ys

"formula one is a team sport. it always was." cars (2006) walked so that f1 (2025) could run. joseph kosinki really has a knack for making these maverick veteran returning to their job stories that somehow become my movie of the summer. this movie did a pretty good job of capturing the exhilaration of an f1 race while utilising the hollywood camera to smooth over the more boring technical parts of it to make it more accessible to a wider audience. honestly, i wouldn't be surprised it this would go on to become a lot of people's gateway into keeping up with f1. the comparisons to top gun: maverick are so valid here, and usually i would attack the lack of originality, but i can't just help but be so sold by this one. i believe it's very important to go into this in the cinema not as a movie critic but as a movie enjoyer. there's something about the aging has-been of their trade returning to teach an egotistical hotshot and then they fight a lot thing that i like. however, i still have a bone to pick with the whole love interest issue kosinki has. they did my girl kerry condon so dirty here!!!! there's no need for her character to perform a complete 180° from irish girlboss former aerospace engineer who's too tough to be charmed to mooning and melting on the biceps of brad pitt. kosinki still has a ways to go on polishing and fleshing out his characters; i wouldn't mind more emotional depth to them. as always, the sound design and action sequences MADE this movie and to me cancelled out a lot of critique of the characters here. those grand prix scenes were just so carefully crafted and immersive, reminiscent of how kosinki did maverick except this time with cars. this is one of those movies that just has to be experienced in a cinema for the full scale of the sound design and the amazing synth score (from the king hans zimmer himself) to quake your bones. it is quite the transcendental experience. there's this one scene at the ending where brad pitt is "flying" that truly took my breath away. the engines and brakes and cheers from the crowd that just peters out... again, transcendental. i'd be so freaking mad if this does not score a best sound at the oscars. i don't watch f1 very much, but i know enough to appreciate all the little cameos and references made in here. love that they made lewis hamilton the final boss. also love toto wolff actually having a speaking role here. i'm also pretty sure that all that cheating would NOT go in real life and the FIA would probably be fining them left and right. also learnt so much f1 lingo like YES i finally know what DRS and slipstreams are. also javier bardem is aging like fiiiiiine wine

"there are legends of people born with the gift of making music so true, it can pierce the veil between life and death." first we had robert pattinson's mickeys and now michael b. jordan's twins! 2025 is such a year for dual acting. i rarely see vampire movies done very well, so this is big for me. i loved almost everything, but the third act didn't quite make it for me, but that's alright. initially anticipated a run-of-the-mill horror story, but ryan coogler's work here is layered with SO MUCH historical subtext that i adored. loved watching the agonising struggle in every character whether to stay in or leave the juke, the familiarity of safety versus the temptation of freedom. especially in wunmi mosaku's annie, OH MY GOSH i loved her character and the stakes for her what with the sword of damocles of her child. definitely my favourite performance here. the antagonist, remmick, is amazing. jack o'connell makes him out to be charismatic, smooth-talking, and even downright funny at times, and yet is such a commanding villain every time he's onscreen. also the use of hitchcock's psycho instrumentals when introducing him to the audience for the first time is WILD i nearly shat myself. one of my favourite themes here is the use of vampirism and remmick's clan to symbolise how marginalised groups during the Jim Crow South years attempt to assimilate and achieve equality and freedom. remmick's irish roots are pretty prominent throughout the movie, and drawing on my american history lessons, african-americans and irish-americans bear many parallels in terms of shared struggles and oppression. however, rather than preserving their own culture, many irish-americans turned to join white american culture instead, leveraging their own whiteness as a form of social mobility. remmick, in this context, is a fascinating figure, serving as a colonised character turned coloniser himself. with him being cut off from his ancestors and craving, he craves to exploit sammie's transcendent musical gift to seize the freedom he could not find on his own. while my perspective may be shaped by my non-american background, i still find this theme particularly resonant. that’s all from me for now.

"help yourself to a hand grenade." "you're very kind." like all wes anderson movies, the phoenician scheme was a beautiful farce of a film. it runs on a more straightforward storyline compared to wes' previous two films, perhaps signalling a return to the older wes films of quests, where maybe the real treasure was the friends we made along the way. however, this left me longing for the grit of the pre-2010 wes anderson, where the budget was lower, yet there was more of a certain nostalgic feel to the movie. while i thoroughly enjoyed the themes of capitalism, family reconciliation, and religion in this movie, some parts of the plot just wasn't strong enough to hammer the themes home. but then again, that's wes anderson for you. most times, i watch his movies as a source of comfort, not so much to search for social critique. really did love all the capering around and conflict between our main characters, corrupt businessman benicio del toro's zsa-zsa and his daughter, mia threapleton's liesl. the cast featured here gives the limelight to the romp of fresh faces in wes anderson's usual ensemble, with seasoned ones taking more of a backseat. of course, all the chatter online has been about michael cera, who was BORN to be in a wes anderson film. honestly, wes should've discovered him much earlier rather than messing around with timothee chalamet. another standout would have to be benedict cumberbatch's uncle nubar, who was a thoroughly entertaining and hilariously anderson-y in his antics. one of the more obvious themes in here was religion, and the role of catholicism in the reconciliation between father and daughter. it takes up much more space in this movie compared to previous wes andersons, where religion was present but mostly used to give personality to the characters (maybe except for asteroid city, where the themes of belief and faith were strong as well). here, it serves as a road for redemption for the agnostic zsa-zsa, through the influence of his novice nun daughter. the conversations about faith here are surprisingly touching and well done, and i loved the portrayal of bill murray as God and how zsa-zsa constantly finds himself in the halls of heavenly judgement after many assassination attempts. very good movie i like

always loved the premise and the concept, but this brushes past way too many details in the book that it is rendered sort of like a big set-up for something more with how contentless it was. still loved watching thomas bumble his way around the gladers for a while. minho will always be my favourite maze runner character and also fuck teresa