On a pleasant winter morning back in August, I watched Shunji Iwai’s Love Letter (which had been on my watchlist for several years at this point). It's a very pretty movie. Winter in my country may not bring snow, but the soft, overcast light and the completely silent house made for a perfect backdrop.

It's been months, and I'm still thinking about that one scene. “OGENKI DESU KA? (ogenki desu ka?) WATASHI WA— ( watashi wa—) GENKI DESU! (genki desu!) — Again and again, I feel like I'm yelling out these words in my heart, waiting for them to echo back to me from someone I've never seen, in a town I've never been to.

There's no way to describe this movie other than “nightmarish”. As I watched this, I thought back to the WWII movies I've seen before: they were all full of romanticism, heroism, sympathetic enemy soldiers, and “isn't the human spirit indomitable”, and só on. Our hero is going to spend a while in the trenches, but no worries: he's got a home to come back to.

Come and See completely rejects that kind of narrative. War is full of dirt, mud and blood that dries and forms a thick crust on your skin. It's complete and total despair. There's no home to go back to, no hope. Look at this boy’s face. Isn't he so young? See how everything’s gotten so dirty? See his chapped skin and the haunted look on his eyes? You can't look away from his misery. The movie won't let you.

Hazy green fields between impoverished villages become otherworldly zones where silhouettes of German soldiers lurk in the mist. Boundless cruelty is combined with absurdism in a dizzying frenzy. A man-made hell on earth. It's sickening. The real-life footage from Nazi Germany mixed in at the end says in no uncertain terms: the atrocities that happened here were real. Don't look away.

Strange, feverish, dream-like movies like this one always feel so nostalgic to me for some reason. All the while I felt like I was being reminded of something from long ago…

The cinematography and costumes were beautiful, and so was the scenery, from the all-too-white bedrooms to the dark dungeons and grassy fields. Some parts felt like seeing a living, breathing painting. Vampires and dead chickens abound, as do half-naked bodies in lacy white undergarments. Innocence gets stained in blood. Isn't that what growing up felt like, in a way? I don't really know. It's a weird movie. I liked it a lot.

I also have to respect that whenever it veered too close to developing something that could be called a coherent plot it changed into something else entirely

A couple of edgy teenagers find each other and begin following the trail of a serial killer...I don't know if it's because it reminds me a bit of my own youth, but it's kind of cute.

The whole movie has kind of a dreamlike vibe. I really liked the sets and atmosphere, and there were some cool camera angles here and there.

The sets, the main characters’ chuuni dialogue being played completely straight—it feels like a bit of a love letter to black-eyeliner-wearing-teens across the world. In a way, I think it’s the fulfillment of a very common wish, especially among “alt kids”—finding someone who’s into the same things as you are. Being understood. Being seen.

I don’t know how to describe it, but this movie feels like something you either think it’s stupid, or end up falling in love with. I’m in the latter group, of course ;p

Throughout my life, movie theaters were always a "has-been": my town's one and only movie theater, within walking distance from my house, closed down sometime before I was born, and has sat an empty building up for rent for most of my life. While shopping in the neighbouring city, I'd pass through an empty building between stores; my mom would then tell about the movie theater that used to be there: how she went on a date there with my father, how she slept through most of it because she was late in her pregnancy, how she saw a rat in there once.

As I watched this movie, I wondered if that's what the last day of those movie theaters was like.

The movie is mostly silent. No one tries to stop the movie theater from closing; the last movie is aired to an audience in the single digits— it's a very quiet farewell.

I watched this movie in may but as it's halloween month I figured I'd write an entry for it. Eko Eko Azarak is not what I'd consider a "good" movie, but I went in expecting silly fun and silly fun is what I got. There's also lesbians, which would've been more of a plus if the writing wasn't so homophobic. Oh well.

I never got very far into the manga it's based on, but definitely check it out if you're into wizards and occult stuff.

I watched Obayashi's 1983 adaptation of A Girl Who Leapt Through Time a couple weeks ago(and also read the novel it's based on). It's very, very different from the 2006 Mamoru Hosoda version, which was surprising for me.

The movie starts out in black and white, on a snowy peak, and color gradually fills the screen as the characters go downhill into spring—one of my favorite parts.

Overall, it's a sweet little movie—I quite liked the ways it drifted from the novel. Now I'm due for a rewatch of the 2006 version, and maybe I'll check out the more recent live action version, too.

I just watched Casting Blossoms to the Sky! It's a very good movie, and it didn't feel as long as it was. It's about the effects/scars of WWII in a village, the efforts to not let the younger people forget about the horrors of war and repeat history, and the need to heal and move on.The visuals were unusual, but they set up the atmosphere in a very creative way. It also made me cry a lot! It's part of an "anti war series", so I'm looking forward to checking out the rest of the movies.