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Season 3 of Twin Peaks did something interesting where it held off on reintroducing the series’ best character until the very end. This made for a unique experience where—when watching for the first time—where you’re sitting there with bated breath for them to come back the entire time, sometimes to a frustrating degree. But after it does happen and you no longer have to wait you’re like, oh ok that makes sense, everything was fine. And if you were to rewatch the whole series you wouldn’t get to have that experience again since you already know the ending, you know things are going to be fine
. You only get to have that experience once⁓unless you have memory loss, in which case remember that time you

I had a similar experience with this movie. It was a bit different too, with Twin Peaks you can sort of assume that the reintroduction won’t happen for a while, but here I really had no idea there was going to be a “everything was fine” moment. While watching I was getting a little frustrated and wrote in my notes about how the last third was losing me a bit, “maybe it’s because I’m tired,” but no, “everything was fine” and it all makes sense. The “it all makes sense” moment was also latent, I experienced it only after the credits, making it much stronger and more memorable than with Twin Peaks.

While I did get frustrated while watching, I think its fine. Knowing the whole of the film means that I never get to be frustrated over it again. I think that’s comforting. Not because I won’t get frustrated in the future, but because if I were able to be frustrated over the movie again in that way, I might be able to construe it some way unfaithful to the first time. I want to embrace the emotion I’ve experienced, and because I won’t be able to watch the same movie ever again, the memory of that emotion will be constant. With every movie I hope to be reborn with new constants.

whew what a zinger, i’d also like to mention that i really liked the to sleep so as to dream reference

This felt pretty different for Kiyoshi, a soundtrack is used more than once, if there’s two (2) characters in a room they always have some dialogue. It was strange, I thought the first half had the flavour of Kiyoshi, and the second only had a taste. It felt like it was holding back in a way, which is weird since I think this movie still adapts well to Kiyoshi’s usual style. Maybe he wanted something more normal so that when the weird shit happens its even more unnerving. The horror happens so slowly it lures you in, there’s no choice but to look.

Coming off my previous 2 (two) logs which were so personal I sort of feel guilty not being able to write more like that. Obviously not every movie is going to have such a strong emotional connection, but I like writing about movies. I want to write more, there’s just nothing I can pull from right now. Going back further through my logs I really shouldn’t beat myself up about it, it was only a couple months ago that I was writing like this. It’s weird, looking back at my Pickpocket log I wrote so little, but since then I feel a stronger connection to the movie and the characters (i’m literally him, btw). I feel like I could write something similar to my Rebels of The Neon God log about Pickpocket now.

After watching this movie I struggled a bit to come up with things to say. While watching I thought it was just OK, but the final scenes came together very nicely, and the parts I didn’t like as much were necessary to end like that. That was pretty much all I could think of. Writing this the Tuesday after I feel more of a connection to the characters.

I’ve always felt pretty good about being alone for as long as I can remember. Sure I have friends and we talk, but after we’re done meeting up I don’t feel much yearning to get back with them. I’m okay with sitting at my computer not speaking to another soul for days on end. Just because I am alone doesn’t mean I am lonely. But when I do have to talk to people who aren’t friends I’ve known for years, I feel like I’m always let down consistently. Hey this guy seems really nice—nope, homophobic—or—nope, they look at you like you’re the weirdest person they’ve ever met because you don’t talk like them or you made a joke that wasn’t based upon hatred. And I really don’t know what to do other than feel like shit. Talking with my friends online is good, but knowing that there’s only 4 people in my life that I can only sometimes meet in person isn’t very assuring when I can’t meet any more. The drain might unclog only sometimes, but that won’t end up stopping it from flooding.

What I ended up writing is very much a departure from what I normally do. I feel like a different version me would have continued on about why I connected to the characters, but here it felt right to leave it alone. Maybe its better to leave the log vague to the point where you can only get it if you watched to movie—or further, were literally me.

Oh yeah, the bass line was badass.

About every month or so I feel generally empty and frustrated with the world. Living aimlessly, going through the motions of what I know I’m supposed to do, talking very little. While in this state I’ll observe others more closely than usual, somehow making connections to what they’re doing to what I’m feeling. And then I’ll decide to take a quiet moment given to me for a bit. I don’t really think of my frustrations in that moment, I don’t think much of anything, really. Sometime after that things go back to normal. I have energy to do things, and I’m not frustrated. I’ve been aware of me doing this for a while, but I don’t think its been put into a full perspective until I watched this movie.

