Sinners (2025)

3rd watch! I wanted to focus on Michael B. Jordan’s performance and all the nuances he gives to the twins. It’s incredible what he’s doing here, the expressions and ticks of both of them are so distinct.

Also highlighting the editing, the cuts are sharper than a razor blade.

I remember when this album dropped, and just the power and acceptance that comes in on the “Hineni, Hineni, I’m ready my Lord.”

I remember crying, thinking, “Won’t be long now.” And then he passed 2 weeks later. What a way to close things out.

It’s not a matter of could, he was THERE.

💀💀💀

SO TRUE

Another Round (2020)

My oh my. I love so much of what this is doing. The cinematography is incredible without being overly flashy, the writing speaks volumes in with a pamphlet’s length, and Mads turns in all-timer performance.

I’m going to be thinking about that ending scene a lot!

I do have to take out the trash at some point but I think it might require looking in the mirror and reciting a mantra or some shit to get there

Solidarity 🫡 I’m so glad they cancelled school today, I didn’t want to walk to work in this 😰

Essentially, I disagree with Alana’s actions.

But I understand her as a a woman who often feels her own arms stretched to breaking on all things required of, available to, and still out of reach for us via the dilemmas and contradictions of dominant liberal feminist narratives.

So ultimately, this relationship that they have is inappropriate, but I think that it highlights the complexities of being a young woman at this crossroads of feminist decoupling of the woman from motherhood while still being subject to many of the still highly-present qualities of patriarchy.

So just as these other people have projected things on to her, she projects all that she feels, all her insecurity, back on Gary.

The final moment of hearing her say, “I love you, Gary” can be read in multiple ways but most notable is that you don’t hear him say it back.

And this constantly leads her back to Gary, a person who she can feel power with because he’s literally a child.

Now, he’s mature for his age and the patriarch of his family, as Alana would likely justify her involvement with (“He’s a really good business man”) but it doesn’t exonerate her.

Sometimes, your usefulness is chosen by other people for what they need in life (the Councilman needing a beard) or what they think they need (Sean Penn’s barely there co-star). Alana did try to go down these paths of her own volition but ultimately, her agency gets taken from her.

I was QT’ing the “However!” to talk about these parts and I fell asleep so now it looks like 3 hours of me being uncritical of all that 😭😭😭

Alana genuinely felt so understandable in her aimlessness and her desire to grasp on to something that makes her life feel meaningful.

When in such a state, you look for purpose in anything and everything you can.

(Spoilers here)

Additionally, the relationship between Gary and Alana is inappropriate, so let me just be clear about that. However, I think the fact that it *is* inappropriate is to the movie’s strength.

Licorice Pizza (2021)

This movie feels just effortlessly made. I love these snapshots and vignettes paint such a vivid picture of 1973 Los Angeles.

The goofy side characters (Bradley Cooper was PERFECT)
and the two leads in their debut film, it’s a vibe that I really like!

I’m a big of saying “Martino Supremo” tho

They’re genuinely not bad, I’m interested in them!