I mentioned a while ago that I had seen this movie in the theater & enjoyed it, so my family up here in Oregon waited to watch it with me. It was just as good as I remember, though a different experience rewatching it & knowing what will happen.

Another aunt-recommended movie, very enjoyable. I think I’ll read the book sometime. I have to admit though, as much as I liked the movie, I don’t know how much of that can be attributed to the movie itself & how much can be attributed to the novel that it was based on. This is a movie that I can see myself rewatching eventually.

Another Stephen King story, yeah, but I’ve been staying with family in Oregon & after watching Misery, my aunt wanted to watch Dolores Claiborne. I actually thought this movie was pretty good! The reveal in which Vera wasn’t murdered, she just wanted to be put out of her misery wasn’t new or special, but I was interested in the story’s characters. I also liked watching a movie centered around women.

This movie was alright, maybe even a little good. I’m just not really a fan of Stephen King. I think he’s a pretty mediocre writer for the most part. It was an enjoyable movie, but it wasn’t scary. The only time I looked away was when I saw the protagonist’s maimed legs, but that wasn’t out of fear, just disgust. The ending was a bit weak too, not the burning of the manuscript; I mean the post escape part. It was just a bit boring, a bit tacked on, lackluster. I’m just a bit sad, because in theory this could be a really scary movie, being trapped in a house & being too injured to escape, being at the mercy of someone else, but somehow the movie isn’t really scary. Kathy Bates’ performance was really good, though I was unimpressed by her character’s backstory. The character she portrayed seemed a bit cartoonish, or caricaturish, but she did it well & gave a believable performance.

I thought this movie was very good! I don’t really know why… I guess I just really liked the acting. I don’t think the story was particularly special, but the characters, or the acting rather, made it interesting to me.

While home alone on my Oregon vacation, in my grandfather’s rustic house, I rewatched a bunch of Studio Ghibli films: My Neighbor Totoro (1988), Kiki’s Delivery Service (1989), Ponyo (2008), The Secret World of Arrietty (2010) for the first time, My Neighbor Totoro (1988) again, & Spirited Away (2001). I have a newfound appreciation for My Neighbor Totoro; I now think it’s one of Studio Ghibli’s better works. Arrietty was unimpressive. To me, it was nothing more than a kid’s movie. I thought the antagonist was too cartoonishly villainous & everything was just too simple. It didn’t stir any emotions in me. It was just an entertaining movie that I will likely not watch again.

My Studio Ghibli movie rankings are:

1. Spirited Away, because it is one of my favorite movies
2. Ponyo, because I used to watch it with my little brother
3. Kiki’s Delivery Service or My Neighbor Totoro
4. Princess Mononoke
5. Howl’s Moving Castle
6. The Boy & the Heron or Arrietty

These are in order of how much I personally like them rather than how good I think they are, though there’s a lot of overlap. I only say this, because if this were a list from best to worst, I would rank Princess Mononoke higher. I think it’s a very good movie, probably one of the best on this list, maybe just under Spirited Away. The only reason it’s towards the middle of the list is because I don’t really rewatch it from time to time the way I do with some of these other movies. Howl’s Moving Castle & lower are movies that I’d consider average-mediocre. I like to watch Howl’s Moving Castle, but I think it’s too haphazard & is not an emotional experience for me. A significant part of what makes a movie good to me is how/if it evokes emotion in me.

Why did we watch Ratatouille on Christmas Day? I don’t know, I just really wanted to watch it for some reason. I don’t know why, because I only vaguely remembered the movie before watching it again. I think the movie came out when I was four or five, so it’s been a while.

The movie was pretty good! I liked it. I was about to say that it required a lot of suspension of disbelief, but that sounds silly & perhaps redundant to say when speaking about a film where a rat sits on a guy’s head & controls him like a marionette. Anyways, a very sweet story. I’ve been thinking a lot about cooking lately. It’s something I intend to explore & practice in the new year.

I only read this because the main character is a lesbian.

Not much to say about this movie. It tried to be a serious film but was just so silly, especially the camerawork. Just watch five minutes of this movie & witness all of its stupid camera angles for yourself. You know, it’s really something if the thing I take away from your movie is its camerawork of all things. The movie had all of these grand, extravagant shots for no reason. They were not necessary. They were distracting. It was as though they couldn’t afford a cameraman & had a drone take all of their shots. I don’t know how else to describe it & it’s the only thing in this movie that’s of any note. Well, the characterization & dialogue were stupid too. And any merit the plot had was diminished by every other part of this movie. Waste of time. There is nothing of value in this movie, beyond a laugh at its expense. It was so heavy handed yet simultaneously so shallow- It takes true talentlessness to reach such a combination.

