Avidfilmbuff

It took me a while, but I finally compiled my list of my favorite Top 250 films. The list is subject to change, of course, especially as I watch new movies and rewatch and reevaluate ones already on here. And yes, I know I am a big Indiana Jones fan 😂. boxd.it/uBBvU

It honestly really does feel that the Godzilla Minus films are Japan’s answer to Nolan’s Batman trilogy. I felt there were a lot of parallels to this movie and The Dark Knight. Even the ending and final shot felt like a reference to it. Ghidorah is basically Kaiju Joker.

I just saw Godzilla Minus Zero……Best movie of the year and the best Godzilla movie of all time. The Dark Knight to Minus One’s Batman Begins. I’m legitimately surprised some people say it’s not as good as Minus One, to me it surpasses it in every way while raising the stakes. My biggest worry is that when the Godzilla franchise raises the stakes, the movies end up getting sillier. For decades no Godzilla movie was as good as the original 1954 film. This did not have that problem, it is still an intense, philosophical, and grim disaster film, with fascinating characters and excellent performances. Like Minus One, it deserves to win the Oscar for Best Foreign Film, but like it will probably not even be nominated. I highly recommend everyone see this on the big screen.

It’s crazy to me how some people are now insisting Nolan’s The Odyssey has had no cultural impact besides its box office. The bow scene, the siren scene, Pattinson shouting “somebody get these beggars out of here?”

Both Nolan and Yamazaki deeply admire each other’s work. Nolan has even seen his other films and praised them. Do we really have to do this?

Hmm, I don’t quite agree with the ranking. Rowan Atkinson is known just as much for Blackadder as he is for Mr. Bean, and Mark Hamill is also very well known for The Joker. Elijah Wood has had other prominent roles as well.

So I have not discussed politics much at all this past year due to not feeling like it after the tragedy my family went through last year, but I have not ignored it, and now want to go on a little rant this post election day. It has been enormously frustrating being on the classical liberal side of conservatism and the right wing spectrum. I’ve had to watch many on the right basically become the caricatures that the left often accuses us of being by abandoning classical liberalism and individualism, and the left still pretty much sees me as some kind of far right fascist simply for not being a leftist, as they’ll even do with leftists like JK Rowling for having reasonable criticisms of their side’s activist positions. I’ve had people on the right call me a fake conservative and a leftist for supporting Christopher Nolan from baseless accusations while pointing out that his films contained subtle conservative themes (which ended up being the case with The Odyssey despite what Matt Walsh says). I’ve also had many on the right attack me for having a more nuanced view of immigration instead of being either pro mass deportations or pro open borders, and wanting an assimilation focused immigration system (a view many of the Founding Fathers agreed with), and was still basically treated as pro open borders. I’ve had people on the left accuse me of white supremacy (despite being mixed race) for supporting the Founding Fathers, of racism for being pro-racial colorblindness, and not to mention the usual insults of fascism, MAGA, and nationalism. Even being pro-capitalist and pro-limited government earns me these usual insults. I even had a guy tell me the other day that I was very confused for being a fan of Avatar The Last Airbender while being a conservative. To the left, all forms of non-leftism are basically some version of fascism. They don’t care what my actual beliefs are. So how do I feel today about this massive loss by the GOP? Not much to be honest, anyone could have seen it coming. My opinions are still the same, they’ll never change, but in the end I’m not radical enough for either side, and have no desire for acceptance by either of them. The only thing I’m hoping for now is that sanity is restored to American politics, and that political extremism is called out on both sides. I’m not holding out much hope, however.

Mine was this tweet about Walter White functioning as an unwilling instrument of justice against the protagonists of Better Call Saul. 14,000 likes.

Pixar’s best movie, in my opinion.

I legitimately thought she was funny. Her performance gave off old-school screwball comedy vibes. I don’t get why people disliked her performance.

Honestly, I think that you can say that Odysseus’ palace full of rude and nasty suitors in Nolan’s The Odyssey is basically social media. The Suitors are the online trolls that have no concept of civil discourse and will insult anyone for the most ridiculous reasons. Again, the best movie about Chesterton’s Fence.

I gave the movie a pretty high 4 and a half stars on Letterboxd. But I must admit that it’s mostly great on a technical level than for any story-related reason. The best performance in the movie by far is Donald Pleasance as Dr. Loomis, who even in the inferior sequels is still compelling to watch. Michael Myers is just not an interesting villain to me like, say, Norman Bates or Jack Torrance. His purpose in the movie is to embody a faceless and irrational evil, which he fulfills well, but what do you really do with that? That’s a big reason why in the sequels he just ends up being a Jason Voorhees like figure, because you can’t really do much else with him. Jamie Lee Curtis is pretty good too, but her friends are just your typical slasher movie victims. But yeah, the suspense is excellent, the music both memorable and unnerving, and it’s the best of all the slasher movies out there. I don’t necessarily blame anyone though for maybe being less impressed with it than I was with it, however. The Thing is a far superior Carpenter film.

“Do what must be done, Lord Vader. Do not hesitate, show no mercy. Only then will you be strong enough with the Dark Side to save Padme.” This heavily implies that acts of cruelty make a Sith stronger with the Dark Side. So it does make sense.