What film(s) have you recently watched?

[ccloverclub]

Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery (2025) [3/5]: i hated the first two knives out movies. the suspect side characters are so ANNOYING!!!! exaggerated, tropey characters are staples in murder mysteries, but there has so be SOMETHING likeable about them, even if they're bad people, or else you're just torturing the audience. the first two movies are "eat the rich" movies so maybe they felt like making the bad guys likeable would go against their message. the third is kinda the same thing but it's on a smaller scale and they aren't as big of a focus. but other than that it was nice!

Project Hail Mary (2026) [4.5/5]: the entire movie this expression was on my face. SO FREAKING FUN!!! i want to watch more movies that are joyful like this. the music that played when grace was discovering something new reminded me of animal documentary music some fans joked how despite grace dressing sloppy and being self-conscious, he's played by a hot actor, but i think it's intentional. he's an intelligent man who's capable of everything the story throws at him but he masks his greatness to avoid failure. his clothes are like a shield for his true self (an attractive, cool guy). this might be a stretch because it's not like his fashion sense gets better when he reaches the end of his arc, but it's still cool to think about! i'm assuming in the original novel grace is an average=looking guy.

[drummyfish]

Watched another one shot film: Victoria (2015). It follows a girl that's been shortly living in Berlin that gets involved with some criminal guys, I won't spoil more. I became fascinated with this "one shot" format as the implications of the technique make it a fresh, wholly different form of film making -- it's huge improvisation, it stands on actors and still a lot is left to chance and luck, editing is completely absent, they don't know how long the movie will be, the whole story has to unwind in short time and small area, and so on. It results in a very immersive and "true" work. It's unbelievable how they managed to shoot this specific film also, it's over two hours long and they only had a budget for three attempts. The first two weren't good so they were literally left with a single chance.

[kshmr]

Recently watched Dead Poets Society (1989) by Peter Weir and loved it honestly great cinema

[kshmr]

Solanin (2010) by Takahiro Miki

The film is an adaptation of a manga which shares the same name by Inio Asano
It follows a couple and their friend group, the guy and his friends play some rock music but don't do it professionally but his girl encourages them to go professional.
They used to perform in high-schools. The girl is the protagonist played by Aoi Miyazaki and as a young adult, she is trying to figure out her life.
I don't want to spoil much but the theme song Soranin is composed and performed by Asian Kung-fu Generation and the lyrics are written by the Mangaka himself.

[kshmr]

Masaan (2015) by Neeraj Ghaywan

"A CELEBRATION OF LIFE, DEATH AND EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN"
There are two different stories of two different people living in the same neighborhood going parallel in the film.
For me, it is the peak of Hindi Cinema.
A poetic work honestly...
The plot is basically a girl go to an (illegal) love hotel w/ her boyfriend, unfortunately gets raided by the policemen.
In the panic the boy kills himself in the toilet of the hotel and the police officer meets the girl's father and now the father has to arrange very out-of-budget amount of money to bribe the officer so that the officer make sure that things don't go wrong and they don't have to face society. For context, sex w/o marriage was a very taboo topic in North indian Societies as I know and a lot of conservative old people still have same ideology till the day(personal experience).
The other story as I said is about a young man almost completing his bachelors, and close to employment. His caste or should I say his family occupation is to burn the deads(literally) so he is the first being educated and getting out of the cycle. As the film was released in 2015, that was the time when Indian citizens got internet at affordable prices, so Internet was a very new thing in India for normal citizens bcz some ISP started some cheap plans to grab the market. I'm telling all this things to build context and make it easier to understand some details.
So he fall in love with a girl and send a friend request to her on Facebook. And after that, there are spoilers so I don't want to over-explain.
It might feel that the film's theme is based on Indian Society but it is just the surface, just the plot and you'll know once you watch it.
The film is officially available on yt but I haven't watched it so can't personally verify or recommend, i got the Blu-ray rip and recommend only that.

