media!!!!

i realized that for the longest time, i consumed media very passively. i would finish a movie or binging a show and barely think deeply about what i just spent hours of my life on, before moving onto the next thing. i think especially in this modern age of ai, it's really important to be able to form your own thoughts. so this is my attempt to improve my critical thinking skills, as well as not caring about what others think. i think i'm really afraid of upsetting others but that shouldn't stop me from forming my own opinions. and what better place to do it than on the internet in this little nook where i can yell into the void and only either trusted friends or some random strangers will see it. another thing is i hope this will help me keep writing stuff. when it comes to writing, i think i'm kind of a perfectionist, so hopefully this will force me to just get my thoughts out. i'd rather ramble on than force perfection that will never happen

also i'm not a huge fan of rating stuff, i feel like it forces me to give some number that everyone will interpret differently and one single number can't capture every aspect of something. so im mainly just gonna yap about what i found memorable

(originally this was just a reading log, but i wasn't reading enough books to have anything to yap about oops)

i rewatched this in the english dub with the friend and highkey understood more of what happened this time. lu guang is actually kind of an asshole and it's actually kinda sad to see him and everybody else treat cheng xiaoshi like he does nothing when bro literally relives his trauma in those photos. also i really like how they went full circle with emma's story even if it's super tragic, and it shows how cheng xiaoshi's attempts to simply be kind spiraled out of control. also the episode with the earthquake devastated me just as much as the first time. i still think the time traveling aspect of this show is really well done, and it's really satisfying when everything finally clicks (hahah) together. the way they said some lines in english were kinda cringe though. but overall i enjoyed.

this was my fourth time watching the show, the first time watching it with someone else, and if it isn't obvious already, this is my favorite tv show. it's funny, heartfelt, clever, and makes me genuinely want to be a better person. i feel like calling this a sitcom really undersells the show because the plot is really important and obviously you need to watch episodes in order. but also that genre label use that to subvert the audience's expectations so well. like in the first season, even though we think they're in heaven, we chalk up all the silly situations and mistakes to the show being a comedy, and stuff going wrong is just because that's what's supposed to happen in a tv show like that. luckily for me, i didnt get any spoilers beforehand so i was completly shocked by the season 1 twist, and at first, i thought michael was playing along to try to help them cause i didn't want him to be the bad guy. but on a rewatch, there are soo many little details and moments you can tell michael actually planned for things to go wrong and it's so good. i remember after the first time i finished this, i instantly restarted the show cause i wanted to catch all the foreshadowing in season 1, which led me to rewatch the whole show oops. the pacing of the show is also really nice, like they don't try to milk the fake heaven stuff in season 2 and it lasts only 2 episodes and then they move on.

my favorite character is definitely michael, i love his entire character arc from when he starts out as an evil demon to genuinely caring about his cockroaches to becoming an actual human. he's so excited about mundane human things like paperclips and rewards cards and it kinda reminds me how special it actually is to be human, all the moments we get to live through, whether it's good or bad, small or big. and also i like how they didn't force him into any weird relationships to prove he's human because of love or whatever. i do like jason and janet's relationship though, it felt kinda silly at first but as the show progressed their love for each other became more genuine. i love how as janet slowly became more human, it wasn't just her feeling happiness and caring more, but also negative emotions like sadness, frustration, and sarcasm.

my favorite character out of the four humans is probably jason. everything he says is either the dumbest thing you ever heard, actually really funny, or really sweet and well-meaning. his relationship with janet is genuinely so sweet. i know he's meant to be the comic relief character, but i love how his arc comes full circle: he goes from pretending to be a monk to actually having the ability to sit still for hundreds of years. honestly, i just love all the characters' arcs; from the very first episode, their flaws are what michael uses to torture them, but by the end of the show, they've overcome those flaws and grown so much. even the side characters are wrapped up so nicely, like i love how shawn isn't actually that evil and doesn't hate michael, he just likes fighting him because it's fun like they're siblings or something.

i think watching this again with someone else definitely made the experience a lot better. i was so excited i got to see him experience the show for the first time (despite spoilers) and just laughing together at the stupid jokes and being able to reference and quote stuff. but also it has been almost 2 years since the 1st time i watched it and a lot has definitely changed in my life. this time, i definitely was able to relate more whenever they talked about relationships in the show, and the scenes with chidi and eleanor hit extra hard even tho i've seen them 3 times already. and even tho it's just a show, i feel a lot more optimistic and hopeful about how life will turn out. i hope one day, we will find our good place, whether the afterlife exists or not.

there's also so many memorable quotes and maybe they're cheesy, but ill just list a few here, because sometimes we just need a little reminder about what's good:

"every human is a little bit sad all the time because you know you're going to die. but that knowledge is what gives life meaning."

