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Bandersnatch stands out as the most Twilight Zone-esque and perhaps the best episode of Black Mirror to date, thanks not only to its innovative and gimmicky presentation, but also its ultimate secret ending.

A slight nod to other comments: when following a straightforward path, Bandersnatch can feel somewhat bland and slightly uninteresting. Even though the various choices may lead to very meta and/or interesting schizophrenic endings, this isn't the main appeal of the episode.

The true gem of Bandersnatch lies in the culmination of all choices you make and the different endings or dead-ends you encounter. As Colin Ritman puts it, what matters is the choices that led you to a particular path, rather than the specific fate you experience in one lifetime.

Here's a hint: when faced with a dead-end, don't hit rewind and choose another option; instead, select from the options the episode provides. It remembers your choices and will open up alternative routes you can explore.

Only after going through those multiple dreaming sequences, RPG/visual novel playthroughs, and exhaustively exploring Bandersnatch's depth, do you truly appreciate its richness. Just like Stefan, who finally exhausts his options through the experiences of hallucinogens and brutal murders, you'll encounter a bittersweet moment when the episode reveals a secret ending that, to me, feels like the canon conclusion.

At the core of Stefan's obsession with "multiple choices" adventures is one pivotal moment when he wishes he could revert to be with his mom, accompanying her through her eventual demise, regardless of his prior knowledge about it. As "O Superman" by Laurie Anderson plays, the episode takes us back to the first sequence of the episode, and both Stefan and the audience finally find a sense of peace after the Jacob's Ladder-esque nightmare - asking if, after all, it is the lack of acceptance that burdens us when we grieves ourself into the deep hole of what ifs.

Two hours and half have past by the time the credits roll; Bandersnatch asked me if I want to give another go. I closed my eyes and put it to rest.

Knives Out perhaps is not the best written movie out in this year, but surely it is one among the most entertaining.

Saying the film is predictable is not wrong, but it is missing the point. Just toward the first halves the film dropped plenty of clues toward pointing the suspect of the crime, but the point was not about "who did it", but "how and why it was done." Indeed, perhaps in the first half audience is intentionally misled to get the impression of typical murder mystery through Knives Out stylistic "who did it" fashion, but as the film goes it shows that there is more to it especially since what and who cause the murder is already revealed in the middle of the film.

If one pays attention to the details. audience have been invited to ask ourselves about the mystery of the process of the murder - on the continuously shaking legs and the barking dogs - and even the especially charming Daniel Craig asked us, almost invitingly, who really hired him and why? The twist and turn is not about the result; but the process.

And doing that, Rian Johnson is still able to slip a neat "moral of the story", with a rather bittersweet moment when the truth is finally revealed. "You're a good person who follows your heart" might be one of the most repeatedly cliche, but taking a backdrop of distrust and money in a family drama, Johnson's words spoken through Craig's character with his characteristic accent made the delivery much more impactful. The slick cinematography and excellent music directing in the whole movie supports this perfectly paced murder mystery.

There is a notable questionable holes that may push you from your suspension of disbelief, but still: a delightful Christmas story to end the year; Knives Out is one film I'd recommend to get you absorbed to its intricate details.

Minority Report presents us with sufficient world-building and rises important theme of predestination without feeling like it's being shoved down through our throat: the future of government surveillance everywhere, AI-driven cities, and implant-dependent urbanites. I think it does this well by utilizing them as a part of plot point and showing the grand scenery as a way to do exposition. The film is also able to make believable characters: cops aren't always action men--they're just people doing their job daily job--and villains are also human, who might make cruel, heartless decision, but has the motivation to stand on what they believe and, in the end, to survive.

The story manages to engage from the start through the end. A number of films tackle the story clumsily after the huge plot reveal, but Minority Report is able to continue on raising the issue of predestination without resorting to typical action cliche. The final scene is a bit shaky, but it does its job to convey the theme and maintain believable character very well.

However there are noticeable downside from the film. The soundtrack is what I felt the most: it sounds too adventure-ish in a couple of scenes--too Star Wars/Indiana Jones-esque. Not quite fitting with the tone of the film. The brief action scenes in the film, though necessary in the plot, also appear a bit clumsy and not very well done. As for the plot itself, there's a certain point in the film where it becomes very predictable, though it still delivers well.