I was catching myself feeling this way before I watched this movie, so I felt particularly seen by it. Usually these feelings would last a few more days, but this movie ended up being cathartic. While I have seen lots of movies that speak to me personally, I don’t recall it being this comprehensive. I hope to hold this movie close to my heart, and to revisit it many times.

There’s this one point that Brennan Lee Mulligan makes about living in New York where he talks about how the population density results in being near so many people who are at life defining points in their life, and how this can result in you easily realizing that “today is really about them”. I feel like what Susumu’s character feels relates to this but expands upon it a bit. He goes around and watches people at defining points in their life, today IS about them, but he needs to see them so that today can also be his day.

Sometimes I get a bit pissy about the Hollywood style of filmmaking, and I’m sure it gets annoying, but I don’t care. This movie and the experience it provided should be normal. I took a film class in college which opened with the instructor talking about how most people consider movies to be in two camps “entertainment” and “art”, and how he knew that students would find the fact the class would delve into “art” films annoying. I’d rather the opposite be true.

Also yay! First movie where I get to see Susumu as the lead actor, he’s great.

This week I had enough time to do another radio show, and made an effort to get the log writing done before the show. Because of that I ended up feeling boxed in to what I wrote about, which is in contrast to the previous show where I talked then wrote, then felt boxed in with writing. I ended up reciting the log since I couldn’t think of anything off the cuff about the movie that I didn’t write about. Overall the show was better in my opinion, but I still think I can do better. Maybe I’ll be better at talking after doing a dozen or so more shows and will be able to say more than what I wrote, similar to how I started writing about movies.

https://lateen.org/aud/radio/2026/2026-09-25.ogg

This felt like Takeshi at his most endearing, he wants the characters to care for each other as much as possible, and as soon as I saw the main character I already cared so much for him. Nothing is solved by waving a gun around but by scolding someone to do better. I also feel like Takeshi couldn’t help but make jokes. Right after making you cry in one of the most beautiful expressions of love, he makes someone’s head gets punted by a soccer ball. But it works because you know its being done with utmost sincerity. I feel like most movies would work without sound, but with this it feels deliberate, which is very fitting.

rot13 spoilers: NYY bs gur cerivbhf Gnxrfuv zbivrf V’ir frra unir gur fnzr raqvat, juvpu jnf n yvggyr sngvthvat ohg V’z zbfgyl bxnl jvgu vg. V nyjnlf srry yvxr gurer’f tbbq rabhtu ernfba sbe vg. Urer ur qrpvqrq gb tvir zber pybfher, juvpu vf abg bayl qvssrerag, ohg sheguref gur graqre pner sbe gur punenpgref, tvivat gurz gvzr gb cebprff.

This very much felt like a precursor to Dekalog. Kieslowski felt very refined by this point but he used some visual metaphors which characters would annoyingly call attention to, and I found the ending to be too obvious. I watched Dekalog over a year ago at this point so its possible I’m misremembering, but I don’t remember finding it that overt. Still though, Kieslowski is great at making sad polish people get even more sad, and this felt like it had a much larger scope than dekalog—though still very grounded—which was nice to experience. I also may never look at slinkies the same way again.

For a while now I’ve had the desire to try out talking about my weekly movie live. https://tilderadio.org is the natural choice for this since I’m already down the tildehole, so I asked about getting a timeslot Saturday to see how I would like doing it. And uhhh… well I did that. I spent the first ~20 mins talking about this movie, going off the notes I had taken, then went into ramble-about-anything mode. After a while a listener (~noa, ty noa ) asked some questions to keep me talking about other movies I’d seen. I had reserved a 1 (one) hour timeslot, and I figured I wouldn’t be able to talk about the movie for that long so I came up with the backup plan of reading a public domain book for the remaining time, but by the time I caught up the listeners to where I was at—I didn’t want to reread the chapters I’d already read—I pretty much ran out of time. This was my first time ever talking out loud alone, so it was pretty rough, but I had fun and will probably give it another shot. I had the foresight to record the broadcast so it’s linked below. If/when I do more broadcasts it’ll be on Sundays 0100 UTC.

I ended up doing the write-up after the broadcast, and I felt sort of restrained to what I talked about on radio—and what I talked about wasn’t typical to what I write about—so in the future I think I’ll try to get it mostly done beforehand.

https://lateen.org/aud/radio/2026/2026-09-12.ogg

I had a similar experience watching this compared to Charisma, where I don’t feel like I fully understood everything. This was possible due to me being tired from the double featuring, but it ended up being less why general things were happening and more about the smaller details, because of that I feel less like I need to rewatch it, I still feel like I felt the right emotions at the right times.

