INTRO
HM, I DIDN’T KNOW THAT
MARKO POLO
LIFE, ETC.
A FEW OF THE BEST MOVIES FROM THE 2020s (SO FAR) / FILMS THAT ARE ALMOST GOOD II / AN ANALYSIS OF INCEPTION / ESCAPING A HAUNTED MANSION / RIDDLES #11 / MORE FILM REVIEWS / PAINTINGS II
FINALE
I was lying in hospital and had just opened my eyes to realise that I was lying in hospital.
It was April 23rd, 2011. I asked the nurse where I was, and she confirmed what I had suspected; I had had an accident, and, after a fair amount of facial surgery, was now recovering in the ICU (that’s “intensive care unit,” as I soon found out) in a major south London hospital. It happened to be the same hospital I was born in. Ironic? Maybe a little.
The accident was a result of me stupidly riding around on my BMX bike. Doing stunts? I wish I was that cool. No, what had happened is that I had been cycling along, made a wrong turn, lost my balance and fallen down a hill, going face first into the pavement.
Yeah, it hurt.
I had been laying there for a bit with strawberries on my face and a torn upper lip before a passer-by called the ambulance and I was taken away on a stretcher. I passed out as I was being carried away, so I don’t exactly remember what happened next, but when I eventually woke up I remember initially thinking that only a few hours had passed since blacking out in the ambulance — when in actual fact, an entire day had passed. The accident was on Friday, April 22nd, so you can imagine my shock when the nurse told me that it was Saturday, April 23rd. Still, I made it out of hospital eight days later.
Before they let me go home, however, they ran a few tests, one of which was something called an MRI. This is when they slide you into one of those giant scanning machines and look at your brain or something like that. If you’ve ever had an MRI test, you’ll know that it is loud as hell in there. They put this bracket-thing over your head (I’m not sure what it’s for exactly) which does block out some of the noise, but it’s still quite uncomfortable. The test goes on for about ten minutes, so before I went in, they asked me if I wanted music to be played while I was in there to help block out the noise. I said yes, and once the machine started doing its thing, the hospital staff sitting behind the glass pressed play on the music. And even though I was still a little traumatised and disorientated after having been through a dreadful accident that led to me losing a tooth, swallowing a lot of blood, breaking my nose and dislocating my jaw, I immediately recognised the song.
It was Sex on Fire by Kings of Leon.
Maybe that’s why I’ve been a fan of Kings of Leon ever since. In such a vulnerable and painful time when I was so dizzyingly confused about where I was and what was going on, I had a little glimmer of positive emotion in the form of a solid guitar riff and instantly recognisable vocals of the band’s lead singer, Caleb Followill. There was just something about the familiarity that made that a very memorable moment.
Here’s a music-related pet peeve of mine. For some reason, I really don’t like it when artists or singers self-title their album or call it “Untitled” or something. I just find it to be such a waste and it just feels like the artist wasn’t creative enough or couldn’t be bothered to come up with a name. Even though they’re clearly creative enough to come up with the music, surely they can think of some sort of name for the music they’ve worked so hard on? So many artists I like have done this with their albums: Gorillaz by Gorillaz, Fleetwood Mac by Fleetwood Mac, Untitled by Led Zeppelin (commonly known as Led Zeppelin IV) or even Led Zeppelin’s debut album, which they named Led Zeppelin.
I don’t know, I just like seeing creativity with names [1] especially when you consider the fact that you can pretty much name your album whatever you want. Although with Led Zeppelin, they did continue that trend with Led Zeppelin II and Led Zeppelin III, so I guess that makes it a little better seeing as they made a naming trend out of it.
I don’t know. Maybe I don’t get it? It’s just an album, after all. The word “album,” by the way, originates from the Latin albus which means “white.” [2]
Alright, we have a lot of ground to cover so we better get going. Do we have everything? I feel like we’re forgetting something. Or maybe we already have everything we need and all we’re forgetting is to let go of our worries and fears. Maybe that’s it. Yes, that’s it. I should probably grab my keys before we head off, though.
Kind of related are names for products. I really like the way Apple names their products with names rather than numbers: MacBook Air, Apple Watch, iPad, iPhone. It’s an ethos that goes back to the early days of Apple with Steve Jobs at the helm. I mean, Apple products do have some numbers, like the iPhone 17, but I just find it really confusing, annoying and rather unnecessary when I see companies naming their products with a series of numbers and letters, like “X100-S.” Is it just me that feels this way?
The opposite of white is black, which I’m sure you already know, but have you heard of vantablack? It’s this special coating that’s so dark it will make anything it covers look a dark void. It’s quite freaky.
THE SALLY-ANNE TEST
Sally and Anne have a box and a basket in their room. Sally has a donut (it could be anything, but let’s just use a donut as an example) that she wants to save for later. She puts the donut in the box and leaves the room. While she’s out, Anne comes along, takes the donut out of the box and places it in the basket. Now, when Sally returns, where will Sally look first to retrieve her donut? It’s obvious that the answer is that she’ll look in the box because that’s where she left it. She has no knowledge of Anne’s actions while she was gone so she can’t possibly know about the donut’s actual whereabouts.
This is simple for you and I, but when this test is done on very young children (under the age of four) they respond by saying the donut is actually in the basket, where Anne moved it to. Because they themselves saw Anne move the donut from the box to the basket, so they think that Sally must also know that. This is all to do with something known as theory of mind. We adults have a theory of mind because we understand that there are other people out there with minds of their own and they might have access to information that we don’t. When we see what happens to Sally, and her donut, we understand what Sally knows and what she doesn’t know because we see her as an individual with her own mind. But young kids and animals on whom this test is conducted don’t see it that way.
THE REVERSE TINKERBELL EFFECT
Let’s say there’s a neighbourhood [1] that’s really quiet, serene and calm. It’s a beautiful, peaceful place to live because not a lot of people live there and they’ve got hot springs and rivers, woods and meadows, cliffs and mountains. Just imagine Rivendell from The Lord of the Rings. Now, the more people that know about this amazing place and believe that it is a nice, quiet, peaceful place to live, the more people will move there and make it their home. And the more people move there, the more that place will become populated and, eventually, overcrowded, with the place ultimately losing its appeal as a quiet place to live.
This is the Reverse Tinkerbell effect in action, where believing in something makes it untrue. An inverse of the Tinkerbell effect, where believing in something makes it true, the Reverse Tinkerbell effect can be observed in our world in many different forms. Another example would be believing that driving a car is safe. The more people believe this, the more people there will be out on the roads, driving. And the more people are driving, the higher the chances of there being an accident, thus removing the original belief from the equation.
While we’re here, we might as well go over the Tinkerbell Effect too. An example of this would be the belief in fiat currency, like the money we use on a daily basis. The more people believe that this currency is worth something, the more it will actually be worth something. If people stopped believing, our currencies would immediately become worthless and go back to being just pieces of paper or plastic with pictures of noteworthy people, metal tokens with national symbols or pixels on a screen in the shape of digital numbers.
PHOTIC SNEEZE REFLEX
I’ve always had this thing where I sneeze any time I eat something minty. Breath mints, chewing gum, even too much toothpaste on my toothbrush. I immediately get a tingling sensation in my nose which causes me to double over and sneeze at least a couple of times. I’ve always thought it was really weird. But it turns out there are even weirder causes to make people sneeze. Some people sneeze just by being in bright light or by looking at the sun. It’s a thing.
NEGATIVE GEOTROPISM
I was in some modern office building in London one time and in the lobby they had this wall that was covered in greenery with plants seemingly growing outwards and upwards along the wall. Now, these plants in particular, it turned out, were actually fake things made of plastic, but a phenomenon does exist called negative geotropism where plants can get planted sideways and grow upwards against gravity. Why would they do this? Well, maybe because of the inner survival instinct that living creatures have and the will to endure the hardships of the world and to make it through thick and thin or die trying? Or maybe just because they’re just trying to adapt themselves to find light.
THE CHICKEN AND THE EGG
What came first: the chicken or the egg? I’m not really sure what the answer is here or, quite honestly, if the answer is even important. I mean, what does it matter what came first? What difference does it make? Because everything started somewhere, right? We all grew from something. So, what is this age-old, philosophical classic of a question asking, really? When it comes to this whole chicken-egg conundrum, I align myself with Louis C.K.’s response from his 2014 monologue on Saturday Night Live where he says: “What comes first, the chicken or the egg? Of course it’s the egg. Because you can’t just make a chicken. You gotta start with the egg and grow a chicken. But then people like to say: ‘Well, where does the egg come from?’ From a chicken, you idiot.”
FATA MORGANA
Have you ever seen a ship hovering over that part of the horizon where the sea meets the sky? Yes, just like in the album artwork for Valtari by Sigur Rós. Well, that’s not witchcraft; it’s actually due to a phenomenon called fata morgana which happens because something, something, light waves, something, something, atmosphere and — listen, I don’t really know. Okay? I’m not knowledgeable enough about this stuff to be able to explain it. Or even talk about it in detail. So let’s just move on from the science part? The phenomenon is interesting, though. It might also help explain The Flying Dutchman which, according to folklore, is a ghost ship that never goes home and will sail the seven seas for all eternity. Sailors at sea saw a floating ship hovering upside down over the water [2], which could be explained by fata morgana as sometimes objects will appear to be floating, reversed or even so distorted that they’re borderline unrecognisable. It’s hilarious how much the physical world just loves to play tricks on us. How are we even supposed to know what’s real?
In Taiwan, they have a garbage collection system where trucks pull up to people’s neighbourhoods and residents bring their trash out to be taken away. The trucks play Beethoven’s Für Elise or Tekla Bądarzewska-Baranowska’s A Maiden’s Prayer so people know it’s time to bring out the bins.
Everyone knows about H2O, but apparently there’s such a thing as D2O — also known as heavy water. Now you know.
TWELVE OF THESE IS EQUAL TO ONE OF THAT? AND TWENTY-FOUR OF THOSE IS EQUAL TO ONE OF THIS? YOU KNOW WHAT, I THINK I’LL JUST MAKE UP MY OWN UNIT OF MEASUREMENT.
When I was learning how to drive, my instructor told me during one session about this thing called “braking distance,” the distance the car will need to come to a complete stop once you, the driver, detects the need to push the brake. Simply put, the faster the car’s travelling, the more distance that’s needed for the vehicle to stop. That much is obvious, I think. But it was the way he said it that made things a little confusing for me.
He said that the normal braking distance for a car going at 30 mph (about 48 km/h) is six car lengths. Under rainy or wet conditions, that distance could double as it will take more distance for the car to stop if the road is wet.
I remember understanding the concept but being confused by trying to visualise what “six car lengths” looks like. I mean, I get it, but imagine casually driving down the road when, suddenly, you have to brake. How are you going to measure out six car lengths? Would you be able to visualise it?
Sure, you can say that the length of an average car is around 4-5 metres and use this to calculate how many metres it will roughly take for your car to stop. But, again, it’s a little hard to imagine, right? I could probably visualise 1 metre. Maybe even 10 metres. But 20 metres? 35?
I prefer to have measurements that are easier to understand, even if they are more of a rough guide than an exact measurement. I’d rather just have an easy way of understanding things. Like I always remember that a mile is about a 20-minute walk. It could be more, of course, like if you’re walking a mile up a steep hill. Or on stepping stones over boiling hot lava.
