Favorites - Movies
Howl's Moving Castle
Howl means a lot to me because:
- I am an idealist
- I don't always live up to my ideals
- This makes me flounder in pathetic self-loathing before I smack some sense into myself (or a loved one does it for me)
While I am not necessarily proud of these traits in total, Howl gave me great relief when he expressed all these and was... largely loved for it? Like. People want the undignified and pathetic moments nearly as much as the confident and capable ones anddreadful tweet Howl ratio? It sorta blew my mind and was a huge step towards accepting myself.
Also, this film helped prime my mind to jump away from Neoclassicist/Realist art and towards Impressionism/Romanticism/Aestheticism. Things didn't need to be so literal or "make sense". You can just melt like a slug because your hair makes you feel disgusted with your self-image.
Anastasia
Balto
The Secret of NIMH
The Sound of Metal
The Iron Giant
Treasure Planet
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
Classic for the emo kids and our garage bands. We ate this shit up.
Whiplash
I think Damien Chazelle (the director) said something along the lines of "making this movie felt embarrassing because it says a lot about me and my pscyhology". GOD, me too dude, I felt SEEN in this movie man.
I often pulled all-nighters to study the calculus/physics sequence while working to pay bills. I was a zombie from how little I slept. The whole time I was pushing myself to do more than was asked of me to hold myself accountable to some imaginary standard. I was, of course, furious with myself if I didn't meet it. Maybe there were "Fletcher"s in my life but I became one towards myself!
Right. The movie. To genre snobs I like to say "Whiplash is my favorite horror film" and I kinda mean it? It plays like a psychological horror but in the setting of a drama. The tension that mounts with respect to Fletcher is uncanny. When you don't see him you're looking for him in the corners like Hereditary. It's got blood, it's got a jump scare, it's even got that long pan of the father's horrified expression as if his child were possessed by a monster. I don't think this was a mistake on Chazelle's part. The only thing that could have made the movie better for me is if I could see it when it released.
Oculus
As for actual horror, I do quite like Oculus. I typically don't care for the genre but this was a great time.
La La Land
Big Hero 6
I often tell people this is what it felt like to do FRC ~2010.
The scene where Tadashi shows Hiro the sort of things they work on in a college lab felt like it was ripped from my memory of going to CMU for a competition. For that reason, this movie will always have a place in my heart.