the movie that is rated highest
6. Watch the movie that is rated lowest
7. Watch a movie from the 1950s
8. Watch a movie from the 1960s
9. Watch a movie from the 1970s
10. Watch a movie from the 1980s
11. Watch a movie from the 1990s
12. Watch a movie from the 2000s
13. Watch a movie from the 2010s
14. Watch a movie from the 2020s
15. Shuffle your watchlist and watch the first movie that appears
16. Watch a movie from a director you haven’t watched anything from
17. Watch a movie that stars one of your favorite actors
18. Watch a movie that stars one of your favorite actresses
19. Watch the movie that is the most popular
20. Watch the movie that is the least popular
21. Watch the movie that was released the earliest
22. Shuffle your watchlist and watch the first movie that appears
23. Watch a movie from your favorite genre
24. Watch a movie from your least favorite genre
25. Watch the movie with the most beautiful poster
26. Watch the movie you have been anticipating watching most
27. Watch a movie from before you were born
28. Watch a movie recommended to you by someone
29. Watch a documentary
30. Shuffle your watchlist and watch the first movie that appears

Bonus
31. Watch a triple F-rated movie (directed by, written by, and led by a woman) (thank you kawada_kun for submitting this prompt!)
32. Watch a cult classic/movie that just seems bonkers (thank you Lisa for submitting this prompt!)
33. Watch a movie by (one of) your favorite director's that you haven't seen yet (thank you Ansem for submitting this prompt!)
34. Watch the movie at the halfway point of your watchlist. Round up or down if needed. (thank you Benjamin Baron for submitting this prompt!)
35. Watch a film from a country you've never seen films from (thank you kawada_kun for submitting this prompt!)

1. The Help

   Watch the movie that was added first

2. V/H/S/2

   Watch the movie that was added last

3. An Elephant Sitting Still

   Watch the movie that is the longest

4. PUSSYCAT

   Watch the movie that is the shortest

5. I Am Cuba

   Watch the movie that is rated highest

6. The Assignment

   Watch the movie that is rated lowest

   Alternative options:
   The Platform 2
   The Watchers - 2024
   Reagan - 2024

7. The Night of the Hunter

   Watch a movie from the 1950s

   Many great alternatives:
   letterboxd.conexionsite.com/sonicwarhol/watchlist/decade/1950s/by/rating/

8. Funeral Parade of Roses

   Watch a movie from the 1960s

   Alternatives:
   letterboxd.conexionsite.com/sonicwarhol/watchlist/decade/1960s/by/rating/

9. The Stepford Wives

   Watch a movie from the 1970s

   Alternative Options:
   letterboxd.conexionsite.com/sonicwarhol/watchlist/decade/1970s/by/rating/

10. Ordinary People

    Watch a movie from the 1980s

    Alternative Options:
    letterboxd.conexionsite.com/sonicwarhol/watchlist/decade/1980s/by/rating/

...plus 25 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Original List.

The 2025 Queer Film Challenge:

1. A film directed by Andrew Fleming

2. A film featuring Susan Stryker

3. A film directed by or starring Lizzie Borden

4. A film directed by Curtis Harrington

5. A film based on a play by, written by, or featuring Edward Albee

6. A film starring Niecy Nash

7. A film based on a book or short story by Cornell Woolrich

8. A film directed by Terence Davies

9. A film directed by Catherine Gund

10. A film directed by Alice Maio Mackay

11. A queer silent/early film
some things to help:
www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQJgrjZzSJsGyayoqY-qxl49b1_-ekop7
nerdist.com/article/earliest-queer-movies-film-history/

12. Watch a queer Film in theaters! (Repertory showings absolutely allowed and if you can’t see something in a theater based on availability, watch a 2025-release queer film at home)