Not all units are about taking a walk outside [1] or measuring out how far you have until you’re about to ram into the car in front of you. There are units all around us: there’s Scoville, that measures the hotness of peppers; ligne, that measures the diameter of buttons and micromort, that measures risk of death [2].
Different places sometimes measure things differently. We all know about the imperial and metric systems and how different countries adopt different units and all that, but sometimes things we consider basic and normal are different in other places. In English-speaking countries, for example, numbers are grouped together in thousands. We say a thousand, ten thousand, a hundred thousand, then a million (for a thousand thousand). From there we go ten million, a hundred million and then a billion (for a thousand million). We even put our thousands separator (where I come from, that’s a comma) after the thousands. Here it is in action: 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 [3].
But in other countries, like in some South Asian countries, they have a hundred thousand as a base. One hundred thousand has its own name: lakh. In India, they even group their numbers in that way; so a hundred thousand, or one lakh, would be 1,00,000. Looks weird, doesn’t it? If you’re used to the other system, looking at numbers arranged differently feels very odd.
In many EU countries, as well as other parts of the world, they have decimals where we put commas and vice versa. I always have to execute a few additional brain cycles to fully comprehend what’s going on when I see “€34.000,00.” Is it thirty-four thousand euros? Or thirty-four euros with five zeros and a comma after it for some reason?
In 1841, John Goffe Rand invented the collapsible metal tube to allow artists to carry their paints outside. Painters used to store their paints in animal bladders, which wasn’t very practical, so Rand came along and devised a tube that would be a much better solution. It was made of tin so it didn’t react with the paint, it wouldn’t rupture as easily as animal organs would and, let’s face it, it looked a whole lot better than mushy animal parts. This actually ended up having quite a bit of impact on the art world, because now artists could take their paints outside much more easily and paint the natural world in the flesh. Or, in the… leaf?
In Japan, inmates on death row are never told when their execution will take place and are given only a few hours’ notice beforehand. What a way to go.
The number of possible combinations on a Rubik’s cube. For years, I always thought it was called “Rubix” and not “Rubik’s,” but it turns out it’s named after its inventor, Ernő Rubik.
SPEAK NOW, OR FOREVER HOLD YOUR SILENCE. PICK SILENCE. I’D PREFER SILENCE.
There’s this language in the Canary Islands that’s articulated entirely by whistling. It sounds exactly how you’d think it sounds; a series of whistles, varying in pitch, speed and tone. The language is called Silbo Gomero and it is absolutely incredible how the people of the island where it’s spoken (the island of La Gomera) can actually communicate and express ideas using just whistling.
But would the people of La Gomera say they speak Silbo Gomero? Would they say they were a native speaker of the language? I’m not sure. But there are quite a few unique and rare languages out there. Some, for example, are only spoken by a few people in the world. Badeshi is one such language in northern Pakistan which, in 2018, was found to have only three speakers. Some languages have gone extinct, such as Aka-Bo, a language spoken in the Andaman Islands [1], Manx Gaelic, spoken on the Isle of Man [2] and Mardijker, a Portuguese-based creole spoken in Indonesia [3].
One interesting language-related thing I learned about recently is Cia-Cia, another language spoken in Indonesia, on the island of Buton located somewhere in the middle of the archipelago. What’s interesting about this language is that although it natively has no written form, the speakers of this language have adopted the Korean Hangul writing system to transcribe their language as a way to preserve their native language. They began using the Korean characters to write out their language after a visit by some Korean scholars because it better matched the sounds of the Cia-Cia language than the Latin letters used to transcribe English or the lingua franca of Indonesia, Bahasa Indonesia.
I’ve spoken before about certain words in Bahasa Indonesia, or the Indonesian language, that describe entire concepts we don’t really have a singular word for in English. Did you enjoy that last time? Would you like some more examples? Alright, alright. I will deliver. One, for instance, is kondangan, which means “to attend a wedding.” Quite simple, yet effective. Another is emut, which means “to chew or suck on something slowly.” The best one, in my opinion, is ngabuburit (“ngah-boo-boo-rit”) which is a term specific to the month of Ramadan, and it describes the activities during the time just before sunset when people often go out to find snacks to eat later. Yes, it’s that specific.
Some words in everyday Indonesian are derivations of other words, sometimes put together. The Indonesian word mager (“mah-gur”) is a slang term which means “can’t be bothered” or, more literally, “lazy to move.” It’s a combination of malas (“lazy”) and bergerak (“move”). Similarly, bukber — another one related to Ramadan — which comes from buka (“open”) and bersama (“together”) and it refers to “opening (breaking) the fast together (with friends, colleagues or family, etc.)” Finally, one of the most hilariously quirky ones is tongsis, or tongkat narsis, which means “selfie stick” and, translated literally, it means “narcissistic wand.” You’re welcome.
The Andaman Islands, which are located off the coast of Myanmar and are a part of India, are home to an island called North Sentinel Island. This island is well-known for being populated by an isolated indigenous population of people called the Sentinelese and it is actually off-limits to tourists. The Sentinelese tribe is very hostile to anyone who approaches the island and has even killed people that have tried to contact them.
Even though it’s located in between Great Britain and Ireland, the Isle of Man isn’t actually a part of the U.K. It’s what’s known as a self-governing British Crown Dependency and it has its own government and everything. Oh, did you know that already? I didn’t. Even though I’m from the U.K. Alright, well, I guess that’s that. What else could we talk about down here? Oh, speaking of the U.K., there’s this creek in northern England (that definitely is a part of the U.K.) called the Bolton Strid that is said to have a mortality rate of 100% — meaning everyone who has gone in there has died, despite it being just a harmless-looking little stream. It’s apparently got all these fierce currents under the surface that are impossible to get out of if you get sucked in.
On the island of Bali, Indonesia, there’s a law that prohibits tall buildings. According to local laws, buildings may not be higher than the height of a coconut tree, which is defined as about 15 metres.
SUBJECTIVELY SHORTLISTED
A FEW OF THE BEST MOVIES FROM THE 2020s (SO FAR)
Well, well, well. Believe it or not, we are halfway through the current decade: the 2020s. Seeing as it’s now 2025, I figure why not pause and take a look back at some of the greats of this current decade so far? Or even just nine of the watch-worthy watches that I consider to be worth a watch? Who knows what the second half of the 2020s will look like as time goes on, but what we do know is that there are some interesting films that came out in the last five years or so that are worth talking about (from what I’ve seen, I have not seen every movie that has come out this decade).
The Green Knight (2021) / The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021) / Infinity Pool (2023) / The Good Nurse (2022) / Oppenheimer (2023) / One Battle After Another (2025) / The Iron Claw (2023) / It’s What’s Inside (2024)
The Green Knight
2021
A tale of a knight on a quest, but with a difference. The Green Knight seems at first like a classic hero’s journey, but, by the end, it’s a little more than that. This film has stunning visuals (including a lot of good typography, which might not matter to some, but as a graphic designer, it’s something I really love seeing), an excellent score and sound design and a story that’s weaved with great characters, lots of old mythology from the British Isles and an intriguing premise. I think the only somewhat negative thing I can say about this movie is the pacing during the entire middle portion of the film. The beginning sets up the stakes very nicely and lays out the tone and style of the movie right from the get-go, however, once our hero, Sir Gawain (played rather excellently by Dev Patel), goes off on his quest, things really begin to slow down as he comes across one obstacle after another; some good, some bad, some down-right weird which make you question what you’re actually watching, until the end where the movie picks up the pace again and shows you an ending that is a little open-ended and ambiguous for you to interpret as you will. Having said all of that, I really do get where this movie is coming from and what it’s trying to do.
Despite things feeling like they’re grinding to a halt during that entire second act, I think the movie pulls it off in a way that doesn’t feel like failure. Instead, it all somehow feels intentional; like the movie wants to have things go at the pace that they do. In my opinion, there’s a very subtle difference between a slow film that wants to be slow and a slow film that wants to pick up the pace but doesn’t know how. And The Green Knight wins me over with its storytelling, beautiful visuals, captivating dialogue and the Green Knight (played by Ralph Ineson) with his deep, dark voice that makes you shudder.
WATCH IF YOU LIKE: Stylised movies with medieval settings, fantasy, legends, heroes, journeys, old-timey dialogue and magic.
The Tragedy of Macbeth
2021
A visually-stunning movie that gives you the experience of watching a play. This film, adapted from Shakespeare’s Macbeth, is cinematic, dramatic and artistic with geometric aesthetics, finessed performances and an overall feel of a retelling of a classic story in a very contemporary way. This is Shakespeare adapted for the 2020s. I really like how they incorporated the Shakespearean tropes and moulded them into the fibre of this film. The old-timey dialogue, the monologues and soliloquies, the themes and the imagery all feel like Macbeth. Now, I can’t really be sure how loyal this movie is to its source material (I mean, I’ve read Macbeth in bits and pieces during high school English literature classes but I’m not an expert on the story) and whether this film can be considered a good adaptation. All I can say is that, as someone who’s kind of familiar with Shakespeare but not really, I enjoyed this film. The dialogue feels Shakespearean but still comprehensible to a modern audience. The pacing is excellent, with not a dull moment in the whole film or a point where it feels like things are dragging on. Denzel Washington, Frances McDormand and all the other cast members give great performances. Also, and I know this is a small detail, I feel like Denzel Washington doing his natural, normal American accent when he’s portraying Macbeth is kind of a good thing. I don’t know why. If he’d tried to do some sort of fake, archaic Scottish or even British accent it would have just felt odd and out of place. Having the American accent just gives it more of that contemporary-adaptation feel with diverse accents and actors of different ethnicities playing various parts. I think The Tragedy of Macbeth is as amazing at is due to the fact that it knows what it wants to be, keeps things simple yet impressive and trims off all the fat, leaving behind an iconic movie that I think is a great blueprint I’d like other Shakespearean stories to follow suit with.
WATCH IF YOU LIKE: Visually-intriguing films that don’t really feel like films. Also, if you like rich, old-timey dialogue.
Infinity Pool
2023
Infinity Pool has a simple story and interesting, stylised visuals with a strange science-fictiony twist to the whole thing. A rich couple are on holiday in a fictional country called Li Tolqa when they meet this other couple with whom they go on a road trip and violent, weird events follow which question morality and pose philosophical questions.
WATCH IF YOU LIKE: Enigmatic, powerful films that are shocking, thrilling and that shake you to your very core.
The Good Nurse
2022
A medical drama-type film with Eddie Redmayne playing a rather twisted yet fascinating character. I’d like to see Eddie Redmayne more in these kinds of roles, because I’ve mostly only seen him as “good guy” characters (Les Misérables, The Theory of Everything, Fantastic Beasts) but he completely kills it as a two-faced psychopath in this film. Also I really like the investigative aspect which makes it feel a bit David-Fincher-esque, which is right up my street. The Good Nurse is an underrated gem that I really thought was just going to be another cheap, clichéd Netflix movie before I watched it but it turned out to be so much more.
WATCH IF YOU LIKE: Sleek, engaging psychological crime movies with good acting and an intriguing plot.
Oppenheimer
2023
Nolan is back at it again with his first ever biopic that, honestly, kind of blew me away (no pun intended). Telling the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer, this movie is one of the few films I’ve ever seen in the cinema that I would call an actual “cinematic experience.”
