Movies

Unorganized list

An unorganized list of some good movies.

• Eraserhead
• The Room
• Clerks
• Blade Runner
• Everything Everywhere All at Once
• Snowpiercer

  A post-apocalyptic world where everyone lives on a continuously moving train. There are metaphors about society and inequality.

• Dark City
• Oldboy (2003)
• Koyaanisqatsi
• City of God
• Tekkonkinkreet

  I just really liked the art of this movie, back when I watched in it college.

• Chungking Express

  Intersecting lives in Hong Kong of a policeman, a flight attendant, and a woman that works in a food stall. How do I feel nostalgia for something I’ve never experienced? Because of this movie I actually visited Chungking Mansions when I traveled to Hong Kong.

• Memento

  Who are we if we can’t form new memories? Leonard can’t form new memories, so he tattoos messages and clues on his body, trying to solve his wife’s murder.

  Good cog sci movie. I’ve used Leonard Shelby and hiss tattoos as last-minute Halloween costume twice now.

Documentaries

• The Up Series

  Honestly, probably one of the most life-changing documentaries I’ve ever seen. It follows a group of children starting at age 7 and interviews them every seven years. It started in 1964, and now they’re 63. I watched the first 6 or 7 (until around age 49) within a span of a couple weeks, and seeing people grow up so fast just blew my mind.

  If you like the Up series, you might also like Boyhood by Richard Linklater. Unlike the Up series, Boyhood is a fictional story, but the actors actually age 14 years.

• RiP!: A Remix Manifesto

  Learn how copyright went haywire. You might also like the documentary Patent Absurdity and the book Free Culture.

• Exit Through the Gift Shop

  A documentary about the graffiti street artist Banksy. I remember some empowering feeling watching this back in college, like just the way some guy could effect change and convey a message. There are ties to a similar message in They Live.

• Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media

  I originally watched this in 2010, though I watched it fairly recently I think sometime in 2020-2021. It’s weird how much it’s still relevant, despite being from 1992, based off a book from 1988.

• Jiro Dreams of Sushi

  Kind of an inspiring story about a sushi chef’s laser focus on perfecting his craft. You know, I don’t know if it’s insane or inspiring that some of his apprentices will spend years just perfecting the rice. It’s probably both. When I watched this movie, I kind of felt inspired to work on improving my own craft (probably some computer-related skills). I should probably watch this again.

• Man on Wire

  Like a heist documentary, but instead of stealing their goal is to tightrope walk across the Twin Towers. You’d also probably like Exit Through the Gift Shop, which is also heist-y, but with graffiti.

Cyberpunk Movies

See /cyberpunk, which has an extended version of this list.

• The Matrix
• Ghost in the Shell
• Tetsuo: The Iron Man
• Pi
• WarGames
• 964 Pinocchio
• Welt am Draht

  Also called “World on a Wire” in English. This Rainer Werner Fassbinder film is about a world being simulated on a computer. I watched this on October 14th, 2011 at the Pacific Film Archive. Random note, Michael Cera recommends this movie on Hot Ones about 18:58 in.

  The movie The Thirteenth Floor is based on this film, but I don’t remember it being as good.

Campy

Some of my favorite movies are terrible in an “art” sense but amazing in an “entertainment” sense. These are some recommendations of bad, campy, or B-movie style movies. Some are intentionally made in a campy style.

• The Room (2003)

  “Oh hi, Mark.”

  I saw part of this on YouTube, then I think I watched the actual movie at the Media Resources Center at Berkeley’s library.

  This movie is funny in a “who the heck created this?” kind of way. I guess it’s also funny in that everything is unexpected. People say that this is a bad movie, but really bad movies are boring and predictable. The Room isn’t predictable, and it certainly isn’t boring. In some ways it weirdly reminds me of a David Lynch movie, in the sense that I never understand what’s going on.

• Black Dynamite

  A spoof of Blaxploitation movies and a kung-fu comedy masterpiece.

  Black Dynamite: “I just got one thing to lay on you cats and then I’ll split. I am declaring war on anybody who sells drugs in our community.”
  Chocolate Giddyup: “But Black Dynamite, I sell drugs to the community.”
• Napoleon Dynamite (2004)

  Is Napoleon Dynamite campy, or is it just a cult classic?

  I’m not sure why I like Napoleon Dynamite, when I think about it. I remember it being funny, and I remember maybe some kind of nostalgia in its Americana aesthetic. Maybe I just also like the characters and their dialogue. I’m not sure that I quote Napoleon Dynamite all that often, but I sure remember a bunch of lines years later.

  I will also say that Napoleon Dynamite is literally what got me listening to Jamiroquai. So you could say this movie had a lasting effect on me.

• Italian Spiderman

  What if Spider-man was just some 1960s/1970s chain-smoking Italian guy with seemingly no spider-related powers (but did occasionally have the power to teleport)? What if this movie also seemed to have no budget? The trailer is intentionally campy, apparently inspired by an actual unauthorized Spider-man.