So much attentions were put into the details of the film. From the surveillance streets of London with its Orwellian "Please Report Suspicious Activity" poster to the Bexhill of refugee where the unfortunate multiculturals are dumped in to the slums, marking their presence with graffiti. Released in 2006, it's as if the has already foresaw what happens a decade later with its take on the issue of refugee, the age pyramid problem, while still being a film of its age, characterized by post-9/11 distrust of the government, represented excellently by the most likely state nearing authoritarianism, Great Britain.

I admit, however, that the film can be a bit tedious to watch at times. Character relationship gets a build-up just a moment prior their death. There were rather trivial shots; like of Theo wearing sandals, crossing the forests, etc where it spends quite a few seconds, kinda making the film runs longer than it should. These might be references to specific real-life events or arts, as it does reference a lot of things from Auscwhitz-inspired detainment camp to Michelangelo's La Pietas, but I didn't get it.

Still, Children of Men manages to build a convincing world, and watching it as the events unfold was intense.

The key takeaway of the film, to me, is its subtle offhand remark of American yuppie culture; the tasteful thickness of the way they jab (okay I'll stop) at how everyone is trying to be like everyone else - "trying to fit in," in Bateman's words - that everyone mistakes someone for another and someone like Patrick Bateman can get away with murder.

The whole film is about him needing to fit in but at the same time stand out.

The film toys with the idea of the murder scenes being an imagination that all happened in Bateman's head, but I say the line is only drawn when the things get more ridiculous. It's even earlier than the one they displayed in the third act - when the ATM shows the message to feed it a cat - but when Bateman started hanging out in Paul Allen's apartment. An investigation was going on: why would Bateman intentionally spread their fingerprints all around? Partly perhaps he did want to get caught - the desire to find out who he really is beneath the mundane sameness of corporate life - as the conversation with the lawyer suggested. Partly, however, is his active imagination playing bigger and bigger role as he descended into madness in this third act, as you can see that right after that scene we get the ATM scene and the car explosion scene where even Bateman himself couldn't believe it just happened.

The director did admit that the ending give viewers a wrong impression of what really happened in the course of the film - so I'm basing my comments on that. The surreal last act seems to be ambiguous, but when you consider the change of demeanor from the realtor in Paul Allen's apartment (and the all-white, recently painted rooms) and the lawyer Bateman talked to, that should be telling of the point of the third act. The eerie interaction, tense acting, and the music really made the last act as the best of the film.

Even when the film is intended as a commentary of 1980s hedonistic yuppie culture, I can still see it being relevant today. The consumerist, "getting into the fad" corporatist culture endures even into the culture of Silicon Valley workers. Patrick Bateman is a that obnoxious guy who really likes to hear himself talk - the kind of Twitter people and YouTube video essayists with celebrity syndrome - and the whole Pierce & Pierce young executives competing against each other to sound smart and look posh are just your typical tech workers taking a jab at politics. Their understanding of the events are just skin deep, but they want to look like the best among themselves. This is why the film is great even in 2022 and I think it will stay great at least in the next 10 years.

Tenet is Christopher Nolan's attempt at utilizing similar timeslip mechanics as Primer, and should not be confusing at all to anyone who has ever watched that film. In fact, the moment that we are introduced to turnstile, it should be immediately clear how the film ties its loose ends, connecting the ending with the first minutes of the film.

The interesting take is how, and I think Nolan does much better job than the film I mentioned.

The point of the film, I think, is that there is no multiple realities. The future is already set in stone. "What happened's happened" means basically the world has been like that since the movie start. “Ignorance is the Tenet team’s ammunition” only because they don’t know how or what happens in the future, they do what they do to save the world. Basically everything in this film has already happened and no one is in control.

And I think that's the beauty, and the sad deterministic view of the film. "What about free will?" the Protagonist asks very early in the film. There is none; only fate.

So unlike what others have claimed, Tenet does have a plot, albeit a deterministic one. As a film, Tenet does not trouble itself by laying out vague scientific jargons or trying to explain the time mechanics to the audience. Nolan takes a straight point, focusing on the heist/mission like he did with Inception.

Some might say that the characters are soulless, unlike Inception. I think it might be the consequence of fast-moving scenes cut/edited with high efficiency. Especially in the first half of the film; at times I had to pause the film a few times to understand what's going on. But character's relationship leaves a better impression as we get to the ending. Although I have to admit that the villain's motivation was not at all convincing/interesting; they serve more like as a background to the whole mission.