Other than that it, this is another great Kiyoshi film about 2 (two) people trying to make things work. I don’t feel like I can say much more than that on the more technical side since it has all the great storytelling you’d expect from Kiyoshi that I’ve already mentioned before.

BARREN ENTHUSIASM: https://lateen.org/txt/movie/2026/2026-09-05/

Occasionally I’ll come across pieces of media that I end up considering ‘perfect’, which doesn’t really make sense with the way people normal define it. Nothing can be perfect, especially art. I ignore the normal definition for art and instead define a certain text to be perfect when it doesn’t faff around unnecessarily, spending time on things that are transparently useless to the overall piece. I could instead use ‘succinct’, but I don’t think that fits, succinctness to me implies being laconic and that nothing else needs to be said, art is in conflict with this, more can always be said. Pithy is probably a better word, but it still doesn’t sit as well as perfect does for me for a reason I still don’t know. I would categorize this film as being perfect. Perfect characters, perfect humor, perfect use of its medium, perfect ending.

After the detective and his assistant start their journey I immediately started picking up The Red Spectacles vibes, which was very pleasant as TRS is maybe in “Lateen’s Top 2.7182 Movies He Couldn’t Live Without”. And I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if TRS was actually inspired by this movie. Although the timing is a bit tight, this movie released May 1986 and TRS released February 1987.

BARREN ENTHUSIASM: https://lateen.org/txt/movie/2026/2026-09-05/

The last time I watched a Kurosawa film was in March of last year (High and Low rewatch), and the year before that I watched another (Ikiru rewatch), but before that there was a big gap. I had gotten into watching Kurosawa in high school but at some point I just kinda stopped. I don’t really remember why but I did. Watching this film after being deprived of Kurosawa for so long feels like a breath of fresh air after having lived in a poorly-lit bunker with too much bokeh. The performances are great, and I feel like every frame and camera movement was given hours of thought in order to serve the story. I like how the first set was filled with the train drawings, I think it was a great opener for Kurosawa’s first color film. Compared to Kurosawa’s previous works I’ve seen I thought this was pretty average, meaning compared to the modern film industry this is spectacular. Despite this, I definitely won’t forget being able to gasp for air after who knows how many years.

Randecdote (a random anecdote): The wikipedia page for this movie mentions that Kurosawa told the crew that “he wanted to make a film that is “sunny, light, and endearing.”“, which uhhh… At least they got the sunny part in. (although you could argue for endearing)

Right after watching this my initial thought was that the writing was really rough but it has a good premise. After thinking for a bit I think the problem is only the comedy. Obviously part of this is that most of the comedy just isn’t my type of comedy that makes me laugh, but a lot of the time the comedy destroys any emotional weight a scene has, it feels like a flyer-for-20%-OFF-at-Jimbo-Jim’s-Zinc-Plated-Door-Emporium stapled to an apple tree that someone had put 5 years of effort into making sure it survived. Although, even if the comedy was removed I still wouldn’t like the ending, it felt very overcooked.

I think this was basically most of my favorite elements of sci-fi put into one movie. I love the slow kind of sci-fi that puts pretentious music over shots of spaceships (the intro to Star Trek I being a good example). I thought it was very deliberate in its space politics and pacing. I would’ve wanted a full 90 minute movie of this, but If I’m being honest I think 60 minutes was perfect.

From what I’ve read so far in the book series (5 chapters into the 1st) there doesn’t seem to be any visual description of how the ships dock with a space port. So the movie decided to go with the coolest fucking thing ever. The ships lower themselves into their reflection, and once they completely enveloped they’re on the side of the space port. I don’t know if that’s supposed to be some giant cloaking device or they filmmakers just decided to not skimp out on visuals, but it was so great.

Does a great job as a mystery film. I thought it was kinda easy to guess the kind of ending that was going to happen, but I think it kept its cards close enough (but not so close) to its chest that it still felt satisfying. Other than it being a good mystery film, it doesn’t have much going for it.

With Dezaki’s shows that I’ve seen that came before this, there would be these small abstract parts added to very grounded stories, but it wouldn’t happen all the time. With a movie budget, though I feel like Dezaki gets to do this as much as he wants and its great. It definitely doesn’t get overdone as well, which is nice.

Other than that its mostly just a simple action movie with not much going for it. Re-explanation of exposition happening all the time, with a less interesting second half.

More SABU crime stuff, but he keeps things different. I like the premise of the main character getting with the group, and the group leaving over time. It serves the movie well both in comedy and story. I’m glad I got a different ending compared to the last 3 movies of SABU that I watched as well.

