ok i really liked this movie. i think that the way people who benefit from atrocities like the holocaust or other genocides can just like, turn it into background noise, is so deeply fascinating and i think this movie has a very interesting take on presenting that.

when i watch this movie, i think about israel. i think about the israelis putting up chairs and cheering at the bombs dropping on gaza after october 7th. there is something so deeply unsettling and real about the way people can normalize evil, even turning it into entertainment. the zone of interest almost never really like, tells you like "hey isnt this fucked up that this family is living right next to auschwitz and they dont even care". but in almost every single scene in this movie you can see the walls of auschwitz. you can hear gunshots and screaming and suffering, all the while the family the movie focuses on hardly ever even acknowledge it. this is just life to them and they have no issue with it. they love living there, even. the deep contempt and hatred you have to have inside of you for other people to be able to live like this is unimagineable to me

it was almost kind of hard to even enjoy the movie while watching it. i wanted to look away even though no violence is ever directly portrayed on screen, only the sound. but at the same time i think this is such an important topic to explore and talk about. the normalization of violence and suffering is such an important core of any government that executes violence upon others (note: this is all of them! every government is violent). theres the extreme examples like the one depicted in this movie or the one i mentioned earlier from israel, but even the way the military is glorified in western media is another facet of this. we're told violence is good and heroic and we happily depict and roleplay scenarios of needless violence until its so normalized no one even bats an eye. enemies of the state are dehumanized until we just accept people being treated like animals.

idk where im going with this ramble! the world is a scary place. the zone of interest is a good movie.

That was incredible, that was- You just had a near-death experience.
Yeah
That's what it feels like when you feel like you're gonna die.
It's powerful, isn't it?
Yeah, it is
There was about two seconds there, after you were done being scared. Where it looked like you wanted to kill me.
I don't take it personally. I think it was a visceral reaction, you know? There's an animal in you.
Anybody you need to make peace with in this world? Before you go?

so first of all i only watched this movie because it's sampled in attacking vertical by femtanyl. im sorry about the long quote but i wanted to include the bit that's sampled lol. its important context!!!

ok i mean i did thoroughly enjoy the movie but like. it's just bad. it is just absolutely not good at doing anything it sets out to do. i like the first half only cuz it's like all so silly it was so fun to watch. but like for the most part any attempt at actually scaring me fell completely flat. i do love the characters tho, even if it isn't in the way the movie intended.

also you know the scene that's sampled in attacking vertical? i was soo disappointed. i was really hoping for more.

ok that was the review and then as i was about to post this i found out... they made a sequel??? i like literally assumed that this movie wouldve been like critically panned for how poorly it executes its premise but instead its like. theyre making a trilogy??? out of this? im sorry when i saw the word sequel on the wikipedia page for this movie i literally started laughing. maybe i should check it out

ok ok i liked this one. maybe even loved it actually. it just like gets better and better the further it takes the premise. the way it mixes humour with like really sharp criticisms and reflections around systemic racism and resistance makes it so i like switched between like. one scene im laughing and then suddenly the next scene im crying because like oh my god.

i thought i was gonna love this one!!! a movie about like, a weak-willed man who turns to fascism for approval from peers? i thought that sounded like suuch a good basis for a movie. but i just felt kinda disappointed when the angle was more like "damn this guy turned out to be a loser because he was sexually abused as a child" and its like... most fascists do not have tragic backstories. i think that the loneliness behind many fascists is much more fascinating to explore than like. what if someone became fascist because they were sexually abused. because like, the vast majority of people who turn to fascism under fascist countries do it to fit in!!! theyre not doing it because theyre dissatisfied with themselves because of some horrible trauma from their childhood.

i did like the ending of the movie though, especially if you imagine what preceded it to be what i wanted and not what the movie was. instantly switching sides when your side is losing is like. thats what i wanted this movie to focus on. the kind of guy who only believes what he does because the ones he looks up to believes it. also like there are some nice shots. its a good looking movie at least. and i enjoyed the conversations between the guy and his old principal.

i enjoyed it. sort of a confusing experience to watch but like. also a very engaging portrayal of isolation and going mad stuck with your own thoughts. the constant metronome-like relationship between the two characters and the complete uncertainty about what is going on in either of their heads was fun!!

watched this movie again. its still reallllly good. all-time fav. was good to watch something good again

its fine. its fineee. its ok.

