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🎬 Magnolia, 1999

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Boogie Nights (Paul Thomas Anderson, 1997)

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I had no feelings about Philip Seymour Hoffman until I saw him in Boogie Nights. I think that it's because I identifed so deeply with him, but I have been absolutely head over heels for the guy ever since.

Philip Seymour Hoffman, July 23, 1967 - February 2, 2014.

Paul Thomas Anderson’s Boogie Nights (1997).

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Ang Lee, Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal - behind the scenes of Brokeback Mountain

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This story breaks my heart in all kinds of ways.

Brokeback Mountain (2005) dir. Ang Lee

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I'm not even joking, my dog watched half of Brokeback Mountain with me just yesterday. She was laying next to me in bed with her head on the pillow, every once in awhile she would leave but she kept coming back.

Maybe she really loves horses, or maybe I know little of the loves and losses of her life.

fujoshi dog

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I feel like all I've been watching lately is Dawson's Creek, and yes I am still rooting for Jen and Joey to get together.

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Double Features

I am obsessed with double-features, please add to the list!

Crash [1996] | Titane [2021] | Tetsuo: The Iron Man [1989]

Raw [2016] | Ginger Snaps [2000]

Saltburn [2023] | The Talented Mr. Ripley [1999]

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Saltburn

It took a moment for this movie to settle in on me, and I’ve really been fighting to reconcile what I wanted this film to be with the story that I was given.

If this were about a man driven by love, I am the first one boarding that train. Have you been in love? I say “in love” in the same way that you are “in” a swamp being pulled deeper into sliming, hungry mud. If you are in love like that, is gross, desperate, terrifying, and you will think and say and do things that repulse you at times. I know this, I keep journals and it is physically painful to see the words describing how I felt about this person. I had burned three journals to exorcise these feelings, and I am mostly just glad that I don’t need to revisit the worst of it. So, I am on board for the drinking of the bathwater and the writhing on the grave. I have been there, and to me that is very viscerally real. I can even see needing to be near someone so badly that if they won’t have you, you will get as close as you can if it means sleeping with their sister, their closest friend, a discarded former hook-up, or worming your way into the home that they grew up in. Finally, even if you would never, ever admit it in the most private crevices of your own skull, the absolute climax of if I can’t have you, no one can have you.

If that were the story, it would be powerful. But I don’t think that was the story.

Instead of a powerful story about the obsessive drive of a desperate love, it is a story about… class commentary? In the end, I get the feeling that it was about the impossibility of clawing your way out of the middle class, which turns it from today’s The Talented Mr. Ripley into a ramshackle rehashing of Parasite with a less sympathetic lead character.

Really, I think it takes a specific writer to be a good director, and if you aren’t a good writer this will obviously hinder your movie. My opinion is that this movie could have been great if someone else wrote the story, especially with Emerald Fennel being enormously wealthy herself, the class commentary is muddled. In the end, it seems that Oliver was motivated by envy and not lust and it is hard for me to get behind that, although it is there if you squint your eyes. I also haattteedddd that they had to over-explain the twist! The flashbacks can be left out completely, because it is so much more powerful to tell and not show so that the audience can put these pieces together ourselves.

Now, that all being said there are so many things that I did love about this movie. There was a lot of symbolism and deliberate choices, like the minatore and the maze and all that. The tracking shots were mesmerizing! I thankfully did not watch this with my mom when it was suggested for family movie night, but I woke up my dog so that she could watch the final scene because it was just straight dope to me. Also, as soon as the movie started I was gasping for air because the 4:3 aspect ratio is my absolute jam. Death to widescreen, widescreen is for the dogs.

Now, I will watch it again but I am going to choose to rewrite this mentally as the most unhinged love story and forget the class stuff because out of the things that this movie was trying to say, only one rings true for me.

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Okay, like I’ve been saying, the reflective surfaces should have gotten a nomination for best supporting actor.

The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) + REFLECTIONS

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"See Venice and die," is what they say? Or is it Rome?"

The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999)

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ramy: POOR THINGS. thank you yorgos for my first film role with the most loving people ♥️

📷 by Ramy Youssef on the set of Poor Things (2023). Dir. Yorgos Lanthimos

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emma stone as bella baxter in ‘poor things’

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I’m thinking of adding more movies to my “tumblr’s favorite movies” letterboxd list, so put in the tags what your favorite movie is, no matter the genre, and only one!

here is the list if you're interested to see other people's favorites (x)