Is this the best Nolan film? I wouldn’t say so. Although Oppenheimer is an epic, visually-striking, three-hour-long saga, it has its flaws. Firstly, I would say the run time is a little unnecessary. Even though the pacing is very well managed where the first hour builds up the stakes and introduces the situation nicely and the second hour puts into motion everything they worked on in the beginning (including the Trinity test scene, which is probably the best scene in the film), the third hour or act is where things really seem to slow down and, although this is where you can see the plot beginning to kind of resolve and wind down, it’s not as exciting as the first two acts where there’s tension and a buzz of activity of people going from place to place, trying to find complex solutions to complex problems. The third act is pretty much just people in rooms talking and a lot of the unravelling in the third act is done through dialogue that all sounds very political and dramatised. Also, if you’re unfamiliar with the history of this time period (mainly WWII and the Cold War) then you’ll probably feel a little lost in all of the jargon as the film doesn’t really take the time to explain the history.
I feel like this movie doesn’t really need to be three hours long. Perhaps the long run time is to make the movie feel more epic? But I really think that last hour could have been shaved down a little to make the movie a little more streamlined and made a little more accessible — because, you know, not everyone watching this film will be a history buff.
WATCH IF YOU LIKE: Nolan’s other work, biopics, movies with spectacular visuals, historically dense films, character movies.
One Battle After Another
2025
Leonardo DiCaprio used to be part of some left-wing revolutionary group, but now he’s just some drug addict with a robe and a manbun. His daughter’s in danger and now he has to get up off the couch to go and find her. And you know what? It’s a pretty fun ride. One Battle After Another has a very old-school vibe with a rough-around-the-edges feel, giving the impression of being a movie from the ‘90s with its off-the-wall plot and oddball characters. Everyone is great in the film: DiCaprio, who gives probably one of his best recent performances as a paranoid stoner who’s frustratingly running around from one thing to the next; Benicio del Toro as the cool, calm and collected figure who knows what to do and where to go; Chase Infiniti as the strong-willed teenager who’s bravely navigating this whole situation and Sean Penn as the antagonistic colonel who’s got his own flaws and quirks. The pacing of the film is also exceptional with not a jarring moment throughout the run time. The table is set, everyone sits down and dinner is served, with the film wasting no time in trying to shoehorn in awkward humour or shove any kind of social commentary in your face. I mean, there is a lot in One Battle After Another that could be related to real-life events and current affairs, but the movie doesn’t try to sway you with its own politics, which seems to be a tall order in movies these days. One Battle After Another is a great watch and probably one of my favourites from Paul Thomas Anderson.
WATCH IF YOU LIKE: Oddball movies with bits of humour, action and thrill all wrapped up together.
The Iron Claw
2023
This film has some serious chops. It tells the true story of the Von Erichs, a family of pro wrestlers throughout the ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s, and the tragedies that befell them as the years went on. The sadness, heartbreak and emotion this film has paints a picture of a dismal situation that these people all actually went through in real life and, what’s more, the film also manages to intertwine throughout all of the horror a sense of uplifting family values, brotherly love and the ambition and determination that fuelled these people to become the best. The acting performances are all on point; Zac Efron (who’s come a long way from his High School Musical days, I only just realised while watching this film), Jeremy Allen White (from The Bear) and Harris Dickinson (who you might recognise if you’ve seen Triangle of Sadness). What else can I say other than the fact that this is a powerful, emotional family drama with excellent dialogue, character depth and a story that will suckerpunch you in the gut. But you’ll like the fact that it does.
WATCH IF YOU LIKE: Powerful, emotional drama films about family, success and devotion.
It’s What’s Inside
2024
A fast-paced (psychological?) thriller-type movie that although isn’t clear cut in terms of a genre, has snappy dialogue, an interesting, well-executed premise, some Gen-Z-esque fun and a twist at the end that I didn’t see coming at all.
WATCH IF YOU LIKE: Dialogue-based mystery/thriller films with a very 2020s-esque sense of humour.
IN SIX HUNDRED METRES, PULL OVER, TURN OFF THE ENGINE, GET OUT OF THE CAR, THROW THE KEYS AWAY AND RUN FOR THE HILLS. LOOKING IN THE REAR VIEW MIRROR AND WATCHING THE EARTH FALL AWAY BEHIND YOU.
Everything Everywhere All at Once
2023
I love a movie with a good concept. This movie sets out with an idea and concept in mind but, along the way, doesn’t manage to stick the landing with what it set out to do. The whole thing with multiverses and being able to access something from a parallel universe is a fascinating concept, but this movie doesn’t really properly establish the concept and “rules” of the world it’s trying to build, which I think is super essential for a movie like this. The film also tries to be a comedy — which, okay, it had some funny moments — but overall doesn’t really work well there in that department, either. Then the family-drama aspect just felt like it was shoehorned in to make the film emotional and more of a tear-jerker.
I think Everything Everywhere All at Once has a really odd tone, flawed pacing and dabbles in an interesting premise that isn’t executed very well, in my opinion. It does, however, have a quirky sense of humour (where present) and, honestly, quite impressive visuals. For me, though, the various aspects and plot points don’t gel together in a way that I can’t explain any further without spoiling the film, so go and watch it for yourself and see if this film works for you.
WHAT WENT WELL? The multiverse idea is really cool, with the whole thing about being able to access things from other parallel universes being kind of a genius concept.
EVEN BETTER IF? The film didn’t try so hard with the family dynamic thing. With that sort of thing, I feel like less is more.
Anatomy of a Fall
2023
These kinds of films annoy me so much; the ones that have such a great thing going in the beginning in terms of the story, dialogue and visual style — but then suddenly end with no real ending or closure.
The first half of Anatomy of a Fall (or Anatomie d’une chute in French) is gripping, with a lot of investigation, exposition and courtroom drama. The film starts off really well and gets things going, setting up its premise in a way that reels you in with the mystery, the investigation and the courtroom drama. But then the movie presents an ending that is quite lukewarm and underwhelming. It feels like the writer of this movie had an idea for a film and wrote it beautifully, but then as they were writing had no idea how to end it and then just decided to make some sort of half-assed, semi-complete ending. Because when you’re watching Anatomy of a Fall, you’re moving along with the strong momentum of that first half, but then, in the last act of the movie, you’re waiting for the shoe to drop or some kind of twist to come and reveal what really happened which, disappointingly, never comes and the film gives you this cop-out ending with no real ending or closure that you’re supposed to just be okay with.
This movie has good elements, for sure. Amazing camera work, excellent dialogue. Interesting characters with outstanding performances from all the actors. Even the dog in the movie acts well. But I cannot get over the bad ending and that the entire story leads to nothing.
WHAT WENT WELL? The acting, the dialogue, the cinematography, the exposition — basically everything except the ending.
EVEN BETTER IF? There had been a proper ending instead of that half-baked reveal that didn’t do the story justice.
The Holdovers
2023
Let me say this: this movie is made extremely well. I love films with well-designed cinematography and a good vibe, so this film does get points for that. However, The Holdovers does have some flaws with the somewhat uneventful story, the feels-like-it’s-dragging-on pacing, the awkward chemistry between the characters and, despite being a comedy-drama, having nothing more than a few chuckles. I would say that I enjoyed this film in a very general sort of way, but I wouldn’t really be singing this movie’s praises from the rooftops as it does fall short on quite a few fronts. I’d say if you’re just looking for a lowkey movie that isn’t going to impress you by showing you something new and exciting but has old-school visuals, a ‘70s-folk-esque soundtrack and a nice, cosy atmosphere then go ahead and check this one out.
WHAT WENT WELL? The wintery atmosphere and intimate setting, the soundtrack, the visuals.
EVEN BETTER IF? The characters had better chemistry? In this kind of a character-based, dialogue-filled film where the focus is only on a few characters, those characters should probably vibe better than they did in this film. And better pacing.
Civil War
2024
Civil War is the kind of film that although I can see what it’s trying to do, really think it could have done everything a lot better. Pulling from movies like 28 Days Later and Children of Men, this film tells the story of a civil war in the U.S. that’s been going on for a while. How long? That’s something the film doesn’t cover. In fact, the film doesn’t really give you much when it comes to the backstory or even a simple explanation as to anything that’s going on. We’re thrown right into the action and we watch everything unfold while following a team of journalists, but there’s not a whole lot of world-building or origin story as to why this civil war is actually happening. It seems like this movie just answers the question “Why is all this happening?” with “Because America, that’s why.” Which I think is kind of lazy writing. Civil War doesn’t present any kind of an interesting reason as to why we’re in this situation the way other dystopian films in the same genre do, it doesn’t build up any kind of stakes that we could care about and at the end it gives you a predictable showdown with a lackluster ending that leaves you thinking: “So, what was the point of that?”
Aside from all that, Civil War is, I would say, a well-made film with some interesting concepts. Going through this post-apocalyptic landscape and seeing the effects of a brutal civil war through the eyes of civilians is perhaps the best thing this film has to offer. The movie’s also very well-made and has nice, snappy dialogue that works well in a movie like this. The soundtrack’s also pretty cool, with a variety of music that plays off the tone of the film and a score that kind of reminds me of the score of the video game The Last of Us. I just wish this film could have provided something in the form of a backstory that I could latch onto. Also, no spoilers, but that thing that happens to Kirsten Dunst’s character right at the end is a little… weird, isn’t it? Like, not so much that it happens but the way the other characters react to it. I don’t know, just watch the movie and tell me if I’m being crazy.
WHAT WENT WELL? A great concept and a nod to other, similar films with the whole dystopian vibe.
EVEN BETTER IF? There had been at least some form of a backstory that could explain what’s actually happening. And a better ending that isn’t so predictable.
Stand by Me
1986
A heartwarming coming-of-age film about youth, adventure and the memories we make when we’re young becoming defining experiences of our lives. This movie has a lot of things going for it — from the brilliant, emotion-filled performances (especially the late River Phoenix who plays the smart, charismatic, leader of the group) to the well-written dialogue. I think the only issue I really have with this film is the story. It all feels a little… lackluster? I’m not sure how to explain it without ruining it, but I feel like this movie could have done with a few more plot points to hold it up. Stand by Me is one of those movies where I can see what it’s trying to do and what it’s trying to be, but for me the plot just isn’t that spectacular. I get that the beauty and appeal of a movie like this is supposed to be in its manifestation of human emotion and reality, which it has, but I feel like there could have been even more emotion and reality, the way movies like Boyhood or What’s Eating Gilbert Grape have. And I know the movie’s based on the Stephen King novel, but I’m saying all this based on what I saw in the movie. Having said all of that, Stand by Me is a feel-good watch that you can put on any time, any place.
WHAT WENT WELL? Great acting, good dialogue, a real coming-of-age vibe.
EVEN BETTER IF? The film had a bit more depth to the plot instead of it just being about one singular thing that the group of boys are heading out to achieve (trying to be vague here to avoid spoilers). Unless there’s something I missed?
One Hour Photo
2002
A very well-made movie with elements of horror, thriller and drama as well as being quite interesting visually, this movie starring Robin Williams has a great premise and tone and is great up until, I suppose, the third act of the movie where the plot takes some turns that don’t quite add up by the end. I’d really love to go into spoilers for a second here, so if you’ve seen the movie, read on and I’ll tell you more. If you haven’t, I strongly recommend you to give One Hour Photo a watch because I do think it’s a movie that’s worth it. And maybe you’ll watch it and not find anything wrong with it. Maybe all this is just me. And then, after you’re done watching, come back and we’ll talk. Sound good? Okay, so here we go with the spoilers:
At the end, when the detective gives Robin Williams his photos back, why are they different photos? We see him taking the photos earlier in the hotel room so we know what he took pictures of — so then, what gives? Also, why did he take photos of the manager’s daughter and send them in to the store? Obviously, he knew that the manager would find out and, therefore, call the police, so why did he do all that? Did he want the police on his trail? Maybe. But then he also ran from the police when he tried to sneak out of the hotel. I don’t really understand any of it.
