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All my love, Aurora.
I'm a huge lover of movies. When I was a teenager, my dream was to direct and write scripts for movies. I even got far along to organize events, such as independent awards in my country - I live in Latin America, if you don't know. Movies are a beautiful form of expression if done right, like poetry, and here's a list of my favorite ones.
Dead Poets Society - Robbie Williams is amazing in this one. We're introduced to great actors such as Ethan Hawke, Robert Sean Leonard, and Josh Charles. I love everything about art, poetry, and beauty, and this movie delivers precisely that. I adore the dark academia vibe that's so present in the film. It's incredibly touching, but I don't think the end had to be so dramatic, that's my only criticism. Every time I need to be reminded why I need to make art, I watch this movie.
La La Land - Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling never fail to impress me. This movie is about two artists finding themselves, but above all, it's about love. Love for each other, love for their craft, love for success. It's about how two people can love each other most ardently, and still, not work out. That's heartbreaking, but it happens to us all. Maybe it was the wrong person, maybe it was just bad timing, but you'll always have love for them in your heart. The filmmaking is stunning, with breathtaking images of Los Angeles and vibrant colors. The soundtrack is my favorite; I listen to it to this day!
About Time - I love stories about love, and this is a great one! In the movie, a guy discovers he can travel through time and does so to land the woman of his dreams. He gets her, marries her, and uses his power to avoid tragedies like terrible speeches at his wedding and to get his pregnant wife to the hospital. But as his life unfolds and real tragedies happen, he discovers that his gift is best used to relive the best days of his life, especially the days when we were falling in love with his wife. He finds out that the uneventful days, the simple days, were the greatest. I love this! It's so simple and yet so profound. Usually in time-travel stories we see absurd and fantastic things, but this one is centered in the simplicity of love. On the everyday type of love, the type of love that will last a lifetime, that will take care of you when you're sick and build a future with you. It's a beautiful story.
Room - The darkest of this list. A story about a woman who has been held captive for years and her son, who was born into captivity. Trigger warnings everywhere, so be warned. Of course I wasn't held in captivity, my story is different, but I was sexually assaulted for years, so I could relate to how traumatized she felt, how separated from the world she felt... I could only watch this movie a few times, it's not always that I can stomach watching it, but it means a lot to me.
The Holiday - I'm obsessed with Christmas and Christmas movies, and this is one of my favorites (It's not the only one, though, you'll find out the others in part two of this list). Two women, one from England and one from the US, decide to swap homes for a few weeks. They're both fed up with the men in their lives, and want a quiet place to stay and recover. However, as it turns out, love can't be avoided. This movie is absolutely wholesome, the vibes are perfection. I watch it every Christmas season, at least a few times. I love everything about it. Their homes, how it's cold one place and hot in the other, how the men who come up in their vacation are completely different, how they struggle to accept them, and finally, the joy of it all! This is Christmas at its best.
Carol - A must-watch for sapphics, lol. Carol meets Therese, who sells her a Christmas gift for her daughter. The two women can relate to being unfulfilled in their lives, so they become closer and closer. This story is set in the 1950s, so of course there's a lot of sexism and homophobia that they face, especially Carol. Besides that, it's a sweet story that talks about the essence of love between two women. As a bisexual, I love seeing the representation of lesbian love stories on the big screen. It's so important to me! And I love the costumes of this movie, they're incredible. Of course, being Cate Blanchett helps, but it's amazing nonetheless.
Good Will Hunting - Another Robbie Williams' academia movie! The film tells the story of a janitor who is discovered as a genius by a professor at MIT. Will Hunting is a self-taught math genius who recently got out of jail and who likes to spend most of his free time drinking with his mates. After getting discovered, he gets into a fight with a police officer and only avoids jail time by agreeing to study mathematics under the professor's guidance and to go through therapy. His therapist, played by Robbie Williams, uses different methods to challenge Will's defense mechanism and after a fight, they start becoming friends. It's a great story about getting over trauma and striving to be better. I always watch this film when I need to feel inspired.
Mary and Max - I love animations! Maybe I can even make a separate list about my favorite animations. This one is about two lonely people: Mary, an eight-year-old who lives in Australia, and spends her days watching TV and talking to her rooster. She is also bullied by other kids in school, and her parents are very problematic. Max is a forty-four-year-old who lives in New York and has autism, and like Mary, he's a lonely person with no friends. He has a lot of family trauma, like her as well. Mary and Max become pen-pals after Mary finding his address in the mail. This movie meant a lot to me as a teenager with no friends. Like Mary, I was bullied in school and had problematic parents, so I related a lot to her. Watching it, I felt like maybe I'd be okay, maybe one day I'd have friends, maybe there was hope for me.
It's Kind of a Funny Story - My favorite movie as a mentally ill teen. In it, a depressed teenager admits himself into a psychiatric ward, after contemplating suicide. In the hospital, he gets to know a lot of folks who are also struggling and gets close to them, particularly to Bobby, played by Zach Galifianakis, and Noelle, admitted for self-harm, played by Emma Roberts. I related a lot to Noelle because I was self-harming a lot during my teenage years and that was a huge source of pain in my life. Craig, our main character, goes on a journey of self-discovery and finds out what he needs to change in his life to maintain his sanity. I watched this movies so many times... as a troubled teenager, I wanted my problems to be solved that easily, like Craig's were, but watching the movie made me feel not so alone in my struggles.
That’s it for part 1 of the list! I hope you have enjoyed, let me know if you want part 2.
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The Holiday is SO GOOD! And Dead Poets society had such an impact on me. Really enjoyed this list, excellent work.