watch | 2019 | bottle of suze

Enough Said

Nicole Holofcener, 2013

8 December 2019

Ahhhhhhh ha I loved this movie :)

It's about life after divorce, those little things that can poison relationships, parenthood, daughters, the moral ambiguity of knowing too much about someone, middle age maturity.

In the calm aftermath of this movie, and the ingenuis dramatic/comedic suspense of its plot, I feel content and somehow comforted; through the thick of hurt, heartbreak, and awkwardly necessary social situations, it's still possible to end on a good laugh, shoulder to shoulder. It's a nice thought in which to wrap myself inside of and rest.

Panic Room

David Fincher, 2002

November 2019

Tiny Kristen Stewart and classic Jodie... hehe

The Sound of Music

Robert Wise, 1965

November 2019

The most magical, wonderful movie in the world *~* !

Magnolia

Paul Thomas Anderson, 1999

1 November 2019

Paul Thomas Anderson, Melora Walters, Tom Cruise, Julianne Moore, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Aimee Mann, Jon Brion, Fiona Apple (c/o PTA)...what more could you want??? Our lovely 90s heroes in a strange three hour blossoming of stories with great (the best) music

The Butterfly Effect

Eric Bress, J. Mackye Gruber, 2004

25 October 2019

This was more thrilling than I expected, and a really gripping story despite the simple premise (the butterfly effect).

The French Connection

William Friedkin, 1971

16 October 2019

One long chase, mostly action//kinda boring, cool score, very mobile camera technique. It's kinda crazy to me that this won Best Picture over A Clockwork Orange, (then again, it would also be disturbing for Clockwork to win), but I guess it set the precedent for the new "American crime film"--sort of gritty, running around New York City, brash, chasing trains, European criminals, etc.

Rosemary's Baby

Roman Polanski, 1968

14 October 2019

Ooh mama.....very good

Vertigo

Alfred Hitchcock, 1958

13 October 2019

Vertigo in San Francisco, how fitting. I think this was my first Hitchcock film?? (We may have watched part of The Birds in 11th grade English, though.) It wasn't as scary or intense as I feared, though it was pretty mysterious, and a lot of the cinematopgraphy was beautiful. I felt a little let down by the plot, but I loved seeing shots of San Francisco in the 50s.

The Graduate

Mike Nichols, 1967

10 October 2019

Ad Astra

2019, James Gray

5 October 2019

I liked this...though it left me with a sad feeling

American Psycho

2000, dir. Mary Harron, based on novel by Bret Easton Ellis

2 October 2019

Truly psycho...I've never been more off-put by Christian Bale's smile

"I have all the characteristics of a human being: blood, flesh, skin, hair; but not a single, clear, identifiable emotion, except for greed and disgust. Something horrible is happening inside of me and I don't know why. My nightly bloodlust has overflown into my days. I feel lethal, on the verge of frenzy. I think my mask of sanity is about to slip."

Perhaps the real disturbing thing about this film is that I can in some ways relate to Patrick Bateman's frustration, where his tension (that leads him to compulsive, serial violence) comes from: the incredible vacuity of yuppie culture.

(According to wikipedia, yuppie was a term coined in the 80s, short for "young urban professional" or "young, upwardly-mobile professional." Nowadays, yuppies are SF or LA hip, white, twenty-somethings who do yoga and drink kombucha -- a fitting extension of the term three decades later.)

Bret Easton Ellis, the author of the novel of the same name which the movie is based on, comments:
"[Bateman] was crazy the same way [I was]. He did not come out of me sitting down and wanting to write a grand sweeping indictment of yuppie culture. It initiated because of my own isolation and alienation at a point in my life. I was living like Patrick Bateman. I was slipping into a consumerist kind of void that was supposed to give me confidence and make me feel good about myself but just made me feel worse and worse and worse about myself. That is where the tension of American Psycho came from. It wasn't that I was going to make up this serial killer on Wall Street. High concept. Fantastic. It came from a much more personal place, and that's something that I've only been admitting in the last year or so."

This is all...too! much!

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

2003, dir. Peter Jackson, based on J.R.R. Tolkien's novels

23 September 2019

Oh my goodness...I have finally finished the trilogy, after 3 whole nights of watching the Return of the King......I've read and reread the LotR wiki so many times....

A Clockwork Orange

Stanley Kubrick, 1971

5 September 2019

Please Give

Nicole Holofcener, 2010

21 August 2019

Such an excellent collection of characters

A Star Is Born

Bradley Cooper, 2018

July 2019

(I love you Lady Gaga) the story with this movie is that I watched the first half of it on my flight to Osaka for the beginning of my July travels, and I finished the movie on my flight home from Milan at the end of month, so I really felt the passage of time during this movie !

Ringu

Nakata Hideo, 1998

July 2019

big scream

Free Solo

Jimmy Chin, 2018

July 2019

Omg...Alex Honnold...look him up...

(500) Days of Summer

Marc Webb, 2009

May 2019

I rewatched 500 Days of Summer! It was interesting because the first time I saw it was in the beginning of high school, before I ever had any real romantic experience, and now I'm here, fresh off the end of my third major relationship. I felt like I could understand Zooey Deschanel's character a lot more this time around, though at heart I am so Joseph Gordon-Levitt in this movie. This was also a darn good reminder of JGL's cuteyness...I remember him being one of my high school celebrity crushes hehe

Punch-Drunk Love

Paul Thomas Anderson, 2002

March 2019

Endearing performance by young Adam Sandler, and I LOVED the score (Jon Brion!).