  If you like this, check out the TV series Danger 5 by the same people (Dinosaur).

• Plan 9 from Outer Space
• They Live

  A guy finds a pair of glasses that reveal that the real world is run by aliens pushing subliminal consumerism.

• The Rocky Horror Picture Show

If you like these and are in the Bay Area, you might check out the Psychotronix Film Festival (also my notes on the Psychotronix Film Festival) hosted by KFJC at Foothill College.

Weird Movies

Movies that are weird or, like, bizarre.

• Really, any David Lynch movie goes here.
  • Eraserhead

    Mother, they’re still not sure it’s a baby!

  • Blue Velvet

    Heineken?! Fuck that shit! Pabst Blue Ribbon!

    Fun fact: this movie is part of the reason that PBR was my first beer.

  • Dune
• Tampopo

  The egg swapping scene is burned in my memory.

• A lot of Charlie Kaufman movies work here too.
  • Synecdoche, New York
  • Being John Malkovich
• Tetsuo: The Iron Man
• Pi
• Everything Everywhere All at Once
• 964 Pinocchio

  Most of this movie is just screaming.

• Gummo

  I wouldn’t say I recommend this movie, as I don’t even remember if I liked it. I just know it was weird, back when I watched it in college.

Unwatched

• Nosferatu
• Easy Rider
• The Immigrant

  I might have seen it, but if I have, I’ve forgotten it.
• The Kid
• Safety Last!
• Bride of Frankenstein (1935)

  Introduces the Frankenstein (monster) character we’re most familiar with today.
• Modern Times (1936)
• The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)
• The Great Dictator (1940)
• The Maltese Falcon (1941)
• Lassie Come Home (1943)
• Sanshiro Sugata
• Gaslight (1944)
• The Third Man
• Invasion of the Body Snatchers
• The Fly
• The Elephant Man
• Barbarian

  Recommended by a friend on May 8th, 2023.

• American Factory

  Sylvain recommended this to me a while ago.

• Forbidden Planet

Recently Watched

• Deadpool & Wolverine on 2024-08-13

  Watched this at AMC Kabuki 8 in SF with my partner and her friends. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen Deadpool. Pretty funny. Really liked Gambit’s funny accent, for some reason.

• The General sometime August 2024?

  Holy cow, Buster Keaton’s stunts were incredible. And the comedy still keeps up today. Don’t really like the fact that he’s fighting for the confederacy, but, I dunno, I mean they lost anyway.

• The Raid on 2024-07-14

  Brutal (but good) action movie that was recommended by a couple people in the same martial arts circle as my partner and I. Kind of like a darker Ong-Bak.

• Suzume on 2024-07-13

  Anime movie, with the same director as Your Name. Similar type of feeling. I enjoyed it, and I definitely teared up.

• Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga on 2024-06-11

  Watched this at AMC Kabuki. Really liked the action and movie. At first, I didn’t really think Chris Hemsworth was going to be a good villain, but he was.

• Ong-Bak: Muay Thai Warrior on 2024-06-01

  Second time watching this movie. It’s been at least ten years since I saw it last. Probably enjoyed it as much as when I saw it the first time. Forgot that it’s actually got a lot of parkour in it.

• The Room on 2024-05-31

  Saw this at Balboa Theater with my partner and my dad. Got to meet Tommy Wiseau in person! He had a lot of merch there, including underwear. That underwear definitely has a condom pocket; I know because we bought the underwear.

  Fun experience getting to watch it in person. I’d only watched it by myself like 10 years ago. Anytime a picture of a spoon appears on screen, people through spoons. People point out all the inconsistencies and weirdness like the fact that people never close the door. Would definitely watch in person again.

• Pretty Woman on 2024-05-19

  Fun movie. Man, people used to carry a lot more cash in their wallet than they do now.

• The Fall Guy on 2024-05-03

  Watched this at AMC Metreon 16. Fun action movie. Makes me want to learn more about stunts.

• Star Trek: First Contact on 2024-04-05

  Finally found out where some sound clips about Locutus of Borg come from. Man, Patrick Stewart with his bare chest.

• Poor Things on 2024-03-29

  Trippy movie. About a woman with a brain transplant growing up and exploring life, I guess.

• Chitty Chitty Bang Bang on 2024-03-22

  Not sure how I didn’t see this movie as a kid. Maybe my parents knew that seeing the breakfast machine would make me want to build my own. And maybe they wouldn’t have wanted me to be destitute like the main character.

• Exhuma on 2024-03-16

  Korean horror movie involving shamanism, geomancy, and historical Japanese-Korean war conflicts. The only jumpscare was the grandma ancestor. Good movie. Watched in Regal cinemas in La Habra.