Once you finish the film, I recommend reading about it, look for the soundtracks by Indian Ocean, to understand them the comments on youtube dot com are really helpful.
I can personally write about it in English on my site if someone want me to but I encourage finding things yourself

[drummyfish]

Masaan looks like a movie I'll enjoy, thanks for sharing

For me I've been continuing with experimental movies and watched Locke (2013). The "experimental" aspect of it is in that for the whole duration of the film it's just one guy driving a car at night and all he does is speak on the phone with people. It's exactly the kind of shit I enjoy, so I expected to be happy, but still the movie left me impressed, I guess it touched some strings that resonate with me right now. My brother (much more cinema literate than me) told me these kinds of movies are just punk showoffs grabbing attention with weird filming techniques -- maybe he's right and I'm very easily fooled, but 10/10 would recommend

[ccloverclub]

watched Drive (2011) during vulonkaaz's gikopoi stream and i hated it. "literally me" movies are only fun when the guy is literally you i'm suprised how praised this movie is despite how cliche it is, i rolled my eyes so many times (namely the family montage at the lake, driver-kun threataning that guy with a hammer in front of all the prostitues, and him slapping and pinning down the robber lady (which just HAD to be on the hotel bed!)) to be fair i really liked project hail mary which i'd argue is also a self-insert ryan gosling movie, just for a different flavour of autism also, am i crazy or was the romance between driver-kun and irene not justified? i can't think of a reason why they loved each other

[kshmr]

Masaan looks like a movie I'll enjoy, thanks for sharing

For me I've been continuing with experimental movies and watched Locke (2013). The "experimental" aspect of it is in that for the whole duration of the film it's just one guy driving a car at night and all he does is speak on the phone with people. It's exactly the kind of shit I enjoy, so I expected to be happy, but still the movie left me impressed, I guess it touched some strings that resonate with me right now. My brother (much more cinema literate than me) told me these kinds of movies are just punk showoffs grabbing attention with weird filming techniques -- maybe he's right and I'm very easily fooled, but 10/10 would recommend

I'll definitely try Locke.
And I guess your brother is kind of right but one can't dismiss every experimental film as "punk show-off" because in a concept like just a driver answering to phone calls can be really interesting if executed well and I find something like this more difficult than traditional film making which costs a huge budget for locations, actors, props, vfx &c.
In such a small scope of indoors of a car w/ only a driver is much more difficult because now you don't get the other things like beautiful visuals, VFX, motion &c. to distract the viewers, when the scope is small, everything demands perfection.
For example there is this film Radiohead: In Rainbows - From the Basement (2008)


This is the highest rated film on Letterboxd w/ an avg. rating of 4.7/5
The whole film is just 5 Young English men performing music. Honestly that's it.
The film earns its rating by not being a punk show-off but achieving the whole scope perfectly.
One might ask that "What could be the scope of a musical recording ?"
And answer is the recording is supposed to be flawless, you get no curtains to cover your mistakes.
And this recording is amazing. The album is a classic rock album and one of my favorites.
This film has really great cuts, cinematography, colors, performance and every technical and emotional aspect of the film is just perfect.
This is why I believe that if some film is able to justify the scope, it is a great film but I highly dislike films which are just ambitious in scope but can't justify it like the Marvel franchise and some other AAA projects.

[kshmr]

Today I woke up and watched Aashiqui 2 (2013)

Letterboxd: 3.5/5

the film is kinda mid imo and exactly what I expected.
For context, in the Mumbai film Industry a.k.a Bollywood, it has been a tradition to integrate songs in montages and even the bgm is just stems of these songs.
So when the audience watch the film in the theatre, they might forget the plot but they remember the music and connect to it in the time so that they buy the Soundtrack Album later or stream the soundtrack which is a huge portion of revenue for commercial hindi cinema.
So this film has been really influential in India, like if you play a song like "Tum Hi Ho" to anyone in the country, there is a really high chance they'll recognize it even if they've ever seen the film or not, from children to millenials, the soundtracks are really popular and still used on Instagram when it comes to love or yearning.

So I also had this album in one of my favorites. And I genuinely recommend the songs because they are really great.
As I was in love w/ the soundtrack since such a long time, I wanted to try the film and I found the film really cliche and I didn't liked it much.
It feels very amateur w/ huge budget. Commercially it was great but I feel like sometimes the jump cuts feels noticeable and the music integration feels forced at some points.