i dont feel like i have a lot to say about it ok! watching it feels more like watching slop even if i still think there are some good messages in this season. and like i appreciated the attempt with the trans character. its clear theyre trying their best and i think the message is nice. but its also just kinda like. half of this season was just call of duty. the season's ending feels so abrupt. the creator should get a break. etc. etc. etc.. thats all. the season mostly feels like it just exists to build up to a season 3. it doesnt feel like its meant to stand on its own. so like. ok

i really need to watch like a good movie again soon

i really thought i'd like this one based on the little i read about it before watching it! i didn't really like it at all though. idk if that's the movies fault or my own. it's cool for a movie to do wild experimental things, and i don't automatically hate shock value. but it felt like nothing this movie did aided it's message or concept. it just felt like the director had some thoughts and was like ok chexh this out i bet you've never seen THIS in a movie before huh? and it's like yeah sure you're right but like. what are you even saying. is this a good way to get across what you're saying or is it like maybe not?

it feels like any interesting message just kinda gets lost in constant meaningless drawn-out sexualization that serves noo fucking purpose. maybe im just crazy but i think that shower rape scene couldve been one second long or zero seconds long and it would not negatively impact the movie!! all the "avant-garde" things in this movie feels more like self-indulgence on the creators' side. some movies you like the more you think about them, but this movie i just dislike the more i think about it. i was trying so hard to see the good in this movie and the more i think about it the more i feel only the bad has really stuck at all.

idk. i found it hard to relate to anything in this movie, or to find anything that resonates. i was waiting for it all to come together and start feeling meaningful at some point but it just never happened for me.

i do not think atypical is like. a very good show. i watch significant chunks of it with gritted teeth, and also i cant stop thinking about this clip i saw of the actor of the dad in this show where hes like spouting just the most horrid things about palestine and palestine activists etc.. which is really very irrelevant to my opinion on the show but i just thought i'd throw that out there... there is like a noticeable jump in improvement between season 1 and the further seasons, where they did sort of listen to criticism about making a show about autism without having any autistic writers or actors. the main character isnt played by an autistic person, but in subsequent seasons they do add some supporting characters who i think(?) are actually played by autistic actors. so like, cool! but i still kinda just find the portrayal of autism in this show soo... i dont know what the word is. surface-level? maybe i want something that speaks to my experience and not something thats made to educate neurotypicals, but i just feel like something's lacking.

also uhh why was i watching this mediocre show about autism you ask? i have like a ridiculous amount of nostalgia about it because i originally watched it around the time it came out, which was. a time for me. i was being diagnosed with autism for like the 6th time in my life and i was begging the psychologist not to give me a diagnosis because it could impact my ability to get hormones and stuff. so like at the time i kinda appreciated a surface-level view of things, i guess? and then also theres this whole other big plot of like. the mom cheating on the dad and guess what had just happened in my life when i saw this show the first time? my dad had just cheated on my mom. so i related a lot to the character casey in like, i guess a lot of her problems. moving to a new school where you know nobody but everybody knows each other, one of your parents cheating and trying to pretend its all normal. luckily the show spends quite a lot of time on casey so you can really just kinda pretend that sam is some side character who doesnt usually matter so much and only focus on casey.

i still dont like, recommend the show though. only recommend it if you're a 16 year old having a complicated relationship with your autism, just moved to a new school, and your parents are splitting up because one of them cheated but the one who cheated is pretending everything's fine and refusing to just like acknowledge what they did. maybe if youre in like that exact scenario, the show might resonate like a tiny bit with you. and you'd be 16 so your standards might be pretty low also. otherwise dont watch this show

endless coincidences one after another compounding into ridiculous scenarios is like my favourite brand of comedy and this does that really well, but doesn't stop itself there. i was worried early on about its portrayal of Hana, but by the end this movie's love and compassion for all the people it portrays shines through. while also being a goofy movie it simultaneously manages to be such a loving, compassionate view of people in society often looked down upon, while also not being scared to portray the messiness inherent. i love movies about families.

ok shes kinda girlbossing tho

im still kinda rotating this in my brain. theres some neat stuff in this movie! i think maybe i'd benefit from rewatching it someday, i think i watched it with the wrong expectations? but like, reflecting more on the movie after finishing it im realizing i really appreciated the way it completely subverts the premise in a way i didnt expect at all. there are several really good scenes in the movie that i'll probably remember for a while because of how good they were at conveying such emotions, and i absolutely loved how Silent the movie was at so many points. there was so much happening visually, but often with nothing but silent droning in the background. it puts you in the shoes of the main character in a way that really pays off in the last half.