I am sad to report that I was really underwhelmed by this movie. It is my least favorite Ghibli film & the only one I’ve seen that I can say I didn’t really like. I mean, it was an entertaining movie, but I don’t think that it was very good.

Let’s start with what I liked: The animation was good. I like birds & there were many, many birds in this movie. The score is quite good, so much so that I actually noticed it. There is this scene towards the beginning, my favorite one of the entire film, in which the protagonist Mahito is running through flames to find his mother who is burning to death & the scene is almost like this blend between dream & reality. It’s amazing to watch & packed with emotion, which brings me to what I dislike: The movie’s message was so undercooked, so undone, unfinished. The first part of the movie, maybe the first third of it, is about Mahito & the grief he feels regarding his mother’s death. The viewers are met with this emotional scene, nightmare, of Mahito trying to find his mother, but this plot point is pushed aside & the film pivots & becomes a story about…? I’m not quite sure. Acceptance? The acceptance in this story feels unearned, as all of the relationships do. Mahito struggles to accept his new stepmother, going on this fantastical journey to retrieve her from another world, but they don’t really talk to each other, don’t really explain their feelings. The only time they really talk is when Mahito’s stepmother tells him that she hates him, then the movie ends & they love each other. They didn’t even go through the movie’s journey together, they just sort of met up at the end & liked each other. It was bizarre & did not feel justified. Same with the relationship between Mahito & the Heron. We’re told that they’re friends now, but why? Why are they friends? They disliked each other at the beginning of the movie & their relationship did not seem to grow, at least not in front of the viewer. The characters in this story did not feel human to me, they were just objects in the plot that were assigned feelings. They had fears & desires, but they weren’t really explored. We learn about Mahito’s struggle with his mother’s death, but this aspect of him, the biggest part of him, is not fully explored. It was weak writing in my opinion.

I also think the pacing of the movie was really off. It all felt so disjointed & the setting was poorly done. In Spirited Away for example, the bathhouse feels like a real place. It’s not just a backdrop for a story, it feels like it already exists before Chihiro comes & will continue on without her. This movie’s setting does not seem that way to me. It’s just this amalgamation of pretty places, but it’s not cohesive & I’m not left with an understanding of the world. This really large & expansive fantasy land was introduced, but there is not enough time in the movie to let any scene linger & many parts of the setting feel unexplored or explained; They’re just sort of… there, which is really disappointing, because the setting itself is so important to the plot, yet it doesn’t feel that way to me. I think it has to do with the pacing of the movie. There was too much in this movie for its length. It needed to be longer, things needed to be more concise, or things needed to be cut. The movie was so jam-packed with things, with plot elements, with places, with creatures, but not with emotions. It was actually hard to feel invested in the movie. There was so much going on, but I found my mind wandering a few times throughout the film, which is really unusual to me. I went with my friend E & she actually fell asleep for a few minutes.

This isn’t an awful movie by any means, but it does not deserve its rave reviews. It’s an alright movie, fun to watch, but not a movie that I would consider good. If any studio other than Studio Ghibli created this movie, I don’t think anyone would really care for it. Happy that I saw it, but it’s not a movie that I will rewatch. Well, I told my aunt that I would see it with her when it came out, like I told E. So I’ll probably rewatch it soon, but just once & not again.

I had never seen a Godzilla movie, or even a kaiju movie prior to Godzilla Minus One, & this movie was such a pleasant surprise. Despite being a kaiju movie, its story was very human. I did not expect this level of depth from what I thought was going to be a simple monster movie. I was absolutely wrong.

Godzilla Minus One is a story not about Godzilla, but about a kamikaze pilot, Kōichi Shikishima, who feigns a plane malfunction . He has a run in with Godzilla on the island he took his plane to for “repairs.” Godzilla attacks & those on the island beg him to shoot the monster (though in reality that would have done nothing), but he freezes & there are only two survivors: himself & a lone mechanic. Shikishima makes it home at the end of the war, only to find that his home is in ruins & he is plagued with survivor’s guilt. He forms a family with a woman named Noriko & the orphan she is taking care of, Akiko, but does not allow himself to become meaningfully close with them. He provides for them & clearly cares for them, but will not ask Noriko to be his wife & will not allow Akiko to call him dad, because he feels undeserving. There’s this scene in the movie, maybe halfway through, that made me cry in which Shikishima resolves to live, to really live. It was so… real.

