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Watched on Saturday May 24, 2025.

Kiyoshi makes and I watch. It’s a very simple pattern to my existence.

Watched on Thursday May 22, 2025.

Watched on Wednesday May 21, 2025.

Watched on Tuesday May 20, 2025.

Watched on Monday May 19, 2025.

I think being hit in the head by a pitching machine would produce better results than the Red Sox bullpen this season. 

Kitano articulated my feelings so well.

Didn’t have any shōchū today, but plenty of Sapporo at least. Think I’ll open a bottle tomorrow thanks to Kiyoshi 

Watched on Saturday May 17, 2025.

Watched on Saturday May 17, 2025.

Kurosawa’s neorealist approach is simple yet so effective. An optimist and pessimist attempt to make the most of their day on 35 yen, which ends up being a very endearing story of true dedication to a partner.

Akira Kurosawa Ranked

I really enjoy what Kitano is going for here, cycles of brutality and violence which contrast his earlier yakuza films stylistically. I’m eager to see where the next two films go  

Watched on Friday May 16, 2025.

Watched on Thursday May 15, 2025.

Watched on Thursday May 15, 2025.

Watched on Thursday May 15, 2025.

How can you remake Kobayashi’s masterpiece? I still don’t know how to exactly answer it. But I find it quite fascinating Miike decided to take on this after remaking the rather lesser known 13 Assassins. There’s a lot of restraint here in Miike’s remake, and I dig it. I particularly love how he lingers in tragedy, never shying away from it by cutting. I do think this restraint however hurts Miike by making his film not really standout from the original, but there are undeniable qualities to this film that make it a worthwhile watch. Was kinda hoping it would do something to be stylistically different, but it’s simply more of a shot for shot retelling of the original with more mellow dramatic elements. 

Watched on Tuesday May 13, 2025.

:(

Saw in 35mm on the big screen, truly a magical experience

My heart…

Gonna start cracking out my Hawaiian shirts soon

Yup, Kitano is an absolute genius in my book. 

Watched on Friday May 9, 2025.

I had a feeling when going into this Obayashi would bring something back to light within myself. Black and white memories that are clear manifestations of past dreams and experiences. One’s where you can only reflect and never truly relive. Isn’t cinema beautiful and disappointing that way? 

Watched on Thursday May 8, 2025.

Watched on Sunday May 4, 2025.

Will Sloan was right. This is everything that The Substance tried to be and failed. 

Watched shortly after I finished my Ozu dedication short film. I’ve seen a lot of criticisms towards this, but it captures the concept of 無 beautifully. Kiarostami is not trying to make his own film inspired by Ozu, but a dedication to his principles of negative space and nothingness. It’s beautiful in its own right. 

This was a mindset I had when making my short for Ozu. Obviously inspired by his style, I wanted to personally attempt to articulate the unsaid which spoke to me from within when watching his work. However, I wanted to not clearly show who in footage is the one telling the story. Allowing the eye to wander and speculate whose feelings could this be? Could it by my own? Why is my eye being drawn to this particular individual in the footage? 

Meditative westerns are the best kind of westerns 

Hell is not a place that previously existed, humans created it. 

Watch my dedication to Ozu here!

Those who have been following me for a while now know how much Ozu means to me. His artistry truly has changed my life and I have always felt in debt to what his work has done for me. I created this as a letter of deep iration to a master. To capture feelings of not just Ozu’s spirit, but of myself as well. I hope you enjoy what I have made and find some value in what could only hope to be the smallest fraction of Ozu’s talent.

Watch my work here!

Watched on Friday April 25, 2025.

Watched on Thursday April 24, 2025.

Watched on Tuesday April 22, 2025.

Hello friends,

I’ve been working for many hours on what I’m calling my first “short film”. I know that I may never have the opportunity to actually film with myself behind the camera, so I found this project to be a major creative outlet. I’ve been working with various archival footage and Mishima’s Patriotism to essentially tell a personal story while also being a loose poetic retelling of Runaway Horses. I’ve spent many hours on this poverty budget “production” but it brought me a lot of pleasure to be creative and expressive. I made it purely for no gain other than for myself, friends, and family. I’ve always wanted to make a “film”, and this is the closest I may get. I hope you find some value in it or even find enjoyable aspects of what I’ve made. 

