I used to watch a lot of movies. Since I started tracking in 2018, I’ve logged 678 entries in my Letterboxd with 598 unique movies. At my peak in Montreal (late 2021-2022), I would watch two movies after work and four a day on weekends. If I look back on the period of my life objectively, I was isolated in a new city during Covid, phoning it in at work, and getting fat off Uber Eats. But through the beautiful lens of nostalgia, I just remember watching The Godfather Part II (1974) and eating nothing but spaghetti for a week. I also discovered Edward Yang, which led me to visit Taiwan a couple of years later. And I watched a bunch of Chinese and Korean movies with single-voice Russian fan dubs because I wanted to keep up my Russian, but I don’t like many Russian movies. Honestly, not the worst way to spend the Covid era.
For a bit of background on what kind of movies I enjoy, in university, I took a couple of film study courses, but I am no film critic. For me, the peak movie viewing experience is when I see an emotion I’m feeling reflected on the screen. I wouldn’t say The Farewell (2019) is anything special as far as filmmaking goes. But, its portrayal of an immigrant visiting the motherland and not feeling entirely at home, as well as the whole grandmother slowly dying thing, is very relatable. I’ve seen it twice and gave it 4.5/5 on first watch and 5/5 on second. For a counterexample, I can recognize that A Clockwork Orange (1971) is great as far as technical filmmaking and storytelling go. But it just did not resonate with me at all. I gave it a 1.5/5, an absolute slog to get through. With that context, these are the four films I have as my favourites on Letterboxd and what I see in them.
Casablanca (1942)
I am aware that this is almost Citizen Kane (1941) level of pretentious film bro, but Casablanca is absolute perfection. In 100 minutes, you get love, heartbreak, plot twists, WW2 drama, and tons of quotable lines. The characters are all great, and nothing feels extra. It’s black and white, but the film is so fast-paced and the use of lighting and set design is so good that you don’t notice it.
Rick is such a great character. He tries to be cool and detached, but can’t help himself. He shrugs it off, saying it was just for profit, but he helped the Ethiopians and the Loyalists in Spain. He has no reason to help the Bulgarian couple, but lets them win at roulette so that Annina doesn’t have to go with Renault’s “arrangement”. And of course, in the end, we see him risk his own life for both the resistance and Ilsa. Sentimentalist king.
“We’ll always have Paris.” is such a great line. And the follow-up when Ilsa brings up that she promised to never leave him, and he says, “And you never will,” is just such an incredible finale. The moment has passed and can never be recreated, but in his heart it burns as bright as ever.
The story and filmmaking stand on their own, but the historical context just makes it insane to think about watching this when it came out. The Nazi’s are marching over Europe, and you watch this film that so perfectly encapsulates the theme of “evil triumphs when good men do nothing”. Unreal!
In the Mood for Love (2000)
I could watch this with no subtitles and it would still be one of the best movies I’ve ever seen. The framing, colours, set design, costumes, and score are all insane. Maggie is gorgeous, and Tony looks so cool; it makes me want to get a suit and a pack of Chunghwas.
Their partners are cheating, but they are resisting their feelings because it’s the right thing to do. In the first part of the film, they’re constantly running into each other and can spend time together even though they’re married. Then, at the end, when they come back to Hong Kong, they just can’t connect again. Timing just wasn’t right, how heartbreaking.
I went to Cambodia because of the two-minute scene at the end of this movie. The temples there are so sick. Aside from Angkor Wat and a couple of the other famous ones, you can just wander around them without any other tourists.
Burning (2018)
I was asked once why I have this at my three, I said, “Ben is cool, he cooks the girl pasta. Gotta be like Ben.” Jong-su is nobody while Ben is “the Great Gatsby, mysterious, […] young and rich” as Jong-su puts it. “There are so many Gatsbys in Korea,” I just need to lock in hard enough so that I can be one of them.
The film is based on a short story by Murakami, but if I hadn’t known this before reading it, I might have missed the connection. However, the Murakami vibes are present in this film. In The Mood for Love has tons of red throughout the film, but this one is very blue. Some might be disappointed by the ambiguous ending, but I love it. Uncertainty is a core theme of the film, so I think it’s quite fitting.
Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
Truly, for some men, nothing is written unless they write it.
This is the peak grindset movie. In Whiplash (2014), he just wanted to be a little drummer boy, Scarface (1983), and There Will Be Blood (2007) were just about money. Lawrence was on his Lee Kuan Yew shit, trying to build a whole civilization out of nothing. The ending is great; he does everything, gets the tribes to Damascus, but they can’t stop infighting. Sometimes you do more than could be expected of you, and it’s still not enough. Lawrence dying in a motorcycle accident years later and being somewhat forgotten is awesome. In the end, the grind is meaningless, and no one cares.
I re-watched this on film at the TIFF Lightbox, and it’s truly incredible. The desert scenes are stunning. That match going out is one of the greatest transitions in film history. The costumes and battles all hold up more than half a decade later.