ok yeah now that ive started rambling a bit i actually think this movie was really good??? i rated it like 3 stars earlier on letterboxd but like what was i thinking man. this is at least a 4 star. or something. idk stars dont mean much. but like, i for sure liked this movie. the more i think about it its like. ok you could have made a sort of mid sci-fi horror movie about a girlboss alien killing lonely men. but instead its about this alien slowly becoming more vulnerable in its isolation on this lone planet, growing empathy for the people on it, trusting others, and then having that trust completely shattered. trying to be more like the people she's growing empathetic towards but constantly being reminded of how she's fundamentally incapable of being like them. i cant stop rotating that ending in my head and its like ok maybe i love this movie a little bit. just a little bit.

ok. edit after several weeks (11/01/2025): mayybe i dont like this movie that much actually. i think i need to see it again. i thought it was soo cool when i thoughtt about it after i watched it but now i keep thinking about it and being like yeah ok but the movie was also like really boring. maybe they shouldve made it less boring. maybe i just have to watch it again cuz i got bored by my own misplaced expectations. who knows! probably wont watch it again in a long while tho cuz my watchlist is endless...

i loved this movie! i dont know how well i can articulate my feelings for it beyond that!!!

you can tell the movie was made on a budget and you can tell its a passion project from someone who really knew what they wanted to do. ive not seen a movie thats so relatable to my experience being trans like ever. this movie is so direct about all of it, instead of speaking through layers and layers of metaphors. its not that i have anything against metaphors, but i just loved seeing a character in a movie that just says "im trans, and here is my explicitly trans story"

im just happy this movie exists in the world. who knew a queer coming-of-age batman parody movie could be so fucking good

emotionally crushing movie. i loved it. so sweet and so heartbreaking. the way that normal society frowns upon those who dare be imperfect but find each other despite it all, is presented so well in this movie, and the scenes with yuri and nobuyo really really hit me. so heartfelt, so sweet, i cried so much.

this movie was alright! i enjoyed noriko's dinner table more, but this was good horror. its presentation of peer pressure was super chilling and felt real. i love when movies have people, especially younger people, be so nonchalant about murder and suicide. it feels very recognizable to my experience from like high school and middle school. stuff in the news can feel so intense that it seems almost ridiculous and you just can't help but try to find humour in it. it's interesting watching this movie today, when it feels like every year there is some new scary online thing trying to get kids to kill themselves, or theres always some dangerous trend going around. cool movie, very unsettling

What if I really was someone else? Someone beautiful and powerful. Someone buried alive and suffocating to death. But I know that's not true. That's just fantasy.

ok im saying this about like literally every movie ive seen lately but like wow what a movie. the way it portrays escapism and queer identity and the intersection and ohhhh this movie resonates alright. i don't know if i can put words to how it resonates beyond that. what if i really was someone else was a question i asked and rejected so many times before i finally accepted the question. time moves so fast when you're just an empty shell of someone you're not meant to be. it goes beyond even just recognising that i was trans but even exploring who i really am, how i really want to express my gender, i still feel like sometimes i evade the question of who i really am sometimes. sometimes not being me feels like the easier choice but god if it doesn't also drive you mad down the road of longing and what-ifs. it's only recently that ive really tried to grasp this. to unapologetically be myself no matter what others might think. some people never get to do that.

this movie and we're all going to the world's fair are so good. they explore these themes of unreality and escapism and identity so well in such different but equally captivating ways. thank you jane schoenbrun

It's always like that. I'm always a little late.

what a beautiful movie. i love kore-eda's work so much. the way he lets the audience sit in those grounded, mundane moments that speak volumes when you give them the chance. still walking is such a simple, but powerful story about family and grief. the way it slowly reveals more and more about the relationship in a way that feels so natural was so captivating. the end of the movie absolutely crushed me, i couldn't help but cry. it makes you think about how important it is to set aside time for your loved ones while you still can. most, i think, can relate to "always being a little late" with everything. it's so much easier to put things off than it is to do them while you can.

