Bruh I'm still thinking about the realism-shedding extended sequence in EXILED (2006) where the hitmen pop all bullets out of their guns, leaving only one each, then proceed to shoot what seems like infinite ammo. Setting up a logic for a shootout then discarding it is unhinged. Naturally loved it.

I'd never gotten to S07 of Buffy until now and the level of relentless Evangelion-style dread and apocalyptic anxiety is shocking. It's all sex and death. The depiction of maturity as constantly worrying someone you love might be in mortal danger or you might fuck up is inspired.

Sometimes I feel optimistic about the human race then I open my Youtube homepage and there’s still recently uploaded videos titled “Japan is literally living in 2050 😍” and it’s a grocery store with self-checkout.

Felt this one coming for a while. For no clear reason, I have been thinking about this movie non-stop for the past year. Makes me so happy.

I know it’s considered mid, but Scarlet’s Walk is my current favorite Tori Amos album. Its endearingly sincere Bush era themes of “traversing the American landscape in search of answers” just lands right when her eye for astute, idiosyncratic details pushes it to unfamiliar territories. She’s good.

SHIN KAMEN RIDER is phenomenal. Great use of digital, great use of “terrible” CGI, great use of all genre conventions. Heroics in the bland midday sky. Few directors truly wring digital for all its worth, flat images and all, like Anno does here. Least cynical movie I’ve seen in a long while.

Surveying reviews on the latest PJ Harvey, the state of music criticism has to be way worse than film. Mostly muted polite praise, a particularly mean spirited one from p4k, they all share a bizarre fixation on seeing the dialect as a gimmick because it’s the only way to think of a formal decision.

@anthonyhalton.bsky.social Happy birthday Michael!

October First Time Viewings:

1. WHERE CHIMNEYS ARE SEEN.
2. KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON.
3. XIAO WU.
4. NEWS FROM HOME.
5. FRONTIER MARSHALL.
6. OLD JOY.

Only found a colorized copy of Heinosuke Gosho’s WHERE CHIMNEYS ARE SEEN and couldn’t re-encode it in b&w without it messing up so I had to change my tv settings to zero saturation. Colorizing movies should be punishable by law.

Naming my pet frog “Jacques Ribbitte”