“Memories of Murder” The gem of South Korean cinema. One of the best movies ever made, there is no dull moment nor poor performance in this story of South Korea's first serial killer. Bong Joon Ho's masterpiece manages the impossible: transcending the screen becoming a part of the history of South Korea itself in the pursuit of the serial murderer-rapist that was still considered at large in those early 2000s. I’ve been privileged to enjoy this movie in every decade since its release and thought about it often while visiting that mountainous peninsula.
“Come and see” The best war movie ever made. Bar none. The main character, Flyora, a teen with a loving mother and sisters and a zest for adventure has his innocence broken by the Nazi death machine as it tries grinding the Slavic people to dust. It is so sour, the experience of war, so trite and pointless, you wonder how anyone can see any value in it at all. The tension is so palpable and violence so harrowing that you will wonder how fascists can still exist today in public without being immediately executed by a mob of people—this feels like more than a movie to me.
“Seven Samurai” Kurosawa’s masterpiece, pure talent from every angle, this story follows a very unlikely group of mercenary samurai tasked by an intelligent leader to save a very poor village from marauders. Toshiro Mifune is so entertaining that he alone could carry the whole movie on his back, but doesn’t have to, as every performance complements everything else in this film. The action-adventure and complications of adapting to the enemy’s motives and the environment are so spot-on in a way that’s hard to elucidate; I became a more enlightened person after watching this. This is truly one of the best films ever made.
Daniel Day-Lewis's performance is so strong that it elevates an already great movie into something perfect. What would you sacrifice for the black riches buried deep in those hills? For Mr. Plainview the answer is everything. In the end he's wealthy beyond measure, alone and utterly miserable but very wealthy. Completely cut-off from his humanity he becomes a wart on society and finally fully breaks when has to explain a very important concept to remember: drainage.
A freshly partnered duo of detectives attempt to track down very malevolent forces in otherworldly Louisiana bayous over two decades. This one season* show is some of the best television ever produced. Every episode is notable, including the one where Rust infiltrates his old biker gang again and goes into the ghetto, the long tracking shot was at the time beyond belief; the last time I saw a long shot like that was in Children of Men but the medium is so different it elevated this show, remarkable. *There are rumours of other seasons, but those delusions are easily proven incorrect, only the first season exists.
“Akira” The greatest animated movie that will probably ever exist. In a dying Tokyo Tetsuo's degeneration is heartbreaking, Kaneda's bravery is epic and the events leading up to the second coming of Akira are put into motion. A unique combination of peak Japanese economy and extreme culturally-honed animation talent combine to make this government-coordinated masterpiece. Akira creates a whole universe and then makes it come to life unlike anything before or since. There are no amount of praises enough for this movie, nearly every movie after, live-action, animated, is marked with many of Akira's signatures.
“Hatred” Dynamic and real this is a story about the ghetto, the police, the people forced to deal with both. I could not believe how well-shot this movie was—the writing too, is impeccable. The characters feel so alive you could swear you have met analogues of all these people in your actual life. Police antagonisms are so shameful and until the contradictions in society are resolved there will be no peace.
Frankly one of the most creative shows to have ever had public release, every episode is a cacophony of bizarre interludes and adult madness dressed in childish trappings. The most creative episode I've ever seen in the history of television was the last episode of the first season titled: patience...I nearly went mad when I realised what they were doing, a true test of patience.
The FBI hunts down a prolific skinning-murderer of women. Ask any lady who was alive in the early 90s to tell you how it felt to watch this; the fear this movie strikes in their hearts cannot be understated. The idea of using a monstrous hyper-intelligent cannibal to catch a disturbed faux-transsexual killer was not only brilliant, but gave us some of the scariest characters to ever grace the screen: Hannibal and Buffalo Bill. Helping 'broken-bird' strangers with vans was never the same again.