As the movie progresses, Godzilla returns & it becomes evident that Godzilla is a representation for Japan’s willingness to throw away lives during WWII & it was really poignant, really well done. Shikishima, wracked with guilt as it appears Noriko has died to Godzilla, resolves to fulfill his previous duty as a kamikaze, intending to kill himself to stop Godzilla. Instead, it ends up being a story about forgiveness & he ends up using an ejection seat at the last moment. I figured that was what was going to happen & I’m glad the story followed through.

It's just a testament to the movie's storytelling abilities that Godzilla was one of the less interesting parts of the Godzilla movie. This isn't to say Godzilla wasn't interesting! Man vs. (undefeatable) monster was incredible to watch, but mostly, I was interested in the characters of the movie, their story. I was invested in their story & saw Godzilla as a threat to them, which made the movie even more interesting to me, because it was as though there were genuine stakes. Beautiful movie, I cried multiple times, Vashti endorsed!

I took my little brother to see this movie because Trolls (2016) was his favorite movie as a kid, constantly playing in the house. It is a movie that I will forever associate with his childhood.

The animation was great, everything was stylized & bold. The story was alright. I think the movie could’ve really soared if they let its emotional moments linger. I’ve noticed a lot in movies lately that something, normally jokes, seem to undercut their sincere moments & I don’t like it.

I only liked this movie because I saw it with my brother, though I would say it was enjoyable.

My first watch of December & it’s such a colossal disappointment. Save yourself the trouble & the cost of a movie ticket & just watch the trailer for this movie, because it’s as good as it gets. Honestly, I was so, so, so looking forward to this movie because of its intriguing premise, & they did nothing with it. Nothing. It’s a movie about a boring, painfully average, archetypical middle aged man who is suddenly appearing in people’s dreams across the world. Such an interesting premise, right? They do nothing with it. They take it & they make it a trite, heavy handed yet simultaneously clumsy movie about cancel culture. It’s just so… banal, so boring, like the film's protagonist. I was so thoroughly unimpressed by this movie. It said nothing. They couldn't even get the dreams themselves right. There was nothing fantastical about those scenes. It was almost hard to differentiate between dream scenes & the scenes happening in reality, which just shows how there was nothing stand out about the dream sequences if they blend into the rest of the movie so well.

The film’s protagonist is a middle aged professor who is in every way an absolute loser, played by Nicholas Cage. I saw a lot of people praising the acting in this movie, but I don’t see it. The scenes where Cage tried to appear emotional felt so flat to me. The scenes where he tried to be funny felt so flat to me, and boy were there a lot of those! This movie is a comedy only in that you can read on its Wikipedia page that it’s a comedy. The movie itself was unfunny & its attempts at humor got in the way of its story & characterization. The protagonist, Paul Matthews, is just a cringe comedy caricature, but somehow, he just isn’t funny. Every chance this character has to make a fool of himself, to say or do the wrong thing, he does. That’s all there is to this character. There’s nothing real about him. He’s written as someone whose life has passed them by, who says things but doesn’t do them, who desperately wants to be different, but I see none of this pain shown in his character, unless the plot demands it & tells us outright. There’s no depth to Paul Matthews. Here’s what you need to know: He is boring. He is passive. He is a loser. He wants attention and admiration, but doesn’t get it. He wants approval but doesn’t get it. He’s a bit of a dick. That’s it. You now know the character through & through, everything about him. There is nothing redeeming about this character, nor is there any charm, any depth to make me want to learn more. His character has no arc to follow either. He starts & ends the same. I care so little about him.

