Fun fact. A Matter of Life and Death was funded to serve as pro-British propaganda. That's why the film goes "Nothing can overpower love...and also nothing is more anti-love & un-American than Anglophobia."

When you think about it, Breaking Bad is a superhero story.

Diamonds Are Forever has a killer theme & a fantastic first five minutes and then everyone just goes through the motions until the movie's over. Thunderball's theme is Connery Bond incarnate so I'm more forgiving there.

I knew Psycho's big plot twists before watching and it struck me how the first half sets up a seemingly completely different movie. From thriller to slasher.

new Evangelion content means new Evangelion memes

Tiffany Aching is such an upgrade from the Johnny Maxwell series writing-wise. The Mrs Snapperly story is some of his most brutal stuff. One of Terry Pratchett's most consistent series up to the end. The Shepherd's Crown works really well as the Discworld's epilogue.

I overcame cringe and did it.

The Last of Sheila is a fun time, but Sleuth (1972) absolutely clears. Makes 140 minutes feel like an hour.

Fun fact about "She Walks At Night", the upcoming eighth Kosuke Kindaichi translation. It's the first Kindaichi title to get a translation that isn't in the 1977 'imaginary soundtrack'. www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-LZ...

The franchise's turn towards Apocalyptic Mythos makes the first Mad Max basically being a vigilante cop movie very funny. There's even a scene where they've caught the villain only for the smarmy defence lawyer to show up and get him released like it's Dirty Harry.

Thinking back to Cult of Takumi and it is so funny that Takemaru and Yugamu basically had this conversation.

Might continue my evil movie streak by rewatching The Last of Sheila and Sleuth back to back.

Watched Demons (Shura) by Toshio Matsumoto a few days ago. Right now available on Youtube with subtitles. Probably one of the most evil films I've seen in a while. Utterly rancid vibes from beginning to end (complimentary). www.youtube.com/watch?v=KS4W...

Saruman before his mind became metal and wheels.

you: AI-upscaled and colorized Truman isn't real, he can't hurt you me:

While Stalker's a different story from Roadside Picnic, it makes sense the Strugatskys still loved it when it reflects a lot of the same territory they explored with the book. Meanwhile Stanislaw Lem probably saw Solaris and wondered what were all these Mother Issues doing there.

The scene where they reach the border of the actual Zone itself is my favourite of the whole film. The idea that attaining your deepest desires would be horrible less because there's a cruel twist or being grandiosely morbid, but because you realise how banal they (and so you) really are.

"In this house, we only accept 90s Simpsons. The show started with Bart The Genius and ended on Grift of the Magi and that's final."

Zero evidence but firmly believe Tolkien's early idea of the Blue Wizards' Fall being starting cults that last after Sauron was background for the dropped LOTR sequel. Later on he changes it so that they came earlier than Gandalf & did sabotage Sauron's Second Age recruitment plans out East.

Rewatched a bit of Barry. Very funny that Bill Hader said Barry wouldn't stand a chance against Walter White and once lied at a Q&A that Sally was based on him after a fan said she hated her.

It is pretty funny that JG Ballard wrote a story involving a notebook whose owner can write the deaths of others more than forty years before Death Note.

My favourite Taxi Driver story remains a critic friend of Scorsese's saying he hated the movie because of how much Travis sounded like his own darkest thoughts and Scorsese going "Fair, but that's the movie's whole point."

Welcome To Dongmakgol is a great film to watch next to Joint Security Area. Unhesitatingly sentimental. The Throne's a lot of fun too.

Inspector Japp: ...and so, ladies and gentleman, that's why all private detectives are jobless con-artists who aren't worth the dirt off your shoe. Hercule Poirot eavesdropping offstage: :( Inspector Japp: Except my good friend Hercule Poirot who is truly a great man. Hercule Poirot: :D

The episode prior has Hastings take the detective role because Poirot's retired for five minutes. His big gambit to make the culprit confess is literally "once they see how sad they've made these perfectly nice people, they'll obviously feel guilty and turn themselves in."