Spooky Mulder is forced to team up with the highly competent and very skeptical Scully, together they challenge faith, science, and the possibility of alien life. Never has a time existed where I didn’t enjoy this duo exploring the deepest mysteries of society: alien, inhuman, monstrous. This show gave every imaginative person a lot to lose themselves in, and was a catalyst for the alien craze of the 90s, to great effect. Many episodes are favourites, especially many from the first four seasons or so. In the 90s I even managed to go to a meet-and-greet with the actors, massive green plastic alien in-hand and all. The truth is out there.
Detectives in a perpetually rainy and grimy American city follow the biblical clues of a very odd serial killer. The crimes disgusted me, the methods were so brutal and the expert directing made it all worse, this is really such a creepy movie. The acting is also top notch and as usual Kevin Spacey with little screen time manages to enrapture the audience. The atmosphere of this movie stuck with me since I first watched it decades ago as I always felt a fondness for the darkness of 90s crime settings.
Derek, pinnacle neo-Nazi, becomes incarcerated after a retaliating against black thieves who try stealing his truck, his experiences inside change his view on the utility of race-hate; its illogical nature becomes very readily apparent. Edward Norton plays a Nazi skinhead so accurately it’s chilling. Real hate is a chaotic and destructive maelstrom with humble beginnings that belies its nature to destroy everyone and everything around you. This movie does not hold back, and when the teeth grind the pavement it astounds you what people can do to each other. I only wish they would've kept the director's original ending where Derek shaves his head and returns to form.
A sad, quiet future punctuated by war, violence, and cruelty awaits a childless humanity, but there may be a new hope. As usual, Clive Owen is stellar and shows us, reluctantly, this dying anti-human surveilled and pathetic United Kingdom. The direction of this movie is as inspired as the story: a miserable future without progeny, the truest form of extinction for humankind. It’s been a little depressing watching this movie feel more relevant each passing decade since its release.
“Paranoia Agent” Through director Satoshi Kon’s singular genius a relieving social contagion spreads swiftly through a paranoid, overworked and miserable Japan. This contagion, Lil’ Slugger, ‘attacks’ people seemingly or not so seemingly at random. The animation and music are very very good, but the story and writing and by extension the understanding of psychology and society are what make this show one of the most insightful animated shows to have existed. I have been hypnotically entranced with this since its release thanks to Toonami and, of course, its stellar opening.
The rage virus, true horror—one of the most frightening movies of the modern era. The United Kingdom is destroyed by an accidentally released pathogen, a dazed and hospital-gowned Cillian Murphy wanders the wasteland created by this rage virus. The trailer alone was enough to make me have nightmares for about a week; after it released I could barely watch parts of it at home. It was one thing to have zombies and their slow and shuffling shamble, fast ‘zombies’? Infected? Yea, no thank you. Eight years after the movie released I happened to be in Cambridge and realised I had walked right by a suspiciously familiar building that was the establishing shot for the Primate Research Facility…I was petrified: ground zero!
Technology cannot solve societal problems. This anthology programme outlines the absurdities of modern and near-future uses of technology, how it changes us very often in ways we do not desire. When I heard rumblings of a show soon-to-be-released dealing with such topics I knew I had to tune in. The first series of this show was one of the most transformative things I watched in the 2010s; it translated the immense disturbances so many people felt were coming, and in some ways already here. It wasn’t easy to watch when first released as it was quite unknown; series 1 is the only whole good series of the show but there are a few episodes between that and series 3...anything past that does not exist.
The intersection between society, computers, and the fascistic police come to a head in this movie. Probably the best and most stylish technology-focused film set in some semblance of current reality, this movie was certainly inspired by the videotaped beating of Rodney King in Los Angeles. I was well and truly surprised by how good this movie was, what great commentary, and what a bleak but beautifully shot vision of the future—maximum effort was put into this. Its millennium complications can be taken as a lesson twenty years on, our degeneration has certainly reached a high level. We are in odd times and I find myself often repeating that we are, truly, in strange days.
