Days (2020) dir. Tsai Ming-liang
This film isn't going to be for everyone, but I found it beautiful. A very contemplative look into the isolation of modern day, the hope of finding respite in one night stands, and slipping back into that lonely, harmful reality as the fantasy ends and people return to their normal lives. I have a complicated relationship with my sexuality, I constantly go back and forth on whether I think I'm asexual or homosexual or just anhedonic, so I deeply resonated with the film's slowness—that feeling of being lost when everyone else seems to have it figured out, the feeling of standing still as people walk past you to work, cars drive on forward, time moves on without you.
I found this film on accident trying to look for Perfect Days (2024) on some free moviez site, and I'm honestly astounded a film found under these circumstances targeted such an emotion out of me.
watched: 30 Apr 2024
Civil War (2024) dir. Alex Garland
Civil War could've been okay if Alex Garland's thesis was that apoliticism in war journalism is stupid, but no, Garland genuinely wants this film to be apolitical and to say as little as possible. So little, that the film never exposits any worldbuilding and the viewer is completely left in the dark about what's going on for the first ~80 minutes—the only reason I had some grasp on the plot was because I saw the alliance faction map posted on Twitter before watching this. That map is the only way the viewer could know what the Western Forces were. It is never explained in the movie.
There is one decent scene with Jesse Plemons's character but you have to endure over an hour of milquetoast characters and nothingburger plot & the film does nothing to deserve it. Aside from that, the only highlight of this film was the scam website ads sprinkled throughout the playtime because I was watching a shitty camrip the day after it came out in theaters. The recent release of the AI-generated posters is just more confirmation bias for me that this movie is desperate to reap a legacy as something evocative by using shocking aesthetics while doing none of the work to deserve it, and the end result is spineless dribble. I feel like I was losing my mind seeing all the 4-5 star reviews of this film on Letterboxd! If I see this film discussed in the same sentence as Come and See (1985) one more time, I am going to fucking scream.
On a better ending note: the JCPenney Has Fallen review is great and I giggle every time I think of the phrase "JCPenney Has Fallen."
watched: 13 Apr 2024
Happy Together (1997) dir. Wong Kar Wai
A story of a tragic gay couple yearning for a spark that is no longer there and experiencing the pain bubble back to the surface in pursuit of it; plus the yearning for something romantic in your platonic relationships that will ultimately never be reciprocated; all while in an environment that is foreign and failing to integrate no matter how hard you try—all this, told through Wong Kar Wai's beautiful lens? Of course I'm eating this shit up man! It's too good. I could love Wong's films based on cinematography alone but he always knocks it out of the park when portraying love in all its ugly nuances.
watched: 10 Apr 2024
Yakuza 5: Remastered
An absolute banger beginning to end. RGG Studios knew they had something special with Yakuza 4 but didn't quite meet it at it's full potential—Yakuza 5 is their all-out, no-holds-barred rematch at this type of storytelling and it resulted in one of the most fulfilled and poignant entires in the series. Cemented RGG as a masterclass in character writing for me. Also unironcally made me want to get into watching baseball while playing Shinada's part.
finished playing: 3 Apr 2024
Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression - and the Unexpected Solutions by Johann Hari
When I was in my last year of college in 2021, my roommates had completely forgone masking, and my school was in the process of removing all remote accomodations implemented during the pandemic, while weekly COVID counts were at all-time reported highs. I was spiraling, no one was listening to me, so I needed to get out. The only way I could get remote accomodation was through the disability office, and the only way I thought I could "prove myself" to need remote accommodations was to get officially diagnosed with depression and to start taking medication. This said, I really resonated with the sections that tore into Big Pharma and how research for anti-depressants was tailored to sell them at a larger scale. I didn't go into my medication thinking it would help much, but it's shocking just how little they actually did (for me), so it's half-reassuring, half-maddening to hear that they don't work for a many people by design.
Aside from some of the overly-preachy sections, reading this was very comforting when I was spiraling over my awful job. Reading the stories of the different mutual aid communities makes me feel hopeful that I'll be able to find a community of friends, allies, comrades for my own. It's very funny see the negative reviews dismiss this book as socialist propaganda, because I thought Hari didn't go in enough regarding the social changes. Like, maybe this is just me, but a universal basic income and being able to afford A Place To Stay would help alleviate of a lot of my day to day anxiety!!!
finished reading: 22 Jan 2024
IMMORTALITY
My first Sam Barlow game. This is the most excited I've been about a project in a long time. Finding new clips felt exhilarating, and figuring out the plotlines of the films as they were entangled with the social drama of the in-universe cast and directors was so much god damn fun. My issues arise with the end game: I got the credits roll when I felt like I was only halfway done, and the search for the last 20-10% of clips felt impossible as all the new symbols I discovered would lead back to previously discovered scenes. I'm also on the fence about the "true" ending: I think this game could have ended on a much stronger thematic note as a grounded piece uncovering the cycle of power and abuse as all the men in Marissa's life fail her from a young age. But even saying that, I was really moved by the Candy Says scene. I'm so glad I got to play this, I am very excited for more titles from Barlow and his team.
finished playing: 26 Nov 2023
VA-11 Hall-A: Cyberpunk Bartender Action
I wanted this to be a nice cool-down game where I can turn my brain off and just serve drinks to people, just as the game advertises itself, but the writing was just so bad. The cyberpunk genre lends itself to a critique on capitalism, but it's made very clear very early that the game is only using the aesthetic set-dressing and none of the genre's ethos. The first NPC I served drinks to was a boss who was complaining about his employees not working hard enough (in the already crunch-heavy field of journalism), and the main character—working a minimum wage customer service job she hates—has nothing meaningful to say regarding that power dynamic at all. Nothing about the status quo is challenged. Nothing is explored in any way that felt meaningful. This is only a game about serving drinks, and the gameplay of serving those drinks kinda sucks.
stopped playing: 26 Nov 2023