My next project is a dedication to Ozu, I am currently writing out a draft of it.

youtu.be/WGoD-u4RyA8?feature=shared

Kurosawa here instead of showing us “the next” in this revenge film leaves us with a meditation similar to Eyes of the Spider. What more is there? What happens once your cathartic revenge takes place? Aimlessness is what occurs. A hollow state of what you once were, a void that never will be filled.

Kurosawa just gets it 

Watched on Saturday April 12, 2025.

Kiyoshi Kurosawa is one of a kind. His ability to blend genres is like no other, not a single shot is wasted here. There is no glorification of revenge, instead Kurosawa presents a terrific cold meditation allowing us to truly ponder this cynical world. I do not know how he accomplishes this so masterfully, but I know for a fact only a genius can pull it off. 

Watched on Thursday April 10, 2025.

If the ether truly exists, Malick has found a gateway to it. Oh how thankful I am to see glimpses of it in his filmography 

Road to 250

Watched on Friday April 4, 2025.

Good stuff, very well played Welles

Watched on Thursday April 3, 2025.

Watched on Wednesday April 2, 2025.

For those who think this is an anti-war film, you are dead wrong. This is a tonally confusing mess of a film. Hacksaw doesn’t go far enough to be considered pure exploitation and lacks a humanistic component to make it a film truly about human spirit. What is the goal of this exactly? There is no authenticity about personal pacifism in the wake of armed conflict and it ends up glorifying war. To showcase this films absurdity…

Scene Example 1: Doss stands up to his superiors over his self-righteous views of pacifism. Refusing to use or even train with a gun. 
Scene Example 2: An American soldier picks up a body with the legs blown off to use as a human shield as he shoots a BAR at the Japanese (who are comically riddled with rounds)

Wtf? 

A deeply dark and enigmatic navigation of the mind through fragmented memories. Through Korea’s tortured past we gain some glimpses of what is exactly going on here. A backdrop that is both familiar yet foreign among its rubble and destruction. This landscape Bae creates is one that is an Eden and hell for us as a viewer. A place where memories and pasts can be explored openly to reveal truths or revelations about the self. 

In other words, to poorly sum up my ramblings - a stone cold masterpiece. Absolutely criminal Bae Yong-kyun only has 2 films. Easily on the same level as Tarkovsky 

Transcendent 

There is no other film that delivers an experience like this. Comparable to the experience I had when watching Malick’s Tree of Life, but there is an even greater sense of spirituality that is pouring through each and every second of this film. The epitome of Zen meditation. Why Has Bodhi-Dharma Left for the East? Is a film that is meant to prioritize feeling over intellect. Emotion over analyzation. I plan on the rest of the night to meditate in my own solace.

• Cure
• Tokyo Sonata
• License to Live
• Charisma
• Journey to the Shore
• Pulse
• Chime
• Cloud
• Bright Future
• Doppelganger

...plus 36 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

5/5’s
(Organized by director frequency then followed by date)

• Late Spring
• Early Summer
• Tokyo Story
• Tokyo Twilight
• Equinox Flower
• Floating Weeds
• Late Autumn
• An Autumn Afternoon
• After Life
• Nobody Knows

...plus 47 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• The Lower Depths
• Seven Samurai
• Red Beard
• High and Low
• Ikiru
• The Bad Sleep Well
• Yojimbo
• Sanjuro
• Throne of Blood
• Ran

