8/4/25 - WAR OF THE WORLDS (2025)

⯪✩✩✩✩
Watched with my mom while she did my hair and this is probably the worst movie I've seen this year if not the worst movie i've seen ever and thats saying something because I love terrible movies! If a movie has bad acting and a bad script and bad direction but theres still obviously some effort or heart in it that makes it fun to watch and laugh at I will probably still like it but this War of the Worlds remake has all of those things without any of the love. I don't even think Ice Cube is a bad actor when hes in bad movies (Are We There Yet and Are We Done Yet were some of my favorite movies as a kid) but wow this was just terrible. It's an Amazon movie so of course I expect some level of obnoxious advertisement and product placement but the words "Amazon cart" specifically are used with such excessiveness it's actually jarring. Amazon and Government Serveillance are what save the world from Aliens in this movie. Can you believe thats a real sentance used about anything ever?? I would never recommend this movie to anybody, even to watch for a laugh.

7/28/25 - STAR WARS / A NEW HOPE

★★★★★
I've seen this movie more times than I could ever count and it will never not stand out to me. My dad has been really into Star Wars my entire life so A New Hope has been my basis for a really good sci-fi movie since before I can remember and rewatching it will always be a lot of fun and a great experience. If you've somehow never seen it please make a point to watch it, I do believe this is probably the most perfect space-action movie we're ever going to get. The world is explained without excessive exposition, the story is phenomenal, and most importantly: the villains have extreme amounts of aura. Nobody will ever be cool the way Darth Vader is cool ever again and this version of him appeals so much more to me than how hes portrayed in future movies/shows etc. 19 year old Leia Organa you will literally always be famous

7/21/25 - SUPERMAN (2025)

★★★★★
I am sorry for the amount of back to back 5 star reviews I don't actually love this many movies I've just seen a bunch of really good ones lately. I saw Superman in theatres a few days after it came out and it stole The Batman (2022)'s spot as my favorite CBM within the first half hour, the characters are so compelling and the cast is full of real stars. I loved Rachel Brosnahan as Lois Lane and I don't even know where to begin in describing David Corenswet and Nick Hoult's performances, Superman is probably the movie with the most star studded cast I've seen as of late. The soundtrack completely blew me away, not just with the choice needledrops but the score was absolutely stunning, Gunn definitely has an eye for great composers and music that matches his characters. Superman got me really excited for the next few Gunn DC movies and I've never even been really interested in DC, comics or movies. Stay tuned for Supergirl next year because I think it's what will really make or break peoples trust in Gunn at DC.

7/14/25 - PERFECT BLUE

★★★★★
yes i forgot to post this last week im not ashamed. Just like last week I watched Perfect Blue as part of my 'summer of horror' movie challenge and similarly to A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night I was completely blown away by it. Satoshi Kon is an extremely talented director and artist and it bums me out a little bit that the english cast isn't at all referenced in the letterboxd credits because the VA's all did such incredible jobs, Bridget Hoffman (under the alias Ruby Marlowe) especially stood out to me and I can understand why she was chosen for the english voice of Lain in SEL, her talent is really undeniable. Perfect Blue was beautiful to watch and just as confusing and I think that only added to the movies quality, not everything needs to be understood. I can see where the comparisons to Black Swan come from and I definitely think it was inspired by Perfect Blue but PB is able to tell a story that is so much more interesting and compelling because of its medium, animation allows for you to do so much more with visuals when the point is to not be sure what's real and whats not. If you're into confusing thrillers please make sure to check this one out!

7/7/25 - A GIRL WALKS HOME ALONE AT NIGHT

★★★★★
I watched A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night as part of my 'summer of horror' challenge, where I try and watch as many horror movies that I haven't seen this summer (may-august in my mind). you can view my progress here. A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night was not only so great to look at but also a really fun watch! It's not a scary movie but it's obviously intended to be a horror-romance and I'm counting things as horror if its the genre they're listed under on letterboxd so argue with them i guess. i loved this movie and its absolutely one of my favorite horror movies i've seen so far, the world is so rich and so much is left unexplained in a way that still lets the ending feel satisfying. gorgeous gorgeous film, the soundtrack is just as beautiful as the visuals. I love movies with intentional styling and I think the choice to have the entire movie in black and white added so much to the ageless feeling of the world. . . great watch i liked it so much

6/30/25 - ALIENS

★★★★⯪
Aliens is, undoubtedly, a great movie. On its own its a super fun watch and it works really really well as a sequel, its a movie i thouroughly enjoyed and would definitely not be upset to rewatch. My true belief however is that there is no way this is a better movie than Alien and everytime I hear someone say that it takes about fifteen years off of my lifespan. Maybe I'm not an action movie guy or maybe im the only person with a brain left on earth but Alien had a more interesting set up and cooler visuals than Aliens did and while Aliens told a great story, it simply isn't as interesting as Alien. Awesome generally speaking though, only thing I can say I wasn't a fan of is how Ripley is now actively being written as a woman and how that trend continued through the rest of the sequels, they shouldve kept writing her as a male character and just switching the gender at the end like they did for Alien.

BARBIE IS NOT REAL FEMINISM

Barbie 2023 was promoted and responded to as if it was a feminist film and to this day that irks me. Barbie was a lot of fun, I saw it like three times in theatres when it came out and I definitely enjoyed watching it, but calling it feminist is a massive stretch in my opinion. There was an attempt at promoting feminst ideals with America Ferrera's character giving that speech on womanhood and Barbies meeting with Ruth (though I found her statement about mothers having to stand still to see their daughters succeed a little strange for an attempt at feminist messaging), but still it remains a fact that Barbie as a movie said absolutely nothing and the things it did say applied to a brand of white liberal feminism that is both not a real representation of feminist values and also really boring. Barbieland is pretty obviously meant to represent an inverse of our society, being matriarchal instead of patriarchal, but it is incapable of being an interesting commentary because Ken never cared about equality, just like men in real life he only cared about being above or better than the women who denied him what he wanted. In her attempt to sympathize with Ken, Greta Gerwig essentially throws the feminist messaging out the window. It's annoying how much of a sterile nothing-burger it is as a movie and the entire aesthetic of it, while a lot of fun to participate in at the time, did it absolutely zero favors.