& you know, it’s really interesting to me that Paul Matthews is written to be so goddamn unlikable, because here’s the plot: Paul Matthews is a loser biology professor, he begins to appear in people’s dreams. Then the dreams turn into horrific nightmares & everyone hates him. Sounds really cool so far, yeah? Sounds unique? Sounds hard to mess up? Sounds like an interesting way to explore the human desire to be important & to be memorable & the human reality that this doesn’t happen for most people? Well you’re wrong! Instead it’s a story about cancel culture. Paul Matthews gets cancelled. & it’s presented as this critique of cancel culture, but I don’t feel bad for him! I hate this character. There is nothing good about him. There is nothing interesting. I don’t care if people hate him, because I hate him. I think whoever made this movie wanted me to go Boohoo, poor Paul Matthews, it's not your fault! but I didn't. Sure, it's not his fault that people are having nightmares about him, but he's so unapologetic about it... People have horrific nightmares about him in which he brutalizes them, tortures them, rapes them, & then he blames them when they're scared of him. & it's so stupid to me, because the entire narrative seems to be pointing to Boohoo, poor Paul Matthews, it's not your fault! & Paul Matthews himself feels this way, this self pitying way, but he doesn't extend this understanding to others at all. He recognizes that this situation is not his fault then seeks to put blame on others. That's interesting to me, that's not bad, but it doesn't fit with this whole 'cancel culture is bad' schtick. (A heavy handed schtick, brutal the way Paul Matthews is in everyone's dreams.) & the movie wants to be so clever too. It makes this weird pivot about halfway through when you realize instead of the really interesting movie that was advertised, you're getting the cancel culture movie & there's this scene where Paul Matthews' students are doing CBT at the school, because they're so scared of this guy, but it's presented almost as a satire? I don't know what it was trying to do really. I think it was going for a "look at what sensitive little sissies this generation is" route, but it was so unwelcome for one, but also out of place.

Then the movie shifts a third time & we've passed the Cancel Culture Commentary Portion & have reached the Paul Matthews' Broken Family Portion & his wife has left him, his kids aren't close with him, his life is in shambles, he goes to Paris for a book tour like he's always wanted, but it's a book about how he was the world's nightmare & this is also just so... out of place. First it tried to be a haha funny movie, then a critique of cancel culture, & now a touching exploration of Paul Matthews' loneliness & it does none of these things! The scene ends with him visiting his wife in her dream & him saying that he wishes this were all real & who cares? There hasn't been a single touching moment between Paul Matthews and his wife (or the rest of his family for that matter) for the entire movie. I get that he misses his wife because he's supposed to, but it's not convincing.

This movie was just such a muddy heap of half baked slop, like a hot dog made from the entrails of every genre & in the end, it was none of them, just a waste of potential.

This book! This book was so good, so good I started it at work & came home & finished it. A short, sharp read that doesn’t overstay its welcome.

It’s a story about cannibalism & Vashti loves stories about cannibalism. It’s set in a future in which consumption of animal meat has been prohibited & people now farm & slaughter humans. Except you’re not allowed to call them humans. You call them “special meat” or “heads” (as in cattle) or “carcasses,” not corpses. The protagonist gets a “special meat” pregnant, which is rape, and names her “Jasmine,” the way you’d name a pet. This is an important fact, because the laws about eating people, I mean “special meat,” in this society are that you don’t eat someone with a first and last name. Jasmine doesn’t have a last name, so what do you think happens to her? She has his baby & then gets clubbed & eaten. I saw the ending coming, but that didn’t diminish its poignancy.

It’s a story about a dystopian cannibal future, but really it’s a story about humanity, well lack of humanity, and hypocrisy. The protagonist spends the entirety of the story feeling disgusted with the new state of the world, the slaughter of humans, but he himself works as the right hand man of the boss of a slaughterhouse. He oversees the murder, sorry slaughter, of countless people, I mean “special meat.” He’s worse though, because he sees himself as above others despite doing things that are as bad or even worse than what they do. He’s a hypocrite. At the beginning of the book, you get the impression that maybe the protagonist is different, but he’s not. He’s the same as everyone else, no matter what he himself wants to believe.

An amazing book, one of my new favorites.

I really wanted to watch this for some reason & I don’t know why, because it wasn’t particularly good, nor was it as good as I remember. I mean, it came out when I was in elementary school, so that’s probably why. An okay, enjoyable movie.

What to say about this movie..? Well for one, I’m actually probably going to watch it a second time, because I told my friend I’d watch it with her before I went to the theatre by myself. In my defense, I always go to the movies when I’m feeling depressed. It’s pretty hard to ruminate on things when you’re sitting in a dark room where you’re not allowed to talk & there are giant, colorful, moving pictures & stories in front of you. So, feeling very depressed, I went to the movies by myself last Sunday, even though I’m going to be watching this movie again on Saturday with my friend.