WHAT WENT WELL? The acting, the story, the psychological-thriller-esque elements, Robin Wiliams’ performance.
EVEN BETTER IF? The ending made more sense because for me that kind of upends the rest of the film.
The Brutalist
2024
You can tell when you watch a movie like The Brutalist that it is a labour of love. The film is tremendously well-made — from the cinematography to the acting to the dialogue even to the visual style of the opening credits. Another thought that I had while I was watching this movie was: After I finish watching, I need to look up who László Tóth is and what architectural feats he accomplished. You can imagine my surprise when I found out that this movie is not based on a true story and László Tóth is just a fictional character. For some reason, I find that very impressive. I don’t know why the fact that the story and characters are entirely made up gives this film bonus points for me. It’s like the filmmakers didn’t rely on any sort of source material like a book or the life of a real person.
Of course, The Brutalist is rooted in real historical events: WWII, the Holocaust, the migration of people to America in the 20th century. But the fact that László Tóth’s story is an original one? Well done, movie.
Now, let’s have a look at where this movie fumbled the bag a little: This three-and-a-half-hour movie is divided into an overture, two parts and an epilogue. I’d say most of this film is absolutely fantastic. A slow-burning, historically- and emotionally- rich drama with great dialogue and characters that’s all produced excellently in a way that doesn’t feel pretentious or too far up its own butt.
A little after the halfway point (or the intermission, yes this movie actually has one) is when the story begins to get a little chaotic and things begin spiralling. You as the viewer are locked in. Then, somewhere in the last forty-five minutes, things begin to get a little… shaky. You’re thinking: “Okay, let’s see where this is going.” But then, the ending. I mean, what is that ending all about? And I’m talking literally just the last ten minutes or so of the film where, unfortunately, the movie does fall into the trap of becoming a little pretentious and a bit up its own butt — which, up until that point, is something the movie had managed to avoid for the most part. There’s a climax that resolves a little ambiguously and then the final epilogue is just a completely pointless scene that ends with a couple of pieces of dialogue that seem to be an attempt to hammer in the message of the film before it cuts to the end credits.
By the end, the film has completely lost its way. The dark, bold and, quite honestly, brutal vibe the film has had up until this point is kind of thrown over the filmmaker’s shoulders and the film tries to wrap things up with a nice, feel-good ending which, in my opinion, entirely goes against the emotional complexities the film has been exploring with you for the past three and a half hours. And it’s passed off as an ending that you’re supposed to be okay with. Sure, show me a happy, feel-good ending, but at least make it in line with what I’ve been watching all afternoon. We’ve stuck with the movie this long, why deprive us of a fitting ending?
Sorry, I don’t mean to yell at you. I just don’t get why movies sometimes come up with an ending that totally doesn’t make sense and then try to pass it off as “Yeah, but you just have to see the deeper meaning.” For me, that’s just pretentious nonsense.
All things considered, I like The Brutalist. I think the actors — especially Adrian Brody, Guy Pearce and Felicity Jones — do a fantastic job and I’d recommend the movie to anyone who likes slow-paced historical dramas like Killers of the Flower Moon. I just can’t get over the ending, though.
WHAT WENT WELL? Literally everything up until the final few scenes of the film. It’s all dramatic, beautiful and engaging throughout which, given the runtime of the film, is a massive accomplishment.
EVEN BETTER IF? The ending had been less pretentious.
Barbarian
2022
Holy moly, this movie is horrific. And I mean that in a good way. From the opening scene to the exposition, through the various motions the movie takes you through, Barbarian is a thrilling, edge-of-your-seat ride that’s filled with shock, horror and thrill. The only place I would say this movie falls short is the ending — and I’m talking about literally the last twenty minutes — where the movie goes from being a horror film that chills you to your very core to one that’s unrealistic, nonsensical and, quite honestly, a little stupid.
As much as I like the first eighty percent of the film in the way it sets the tone, suspends the tension, draws out the action and tells the nightmareish backstory in a subtle yet effective way, I really do not like the ending of this film as I think it could have done much, much better with everything that’s built up. This is one of those films that has a great concept, great story and great camera work, but just doesn’t stick the landing when it comes to wrapping it up — even though I feel like it could have done so quite easily.
WHAT WENT WELL? The horror-esque elements bring a level of terror and intrigue that reels you in.
EVEN BETTER IF? The ending had not been so clumsy as it makes the rest of the film look bad.
Jacob’s Ladder
1990
Horrific, nightmare-ish and tragic, Jacob’s Ladder is not your everyday, light, casual-viewing watch. A Vietnam war veteran experiences some strange and terrifying things after coming back from the war which, quite honestly, are pretty darn terrifying. I’d say this film has a lot of things going for it; the trippy visuals, the overall dismal vibe, the mysterious plot and the tight pacing that keeps everything moving as you follow the main character around as he’s going through various things. There are themes of loss, memory, war and death (which ties into the title of the movie) and it’s all done very, very well in a movie you probably won’t forget. I think the only thing I would say holds this movie back for me is the ending. I won’t spoil anything, but I think the ending just knocks over everything the movie works so hard to build up, like the last block at the top of the tower that goes a bit too far and causes the whole thing to fall. Had the movie ended just a couple of scenes earlier, it would have been a brilliant psychological-thriller-horror. But, for me, the ending just doesn’t make much sense.
WHAT WENT WELL? The way the film sets up a dismal and depressing vibe and brings to life the horrors of war and mental distress.
EVEN BETTER IF? The ending had made a little more sense.
Caché
2005
Caché fits into a category of movies that, to me, are some of the worst movies ever made. This category doesn’t really have a specific name, but let’s just call it “films that start off great but ultimately go nowhere.” For me, watching this kind of film is incredibly frustrating and infuriating because you get this false sense of security in the beginning that the film is going to be intelligent, intriguing and enticing and that you’ll be able to follow along and gain something out of it. In the case of Caché and other movies like it, you don’t, unfortunately. This self-serving and hollow film has a story that tries to pose as a neo-noir, mystery-thriller movie with subtle dialogue and powerful themes, but is actually not very well-written, not very well-thought out and, as a result, not very necessary.
It’s like this film said to you: “Follow me, I want to show you something super interesting.” So you followed and, after a couple of hours of this film leading you down quiet neighbourhoods and dark alleys, the film turned around and, upon suddenly remembering that you were still following, just said to you: “Oh, right. Um, yeah. The interesting thing? It’s, um, that tree over there. Isn’t it weird-looking and mysterious?” And the point isn’t necessarily that the tree is uninteresting; it’s the fact that you didn’t really need to follow the film for the better part of two hours just to see that tree. You could have seen that kind of tree anywhere. So what did the film really accomplish, in the end?
WHAT WENT WELL? The production style gives it a realistic feel, which I think works well for this type of story.
EVEN BETTER IF? This movie didn’t exist. Okay, I’m being mean. This movie has the potential to be a good horror/thriller, which is why when I saw what this film actually presented, it was a big let-down.
Longlegs
2024
There’s this weirdo psycho character called Longlegs and he’s going around killing families. And that’s not a spoiler because the film tells you right from the start who the murderer is — I mean, they pretty much give it away in the first scene of the film. You already know who the detectives are looking for and who’s behind it all. What you don’t know is the motive. The million-dollar question: Why is Longlegs doing this? What’s the reason for it all? And when the film unfolds and reveals what it wants to reveal, the payoff is… a little superficial. Longlegs fails to go beneath the surface, dive deep into the characters and situations or go into any kind of depth when it comes to the whole mystery of who Longlegs is and why he’s doing the things he does. It’s just played off as “oh, he’s just a Satan-worshipper and so that’s just what he does.” There’s also a bit of dark magic involved with the murders — which is also never explained as to how it happens and what makes it possible. Although the film does try to salvage things by having a bit of a twist at the end, it seems to me that there were a lot of things that were overlooked in putting together the story of this film, making the ending feel very flat and underwhelming. Which is a shame because I really like the visual feel and the production style of this film as well as the use of the songs Jewel and Get It On (Bang a Gong) by T. Rex. But that, as far as I can see, is pretty much all this film has to offer for me. Style, but not much substance. And a quirky, thoroughly-unsettling performance by Nicolas Cage covered in prosthetics.
WHAT WENT WELL? The atmosphere, the tone, vibe — whatever you want to call it. The style, basically. Also, I actually really like what Cage did with the title character.
EVEN BETTER IF? This movie had something substantial to make it less of a hollow shell of a film and actually have some kind of concrete story to tell. This movie needs legs. Long ones.
The Assessment
2024
I have seen so many of these sci-fi, dystopian, visually-pleasing, slow, dialogue-based films that, at this point, I can usually tell what kind of direction these kinds of movies are heading in as I’m watching. In my experience, they usually end up falling somewhere in between “legendary” (like Ex Machina) and “worthless” (like After Yang). The way I feel about The Assessment is that although I understand what this movie’s trying to do, it does fall short on many fronts. The world-building could have been fleshed out a little more, the story could have been a little more twisty and intriguing and the premise could have been explored further. I also feel like the pacing was quite off, with the movie basically wasting a lot of time in the beginning and then trying to cram in a lot of character and environment development in the final act. The Assessment is, for the most part, just another run-of-the-mill, sci-fi-esque film that looks great but doesn’t take the time to fully explore what I think it’s trying to explore in regards to its themes, concept and message.
WHAT WENT WELL? The premise, the visuals, the intrigue at the start.
EVEN BETTER IF? There had been a little more depth to the environment, a little better follow-through on the premise, a little more exploration of the backstory.
Death drops you into Limbo when on sedatives — but if you die in Limbo you return to reality?
Inception starts out by introducing all these fascinating concepts. The idea of dream sharing, of creating dreams and experiencing them, of accessing someone’s mind using their dreams — it’s all fantastic and these concepts are what make Inception so great. But the movie doesn’t have a lot of follow through when it comes to sticking to some of these concepts.
Like, for example: towards the beginning of the film, we’re told that you can’t wake up from a dream unless 1. you die, or 2. the time runs out on the dream-machine-silver-briefcase-thing (was there ever a name for that in the entire movie?). And when you die in a dream, you wake up in real life.
But then, when they go into the actual mission, we’re told a new piece of information: that if you are on sedatives, and you die in the dream, you don’t wake up in real life. Instead, you drop down into “Limbo,” which is… bad, I guess? I mean you literally get to do whatever you want down there so how bad could it be?
But, whatever. So you drop down into Limbo and then I guess you’re stuck down there. But then what’s strange is that if you die in Limbo, you actually wake right back up in real life. The entire team is terrified as soon as they go into the operation because they hadn’t realised that Fischer’s subconscious was militarised and so they have to proceed with caution to finish the mission. But later, when Saito and Fischer himself actually do die and end up in Limbo, they’re able to come back by simply just dying again. So then, where’s the danger? Why are they so afraid? Why doesn’t Cobb just tell them: “Guys, relax. If you do die and drop into Limbo, all you have to do is die again and you’ll come back to real life.” It would have been the ultimate shortcut to waking back up on the plane.
