FANTASTIC MR. FOX (2009), Dir. Wes Anderson

christopher nolan did such an exceptional job at making the audience feel the tension and horror during the trinity test sequence even though we already knew the outcome and what it meant when they realized that the bomb actually works

everyone talks a lot about suffering and despair as it pertains to Dostoevsky’s work which is totally fair and understandable given the subject matter but I rarely see discussion of how deeply and sacredly tender the end of C&P is. I think there’s a very important lesson to be learned which is that you do not unilaterally get to decide that you are horrid beyond redemption and unworthy of love, no matter what horrible things you’ve done. Sonya and Razumikhin and Dunya do not abandon Rodya as he thinks they should and in fact they uproot their entire lives to make sure there will still be a place for him in the world when he gets out of prison. Other people have free will and they can use that free will to unconditionally love and forgive you and there’s nothing you can do about that, whether you choose to receive it or not so you may as well receive it- even if you feel unworthy. And that is like the very beginning of hope and coming back from the place of no return. Is letting yourself be loved. And letting yourself be loved—- even if you don’t feel that you deserve it—- opens the gateway to experiencing love for others yourself after a prolonged period of cutting yourself off from feeling those feelings of positive regard. It’s a stream that flows both ways. And it doesn’t change any of the horrifying facts about the past. But it makes it possible to begin to live again.

America Ferrera's breakthrough career

I just want to point out that this woman has delivered 2 cinematic, historical, browsing, impeccable speeches about the frustrations I feel about being a woman. And that actress of course is the one and only America Ferrera herself. Let's talk about her debut role in the movie — Real Women Have Curves. The 2002 independent film based on the play by Josefina Lopez is one of my all-time favourite movies I have watched in my lifetime. And if you somehow know this movie through another suspicious Greta Gerwig connection, I implore you to watch this. The movie was directed by Patricia Cardoso. At the time when it was released, America Ferrera had already filmed another movie but this movie debuted first putting her on the map. She was only 17 years old! Josefina López wrote the play when she was 18 years old. In 2019 it was the first Latina directed film to be included in the National Film Registry at the library of Congress. Taking inspiration from her real life, Josefina wrote Real Women Have Curves about Ana, mostly centered on her relationship with her mother Carmen, played by Lupe Ontiveros. This movie is touted, not only for its representation of women in their real bodies, it also delivered a warm and loving portrayal of Latina families and neighborhoods in Royal Heights and East Los Angeles. Again this isn't a time where Latinas, even today, are represented in a full and nuancent light. So to not only have this Latina family but to have them placed in East Los Angeles which has been criminally and stereotypically portrayed as "dangerous", really meant something and still means something today. And the message of that film being "there's so much more to me than my weight". I think this might serve as a comfort watch for many women around the world.

I don't understand how we were made to believe as children, that America Ferrera was the biggest woman to ever grace our tv screen. The Sisterhood Of The Traveling Pants is what I call perfection in cinema. If I ever will have a daughter in the future, she is required to watch this movie. Because every little girl needs to understand what sisterhood and what community is. I feel like girls today are not watching sisterhood displayed on television, or even in movies. It's always these toxic relationship, these toxic friendship — not to say that neither of those can't be toxic and bad, because even within this friend group they all have their own issues with each other, with their families etc. But it's not about the problems, it's how they solve them, how they come together. And I feel like this message should be displayed for the young girls today. And I just love how diverse the friend group is, because nowadays it seems like every teenager I see on tv are like the same skinny, white blondes. If you haven't seen this movie make sure to have a box of tissues nearby because it's going to make you cry.

The dark side of pretty privilige is, you don't get to be funny, intelligent, respected — you just get to be pretty. So I've just finished watching Ugly Betty, I fully recommend, and I realised the only female character who's actually respected within this show, is Betty. If you don't already know the concept, Betty gets hired to be the assistant to the chief. Because he sleeps with his assistants, they decide to get him an "ugly" girl so he won't sleep with her. But she's hired for Mode, which is kind of like Vogue/Cosmo type of magazine. So naturally she gets bullied. They treat her like crap because she doesn't look like the ideal Mode girl. But the crazy thing is, since none of the men want to sleep with her, they actually respect her. They start to treat her like a human being with ideas. Then she becomes one of the most liked people by anyone in their team. On top of that, all of these gorgeous women get treated like absolute crap. No one listens to them, their ideas are not heard, and they're not respected. So it leaves a very clear message: wether you are gorgeous or "ugly", misogyny will still hunt you down and it will catch you. For Betty, men don't look twice her way. They treat her bad from the moment they see her. Just because they don't want to sleep with her, they don't find her attractive. For the beautiful women in the show, like Amanda who is painted as the gorgeous blonde, men only want to sleep with her, and they don't see that she's smart. Go back to watch the show and you'll see how horribly the other women get treated compared to Betty (and they have some good cameos in this show).

