One of the best Bollywood films ever made. On the surface it is a comedy about three engineering students, but underneath it is a sharp critique of an education system that rewards memorization and crushes curiosity. What stuck with me is the simple idea that if you chase excellence, success follows on its own. It is funny, it is loud, and then it sneaks up and gets emotional. Rancho’s “Aal izz well” still makes me smile. ...
Paul Haggis’s interwoven drama about race and prejudice in Los Angeles. A film that forces you to confront uncomfortable truths. The structure is what makes it work. A dozen strangers’ lives keep colliding over a couple of days, and nobody is purely good or purely bad. The same person who says something ugly in one scene risks his life for a stranger in the next. It can feel a little heavy-handed at times, but a few of those collisions hit hard. ...
Ang Lee’s martial arts masterpiece. The fight choreography is breathtaking, especially the duel in the bamboo forest, but it is the story underneath that makes it unforgettable. It is really about longing and restraint, two pairs of people who love each other but never quite let themselves say it. That quiet ache is what stays with you long after the swords go quiet. Beautiful to look at and surprisingly sad. ...
Kid Cudi’s animated love story on Netflix. The art style is gorgeous and the soundtrack is incredible. It plays more like a long music video than a traditional movie, and I mean that as a compliment. The story itself is a pretty simple romance between two artists in New York, but the visuals and the music carry it. Worth watching just for the look and the vibe. Recommended. 4/5 stars. ...
David Fincher’s provocative film about consumerism, identity, and rebellion. Even knowing the twist going in, it still lands. What resonated with me is the emptiness at the center of it, a guy who has all the stuff he is supposed to want and feels nothing. The movie is smart enough to know that the answer the characters reach for is just as broken as the problem. Dark, funny, and a little uncomfortable in the best way. ...
Heartbreaking to watch. The Joker has been my favorite villain for a long time, and what got me here is that they finally showed the human side of him, how someone who started out good gets ground down and turned into something evil. It makes you sit with that question the whole way through. Joaquin Phoenix’s performance is amazing; he carries the entire thing. Saw it in the theater with a friend who was genuinely messed up by the time it ended. It’s heavy and dark and stays with you. 5/5. ...
Roberto Benigni’s heartbreaking and uplifting film about a father shielding his son from the horrors of a concentration camp by turning it into a game. The first half is a light, charming romance, which makes the second half land even harder. The father’s love is so complete that he spends his last energy protecting his son’s innocence. As a parent, the ending wrecked me. Few films balance this much joy and this much sorrow. ...
Brad Pitt as Billy Beane, revolutionizing baseball with data. A story about challenging the status quo and the courage to be different. You do not need to care about baseball to like this. It is really about trusting the numbers over gut and tradition, and sticking with it while everyone tells you you are wrong. As someone who works with data, that part really landed. Smart, quiet, and more moving than I expected. ...
My #1. I grew up reading about these scientists in my textbooks, just names on a page with equations attached to them. Seeing them walk around as actual people, in the same rooms, alive at the same time and all connected to each other, was something else. That’s the thing that got me: not only Oppenheimer, but the whole crowd of them gathered at one moment in history. Nolan does the science and the dread justice, but for me it was personal: my textbook heroes brought to life. ...
Guillermo del Toro’s dark fairy tale set against the backdrop of post-Civil War Spain. The creature design and storytelling are stunning. What makes it haunting is how the fantasy and the real world mirror each other. The monsters a young girl imagines are no worse than the very human cruelty around her. It is beautiful and brutal at the same time, and the ending stayed with me. Not for kids, despite the fairy-tale look. ...