Letterboxd account of Athena, YouTube philosopher (channel in linktree).
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Shrek 2001
The massive popularity of "Shrek" is understandable given the genius of its simple mission to parody the fairy tale genre by making an ogre its protagonist. This is not a bad goal, and "Shrek" succeeds at it, so it is not a bad film, yet its celebration of its own cynicism significantly lowered the cultural standard for similar art in a way that would be difficult for me to commend.
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Barbie in the Nutcracker 2001
"Barbie in the Nutcracker", the legendary first film in the seemingly endless series of cheap computer-animated Barbie movies which would follow it, immediately demonstrates the brilliance of the franchise's formula with a sparkly sugary extravagant (and yet surprisingly respectful) fever-dream retelling of the Tchaikovsky ballet.
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Everything Everywhere All at Once 2022
"Everything Everywhere All At Once" is the best movie of the 2020s I've seen so far. It achieves the epitome of the popular multiverse trope by telling the story of a Chinese-American laundress who discovers the existence of other universes and must fight a war to save them, all during a visit to the Internal Revenue Service building. This premise makes apparent the untethered imagination and subversive humor of the storytellers (the Daniels, who by following up their debut "Swiss…
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Uncut Gems 2019
"Uncut Gems" is the most recent movie I would consider a real masterpiece, for the simple reason that it feels mythic. Realizing this requires me to admit my art criticism is the opinion of someone who rates art largely by how mythic it is; this is the perspective anyone who follows my work gets. So how is "Uncut Gems" mythic?
Some fans claim that through "Uncut Gems" and its predecessor "Good Time," directors Josh and Benny Safdie are inventing a…