13. A film directed by Takashi Miike

14. A film directed by Bertrand Mandico

15. A film directed by Bill Condon

16. A film directed by Shamim Sarif

17. A film directed or co-directed by Kasia Adamik

18. A film starring Lizabeth Scott

19. A film starring Montgomery Clift

20. A queer experimental film
A list to help: boxd.it/cdyOY

21. A queer documentary

22. A film directed by a trans woman

23. A film directed by a trans man

24. A film by a non-binary or genderqueer director

25. A lesbian/WLW/sapphic film directed by a woman.

26. A lesbian/WLW/sapphic film directed by a man.

27. A gay/mlm film directed by a woman

28. A gay/mlm film directed by a man

29. A film featuring an asexual character, or one theorized to be asexual since it's not something that really gets as much identity in film.
Some lists to help:
letterboxd.conexionsite.com/windyblue/list/asexual

letterboxd.conexionsite.com/vonnepat/list/asexuality-on-screen

letterboxd.conexionsite.com/holdenreviews/list/asexuality-on-film

letterboxd.conexionsite.com/revvydot/list/good-asexual-aromantic-films-confirmed-or

30. A film featuring an actual bisexual character.
A list to help:
letterboxd.conexionsite.com/gdw/list/films-with-actually-bisexual-characters

31. An African queer film

32. A Latin American queer film

33. A European queer film

34. A Middle Eastern queer film

35. An Asian queer film

36. A queer comedy

37. A queer horror movie

38. A sci fi movie with queer characters or directed by a queer person

39. An action movie with queer characters or directed by a queer person

40. An animated queer movie

1. Dick
2. Outstanding: A Comedy Revolution
3. Regrouping
4. Night Tide

   Also watch this 14 minute film:
   letterboxd.conexionsite.com/film/fragment-of-seeking/

5. Making the Boys
6. Reno 911!: The Hunt for QAnon
7. Martha
8. The Long Day Closes
9. Chavela
10. Tooth 4 Tooth

...plus 30 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Original Challenge found here.

RULES
1. The most popular horror film on your watchlist.
2. The lowest rated horror film on your watchlist.
3. BLINDSPOT: The most popular horror film you haven't seen that's not on your watchlist.
4. The horror film that's been on your watchlist the longest.
5. Released in 2025, theatrically if possible.
6. A short that was made into a feature film EXAMPLES 🔁
7. The feature that relates to the above pick 🔁
8. FREE pick #1 🔁
9. Happy Anniversary. A film released in 1975 🔁
10. ALTER short #1
11. Released in the 1950s
12. Non English language horror #1 🔁🌍
13. Made for TV EXAMPLES
14. Bubblegum Horror EXAMPLES
15. Ecological Horror EXAMPLES
16. FREE pick #2 🔁
17. Explore my collection
18. Happy Anniversary. A film released in 1985 🔁
19. Released in the 1960s
20. Any film screened at a Frightfest event. EXAMPLES
21. Video Store Rules #1. Pick a film solely on it's poster. 🔁 INSPIRATION
22. Original. 🔁
23. Remake. (of the movie above) 🔁
24.FREE pick #3 🔁
25. Released in the 1970s
26. VIVA PHYSICAL MEDIA. (Watch a horror on VHS/LaserDisc/DVD/BLU/4K) 🔁
27. Happy Anniversary. A film released in 1995 🔁
28. Non English language horror #2 🔁🌍
29. A horror film released in the year you were born. My pick is from my BYC.
30. ALTER short #2
31. A horror film released in the year you turned 8.
32. FREE pick #4 🔁
33. Released in the 1980s
34. Romance & Horror
35. Slasher: Classic era EXAMPLES
36. The female gaze. Directed by a woman. EXAMPLES
37. An Alien knock-off EXAMPLES
38. Non English language horror #3 🔁🌍
39. Released in the 1990s
40. FREE pick #5 🔁
41. KAIJU EXAMPLES 🔁
42. Documentary EXAMPLES
43. Slasher: Revival era EXAMPLES
44. Analog horror EXAMPLES
45. ALTER short #3
46. Released in the 2000s
47. Non English language horror #4 🔁🌍
48. FREE pick #6 🔁
49. Cults EXAMPLES 🔁
50. Video Store Rules #2. Pick a film from someone else's list, based solely by the poster.
51. Released in the 2010s
52. Horror adjacent EXAMPLES 🔁

1. Nope

   The most popular horror film on your watchlist.