I also see Tenet as Nolan's further experiments with sound design/ambient music, after what he did with Dunkirk: in certain scenes, like the inverted car chase scene, Nolan contrasts a seemingly linear/flat cinematography with shepard tonal music that makes the scene getting more intense and pressured only through repeating the pitch (see Vox's video/article on this subject).

Tenet might not be Nolan's masterpiece, but it's a very interesting experiments that does things well and really streamlined in the timeslip/time travel genre.

The difficulty in watching classics is to judge them fairly in the time they were released.

The positive side is, while I have limited knowledge of 1980s animation, it is not too hard to see how the Akira excels in the animation quality, even today, particularly in the very first sequences with Kaneda's Capsule gang driving though the city night lights, and the climax with Tetsuo's blowing up to a gigantic mass and the extradimensional inflection with the ESPs.

The excellent animation is used masterfully for conveying the atmospheric world-building: the sky-high lives of Neo Tokyo with a drab scummy lives of its citizens, brutal police forces, and economic insecurities painting the world bleak. Perhaps the strongest aspect of this film that I wished they could've took us a walk a little bit further like the politician Nezu took us in a stroll around the city. And like Blade Runner, watching through the film I recognised how the plot points and the themes raised in this film would later be used very familiarly in many other science-fiction films, thus setting up the cyberpunk genre in the years to come.

However, speaking of plot and story, I would say that perhaps writing is not the aspect this film shines on. Characters leave much to be desired. They feel like devices for the plot to move forward, even with our main characters Kaneda and Tetsuo, and even the McGuffin Akira.

While I appreciate the film doesn't blurt out everything and treat the audience as smart, some genuine questionable plot points left me wondering: why did the ESPs lure a certain character? What was really the reason of the rebellion? What's the point of the last sequences with politician Nezu and the opposition Ryu? The film seems to save some points for a future setups (that seem to be never realized) and the awkward fade to blacks between scenes and unexplained sequences made me feel like I'm missing out something and have to check Wikipedia - something that I realize later that I have to find out in the source material (manga).

As the credit rolled, my mind wander, not unlike Tetsuo's, the possibility of remake (even a live action one) that could amplify the excellence of this film and connect the half-painted tods. That being said, Akira is still a masterful cornerstone of science fiction/cyberpunk material that deserves at least a watch in a lifetime.

The first half of the film is a bit slow. It spends quite a time establishing how Hitler would react to the world he doesn't know and, in turn, how people would react to someone who dressed exactly like him; but the way it's done is a bit dragging, with a frequent pun jokes and some historical accuracy flops (Hitler should have known what happened to Ottoman Turkey, and Hitler didn't co-found DAP).

It raises the main question after all that though: what if Hitler really came back to our world? The filmmakers "test" this hypothesis by filming the film with real Berliners, with varying reaction seeing someone posing as Hitler: some being outright disgusted, some laughed, some others easily do the Nazi salute. Rising as a television star in the film's world, "TV Hitler"'s speech became a farce to a number audience, but some others really do believe in what he's saying. Then, in the ultimate scene, Hitler's speech actually made me rethink the question the film asked. "Am I [a monster]?" Hitler asked, "Then, you must also condemn who elected this monster. Were they all monsters?" Pointing finger to one figure makes us ignore the problem that was inside the zeitgeist at the time. If there were no Hitler, there would be another in his position. The film then ends with shots that give us a slap to our face.

Were it not for the slow first half, this would easily be in my favorite.

This movie shines the brightest when it gets really personal with the case Sur (Shenina Cinnamon) has to face: her disorientation, confusion, being gaslighted, being threatened by authorities, etc. In doing so the film addresses the bitter realities in Indonesia, that Sur's experiences, all hit very close to home (e.g. defamation law, campus defamation accusation, biased criminal justice system, etc). But instead of merely seeing it through the news, through the film we feel like we experience it first-hand.

I would've liked the film much better if it ended half-way, however, when Sur is forced to apologize in front of the camera. Because sometimes it's just the way it is: the truth is unexposed and the victim is blamed as the perpetrator. But I guess the film tries to send the message in a more optimistic tone, that sometimes we have to take justice with our own hands (I owe this interpretation to my colleague, MK).It also plays the all too common trope about how the rich and powerful may do whatever they want to do, which kinda simplifies the power dynamics in such cases.

