Letterboxd — Your life in film

"Ay up, yer unbelievin' kuffar bastards! I'm gonna turn you to baked beans! - Waj

This must have been the most difficult movie to get right. Suicide bombing is possibly the most touchy subject since the Holocaust. Within the boundaries of good taste, you don't joke about it. Yet Four Lions is one of the funniest films since the turn of the decade. Its satire is so well aimed and its commentary so well thought out that it's difficult not…

"I am BETTER." - John Harrison

Imagine for a moment that I am 40 years old. This would mean that I would have been 7 years old in 1980, the year of release of The Empire Strikes Back. I would have been completely and utterly enthralled with the sheer spectacle and awesomeness of the sci-fi universe. But I am not 40, and I did not see The Empire Strikes Back in the year of its initial release. However, I am…

"A hardtop with a decent engine, and make sure it's got a big trunk!" - Dwight

There's noir dialogue and there's noir dialogue, and this film's script falls into the latter category. The dialogue is more hard-boiled than an egg you've left in a pan on the hob for a month. It's absolutely legendary. I'm convinced that it's the best aspect of Sin City, and it was a wise choice to lift it straight from the gold mine of source…

"I'm not sorry." - Charles Foster Kane

Charles Foster Kane. What a character. A staggeringly complex and ambiguous protagonist if there ever was one. I'd go so far as to say he's up there with Daniel Plainview. Because, from where I'm looking at it, Citizen Kane is the There Will Be Blood of its time.

And, thing is, it's far ahead of its time. Opening with a hypnotic, almost horror-movie feel in a dying man's final moments, and following this…

"You said this was going to be a simple in-and-out, sir. Simple just shit itself." - Joe Keenan

There's something about this film that hopelessly endearing. It's like a baby being birthed into the world; confused, lost, messy and gory from all of the afterbirth that's come after it, but ever so lovable. You think that's a weird analogy? Red State is a weird film.

Beginning as an immature and unfunny teen comedy, turning into a religious torture-porn movie, then…

"I will be dying and so will you, and so will everyone here. That's what I want to explore. We're all hurtling towards death, yet here we are for the moment, alive. Each of us knowing we're going to die, each of us secretly believing we won't." - Caden Cotard

The final second of Synecdoche, New York is the highlight of the film. The very final moment that it culminates in is what I would call 'perfect'. It's actually saved…

"I drink your water. I drink it up, every day. I drink the blood of Lamb from Bandy's tract." - Daniel Plainview

IMMENSE. That's how I describe this film. Everything is super-sized, probably to fit alongside the vast greed of its protagonist and the towering portrayal of him by Daniel Day-Lewis. Since these two things are so massive, Paul Thomas Anderson has to increase the size and quality of everything else to make a well-rounded movie. And he has most…

"With everything that's happening, the things that are about to come to light, people might just need a little old-fashioned." - Agent Phil Coulson

There's something about third-time watches. I haven't a clue what it is. Maybe it's the fact that I was disappointed with the initial re-watch, so a third-time watch would set a more forgiving tone. And the spell is cast yet again. Because now, finally, after all this time (around a year actually), I have learned to…

"I like it...it's got...layers." - Hans

Ah, the feeling of acceptance. There is only one other situation in which I can remember feeling like this: the third watch of Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof. After having a mixture of love and hate in my first two viewings, I found that the third watch gave me my peace with it. I was no longer irritated with the self-indulgence, or the lack of pace, or the unexpected tonal shifts from the director's other…