The kick doesn’t always kick
So going back to the ways in which you wake up from a dream. Either the time runs out or you die in the dream. Right?
As the team is preparing for the mission, however, we’re introduced to another concept with how one can wake up from a dream (and we see it too in the first scene when Cobb gets pushed into a bathtub full of water) and that is the kick. An interesting concept, I have to say. I mean, we’ve all had that dream where we feel like we’re falling and suddenly wake up as a result. Inception implements this into the film, however it causes problems further on.
Their whole plan is to go under with the help of sedatives, create a dream-within-a-dream-within-a-dream layout and then set up a synchronised kick through all the layers to wake them up all at the same time in all the dreams. Could work, although the one major problem with this is that the kick that they plan with the first layer of the dream — which is when the van breaks the barrier and goes flying into the river — doesn’t wake them up. Why doesn’t it wake them up? All it does is cause an avalanche in the snow fortress dream and a loss of gravity in the hotel dream. Can they pick and choose which kick they wake up from and which one they can’t? And if that kick wasn’t supposed to wake them up, then why did they plan it so?
A free falling van should be enough to wake them up. Why? Because earlier on in the film, when we’re being introduced to the idea of a kick, they demonstrate and even test a kick by pushing over a chair on which Arthur is currently dreaming, until the chair begins to fall, where he suddenly wakes up in a panic. So, why didn’t that work when the van broke the barrier of a bridge and fell through the air towards the water? It’s only when the van hits the water did they actually feel the kick. Is it because they were under the sedative? But they planned to wake up during the freefall. That’s the kick they had planned for. And we know this because when Cobb and friends see the avalanche in the snow, Cobb just says something along the lines of “Ah, we missed it. We’ll just take the next one.”
He didn’t realise the people on the plane with him were in his dream
This is probably the biggest plot hole for me. Let’s think about the whole thing from Robert Fischer’s point of view: he gets on a plane, he sits down in his first class seat, has a brief conversation with DiCaprio’s character who he has never met before and then, at some point during the flight, falls asleep. He dreams the entire operation with the three (or four, including when Mal takes him down into Limbo) dream levels and then, when he wakes up, sees the same people that were just in his dream sitting among him in the first class cabin. Wouldn’t he just be like: “Hey, wait a minute… you guys inceptioned me!” Especially since this is a world in which hacking into people’s dreams is common and seeing as Robert Fischer, heir to a major corporation, is a likely target, he would probably figure it out as soon as he took one look around at the supposed strangers sitting beside him. I even saw a moment in that final scene after it’s all done when Fischer and Cobb actually make eye contact. Why wouldn’t Fischer immediately recognise him as Mr. Charles from the hotel dream and at once realise that the whole thing was set up by him?
Wait, let me guess. Was Fischer’s mind already so conquered and preoccupied by the idea that Cobb and the gang incepted into his mind that he didn’t notice? You know, because “ideas are the most resilient parasite” and all that?
Perhaps. But why didn’t they just pull the same move like they did in the beginning with Saito when they were on the bullet train in Japan? Wake up a little earlier and get out of there before Fischer wakes up and realises what actually happened?
Would someone please think of the children?
Okay, so call me Captain Obvious here, but couldn’t Michael Caine’s character just bring Cobb’s kids to wherever he was? I mean the kids are, like, what this movie is all about. Cobb does what he does, risks what he risks and goes through hell and back just so he can go see his kids. So if the kids were such a big deal… I mean, why not just bring them to him? It’s so simple. What? The kids had piano lessons and baseball practice that they couldn’t miss?
Yeah, I get it. He wanted to get back home. To his real life. I know. But — okay, never mind. By the way, I have seen Inception literally like twenty times, but I recently discovered — after reading the Wikipedia page — that Michael Caine is actually Cobb’s father-in-law, not his father.
Why were the dreamers “afraid to dream a little bigger”?
In the scene with Ariadne and Cobb walking around the dream world on a street in Paris, we see a demonstration of how you can go around changing things in a dream; she conjures a bridge out of thin air, she makes an infinite tunnel from two opposing mirrors, she folds the entire world in half. That’s great, amazing in fact, because these visuals are one of the reasons that make Inception so great. However, why don’t the dreamers use these skills further on in the film? When they go in and run into trouble, why don’t they just create to get out of it?
We’re told that the dreamer is the owner of the dream and everyone else is a subject within that dream. The dreamer can change and adapt things at will, like Ariadne does in the Paris dream, and during the first dream of the operation, in which Yusuf was the dreamer, why doesn’t he just create a concrete wall around the warehouse when they’re getting fired at by Fischer’s militarised subconscious? Why doesn’t he dream up a tank? Why doesn’t he turn the bad guys into fluffy little bunny rabbits?
The second dream is the hotel in which Arthur is the dreamer. Again, no imagination is used. When they’re being chased by the bad guys, Gordon-Levitt’s character literally only pulls one trick: the stairs-paradox thing. That’s about it. Then, again, in the snow fortress dream. Eames is the dreamer here who could do so much to speed things up. He could dream all the snowmobiles they’re riding to get to the fortress to go faster so they can get there quicker. He could imagine a flamethrower to keep the bad guys away. I mean, the possibilities are literally endless. And it’s funny because back in the first dream, Eames actually taunts Arthur saying that he “shouldn’t be afraid to dream a little bigger.”
It was all just a dream
Finally, I just want to say that Inception is a brilliant, brilliant movie. I have watched it multiple times and always enjoy it whenever I do. If someone ever tells me they’ve never seen Inception, I always recommend them to watch it, as well as Nolan’s other movies, because it’s a movie that has such an original concept and a universal kind of likeability as it’s a conceptual film that’s an icon of recent cinema. I think most of Christopher Nolan’s movies have a quality where they’re part popcorny blockbusters and part smart, kind of metaphysical movies that go places no one else has ever gone before. Nolan really is a talented filmmaker.
Having said that, his films aren’t without faults. It is possible that there may have been something I’ve misread or misunderstood in the movie. I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the case. However, as far as I can tell, Inception is all about dreams and being able to break into one’s dreams to affect their lives. The whole movie is centred around this one thing: to pull off this heist on Fischer’s mind and implement the idea in his head for him to break up his father’s corporate empire. It’s a good premise, and through the events of the movie, they execute it pretty well — but, in the end, it is all just a dream, right?
At the end of the movie, they wake up in that airplane having just pulled off the heist successfully — but what if, after all that, Fischer doesn’t actually break up his father’s empire?
What if he wakes up from that whole thing, shrugs it off as a dream and just gets on with his life as usual?
You don’t always follow or listen to your dreams, do you? I mean, if you had a dream that told you to make some major life change, you wouldn’t just blindly follow what you felt in the dream, right? Sure, while you were in the dream, you would believe whatever you were experiencing and feel a certain way about it. But then, when you woke up, wouldn’t you just realise it was all a dream? I mean, dreams do have a profound effect on us, which is a major theme throughout Inception, and such a profound and emotionally-charged dream, like the one Fischer experiences, may affect us to the point where we walk away with a lot to think about. But it’s not guaranteed that you’re going to take whatever idea came to you in your dream, no matter how real, layered or profound it was, and directly apply it to your real life. You’ll think about it, for sure, but wouldn’t a lot of other things in your life also come into play? That’s how normal, rational human beings make decisions.
Sure, inception worked on Mal when Cobb convinced her that they needed to die to be able to return to the real world. But — and correct me if I’m wrong here because I’m not some sort of psychology expert — that’s not a guaranteed thing, is it? Wouldn’t it be a case-by-case scenario like hypnosis or ASMR, where it works for some people but not others? Or are Leonardo DiCaprio’s incepting skills just that amazing where he can convince anyone to do anything? Because in the movie, Cobb and the gang are so convinced that the plan worked that they walk away from the whole thing feeling victorious. Well, I guess it doesn’t really matter to them — as long as Saito’s happy and makes the phone call that allows Cobb to get through immigration, who cares, right?
The possessed girl with white eyes and an equally white gown runs after you, but you run into a room and slam the wooden door shut.
You turn the key, lock the door, step back into the room and hear the thumping on the door as the possessed girl tries to barge her way through the door and get to you. To make you possessed too, maybe. Is that how it works? Who knows. You stand in the room, which you realise is a bedroom with old furniture and a window at the far end of the room, and catch your breath from all the running. You listen as the thumping on the door gets louder and louder. Can she break through the door? Well, she’s possessed. She might be able to. Possessed people could be capable of anything. That is a demon inside them, after all. And I don’t mean that figuratively.
You figure you shouldn’t risk it and should just try to find a way out of here. You look at the four-poster bed with hanging curtains and white cotton bedsheets and immediately know what to do. I take the bedsheets and blankets, tie them end-to-end, make a long rope, tie one end to a bed post and use the rope to climb down out of the window. But of course. That’s what people always do in these kinds of situations.
You snatch the bed sheets off the bed and begin tying them together as you hear the sounds of the possessed girl trying to bust the door down getting more and more aggressive. She doesn’t give up, does she? you think. She really wants to get in here and possess me.
You’re still tying knots on the bed sheets when suddenly you hear a crack. The wooden door explodes from the middle and there’s a big hole from where the possessed girl kicked it in so much she finally managed to get her hand through. She reaches up, turns the key to unlock the door from the inside, then turns the handle to swiftly swing the door open. There is a pause as the door creaks open to reveal the possessed girl standing in the hallway, staring right at you with those white eyes.
She sees you tying the sheets and immediately holds her hands up. “Sorry,” she says in her raspy, demonic voice. “You weren’t done yet. I came in too early.” As she reaches forward to grab the handle and close the door again, you throw your hands in the air with an annoyed look on your face. Amateur, you think as you resume tying the sheets together. Doesn’t she know she’s supposed to keep trying to get through the door until I’m almost out of the window at which point she barges in and tries to grab me at the last minute but I’m just out of reach and I get away?
You finish your knots and make a rope that you think is long enough. The banging and thumping on the door resumes, but it’s a lot softer than before. You tie one end of the rope to the four-poster bed and throw the other end out of the window. You climb over the window sill, out of the window and, grabbing the rope tightly, hang down the side of the house. You’re ready to begin descending, but the possessed girl is still outside. You clear your throat loudly and the possessed girl immediately comes charging through the door and, as soon as she does, you drop yourself down, using the rope to make it to the ground two storeys below. She tries to grab you, but you’re just out of reach and get away.
You run across the mansion grounds through the creepy fog and the musky mist, making it to a shed not too far away. You already know what you’re looking for and you know that it will definitely be here. It has to be. You enter the shed and, moments later, you find exactly what you need in this situation. A red jerry can already filled with kerosene. But of course. Every shed on the grounds of a creepy mansion has to have one of these, doesn’t it?
You take the can back to the mansion and begin pouring it everywhere you can. Despite the fact that this is a gigantic mansion and you only have one jerry can, you manage to somehow cover the entire mansion and then manage to summon, out of thin air, a matchbox with one last match in it. You take one final look at the old-style mansion, light the match and then throw it onto the kerosene-soaked walls as tears begin pouring down your muddy, scratched face. It had been a beautiful, elegant-looking manor when you’d first arrived here, probably with great market value, and you feel like it’s such a waste to have to burn down this magnificent house.
