Another month has come to an end, meaning it's time for another film recap.
During March, I watched the following films:
- The Imitation Game (Morten Tyldum, 2014)
- Zoolander (Ben Stiller, 2001)
- Accepted (Steve Pink, 2006)
- Ted 2 (Seth MacFarlane, 2015)
- Drive My Car (Ryusuke Hamaguchi, 2021)
- Your Name (Makoto Shinkai, 2016)
- This Beautiful Fantastic (Simon Aboud, 2016)
- Weathering with You (Makoto Shinkai, 2019)
- Aftersun (Charlotte Wells, 2022)
- A Whisker Away (Junichi Sato / Tomotaka Shibayama, 2020)
There are two themes that become quite clear: dumb movies & Japan-centered films. They definitely reflect my mental states throughout the month–dumb films to ease the midterm season, and Japanese ones to align with my spring break trip. From the list, there were three that particularly stood out from the rest:
1. Aftersun: For capturing the bittersweetness of the struggle to align our actions with our desires.
2. Drive My Car: For highlighting the importance of confronting those we love when they err.
3. Your Name: For its incredible visuals. (Yes, the iconic staircase is the one from the picture above)
I think the only letdown was from Makoto Shinkai's "Weathering with You", for being way too cliché and prioritizing style over substance to levels that were almost intolerable for me... That being said, I must admit the film is still an impressive work of art, so perhaps that makes it worth watching.
You can read my review of each one of these films on my Letterboxd. Although not all of them were masterpieces, I think I can recommend them all–they were fairly entertaining and memorable.