Do I think it’s a good movie? No, but it was fun to watch. That being said, I don’t think I like it either. I found its core message, character motivations, & ending to be pretty lacking. The ending was so… hand-holdy. Spoilers: The protagonist orchestrated it all! He was murdering people! & the movie, maybe flick is a better word, smugly had the protagonist narrate this & then show us clips of all of the murders, like we’re stupid. It’s like the movie, flick, thought it was ahead of us when really I was waiting for it to catch up. The actual ending scene was alright, with the naked dancing. I don’t know. I only liked the song choice, which I found to work really well with the movie. Why was he naked? I honestly think it was just an attention seeking thing, to whoever wrote this, not to the character. I don’t trust the movie’s, sorry flick’s, artistic merits enough to think the nude dance was an artistic decision. Same with the lame sex scenes. ~Oh no! Period sex! I’m gonna throw up!~ It was presented like this really racy scene, but to who? Who would find that racy? It’s like they expected the audience to consist of teenagers, maybe?

I also think the protagonist’s obsession thing was undercooked. The ending in which it was shown that he got close to a rich family to kill them off for their wealth undercuts this idea that he was “obsessed” with Felix, the heir to the family estate that he was after. But simultaneously, this guy is drinking Felix’s bathwater, so which is it? Is he genuinely obsessed with him or does he want his money? These motivations were presented in a contradictory fashion to me. If everything about the protagonist was a facade, then why wasn’t this “obsession.”

Also side note- people were going on about how homoerotic this flick was, but how? The characters had no chemistry!

Even though the flick was pretty lavish & there were these well done shots, it was only surface level. They look pretty, but what do they tell us? Look, it’s undeniable that this is a good looking movie, but somehow, not a single shot stood out to me. It also seemed so try-hard to me. It’s like they put all of their effort into making the movie look striking instead of trying to write a good story. And on that topic, what were we supposed to take away from this? That people want to be rich? What an insight from a movie that takes itself so seriously.

I’d never really watched Home Alone before, but it was alright. I don’t think it was very good or that interesting, but I think it’s more of a nostalgia thing, and I do not feel nostalgia toward this. I was kind of interested in it before the Rube Goldberg burglar torture machine part. I thought the church scene was pretty solid. I thought the whole “~Wow, family is actually amazing~” moral was meh.

I don’t think I’ll ever watch this movie again, but it’s worth noting: I am not a Christmas person. The only Christmas movie I really like is The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992) & the only Christmas song I really like is Do You Hear What I Hear? sung by Bing Crosby.

I read “The Guest” for my literature class, but haven’t sorted my thoughts on it yet. I know that it’s about colonialism in Algeria, but it’s made me think about acceptance & what it means to be condemned to a fate, or a life rather.

I quite liked Camus back in high school & this story made me want to delve into his works again. Back in high school, I read L’Etranger in English & the French & I did a presentation on absurdism in French class. It’s always been funny to me, well maybe endearing or sweet are better words, that my existence, especially my adolescent existence, can be characterized by my phases. Maybe my phases can be written off as transient & shallow the way adults like to discount teenagers, but as someone who is now an adult & has been for a few years, I think this is unfair. You can call it a phase, or you can call it love. They’re the same thing. I went through periods where I loved certain things & looking back, that love is an intrinsic part of those periods of my life. There’s so much love that it paints over everything in a wash. I can’t think of that time without remembering the love I felt, and at that time I loved reading Albert Camus of all things.

I put Megamind on in the background while the neighbor kid was at our house playing Fortnite & trading Pokemon cards with my brother. I meant to work on the site some more, or maybe do some homework, but the movie was so engrossing that I closed my laptop & just watched. It was surprisingly good! You probably can recognize most of its plot elements from other stories, but it was somehow still fresh & novel. I found its examination of choice & self determinism to be really interesting.

I was particularly interested in its questions about responsibility in the form of Metro Man. If you have the power to keep everyone safe, a power that others don’t have, something that only you can do, do you have the responsibility to do what you can? Even if it makes you unhappy? Even if it’s not how you want to live your life? It’s not something that I’d thought about. I mean, say you have superpowers & no one else does, do you have to defend everyone? Are you morally obligated to do so?

It was also a story about defying the role that’s been prescribed to you, even if it’s your past self that made those decisions for you. You can do anything. You can change.

1. Spirited Away
2. Ponyo (When my brother was younger he & I would watch this together & my heart is soft for it).
3. Kiki's Delivery Service
4. Princess Mononoke
5. Howl's Moving Castle
6. Totoro