one of the most touching documentaries i have ever seen. i'm so glad i joined the literary society of my university because i might have never discovered this utter masterpiece otherwise. the way the interviewer brings vinod sir upstairs with such tenderness... it circles back beautifully to the first call from the city, asking if he's around, as if the world is always trying to locate him, but he belongs with the people. that's why powers can't find him. kisi purani tasveer ki tarah woh ghar, woh waqt. he was such a lover of his wife and all and any art that exists in the world. and when he said, "ek lekhak apni zindagi mei bas ek hi rachna likhta hai, hum bas usse upanyas, kavita, aur gadya mein baant dete hain" i had to pause and take a moment to breathe, because goddamn man. vinod sir was truly a gem.

how did you make me care about robots and show that they're human and how did i dissolve into tears like 4 times. the whole movie is art, but the first section of wall-e just going about his routine with his cockroach hal is maybe the greatest piece of digital filmmaking/animaiton i've seen yet. not a word is spoken bit you learn EVERYTHING — the world, who and what he is, how it all works and why — in such poetic yet heartbreaking terms. it's the peak of pixar's top-of-the-top storytelling brilliance. it's aesthetically beautiful, but it's pixar. come on. it's just an incredible movie, way ahead of its time. i initially watched it when i was like, nine, while i was bored out of my mind during my summer vacation. i just couldn't bring myself to rewatch it for fear of not seeing it as perfect as i remembered it, but when i did cave in... it got better and more beautiful. there's hardly any dialogue and yet it managed to make me sob MORE THAN THRICE. please do yourself a favour and watch it.

cast: ha eun-gyeol by ryeon ha yi-chan by choi hyun-wook cheong-ah by shin eun-soo se-kyung by seol in-ah viva la vida! 🍉 perhap it is biased of me to declare this drama as one of the best ones, considering there are multiple contenders with their life-changing stories, but i do not care. i love me a delicious plotline that involves travelling back in time, be it a manhwa where the female lead dies and gets sent back to when she was a child, or the bollywood gem 'action replayy'. truth be told, it felt like another version of 'go back couple', '18 again', and 'a time called you', but what sets it apart is the insanely well-crafted characters and a killer soundtrack that screams ’90s nostalgia. it also got me pondering how most of us really can’t understand our parents simply because we weren’t around when they were figuring out life from teenage shenanigans to adulthood — just like we are doing now. also, anything that has choi hyun-wook, i will watch. the innocent affection between him and the female lead left me sobbing for a long while.

cast: baek yi-jin by nam joo hyuk na hee-do by kim tae ri ko yurim by bona moon ji-ung by choi hyun-wook ji-seungwan by lee joo-myung i watched it in the summer of 2022, and i still remember vividly how i was at a loss for words while trying to write about it in my journal. it made me yearn for something i hadn't even lost back then — my youth. a story about friendships, dreams, love, and loss. its ending, however, did not feel like one, for it left us with a plethora of unanswered questions. i suppose the pain of it rendered the conclusion all the more beautiful. we often don’t get what we want — no matter how much we put our faith and efforts into it. it’s what makes life exciting and terrifying at the same time. every character is embedded into the nook and cranny of my brain, even four years later. every plot point is recorded by the scribes of my memory. thank you for making me cry like a baby.

watched this one as soon as it was released (for oscar isaac lmao) and it is safe to say that it turned out to be an immediate favourite... but surprisingly, not because of isaac. jacob elordi stole the show by a mile. i did not expect him to break out of his whole euphoria and the kissing booth persona, but he actually did, and delivered a WONDERFUL performance at that. i cannot believe i cried like a baby for a good half of the film. and good lord, guillermo del toro is one hell of a director. the artistic elements, the costumes, the backgrounds, the aesthetics... wow. the cinematography was top-notch. even a casual watcher like me was awed, i wonder what cinephiles thought of it. i wish all the novel adaptations could be covered such beauty. will definitely be rewatching it soon, and this time, for mia goth and jacob elordi <3 oscar as victor frankenstein really pissed me off but that just means he's an amazing actor lol.