As we are reaching the end, we can claim America Ferrera as "that girl". The term is, in my opinion, used for anyone who dresses like a fashionista and acts like the queen they are. But it's much more than that. I think, to achieve that title you have to be also impactful and encourage other women to be what they want to be. America really proved it by playing the Emmy Award winning role of Gloria in Barbie, directed by Greta Gerwig. I think every cis, heterosexual white male should be forced to sit down and watch this movie. The message behind the Barbie movie is about going from being a girl to being a woman. Barbieland is what our childhood felt like; we were safe, naive, independent and everything seemed perfect. The real world is what womanhood actually is. It's scary, sexist, there's pain and we're faced with so many challenges, while still being held to unrealistic expectations by society. "We mothers stand still, so our daughters can look back to see how far they've become". America Ferrera's speech about how hard it is to be a woman, really affected me and made me tear up in the theather. "It is literally impossible to be a woman. You are so beautiful, and so smart, and it kills me that you don't think you're good enough. Like, we have to always be extraordinary, but somehow we're always doing it wrong. You have to be thin, but not too thin. And you can never say you want to be thin. You have to say you want to be healthy, but also you have to be thin. You have to have money, but you can't ask for money because that's crass. You have to be a boss, but you can't be mean. You have to lead, but you can't squash other people's ideas. You're supposed to love being a mother, but don't talk about your kids all the damn time. You have to be a career woman but also always be looking out for other people. You have to answer for men's bad behavior, which is insane, but if you point that out, you're accused of complaining. You're supposed to stay pretty for men, but not so pretty that you tempt them too much or that you threaten other women because you're supposed to be a part of the sisterhood." America Ferrera the woman you are, thank you so much for helping me and other women to believe in theirselves. Happy international women's day! <3

I chop you down, hack at you with scissors like I greet the most evil character in a story. What power could a cluster of dead cells possibly hold over me, I think. Until I look in the mirror and see a stranger staring back. You keep growing, month after month after month, relentlessly like you are obsessed with caressing my neck. Others envy the liking you have taken to my collarbone and praise the fast paced journey you take to get there every month. But I know. Oh I know how cunning you are. I know how you plan to coil around my neck like an alive rope choking me tighter and tighter with every passing day and with every growing inch. I chop at you and you keep growing back, till the nape of my neck itches till it bleeds. But it's the ghost of an itch, and I really can't place it. My mom taught me to make beautiful braids out of the same rope that clutched my windpipe preventing me from breathing. I thank you mother, to have taught me to create something so beautiful out of something so horrible. But no mom, it doesn't help and it isn't me who you see in those pretty braids. No mom, you have ceased to know me from the moment you molded me out of your expectations and immaturity. No mom, I'm not going to hell for choosing to do what makes me happy. I choose to exist as I am, as I have been, and as I will be. I choose to breathe free. And I will not let anyone choke me dead for that matter.

I don’t want to go back to being alone.

Perfect Days (2023) dir. Wim Wenders

I don’t think I am physically able to put, A Little Life, Jude St. Francis, into words of how he makes me feel.

I’m reading a lot of people who are angry at Jude for k-lling himself in the end: and then there are people who are angry the way he was written, which was Jude’s belief of “I deserve this pain” and “no, I won’t go to someone who will help me.” And let me just cast in my 12 cents.

Jude believed that he deserved to be hurt and should pay for his “badness” by punishing himself. He was told at a young child that he was wrong, bad, wicked, over and over by people he believed where good and were their to take care of him, example? Brother Luke.

But why didn’t Jude stop? Even after he was hold he was good and kind, why did Jude believe he would keep hurting himself? Simple, he believed that it was just who he was and how he was to be treated. I’ll explain, when someone is raised to believe that they are the best, and that they should get everything they want and everyone should do everything in their power to get them what they want. And when you tell that person they need to be humble, they are going to tell you off and continue in there ways and thinking. Jude is the same way, he was told he was wrong, and everyone else who was trying to tell him he was good, he wouldn’t believe them. He couldn’t allow himself to believe it because he saw love as a lie.

