Not much to say this week, but here are a few words about films I saw this weekend! I don’t think these “reviews” are my best writing, but thought I’d share them anyway. Follow me on Letterboxd 🟠🟢🔵: @angelogiomateo!
Frankenstein
(Guillermo del Toro, 2025)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️½
In Guillermo del Toro’s universe, monsters are not so much monsters, as much as it is about society and humanity. He always makes us empathize with “monsters” and asks us the question: What makes us human?
Victor didn’t create “something. You made someone.”
The creature loves and thinks and feels. He develops relationships and friendships. He feels pain (”What is pain if not a sign of intelligence?”), misery, and loneliness. And he learns to forgive.
“Whatever puzzle I am creator, I think. I feel. I am obscene to you, but to myself I simply am.”
Wonderful score by Alexandre Desplat.
One of my fave films of the year.
Aftersun
(Charlotte Wells, 2022)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️½
This reflection on memory and technology and grief and mental health and parenthood is so beautiful and heartbreaking. There are no easy answers to the open questions of this film. But the final 5 minutes of this film is a true gut punch.
What does it mean to remember? How do we fill in the gaps of our fragmented memories? Can we ever really remember someone? We see pixelated video recordings and hazy Polaroids but also dream sequences. But how do we know what is real and what is edited?
The reflection on suicide really hurts for me, having had my own experiences. I know the feeling of reaching a birthday, feeling like you don’t deserve to make it to that age. I’ve sat in that darkness on my birthday before, sobbing. When he walked out into the sea, I was speechless. But Calum hides it all so well.
I can never re-listen to “Under Pressure” again in the same way after that ending.
“It’s ok to be sad, anak. It’s normal to iyak iyak sometimes.”
The Naked Gun
(Akiva Schaffer, 2025)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Comedy’s back, baby.
It’s falling apart
Shut down and restart
Melt off, defrost
I’m spiraling up