7.5/10. What a nice B list movie. The main character is probably my favourite I've seen this year. Not your stereotypical tough guy. Felt very human. Solid debut from the director and really good acting all round

Looks like I'm rewatching this

mothers day(1980)
5/10

did not live up to its hype at all

thank you ill def check it out

sherlock jr

this has to be one of the greatest movies ever made

Between this and Last Laugh 1924 was a game changer form got so much more boldly creative

this was cool coming to age skateboarding movie

and this was dope. one of the better human stories i've seen in a godzilla movie and kaiju battles were great. king cesar looks like a bum tho lol

Army of the Dead: 7/10

The Wave: 7/10

Friend from college put me on this

good movie. direct sequel to godzilla vs mechagodzilla and last of showa era of godzilla movies. kinda like back to basics movie, not as goofy as the few previous godzilla flicks, kinda gritty. there was love story between cyborg woman and human, aliens trying to conquer earth (which is typical plot in godzilla movies lol) and great monster fights at the end. godzilla had to fight two enemies by himself, mechagodzilla and titanosaurus who can make powerful winds with his tail.

Some of those tracking shots through the fire in Letter Never Sent

City Lights.
4/5
Charlie Chaplin was a damn genius

top gun 2.5/5

one of americas all time great propaganda films and a quintessential dudes rock movie

so good on the big screen with dolby audio

Hero

Honestly don’t think its style flourishes have all aged that well but still pretty great. The criticisms of it being chinese propaganda are fair but also like give me a break. American sniper made almost $400 million dollars without that much critical pushback in america. zero dark thirty hardly touches on anything about afghanistan or iraq invasions. spider man pointing fingers meme

alice in wonderland

first time seeing it
it's my new favorite

i want to watch it every night

American sniper is anti America if anything

And ZDT is a deeply cynical film about the Osama hunt as well

I get that there are a lot of pro America propaganda out there (especially a lot of the MCU and even stuff like Lone Survivor), but those 2 you named aren’t good examples

these are great examples for how underhanded they are, none of these movies offer any commentary or explicit portrayal surrounding Middle East conflicts last 20 years beyond a vague sense of war is hell that nonetheless still highlight American soldiers as alpha killers and not anything particular about the afghanistan or iraq invasions or hunt for bin laden. the omissions, inaccuracies, and fabrications in the movies are pretty damning. Fwiw I still think these are still decent and movies are just movies but these are extremely lukewarm portrayals at best of America’s worst foreign policy decisions of all time.

Possessor. 4/5. I think the criticisms of this film are valid, but I can’t deny how sleek it is. It’s also just enough of Cronenberg’s (his Dad’s) influence.

Honestly, I would say American sniper is one of the better portrayals of not depicting all soldiers as alpha killers. Some of the more anti war films like Jarhead or Full Metal Jacket depict soldiers in a much uglier light than American Snipers humanist approach.

AS is not as concerned with the middle eastern conflict, but it is very much concerned with depicting an American system built on overarching forms of patriarchy, Christianity, cowboy culture and how that is exploited to create a cycle of people to be groomed into becoming military soldiers, where they are trained into believing they are dangerous killers and to fight for a country that by the end of it tries to mask their eventual death or crippling injuries as “fighting for country” and does little to nothing to help them. It may not be as informative on the middle eastern conflict, but it’s clear as day watching it, that it finds the conflict pointless and sees it as a never ending war regime that the American government has manipulated its people into believing is a just cause (and perhaps goes even deeper in that to show how violence has torn apart middle eastern families in the film as well as the portrayal of the lone Arab sniper and to show his backstory through a simple but effective frame of his home life and his history). Letters from Iwo Jima is another film that I believe shows Clints intentions with war films, which is to humanize his characters and to depict them stuck in a conflict where they are exploited by a system to fight for.

As for ZDT, I think that while you are right that it mostly doesn’t really humanize its soldiers, I think it’s deep seeded cynicism is actually still very interesting because in many ways, the characters for most of the film are soldiers. But they are fighting a new kind of warfare. And it’s telling that their work eventually just leads to very quick and procedural bloodshed, whether it’s their own people or it’s eventually Osama and his family.

I agree with a lot of your points generally about how many war films don’t have much to say beyond war is hell and seek to dehumanize its characters but I think American Sniper and ZDT do have a lot of very interesting things to say and do very new things relative to that of a lot of other war movies from America ranging from FMJ, Jarhead, Platoon, Lone Survivor, etc. Imo, it’s not a movies job to be fully accurate, it should be about what it’s trying to say about it’s subject.

This was by far one of the most bizarre watches I’ve had. If anyone knows anything similar to it, pls @ me.

8.5/10