   Gonna be honest, not looking forward to this watch but if I took it off my watchlist, it'd just be #3 anyway.

2. Roommate

   vimeo.com/238486390

3. Last Night in Soho

   BLINDSPOT: The most popular horror film you haven't seen that's not on your watchlist.

4. Cannibal Holocaust

   The horror film that's been on your watchlist the longest.

5. Labyrinth of Lost Boys

   Released in 2025, theatrically if possible.

   This looks fun!

6. Laura Hasn't Slept

   A short that was made into a feature film

7. Smile

   The feature that relates to the above pick

8. The Cabin in the Woods

   FREE pick #1

9. Deep Red

   Happy Anniversary. A film released in 1975

10. Vance

    ALTER short #1

    youtu.be/Qq_rnO7IRfM?si=U6Jyi1eWUbwro1BY

...plus 42 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Original List

Categories:

1. Watch a film from the CC40 Boxset
2. Watch a film from the year you were born
3. Directed by Robert Altman
4. Watch a film that would be your first choice in the Criterion Closet
5. Great Soundtracks
6. John Turturro’s Adventures in Moviegoing
7. 1920s
8. Watch a film that will be added to the physical collection in 2025
9. 1930s
10. Andrew Garfield’s Closet Picks
11. 1940s
12. Celine Song’s Top 10
13. 1950s
14. Watch a film from the Criterion Channel’s all time favorites lists
15. 1960s
16. Watch a film that is currently out of print from the physical collection
17. 1970s
18. William Friedkin’s Closet Picks
19. 1980s
20. Spine #451-499
21. 1990s
22. Documentary
23. 2000s
24. Janus Contemporaries
25. 2010s
26. Bill Hader’s Second Closet Picks
27. 2020s
28. Noir and Neonoir
29. All Time Top Criterion Closet Picks
30. Criterion Releases Never Picked in the Closet
31. North American film
32. Ayo Edebiri’s Closet Picks
33. Wim Wenders’ Adventures in Moviegoing
34. South American film
35. Random Number Generator (Google random number generator, set values from 1 to whatever number Criterion has listed last here. This number will change as more releases are announced so please keep up to date by using the link I have provided as I will not be updating each time Criterion makes announcements. Watch whatever movie corresponds to the spine number you are given.)
36. AAPI Filmmakers
37. Watch a film shorter than 80 minutes
38. European film
39. Cult Movies
40. Isabella Rossellini’s Adventures in Moviegoing
41. Winona Ryder’s Closet Picks
42. African film
43. John Carpenter’s Top 10
44. Horror
45. Asian film
46. Dark Comedies
47. Rachel Kushner’s Adventures in Moviegoing
48. Australian film
49. Female Filmmakers
50. Ben Wheatley’s Closet Picks
51. A film by a director whose work you have not seen before
52. Watch any Criterion film from your watchlist

Helpful Links:
The Complete Criterion Collection
The Criterion Collection by Spine Number
Every Film Available on The Criterion Channel

1. Tokyo Story
2. One Sings, the Other Doesn't
3. Tanner '88
4. Before Sunrise

   My first pick would be this boxset. However, I want to watch something I haven't seen so this is my stand-in for now.

5. Funny Girl
6. Divorce Italian Style
7. The Kid
8. Last Summer
9. Island of Lost Souls
10. Hoop Dreams

...plus 42 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• Long Day's Journey into Night
• Out of the Blue
• The Boys
• Lilya 4-ever
• Himizu
• White Noise
• Christiane F.
• Aka Ana
• Candy
• Heaven Knows What

...plus 8 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Movies I am considering watching for Christmas 2025.

Planned on watching these in 2024 but I got I'll and was in n bed sleeping for days. Maybe I'll get to them in 2025.

• Home Alone
• Frosty the Snowman
• It's a Wonderful Life
• How the Grinch Stole Christmas!
• Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
• You've Got Mail
• Lethal Weapon
• Annabelle's Wish
• Diner
• The Holiday

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

It's Christmas Season and so I decided to make a Christmas list of things I havem't seen since I was a child, a couple revisits from recent times and some never before seen films.

1. Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!

   watched 12/1

2. Hiroshima Mon Amour
3. All of Us Strangers

   HULU
   watched 12/1

4. The Skin I Live In

   watched 12/2

5. C'mon C'mon
6. The Shape of Night
7. The Menu
8. Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story
9. Dutch
10. Santa and Death

    www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFnGSBv4-OE

...plus 33 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

This is a list of my favorite films, favorite documentaries, and honorable mentions of 2024. Everything in this list was new to me.

I really don't know that I could order this list precisely. I will say 1-10 are in order, beyond that, it's just a mixture, something in spot 40 could probably just as easily be in spot 15.

1. VOLCANO
2. Burning
3. A Woman Under the Influence
4. A Separation
5. Of an Age
6. Ikiru
7. How to Have Sex
8. Evil Does Not Exist
9. All of Us Strangers
10. The Worst Person in the World

...plus 43 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• Who Can Kill a Child?
• Slut
• Prevenge
• Blue Ruin
• Altered States
• 28 Years Later
• Re-Animator
• The Day of the Beast
• The Stepford Wives
• Dracula's Daughter

...plus 161 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

35/35 watched.
Completed: 12/7/24

Started by Nina.

Prompts
1. Watch the movie that was added first
2. Watch the movie that was added last
3. Watch the movie that is the longest
4. Watch the movie that is the shortest
5. Watch the movie that is rated highest
6. Watch the movie that is rated lowest
7. Watch a movie from the 1950s
8. Watch a movie from the 1960s
9. Watch a movie from the 1970s
10. Watch a movie from the 1980s
11. Watch a movie from the 1990s
12. Watch a movie from the 2000s
13. Watch a movie from the 2010s
14. Watch a movie from the 2020s
15. Shuffle your watchlist and watch the first movie that appears
16. Watch a movie from a director you haven’t watched anything from
17. Watch a movie that stars one of your favorite actors
18. Watch a movie that stars one of your favorite actresses
19. Watch the movie that is the most popular
20. Watch the movie that is the least popular
21. Watch the movie that was released the earliest
22. Shuffle your watchlist and watch the first movie that appears
23. Watch a movie from your favorite genre
24. Watch a movie from your least favorite genre
25. Watch the movie with the most beautiful poster
26. Watch the movie you have been anticipating watching most
27. Watch a movie from before you were born
28. Watch a movie recommended to you by someone
29. Watch a documentary
30. Shuffle your watchlist and watch the first movie that appears

Bonus
31. Happy birthday! Shuffle your watchlist and pick the film the corresponds with you day, month or year of birth (thank you Graham for submitting this prompt!)
32. A film with a full sentence for a title or the longest title you can find on your watchlist (thank you Crawlspace Dweller Matt [♥] for submitting this prompt!)
33. Watch the oldest movie nominated for an Academy Award in any category (thank you Lawrence M for submitting this prompt!)
34. Watch a movie you want to watch in theaters (thank you Shachar for submitting this prompt!)
35. Watch a movie with a person's name in the title (thank you Jurassiarkour for submitting this prompt!)

1. Room

   Watch the movie that was added first

   Watched
   Review

2. Everything Beautiful Is Far Away

   Watch the movie that was added last.

   Watched 01/02/23
   Review

3. Flesh and Bone

   Watch the movie that is the longest

4. Tribute to Zgougou the Cat

   Watch the movie that is the shortest

5. Over the Garden Wall

   Watch the movie that is rated highest

6. The Angels’ Melancholia

   Watch the movie that is rated lowest

7. Ikiru

   Watch a movie from the 1950s

8. The Damned

   Watch a movie from the 1960s

9. Blue Collar

   Watch a movie from the 1970s

10. My Beautiful Laundrette

    Watch a movie from the 1980s

    I am not sure what I am to think about this. On one hand I feel like so much is unresolved and so many loose ends but then I was thinking, maybe that's the point. Perhaps it is a message of where Britain was with their immigrant Pakistani population and there isn't a resolution at this time.

    I kept thinking the white guy seemed so familiar looking, didn't realize it was a super young Daniel Day Lewis.

