#2026 rewatch

We are not breaking any visual grounds with this movie, but that is okay! It redeems itself by being funny and entertaining. During one of the competition sequences, I told my girlfriend "we should just attend cheer competitions," because we were so sold on the choreographies. I really liked the costuming in this, but that's just because I love the y2k aesthetic, like they are not doing anything especially new or fun with it. I liked the ending, with the team not winning the nationals ; I enjoy when movies don't have the perfect ending, it's more realistic and grounds the story more.

There's at least one homophobic slur per scene, which you would think would bring down my appreciation of the movie severely, but it's always funny so I'm genuinely not mad about it. My only gripe with the movie is that they didn't have Missy and Torrance get gay with it. (I'm kind of assuming Missy is written to be a lesbian because she gets called a d*ke like at least five times and she never really objects to the term, so we're halfway there really.)

Overall just a really fun movie like don't take it seriously and you'll have the time of your life.

Not gonna say much cause we all know this movie is incredible. To me, personally, one of the best looking movie released this century - colours have never looked more striking. Beautifully written, shot, edited and acted. Can't wait to see whatever Wells does in the future.

What a cool and confusing movie lmao. My friend chose this as our watch for movie night this week out of sheer curiosity. I'd watched it three years ago and remembered most of it, but I was super curious to see how I would feel about it a few years later, and I think it's actually better the second time around.

The colour scheme of the whole movie is very grey and brown, and there's really barely any colours in any of the sets or costumes, lending a very serious and grave visual identity to it. I love the performances and the way barely nobody ever smiles genuinely ; at one point Olga smiles very brightly during a rehearsal scene and I remembered thinking it was out of place and felt almost jarring to see. This movie profoundly lacks real and genuine joy, and that's what makes it so good. We're looking at the life of one of the most respected orchestra conductors of modern times, but the success does not make anyone happy and actually makes everyone much sadder than you would expect them to be. Because of this success, Lydia is able to use her power to coerce and manipulate others, constantly alienating those closest to her because she's so busy playing mind-games and trying to get her way at all costs. Also, the ending of this movie is aging so well and we've kind of seen it replicated so many times in real life at this point. Like Jonathan Major doing a film for fucking Ben Shapiro's production company - having to turn to the lowest form of your art because of how little respect you have from your peers. Todd Field was seeing the future.

This is Paul Schrader's masterpiece. I'm not usually a fan of his ; his movies are very hit or miss (with a penchant for miss) and every time he expresses an opinion online I want to nuke him, but this is undeniably one of the best movies produced this century lmao.

The two most striking things to me about this movie is the cinematography and the writing, so let's talk about them.

The movie simply would not be as good if it wasn't for the 1.33:1 aspect ratio. It puts the character in a tight, almost oppressive box which mirrors the story of inescapable, impending doom. The camera almost never moves, it stays steady and has an almost impersonal relationship with the characters it's filming. When it does move, it is calm and purposeful. The colours are drab ; we're mostly dealing with greys and browns, and the few colours that do show up are watered down and drained of life. This works in the movie's favour, of course. I don't think you can make a movie about the rapid destruction of our planet in the name of greed and have every frame be vibrant and beautiful. The whole point is we've made our planet ugly and we've stolen what made her beautiful for ourselves after all. (I will be using the only colourful frame of the movie as my little picture here because it's objectively the best, but trust me the rest of the film looks sad and lifeless.)

The best part of this film, though, is the writing. A masterclass. The fact that this lost the Oscar for best original screenplay to fuck ass Green Book makes me feel violent. One of those situations that make the Academy look like an institution that does not deserve its reputation anymore. So, anyway, yeah, this is superbly written. I love the way Toller's illness and the destruction of the planet mirror each other ; we can try to ignore those problems, but they are inevitable and they will kill us in time. I love the philosophical and theological questions that are raised - will God forgive us? I love the framing of the small church that no one attends but that used to stand for what's right being controlled by the megachurch who is in cahoots with a giant, polluting corporation. Every one involved turning a blind eye, even going as far as saying, "We don't know what God's plan is, maybe he does want us to destroy his greatest creation," to look away from the involvement the church has had in this mass destruction. I love this line : "How often we ask for genuine experience when all we really want is emotion." Just incredibly layered and important and beautiful.

Obviously watching this out of sheer excitement for the third instalment after the trailer dropped yesterday. Nothing I have to say hasn't been said before but still.

Obviously, it's the most boring of the two movies we have so far. Maybe it's a pacing and editing issue, but I'm thinking it's probably more that the source material is so difficult to adapt that you kind of just had to make the first part less entertaining in order to get a second part that feels incredibly rewarding. David Lynch tried to get it all done and over with in 2 hours 15 minutes and that didn't pan out well so like overall I think this movie is just Denis being smart about how he wanted to tell the story and you really can't be too mad about it since everything else is so well executed. The performances are great, the cinematography is beautiful, the sound design is absolutely insane, the production design is astoundingly impressive, costuming creates some of my favorite garments i've seen in a movie (this is all true for both parts and from the trailer probably the 3rd one too). Just like... genuine achievement in film making, this series is.

I had seen this movie many years ago and I frankly did not remember much, but I did remember thinking nothing really happened and well... that still holds true lmao. Not that it's a bad movie, I think it's actually pretty good it's just like not that interesting. I liked the cinematography for sure, the way everyone interact with each other by flirting, and it's nothing new but Nicole Kidman is absolutely incredible and is underutilized. I also really liked Alan Cumming's like 2 minutes of screen time, very enjoyable to watch.

Apart from that, like I said, I think it's a pretty boring watch. The opening scene kind of sets you up for a Cruise/Kidman duo and they have something super interesting going on between them energy wise and then like.... you barely see her for the rest of the movie. I understand that's just not what the story was supposed to be, but it's still disappointing to see such a strong performance from her at the beginning and then to just be left with Cruise, who isn't bad... but who definitely isn't Nicole Kidman. Otherwise, this movie is just Cruise going around, not finding the people he wants to find, talking to other people, bargaining/offering money, showing his medical license... it's just not interesting. And that's really the movie's only problem like it's super well made otherwise.

It'd been nearly ten years since I had last watched this movie, so I felt compelled to revisit it when I didn't want to watch something new out of laziness lmao. I have nothing to say that hasn't been said before ; incredible cinematography, set design and costuming. The colors are lovely. Really great cast - I usually don't enjoy Jeff Goldblum as I find he's always just playing himself but he had a little something in this movie that I thought was charming... maybe it's the beard? Also love Willem Dafoe as a goon. The dialogues are funny and light which I enjoyed, but I think the story in and of itself isn't the most captivating and it struggled to keep my interest, but maybe that's because I already knew what was gonna happen, so I'm willing to take part of the blame on that one.