Memory keeper. Mostly music and movies, plus some series and video games. Obscure darkness meets pop culture glow.
It was a rather unique and nice journey. Coming out of the cinema we had somewhat different ideas about the setting, but that’s exactly what makes this feel fresh: it’s up for interpretations and metaphors, and it’s interesting to discuss the different ideas.
I find it fascinating when I find such random movies that I’ve never heard of and there are actual A-list lead actors in it. Although it’s a pretty narrowly scoped setting, pretty much like a chamber drama but in an open world setting, so they didn’t have to spend on a whole lot more.
In any case, this is an absolutely fine little film. It has a post-apocalyptic backdrop but it’s a super simple love triangle flick, so any sci-fi setting is just flavor that doesn’t really have an impact on what happens. And as simple as it is, it gave me just enough ambiguity to look up thread on Reddit and find that there are different views on how the whole thing ends even. I like these kind of tightly focused movies that give a lot more than what they seem to offer.
I remember my father having this on VHS when I was a kid but I’ve never rewatched it since then as an adult. Having seen this now in 2025, my definition is: it’s Red Dead Redemption – The Movie. It’s a fantastic, entertaining, and light-hearted western flick. Robert Redford is at peak here.
Random fun fact to realize that this received an Oscar for Best Music, Original Song for Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head. I would have never guessed that song was written for a movie.
This was so much better than what I had expected. I expected a Friday night semi-dumb rom-com, and what I got was an entertaining and kind coming of age movie. It’s a solid 7/10.
I mostly read that people think it’s a okay movie with an amazing lead actor. My take is the opposite: I think this is great acting directed amazingly well. I’m a fan of Aronofsky anyway, so there’s that, but it was his choices for the vision of this film that made it stand out for me. By the end I settled on a 6/10 “okay” score overall, which climbed to a 7 because of how beautifully he portrayed the very last scene specifically.
Right at the beginning I thought the non-linear structure either makes sense for the movie or it’s just a cheap gimmick. And it did make a lot of sense, served the whole tension and narrative amazingly well. It’s great writing and directing. There are a few cheesy elements that emit something like a Tarantino homage feeling, and it would be a better film without those, however, I don’t think those define this movie.
Those few extended shots with Fitzgerald keeping posture and acting out a long slow scene are just as hard to watch as they are wonderfully acted.
It took a while to see the twist coming. The greatest thing is that for a long period of time I was just not sure. I know there was something going on but didn’t quite know how it will play out exactly. And how that non-linearity converges me closer and closer to that solution is why this structure works wonders for this movie.
Beautiful documentary, it warmed my heart to see the friendship between Williams and Spielberg. We were humming every single tune, it’s such a nice trip. And it’s not just a journey through cinema history but also my soundtracks of my life, as I grew up with all this.
This movie was hilarious, I loved it. It’s old and shitty, well, it’s a university project that made it into a flick, but every second is just gold. All of its ideas and jokes are ones that I want to tell people about while remembering the scenes.
The more I learned about the background of this, the more it solidified for me that this is a movie history gem: first film by Carpenter (not a horror but a comedy), first writing by Dan O’Bannon (who then turned it into a serious tone and wrote Alien).
It is also a perfect film club flick: there’s a lot to talk about and must be a blast to watch with an interested crowd or a group of friends.
This move conveys feelings in an amazing way, it makes me feel stuff. I am so sorry for the guy, but then there’s the “actions and consequences” aspect, but somehow I’m still rooting for him so that maybe there’s some kind of hope… At the end, coming back from that fantasy of “what if” I so felt his pain and fear of what’s coming next. Fantastic direction by Spike Lee.
Today I watched three movies in a row, which gave me this beautiful journey through the worlds and mind of Martin McDonagh, and the many faces and fantastic acting of Colin Farrell.
I didn’t look at the release chronology, so I started with Seven Psychopaths (2012) because I was looking for something light and I imagined it to be like that. It’s a little weirdo meta-movie and contrary to what most people might think from the cover, it is absolutely not sold by the ensemble cast. Of course I loved Walken and cheered loudly when Waits appeared, but from a stage charisma point of view I give this one to Sam Rockwell. I partly tried to keep track of how much of what’s told is the story happening, being written, and the overlapping meta layer of both, but in another part I just don’t think I cared that much, and I don’t think it matters a whole lot. It’s a ride, it’s a journey, and I don’t think it’s meant for artistic deep analysis.
Now, In Bruges (2008) is a level deeper in seriousness and perhaps meaning, but it’s also not something that someone can get lost in over analysis. It’s a very simple plot in a simple setting, and it’s just this “point in time” thing where some odd series of events happen and we’re there to witness, and then the world goes on. Since there are fewer characters to focus on and we see more of their points of views it’s so easy to fall in love with them, even though practically everyone having a talking part is an anti-hero to begin with, so I guess I shouldn’t. I think what I loved most in this one is that the movie didn’t actually try to sell me on any of the characters or paint them in a specific way, it just portrayed them for who they are. I wasn’t fed a point of view, just got an amazing display of an odd collection of folks.
And then, The Banshees of Inisherin (2022) is a whole different kind of film with lots of depth and layers and symbolism. Given the context of McDonagh’s above two movies and the fact that Three Billboards came before Banshees, I was not sure what to expect: the dark comedy angle or rather serious cinema. This one was both, and it went from one to the other with quite fast of a switchover. It started quirky, and I wouldn’t say light at all, but it made me laugh, even if in grim ways. And then it ended up as one of the most depressing movies I’ve seen this year. My heart sank deeper and deeper, and I felt genuinely sorry for every single person portrayed. And when I felt bad and uncertain, it just left me there hanging and the movie ended. It was brilliant cinema though, no question about that.
It was a fantastic journey to see McDonagh’s writing and directing go through all these phases through the years. If I wanted to put a narrative to it, I’d guess In Bruges was his breakthrough, then with Psychopaths he got lured into Hollywood, he turned toward a more serious tone with Billboards, and then he went back to his Irish roots and mixed all his dark humor and achieved serious voice to craft Banshees.
It was also a joy to watch Farrell through three movies in a row playing three so distinctively different characters. I had this “recognize a great actor when I see one” feeling all along. Brendan Gleeson was an amazing partner on his side for two-thirds of this ride.