I think this movie also counts toward what I’m simply going to call The Theme from now on (read previous log for more context). I’ll also start the tally I mentioned. I don’t feel like going through my old logs right now so I’ll simply start the tally at 1 (one) with this movie.

A great slow movie about a guy coming back to his hometown and reflecting on what’s changed. I feel like most of the mainland China films I’ve seen are all very similar in pacing. Which is nice, I enjoy slow movies. I think this movie would make a great diptych with Taipei Story since they both have a guy coming back to a changed place.

This also continues the same theme I talked about in my Eva 3.0+1.0 log of not being able to change who you are, which I see a lot in East Asian movies. Maybe I should keep a tally of when I see it.

Much more drama focused compared to Itami’s previous 2 films. I found the style more subtle and was more so found in the editing. Its a little disappointing since I did go in with the expectation that things were going to be similar to The Funeral or Tampopo, but that expectation was entirely manufactured by me so I really shouldn’t.

Knowing the prestige of Katsuhiro Otomo this was a little disappointing. The premise of a yakuza man getting mad at tenants that don’t understand him is good and funny, but I don’t feel like it was worked through very well. He mostly does the same stuff, just waiting on the tenants to react. I think it would’ve worked better for him to try weirder things, and the tenants still not giving a shit. I found it kinda slow to a fault, I felt like nothing was happening for half the movie and I didn’t really feel like the movie was taking advantage of that well enough. The ending was cute though.

Lots of really annoying Hollywood-isms. Random quips that come out of no where, adding nothing. The first ~20 minutes could’ve easily been cut, its entirely exposition and is all reexplained later. There will be these brief 1-second flashbacks to something that was already shown in the movie, which I find pretty insulting. I didn’t fall asleep you don’t need to add a blinking red sign to say THIS IS THE PART WHERE THIS THING PAYS OFF.

Before watching this I would’ve answered yes to the question “Do you consider yourself a movie guy?”. But after watching and thinking a bit I don’t think I would. If I were to have watched every theatrically screened movie ever, I would most definitely dislike more movies than like. I’d think a ‘movie guy’ would end up liking significantly more than me. My definition has changed from “a movie guy is a person who likes movies” to “a movie guy is a person who likes movies for the sake of them being movies”. I think a lot of the ‘great’ American directors that talk about how much they “want to create a great film experience” are just making movies for the sake of being movies. I feel like that’s soulless. I want to watch a movie made for the sake of being art.

Normally when I watch a movie that is similar to another I’m not all that bothered. Assuming it was by different filmmakers. When a director makes a movie, then basically makes the same movie again I feel sort of let down which is how I feel with Unlucky Monkey. Its very similar to Dangan Runner, although a little more refined in style, but also more basic. The other SABU movies I’ve seen all have lots of similarities, but they all do something different that doesn’t make me feel swindled.

Also one of the actors is literally Giancarlo Esposito but Japanese

In my log for Taipei Story I mentioned how the movie continues the theme I don’t see in a lot of Western media of homesickness for adolescence. Sure, there’s Western coming-of-age stories that end with a “After we all go to college will we still visit during summer?”, but there’s something more to it that I couldn’t really put my finger on with East Asian media. Now, after watching 5 more months of movies I think I have a better idea of it.

It isn’t really a homesickness for older times, I think its deeper than that. I get the feeling that the East Asian outlook on things is that after awhile you get sort of /stuck/ at some point, and you can’t really change as a person, almost to a painful degree. That point is usually somewhere at the end of adolescence. When you’re a kid you get to do whatever, trying to experience all that life has to offer before you become a boring adult with a job, with a personality that reflects what you experienced as a kid.

Different East Asian media explore this very differently, too. Taipei Story was about people reconnecting, realizing they’re different people now. In the Heat of the Sun was about kids being as carefree as they could, to their detriment. Tampopo was a bit different, having a man who messed something up once and didn’t believe he could try it again. Gundam, Ideon, and Dougram (and MANY other mecha shows, I’m sure) all have kids have their innocence stolen from them by war.

Evangelion however, takes a different approach. Yes, you may believe that you can’t change who you are and you may be happy with it, but you CAN change. It’s painful, and you may end up destroying the majority of the world’s population, but you CAN do it. Evangelion has a more ‘complete’ picture of this pain, but that doesn’t mean its approach is better or anything, it’s simply a different approach.

Evangelion of course isn’t the only story that I’ve seen use this approach. Ping Pong the Animation is also very similar, for example. While I’m writing this I’ve just thought of the only piece of Western media that I think gets close to what I’ve been talking about: season 1 of True Detective. I’m not sure to what degree though, I’d have to rewatch it.