A truly subversive satirical show, Morris knows exactly where the limit is and then counts, to your face, how many steps he takes beyond it. So much of this comedy is dissecting the absurdity of then-current society and the many failures of the British media to recognise their own complicity in making the world a worse place. In many ways the uniquely permissive years of the 90s allowed for an amount of creativity that belies us now...humanity the way it is in modernity feels like the one thing we did not want to happen.
“The Hunter” A school teacher with few friends and little family gets embroiled in an justifiably emotionally-charged scandal involving a student, a little girl. Every man’s greatest fear made into a wrenching film, starring one of the best actors from the land of Danes, I felt so uncomfortable knowing what was to come, this casual destruction of a man’s life, not out of malice but out of childish innocence. You can’t even be upset with the little girl for what she did, what a horribly great film.
The penultimate play-movie, this is about the people who scramble to make money by the skin of their teeth using wit alone. Ridiculously good acting and a deceptively interesting story make this film extraordinary. If you haven’t watched it by now, why not tonight? We’re all busy people, but wouldn’t you rather not embarrass yourself at a future party discussing how great this movie is instead of saying, oh I never got a chance? This movie is a hat trick to being a little more cultured—I guarantee half of the people you know have already enjoyed it. Give this movie twenty minutes of your time and you’ll be better off than a whole week of boring same-old regularly scheduled programming.
“Dead Man’s Letters” Nuclear holocaust in stark relief. Its style is so unique it gives great effect to the misery of living in the dying days of humanity; nothing is left after nuclear armageddon and the survivors make futile attempts to live the rest of their miserable lives. There are so many horrors you do not get to witness in this and as a result your imagination runs rampant with the worst images you can conjure. There are no heroes, there is no hope: no one wins a nuclear war.
Only the highest quality jingoism—a perfectly crafted anti-Soviet flick about saving the Soviet Union from themselves, this was the peak of the empire’s efforts to make a movie in this vein. Hyper-competent red-blooded Americans who live in big houses in exotic locales with delicate wives and cute-as-a-button daughters, top of their game, top of their class, every gear in sync. CIA? Good guy geniuses. Most-inconsequential-seamen? Good guy experts. Officers? Good guys with intuition. Ruskies? Clueless, propagandised, unlike us Kennedy Americans who don’t have to trick ourselves; we eat Lays™ on the couch and drive Ford™ F150s, it’s our manifest destiny. Ruskies…don’t you know, a dour people, give em’ a chance and show them how to really consume, they don’t know life until they’ve walked the shores of Nantucket with the arms of a Ralph Lauren sweater wrapped around their neck. Lo-and-behold, the smartest among them graduated into being Americans, because inside every Soviet citizen is an American yearning to be free. Subtle stuff. Totally enjoyable and an exciting watch.
Mark and Jez are two awkward manchildren who are stumbling their way through a Blairite United Kingdom, their insecurities in tow. For the first four series I couldn't believe how good this show was, the comedy is biting and the point-of-view shots really were (and still are) so novel. The El Dude 'Brothers' Mark and Jez are the such affable losers, it's outrageous and maybe a little contagious to those around them. In the early 2010s I found out that the show did not in fact end after one of the most incredible episodes of comedy television, series 4 last episode, in my mind it did. Best watched after nicking a snack.
Theme park movie extraordinaire. Tom Cruise runs and hides from the 9/11 allegory alien menace that's rode the lightning to their infernal machines parked below us. I've loved this movie since it released, and is probably my top three personal favourite movies. What's enhanced it so is the set they built for it still stands at Universal in Hollywood; I've been there probably two dozen times and it never gets old, just like this movie and the loud horns that emanate from the terroris— alien's machines.
Am I not economically viable? A former employee of ‘D-FENS’ is broken by modern society. The only value any person has in capitalist America is their economic viability, secondarily future, primarily present. Fury against a confusing, agitating, endlessly nonsensical society channeled into this very fun movie. I find it hard to trust people who dislike this film—Michael Douglas’s character meets his black counterpart going through the same throes of madness as him, to great approval, only to realise that despite simply holding a sign and letting his voice be heard he’s immediately roughed up and ‘taken care of’ by the LAPD, all the while Douglas’s character walks right on by with a duffel bag full of guns.