...plus 9 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

It is incredibly deserving and long overdue that Hong Sang-soo takes one of the spots of my personal favorite filmmakers. What I adore about his films are the subtle and delicate character studies in each of his films. Like Ozu, Hong means to tell a story that rhymes like poetry, or a portrait of rose which is painted the same way but over time periods of one’s life. He captures so eloquently the desires of our own selfish needs and ghosts of our past. How often do we play in our heads situations from long ago and how we could’ve handled it differently? Moments that make us cringe, regret, pity, laugh upon, etc. Hong quite frankly puts a mirror in front of our most shameful moments and brings them to light, but more importantly he humanizes them. Hong doesn’t vilify us, as he is just as guilty and instead uses his storytelling/characters as a medium to meditate on ourselves. A way to ultimately gain some sort of wisdom to never repeat or accept these mistakes. Obviously I do not relate to Hong’s past, but I cannot help but think the countless times I’ve had a misplaced comment or word which changed the events of an entire interaction. Though these moments Hong brings back up to us may be awkward and sting, he reminds us that life simply goes on. It may be awkward the first and second day, but after does it really matter? Hong Sang-soo has truly challenged me in my way of thinking and how I reflect/handle of the past.

• Grass
• Oki's Movie
• On the Beach at Night Alone
• The Day He Arrives
• Our Sunhi
• The Novelist's Film
• The Woman Who Ran
• In Our Day
• Hotel by the River
• Right Now, Wrong Then

...plus 20 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• Fallen Angels
• In the Mood for Love
• Days of Being Wild
• Happy Together
• 2046
• The Hand
• The Grandmaster
• Chungking Express
• Blossoms Shanghai
• As Tears Go By

...plus 14 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Links to my work:

I Loved, But… - https://youtu.be/1uZAWspNNj4?feature=shared

Variations on a Life - https://youtu.be/WGoD-u4RyA8?feature=shared

• Variations on a Life
• I Loved, But...

• Like Father, Like Son
• Our Little Sister
• Shoplifters
• Nobody Knows
• After Life
• Monster
• Still Walking
• I Wish
• Maborosi
• Without Memory

...plus 11 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

There are a number of fantastic directors out there, but none can top how Yasujirō Ozu “speaks” to me through his filmography. His works depict the truths of the world we live in through the present and “now”. How we value family, the way we build relationships, and realizing the bittersweet truths as we grow older. Out of the many films I’ve seen, his work is an incredibly accurate portrayal of how life is. It simply goes on, sometimes it doesn’t work out, sometimes it does. Often we need to take risks stepping out of the comfort of a familiar environment. So we can experience new joys in life, even though we may be feeling content in the familiar. Though his films are about the everyday details on life, the context is always under the surface. I’ve discovered the older I get, the more and more I’ve fallen I love with his films. I believe Ozu’s films were meant to grow old with.
Back when I was introduced to Ozu in 2020 with Good Morning, a seed was planted that developed into an absolute love for the director. Now, I cannot imagine my life without Ozu’s influence in my daily routine. I truly mean it when I say “I love Ozu’s films equally.” Though there are ones that absolutely standout, there is still so much value to each one I’ve seen. This list is just me trying to list which ones impacted me the most in order.
“I have always said that I only make tofu because I am a tofu maker. One person cannot make so many different kinds of films. It is possible to eat many different types from around the world at a restaurant in a Japanese department store, but as a result of this overly abundant selection the quality of the food and its taste suffers. Filmmaking is the same way. Even if my films appear to all be the same, I am always trying to express something new, and I have a new interest in each film. I am like a painter who keeps painting the same rose over and over again.” – Yasujirō Ozu

• An Autumn Afternoon
• Tokyo Story
• Late Spring
• Tokyo Twilight
• Early Summer
• Floating Weeds
• Equinox Flower
• Late Autumn
• The Munekata Sisters
• A Hen in the Wind

...plus 27 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Rarely a director challenges me as an individual. Making you look and face the bitter facts of reality, leaving an imprint on your eyes and soul that is forever seared. Lee Chang-dong despite his short filmography, captures an essence of cinema which I’ve been longing for ever since my discovery of my other personal favorite directors (Ozu, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Kar-wai, and Kore-eda).

• Poetry
• Secret Sunshine
• Burning
• Peppermint Candy
• Oasis
• Green Fish