• Dune: Part Two on 2024-03-09

  Watched in “ScreenX” format (two side screens that at times made it more “immersive”) at Regal Cinema in at Stonestown in SF.

• Dune: Part One on 2024-03-01
• Brief Encounter on 2024-02-15

  Really good movie. Watched it for Valentine’s Day since it’s in the “romance” genre, but it’s not exactly the kind of romance movie you’d want to watch for Valentine’s Day. Also, the way British people talk in this movie is just… I dunno it’s pretty fun to watch. So refined… especially compared to this American garbage dump you’re reading right now.

• Dark City (rewatched) on 2024-01-31

  Man, I totally forgot this movie—which is ironic, given the plot. Really good movie, I remember enjoying it a lot the first time I watched it, which was at least ten years ago. I think I originally watched it because it was on a list of movies either related to cognitive science or just mindfuck movies.

• Elemental sometime in January 2024

  I enjoyed this movie. I teared up a bit, though I fell short of the tear production of one of the main characters.

• Midnight Runners sometime in January 2024

  Korean buddy-cop drama movie that has one of the actors from When the Camellia Blooms. Fun movie.

• The Roundup: No Way Out and The Outlaws sometime in January 2024

  The first of this series that I saw (The Roundup) was pretty good, and probably my favorite of the three. The third movie wasn’t as thrilling, I think because the main villains in the second movie are scarier to me. The first movie confused me, because it has some of the same actors but it seems like they’re playing different characters. (Actually, just looked this up. Park Ji-hwan plays the same character “Jang Yi-soo”, but I guess he just looks different between the two.)

• The Whale sometime in January 2024

  When I was watching this, I thought, “These people are talking like they’re in a play”. And guess what… the movie’s based on a play.

• Concrete Utopia on 2023-11-20

  Kind of like High Rise meets Snowpiercer

• The Creator on 2023-11-19

  Watched this at AMC Orange 30 (map). I remember this being like a weird combo of every other sci-fi movie. Like, it was like AI: Artificial Intelligence, The Matrix, Avatar, all wrapped into one. In that sense it wasn’t really novel, though.

• Barbie on 2023-09-03

  Watched this at the AMC on Bay Street in Emeryville. I think this movie was pretty funny and subverted a lot of tropes.

• Oppenheimer on 2023-08-24

  Saw this in 70mm IMAX at the Metreon with some friends. First time seeing a 70mm IMAX movie, I think. The clarity was generally pretty good, and the reason I say that is that the audio cut out like 15 minutes before the ending and they had to stop the movie. They couldn’t figure out the projection issue so they rewound and played back the movie in digital format, instead of 70mm. You could definitely see more of the pixels in digital.

  I liked the movie. Super interesting story about the characters behind the creation of the atomic bomb. Since the movie is based on a book, it didn’t have Nolan’s concepts or twists that you see in movies like Tenet, Inception, or Memento. Though, like Memento, there are black-and-white flashbacks (forwards?) interweaved in through the movie.

• Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning on 2023-07-18

  Saw this with a friend in theaters on a D-BOX haptic seat. It was kind of interesting to me that the haptic seats had a “volume” button that controlled how intense the haptics were. I turned mine down a bit.

  From what I remember it was an enjoyable movie.

• Angel’s Egg on 2023-04-14

  Originally recommended to me a long time ago by my friend Jonathan from parkour. I think artistically this movie was pretty interesting, but I also definitely didn’t really understand it.

  The synopsis is basically this young girl finds a large egg that she protects, some military guy asks her what’s in the egg, and there’s also some fisherman that try catching giant shadows of fish? Is that a synopsis?

  Watched this at The Roxie in SF with my partner and another parkour friend.

• John Wick: Chapter 4 on 2023-04-02

  I enjoyed it a lot, not just the action but the themes of friendship and debts/reciprocity. I teared up a bit. Watched it at a Regal Cinema in SoCal.

• Mrs. Chatterjee vs Norway on 2023-03-21

  Based on a true story of an Indian woman, living in Norway, whose kids are taken by the Norwegian government. Kind of an emotional film, kind of reminds me of Dearest, but more about corruption and the law.

  I enjoyed it. Watched it at the AMC in the Metreon.

• The Cell on 2023-03-11

  Jennifer Lopez enters the mind of murderer to save his next victim. Pretty interesting art direction and cinematography. Kind of a decent cog-sci movie, vaguely reminds me of Inception. A bit scary and gory, though. I liked it. Watched it at The Roxie.

• Unicorn Wars on 2023-03-10

  Animated movie where Care-Bear-type bears wage war against unicorns. Pretty violent and graphic, kind of like Happy Tree Friends, but with an actual storyline. In Spanish. Watched it at The Roxie in SF. Recommended.

• The Pez Outlaw on 2023-03-09

  The story of a guy that imports contraband Pez dispensers from Europe. Kind of makes me want to buy Pez dispensers. Recommended.