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Looks like a good lead, thanks for that.

I watched the thirteenth season of "Doctor Who".
And... I liked it. A lot. It's a dynamic, interesting, and very Doctor-ish story with a bunch of absurdity, epicness, humor, drama, new and old friends, new and old enemies, plot twists (predictable in places), callbacks (when the Thirteenth started talking about reversing the neutron flow polarity, I forgave Chibnall everything), as well as a couple of interesting lore ideas and a fairly pleasant cast of characters. As for the downsides — the Daleks and Cybermen were in the background just for show and didn't particularly shine, which is a shame. But at least they brought some baked potatoes.
And here's what I want to talk to you about. I can't stop feeling... Wrong. From almost everywhere, including my friends who watched the new seasons, I hear that Chibnall and the Thirteenth's era isn't the best thing that happened to the series, and that it should really all be retconned. Some compare seasons 11-13 of Doctor Who to, forgive me, the "Star Wars" sequels (what sequels? there are only six numbered episodes, Disney never made a trilogy about some random Mary Sue and trashing the classic trio). On one hand, I can understand them. Chibnall is noticeably inferior to RTD and Moffat, some episodes are outright weak, boring, and cringey, some ideas are clearly underdeveloped, and the characters sag. And the Timeless Child — that's a thing that is, to put it mildly, very, very controversial; it turns the very foundations and the very essence of the universe's lore and one of my favorite characters upside down; and Chibnall, as I already said, is not RTD or Moffat, and can't present it effectively and beautifully enough to relieve at least some of the tension and discontent (although he certainly tried). The Thirteenth herself gets flak too, and here I also can't disagree, sometimes her speech and behavior really do raise questions. What can I say, I'm squealing like a puppy with joy to see RTD back as showrunner.
But... Here's the thing. I watched all of Chibnall's seasons with delight, and I rewatched some episodes and will probably rewatch them again with great pleasure. I watched the quality of the seasons and episodes grow, how Chibnall drew inspiration from the classic seasons without forgetting the new series, how he tried to find a balance between old and new, expand the lore, and entertain the viewer. Even the sometimes subpar quality of the makeup and sets didn't bother me — I watched the classics, the wild sixties with monsters made of bubble wrap and robots made of cardboard. I see the Doctor in Jodie Whittaker, the very Doctor I've known and dearly loved for over ten years. After that memorable revelation about the Timeless Child, I wanted to approach the Doctor and tell her — hey, it's all right, I'm with you, we'll get through this together, I'll always be there; you're still the best Time Lord in the universe to me, despite such news about you.
I can't and don't want to hate the Chibnall era. I love and accept the Doctor in all their manifestations, forms, and shapes. Yes, there are moments, eras, and regenerations I like more or less. My tastes are peculiar — I adore the infamous Sixth (without listening to the audio plays!) and I don't particularly like the Best Companion (tm) Sarah-Jane Smith. And I don't want Chibnall and the Thirteenth to be retconned. It's objectively not the best and not even my favorite era in the show's history. But it's a good one, and it has earned its rightful place in that part of my little heart reserved for "Doctor Who".
And I can't shake the thought — am I so undiscriminating that I'd gobble up any nonsense as long as there's a familiar blue box, or am I so in love with this show and this character that I'm ready to forgive and accept them no matter what. It's hard for me to understand why I liked what many fans found off-putting, and I feel like something's wrong with me, but I've made my peace with it and I love Doctor Who all the same.

I can't say that I understood the main themes of the film that make it a masterpiece – I don't experience fear of death (most likely because it's far from me) or reverence for it, or anything else. Biblical references are also not my thing, so the very things that probably make the film a masterpiece, I personally didn't appreciate.

The main theme of the film is rather a crisis of faith against the backdrop of the horrors happening around. The knight doesn't want to die not because he is afraid of death, but because he doubts the existence of God. Throughout the film, he tries to find evidence of His existence.

Simple Story

Mulholland Drive

Platoon (1986)

Basically, a scene from the movie: Americans arrive in a Vietnamese village and start yelling at the locals – "Why are you even fighting? What are you fighting for? Uuuuu, you scum!", then they start gathering the villagers, continue yelling at them, "you're all Viet Cong! You all need to be shot!", and they provoke themselves with such words and start killing everyone. You watch it and think – yeah, that's some hypocrisy. To attack another country, to come to someone else's land and portray them as the guilty ones. Simply disgusting.
Apart from that, I also liked the scene with the local drunkards hanging out, just a chill and relaxed scene where the guys are enjoying themselves while they can, the overall plot, the fact that the characters can be distinguished from each other. I didn't like most of the staging in general and the battle scenes in particular. Overall, a good film about Vietnam, especially compared to most others.

