📺 ~ Wonder Man (Season 1)

 rating: 9.25/10

what is this... a good marvel-disney+ show? after loki season 2?? standing ovation. kudos to destin daniel cretton and andrew guest for cooking this hard. seeing this project definitely made me look more forward to spiderman brand new day than i already did. as always, the best compliment i can give to a marvel project is that it does not feel like a marvel project at all: that remains true here. the color-grading, direction, camerawork (oh esp the camerawork), editing and character-work in this show are phenomenal. i love that it doesn't make simon's powers take centerstage and instead allows him to first reveal himself as a person before anything regarding his powers come into play. this show has a minimal amount of action and it worked so well with the narrative. i love how they developed trevor slattery and made him and simon williams a duo. the pacing was tight and every minute of each 30-min episode was utilised to its utmost. yahya abdul mateen ii is a great performer and i look forward to seeing more of him and sir ben kingsley in future mcu projects. 

🎬 ~ The History of Sound

rating: 6.75/10

letterboxd reviews are so funny. someone said "folk-back mountain" lmfao. it's unlike me to watch two movies in one night but yeah i finally watched this. i liked the use of lights and shadows in this movie—i'm mentioning this because i have in fact noticed the usage of "netflix" washed out lighting in some movies and i'm glad this wasn't one of them. josh o'connor takes on the role of a henry winter/felix catton-esque manic pixie dream boy mostly due to unreliable narration. this was one of those slow-going movies with heavy silences through the passage of time and ykw, sure, because that works for this story in particular. do i think the pacing could've been a little tighter? yes. but it is what it is. i felt like i had been watching this movie forever by the time i tried to see how far along we were and realised there was still some forty-odd minutes left in the runtime. this is a cute fall movie. at one point i was watching a scene and had the distinct thought that the cinematography and color-grading reminded me of Oppenheimer. paul mescal was also doing the oppenheimer hands on hips stance in the scene so that wasn't helping it's case. this was a tragic gay movie but it felt less sad more melancholic. i'd probably catch foreshadowing on a second watch but i don't want to watch this again. david picking up the feathers falling from lionel's busted pillow as they trekked through the forest was adorable. i too desire to go around the country backpacking and camping with my homoerotic situationship while collecting folk songs on an antique recorder.

🎬 ~ Sentimental Value

rating: 8/10

i'm not really used to watching this genre of movies a lot, where the story is grounded in the lives of normal people who're going through something—like a focused character study. nonetheless, it's still an experience getting this glimpse of unsaid emotions told through actions. i'm bad at reading between the lines in movies where the things that are being said are never said out loud, but it's a learning curve. i really liked nora as a character, and the bond she had with her sister agnes. elle fanning's rachel kemp turned out to be a surprisingly empathetic persona in the movie. gustav was also an interesting man. i like the way that the movie touches upon the hurt that runs in this family being generational. gustav's mother's history as a tortured prisoner during ww2 was a bleak but real point in this movie, and i'm just glad that the generational cycle was broken by the end. the ending scene with nora filming the one-take for gustav's film was pretty cool. and i also liked the opening scene of the movie that personifies the house as it is described in nora's essay. rachel reads a monologue from gustav's script in one scene, but when nora reads the same thing later in the movie, it hits harder somehow. i did get a teensy bit emotional at that point. it's interesting that this absent father who nora thought didn't understand her somehow knew her hurt and her feelings all along. 

📖 ~ In Memoriam

 rating: 5/5

first five star read of the year and it was a heavy one. i remember the acute feeling of dread that had fallen upon me in history class at elmhurst when we had been learning about WW1, how men were so eager to go to war because they didn't know the realities and horrors of it. this story captures that feeling so well. i don't think i've ever something so bleak. most of the books i've read in my life have consisted of contemporary and genre fiction: this was something else. people and friends falling to terrible deaths left and right, the war just stretching on with no end in sight, and in the middle of it all: henry and sidney. i genuinely thought henry was gone for good the moment he'd been shot in the chest. and the way it had happened too—"ernst?"—was heartbreaking. i was especially upset about sandys' death, but i suppose it was a small mercy because he got to join his lover in the abyss. i just wish he'd been able to read henry's letter about how much his friendship meant to him. i was by no means expecting a happy ending to this story, but was pleasantly surprised that both henry and sidney made it to the end and got their happily ever after in brazil, with their relationship and sidney's psyche slowly recovering from the effects of the war. though, i was yet again saddened by the last In Memorian of the book announcing roseveare's death, nary a day before the war came to it's complete end. i liked him, and was once again reminded of the sheer unfairness of war. i was also taken by gideon devi and archie pritchard, both of whom survived thankfully (at least, i think archie did, assuming he returned unscathed from the front line). i loved the way they'd so wholeheartedly accepted henry's sexuality and made him feel okay for it—that was a wonderful scene. cyril too for the matter. if it weren't for him, henry and sidney would be stuck in homophobic europe instead of living in sunny and free rio de janeiro. this definitely counts as one of my all-time favourites now, and no, it isn't lost on me that i now have FOUR five-star favourites which feature main characters named henry, all of whom i adore very much. it was definitely worth it staying up til 5am finishing this.

