📺 ~ Mignon

rating: 7.75/10

good animation and direction, good voiceacting, not a grand plot (understandable considering the miniature runtime) but what we had was pretty decent. i loved the music too. doc and mignon? that bloody kiss in episode 5 got me hot. episode 12 was literally porn and i don't know how to feel about it because it was so dubcon. i mean, i have seen this problem with every animated mlm show or movie i've seen: what's y'alls allergy to consent? it's always the person initiating who just disregards the other's pleas to slow down or stop and listen, it'd be fine if u negotiated this before but damn Y'ALL JUST DON'T LISTEN AND DO WHATEVER THE FUCK YOU WANT. LIKE??? MIGNON, ASK HIM IF HE WANTS THIS, DON'T JUST START GOING AT HIM. on doc's side, i think his apprehension really is coming from him being alone for so long so you could argue that he's just tryna take it slow WHICH THEY SHOULD HAVE DONE but mignon bulldozes ahead and overwhelms doc. i think that docked a whole point off for me. anyways i don't think i've ever seen animated porn lmfao. it was sort of censored but still. this one expression on doc's face in the midst of it is gonna remain in my mind rentfree. ALSO ALSO THAT SCENE WHERE MIGNON BECOMES A VAMP AT THE END OF EP 10: PEAK. PEAK I SAY. THE DIRECTION AND CINEMATOGRAPHY AND THE EXPLODING BLOOD VISUALS WERE SO GOOD I LOVED IT.

🎬 ~ The Drama

rating: 8.75/10

i'd been hearing really mixed opinions about this, but i was also avoiding EVERYTHING about this movie with a swiftness not unlike usain bolt so i didn't know what the actual negative opinion was, just that they didn't really get the movie and thought it was js conceptual a24 arthouse stuff. well, i'd like to say, Y'ALL ARE FUCKIN STUPID. THIS MOVIE IS GOLD. WHADDYA MEAN YOU DIDN'T UNDERSTAND THE COMPLEXITY OF THIS FILM AND THE MORAL AND ETHICAL DILEMMA IT PROPOSES? transcendent. if there's one person i'll always trust to know how to pick their projects, it's zendaya. she is MAGNIFICENT in this movie. her microexpressions are a gift to witness. and her chemistry with robert pattinson is so good too. man i missed how two a-list celebrities who are genuinely great at their craft can bounce off of each other to elevate their performance on the screen. i am sick of a-listers being cast without regard to chemistry on an a24 project and that movie only being talked about coz of their brand. this movie though? IT DELIVERS. kristoffer borgli, i was not familiar with your game. the direction in this film is STELLAR. top of the line. the way this movie utilised sound is so interesting and dynamic. and the cuts and the editing too. wow, just WOW. i was blown away. of all the things i expected the conflict to be, i did not think it'd be emma's thought crime of almost being a school shooter. it's so interesting to unpack. and even how she ends up in this reaction formation by becoming an anti-gun activist. tbh, charlie's initial reaction to that information was... valid. i mean, this person u think u know everything about tells you something that changes the way you view them, barely a week before your wedding that's hard. and also hard for emma too, because the man you love and are about to marry suddenly finds out about something you did, or almost did, when you were at a dark time in your life, when you were just gullible to the aesthetic performance of this sad misunderstood extremist with a gun, and now your life feels like it's falling apart when it had just come together. wonderful exploration. charlie cheating though? crazy. glad he stopped before it went any further but damn misha was so ready for it lol. i mean it shook them up but woah.  anyways, rachel was a bitch and i was praying on her downfall the entire movie. she's such a hypocrite privileged white weirdo for her response. why was she acting like emma actually shot up her school and personally paralyzed her cousin for life? why are YOU so offended bro? she was literally the embodiment of a white twitter-brained pc woman going "omg that is NOT okay" at every micro thing that doesn't even personally affect her. i'm not wording it right but yeah. she called a child "slow" and laughed about locking him inside an abandoned place OVERNIGHT and lying about it too when the father came to ask about it. heartless bitch. she probably traumatized that kid. and the way she shows no remorse for her actions too. disgusting. at least emma knows what she did was completely wrong. and it was fifteen fkin years ago so get a grip.

