#WHAT A MOVIE

[randomitemdrop]

Item: codpiece with concealed twelve-chamber revolver that totally works, despite the chambers clearly not overlapping with the barrel. As far as I can tell, you fire it by clenching

[nick-nellson]

Clueless (1995) dir. Amy Heckerling

[papanowo]

uh. whales

[comehomet0myheart]

Past Lives works so well for me because I am so enamoured with pragmatism in fiction.

I read and watch a lot of stories about idealized love stories and I often enjoy them too! I spent my entire childhood believing that the teenagers who got together in the media I consumed would stay together forever. And then as I got older, I was naturally introduced to more stories about romances that didn’t work out. Still, it’s hard for me to think about those as pragmatic, most of them have this desire for sadness in them. They would make me feel as though the devastation was the point, that the narrative was forcefully bent toward the saddest outcome.

Past Lives doesn’t make me feel this way. Nora doesn’t stop talking to Hae Sung because of an unforeseen tragic circumstance. She makes a choice and goes through with it. Hae Sung puts it best during their conversation at the end of the film. She is the kind of person to leave. And he loves her because she is that kind of person. The “what-if” isn’t in wondering about if circumstances were different. No matter what, she would have chosen her plays over anything else. Her husband even notes that so much of how their relationship happened is because he fit so well into the life she wanted. The whole reason this film is called “Past Lives” is because that’s the only way to ponder about whether Nora and Hae Sung could be together.

It’s such a delightfully Asian perspective on it. “In another life” films are so common, but I always feel like Western movies do it in a kind of parallel universe kind of way. I love that in this one, Nora is so steadfast and consistent in her personality and desires, that there is no real contemplation and consideration of making her and Hae Sung’s relationship work. There is only a longing and a love.

[mayhaps-a-blog]

Wow, Nimona did really did say that the threat is just a dream you made up and the monster is a girl who did nothing and teaching your children to hate just means the next generation will grow up blaming someone else for the fires they start with their own torches and there’s nothing outside the walls but a better world and don’t you just want to fucking break something sometimes and- and- and-

Nimona sure is a movie

[narriose]

Nimona

[skneees]

rip deadpool you would’ve loved chappell roan

[vhsviolence]

The Passenger (2023)

[amanita-muscaria-lover]

We need to talk about Godzilla Minus One.

Let's talk about the original music mixed in with new tracks.

Let's talk about the Barefoot Gen vibes in the ruins of Tokyo.

Let's talk about how the film gives off anti-war vibes without loudly screaming that it's anti-war.

Let's talk about how there were times I couldn't tell if it was a dude in a suit or a CGI Godzilla.

Let's talk about Shikishima's PTSD and him not wanting to be a kamikaze pilot.

Let's talk about how it felt like an old 80's Godzilla movie and like it could fit in with the Monsterverse at the same time.

Let's talk about how Godzilla gets burned by his own atomic breath.

Let's talk about how the movie doesn't shy away from people losing their lives, whether by war or Godzilla's feet or the inevitable cancer that most likely occurs due to his atomic breath.

No notes.

[bunnybonesstudio]

When Scream came out in 1996 I bet my entire life savings that not only did it blow the party’s mind collectively, but it was the only thing they talked about for the rest of the year.

I mean they, especially Dustin, hyper fixated on that harder than they did anything before.

[katethedolphin]

the part in Saltburn that was actually the most disturbing was when Ewan Mitchell bit the crunchy bar in the middle instead of at the end

[kolaicendionysos]

something about a woman don't say their husband's "name" when they are with people for name of traditions BUT end of the movie Phool literally shouting her husband's name when she is among with 100 people, WHAT A POWERFUL SCENE this movie gets me...

[jakascoo]

Kara: Plants are basically the ideal friends. They are quiet, friendly, and easy to please. All they need is a little water and fresh earth, and they are perfectly happy to lie there all day in the sun. And they don’t make increasingly awful life choices, or hide their relationships. They have never, as far as I know, fucked a bee.

[flowerprintundies]

Nothing good ever came from the color magenta.

(My modest contribution to this wild af movie and winner of my Jeff character poll!!)

[la-pheacienne]

Can someone please explain to me what "soft feminine power" is? This is not a rhetoric question and I'm not being ironic, I genuinely do not know what that means. In my language we don't have the equivalent of this. There is no feminine or masculine power, there is only power, either you have it or you don't. If you are a woman in a patriarchal society you can gain power up to a certain level by using """""feminine""""" means, but that's not "soft feminine power" that's literally victimized, restrained women trying to survive with the means that they have left. It's not something one should glamorize or wish for. It is just a reality for some women. When Barbara Stanwyck in Baby Face, a woman forced to prostitute herself by her father since she was 14 yo finally gets away from him and starts having sex with men for her own profit and to forward her own interests in order to climb the social hierarchy, that's not "soft feminine power". That is what a woman had to do to survive. She sold her looks and her body and her nice words, she manipulated men and used them in every possible way in order to gain power, and she did. She didn't start a feminist revolution, no, she didn't take a gun. But there is nothing "soft" here, this is the very opposite of soft. This is an extremely determined person who is resilient and hard as a rock and cuts through life like a razor. There is nothing inherently feminine in this either. It's something that women had to do because of patriarchy yes, but it is not a "feminine" trait. What about all these men that sell sex to survive, because they are homeless or underage or immigrants or very weak for whatever reason? If you are at the bottom of the social ladder and don't have any direct power to do absolutely anything to improve your circumstances then you have got to find other indirect ways to do that and you need to use manipulation and exploit yourself and your looks in order to survive. It is a necessity. It is not hashtag soft feminine power. It is not something to wish for especially today in the sense that, oh, actually I don't want to be direct and forward with what I want and what I believe I deserve, I prefer using my "soft feminine power" instead. You don't know what the fuck you are talking about. "A lady's armour is courtesy" is not something that should be even remotely associated with hashtag "soft feminine power". It's just what Sansa has been told from birth and it's the only thing she values about herself or others. Our problem with Sansa isn't that we dislike "soft feminine power" it's that she was a bully and painfully superficial and self-absorbed and reactive and her vices as a character were one of the factors that caused the horrible ending of the first book and nothing about this is even remotely "soft" or "feminine" or "powerful" or even close to getting her any form of actual power. It is literally not about that. I want Sansa to actually grow as a person and her arc is already about that and her journey in KL was very important and kudos for her because she managed to survive but people's dislike on her has nothing to do with the fact that she keeps her "femininity" but for the particularly negative role she played in the narrative of the first book and the fact that apart from surviving, she hasn't offered much thematically or narratively, yet.

My point is, the phrase "soft feminine power" literally has no meaning and is either used to 1) glamorize the struggles of marginalized individuals to survive or 2) conceal actual character flaws like lack of backbone or extreme conformism.