A cargo ship holding colonists, and a very dangerous criminal, crash lands on a planet with endless days...but not all is as it seems. Another young favourite the universe of Riddick gave me so much to fantasise about in those early days of the new millennium. A science fiction movie that actually likes itself and isn't exclusively inhabited by oddballs makes this top dog in my book. I'd pay any amount of menthol KOOLs to be transported (albeit maybe with an amount of invincibility) to this wild place.
A family tussles with their orphan daughter’s vivid dreams, her mother absconds with her against the wishes of the father to a very special place: Silent Hill. Fantastic nightmare atmosphere, this movie is a mashing up of various parts of the games but succeeds in being entertaining to get very lost in. What makes this film excel are the randomly spirited performances by half its cast, the dancers who were hired to play the monsters doing a truly disturbing job, and the lack of restraint in the brutality of this foggy Pennsylvania town where the coal still burns underground—Toluca Lake seems pleasant otherwise.
Where we’re going, we won’t need eyes to see. A crew sent to investigate a highly classified experimental vessel located deep near Neptune that can fold spacetime encounter things beyond explanation. What feels like the canonical beginning to warp drives in Warhammer 40k this movie is simply awesome. Horror beyond dimensions and beyond time lurk in the warp. So many surprisingly spirited performances by very well-respected actors just enhances the effect of being truly screwed a billion miles from anyone else. I still pray that someone is able to magically find undamaged negatives so we can get a 4k remaster.
Parkourists attempt to pull off multiple heists to help a community member’s very sick child. This broke open parkour for all those 'in the know' back in the 2000s along with District B13 later on. Suddenly everyone wanted to start training to use the neighbourhood walls and railings as a jungle gym/means of transport...that was until we discovered the mid-20s seemed to be the end-of-life for parkourists, I like my joints functional thank you! The story was surprisingly gripping for being a vehicle for the parkour, which was great, because it was so incredibly incredibly cool.
The military research facility next to a sleepy town in Maine builds something very mysterious to a place very dangerous, spilling forth fauna and flora from an unknown dimension. A mysterious, disturbing and apocalyptic Stephen King horror movie, with a big emphasis on the ending: one of the most heartrending and shocking outcomes of any movie based on his works. The ending is so good in fact that apparently Stephen King enjoys it more than the book, very brutal. The creature design for this was really stellar.
Jingoism for the choco-chip camo contingent just in time for the West’s Middle East adventure 2.0. A really well done war movie with just about every up-and-coming actor of the time about how hard it is to be the World Police. American patriots otherwise known as simple farm boys (who are simultaneously naturally gifted super-soldiers who mean no harm) in dusty dangerous and scary black Africa where you need to keep an eye out for those spontaneously generating warlords, do a good deed and decide to help out the starving Somalis...only to be met with pain from unhelpful backwards people who spawn infinite copies of themselves coming out of the womb with AK-47s. This is my safety *pulls trigger finger in front of CO while getting Trichinosis*.
Denzel, a hardworking blue-collar worker, is forced to navigate the American healthcare system with time against his family. One of the only movies I’ve seen that presents the correct solution to an unjust system: violence against the system. And not only that, his actions are celebrated at every turn with nary a hint of sympathy towards capital holders, a rare feat in a Hollywood bent on suppressing the real. On release many I knew loved this movie for its message, and many of those people did question why weren’t more movies made with these same themes and resolutions as it was so satisfying. The same system that enables the horror of dying children either allowed this as a release-valve or slipped and let this film through the cracks.