Ah, well, you think. There’s a demon in there so that pretty much ruins any value this place would have. Not a lot of buyers in the property market for a haunted house. As the mansion gets engulfed in flames and burns brightly, you feel a sense of relief. Then you suddenly remember something that makes your stomach turn over:
I left the rope hanging out of the open window.
28.
A canister of magical air,
a spray-bomb you can take anywhere.
A fragrance that keeps spraying for hours,
don’t forget that you still need to shower.
29.
A lighthouse that burns itself into a lump,
a leafless tree that melts into a stump.
A teller of time, the bringer of light,
keeper of the flame all throughout the night.
LOOKING IN THE REAR VIEW MIRROR AND WATCHING THE EARTH FALL AWAY BEHIND YOU.
Past Lives (2023) / The Man from Earth (2007) / The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) / Killers of the Flower Moon (2023) / Only God Forgives (2013) / Dallas Buyers Club (2013) / The Day after Tomorrow (2004) / Scarface (1983) / Contagion (2011) / The Witch (2015) / Coherence (2013) / Incendies (2010) / Killing Them Softly (2012) / Amores Perros (2000) / El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie (2019) / The Jacket (2005) / Phantom Thread (2017) / Aftersun (2022)
Past Lives
2023
It’s really very simple what I would like to say about this movie: This film is a classic case of an overblown, self-important waste of time. It’s such a pointless piece of garbage, to the point where I wonder what on earth people see in this movie that makes it so well-known. I seriously wonder that.
Here is the story of this film. And, yes, I’m so angry that I am just going to spoil the movie for you (because there is nothing to spoil in this useless story). Boy meets girl when they’re kids at school in South Korea. Then she moves away to the U.S., but they reconnect online years later. They kind of begin a relationship, but ultimately decide against it for some reason. Then, some more time later, he comes to visit her in the U.S. and by this time she’s already married. But they meet up anyway, and she introduces him to her husband and they all go out. The boy, the girl and the girl’s husband are all hanging out together — but then, suddenly, they both start speaking only in Korean so the husband doesn’t understand (I mean, talk about rude). And what are they talking about? They’re talking about what would have happened if they had dated. If they had been together. And then the conversation changes to what they think they were to each other in their past lives (hence the title of the film — yeah, I get it). And that’s it. Then they say goodbye, the boy gets in an Uber and disappears.
I kid you not, that’s the whole film. Like, what was the actual point of this movie? Are you serious right now with that pathetic-ass story? What was the writer of this movie actually trying to pull with this crap? Past Lives is so bad that I wish I could “obliviate” it from my memory like in Harry Potter and then go back to a past life of my own, to a universe where this film doesn’t exist.
IF I HAD TO DESCRIBE THE MOVIE IN THREE WORDS: overblown, uneventful, anti-climatic.
The Man from Earth
2007
This is a dialogue-based movie that, although isn’t very flashy in terms of production, has an interesting concept and story. I don’t think there is anything I can say about the plot of The Man from Earth without giving anything away, but I think the execution of the premise is done quite well — despite the production, acting and even the quality of some of the dialogue not being fantastic. I mean, I’ve seen short films on YouTube that have better production quality than this movie and I’m not sure what kind of budget or resources the makers of this film were working with, but I don’t think that takes away from how well this film works as a dialogue-based, conceptually-out-there kind of film that gets you thinking.
IF I HAD TO DESCRIBE THE MOVIE IN THREE WORDS: conceptual, intriguing, dialogue-based.
The Talented Mr. Ripley
1999
The Talented Mr. Ripley? More like The Messed-Up-In-The-Head Mr. Ripley. I guess I didn’t really understand the purpose of this movie because all that really happens is — spoiler alert — Matt Damon going around basically killing people the whole film and then never getting caught. Like, what the hell? I kind of get that there are underlying themes of identity, conscience, yada, yada, yada. But there have to be consequences to murdering people, right? Exposition, conflict, action, climax, resolution? Where’s all of that in this film? Other than some really great performances (Gwyneth Paltrow does a really good job), all this film has is the beauty of Italy and Jude Law intertwined with an annoyingly tense plot as Matt Damon just kills a bunch of people and then spins a web of lies to cover it all up.
IF I HAD TO DESCRIBE THE MOVIE IN THREE WORDS: dramatic, unrealistic, what-the-hell?
Killers of the Flower Moon
2023
This is definitely the longest film I’ve ever seen in a cinema. I went to go see this back when it came out in 2023 and it had only been a few months after the release of the three-hour-long Oppenheimer (which I also went to go and see) and, boy, is this movie long. With a run time of around three and half hours, Killers of the Flower Moon is an epic historical drama that I think is definitely an extremely well-made, slow-burn type of film with good dialogue, great acting and — especially important for a film of this length — absolutely flawless pacing. At no point does Killers of the Flower Moon feel like it drags on or is losing momentum. I mean, yes, it is a long film and it takes a fair amount of movie-watching stamina to sit there and digest a movie that’s this long but I really do think that this is masterful filmmaking from Martin Scorsese. But, of course; he’s obviously an absolute beast who’s done a lot of epic movies. Having said that, though, did the runtime need to be this long? Hmm, maybe not. Although I do think that a three-hour-plus run time helps make the film feel more epic and allows for a story that builds the tension slowly. On the other hand, though, having a run time of 206 minutes makes the film a little inaccessible because not everyone can be bothered to sit in a cinema for that long — unless it’s Avatar, and even that was only 162 minutes. Even the first The Lord of the Rings movie is only 178 minutes. The point is, this movie is long.
I keep droning on about the run time of the film, but, now that I think about it, I don’t think it matters that much in this day and age, does it? I mean, I watched this movie in the cinema so I’m speaking about my experience. But if you stream this movie at home, I don’t think the long run time would be that much of an issue. You could watch this movie in two parts over a weekend, or in twenty-minute increments over the course of ten days. Whatever floats your boat.
IF I HAD TO DESCRIBE THE MOVIE IN THREE WORDS: historical, epic, well-made.
Only God Forgives
2013
An enigmatic, visually-striking, bloodthirsty film that reminds me a lot of the movie Drive — it’s the same director and this one also stars Ryan Gosling. A horrifying series of events wrapped up in murder, vengeance and wrath taking place in the criminal underworld of Bangkok portrayed in a highly-stylised, slow-paced, filled-with-long-silences film that uses dialogue very sparingly (I mean, Gosling barely says anything in this whole movie).
IF I HAD TO DESCRIBE THE MOVIE IN THREE WORDS: striking, atmospheric, chilling.
Dallas Buyers Club
2013
Heart-wrenching, intense and super well-made, Dallas Buyers Club is the kind of film that’s so simple but so effective in its story, plot (I guess those are kind of the same thing), performances and cinematography. Based on the true story of a man who gets HIV and then deals with various obstacles around him, this is the kind of movie that tells the story it wants to tell in a way that’s not overly flashy, not too over-the-top and not shoving any kind of social commentary down your throat. A nice, enjoyable film that although has some heavy subject matter, can be watched anytime, anywhere. And I know I say that for a lot of films, but for me that is a key quality that a film can have.
IF I HAD TO DESCRIBE THE MOVIE IN THREE WORDS: moving, dramatic, remarkable.
The Day after Tomorrow
2004
I actually went to go and see this in the cinema as a kid with my parents and, although at the time it felt like a really cool movie with wicked special effects, I watched it again recently and this movie actually made me laugh out loud with how ridiculous the whole thing is.
There’s this researcher-climatologist guy (played by Dennis Quaid) who discovers that, very soon, the world’s weather is going to go through some dramatic changes due to global warming and he’s at some important summit thingy with all these world leaders and politicians waving his hands and showing them diagrams of how the next ice age could kick off if humanity doesn’t stop, you know, burning fossil fuels and using plastic straws and whatnot. He delivers a whole dramatic speech — “if we don’t act now, it’s our children and grandchildren that are going to have to pay the price” — to an audience that is not really listening. It’s the classic that-one-scientist-who-was-right-all-along-but-nobody-listened-to-him-type deal. Which is fine. However, the way this movie plays out is completely bizarre. Because when the researcher-climatologist comes back home, he finds out that not only is his prediction coming true, but it’s coming true right now. Like he’s literally just arrived home from the airport, he’s put his bag down, gone into the kitchen to get something to eat or whatever when suddenly his phone rings and it’s another researcher-climatology guy that he met at the summit telling him that it’s all kicking off and that the entire world is going through a massive freak episode of extreme weather. And believe me when I tell you that when the craziness goes down, it goes down hard.
For the rest of the film, the entire world (actually, I’m not sure if it’s the entire world or if it’s really only the northern hemisphere, the movie doesn’t really make that too clear) gets ripped to shreds with blizzards, hurricanes, tornadoes and whatnot. For the rest of the film, we follow Dennis Quaid and his son (played by Jack Gyllenhaal) who are trying to find each other while surviving this what-the-hell-is-going-on situation.
I guess, upon much contemplation, The Day After Tomorrow does what it’s supposed to do. It’s supposed to be a popcorny disaster flick where we have some bold, heroic characters, there’s a family/romance dynamic and visually-exciting stuff happens on screen. When you think about all that, I guess, yeah, this is a good film. But I just can’t get over how Dennis Quaid warns everyone about the ice age and then it literally begins the next day. Like, seriously? Imagine if that summit had been postponed to the following week. Or even the following day. Would they even have needed a summit then? Because the ice age was set to kick off in T-minus twenty-four hours. Maybe that’s where this movie gets its title; warning today, disaster the day after tomorrow. Literally.
IF I HAD TO DESCRIBE THE MOVIE IN THREE WORDS: disastrous, popcorny, unreal.
Scarface
1983
This movie is one that I’ve only really seen twice in my whole life. The first was many years ago and I don’t remember much about what I felt on my first viewing, but the second time I watched, I remember how underwhelmed I felt. This drug-filled crime movie with Al Pacino as a power-hungry menace doesn’t really have much going for it, in my opinion. Sure, Al Pacino is great in it. There’s action and drugs and violence and money and the famous “Say hello to my little friend” line. But Scarface has a very kitschy, over-the-top, ‘80s-esque vibe to it that I can’t really get behind. I mean, it’s a coming-to-America story of a guy who comes from nothing and moves up in the drug world until he becomes a kingpin who has it all only for his world to then collapse around him. It’s tragic, sure, but Scarface is more of a cheesy action movie than anything else. This film lacks any sort of nuance or depth. No character development, no message, moral or any kind of emotion, even. It’s just straight-up, cocaine-fuelled violence.
Also, and this kind of adds to the one-dimensionality this movie has in a way: most of the characters are Cuban, but yet they all speak to each other in English. I find that really weird, to be honest. I get this is a Hollywood movie for English-language audiences and this is not the only movie that does this, but I just find that really strange; the fact that the makers of this movie didn’t bother finding a rationale for why the characters are speaking to each other in thick-accented English instead of just speaking Spanish, which is their first language.
There’s even a scene where Tony Montana is in a car while speaking to another character who doesn’t speak English. The other guy is speaking in Spanish, as a result, and Montana replies to him in English. I mean, what? At least use that opportunity to have the character speak in his native language. Why not? Why is it so important for Al Pacino’s character to speak English in that God-awful accent that gets a little hard to understand sometimes? Seriously, it’s really thick. I had to put on subtitles to understand some of the things Pacino said in this movie. I don’t know, I just wish they’d mixed it up a bit when it came to the characters’ languages. But then again, what the hell do I know? I wasn’t around when this movie was first released and so maybe the filmmakers did know what they were doing because this movie is now considered by many to be a classic. And I see where people are coming from when they say that, but this is one I’m probably not going to be watching again any time soon.
