You have to cause a little pain to shed a little light.

After my last post, I managed to watch another one and a half movies on the weekend - the half because I needed to go to the bathroom partway through Bring Her Back, and when I realised all I'd left in the cinema was my raspberry fanta, decided the movie was so boring I didn't need to go back.

我去了电影院。看了电影。吃了爆米花。

So far this year I've watched movies from Australia, Canada, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Spain, Thailand, UK, USA and Vietnam. I'd like to add more countries to that list!

I've now watched to the end of episode 26 of Blossom. I could finish it this weekend, if I so choose. I appreciated that they made the terrible stepmother more complicated, sympathic and interesting (though no less terrible). I feel like the main male character is kind of terrible, and actually only kept in check by the female lead, though I'm probably not supposed to feel that way 🤣 But I find them kind of cute and appeallingly functional. Whenever he admires her strategies I'm charmed by it.

I went to see Detective Kien: The Headless Horror (2025) -- a Vietnamese somewhat supernatural historical detective thriller -- at a cinema one suburb over last night. The film was fine, basically about as 3 out of 5 stars as you can get. I liked it well enough. It's sufficient to the job. I was neither wowed nor put off. A lot of the detecting is about getting gossipy landed gentry to spill all the beans, so it's not on the Sherlock-y end of the scale (which I appreciate, tbh). I appreciated the flirtation between the two main characters was a flirtation between people who are not young. There's a subplot with arranged marriage drama with face-slapping and a whole thing with people hallucinating (or maybe not) a monster. Nice outfits and hairstyles; I don't know enough about Vietnam to say whether or not they're historically accurate, but they're visually appealing, and they signalled things like class status & etc. at a glance. I suspect this film is funnier if you speak Vietnamese, given moments when people laughed. There was a bit where red dirt was a clue, and the characters instantly assumed it was dirt that got blood soaked into it, but because I grew up in a place where the dirt everywhere is red I was surprised.

What I didn't like was people coming in late and walking in front of the subtitles. This always drives me crazy! And there were people using their phones during the movie. I guess this is often how the movie-going experience is now (though it depends on the film, I think? If it's an art film aimed at older audiences I don't often have this issue), but it's very annoying.

Also, the particular Hoyts I went to see this at renovated so that buying food and picking up food seem to be in completely different areas now and it was weirdly unclear which you're supposed to do first. That and it being at a shopping centre at night, so I missed my tram when I got out in the rainy dark, and then had to wait 20 minutes for an uber... I don't regret going out to see the film (even if it was just fine, I still feel enriched by leaving the house and seeing a new thing, and it's nice to add another country to my list of 2025 films), even if I was beset by annoyances.