Favorite films

Recent reviews

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  Past Lives 2023

  ★★★★★ Rewatched 27 Nov 2023

  Two realisations second time around watching:

  1. The reference to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Completely missed it the first time around, and I guess it's obvious now because I'd just literally rewatched that a few days before this.

  2. The groundwork for the ending was set up several times, and this time around it's so clear. Which in a way makes the film cleaner and ending more definitive -- and that's not necessarily a good thing.

  I think that's because this is the movie it wants to be though, so I won't really penalise it for that.

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  The Swan 2023

  ★★★ Watched 25 Nov 2023

  I watched this in George Town, Penang while I was down with covid.

Popular reviews

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  Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham 2001

  ★★★ Rewatched 18 May 2018

  This movie opens with a literal TLDR, a quote by Karan Johar that says "It's about loving your parents". And if that's not on the nose enough, the patriarch, played by Amitabh Bachan, is named Yash.

  This movie is ridiculous. The cars. The mansions in London. The helicopters. It's fucking ridiculous.

  But I'll be damned if this ridiculous manipulative melodrama doesn't bring tears to my eyes every time.

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  Shirkers 2018

  ★½ Watched 18 Nov 2018

  Spoiler alert: This is not a good film.

  I wanted to like this so much, but five minutes in, I knew that wasn't going to happen. Sandi Tan the narrator has no introspection whatsoever. The younger Sandi was shown to be selfish and self-absorbed, and at one point, older Jasmine said to present-day Sandi -- "You used to be an asshole". The thing is, there was nothing in this film that made me think that older Sandi is any less…