IF I HAD TO DESCRIBE THE MOVIE IN THREE WORDS: violent, aggressive, cheesy.
Contagion
2011
This movie is an interesting one because your view on it will depend on when you watched it. If you watched this before the COVID-19 pandemic, then you’ll see it as a disaster movie that, surprisingly, doesn’t end in a zombie apocalypse. If you watch this movie now, however, it may hit a lot differently. I watched this movie for the first time right in the middle of the pandemic, at some point in 2021. Okay, why am I saying all this? It’s because this movie is about a virus that spreads through the world and, for me at least, feels quite realistic and, almost to a surreal degree, pretty accurate with what actually happened in the real world when COVID-19 broke out. Now it’s up to you whether you want to watch this movie or not; either you see it for a well-made thriller film that focuses on the medical and human aspect of an apocalypse-type scenario instead of just being another zombie-fest, or you’ll watch this and get PTSD flashbacks because it’ll remind you of your own traumatising experiences with the COVID pandemic.
IF I HAD TO DESCRIBE THE MOVIE IN THREE WORDS: tragic, disastrous, chillingly-realistic.
The Witch
2015
Or The VVitch, as it’s alternatively known. This movie is so, so well made with the muted visuals, the harrowing score and the tension that builds up as things progress. A family living at the edge of a forest in New England in the 1600s experience some horrific things and it causes them all to question their lives, their faith and each other. This is more of a subtle and dramatic film rather than an in-your-face type of horror. I would even call it more of a psychological movie than anything else because although there is horror in the classic sense of the word (I mean, looking at the movie’s title, you know there has to be a witch in here somewhere), but this film focuses more on the psychological and emotional effects that trauma can have on people. With regards to the ending, I wasn’t quite sold on what happens right at the end, but the more I think about it, the more I get it. Although the film could have stuck the landing a little better, in my opinion, The Witch works really well as a tense horror film with themes of religion, identity and the response of the human psyche to certain situations.
IF I HAD TO DESCRIBE THE MOVIE IN THREE WORDS: horrifically-chilling, psychologically-thrilling, visually-brilliant.
Coherence
2013
A low-budget, dialogue-based, sci-fi movie about a group of friends having a dinner party at a house while a comet passes overhead and some strangeness ensues. This is the kind of film where I can’t really say much about the plot without spoiling anything, but I will say that this film has a very basic level of production with simple camera work and spontaneous dialogue. This actually works in the film’s favour because this makes it feel more authentic and natural; like you’re actually there with the characters going through the whole experience. The plot, although complex, isn’t as convoluted as other, similar movies like Primer — which in my opinion has more of a mind-bending and confusing plot that leaves you scratching your head. Coherence manages to build an interesting concept, elaborate on the various pieces of the mystery, maintain a good level of pacing and intrigue and pull it off really well — all on what seems to be a shoestring budget. And that’s what I think makes this film so commendable.
IF I HAD TO DESCRIBE THE MOVIE IN THREE WORDS: sci-fi-esque, dialogue-based, mysterious.
Incendies
2010
Two twin siblings travel to their late mother’s home country to fulfill her dying wishes and uncover the truth behind her life as well as their own. A truly heartbreaking tale filled with war, terror, fear and a profound manifestation of the dichotomy of hate and love. In other words, this is a heavy movie with a lot of emotion and when I first watched it, it really tripped me up with its surprise ending.
IF I HAD TO DESCRIBE THE MOVIE IN THREE WORDS: tragic, poetic, heart-breaking.
Killing Them Softly
2012
A neo-noir crime film that, on paper anyway, is right up my street. Criminal characters with a scheme, violent tension, a lot of f-bombs being thrown around, backlash, retaliation, the mob and snappy dialogue all the way through. But Killing Them Softly is what I could call a “flop-fest.” Because this film needs a lot of work before it can even get close to being a quality movie that can hold itself up instead of collapsing like a deflating balloon.
Firstly, the pacing is completely off. Although the whole thing kicks off really well with the initial few scenes, as soon as the plot gets going it begins getting a little uneven with the exposition of the various events that unfold and, given that this is a very dialogue-heavy movie, the conversations that take place to move the plot forward. Sometimes these conversations have a somewhat weird rhythm where the characters can’t seem to stay on track and begin talking about something completely off-topic. Like the scene where Brad Pitt is talking to James Gandolfini about the job that needs to be done, Gandolfini’s character just goes off on a tangent about some woman he loves and how it’s not going so well — which has nothing to do with the rest of the movie. It’s not relevant in any shape or form. But the movie sticks with it for several minutes which, although may not sound like much, really holds the pacing back. Another scene where this happens is when these other two guys (played by Scoot McNairy and Ben Mendelsohn) are shooting up heroin and talking to each other about something that’s kind of important to the film and they just keep falling in and out of consciousness mid-sentence to the point where it becomes a little annoying.
I don’t know, these are just the small things that I noticed where even as I was watching I found myself, in real time, mentally editing out the parts of the film that were not necessary at all.
Then comes the plot of the film, which is actually quite a good one filled with mob violence, a heist and a smooth hitman — but the way it plays out is a little lackluster. Yes, this movie does hit the notes of being a subtle, cool, neo-noir movie with some interesting visuals and camera work, but the whole plot of this film is Brad Pitt going after some guys who wronged the mob. That’s all. And, for some reason, it isn’t even difficult for him to find them. He effortlessly tracks them down, takes them out, and then the movie is over. At the end of the film I was like: Um, alright then, I guess? Because this movie could have had more of a layered plot with some complexities and intricate details, or perhaps some interesting characters, or, you know what, even just more of a pursuit when it comes to Brad Pitt as a hitman looking for his targets. I’m not entirely sure what this movie needs, I just know it needs something. And that would make this movie go from mediocre to brilliant.
IF I HAD TO DESCRIBE THE MOVIE IN THREE WORDS: mob-ish, noir-esque, flop-fest.
Amores Perros
2000
A gritty, tragic film about three groups of people whose lives become connected in one way or another. With the harsh realities of life, emotional chaos and a lot of dead dogs (seriously, don’t watch this movie if you don’t like watching dogs dying because honestly there are a lot), Amores Perros reminds me of Babel, which is another film by the same director, Alejandro González Iñárritu, as it has a similar anthology-style format and hard-hitting soundtrack by Gustavo Santaolalla.
IF I HAD TO DESCRIBE THE MOVIE IN THREE WORDS: realistic, emotional, lifelike.
El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie
2019
Although I’m a huge fan of both Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, I’m not quite sold when it comes to El Camino. The film isn’t terrible, per se, but it is a bit unnecessary and, for me, doesn’t really fit in with the Breaking Bad narrative. The film gives us an ending for Jesse Pinkman, which isn’t necessarily a bad ending, but it’s the other things — what the movie doesn’t give us — that cause the issues for me.
El Camino doesn’t have that Breaking-Bad-ness that Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul have; the still and subtle production with the strange-yet-creative camera angles, the layered plotlines with intense dialogue as well as the trickery and chicanery that we see throughout the two shows is nowhere to be found here. This is just more of just a straight-to-the-point movie with a lot more classic action-ish sequences that although make for (kind of) a fun time, just feels like a fan-made sequel of Breaking Bad with the same characters and actors but without the creative drive of the two shows. All El Camino is, in my opinion, is an afterthought project that works as fan service and a properly-finished ending for Jesse, but not much else.
For me, I honestly just prefer that scene from Breaking Bad where we see him making a wooden box. It’s ambiguous and brief, but it gives us a glimpse of Jesse’s ending, which, in my opinion, is enough to understand that he’s at peace. But that’s just me.
IF I HAD TO DESCRIBE THE MOVIE IN THREE WORDS: simple, forgettable, straightforward.
The Jacket
2005
This is a film that starts off brilliantly but it seems that, as the plot becomes thicker and more convoluted, the film gets lost in its own complexities. I’m going to try and not spoil anything, but I’d proceed with caution if you’re still into seeing the film. Okay, here we go: Adrian Brody is a war veteran who had been shot in the head, managed to live and then discharged. Some time later, he gets into a situation while hitchhiking in some remote location and then gets sent to a psychiatric hospital. The doctors attempt to “cure” him of his amnesia by strapping him into a straitjacket and shoving him into one of those morgue-cabinet-drawer things for hours at a time.
First of all, why did they need to do that? It’s revealed later that the doctor in charge also did that with other patients so, okay, maybe that’s just what they do in this hospital.
So, Adrian Brody gets left in this drawer night after night, which is essentially a claustrophobia-inducing death box where he can’t move and can only barely breath as he lays there in the pitch dark and, somehow while in this condition, he’s mentally able to time travel into the future.
Yes. Seriously. And the film doesn’t even bother to explain how he does this. Sure, if it’s an imagined version of the future then fine. No problem with that. Because imagination can be limitless. But this isn’t where the movie takes us. The movie tells us that he is actually really time travelling into the actual future, going forward by around fifteen years. And not only is he just time travelling but he’s also bringing back pieces of information from the future into the present and using it to solve the mystery of how he eventually will die.
It’s kind of dumb. My take on this movie is that it’s a good attempt at making something similar to Jacob’s Ladder or The Butterfly Effect, but The Jacket ultimately just slips and falls flat on its back in trying to pull off something spectacular — kind of like Adrian Brody’s character at the end. The concept of this film doesn’t make sense, the characters are somewhat one-dimensional and the ending is kind of sucky (in the end, it turns out he died in one of the dumbest ways possible, just watch the movie and see).
IF I HAD TO DESCRIBE THE MOVIE IN THREE WORDS: overambitious, nonsensical, silly.
Phantom Thread
2017
This well-made romantic drama has everything you could ever want from a well-made romantic drama. Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson and starring Daniel Day-Lewis, you know you’re in for a film that’s refined, polished, full of great visuals, great performances and a score that brings to life the style and vibe of the film.
Set in London in the 1950s, a haute couture dressmaker finds companionship in a woman who disrupts his mental stability, physical wellbeing, creative facility and day-to-day life. And, yet, it’s something that he not only tolerates, but also desires, in a weird way. It’s one of those things I can’t explain without giving things away, but what you really need to know is that this is a top-class film with excellent character dynamics and on-screen chemistry that portrays a relationship that may seem strange to some but carries with it emotional depth that’s shown on screen in a flawless way. The plot of the film, although a simple one, carries the emotions and drama of the film forward with finesse. The atmosphere of the film is flowery and romantic, but also tense and uneasy. I could go on. This has to be one of the best romantic-drama films I’ve ever seen.
IF I HAD TO DESCRIBE THE MOVIE IN THREE WORDS: elegant, atmospheric, beautiful.
Aftersun
2022
This film has a dream-like, heartfelt quality to it that I really like. The visual elements and minimal production style give it that realistic-drama feel, similar to films like A Separation.