Rain Man

18 bronze fighters

What a delightful piece of content. I watched it when I was a kid, and I recently rewatched it – and against the backdrop of everything filmed in the last ten years, it looks even better. It has a simple plot, only about five significant characters, it was made for a pittance, and despite all that, the message in it is simply ultra-correct, the dramatic tension is no worse than Shakespeare's, and everything looks very good. The ending, in terms of presentation, is generally top-notch, one of the most memorable in cinema in general. From a banal plot about how a hero must avenge the villain, they created a gem, rated 8.5/10. And some, with budgets many times larger, can only churn out garbage films about morally corrupt characters making unmotivated decisions against the backdrop of vague special effects.

The Last Lesson (France, 2008) Dir. Jean-Paul Lilienfeld

The Foreigner (2017)
I've been meaning to watch it for a while, but I kept forgetting. The first half is good, but it gets worse after that. The creators apparently couldn't pull off the film as a psychological drama, and predictably turned it into a cheesy action movie from the 90s. The characters are fighting for dead (in both senses) ideals, and therefore don't evoke any emotions or empathy. But it was nice to see old Jackie.
5/10 ("Law Abiding Citizen" was better)

I remember reading this review by Heroist a long time ago and was surprised, because The Foreigner (2017) was praised when it was released, and it still has high ratings. I finally got around to watching it, and in fact, I would rate it even lower. I can't even call the first half good; as an action movie, it's dull, and you can feel that Jackie is getting old and the stunts aren't very good (although the final shootout is decent). As a thriller or something like "Law Abiding Citizen," it's frankly not up to par, and there's no sense of any psychological drama. The only interesting thing is the rarely explored topic in movies, but in fact, they didn't show anything about it. Although the IRA is at the center of the plot, they could have been replaced with fictional terrorists, and nothing would have changed. A mediocre film, and the rating was probably inflated by Jackie Chan's fans.

Requiem for a Dream
You can watch it if you're into seeing the suffering of despicable losers. First, you watch them lose with

characters who are morally reprehensible and make unmotivated decisions

, and then you remember that such people actually exist, and you lose even more. But overall, it's quite drawn out, predictable, and the visuals don't have much independent aesthetic value, and the soundtrack starts to annoy you by the middle. In short, it's a rather boring drag, but some scenes are well-directed.
5/10

Martyrs (2008)

Garbage.
The poor plot becomes obvious after twenty minutes; its details are self-explanatory. You can even turn a blind eye to the script's inconsistencies, and the ending is just a generic "entertain yourself" kind of thing. All the impressions from watching it can be summed up in the phrase "anything can happen." Overall, it's like watching some random, pointless short film on YouTube made by students. However, I don't know what else I expected, I just got hooked by a vague recommendation from some internet influencer. The only positive thing I can say is that I managed to watch it in one sitting, without having to pause much.

Angels & Demons (2009)
I watched it for the first time last year, and rewatched it recently. My initial impression was that it was a boring movie that diligently follows all Hollywood formulas to appear interesting, but ultimately fails. Formally, everything is there – Tom Hanks in the lead role, exciting scenes, Zimmer's intense music during tense moments, mysteries and puzzles, even a plot twist. But still, I found it depressing, and the film is over two hours long, so I gave it a 4 out of 10. This time, I rewatched it somewhat absentmindedly while eating, and perhaps that's why my opinion is slightly better. Although my overall opinion of the film hasn't changed drastically, all the technical aspects of this film are executed very competently. The staging of scenes, the special effects – everything is very well done and pleasing to the eye. Therefore, I added a point, bringing it to 5 out of 10, but it's still a boring movie.

A Knight's Tale (2001)
The plot of the film is simple, and although it claims to be somewhat historical (I learned about the Black Prince and Geoffrey Chaucer thanks to it), it still contains a lot of inaccuracies, and the simple plot is ridiculously naive. But still, it was enjoyable to watch. I watched it for the first time, but during the viewing, I had the feeling that I was a child again, watching a movie with my parents on STS in the evening – and I mean this in a good way. There was a feeling of simplicity, warmth, and tranquility, when everything in life is simple and there are no worries. Apparently, the film captured the cinematic vibe of that time very well, which is why it evoked such feelings in me. It's also a little over two hours long, but it didn't cause any boredom, but I think it's only thanks to the unexpectedly awakened associations in me.

Death Wish (2018)
The movie is just a movie; I watched it for a change of pace. I didn't feel the need to drop it, and that's a good thing.