    The relationship between Omo and Johnny seemed so very very toxic, but maybe that was just symbolism for the nation. But, if that's the case, why was Johnny in the subservient position?

    The film seems to suggest that for the Pakistani people to make it in England they need to engage in criminal action due to discrimination. Then their wealth angers the young punk rockers, and probably white supremacists. Johnny is a member of that group but because of his love for Omo, he seems to distance himself from hate and move towards love. However, once Omo starts making money, he treats Johnny like shit, like he's a slave almost.

    It just seemed like the corruption of money. Omo's father wants Omo to go to school, not run a laundromat but Omo is only interested in making money and it looks like he will do that. I guess that's the power and influence of ones surroundings, or one's family, or capitalism, or all of them. But, the people with money seemed to have lost a piece of their humanity and profit outweighs anything else (except maybe family).

    I was very surprised that the uncles seemed to be fine with Omo's sexuality. This was 1985. Pakistan's religion is Islam and I have a suspicion that in 1985 the Islamic religion was not that accepting of homosexuality, as was basically none of the world (except maybe the French).

    The acting was not great, though DDL did a good job.

...plus 25 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• Little Women

  HULU

• Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles

  MAX

• Thief

  OWN

• House of Tolerance

  OWN

• Crash

  OWN

• You Won't Be Alone

  OWN

• The Sacrifice

  KANOPY

• The Great Beauty

  MAX

• Happy Together

  MAX

• Antichrist

  KANOPY

...plus 29 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• Lawrence of Arabia
• City Lights
• The Searchers
• The General
• Some Like It Hot
• The Grapes of Wrath
• Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
• High Noon
• All About Eve
• Double Indemnity

...plus 96 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• They Follow
• The Room Returns!
• Untitled Julia Ducournau & A24 Project
• Jonty
• Karate Kid: Legends
• The Trap
• Die My Love
• Heat 2
• Materialists
• Death of a Unicorn

...plus 27 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• Swallow
• Candy
• Chernobyl
• The Brandon Teena Story
• The Whale
• Mississippi Burning
• Where the Wild Things Are
• Society of the Snow
• The Mission
• Turning Red

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

Highly rated movies from the 1980s I want to watch.

• Thief

  Watched

• Amadeus
• Landscape in the Mist
• Nostalgia
• The King of Comedy

  Watched

• Talking Heads
• Brideshead Revisited
• Utopia
• The Thin Blue Line
• Interrogation

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

Birth to watch

• Looking for Mr. Goodbar
• The Goodbye Girl
• The Turning Point
• Street Warriors
• The Devil, Probably
• Gay USA
• 11 x 14
• Dead End
• The Vampires of Poverty
• The American Friend

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

• Cat People
• Diabolique

  MAX

• Blood and Black Lace
• Repulsion

  TUBI

• Rosemary's Baby

  OWN

• The Bird with the Crystal Plumage

  TUBI

• Carrie

  TUBI

• Beauty and the Beast

  OWN

• Halloween

  OWN

• Phantasm

  TUBI

...plus 34 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• Maria Full of Grace
• Take Me for a Ride
• 108
• Putta
• Invasion
• Everybody Changes
• I Am a Girl
• Buoyancy
• The Pink Room
• Mother, I Am Suffocating. This Is My Last Film About You.

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

• Harold and Maude

  Watched Sept 2nd

• To Die For

  Watched Sept 3rd

• 3 Women

  Watched Sept. 6

• City of God

  Watched Sept. 7th

• Who Framed Roger Rabbit

  Watched Sept. 8th

• Chicago

  Watched Sept. 9th

• Dallas Buyers Club

  Watched Sept 10th

• Primal Fear

  Watched Sept. 11th

• Chinatown

  Watched Sept. 14th

• Ad Astra

  Watched Sept. 15

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

• Trouble in Paradise
• Sweet Smell of Success
• Picnic at Hanging Rock
• Murmur of the Heart
• The Joke
• The Ice Storm
• Great Expectations
• The Age of the Medici
• Cartesius
• Blaise Pascal

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

• Alps
• Welfare
• Eyes Wide Shut
• The NeverEnding Story
• Vampyros Lesbos
• Femme Fatale
• Monica
• Priscilla
• Edge of Seventeen
• Lost Highway

...plus 93 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Movies that the community gave less that 3 stars to but I gave them 4 or more stars.

• Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
• Open Water
• Spring Breakers
• I Spit on Your Grave
• Rubber
• Quicksilver
• Renfield
• Brüno
• The Vanishing
• The Strangers

This is a list of films women on Reddit said were their favorites in June 2024.

This list is only made up of the movies they mentioned that I have not seen and would be willing to watch. Excluded is anime (with few a exceptions) and some action movies.

• Tropical Malady
• Design for Living
• The Seventh Victim
• Losing Ground
• The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
• Laura
• All That Heaven Allows
• Lucky Number Slevin
• Man with a Movie Camera
• Holiday

...plus 152 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Movie recommendations I came across on Reddit.

• One False Move
• The Shout
• Moonlighting
• Freddy Got Fingered

  I'm skeptical of watching this but since I can turn it off at any time, I'll add it. If Criterion added it to their streaming service, maybe there's something here.

• Morgiana
• The Great Beauty
• The Lure
• The Grey Fox
• Computer Chess
• Extraordinary Stories

...plus 41 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• Babyteeth
• Australia
• True History of the Kelly Gang
• The Murmuring
• Mindhorn
• Isolation
• Miss Fisher and the Crypt of Tears
• The Justice of Bunny King
• Sweeney Todd
• Burning Man

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

1. Little Fish
2. Private Desert
3. Of an Age
4. Woman of...
5. Past Lives
6. Spencer
7. A Perfectly Normal Family
8. All of Us Strangers
9. After Yang
10. How to Have Sex

This is a list of films I think are 4+ stars but the community says they aren't even 3 stars.

• I Spit on Your Grave

  I Spit On Your Grave - original version.

  Maybe the ultimate and most violent revenge film I've seen and actually enjoyed.

• Quicksilver

  I've watched this movie endlessly and I've NEVER tired of it. This is from my childhood so it's really a guilty pleasure more than anything else, but, I still think it is good and I've always been in love with Kevin Bacon.

• Renfield

  It's so freaking dumb and stupid and funny - I love Nic Cage - I enjoyed this way more than I expected to. But it's not a "good" film.

• The Vanishing

  I'm not sure why this is less than a 3. Maybe because the original is good enough that a remake seems pointless (like Let the Right One In or perhaps Funny Games). But, this was the first one I saw and I was surprised by how it ended, just like with the movie Arlington Road.

• Brüno

  Again, it's not a good film but it so absurd and offensive that all I can do is laugh my ass off at it.

• Spring Breakers

  You can read my review to understand why I actually think this is an absolutely brilliant film.

• Rubber

  The most META film I have ever seen and it's absurd, ridiculous, self-aware, and a wonderful piece on the form of cinema.

• Open Water

  Another film where I was surprised by how it ended and also that I could stay utterly gripped and invested in a film of two people just floating in the ocean.

• Bambi: A French Woman
• Careful How You Go
• I Am My Own Woman
• Bambi
• Re-Live: A Tale of an American Island Cheerleader

1. WHAM!
2. Barbie
3. The Stroll
4. Past Lives
5. Poor Things
6. The enger
7. The Zone of Interest
8. May December
9. Infinity Pool
10. Renfield

...plus 17 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. How to Blow Up a Pipeline
2. Aftersun
3. The Batman
4. TÁR
5. Monica
6. Top Gun: Maverick
7. Prey
8. The Quiet Girl
9. The Banshees of Inisherin
10. My Transparent Life

...plus 25 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Films released in any year but I saw them for the first time this year and I really enjoyed them.

This isn't an exact order but it's probably close.

1. Little Fish
2. About Time
3. WHAM!
4. Kisses
5. If Beale Street Could Talk
6. After Yang
7. Port Authority
8. Blue Is the Warmest Color
9. Barbie
10. The Stroll

...plus 17 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.