Film Diary

Last Watched

Wit, 2001

i keep meaning to watch this every time i watch angels in america and then i never do for some reason because i am stupid. you see, angels in america is maybe my favorite tv show ever - a 6 part miniseries about a group of people living in new york in the mid80s and dealing with AIDS, broken relationships, biblical angels, and all sort of metaphysical shit. it is based on a play and you can fucking tell, since it is full to the brim with long monologues and fourth-wall breaking and snappy dialogue. i think it might be my favorite thing ever written and every time i watch it i'm desperate for more of it. and then i search for what else has mike nichols done and i find this but i end up forgetting it. except this time i didn't. and thank god.
it is INFURIATINGLY good. this had me on the edge of my seat hanging on to every word and its literally just a drama with nothing but dialogue. no complicated plot no nothing just a woman with cancer dealing with her mortality and talking it out on camera and it had me more enthralled than the last 100 thrillers ive watched. its just a beast of an actor taking on a monster of a script and everyone wins in the end. nichols brings that snappy theatrical monologue-driven script that i loved so much in Angels in America and thompson eats it right up like she fucking Devours this thing and it is ridiculous satisfying to watch. i cried, i laughed, i held my breath without even realizing. it was an incredible experience.

So Close, 2002

every aesthetic choice is so perfectly on point here like wow corey yuen really woke up and said i'm about to serve like no other has ever served before. feels like i dreamed this up i love the y2k vibe applied to female killers baby that's literally the highest form of cinema. Every Single Time one of these women shot someone i jumped on my seat screaming crying shaking absolutely ecstatic. it almost lost me at some points during its first hour when i wasnt really invested in its dramatic side but every time it reeled me back in with the most fucking badass action scenes i've seen in months. & toward the end even the drama got a hold of me so really i dont have anything to complain about! take my advice leave this app & go watch the y2k lesbian killers movie rn what are you waiting for!!!

also gotta mention that this has a scene where one of them runs out of ammo and throws the gun directly at a guy’s face and like . i LOVE it so much when that happens in movies ughhhhhhh fucking perfect. PERFECT!!!

The Unholy, 1988

let me be honest my main reason for enjoying this so much is how hot the priest was. seriously i thought 3 years after the fleabag finale i was finally over my priestfucker phase but this movie brought it back full force. when i saw him shirtless i almost passed out. jesus fucking christ

kinda clunky plot but i was under the impression it was leading up to a satisfying payoff for most of the runtime, so i didn’t realize how poor the writing was until the last half hour, and by then it pulled out the big guns (huge massive practical effects demon), and that's just irresistible. it's gorgeously shot & lit (i haven't seen a lot of italian horror but the low-key eroticism & rich cinematography in here was giving italian to me), and i just love how it tries to have both 70s sophisticated mystery and 80s sleazy satanic horror (and pulls off both). pretty decent atmosphere and some truly great scares in here. i love catholic horror and how it’s always so aesthetically pleasing. kinda reminds me of blatty’s legion/exorcist III which is a favorite. i was almost convinced this is seriously good but i feel like there wasn’t a lot of thought put into the story (which is weird since there clearly was a lot of thought & work put into the visuals).

Soylent Green, 1973

this literally came to me in a dream even though i’ve never seen it so as soon as i woke up i got my ass all the way to rarbg dot com and torrented it and watched it because when a movie comes to you in a dream you watch! the! damn! movie! and it was worth it so thanks to whoever sent this into my dreams. (if it was as sent as a warning — send it to someone else! not my problem!)

such a good fucking movie honestly one of the most well-made & believable dystopian works i’ve seen. a lot of people seem to have a problem with the pacing but i don’t — i was pretty hooked the entire time and actually enjoyed how it takes its time with its worlbuilding & character work. looooove the gritty and dark overpopulated dystopian metropolis, and this brings out amazing imagery to display that — piles of bodies all over the city, alive and dying, in riots or in church looking for hope. it’s very moving very grim and i feel like that’s exactly the kind of movie this should be. robinson is heartbreaking in this, a living constant reminder that things weren’t always like this, and when he gives up it feels like the movie’s own abandonment of all hope. i don’t like the weirdly misogynistic vibes this often has (furniture?) and i don’t love the ending — personally i feel like something darker would’ve fit better with the rest of the movie. but the ending we got gave me the soylent green monologue from drop dead gorgeous (1999) so i don’t mind it that much. overall it’s such a good movie and also clearly had a huge influence on some of my favorite sci-fi works (mainly carpenter’s dystopic joints like they live. also maybe the matrix but that might be a reach) so i’m not hesitant to say i like this a lot. 3.5 seems kinda low but keep in mind that it’s pretty close to a 4.