He believed that hurting himself was just part of him, something he had to do. Like brushing your teeth and taking out the trash, he had to hurt himself because it was who he believed he was. It was his identity. And he was afraid that if he took away that self loathing and self hatred, he wouldn’t know who he was.

And that’s where William comes in. William helped him understand who Jude was. Something to be loved, and cared for, something to want to come home too. Sure Harold also showed him this, but it wasn’t the same relationship. William loved Jude without reason, but Jude believed that Harold loved him like one would love a puppy. You bought the puppy, therefore you must take care of it. But this does not mean that Jude didn’t see Harold love for him, he couldn’t see why or how he could be loved from a Father relationship.

William proved to Jude that no matter what he did, William would be there. William wanted Jude to be better, William took steps to making sure Jude was getting better, William set up healthy walls to tell Jude to fix himself, seek help and to take care of himself. And with William help, Jude gave himself a new identity. He was not completely whole, but he was seeing himself of something deserving of love, and to be cared for. And when William died, Jude lost that part of himself. Jude couldn’t see himself of someone deserving of love because that one person who he believed could loved him with all his scars and walls down was gone.

Even with everyone around Jude telling him that he is loved, he couldn’t believe it, or had a hard time believing it because it was all words to him. He saw their actions as something he should be angry at because they were made out of sympathy and not out of love. And even at the end of the book where we see Jude get better and start taking the necessary steps to getting better he still died in the end.

And that is what is the biggest pill to swallow in the end. At the end of the book, we all fell in love with Jude. Each of us grieved for him, I cried harder over his death and mourned for Jude harder than I have ever wept for someone I knew personally. In the end, Jude still died. And for this reason, I can’t put what this book makes me feel into words. This book makes me feel that I need to go in a room all alone and just stare into the stars and wait till my body is ready to keep on breathing.

As a person who chronically wants to end their own existence I saw myself in Jude. I saw his pain, his sufferings and understood why he believed he was “made for pain” or “made to suffer.” And this is the same lie I was telling myself for years, I said it so much that it never accorded to me that I deserved anything else until someone showed me the reason why I should be loved. But Jude died believing that people saw him as a burden. And I don’t have a response for that. Other than just unending tears.

It's genuinely so baffling to me when people think it's weird or sad that I want to stay single forever or that I'm going to "die alone". I have tried not being single I truly don't understand how people do it. What do you mean there's another person just like. In your house. Where you live. All the time, even when you get home from work?!? Just. I guess do you and chase your bliss and whatever but damn. Couldn't be me. No fucking thank you I'm good.

when it comes to disco elysium, one of my favourite things within the game is the usage of lungs as a motif of love and the representation of this through dolores dei. it’s an incredible way of showing it, as when you love someone or something it almost seems to sustain you, becomes the air that you breathe.

however, another thing i noticed is that an overwhelming majority of the characters smoke. smoking is famously damaging to your health, more specifically to your lungs - almost like smoking is a metaphor for the way these characters show their relationships with others.

some prime examples are:

• harry du bois, who smoked heavily before losing his memory (and after, depending on player choice), a clear instance because of dora and her effect on his life and relationships for years after she left

• the smoker on the balcony, who is never seen without a cigarette, and is in an unloving sexual relationship with someone who can never understand him or truly know him at all

• klaasje amandou, who is also never seen without a cigarette, believes that she is at fault for all of her relationships collapsing and has a skewed view on what it means to love

however, my favourite example is, of course, kim kitsuragi. yes, he smokes as he enjoys the control he has over his addiction and the “cool factor” it gives him is satisfying, but i think there’s a more specific reason there - kim is so repressed that he consistently walls himself off from relationships.

kim himself says that he smokes one a day as he goes over his notes. to me, this says that he is causing minor, daily damage to his interpersonal relationships that builds up more and more over time. the fact that he does it specifically when going over notes says a lot to me too - that his work is what he’s using to push others away.

he does break this one a day rule, however - in the ending where the player chooses not to recruit kim. harry leaves kim behind. they shake hands, and as soon as harry turns away, kim lights a cigarette, a visual representation of the damage caused by another partnership cut short.

I've been trying to watch more movies with Swann Arlaud in it so I watched Perdrix last night without knowing anything about the storyline. Definitely one of the strangest movies I've seen and also surprisingly funny. I would say it's worth the watch!