Shoplifters

Kore-eda Hirokazu, 2018

March 2019

Absolute heart-wrencher, and so, so beautiful

Mary and the Witch's Flower

Hiromasa Yonebayashi, 2017

2 March 2019

The story fell a little flat for me, but I loved the animation

Vice

Adam McKay, 2018

February 2019

I watched this in theaters with my brother, who I think is about the only person I know who would actually want to watch this with me, and it definitely surprised me! I was mostly in it because I wanted to see Christian Bale transform into Dick Cheney, but the film painted a nuanced, complicated, strained picture of Dick Cheney's life and rise to power, key political figures of the time, and the U.S. from the 80s to 9/11 and the post-9/11 era. Cinematically, the film was also really bold and unconventional, and used a lot of playful/experimental narrative techniques (I think you have to just see it for yourself).

The Favourite

Yorgos Lanthimos, 2018

18 February 2019

!!!!!!!!! Scream wow I have no words (don't think I didn't miss those Lobster references in there ;-))

The Lobster

Yorgos Lanthimos, 2015

8 February 2019

!!!! This movie was so funny to me (how can I shout, "I love you Rachel Weisz (and everyone else)!!!"). What a well-written, well-acted, well-shot satire (or arguably speculative fiction) of modern romance. I am eager but apprehensive to watch Lanthimos's other films hahahehe

Wildlife

Paul Dano, 2018

28 January 2019

This had an unexpectedly eerie mood (not sure if that's just what I feel whenever Jake Gyllenhaal comes on screen) but the setting/cinematography was quite beautiful

My Week with Marilyn

2011, Simon Curtis

26 January 2019

There Will Be Blood

Paul Thomas Anderson, 2007

27 January 2019

My first Paul Thomas Anderson film, my first Daniel Day-Lewis film, ... an overwhelming but highly cinematic experience for sure.

Café Lumière

Hsiao-Hsien Hou, 2003

25 January 2019

Trains and quiet

Killing Eve (TV Series)

Phoebe Waller-Bridge, 2018-

23 January 2019

OMG please watch...I knew I could trust Sandra Oh to make this thriller/drama-com amazing. Jodie Comer was so good as the incredibly ruthless, fun, and compelling assassin. Eve Polastri (Sandra Oh) and Villanelle (Jodie Comer) were both such complicated characters, and the queer tension was also complicated and interesting on a level I feel like I don't see very often in media. Can't wait for the second season.

Office Space

Mike Judge, 1999

January 2018

Maniac (TV Mini-Series)

Cary Joji Fukunaga, 2018

13 January 2019

Annie (Emma Stone) and Owen's (Jonah Hill) tour de force journey through three pills--an experimental drug treatment under trial to completely "heal" their patients--is, by the end, nothing less than a cathartic tale of friendship between strangers in the face of their own brokenness.

Maniac tells the story and backstory of the trauma and schizophrenia of two people whose primary interactions are in the dream world of a depressed computer created by two scientists with pscyhological problems of their own. It's a wonderfully complex, technologically imaginative, and wildly fantastical story with a humor and grandeur of its own, dignifying the utterly personal, convoluted nature of our psychological disorders.

It was also super fun to see Emma Stone and Jonah Hill play so many different versions of their characters in the dream-states. Such heartfelt, subtle acting by the both of them!!

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

2018

12 January 2019

Beautiful, artful, amazing animation! I came out of the theater feeling for the first time in years (since The Incredibles? When I was 7?? Or perhaps The Dark Knight?) moved and impressed by a superhero movie. I think animation as a medium really unleashes so much potential for the superhero movie, while also allowing it to stylistically tie back to the genre's comicbook roots. Really enjoyed all the cool glitch and drawing-style rendering effects :^) Glad I saw this!

A Late Quartet

2012, Yaron Zilberman

11 January 2019

This was a riveting drama centered around the interpersonal relationships between members of a world-renowned string quartet. I used to play viola so it took a lot of effort for me not to obsess over how the actors were acting out their instrument playing. For a story with an ensemble cast (no single main character) and many moving parts, I thought the depth each character was portrayed with was really impressive!

Here's a quote from the beginning of the movie that I really liked, excellently performed by Christopher Walken's father-figure-music-professor character:
"We begin with Beethoven's Opus 131, said to be his personal favorite. It has seven movements at a time when the standard was four. And they're all connected--you're not allowed to stop between movements--no resting, no tuning. Beethoven insisted it be played attacca, without pause...For us, it means that playing for so long without pause, our instruments must in time go out of tune, each in its own quite different way. It's a mess! What are we supposed to do, stop? Or, struggle to continuously adjust to each other up to the end, even if we are out of tune? I don't know. Let's find out."

I thought this was such a beautiful metaphor for the messiness that arises when relations with people we love get complicated--we must keep going, keep playing, keep adjusting, despite our brokenness and imperfections.

Forever (TV Series)

2018-, Matt Hubbard / Alan Yang

9 January 2019

Felt a little off, but nonetheless an enjoyable and interesting show! Think Portlandia x Black Mirror x The Good Place lol

Nostalgia

2018, Mark Pellington

8 January 2019

Watched this on the plane back from São Paulo....oh my.....beautiful, ambitious, saudade-provoking stories and "lives lived"....perhaps a little unbalanced

Not that related...but I listened to this a lot afterwards https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4yVwj9Y8HE

I say "ambitious" because I think the feeling of nostalgia and saudade is so difficult to capture real-time (without flashback scenes). Those feelings are so mysterious and essential and human...perhaps that's why I felt Beach House was a good musical pair to this film, since their music attempts to express these mysterious feelings as well. This film meditates on our ties to physical objects, and how they hold significance, memories...