cheap thrills

• the goons, wow what all timer movie goons. concussed guy for goon of the year
• when anora beats the shit out of those goons for a fifteen minute stretch and they get increasingly more afraid of her. comedy gold, just pitch perfect comedy treading the line between should-i-be-worried-for-her and the disarming buffoonery of the goons
• ivan's mom stomping on the last step of the private jet stairs. her incredible houndstooth suit. every second of her on screen.
• all of them throwing the pens at the annulment woman
• ivan's dad dying laughing during the annulment as anora throws all of the moms shit on the ground
• every parking in new york joke from the ticket in front of the courthouse to getting towed down on brighton beach
• how the entire time, nobody pulls out a weapon, not once. and yet, the threat of violence and danger still lingers in the periphery because of the deftly constructed tension of the roving camera and contextually what we don't know about this family and the broader scope of ivan's world and the looming threat of the parents. how far can she push the goons until they get violent, and yet they never really do, but baker never lets you exhale that breath.
• when they walked into tatianas..... like sean does his RESEARCH
• also the t.A.T.u needle drop like i screamed
• also the fight over driving or walking for five minutes in the cold. the new york specificity in this movie is pinpoint accurate, down to the mundane
• the ending, her having a breakdown release of everything that had happened to her and how humiliated she was, but also how she thought she had gotten out and made a fairytale of her life. how using her body was the only power she has ever had, and how that was what she defaulted to with Igor in that last scene, but it was when he wanted to kiss her that the facade of power broke down and so did she. how she had to face her own humanity, and in that moment ask herself if she wanted to kiss him, because he was giving her perhaps her first real choice in a long time, and that opened a pathway to maybe questioning whether she truly wanted any of what had happened to her. maybe in that moment she realized that her body is not as powerful as she perhaps convinced herself it was. she was far more powerless than all her bravado and will probably always be powerless in the socioeconomic systems of the world that are built up around her. how disposable she was made to feel maybe for the first time, and how she thought she had built up that bravado and detached arrogance around herself so that she would never feel that way, but the feeling still seeped through nonetheless. all of that delivered wordlessly, in silence, buried under the falling white snow that will throw a white, pristine blanket over everything as if nothing significant had happened at all.
• but also like igor, i too would fall in love with her almost instantly and tbh i did. rip to Ivan, anora i am hopelessly in love with you, and i would die for you.

THE BATMAN (2022) dir. Matt Reeves MONKEY MAN (2024) dir. Dev Patel BALLERINA (2025) dir. Len Wiseman

ARRIVAL (2016) NOMADLAND (2020) 1917 (2019) KONG: SKULL ISLAND (2017) HUNT FOR THE WILDERPEOPLE (2016) THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING (2001) THE SHAPE OF WATER (2017) THE BATMAN (2022) SICARIO (2015)

The Hangover (2009) dir. Todd Phillips

LEST Arcane S2E3