#this is such a gorgeous film

[hunkpurveyor]

Burning (2018) — dir. Lee Chang-Dong

A rich and deeply thought film, mired in ambiguities, questions not quite answered in the half-light—but on another level it's very much about picking up your crush from the airport and she gets off the plane with Steven Yeun. Devastating. (spoilers under the cut, more movie thoughts on letterboxd)

Haemi is still a classic Murakami woman, and this has all the usual criticisms you could level at that. The dichotomy is in how men look at her, whether she is a disposable toy or jealously, clumsily fumbled at. But she has the great hunger, still gone unsatisfied. This is a film about young people, a shiftless, lost generation. Both Jong-su's parents are useless to him, selfish, uninterested in his life. These kids with no jobs, their elders ineffectual, stubborn, proud. Not really all that friendly. Go burning greenhouses. It's Jongsu who does the burning. A glimmer of sun off the Seoul tower, phallic, freighted with desire. Then, undressing as Haemi did for him and Ben, as the sun set, he burns Ben. Their final clinch more passionate and breathless even than Jongsu's other penetration, of Haemi. The Kalahari bushmen burning a fire from evening deep into the night, working the small hunger into the great hunger.

All these things that aren't quite there. The invisible cat an excuse to fuck, really, but leaving scat all the same. Phone calls that are merely silence. The tangerine, not willed into being but not-negated. Everything is there beneath the surface if it is not denied. It is in Panju, and also in Seoul. (Or is Ben's "simultaneous existence" the antithesis of this, all-being, total positive, both there and here, not between, not half or either but both? Making offerings to yourself, god and worshipper.) The well, remembered or created. Haemi herself, appearing as if a miracle and then vanishing just the same.

Burning burning burning, the film makes us wait so long to finally set something alight, but it is back there too, in the past, waiting behind us, beneath and around as the sun falls out of the sky into void.

[ophelialoveshandsomemen]

Say what you will about Van Helsing 2004; hate it, love it, be indifferent, But the All-Hallow's masquerade ball went sooooo hard and it had zero right to do so! It's a fun, campy, monster mash movie with wonderfully dated ( and expensive) cgi and non-stop action meant to be a popcorn flick one takes out to watch around spooky season. And it has this* chef's kiss* GORGEOUS 6 minute sequence plopped arbitrarily in the second act, which unexpectedly surpasses nearly every other ball in the last 30+ years of film( notable exception being the Cinderella 2015 ball) for literally no reason other than to be dramatic af.

Like feast your eyes on this Gothic masterpiece!!! Who doesn't want to immediately live in this picture?!??

They used those candles with oil in them so that they would have real candles, real string orchestra( I believe), probably around 100 real life extras( something which is tragically absent in modern film), said extras are all in beautiful fully decked-out costumes( which are in luxuriously dark colours, but nearly no fully black, another thing you cannot say for much modern cinema), REAL CIRQUE DU SOLEIL PERFORMERS for all the acrobatics!!!! Hell, instead of filming in a sound stage, where they could control the reverb and the acoustics and the size of the set and the bloody lighting ( they apparently had a heck of a time emulating the firelight for this sequence) and the temperature( it's very cold in stone churches!) better, they filmed in a Baroque church in Prague! As I said, peak dramatic splendour, jfc...

Think about that a second...They filmed a vampire masquerade in a Baroque Catholic Church( St. Nicholas' in Lesser Town, if you were curious) with amazing over-the-top acoustics and marble statues and real, tiled floors and marble pillars and a choir loft which they very much utilized, covered the pipe organ and the altar with a grand brocade curtain so it wouldn't be so obviously a, you know, a church! And there's a gold gilt elevated and canopied pulpit into which they put two vampire kiddies for, again, the sake of being dramatic.

And the costumes! They remind me of the 25th anniversary Phantom of the Opera Masquerade costumes. Same quality, like they're old, well-cared-for costumes pulled out of a warehouse, instead of fast industry churn-outs. With lots of trim and colour and masks and lace and feathers and..just...ugh.. they are all perfect! Just look at all the head pieces on the ladies and the hats on all the gentleman ( save Dracula of course) and the powdered wigs on the musicians. ANNNNDD! The dresses are historically correct!!!!!! It's the 80's bustle era! Nobody does the 80's bustle era in film anymore and it's a bummer. Oh and one other thing! Anna's ( and other women's) hair, at least here in the ball, is also historically accurate because it's all pinned up! None of those fucken modern beachwaves at a ball! Everybody's got updo's!

Gah, I swear, Dracula in his gold cloak really does things to me in this scene!

By the way, the acrobatics are bonkers in here for just background stuff!! Especially the random guys on unicycles and the dude playing the violin whilst standing on a ball...Like....WHAT?

Anyways, all this to say, that this masquerade ball feels sooo real and tangible and because of that it blows every other film out of the water, and no, I will not change my mind!!!!!

Here's a few more gifs, bcuz, why the hell not, this scene is sexy as fuu*ck?

Alright I need to go to bed now.

[celine-song]

Conclave (2024) dir. Edward Berger

[prncssguya]

something about the boy and the heron saying that beautiful things don’t last forever and that’s okay. it’s okay to move on, there will be pain and grief but happiness and hope will come again.

[slayerbuffy]

Drop Dead Gorgeous 1999 | dir. Michael Patrick Jann

[k-wame]

as Eugene Allerton | Queer (2024)

[namtanlovesfilm]

"Speedy recovery, my brilliant girlfriend."

[shima-draws]

Just got back from seeing Sonic 3 and HOOOOOOLY SHIT y’all. Oh my fucking god. OH my god. Ohhhh my g o d

[fasole-dulce]

[blackthornluce]

David Corenswet as Max in The Greatest Hits (2024).

[gunsatthaphan]

"oom, is that you?"

[ilovemesomevincentprice]

Vincent Price in his first starring role, Shock (1946)

[mysteriouspersonrambles]

I did NOT just find out that K/S (Spirk) was cannon from a FUCKING Destiel meme, you have actually got to be kidding me.

[callsignmav]

Where are we going?

Nowhere.

[wanderer-clarisse]

wanted to try something new and paint a night scene - I'm sure there's still lots to improve but I'm happy with how it turned out!

[sainz100]

a very small throwback to an opera moment! 🎵❤️✨ | x