While I averted my eyes from the bloody stench of reality, my daughters disappeared from this forced portrait of harmony.

wow. what do i even say about this movie. absolutely incredible movie. i loved its handling of themes like family and isolation. noriko was deeply relatable to me, but so was yuko. i used to fantasize about disappearing the way yuko did too, and when her dad read the story she wrote before disappearing it really broke me. the ways she predicted wrong were so heartbreaking, and the dad's reaction to it was too. i couldn't help but cry at so many moments throughout the movie. i used to spend so much time imagining how others would react if i did things like run away and disappear, but the truth is you'd never really know. we never know what's happening to each other, not completely, and sometimes we see only the things we want. tetsuzo wanted a perfect, happy family, so he only saw that. he couldn't see the ways his family was broken. noriko was so fixated on all the things wrong that she refused to see the things that made her relationship with her family worth trying to save. those are my immediate thoughts. it feels like i just experienced like a million hours of movie.

im watching this movie before watching suicide club, which might be the wrong order, but i at least think this movie holds up very strongly on its own. im excited to see suicide club next though

Mr. Yamada's son-in-law told me that I should not use violence. But violence is justified if the end result is good. As long as I live, I'll continue to use violence by my own judgment if it brings good results to me and for the sake of mankind.

an incredible documentary. what better way can you showcase the complacency, loyalty, and prevailing attitude of "letting the past stay in the past", than by showing it in contrast with its complete opposite, embodied by a man who recognized that we must acknowledge the horrors of war to learn from our past.

the documentary follows okuzaki, a violent and slightly crazy man, on his attempt to learn the truth about crimes committed by fellow veterans. the way he swaps between incredible politeness and unrestrained violence to get people to admit to their crimes is wild. there's something about his intense directness against the prevailing expectation of indirectness and politeness. the morality of okuzaki is questionable but his goals are unquestionably good. i don't know man this movie was just good it makes me wanna ramble. it really strikes on the inherent dissonance of moving past the war without really addressing any of the underlying causes. why are soldiers not held accountable for executing other soldiers after the end of the war? why is the emperor not held accountable? okuzaki sees these problems and he addresses it in a morally gray way, but at least he tries to do something.

i watched this movie in 2020 around when it came out, and i decided to rewatch it today because i thought i might appreciate it more now and i couldn't really remember anything from it. now i realize why i dont remember much of it though, it just wasnt really my thing. i think theres some neat stuff in here about relationships, aging, memory, etc.. but it didnt hit me that hard tbh.

i liked it. i found myself laughing and cringing at parts of the movie because casey felt so real. i see so much of what i was like at that age in casey and i think the movie did a really good job at speaking to like, isolation when you're young. the need to seek refuge in scary and edgy stuff is so relatable as someone who went through exactly that as a teenager. and i love how open-ended and vague things are left. as someone whos entire sense of reality would often slip when i was an isolated teenager watching everything from creepypastas to real life people dying, i think leaving things so vague resonated to that experience. by the end of the movie i think lots of people probably have very different interpretations of what happened, whats real and whats not, etc.. and my personal interpretation is entirely coated in the specific ways that i related to the main character.

serial experiments lain is an anime from 1998 that asks the always relevant question: "what if the internet is like fucked up". it focuses on lain, who slowly becomes more and more interwoven into The Wired, until eventually she loses all sense of identity as her identity in the real world and in The Wired are completely different, and shes not even sure if shes real outside of The Wired man.

as someone who essentially grew up on social media, i really related a lot to lain in many ways. it often felt like i was two different people who interacted in two different, unrelated spaces, and i couldn't get these conflicting identities to match at all. i often felt like i was more "real" on the internet than in real life. i think a lot of neurodivergent queer people can relate to that. its hard to be yourself when you're surrounded by people who say "be yourself!" but then turn around and say "noo not like that" when you actually try being yourself.

nowadays ive essentially given up on social media. i give things a shot sometimes, but i find it hard to be very active on any social media platform. i found that being so active online was harmful to me. because of this, what serial experiments lain says about the harm of being Constantly Connected really resonated with me. and it feels crazy that this message came from 1998, because i feel like its only gotten more accurate and relevant as time passes.

after life (1998) is set in an old-fashioned social services-like place, where the dead go and get three days to pick a single memory out of their entire life that they will take with them into the afterlife. the premise itself made me really wanna watch the movie when i read about it, because like. thats an interesting thing to think about! what would i do if i had to pick a single memory from my life, to spend the rest of eternity in? it feels like theres simultaneously too many memories and also no memories at all that are so important that i could definitely pick it as my one, single, most important, memory.