There is one sequence where the more theatrical aspect of the film slipped in, and it was really weird to watch as it failed to suspend our disbelief. It also plays the all too common trope about how the rich and powerful may do whatever they want to do, which kinda simplifies the power dynamics in such cases. But other than that it's a very nice film. The dialogue flows much smoother compared to other typical Indonesian films.

The mention of this being an "arthouse film" is inevitable due to some demographics strangely expecting this to be some action-packed Vikings or Game of Thrones (let's just say then thsi is a wrong film to watch). But I'd like to say that The Northman is much less arthouse-y than Robert Eggers' previous films like The Lighthouse.

Which is a good thing. The film is visceral, and it takes its time to build the atmosphere of tense, anger, anddiscomfrot through sequences of long shots and vivid hallucination as experienced by Amleth. I was expecting this to be much more arthouse-y especially in the beginning, but the film gets into the meat of the story very quickly in the beginning (the death of the king and Amleth's quest for revenge). Even during the long momentums Amleth spends to indulge himself in revenge is full of composites through the play of sound design, music, and shots of the character's emotion or their lucid imagination.

Although yes, the film does not draw the line between vision/hallucination with the actual events happening, and the ambiguous boundaries between magic and reality, there is almost none of the shot that feels like a filler as is common in arthouse films. I'd even say Amleth's imaginative battle to obtain the Draugr sword is not a waste of sequences as it sufficiently depicts his conquest of himself and his journey into the depths of revenge that he can only imagine prior but not actually take it.

Despite being testorone-inducing by showing sweaty muscular men fighting on the field (or on the bed with their women, at times), I find the film's aim to say about the pointlessness of revenge is clearly stated.

The sequences where Amleth realizes the situation with his father reclined him to reconsider his goal of revenge, only to gain enough drives when he realizes what it would cost in the future. And although the ending with triumphant music admittedly seems a bit ambiguously glorify Amleth's ambition to be awaited in valhalla, but we've shown the folly he has to go through and even when it had to cost him the people he thought would dear to him.

The last scene reminds me eerily of The Revenant - in fact, the whole film's bleakness reminds me of it. But if The Revenant's bleakness hinge upon the desolation, desperate, and cold world of DiCaprio's character's perilous attempt at survival, the grim world of The Northman inhabited by Skarsgaard's character is a world of sorcery, rage, and trollish vengeance of undying spirits.

I think Eggers has done a wonderful job in bringing to life the vengeful spirit of the Bjornulfr with his own style.

This film is a slow-burn, a very slow one at that. Watching the film, it did cross my mind that I wished the film were shorter, but as the film was closing in the hour nearing its end, the slow build up eventually paid off.

De Niro and Al Pacino's performance are astounding as always, but the one who takes the spotlight is Joe Pesci. Pesci acts as a charismatic mob boss, in a style that is almost supernaturally focused, as shown early in the film where his smirk when he introduced De Niro's Frank to the underworld just speaks a lot about the commandeering presence he holds in the crime life. The performance plays a great role in enduring the long hours the film takes to immerse us to the slow back and forth between Frank's recalling of his past life and his senile age.

The Irishman took out the glamour of the mob's life we have already accustomed to see in Hollywood. It shows that in this violent lifestyle, if you do end up living to old age, you live for nothing but waste. Frank's life depicted in this film is a life of loyalty to the mob. He does what he is told and does it well. He never talks, he just listens. Even in his ultimate hit on Hoffa, his best friend,A, he places his loyalty to the mob over any conscious he may still have. He places it over his close friend and by extension his own daughter.

But where did it lead to them? Jail, death, or suffering in old age. Frank himself, a father of three, failed to be a good family man. "It's never a good time to leave your wife," once Frank said, realizing it very early. But he did anyway. All they have left to do is desperately turn to god in a last-ditch effort at deliverance.

The theme of the film is that a criminal life is a wasted life - family and even loyalty. As the film closes with the door half-open as requested by Frank to the priest in his last effort to return to god, Martin Scorsese evokes the similar feeling of loneliness and wastefulness like in his Casino and Wolf of Wall Street. If you don't die young - like most did - you'll just die alone because of waste.