There's an episode of Agatha Christie's Poirot where he watches G Men (1935) with Hastings and Japp and basically gives it a one-star review on his Letterboxd.

Found out about the Hundred Line prequel novel about Hiruko and it really leans into the "what if Junko took some, but not all, of her meds?" side of her character.

Rewatched Whiplash a week or so ago. Forgot how well Miles Teller depicts Andrew as miserably living on auto-pilot when he tries to move on from jazz. Movie doesn't agree with Teller (or Andrew tbh), but it really sells how & why someone gets so passionate about something to an unattractive degree.

I get why Christie decided to write Hastings off though. He's very much a Watson & she likely felt it got in the way of making Poirot not just Belgian Holmes. eg The Chocolate Box in Poirot's Early Cases has almost the exact same "If I ever get too big a head..." bit as Adventure of the Yellow Face

Watching the David Suchet Poirots. I often forget that Hastings is only in fewer than a third of the actual Poirot books. The same with Japp. Even if you only read the books, depending on where you start, some will inexplicably feel like there's a Hastings-shaped hole.

Curtain episode was fine, but it lacked the melancholic atmosphere that elevated the book. It's not bad, but not as much of a send-off as intended. It removed Hastings admitting to Elizabeth that, actually, Styles was just as miserable back in his day which was one of the story's best moments.

Didn't know until yesterday that Netflix now has all the David Suchet Poirot episodes. Odd that they don't have subtitles for Seasons 1 and 2. Either way, going to watch The Mysterious Affair At Styles and Curtain back to back like an utter sicko.

Mamoru Oshii's early films love to contrast dogs as loyal to what they put their faith in VS cats as opportunists who believe in nothing inconvenient to comfort. So it's really funny that once Oshii actually got a cat he canned the concept & apparently apologised to all cats.

Gotta be one of the best image edits of all time

Replayed the battles in Box of Calamity Ending 036 only using Takumi and Gaku. Just as Ren Sudo intended.

I'd fill out this Hundred Line survey (there's a section where you can say what routes you'd like to see) but terrified of the 0% chance I win a prize &/or my Twitter is mentioned. hundred-line.com/event/survey/

Yuan Keding insisting to his dad that everyone in China yearns for monarchy puts him up there with Lin Liguo as among China's Greatest Failsons.

Princess Mononoke is partly Miyazaki working through having both a love of growing things and a mind of metal and wheels.

He was nice about the pilots, but he confessed to Christopher that he felt like Frodo would if he saw Hobbits learning to ride Fell Beasts. While he was anti-Allegory (or more a One True Allegory), you look at his letters around that time & it's hard to deny his thoughts during WW2 seep into LOTR.

Tolkien being asked what Tom Bombadil's deal is and winding up with "don't overthink it. I tried and it doesn't help. I simply liked him and wanted him in my story. ...But, so we're clear, he's absolutely not Eru Iluvatar."

Guy who insists it's only authentic Lost Media if it's officially tied-in to Lost.

the woodland detectives

"Your Honour, when did it become a crime to fight alongside your nakama?"

This is actually what Stranger Things' secret true finale is going to be about.

Chiang Kai Shek's Western reputation going from "my chud son that I hate" to "Problematic Fave."

Cold as ice take but Tolkien's issue with Orcs being innately evil is he saw Orcs as a way of being and then wrote them as a distinct species. There's his line about how "we were all Orcs" in WW1 but he felt much the same about WW2 as well.

The thing about Bullingdon is he is a classist dorky wimp who is 100% right about Barry and is basically Young Barry if he was rich and not as good at violence. Kubrick dedicating a 3 hour movie about why Romanticism is a drug that needs to be kicked.

Something the Tolkien Letters open up is how over-egged Tolkien's supposed anti-allegory stance is. He even says the better the tale, the more people will interpret different themes from it. It's more the idea of a story wholly and *obviously* being a specific allegory that he rejects.