🎬 ~ Dead Poets Society

 rating: 10/10

this was my second time watching this but i feel compelled to write a review simply because it had much more of an impact on me this time around. maybe the person who said you find things at the right time in your life was on to something because the person i was four years ago wouldn't have connected to this movie the way i did now. i empathised so much more with neil this time around, and all the foreshadowing leading up to his unfortunate demise injected the experience with a sense of melancholy in the happy moments of this film because they were fleeting and they'd never get to be those innocent boys just running around their rooms and through the halls of welton again. i told abby that while i was watching this, i never really felt disconnected from the experience as i sometimes do—when i end up perceiving the actor instead of the character and it messes with my enjoyment of the story. here, i was so immersed in their world that i never stopped to think about any choices the actors might've made in their performance. that's the thing, this story doesn't feel like a performance—it feels lived, which makes it more special. it's a beautiful film with an equally beautiful story, and neil deserved better than he got. his fate is the most saddening part of this movie. i got emotional at a lot of points in this film. todd yelling neil's name as he runs to nothing in the snow was heartbreaking.

📖 ~ The Scottish Boy

rating: 2.65/5

admittedly in the beginning i loved reading it. it was somewhere around the 35-40% mark that it truly went downhill asf. there should've been more development between harry and iain's relationship before harry realised he was in love with him because what? you just have sex a few times and he gets mad at you and suddenly you can't live without him? IAIN CHEATS ON HARRY AND IT'S SHOVED UNDER THE RUG WITHOUT ANY REAL IMPACT OR CONSEQUENCE ON THEIR RELATIONSHIP. and harry is fucking horny ALL. THE. TIME. even when he really shouldn't be. i hated him being turned on when slimy old men talked about having their way with iain. his inappropriate boners were a repeat occurence throughout the course of this book and i did not like it one bit. also, usually i'm all for mlm smut but something here was just hitting the wrong way. i feel like their emotional relationship was neglected in favour of their sexual one, and it negatively impacted the reading experience. it's a damn shame that happened because this entire plot had a lot of potential and it only pulled through on barely half of that. the latter 60% of this book was a chore to get through, which is why it took me longer than expected to finish it. onto things i actually did like: alys. i love good historical asexual character representation and the friendship she had with harry. that should've been more developed tho. harry completely neglected her and his children after marriage. earl arundel and sir hugh were cool too. wish we had more time with sir simon though. his teachings embedded in harry always haunted the narrative. i was mildly attracted to edward the king btw. haha.

🎬 ~ Wicked: For Good

rating: 6/10

first movie of the new year and i was pretty disconnected from it so unfortunately i did not enjoy it much except for select parts. costume design was top notch but there's pacing issues and it wasn't consistent storytelling. glinda being lowkey evil in that one part where she tells madame morrible (hate her btw) to go after nessa was such a good scene because it suddenly switches to handheld and u can see how shaky glinda is after fiyero abandons her to be with elphaba. other than that, the songs weren't as memorable as the first movie. the first movie takes its time but act two just rushes the hit its story beats. i really don't have much else to say. i felt js a little emotional at the beginning of glinda and elphaba's goodbye scene but then i got fed up with it as it started going on and on and on and on. dorothy is a villain btw. stupid ahh girl. nessa is a bitch, happy she died. glad fiyero is alive tho.

🎬 ~ Dhurandar

 rating: 9.3/10

okay, crazy rating for an indian movie from me. first movie of the new year and a night show at that (i was half fried by midnight and we ordered coffee at pvr to stay awake lol). why did production kind of understand the assignment here? although, let's first acknowledge the elephant in the room: is this film propoganda? yes. you'll be ensnared by the narrative if you don't know what you should be looking for that's wrong. religious extremism often gets misconstrued as to be directly associated with the people who practice that religion even though they would never make such abhorrent decisions, and i can talk about this topic freely as a muslim myself. this movie's portrayal of pakistani muslims is a hot and cold. in a lot of aspects it shows them as morally bankrupt people, which, considering the fact that they are corrupt politicians and government officials, they totally are, but it injects them with ounces of humanity in how rehman dakait cares about his family. i mean, his literal first appearance on screen is him grieving his dead son and being vulnerable. but of course, he's a horrible person too. i just liked that we didn't get a completely black and white portrayal of pakistani people and that there were efforts by the writers to portray them as humans instead of shoe-horning that Us vs. Them narrative that usually happens in any bollywood movie featuring indo-pak tensions. i am pretty glad i got to experience this on the big screen, because there's no pause feature that's gonna let me calm down before playing again. watching a movie in the theatre lets you stew in the feelings of the movie. there were a lot of moments where i could feel my mind straying from me (as one's does when you have a hyperactive imagination) and i had to reel my consciousness back in to live in the moment. akshay khanna's performance was the crowning achievement of this movie—the comeback of a LIFETIME. every single person i know who has watched this movie cannot bring themselves to shut up about how good he was. his performance as rehman dakait is bound to go down as one of the best antagonistic roles in bollywood EVER. i don't really have much of an opinion on ranveer singh's role. his performance was... typical bollywood macho, so not much to say there. it felt kind of... i don't want to say average—it was definitely above average. i admit he's a good actor with good commitment to every role he does. i think it's just that his character motivations are unclear given that we don't know much of his backstory aside from what was teased in the end that i hesitate to form a complete opinion on him. another thing to mention that made my jaw drop in the movie: arjun rampal torturing the indian spy that was caught (horrifying experience). aside from that, SARA ARJUN IS SO PRETTY UGH I WAS SO ENAMORED BY HER I WANT HER EFHKFJGFEGEWKF. that's the end of the review.