"what matters isn't if people are good or bad. what matters is if they're trying to be better today than they were yesterday."

"the wave was just a different way for the water to be, for a little while. you know, it's one conception of death for buddhists: the wave returns to the ocean, where it came from and where it's supposed to be."

"people improve when they get external love and support. how can we hold it against them when they don't?"

"if soulmates do exist, they're not found. they're made. people meet. they get a good feeling. and then they get to work building a relationship.”

"that's what the good place really is. it's not even a place really. it's having enough time with the people you love."

ok that's enough for now...see you in the 5th rewatch

this was way more trippy than i expected and lowkey leaned into horror (ok i also just get scared easily). but idk the idea that you can just erase a single person from your memory feels so wrong. all the bad memories, sure, but all the good memories as well. cause when you're in a relationship, you can't pick and choose only the good parts of someone, because nobody is perfect all of the time. but if you truly love someone, you're willing to look past their flaws - whether its embracing them or helping them improve - if it means you can be with them. like the way joel gradually realizes he doesn't want to forget clementine after all while reliving his memories, and that wanting to forget her was just a decision made in the heat of the moment while angry. and then in the very last scene, he finally just accepts her for how she is: "okay." AHHHHHHH

anyways i wanna rewatch this movie already because i feel like there were so many hidden details, like the woman who wanted to forget her dog :(

i don't listen to much stand-up comedy, but i enjoyed this a lot - it was funny and entertaining, as well as having some profound and sad moments.

my favorite song from this is definitely against the kitchen floor. the beginning instantly caught my ear because it's in a different key than the original and the IN CASE I DIE: version. i love how the piano accompaniment in this recording sounds really bluesy, like a church hymn, and you can feel so much passion emanating from the keys and in his voice.

"you can't expect yourself to be properly dressed for the end of the world. just put some pants on. and as long as you have someone who doesn't mind how you look without them, any old pair will do."

warning: high cheese level!!!

my partner showed me this song, and the first time i heard it, i thought it was nothing special. it's a chill song with a cool arpeggiated guitar part. then one day, i listened to this song again, and it just hit me differently. i know a lot of rhcp lyrics are gibberish at times (maybe not to kiedis) but i realized that this one described a lot of my feelings towards my partner before and after we got together.

the first two lines are "i got dosed by you and / closer than most to you", which is a really poetic way of saying i fell in love with you, because of you. "what am i supposed to do?" he instantly sings afterwards. same bro. "take it away, i never had it anyway / take it away and everything will be okay". to me, this is denial. denial that it would never work out because he was straight, and if i was away from him for awhile during the summer, these feelings would eventually leave and i could go back to being just friends with him without these lingering thoughts. im fine with just being friends with him, friends that perhaps hug a little longer than they should, or friends who lean on each other and hold hands during movies.

but those thoughts came back, and as kiedis and frusciante sing in the chorus: "way upon the mountain, where she died / all i ever wanted was your life / deep inside the canyon i can't hide / all i ever wanted was your life". now we're back, and it's hard to keep hiding how i feel. and STILL, i try to deny it. maybe it's just platonic, it's def not romantic. is it weird that we're hanging out so much? is it weird that i care so much for someone who is "just a friend"? i have other friends whom i love dearly, so why should he be any different?

lyrics aside, i absolutely love the harmony between the two voices in the chorus. and it's fun to pick which voice to sing along with. plus the last time they sing the chorus, kiedis goes up to an A before the G on the word "hide" to create a brief sus chorus which is SO satisfying.

now that we've been together a little bit, ive definitely allowed all my feelings to spill over freely. knowing that he feels similarily and that i'm not delusional or stupid for what i felt is just so comforting.

"in you a star is born and / you cut a perfect form and / someone forever warm". at first i interpreted this as the star being born in him, but now i think the star is the feelings that were glowing inside of me. at first they were hot embers that hurt to touch and think about, but now that he's opened me up and let the light shine outside of me, it's more like a crackling fireplace on a chilly christmas night. he is someone that will forever be warm to me, a steady source of comfort in this endless madness we call life, and i only hope that i can be the same for him.

one of my favorite ww songs with one of my favorite lyrics by him: "i was nothing before, so i couldn't have asked to be born / i'll be nothing again, so what am i between now and then?" idk why but it just hits so hard every single time i listen to it. also i just love the style of the song, a jazz ballad that slowly builds from beginning to end, as the key keeps modulating higher and higher, and ww sounds increasingly desperate every time he sings the chorus.

at first during the monologue, you think he's gonna tell you to love someone no matter how they are. but then he hits you with "jam that square peg in the round hole in their heart" and subverts your expectation. telling the audience how lucky they are to have a partner who's "normal", something he so desperately wants to be, not being able to commit to relationships because of it.

