Saturday, 1 November 2025
So I have to state the obvious: Not only is the site totally reconstructed with my own html (thank you online tutorials!!), but the review page has this snazzy silver screen thing going on… I worked really hard and I'm super proud of it! (So if it's looking unmanageable on your computer screen, please let me know!) It was super rewarding to start to learn this new skill and have this example of it to show off and I think the site is much closer to what I was hoping for it. I still have a handful of pages I want to add (CD collection, links page, finishing my library) and small aesthetic changes to the pages I've already updated (images, title graphics). This will likely be done over the coming months.
I am also considering migrating these monthly updates into more of a blog post-style format. I'm not sure if I want to do random updates or more scheduled and structured monthly reviews, but I think I'll test at least one out soon in the coming days. I like writing emails, so I feel like I'll enjoy the longer space dedicated to it; it's mainly a matter of format and how much I want to talk about my life outside of the things I've already posted on here.
Sister Midnight (2025, dir. Karan Kandhari)
Sister Midnight is a black comedy about a woman who becomes a vampire-esque being shortly after her wedding. It follows Uma, played by Radhika Apte, in her marriage to Gopal (Ashok Pathak), a union that moves her from her home to Mumbai and fairly immediately proves unsatisfactory. Unable to have sex with her new husband or complete any of the domestic tasks expected of her (budgeting, cooking, etc.), Uma takes a job four hours away cleaning an office building. Sometime during these events, she begins to crave blood, beginning a change in her relationship with Gopal, the outside world, and of course herself.
This movie was the third thing this year that has revamped vampires* for me (pun intended). I love the concept, but can struggle with how they're depicted, and this was a really fun example. It takes all those tropes and recontextualizes the vampire process, rooting it in a conversation about marriage and, as Ria Dhull explains, surrounding it in subtle yet plentiful religious references. Her transformation first takes on the form of a lasting illness, then brings in these really interesting visuals and concepts as she beings to feed on blood. Namely, each animal she drains the blood from becomes a vampiric familiar, following her around and hoping for blood of their own.
Here is where I must talk about the gorgeous visuals of this film, as the animals are animated through stop motion, creating these distinct movements that are otherworldly atop the rest of the film, but entirely endearing. This is complemented by some lovely cinematography by Sverre Sørdal, which I admit was what got me into the film. It works with beautiful colors, strong and often theatrical angles, and stunning lighting design, to tell the story. The soundtrack also contributed to the distinct feeling of the movie that just bordered on overfamiliar without crossing that boundary.
And Then There Were None (2015, dir. Craig Viveriros)
And Then There Were None is a 2015 BBC One miniseries adapting an Agatha Christie novel of the same name. It follows ten strangers (Douglas Booth, Charles Dance, Maeve Dermody, Burn Gorman, Anna Maxwell Martin, Sam Neill, Miranda Richardson, Toby Stephens, Noah Taylor, Aidan Turner) invited to an isolated island by the elusive Mr. and Mrs. Owen, who quickly learn the pretenses of their invitations are false and they have been formally accused of crimes that they quickly admit they have all committed. The guests are slowly picked off, killed in accordance with a poem found in each of their rooms.
This was a lovely watch for the spookiness of the colder seasons. It not only evoked that late-1930s vibe, but was also so mid-2010s detective show. It is a classic mystery and classic form, but does it very cleanly, if occasionally brutally. Indeed critical reviews echo the feelings of the person I watched it with—that it is quite dark compared to other adaptations of the same story. The perspective it took was really interesting, focusing on one guest and her crimes though touching on the others through flashbacks or visions. It contributed to the slow moodiness of the ambience, impressively retained even in moments of tension and stress and with a nursery-rhyme-style poem guiding the deaths.
I have to admit the premise and form of mystery are not my favorite of all time, but I still like what was done with it. In terms of the mystery itself, I felt it was well-balanced, such that the reveal of the killer made a lot of sense with the information we were given, but I was definitely debating the entire time who I thought it was. However, this was also secondary to the drama between and inside of characters, who dealt with the fear of a fellow guest threatening their life and their own feelings about the people they killed. This is a great watch for a rainy autumn or winter evening!
The Game (1997, dir. David Fincher)
The Game is a 1997 thriller about the wealthy Nicholas Van Orton (Michael Douglas), with a troubled past and abrasive present, whose brother (Sean Penn) purchases him participation in a personalized game that interacts with his life. The game pretty quickly turns sour, and Nicholas, alongside the confused Christine (Deborah Kara Unger), begins to attempt to break it, although proves himself unable to do so.