Khrustalev, the Car! (1998)
I'll say it right away, without unnecessary preambles and lengthy introductions: the film is garbage. But since I've already started writing this, I should elaborate a bit. A long time ago, I watched a review of the film "It's Hard to Be a God" by the same director, Alexei German. And if the review is to be believed, that film is also garbage in every sense – the actors are covered in shit, they throw shit everywhere, and so on. And after looking at some reviews and other materials, I realized that "Khrustalev" is roughly the same in content. Therefore, watching it was never on my list. However, it was shown, and I decided to watch it, just to get an idea of what such trash looks like. So, I started watching it half an hour after it began, constantly getting distracted by anything and not really trying to follow what was happening – generally not the best way to watch media content, which usually ruins the experience. However, I firmly believe that there are exceptions – like this one – where such a viewing method is quite justified. So, let's get to the film itself.
The film's cinematography is unconventional, "as if" naturally immersing us in what's happening. For example, a character walks somewhere, and the camera follows him, without changing shots, without anything, just as if "peeking" at him. Or, for example, there's a scene where a bunch of people are doing something, and they don't try to show them all at once or change shots, switching from scene to scene; the camera just lazily moves back and forth, and the people are already in the middle of certain actions or dialogues. The meaning of these dialogues is often unclear, much like when walking down the street, we might accidentally overhear snippets of conversations and have no idea what they mean or who they're about. And if we stop here, it seems like there's nothing wrong with it – just an original way of storytelling, a cinematic language, and so on. However, this narrative becomes simply unbearable and impossible to follow due to two factors:
1) The sound design. The trick here is quite simple and straightforward: if something is important for understanding the overall plot, it's mumbled by the character under his breath in 95% of cases, making it barely audible. If, on the other hand, something is completely meaningless and doesn't carry any weight, it's heard so clearly, loudly, and distinctly, as if it were an important announcement to all citizens of the country. For example, the phrase that's in the film's title sounds like "KhyrfuurshovSHINA" at a crucial moment, meaning it's extremely difficult to make out. German also loves to overlay important lines with extraneous sounds, such as a whistling kettle, other household noises, a barking dog in apartments, a rooster crowing, a pig grunting outside – in general, there's a noise that drowns out the characters' lines. But even if there are no lines, it still feels like an attack on your nervous system because any noise doesn't just sound once; it repeats again and again, almost rhythmically, like a throbbing in your temples. In fact, rereading this, it might even seem like it's just a continuation of the original storytelling method, as if we're not in a movie but in real life, where not everything has a continuous plot. However, I'll note that even without these distractions, it was already difficult to follow what was happening, and the sounds themselves are so aggressively made that you can confidently say that they were intended to cause a headache. But the final blow is the second factor:
2) The complete absurdity of what's happening. The characters behave strangely and speak very strangely, especially the secondary and tertiary characters, and as I mentioned earlier, it's their lines that are given the most clarity and distinctness. For example, there's an important dialogue that's barely audible, and next to it, some guy (who can't be identified in the plot) is saying: "bzdynyk. Bzdynyk. Bzdynyk." It sounds innocent enough, but imagine someone sitting next to you and constantly making that sound. Or – again, an important dialogue is loudly drowned out by the most annoying squeal of a kid: "AMERICAN STUCK A FINGER IN HIS ASS! AMERICAN STUCK A FINGER IN HIS ASS! AMERICAN STUCK A FINGER IN HIS ASS!" And again, I only wrote this three times to avoid cluttering the review, but in the original, it's repeated many, many more times. These characters, when they're loudly saying something nonsensical, also like to start laughing or howling loudly. In general, I hope I've managed to convey the overall impression.
As a result, due to these two factors, everything that happens looks like delirium – a lingering, unpleasant, viscous half-sleep with a fever. Most likely, that's what German intended, and it turns out that he should be praised for successfully achieving the result, but instead, I want to tell him to go to hell. Oh yeah, another feature of the film, which is mentioned by almost everyone who talks about it, is the group homosexual rape of the main character. I can't really praise or criticize this scene – it's not shown very realistically, not very scary, just tedious and boring, like the rest of the film. The only thing that interested me was the moment when one of the prisoners (the scene takes place in a prison) picked up an object that looked like a mop – apparently, German took the staging of the scene seriously and researched the topic thoroughly.
When a film is garbage, I like to add at the end, "don't watch it under any circumstances," but if, after this description, you feel like watching this film, then I'll say – go ahead, watch it. My words won't stop you anyway.

Give me liberty (Give Me Liberty, 2019)