Impeccable design meets super-niche animated Japanese comedy. A somehow independent baby living with a sentient bottle in an apartment, harassed by both a landlord she hates and by The President (he stinks!) who recruits her for help, no one was doing it like Japan in those halcyon days. Half of the jokes will go over 99% of people's heads, but it'll at least be interesting and wacky while doing it. The English dub is worthwhile.
A (then) modern day American apocalypse-fantasy, cancer is cured until it turns into a virus that changes humanity forever. Here you're asked to channel Will Smith through the screen, drive a cool brand new car, be a cool scientist, have your cool German Shepherd, get all your favourite foods and carry around a cool gun while living in my cool brickstone multi-million multi-level Tribeca tree-fort of solitude B-) . Also you're now socially completely stunted since everyone is dead; ironically this isolation aspect of the movie works better every passing year. A very close family member and I auditioned for this movie back in 2005/2006 for the cacophony of monster voices, that makes this movie extra special for me.
“Rurouni Kenshin” The quirky and exciting adventures of Battousai the Manslayer, your past follows you for life, very nostalgic music included. One of my favourite, if not my #1 favourite, animated shows as a youth—I even had the manga. Kenshin’s reverse edge blade and his dedication to pacifism was always a really great contrast to his heyday of brutal assassinations, that dichotomy really tickled my fancy.
People find themselves trapped in a box connected to other boxes, the question is escaping this madness without getting maimed. You would think this would be trite and boring, a gimmick movie, instead it’s fun, intriguing and not only that but visually interesting. The 90s really was filled with these weird little movies that knew exactly how serious to take itself, cool set designs, unafraid to be odd. Some of the music too near the ending is quite bizarre—highly reminiscent of dark Spanish villages in 2005 so to speak.
“My Sassy Girl” Sometimes romance finds you in the most unlikely of places. One of the very first South Korean movies I watched or heard about, the novelty and honest nature of it really stuck with me. The lead actress Gianna is so charismatic it really elevates what would be a normal romantic comedy.
“It really happened! Cursed video(s)” The most base form of wanting to get spooked by spooky videos. The original Japanese series that started the trend (I think) in earnest and on VHS for home viewing. There about two million of these now but the first few really make you want to believe in that cold breeze on your back, or that hand on your shoulder in the dark—be very afraid!
The world explodes one locale at a time thanks to neutrinos, and depending on your age and gender you can choose your character! Adventurous disaster-movie aesthetics, the script is a decoration to see CGI mayhem: Los Angeles sink into the ocean, Yosemite explode, and thousand foot tsunamis crash into hapless bystanders. Everyone involved is aware this is a vehicle for a really nice paycheque and the opportunity to star in a timely (cue the jokes we had for YEARS leading up to the year 2012 being the end of the world) blockbuster. A complete theme park ride is what this is, and that's what makes it a massive amount of fun. It never tries to be more than what it is.
Purest post-9/11, late Obama-era jingoism about hard men who die for no good reason because the US made Gaddafi choose the wrong hiding place; straight from the source brother. Turn your brain off ranger and pretend you're a god-blessed American spec-ops operator highspeedlowdrag (my beard just instantly grew beyond regs oorah) brother. With a bald eagle stars-and-stripes tattoo somewhere who gets shit done (I just put my Oakleys™ on) and whose perpetually pregnant worried-but-understanding wife at home in the Midwest (blonde or redhead only) you're just trying to get back to, which you WILL scare in the night by pieing the doorway because of PTSD brother. After being in hellscape Middle Eastern country #538 (montage of Gaddafi looking menacing) you bring back a toy to show your confused daughter dad really fights for no free healthcare at home and the CIA (it's stained with blood of fallen brethren also the VA denied your claim). If you watch five times in a row you unlock a special Hilldawg Clinton ending No Russian style brother god bless the USA in this house we stand for the anthem.