Right off the bat, I really liked the atmosphere of this movie. It's very David Fincher thriller I think, but also very late-1990s thriller. It had that neo-noir impression, with the city backdrop, vaguely tumultuous dynamic between Nicholas and the main woman lead, and a very dreamlike sense. That dreamlike sense mainly took the form of an often disorienting feeling the game caused for Nicholas and thus the audience, which speaks to the central themes of the movie that are revealed by the conclusion and that deal with control. It was really interesting to exacerbate that theme to such an extent and in such a way. Taking on that conspiracy angle absolutely contributed to its ideas but in a very surprising way.
The visuals were very gritty, but I appreciated their use of space and location. The San Francisco setting was clear and felt like it was given appropriate weight for the plot. I say all this so it's not entirely irrelevant when I say that I love how they shot the cars coming over the steep streets. Similarly, I thought Douglas' performance gave good weight to the character and kept me interested as the rest of the cast rotated quite a bit. I have nothing bad to say about this movie, but I do find that Fincher's works don't necessarily hit all the marks for me. They are clearly strong movies but aren't necessarily the type of story that draws me in the most. This was a very intriguing premise, and surely a help in getting me more into thrillers.
Twinless (2025, dir. James Sweeney)
Twinless is a 2025 black comedy about two men, Rocky and Dennis (Dylan O'Brien and James Sweeney), who meet at a support group for people grieving the loss of their twin; the two become fast friends, though a secret looms overhead. As Rocky becomes involved with Dennis' coworker Marcie (Aisling Franciosi), Dennis becomes jealous as well as the target of her suspicion.
This movie was very highly recommended to me, aside from my personal interest in seeing it just based on the trailer, and I have to say it delivered. It was a bit difficult to find, as it felt like it was in cinemas for all of two minutes, but I was eventually able to find it. I'm really glad I was able to watch it, because it was very good. The biggest thing that drew me in was the structure. It has roughly twenty minutes to establish itself and the new relationship between these characters, and then there is a major shift that just plays out for the rest of the movie. It was actually very satisfying, because it was something of a twist that was pretty straightforward to call, and because it was revealed so early, you didn't spend the rest of the movie wondering or waiting for the shoe to drop. The film moves very quickly, coming in at just one hundred minutes, but I felt this kept me engaged and worked well for the tone, which flipped between these humorous and heartfelt moments with ease, thought rooted in and overall pretty naturalistic sense.
This sense came about in the performances, writing, and sound, whereas the cinematography and editing brought in these interesting visuals that didn't take away from it. In particular the split screen was a stand-out technique that was different from other things I'd seen but managed to retain the feeling of the rest of the film. As for that balancing between humorous and heartfelt, this movie was really funny. It specifically got me in the visual gags and humor, which I have to admit I appreciate, but rarely make me chuckle out loud. This movie was very funny and I'm excited to see James Sweeney's other film because of it.
I also really liked the characters and their actors. I thought the structure allowed their "hidden depths" to be revealed at appropriate moments, but the performances really enabled those to hit and mean something in the grander narrative. Dylan O'Brien as Rocky really got me quite a few times; I cried twice thanks to him but his performance was consistently so strong. The characters were all just represented with such empathy and understanding, even in their lowest and worst moments. He really brought such a clear and grounded grief to a film otherwise fairly focused on the other part of the story, which deals more with a different type of loneliness and connection. I felt the two main characters really complemented each other in a nice way, both in terms of their personality and their greater stories. The later addition of Marcie cut the dynamic in a very interesting way.
Weapons (2025, dir. Zach Cregger)
Weapons is a 2025 horror movie that follows a handful of people in a town in which a class of schoolchildren disappear one night, leaving their homes and seemingly running away all at the same time.
This was a movie I've heard great things about, and also terrible things. It is apparently very divisive, thought I felt pretty neutral about it—for a very distinct reason I will get to. But first, the good. I thought this movie was technically pretty solid. It's biggest idiosyncrasy, and at times the thing most prone to criticism, is its structure, which takes on an almost episodic quality as it rotates between a handful of characters to tell its story. Personally, I found this intriguing, as it's really different but it also plays with perspective, which is something I tend to appreciate in storytelling broadly. We sort of jump around a bit, restarting the story with each new character, which allows for that intrigue to build, although I hesitate to make any decisive claims about whether it does something for the story beyond that. It doesn't necessarily need to, but I would've enjoyed it to have done so.
