I Can't Stop Thinking About This Part Of A Review Left For Threads (1984). It's Been In My Head For Days

Hot take: Bird Box: Barcelona was better than the OG Bird Box

Better Days 少年的你 (2019) dir. Derek Tsang

Carmy vs Syd The Bear, Season 1-3

Little Forest

Watched: 12.03.2023

Hit pause on the turning point.This movie is a gentle reminder that it’s okay to just take a moment to breathe and figure yourself out - be it a day, month or a year. There is no point in chasing after things that do not bring you peace and happiness. Yes, you still need to deal with your responsibilities, you need an income to support yourself financially, but that does not mean you need to desire and want what everyone else strives for. We are all different, with different motivations and needs. One person enjoys a fast paced environment, someone else needs more calmness in their surroundings. There are no right and wrong answers in how to live your life, as long as you are not hurting others.

And that’s basically what the movie is about - Hye Won putting her life on pause as she tries to figure out what she truly wants, and if the goal she was trying to reach so far is what she truly desires. She reconnects to her roots, reignites her old friendships and slowly learns about her mother’s decisions in the past - understanding things she was not able to understand when she was younger.

What Little Forest offers is comfort and warmth. Beautiful scenery and amazing short cooking scenes. A message that simple life is meaningful. That making amends with your past is the way to move forward, even if it means starting from the beginning.

Additionally, we get an amazing cast delivering perfect performances. Honestly speaking, the movie is Kim Tae Ri’s, and Kim Tae Ri’s only. She carries the whole film. She fits the rural slice of life genre so well, I would have no issue watching a full 16 episodes show based on Little Forest.

Overall, big recommendation for anyone who loves a calming slice of life content with few cooking scenes that will make you hungry.

I feel like I've never seen anyone talk about one of the reasons that being aro is so lonely is that we aren't really allowed to form deeper connections with people.

I'm not allowed to be too close to my friends because if I am then they'll read it as romantic. Their partners will think they're cheating on them with me.

I'm not allowed to touch other people in a way that's too friendly. I'm not allowed to cuddle with people. I'm not allowed to bare my heart and soul to people. I'm not allowed to hang out one-on-one with anyone. All of those things are reserved for people who aren't me. People who can't be me.

Yeah "more than friends" is stupid and friends can be just as important and close as romantic partners but what non-aro actually believes that? What non-aro would let go of their ownership of their partner for long enough to allow me to have any form of affection?

[Do not tag as ace/aroace or derail]

Messi the Dog as Snoop in Anatomie d’une chute (2023) dir. Justine Triet

christopher nolan did such an exceptional job at making the audience feel the tension and horror during the trinity test sequence even though we already knew the outcome and what it meant when they realized that the bomb actually works

I chop you down, hack at you with scissors like I greet the most evil character in a story. What power could a cluster of dead cells possibly hold over me, I think. Until I look in the mirror and see a stranger staring back. You keep growing, month after month after month, relentlessly like you are obsessed with caressing my neck. Others envy the liking you have taken to my collarbone and praise the fast paced journey you take to get there every month. But I know. Oh I know how cunning you are. I know how you plan to coil around my neck like an alive rope choking me tighter and tighter with every passing day and with every growing inch. I chop at you and you keep growing back, till the nape of my neck itches till it bleeds. But it's the ghost of an itch, and I really can't place it. My mom taught me to make beautiful braids out of the same rope that clutched my windpipe preventing me from breathing. I thank you mother, to have taught me to create something so beautiful out of something so horrible. But no mom, it doesn't help and it isn't me who you see in those pretty braids. No mom, you have ceased to know me from the moment you molded me out of your expectations and immaturity. No mom, I'm not going to hell for choosing to do what makes me happy. I choose to exist as I am, as I have been, and as I will be. I choose to breathe free. And I will not let anyone choke me dead for that matter.

LITTLE FOREST (2018), dir Yim Soon-rye

I think one of the reasons this film resonated with many of us (or maybe it’s just me) is the fact that those of us who crave beauty in the most ordinary things want to spend our lives in a similar manner. In a time where hustling is a desired facet of one’s personality, the movie emphasizes a slow life. An enjoyable life. For those of us who want to stop and stare at the beautiful sunset/sunrise and feel content, we are trying to be part of the beauty too, in ways which we are familiar with. Capturing modest pictures that we find beautiful, treating this little life we were gifted so preciously, leaving little space for extravagance, and looking forward to a quiet life; making the most of those small moments we have for ourselves, contemplating the few books and films we’ve consumed in our lifetime, wishing we lived inside a Ghibli movie, treating life with respect.

We watched the repetitive moments earnestly because, like Hirayama, we too loved watching the leaves sway, light scattering through their gaps, and the dappled shadows, even if it was through a screen, a smile creeping onto our faces whenever Hirayama found a sight worth smiling for.

A lifetime spent searching for beautiful things is a beautiful matter in itself. Noticing the countless crevices on tree barks, recognizing the pattern of veins on a leaf when held up against the sun, feeling the warmth of a sunny day — the more you pay attention, the more these moments find you. We try to embrace love and be engulfed by it; sometimes we lose, and other times we win.

I first heard the word ‘Komorebi’ (木漏れ日) in a Radwimps song, and even without knowing its meaning, I found it very beautiful and would sing that word multiple times. Now that I know what it means, I realize that the real beauty is always there; it’s us who change in ways we couldn’t have predicted.