“VII VIII IX” The mouse strikes back against good taste. A girl becomes woman-Luke and everything else is a rehash of the original trilogy except a few things inverted, and when it deviates from the formula creates crimes-against-storytelling. What a mistake this entire new trilogy was—so many great actors, many of whom were actually trying, only to be completely made moot by the world’s most contrived story and directing. How wasteful of resources, time, effort, money, acting careers, an entire franchise that despite a flawed prequel trilogy had some really interesting stories to tell. Merchandise sales were paramount in the minds of every executive involved, but someone forgot to tell them that nothing is more pathetic than a desperate addict.
these weird boys wanted to play this old bored game its like 80s its how it was and meet a girl who onlyknowshernameasanumber because theres an experement BUT theystillhavehomework...and like unalived scientists did something wierd to her, OH yea no smartphones + computers are really old its an asthetic likeee...11 isnt normal shes moving things but not touching it, people are d*eingitssosaddd they go to the upside down to fight a alein ican’texplainit and yeah you have to watch it. Imagine a world where you weren’t allowed to watch any Spielberg movies, or any movie from the 1980s as a matter-of-fact. That’s the world so many kids inhabit today, somehow, inexplicably. Now imagine you’re a duplicitous adult who recognises this and doesn’t mind making a really crap Spielberg analogue that is not only poor art but deceptively entertaining the way a Snickers bar is fulfilling. Now go further, imagine you’d expect the target audience of this overwrought simulacra of the 80s to just go straight to the source after watching a few episodes, but instead they sit silently scrolling, overly stimulated and stunted through no fault of their own, under the careful eye of their simultaneously neglectful yet paranoid helicopter parents. The fact that this was made is an indictment on America’s modern cultural landscape.
Haunted red crappy submarine kills a bunch of sailors thanks to evil haunted commie incompetence, radioactively. Unusually poor for the calibre of production. Some covert funding source in coordination with the studio made something it was clear no one wanted to make. The government liaison in charge of ensuring the movie was sufficiently anti-communist enough was derelict in going beyond just that...he or she certainly became a bit lazy and winded up trying to herd cats by the end and it shows.
A miserable and honestly sort of pathetic attempt at the exciting jingoism of old, a dying empire’s last breath so to speak. SEALS THINK OF BOOK IDEAS IN AN INDIA ROMEO ALPHA QUEBEC’S LIVING ROOM AND PRETEND THEY’RE IN LA JOLLA WHILE BALANCING A FOXTROT-FOXTROT SIERRA ON THEIR NOSES WAITING FOR SOMETHING INSCRUTABLE. YOU REALLY GET THE FULL EXPERIENCE OF EVERYTHING HAPPENING IN A MODERN WARZONE, THE SOUNDS AND SIGHTS TAKE AFTER THE LATEST NVIDIA GRAPHICS CARD IN THE SENSE THAT IT TRIES TO REPLICATE REALITY BECAUSE THAT’S MWUAPMUAPMUAP WHAT? IT TRIES TO MAKE THINGS AS REAL AS POSSIBLE AND SERVE AS A VEHICLE FOR ACTORS FIRST, WHICH MAKES IT REALLY IRONICALLY DISRESPECTFUL NO MATTER HOW MANY TIMES THEY WENT TO THE SHOOTING RANGE TO PRETEND TO PLAY SOLDIER OR HAD MWUAPMWUAP ON SET APPROVING OF THEIR WRIST ANGLE. MY HEARING DAMAGE WASN’T SERVICE RELATED GO FIGURE.
Canadian radio guy is in a room in the cold. Just extremely boring. The set is boring the acting is boring the plot bores me, writing this even thinking about this movie is a chore. This is melatonin in movie form for me...and I thought it was just me, I had someone else watch it and they were so averse to this that they become viscerally frustrated and wanted me to turn the movie off. Yea, night night.
A foolish man inherits foolishness. Watching this on release as a kid, arguably the only demographic that could be vaguely entertained by this movie, was not enough to make this remotely passable. Maybe one of the worst movies I've ever seen in my lifetime, I am personally not turtle-y enough for any kind of turtle club at any age and in any capacity. I deserve a refund for my 2002 ticket + inflation.