That said, I was never particularly sold on the concept. I wrote off the trailer and the only reason I ended up watching it was to see what all the fuss was about. As I said, it definitely started to intrigue me at some point, but then it really lost me with the supernatural reveal. I didn't think it was going to be this great movie in the first three quarters or so, but I was liking it enough. I'm just really not into witches. I also don't think this is a particularly stellar example of them. It has these threads that might've been something—the main two woman characters both being witches in different ways (socially versus literally), an emphasis on aging, sickness, and makeup with the one witch—but it never really manifests. That's not even something I was looking for in this movie, but I think it could've added a dimensionality I didn't see and had room for. I suppose I just feel like it didn't cohere, but then again, I'm not a fan of witches.
I felt something similar about the coherence in the style of the film—it blended these moments that honestly felt very nostalgic with… the rest of it. The conclusion and the general mystery gave it an almost "kids on bikes" feel, but the actual text of the movie did not support that at all. It felt like a big contrast between the narration and children's scenes, and the rest of the film. It's a cool concept but it lack clarity or complexity of purpose that left me sort of distant while watching. I did not know this until I finished the movie and wrote all of that above, but Zach Cregger also wrote and directed Barbarian, which I had very similar criticisms of, though I admit it's been a while since I've seen it. I felt both films experienced a similar refusal to jump into the significance behind the horror we're seeing despite an intriguing concept, as well as a lack of coherence between frightening initial premise and big reveal. I think his work would go that extra mile for me if he dealt a little bit more prominently with the identities of the characters. In particular the gender identities seem to be so relevant to what is going on, but that angle is barely touched on in a complex way. I feel like I'm not articulating myself as best I can here, but his work is absolutely hinting at these ideas, or at least preoccupied with them, but not actually engaging with them as much as it could be. And I think—aside from the witches—that that lack of realization is my main issue with this movie.
Bring Her Back (2025, dir. Michael and Danny Philippou)
Bring Her Back is a 2025 horror film about two siblings, Andy and Piper (Billy Barratt and Sora Wong), who lose their father and are placed with foster parent Laura (Sally Hawkins), who is grieving the loss of her daughter. For reasons that are easily inferable and tied to the occult, she dotes on the sister and psychologically torments the brother.
I was a little hesitant about this movie and a little excited; the Philippou brothers did an amazing job with Talk to Me but the actual concept of the movie was not the most intriguing to me. I felt a similar way at the end of the film: that it was a very solid horror, but it just didn't do it for me. Everything about this movie is solid yet not quite there—the performances are great but the writing didn't allow the emotional weight to hit, the gore is stunning but occult in nature which is unlikely to draw my interest.
I'd like to say more, as it definitely kept my attention, but I feel like my uninterested criticism might end up being unjust to the film. That said, I was really bored by the concept this movie explored. As I hinted at in the synopsis and as is largely implied by the trailer, Laura is attempting to bring her daughter back to life. That's the central question of this movie: how far would you go out of grief. And this movie portrayed this question very well and beautifully, but it's not a question that I want to watch a movie about. I think there is something more to say about the Philippou brothers' perspectives on cruelty and how it's both used as a device and an underlying perspective in the film, but again, if I struggle to engage with the basic premise, then that's not necessarily going to work for me. At the end of the day, it's really just a taste thing.
부산행 / Train to Busan (2016, dir. Yeon Sang-ho)
Train to Busan is a 2016 action-horror movie about a zombie apocalypse that breaks out while a father, Seok-woo (Gong Yoo), escorts his daughter, Su-an (Kim Su-an), on a train from Seoul to Busan to see her mother on her birthday. They, along with the other people on the train, attempt to reach Busan and escape the hordes of zombies chasing them at every turn.
This movie has been so hyped up for me over the years. I've heard it's the best zombie movie, the best apocalypse movie, one of the best horror movies—the list goes on. This is a remarkably high bar but I have to say, it was really damn good. This movie has a very clear central thesis that is consistently reinforced throughout its runtime. I felt most of it was a bit predictable in this sense, as it follows a pretty standard action-horror/zombie movie plot but adopts this perspective explicitly. However, the tragedy of it came as a bit of shock in that sense; not in the sense that it was surprising, but in the sense that it really inspired this hope in me that remained even as it was narratively dashed. It's not a particularly subtle film, but it's earnest and well thought through.
Also, I have to say this movie got to me more than in just thesis. It's very tense and there were many moments, both action-heavy and quieter, where I was on the edge of my seat. Then there was the gorgeous movements of the zombies, and especially the zombie hordes. It really made the horror of the volume of zombies so palpable as they clawed to be on top of each other. This, combined with the claustrophobic closeness of the train setting, gave a genuinely interesting feel to the zombies and the specificity of the situation the characters were in. This made their smart moves to get out of pickles rewarding and impactful. Just a really solid zombie movie, and movie overall.