I had a tough time with this one. I feel like the evidence is mounting that I just am not a huge fan of the visual style of this type of movie. What I mean is the movie that shows you gritty, 70s New York or some other American city. I don’t really appreciate the camera work of the intimate close ups, I dislike the amount of contrasty darkness that obscures what I can see. And I think I dislike the “real people” genre when it’s a couple of mugs who are just shitty in their existence.

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Despite US politics, EVs are here to stay, and I won’t buy another ICE car again without an absolute need.

We have had our EV now for just over a year and 11,000 miles (~4,000 miles in road trips). I want to reflect a bit on what the experience has been like in that time, and how it has changed things.

We bought a Kia EV6, 2024 Wind trim (mid range) with AWD and the tech package. The tech package includes a few cool things, like a 360 camera view, and a few kinda useless things, like a parking assist feature that takes minutes to get you into a parking spot. It also features Highway Driving Assist (HDA)(Kia’s name for it), which is Kia’s version of self-driving. It’s not that, but it is a great feature. More on that later.

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I suspect this was made for me and my generation. I didn’t care or it, or even get it, really. I have a major gap in my movie watching that’s about ten years long, from 1995-2005. I had little kids at that time, so many of the movies that helped shape the young adults of my I missed. This, and probably a lot of the things that inspired it, were movies that never really made it into my life. They weren’t the easy to spot ones at the video store, and I didn’t have time for that.

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I watched this as part of the Criterion Challenge, with this being in the category of, wait for it, “The 1940s.” As a Criterion Collection fan, this has been at the top of my list for a while. It’s another that has felt so overwhelmingly important that until now I was unable to get myself to watch it. Thank goodness for this challenge.

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This covers a couple of required viewings for me. I got his suggested in the Letterboxd Roulette group, and I have it listed in my Criterion Challenge under the category “European Film.” It’s definitely that!

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I have spent time each day since Friday calling my representatives. I started calling everyone—my two democratic Senators, my Republican Congressman, and my Republican Governor ask them to get oil television denouncing what is happening in Washington, D.C. and with Elon Musk effectively working through a coup on our government. Amodei’s office hung up on me twice.

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Damn. This one came from Letterboxd Roulette, courtesy of @jaillud. It was a great suggestion, and they pointed out that I had both Interstellar and 2001: A Space Odyssey in my top ten of all time, so this should complete the trifecta of science fiction greats. In short, it does.

I have owned the Criterion Collection bluray of this movie for about six months. It has been staring at me from the shelf that whole time, daring me to take it on. See, I have this problem where I hear things about certain movies and those things paralyze me from watching. I am afraid I'll miss something, or I won't be emotionally able to handle it. This has scared me because it seems like a really important movie. I want to watch those, but I have to watch them right.

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Another great recommendation from the Letterboxd Roulette, this time from @andywarmstrong. I had seen this a few years ago without giving it a bunch of thought. I was pretty excited to watch this with some intention, especially after liking it the first time.

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La Haine pointed out to me that this shit doesn’t seem to change. It’s been this way for generations. The cycle is repeating in American cities all over, in geopolitical conflict, and anywhere you can think. This particular injustice—the lack of accountability for people in power—is universal. All of us have felt it. Fortunately, we haven’t all had it end like Vinz.

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Another in my Criterion Challenge, this one covering the Australian movie category.

This moved really slowly and brought out some old feelings about Edward Woodward, for some reason. The talks of movies the adults around me were having about when I was a kid are starting to come into focus. My dad thought Woodward was awesome and loved the television show The Equalizer that he starred in during the 1980s.

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