Wow! What a movie. Spoilers included (duh).

So we start off Kubrick’s classic Vietnam War film with the dehumanizing act of shaving the heads of the new recruits. These “maggots” will soon be shaped into Killing Machines, property of the USA. The Drill Sergeant makes an effort to put these young men through HELL because ultimately that’s what war is. Kubrick, having a problem with authority figures in the Western World, makes an equal effort to depict the “good guys” (from a western perspective) as bloodthirsty monsters or at the very least, willing to comply with orders they understand are heinous and inhumane. The first 30-50 min of the movie are vastly different from the second part. Private Pyle being beaten and broken down and eventually murdering the Drill Sergeant (and himself) represents the soul-crushing feeling of being denied your own agency, a common Kubrick theme. But at the same time it represents a sort of impotence of rules and etiquette that the military tries to instill in its soldiers. The main soldier Joker is never in danger technically in the first part. But when they get to Vietnam, they see real innocent Vietnamese people getting murdered for no reason other than the fact that they were born in the incorrect country according to the US. One soldier brags about his kill count, many of them being innocent farmers. The main character joins Stars and Stripes Journalism (military propaganda) They lie about war reports in news papers, they film mass killings and wonder why the locals don’t like them, the whole time, racial and ethnic slurs are tossed around. They depict the Tet offensive as cowardly while they shoot women, children and animals from the safety of a helicopter. Kubrick does a spectacular job of capturing the duality of the military. They want prim and proper young men that are ready to murder innocents in cold blood. I highly suggest anyone watch it. It is a great Anti-War film that was important to be made at the time it came out.

I watched this movie earlier today and enjoyed it far more than I thought I would. We start in Baltimore 1914, with the Patriarch of the Jewish-Pole Krichinsky family, Sam, arriving in Baltimore on July 4th, the spectacle all around him encapsulates his excitement for new life and opportunity. We see his life as a wallpaper presser in his newfound home in America. Over time, the years pass by, into the 1940s and 50s and eventually to the early 70s at the end of the film. He marries and has a large family. His son and nephew go into business together, he helps to raise his grandson, he battles verbally with his wife and his brother and deals with old age and with loss in its many different forms, biological, financial or otherwise. I don’t want to give spoilers but oddly enough, even if I did, it wouldn’t fundamentally change much of your viewing. The movie isn’t about a huge plot-twist, or a gigantic action scene that kills multiple characters or anything. I would describe it as a Slice of Life, and the pain-staking detail that Barry Levinson-Gould went through in directing this movie to be accurate to the times is more than admirable. Every car and piece of furniture is spectacularly curated. The scenes that are supposed to feel happy and exciting look bright and vibrant, kinetic in a way. The scenes of dispair, of agony in some sort, feel so slow and dark that you feel like you yourself are there, begging for the moment to pass. (in a good way, not saying the scenes are boring and drag on too long) There are also many small comedic moments, nothing that will get you flying off your seat, dying laughing, but small little cultural/linguistic things, like the difference between “Can I?” and “May I?” or how they pronounce Turkey or Furnace (Toykey, Foynace). I really loved this movie, if you have a chance to stream it or check it out from your local library I would highly suggest it. It was a great movie and I feel like (as cringe as it sounds to say) I lived through a period of the 50s watching this movie. My big caveat is that it sorta puts Rose-Tinted glasses on and drifts past issues of racism or abuse by only focusing on this one particular Jewish family. Besides that, I really liked this movie, I related to it on a very personal level (except I’m not Jewish) with some of their plot points and characters that appear, it really touched me at certain points. I would probably put this in my top 30 movies, watch it if possible. That’s all Folks!

I’ve been a cinephile for a while now, I have tons of movies on my watchlist, and they are all very different in their own way. I’m basically asking: what movies would yall be interested to hear about? Only movies I refuse to review are most RomComs, (few exceptions) tiny-budget movies that are tough to find, (I don’t doubt some of those are great films, I just don’t wanna search thru 30 websites of pure malware to find a 1hr 27 min 70s Dutch Crime Thriller) history documentaries (I would consider those educational films rather than cinema to be reviewed) and maybe stuff that’s too overtly grotesque (I ain’t watching Saw movies or anything similar, all other horror is still on the table). Besides that, I would love to watch basically any film people are interested in, Old Soviet films, Cringe-inducing Right-wing movies, Liberal Utopias, hell, even classic films that could really use a lefty perspective on it like Forrest Gump or Full Metal Jacket. Any movie suggestions are not only welcome but appreciated. Thanks in advance everybody, I look forward to watching these movies and subsequently reviewing them for you all to read.

I saw Vice (2018) a few nights ago and it was a very entertaining movie. It’s about Dick Cheney’s life story made by Adam McKay, he also made great comedy movies in the past. I just finished watching Misery (1990) today and it was easily one of the best movies I’ve seen in a while. Great suspense and kinda funny at times, that’s to be expected from the director of the film, Rob Reiner. What have yall been watching lately?

Yes, I have to start with the obligatory: the first time I watched the movie I was disappointed, but upon rewatch I realized how deep the rabbit hole goes, and after tens of hours of studying this movie, I can finally see what a masterpiece it is.

After having spent tens of hours with this movie, I've finally sorted out most of the major questions and have a pretty good idea of what's actually going on. The movie is so hard to wrap your head around though because you basically have to think in four dimensions, and you have to build a mental model for a crystallized universe and keep track of all the actors at all times, and their motivations. Our brains are not made to comprehend stuff like this, so it's understandable that people were frustrated with the movie. However, I think I reduced my odds of developing Alzheimers by 95% during the process of studying this thing and the process itself was very gratifying. Still though, I'm not done building more intuition for the movie so I will definitely be spending even more time grasping the details. I highly recommend committing yourself to the process 👍

It's without a doubt my favorite movie of all time.

come at me brah (or just throw me some questions idk)