and the movie treats all of this in a really ordinary way. everyone acts like normal people making a difficult decision. different kinds of people are represented, different reactions to having to make a decision like this are represented. but throughout the entire movie, it never feels supernatural or extraordinary, and i think that made it really cozy to watch. it made all of it feel much easier to relate to as well. the movie is filmed sort of like a documentary at times, with lots of segments where its just a typical interview shot while someone talks about their completely normal life, and tries to think about which memories from that life are most important to them.

but what i liked a lot too was that it doesn't only focus on the recently deceased, but also on the people who work at this place. we learn more about the lives they lead, why they work here, and how they feel about working here. i love how normal everyone treats this like, completely supernatural job. theyre literally the people responsibly for transitioning others into the afterlife, but its just another job, they say. some of them wonder why they even do this. sometimes they rant to each other about especially difficult people who are having a hard time picking a memory, and it all feels so human and mundane. theres more detailed stuff i'd say here but i'd much rather anyone reading this watches the movie for themselves and then lets me know what they think (leave a comment or email me about it!)

anyways, i definitely liked this movie. even if every time i think about it, my brain instantly does also want to describe it as "boring". i think the mundanity of it is what makes it so charming to me.

ohhhh my goddd i wanted to like this one but i hated it so much by the end.

i watched tengoku daimakyou because i heard someone say that it was an anime that explored gender and identity really well. and that sounds sick! by episode 4 i was thinking alright they could maybe be a little less weird and sexualizing about that one main character but whatever im sure they'll explore this character's identity in an interesting way right?

no!!! tengoku daimakyou features a guy whose mind has been transferred somehow into his sister (who he had a crush on or something for some reason) after and accident that killed one of them and injured the other, and it opens the door for really interesting explorations of how something like that could affect you. imagine living in a body that doesn't match how you feel! imagine others seeing you in a way that's incongruent with how you identify! wow i cant imagine what thats like, i hope the anime will explore it!! does the anime explore that? not really. everyone genders the character like a girl throughout the entire show and it doesnt seem to bother him too much. the character's complex identity hardly comes up beyond short scenes and jokes, except for at the very end where there's like a fucked up rape scene. it feels like this scene is supposed to be a huge climactic moment for the main character's identity issues, but when you haven't addressed those issues beyond jokes for the past 10 episodes, it feels dishonest. instead of a meaningful exploration of the character, it feels like an excuse for a shocking moment with a "wow thats so deep" cover.

there's also like an entire other plot and like, that one is also interesting! but it feels like they forget about the interesting core concept of like, the idea that human sexuality and romance is universal and would happen even in a society where it's actively hidden from you, and get lost in scifi nonsense that says nothing interesting. give me scifi nonsense that says something interesting dammit!!!

its just. there were so many interesting doors that were opened that they just barely even peeked inside of. maybe the manga gets better, and maybe an eventual season 2 would redeem it, but this was like the most disappointing season 1 of an anime ive ever watched. and a season 2 isnt even confirmed anyway!

i wanna start writing reviews here of stuff ive seen recently, especially when its stuff i like. so heres what i thought about akudama drive!

i found out about akudama drive because i am a huge fan of the danganronpa series of games and hearing that the danganronpa guys made a movie was like whoa wait what i have to see this.

you can tell this anime is by the danganronpa guys because they have an obsession with making stories about "normal" main characters who are surrounded by incredible people. danganronpa its a guy in a highschool with no talent surrounded by people with super talents. in akudama drive its a petty criminal in a cyberpunk world being bunched in with people who are essentially on the FBI's top most wanted list. i think its a compelling starting point for a story, and its a big part of why i like both danganronpa and akudama drive!

without saying too much, i think akudama drive explores the idea of like, what makes a criminal? really well. towards the end especially it really focuses on this, the idea that the distinction between a regular person and a criminal is ultimately just an arbitrary line drawn by the ones in power. committing a crime isnt about committing something morally bad, but about threatening those in power.

the soundtrack in akudama drive is also like. damn. it got me really extra hyped during some moments i loved it. and i think that the animation and art are really really nice to look at.

so thats my thoughts on akudama drive! its a nice little anime. i like it. you wont get any ratings beyond "i like it" or "i hate it". (oh it'd be fun to have a "hates" tag for anything i watch that i don't like)

sidenote: my domain is different now btw! i assume this means nobody will get this in their rss feeds. oops!