Letterboxd — Your life in film

bounced off of this in theatres, thought it was obviously padded out and dull as a 13 year old, but it really clicked with me this time. similarly to Deathly Hallows Part 1, it isn’t hindered by the clunky narrative beats of its source material and uses its extra running time to delve further into the emotional fragility of its characters. there is a sense of patience and maturity to Mockingjay Part 1 that surprised me. my girlfriend compared it…

the sequences in the forest where youthful love and joy is able to thrive despite the emergence of the apocalypse are gorgeous. the photography of the green leaves is luscious and the way that Klinov frames the environments makes the woods feel like paradise itself. there is sublime tenderness, an understanding of the meaning of anguish around them, but an ability to connect and understand the little niceties and beauties of being alive. when the girl is removed from most…

there is a scene in this film where Emily Blunt drinks alcohol in slow motion at a pool party while Turn Down for What plays, and it might not even be the worst scene in it. a staggering misread of what made The Wolf of Wall Street’s depiction of hedonistic capitalist vultures so insightful and thrilling. it retains the ethically monstrous characters but has no real understanding of the systems that unable them, nor can it successfully duplicate the energy…

starts off as a riff on A History of Violence, goes many many strange places across the runtime. my favourite part was when they spent 5 minutes making an ultraviolent version of Home Alone, with bear traps, trip mines and saws dissecting anonymous gangsters into bloody chunks. the first half is very narratively solid and thrilling, the second is messy as hell and I’m not completely sold on the direction it takes with the protagonist. but even in the lowest…

suffers majorly from pacing and structural issues, mainly that it rarely comes across as anything besides a crammed together rehash of the opening episodes of the show. it struggles to integrate introductory television arcs into a satisfying feature film dynamic, and therefore feels pretty aimless in terms of characterisation and conflict for the majority of the runtime. I’m not the biggest fan of the show’s first half (Asuka’s introduction is what sets it on the path to greatness for me)…

on the one hand, I recognise how deeply strange and concerning the central romance in this film is. on the other hand, I remember exactly what it was like to be a 12 year old boy infatuated with a variety of older women and the thrill that Big provided. going back to it for the first time as an adult made me feel a strong connection to my younger self. I remembered when I saw this on Christmas Day for…

every time I rewatch a Malick that I’ve not seen in a few years, there’s a part of my brain that goes “is this the very best film I’ve ever seen?” and this is probably the hardest I’ve been affected by that phenomenon. simultaneously his most spiritual and his most violent. breaks my heart in a million pieces and scared the shit out of Gillian. fully understands the struggle of embracing faith (not just religious but faith in humanity itself)…