this was my second watch, but despite knowing everything that would happen, i cried just as hard as the first time i watched this.

i haven't seen many musicals, but i was pretty familiar with some of the songs in west side story already, so i wanted to give it a shot. despite being kinda cheesy at times, i actually really liked it. i'm not big on the love at first sight thing, but ill give this one a pass because we love interracial couples!! besides the romeo and juliet retelling, they also addressed some other topics like racism and immigrants which was interesting, and i really liked the song "america" even though it's kinda goofy. my other favorite song is probably maria because it's just so pretty and you can hear the emotion in his voice. also the fact that there was an intermission in the movie probably made sense to people watching at the time, but to me it was so unexpected and funny.

ok this might be controversial but i didn't really like this one as much as the first one. not to say it was a bad film, but there were a couple things that turned me off. first, it was so much longer and there were moments where i was kinda bored, usually during the fight scenes. not to mention it ends on a cliffhanger?? if i knew that, i would've waited to watch it until the 3rd movie comes out. also i feel like they tried to do too much in this one, both with the animation and the plot. like gwen's pov and the watercolor style was cool, but after awhile it just became kinda annoying to watch. (the vulture was sick af tho.) also miguel lowkey pissed me off as a character, like i get that he's got the big sad because his family died but he made me cringe a bit later on when he's trying so hard to stop miles. also i refuse to believe hundreds of grown ass spider-people that are supposed to be the most elite were not able to catch miles in their own headquarters. also they introduced the spot at the start of the film and then nothing happened with him for most of it until the end when they had to tease us with him for the next movie, like i really would've liked to see more of him. once again i will admit i cried when miles' mom gives him a talk before letting him go after gwen.

i'm not into marvel or spiderman at all, but i really enjoyed this movie. the animation is absolutely stunning. i really liked miles' coming of age story and it was funny but still serious in the right parts. i'm not gonna lie, the part where miles' dad talks through the door to his son made me shed a tear. and i also cried when uncle aaron died. the absolute horror on his face when he realized that spiderman was his nephew was so devastating to me. the different spider-people were so funny tho. also i did not expect miles giving the shoulder touch to kingpin to defeat him, that was so funny to me for some reason.

surprisingly, i liked this one a lot. i feel like most of the movie was pretty chill and then so much happens in the last 20 minutes. also this reminded me an awful lot of dead poets society.

i literally got so many chills because the orchestra sounded so similar to the original music. the medleys were so good and the transition between songs during each seasons was so satisfying. i have nothing bad to say about the music itself. the part that sucked was that people do not know when to shut the fuck up. also, i wished the conductor talked less and played more, but i can't blame him for needing to entertain the audience.

jen-nay

jokes aside, i can see why this is a classic, and i'm glad i finally watched it.

it's been awhile since i've watched disney films and man, this one was so much darker than i thought they were supposed to be. my favorite song is hellfire. also hugo the gargoyle is canonically gay.

tbd

tbd

this film is just under an hour but it still packed a lot into it. i was a bit confused by some parts but overall i really enjoyed it. the axe murderer scared the shit out of me though. definitely wanna rewatch this one.

i'm a sucker for the found family trope, which is what got me to read this book. the story is told in a very non-linear way, jumping between the two policemen's and the hostages' perspective, which i found a bit jarring at first, but i definitely loved how it all came together at the end. every character was very well developed as well as their relationships with each other and my favorite was probably estelle. the english translation preserved the witty and sarcastic narration, which reminded me a bit of lemony snicket and douglas adams. also i am ashamed to admit that i thought the bank robber was a man until it was revealed halfway through the book. and it is still amazing how despite not even knowing her name, i cared so much about her and what happened to her character. towards the end of the book, every time i finished a chapter i was expecting it to be the end only for there to be more (which i'm not complaining, it was like finishing a slice of cake and realizing there's more left) but i thought the book wrapped up all the loose ends very nicely. it was a lot sadder than i expected, but ultimately a wholesome book. def going to read more works by this author.

this was the kind of book they assigned you in middle school english class, but for whatever reason i never read it. so here i am, reading it as an adult, but now i get why it's so famous. i thought the beginning was a bit slow, but after jonas gets his assignment, i really started liking it a lot. every time it was revealed that they didn't have certain memories for the sake of Sameness, the more i realized how fucked up their society really was. like it really blew my mind when i realized that they couldn't see color. and it broke my heart when jonas asked his parents if they loved him and they ended up dodging the question. the anti-horny pills were kinda funny though.

every character in this book sucks and needs to get off twitter. jokes aside, the premise is so interesting and i never felt bored while reading it. obviously the book is from june's point of view, and she is far from a reliable narrator, but i do feel kinda bad for her. also this book poses some interesting ethical questions, but i'm not smart enough to answer them here, so go read it yourself.