The story is about a really popular rich celebrity musician who just wants to become a NEET. He is addicted to alcohol and wants nothing else in his life but can't really escape.
One day he interact w/ a girl performing at a bar and find her voice amazing so he ask her to leave the job and offer her work in the industry. As he is a millionaire celeb so the girl accepts the offer and later they live together, a tragic love story.
The theme revolves around the protagonist's love her his girl vs. his addiction.
The ending looks very absurd while pretty good to me but some ppl tend to dislike it.

I find the dialogues really cliche and melodramatic but I like it and I watch it multiple times, a weird phenomenon where I re-watch a film even after disliking it.

[drummyfish]

Masaan looks like a movie I'll enjoy, thanks for sharing

For me I've been continuing with experimental movies and watched Locke (2013). The "experimental" aspect of it is in that for the whole duration of the film it's just one guy driving a car at night and all he does is speak on the phone with people. It's exactly the kind of shit I enjoy, so I expected to be happy, but still the movie left me impressed, I guess it touched some strings that resonate with me right now. My brother (much more cinema literate than me) told me these kinds of movies are just punk showoffs grabbing attention with weird filming techniques -- maybe he's right and I'm very easily fooled, but 10/10 would recommend

I'll definitely try Locke.
And I guess your brother is kind of right but one can't dismiss every experimental film as "punk show-off" because in a concept like just a driver answering to phone calls can be really interesting if executed well and I find something like this more difficult than traditional film making which costs a huge budget for locations, actors, props, vfx &c.
In such a small scope of indoors of a car w/ only a driver is much more difficult because now you don't get the other things like beautiful visuals, VFX, motion &c. to distract the viewers, when the scope is small, everything demands perfection.
For example there is this film Radiohead: In Rainbows - From the Basement (2008)


This is the highest rated film on Letterboxd w/ an avg. rating of 4.7/5
The whole film is just 5 Young English men performing music. Honestly that's it.
The film earns its rating by not being a punk show-off but achieving the whole scope perfectly.
One might ask that "What could be the scope of a musical recording ?"
And answer is the recording is supposed to be flawless, you get no curtains to cover your mistakes.
And this recording is amazing. The album is a classic rock album and one of my favorites.
This film has really great cuts, cinematography, colors, performance and every technical and emotional aspect of the film is just perfect.
This is why I believe that if some film is able to justify the scope, it is a great film but I highly dislike films which are just ambitious in scope but can't justify it like the Marvel franchise and some other AAA projects.

I perfectly agree, I know that some directors are just grabbing attention but there's definitely merit to putting up some deliberate limitations. They foster creativity, new inventions and challenge pure mastery to show naked without the help of cheap tricks, I appreciate when the director is confident and brave enough to do that, but sure some do fail. It's a risk, either it's going to be excellent or awful, but not average. I remember one musician teaching improvisation on piano said it is a good exercise to limit yourself to let's say just three tones and then try to be creative with that, it makes you focus on the rhythm, dynamics and so on. And it is probably my minimalist deformation now but today I am more moved hearing someone play a beautiful melody on some generic cheap flute rather than by epic film soundtracks played by army sized orchestras -- they could just play a C chord and it would still sound awesome, but that is just cheap by being expensive. I know my brother said it partly as a joke but I remember him really being into found footage films at one point, so I'm gonna remind him of that

Thank also for the recommendation, I'm going to watch Radiohead. I've made a text file where I note films to watch and the ones I already watched and liked (a little bit like Amlux's film index, just shittier and messier), you can see it here.

Yesterday I watched Night on Earth (1991), loved it a lot. It's an anthology of several stories, all taking place in taxi cabs In the US and Europe, each in the languages of the respective country (USA, France, Italy and Finland). The stories are a mix of seriously hilarious but also wholesome and deeper on some levels, plus (again) I really appreciate when the director manages to pull this off in the constraints of a small space of a car, basically just with dialogues. With movies it's like with food, it's best if it combines opposite flavors like sweet and bitter, comedy and tragedy, funny and serious and so on. For the record: I do not automatically love any kind of bottle movie or one shot movie I also watched Fermat's Room and despite its cool premise I didn't like it very much.