🎬 ~ Train Dreams

rating: 7.5/10

kinda just sat and stared into space when the credits started rolling; it's that sort of movie. makes you think about your tiny little existence on this fast-spinning earth and the life you've had. this isn't a punchy adrenaline packed flick that you casually put on while cleaning your house. this is the type of movie where you sit your ass down and absorb, let it seep into your pores and feel. (mb gang i stepped away to go poop and then got constipated on the toilet for 40 mins i am worn out rn). i like how this movie was a snapshot of a regular man throughout his life who just earned an honest living and had a loving family before tragedy struck and he just went about his life. the thing i loved about this narrative is that, there's never... more. granier's head stays on his shoulders, his feet and gaze firm on the ground. the movie shows how ugly humans can be but also how kind. each character is such a whole person despite having such a short time on screen. i was especially attached to ignatius and the companionship he strikes with robert at a dark time in his life. i liked how genuine this movie was, and the sense of wonder it inspires. claire's monologue about how everything was important, even the insects we couldn't see: so good. even the layman is important, the one who just lives and goes through life doing honest work without being memorialised in stone. the rural setting of this movie was so peaceful too. it reminded me of History of Sound in a lot of ways, maybe because they're set around roughly the same time period. the visuals of this movie are so beautiful, especially the use of sunlight and fire/candles. i was enamored by how wonderful that one shot with robert and claire on the balcony of her house looked, where the shot becomes handheld and their silhouettes are backlit by the red-orange of the setting sun. mesmerizing, truly. and man, i was smiling at every scene baby katie was in—she's just so adorable, she gives me cuteness aggression. i felt pretty emotional in about two scens: one where robert talks to the spectre of that chinese man over the fire, saying "isn't this too much?", and two where he cries over the dead stag accepting that his wife and daughter were not coming back while ignatius stands behind in sorrowful empathy.

🎬 ~ Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)

rating: 9.5/10

i haven't watched a movie in so long. let me sit with this. so. Birdman. this movie was literally everywhere when i first came into the film community. and lookie now, i've seen it. to be fair i watched the first 25 or so minutes of this movie more than a month ago, but my attention span wasn't cooperating with me so i shelved it for a better occassion. which happened to be 1am on a saturday in july. this movie just taps into your insecurities as an artist, doesn't it? and riggan, man, he's self-centred, apologetic but can't get past the tunnel vision of his ambitions enough to give more than two fucks about anyone else, and it's so real? i mean, self-report here but i kinda saw myself in him. like your potential is being wasted, like you were meant for better but will always have to live with this label that people can't get past, how everything you've ever wanted will never be in your grasp and everything you have will never be enough. it's so interesting how riggan thinks he's a has-been that no one knows or cares about when it becomes obvious through the background how widely beloved he is, that people CARE about him yk, but that, that just doesn't register in his head long enough for him to assign value to that love, because sylvia is right: he mistakes love for admiration, but since he doesn't register this admiration he's garnered, he doesn't register the love either. i'm talking nonsense. i thought sam was weird for getting in the whatever-that-was with mike, but it also felt like she was just lonely and tried looking for connection elsewhere, and mike didn't freak out about her potential suicidal behaviour sitting on that ledge and instead made light of it. so. yeah. that was the only place where mike was ALMOST decent enough for complexity. he literally sexually assaulted leslie on stage, IN THE MIDDLE OF THE PLAY. so fuck him. hope he vanished into obscurity and became the greatest has-been there ever was. fkin prick thinking he's a prodigy and shit when the only place he acts like a human is in the characters he plays. he literally steals riggan's personal life info and passes it off as his own in the interview. riggan had a valid asf crashout about that. also i KNEW there'd be a real gun eventually with the end of the play hehe predictable, but i did not think riggan would try to attempt suicide, and survive, and attempt again? i did not fully understand the ending of the movie. did riggan give his ambitions up? or did he achieve it and felt like he did not have much to live for anyways? were the birdman powers real? what is sam's reaction supposed to mean? riggan is always haunted by this voice in his head, green goblin-style, and it silences itself when riggan tries to kill himself. maybe the voice is self-deprecation yk, coz riggan gets angry and suicidal when he listens to it. it spews bullshit in his head about how this stint as a "serious" actor is bullshit and he should've stuck with his Birdman glory days fame instead of vying for something better. it's his self-doubt personified. and by the end of the movie, he says "fuck you" to that persona, saying fuck you to his self-doubt. but why does he jump? and why does sam look up, in awe at that? because he's in a better place? does it signify he's ascended after death? what about the police chatter in the credits and the noises of the crowd, implying he really did jump out the window to his death. man. this was a stressful watch at times haha. i think i paused at three different places to prepare myself for something embarrassing. but, great movie. i LOVED the jazz score. it adds so much dynamic tension in the experience of the movie and controls the pace so well. it's wonderful. i did not even mention how the entire movie works on a one-take format. obv there's transition cuts in between but it must've been a tall damn order to shoot this movie. kudos to the cast and crew.