This spring, I watched When Life Gives You Tangerines, and I honestly didn’t expect to be so fully transposed. Even though my own experience is tied to French Polynesia and the series is set in South Korea (Jeju), the depiction of island life - the good and the bad - the dream of escaping to the big city (in my case, the “Métropole”; in the series’ case, the mainland), and the struggles of adapting to that big city once you get there as an “exotic” person, all felt so familiar and well done that I cried during every episode. I’m curious - have you ever experienced something like this with a movie or series?
The Station Agent
Details?
Quiet reclusive train enthusiast played by Peter Dinklage loses his only friend. The friend leaves him a small property which he moves into to live in isolation. The isolation part proves more challenging than anticipated and despite his efforts he gradually begins making new connections with the people around him.
Why did it mean a lot to you? If you don’t mind sharing.
I think I just relate to the loneliness and the competing desires for solitude and connection. It’s always nice to see a character heal from something you’re personally struggling with.
I’ll have to give that a watch. Dinklage is always a joy to watch.
Ted Lasso season 1 is exactly what my soul needed during the pandemic.
This one is really good, we watched it also.
One of my favourite pieces of media of all time, hands down.
Our Blues is also very similar.
The Good Place - Excellent characters, excellent humor, brilliant commentary, and one of the most thoughtful endings I’ve ever watched.
Ted Lasso - Excellent characters, people who hate sports can still love this show, unexpectedly hilarious (not funny, not humorous, I almost died laughing a few times), the worst character becomes one of the best characters, the nicest character becomes the most tragic characters.
Pachinko - Absolutely perfect in design and execution, the best period piece I’ve ever watched (covers multiple periods, as well), biting (almost damning) commentary on Imperial & Post War Japan, characters you either side with out of the gate or grow to understand and empathize with.
Naughty Nurses 6
Really loved Bad Monkey with Vince Vaughn. Despite being a black comedy it just seemed to hit me in the right place. Vaughn is always so positive and chatty in it even to the bad guys and it just cracks me up.
And the narrators voice is 👌
Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The hardest part of life is the problems you can’t just decapitate with a sword.
This is us is so wholesome it made me cry almost at every episode. So many good vibes, it came out at the right time for me: needed it.
Detectorists is perfect in every way. Incredibly chill with dry humor.
Northern Exposure, I think it captures something universal about living in a small town.
I haven’t revisited it in some time, but I loved Northern Exposure as a teen. Shit, I even applied to (but didn’t attend) The University of Alaska Fairbanks from Florida. They called to make sure I wasn’t just fucking with them, but I don’t think the admissions person had it in them to put on the hard sell.
Farscape and Fight Club. I love the slow decline in mental stability shown by the main characters. John Crichton (Ben Browder) Farscape does it so well, trying to keep it together when thrown so completely out of his comfort zone. Unnamed Narrator/Tyler Durden, just a complete nut bar that doesn’t even know who they are. Would love to see this from an outside view see how he did some of the things he did, it all made a weird kind of sense til the end then I was just confused.
edit: would love suggestions for similar themed shows/movies
I’ll never forgive whatever TV business entities were involved for not having Ben Browder and Claudia Black play their Farscape characters when they both joined the cast of Stargate. Because that would have been an awesome and perfectly plausible way to connect the two shows.
Wasn’t Ed Norton’s character name Jack? I still quote
I am jack’s complete lack of surprise
pretty regularly
It’s been a decade or so since I watched it so went to the wiki to ensure I got things accurate. In the wiki it calls the starting half of Tyler unnamed narrator. Tylers original name is never disclosed in either the book or the movie, check this basically was reading a readers digest story - “Reader’s Digest article about the first person view of internal organs, called “I Am Jack’s ____”.” tho it should be Joe and Jill
Thanks for the link, but it also says that the main character’s name is Jack in the script, and there’s a very brief shot of a paycheck showing his name as Jack as well:
Logan
Watching Professor X mentally decline hit so fucking close to home. When it came out, I had just lost my grandad (who raised me), and it was like watching a home movie in certain parts. Stewart nailed the fog of dementia that can ebb ad flow, and the relationship between him and Wolverine was pitch perfect.
Damn. This series really made me cry so hard, especially when the granma died (reminded me of my grandparents) and when the husband died (reminded me to spend time with my dad).
Spoiler alert!
Yeah big time. I just added this to my watchlist and it looks great.
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. Yeah life is rigged. What’re you gonna do, cry about it? Or get all your buddies together and turn to face life, and say “Who the hell do you think I am?”. Row row, flight the power.
500 Days of Summer. Had no idea what I was about to do to my relationship. In a way, it just sped up the inevitable, but damn. I was not ready to see our relationship resonated down my throat that hard. Still hurts.
Oofh. I sorry friend, it’s a fantastic movie but also a rough watch. Hope things are better now! 🤗
If you haven’t seen it, “Don Jon” (also staring Levitt!) approached the same flawed relationship story from a totally different angle but in a quite fuflling way.