Where this movie falls short, however, is with the entire plot — or lack thereof. I feel like this film has something it wants to say but just isn’t quite saying it. I understand that this kind of film is trying to capture some very specific emotions — in this case melancholy, anxiety, sadness and nostalgia — but doesn’t actually do much to tell us a story using those emotions. It just shows us a father and a daughter on holiday with all this other stuff happening around them and takes a peek into their characters with good dialogue and captivating performances. That’s about it. For me, this film could have done with a bit more movement with a story arc and a plot where things happen. What this film does is just capture a feeling and put it into a film, like an impressionist painting. And I suppose there isn’t anything wrong with that; it’s just not really for me. I prefer movies where the whole time I’m watching I’m not asking myself: “Maybe this is the scene where something finally happens?”
IF I HAD TO DESCRIBE THE MOVIE IN THREE WORDS: uneasy, emotional, uneventful.
THIS CLASSICAL, POST-NEO-MODERNIST-STYLE PAINTING FROM THE EARLY-LATE GOLDEN AGE IS SO PERFECT THAT I DON’T THINK I EVER NEED TO LOOK AT ANOTHER PAINTING EVER AGAIN.
I saw this painting recently and it really got me thinking about art in general. I’m talking about The Angelus by Jean-François Millet. If you aren’t familiar, it depicts a field in which a man and a woman, presumably a couple, stand, staring down at the ground. They look pensive and sombre as the man holds his hat in his hand and the woman joins her hands in prayer. It’s when your eyes move down to see what they’re looking at that you realise the full story. On the ground next to them is a patch of freshly-packed earth and, right next to it, a cradle. They’re, most likely, mourning the loss of their child, whom they’ve just buried and are now having a moment of silence for.
It’s dark. But what strikes me about this painting is not just the tragic subject; it’s how the painting portrays this subject using its colours, tone and composition. The muted colours and dark tones reflect the depressing story the painting tells with the composition of the whole painting also being genius; the man and the woman take up most of the frame with the grave and the cradle further down, a little off-centre. You see the couple first, ask yourself what’s going on with them and then you see the ground and understand what’s happening. It’s a masterpiece.
What The Angelus shows me is how a piece of art can carry a story with a certain mood and pull it off masterfully. When you look at The Angelus, you don’t see a happy painting. The subject and the visuals of the work all contribute to the narrative of the tragedy. And it’s beautifully done, in my opinion.
Painting is not an easy task. Nevertheless, there are some paintings out there that are so, so well done that you have to take a second and reevaluate whether what you’re looking at is, in fact, a painting and not a photograph or some AI-generated monstrosity. Like Ghent Altarpiece by Jan van Eyck, who’s a legend in the Early Netherlandish (from the Netherlands in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries) painting scene along with his brother, Hubert van Eyck. This altarpiece (a framed piece kept in a church often made with small doors that open up to reveal the work) is an absolute masterpiece. Seriously. Go and take a look at it online. The level of detail throughout is unreal, making you wonder how someone could even create something like that using just paint.
Another example of a piece of work with mind-blowing detail is The Lady of Shallot by John William Waterhouse. Although made much, much later, in the nineteenth century, this one’s also one of my favourites. It’s one of those paintings that you find hard to believe isn’t a photograph.
Some paintings rely not so much on detail but on creating an atmosphere. One example is Snow Storm: Hannibal and his Army Crossing the Alps by J. M. W. Turner, also painted in the nineteenth century. It depicts, well, an army crossing the Alps and it has a rough, textured vibe with misty, wintery colours and a very interesting depiction of a snow storm with the clouds and the chaos taking up most of the space in the scene and the figures laid out within the bottom third, making it feel like the powerful snow storm is about to turn everything upside down.
Another really cool atmospheric painting I like is Impression, Sunrise by Claude Monet (yes, I know I previously said that I don’t really like his work — but I think I might have matured and grown as an individual and, as a result, changed my mind?) from 1872. A classic in the impressionism art style, this shows, very simply, a sunrise over a port with boats and water and foggy colours that portray a calm yet moody scene. It uses the muted hues and brush techniques to present a certain mood and pulls it off spectacularly.
Some paintings, I found out recently, are actually part of larger paintings which are then cropped down. The Bullfight by Édouard Manet is an example of this, which comes from a larger painting called An Incident in the Bullring that he had exhibited in 1864 showing a bullfighting scene with a dead bullfighter laying on the floor. The scene was then cut up and we now have The Bullfight, which shows just the three fighters with the bull barely in view, possibly laying on the ground, and another painting called The Dead Man which shows the dead bullfighter.
There are also paintings that have other paintings in them. A painting like View of the Salon Carré by Alexandre Jean-Baptiste Brun, painted around 1880, is one example, which depicts a room in the Louvre (the Salon Carré) and all the paintings within that cover every wall from the floor to the ceiling. It’s a beautiful, kind of meta, piece of work and it’s interesting to me how the painter depicted the other paintings within his painting. How hard did he feel he had to work to achieve the level of detail in each of the paintings featured in his painting? It’s baffling.
I have a lot of appreciation for old, classical paintings with tons of incredible detail and masterful craftsmanship. The Tower of Babel is a sixteenth century painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (who also painted Netherlandish Proverbs, another favourite of mine I’ve mentioned before) that depicts the Tower of Babel from the Bible. Although Bruegel actually painted two paintings that have similar titles — The (Great) Tower of Babel and The (Little) Tower of Babel — they both have the same Tower as a subject. The grand structure stands like a mountain over the rest of the land with clouds hovering near the top. Despite one of the paintings being “great” and the other being “little,” both Towers seem gigantic to me. And the majesty and grandeur with which the Tower is depicted in both works is miraculous.
The School of Athens is another beautiful Renaissance piece by Raphael in the sixteenth century that has all these figures from classical antiquity scattered around a beautiful space with elaborate architecture and an air of intellect and knowledge. I don’t know why I love this one so much; it’s just so well-made with its detail and composition and its linear perspective.
Alright, let’s finish with a quick lightning round. Firstly, Scene dans le parc by Marguerite Nakhla from the 1940s. Visually, this one always reminds me a little of A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, which I’ve talked about before, as both paintings have a similar kind of scene and subject matter with people standing around enjoying the fresh air and sunshine. Scene dans le parc also has a kind of soft, adorable visual quality to it that I seem to find charming.
Le Désespéré, or The Desperate Man, by Gustave Courbet in the nineteenth century is a portrait that shows a very striking emotion with an in-your-face (literally) composition that’s not like most other portraits I’ve seen.
Warden of the Mosque is another favourite of mine that was painted in 1891 by Gustav Bauernfeind. I absolutely love this one for its composition of the old man figure who serves as the subject of the work and the use of tone to show light and dark and portray the old man sitting in a cool shadow with the glimpse of activity and movement seen through the window outside.
Veronica Veronese by Dante Gabriel Rossetti was painted in 1872 and has a mythological feel to it with the subject being a lady sitting at a desk clutching a violin with a look on her face that looks as if she’s detached herself from reality. This one’s got interesting symbolism with the various objects all around the frame and rich colours that make it visually striking. I really love that deep green shade in the background of this one.
And, finally, Isle of the Dead by Arnold Böcklin which has many different versions from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The various iterations all depict a strange, dark island in the middle of nowhere with a small boat approaching. The boat has a bright white figure standing at the front with a coffin and another figure rowing the boat from behind. The island is mostly rocky, in some versions we see built structures and windows, and there are, growing out from the middle of the island, a group of tall trees (kind of like cypress trees). This painting follows a style known as Symbolist which, as the name suggests, uses symbols to express meaning. For me, the island represents death (although I guess that’s pretty obvious) and the sea represents life, with the continuous waves carrying us to our inevitable fate. And that’s the kind of deep, dark and existential-crisis-inducing message we need art to remind us of every now and then, don’t you think?
I KNOW THIS ALBUM IS JUST FIFTY-FIVE MINUTES OF REVERBED, HOWLING ECHOES BUT SOMETHING ABOUT IT JUST SPEAKS TO ME.
Album artwork, for me, as a visual person, is a very important part of any album. I mean, it’s not a deal breaker if an album has good music and not-so-great artwork, but for me it does enhance the experience. One of my favourite pieces of album artwork has to be from Fleet Foxes by Fleet Foxes, which is actually just a sixteenth century painting from the Netherlands called Netherlandish Proverbs (that’s the second time I’ve mentioned this painting in this issue). So maybe it’s just the painting I like? I have spoken before about how I like visually-busy paintings that have a bit of an unsettling or creepy vibe. And I think the visual of the painting ties into the sound of the album very well. Curiously, though, there seem to be a number of other album covers that also have paintings or some sort of famous art on them: The New Abnormal by The Strokes has on its cover Bird on Money by Jean-Michel Basquiat; Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends by Coldplay has Liberty Leading the People by Eugène Delacroix and The Velvet Underground & Nico by The Velvet Underground and Nico has the famous image of a banana by the artist Andy Warhol, who managed the band.
This is kind of a weird thought: Music was recorded at some point in the past and is now preserved in some online database. Old music that was produced a long time ago is now accessible through our music-streaming-subscription platforms. Back in the day, you could go and buy a record or a cassette tape of an album that came out decades prior. The point is, music, once it’s created, just exists forever, right?
So, here’s my thought. Take Led Zeppelin, one of my favourite bands. They recorded and released all of their albums in the late ‘60s and throughout the ‘70s, which is around two decades before I was even born. Point is, though, I only discovered them right after I graduated university, when I was well into my 20s. So, as far as I’m concerned, Led Zeppelin didn’t exist until 2016. Even though they were around my whole life and even way before. Which feels strange to me. During my entire childhood, teenage years and time as a university student, Led Zeppelin was right there, waiting to be discovered. But they wouldn’t enter my world until much later.
This might be just some shower-thought-type thing that only makes sense to me, but it does make me think about right now, and what kind of stuff I’m missing out on at this moment in time that’s waiting to be discovered. Because there have been so many great bands and albums I’ve come across in the same way I came across Led Zeppelin; where they’ve been around for years and years but I don’t discover them until way later.
Whenever I get into this kind of situation, all I can think is: “Where has this music been all my life?”
It’s that feeling of being a little late to the party, but because the music is so well-crafted and masterfully-influential, it’s hard not to become instantly obsessed. Sometimes, though, I find an album or a song and get that kick; a rush of magic where it feels like nothing else is worth listening to and end up listening to the same thing over and over for days and days until, eventually, that rush begins to get a little stale and worn-in, and the magic begins to wear off. It’s here that I get into a kind of emotional crisis and begin wondering if I’ll ever find an album like that ever again as I desperately scour Spotify, dissect through YouTube and even pay a visit to Bandcamp for an album to assign as my new favourite in order to have another profound experience, only to be disappointed to not be able to immediately match that euphoria of finding a banger of an album to listen to and getting that instant gratification. Because, truth is, this kind of magical discovery only happens once in a while. And therein lies the magic.
Plus, you can always go back and revisit albums. Sure, they might not be exactly the same experience as your first listen, but you know what? Nostalgia is overrated. Yes, it’s a beautiful emotion as looking back at our old times and feeling that sense of longing to return to a particular time can bring with it a lot of sentimental weight. Even though it’s a time that we’ve already experienced and gone through. We look back and wish we could revisit that time as who we are now; strolling through the realm of the past as the present version of ourselves, treating time like a tourist [1]. You know what? That actually sounds quite nice. Sign me up.
Although it’s impossible to tell, this is actually a teaser for the next issue of Kanis Majoris (No. 12), and you might know that it’s going to be another special issue in the same way that Kanis No. 6 is. Are you teased? Did the teaser tickle your senses and ruffle your curiosity so that you’ll be back for more later?
