I appreciate your candour and time given to the response. The (superior) alternatives in respect to the given objectives were given as these were also concerns shared by me and at the time of my personal search they were the top contenders. Napster I recall eliminating early due to bountiful issues and subpar features, however I admit their state in 2025 is unknown to me.

At day’s end, the goal of the ideal is never summited by the well-worn path of least resistance. Our thoughts whisper “at least it’s better than XYZ” so that our conscience, though we know it a lie, is lightened. But I’m blathering on the piracy Lemmy so I can be ignored.

Music is actually one thing I will always pay for. I use Apple Music because they pay artists more and they offer better quality.

If paying artists and hi-res audio are your primary metrics, why not Tidal or Qobuz?

I have been swayed.

Into the Wild (2007)
McCandless’ pilgrimage etched in our collective consciousness transcends biopic into secular psalm. Every frame a cathedral to the wild, every dialogue, every seeking glance a cracked mirror as we witness fierce idealism’s wildfire clashing with majestic nature’s granite indifference. We know his fate, yet it still stirs the soul, a burning rebuke to half-lived lives. When he writes ‘happiness [is] only real when shared,’ the meaning he sought crystallizes in our tears. A heart-excavating hymn to those who’d rather starve free than feast caged.

The Naked Gun (2025)
A retired slapstick criminal case revived for the algorithm age marked with faithful invisible fingerprints of its forebear. Neeson’s deadpan delivery cracks into comedic gold, pratfalling through a script that weaponizes ridiculous vaudeville without crutching on soon-dated memes. Firing at full auto, its barrage of gags occasionally pierces deeper than a rubber bullet. If worried it’s another desperate Hollywood reboot, the forensic lights illuminates there exists real gold.

F1 (2025)
An assembly-line blockbuster of racing tropes. Grizzled mentor with roguish charm? Check. Rookie hotshot’s hubris? Check. Career woman proving worth? Double check. Every narrative turn clicks into place like a preset gearshift, yet its RPM never redlines but hums along autopilot. Still, two and a half hours vaporize like ethanol mist, flaws blurring into asphalt streaks. Don’t glance at the empty formula, but enjoy the smooth high-octane ride.

Superman (2025)
It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s Superman coming to reboot the DC(E)U! And what better saviour to choose than Krypton’s last son. Trademark Gunn’s heroics encased in MCU blueprints leads to a competent, colourful, and crushingly safe film. Guardians’ charm is Bizzaro-ly cloned resulting in more brawn than brain, enough to be a stabilizing bandage for a flailing franchise. Leaping but never soaring, paving way for a brighter tomorrow.

After the Dark (2013)
Nuclear thought-experiment of sophistry detonates in a pedagogical vacuum. Characters exists as hollow pawns devoid of care or will, logic bleeds out like radiation poisoning, and its final lesson betrays reason for sentiment, irradiating its own premise. Who is this made for? Too arid for young-adult audiences and too jejune for adults. A cerebral stillbirth in a bunker of bad faith.

I will again suggest pinning the weekly thread as it was done in the past. If not for the entire week, perhaps the first few days until weekend’s arrival.

I binged ‘The Naked Gun’ trilogy in order to watch this over the weekend. Refreshing to see the now-rare slapstick reinvigorated for modern audiences. Was my surprise watch this week preferring it to both ‘Superman’ and ‘F1’.

I’ll edit this later with a link to a better review which I’ll post in the weekly thread.

Here’s the review.

I read that the sequel to TMFE is to be missed and as I was deeply dismayed by the end revelation, it would require a commendation from you or others to place it onto the watchlist.

That’s perfectly reasonable as it was similar to my initial reaction as well. Upon further contemplation, the fever dream that is ‘Waking Life’ isn’t only about asking the questions - of which I readily admit some struck me as prosaic - but works as an excellent introduction to the majority of people who go through life like one of Heraclitus’ sleepers. In addition, it faithfully renders the disjointed experiences of a psychedelic experience.

Perhaps your rewatch will be enjoyed more than mine due insight into the time or nostalgia.
Hey! Quit naming movies already on my watchlist so I’m tempted to push it up the queue.

I’ll be honest, Take That’s latter albums are much more my era (to which I also prefer), as a result, I came into this mostly blind. If you do watch it and leave a review, feel welcome to tag me so that I am apprised!

Enjoyable and better than the average subpar superhero films we’re deluged by. Here’s my (slightly) longer review in the weekly thread.

Waking Life (2001)
An oneiric odyssey where rotoscoped reality liquefies into liminal instances. Dialogues cascade like Schrödinger’s thought bubbles, questions unanswered and compounding in synaptic fireworks. To experience this symposium of the soul is to drift between Wittgenstein and wonder. Less a film to watch, than a cinematic defibrillator for lifelong dormant minds.

The Man from Earth (2007)
A peripatetic thought experiment emerges when an extraordinary claim ignites intellectual spelunking within one cabin room. The claustrophobic setting both vanishes the budget constraints and intensifies the hypnotic existential sparring, alas the professors parries with pedestrian questions as if undergrads. Still, the verbal wildfire proves gripping until the ending indurates ambiguity into tragic literalism. Proof that ideas, not effects, ignites cinema’s campfire.

Better Man (2024)
“They say your life freezes at the age you become famous. So I am fifteen. I’m stunted. I’m unevolved.”
This confession elevates docudrama blueprints into tragic self-portraiture. Fame’s arrested development isn’t just explored; it’s autopsied with candour, exposing addiction and atrophied maturity with startling vulnerability avoiding redemption porn. Songs reverb organically from narrative score, harmonizing with every scene in perfect rhythm. Piece by Piece’s CGI gimmick crumbles as a futile distraction; here, it’s the thesis.

The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025)
Atomic-age chic and family-first ethos inject momentary vitality into Marvel’s creative decay. A vibrant, flawed retro-comic panel where the margins outshine the central splash page as it stumbles from trite comic-villain sins¹ and subplots disintegrate like unstable molecules. Marvel’s first family remain hopeful with wobbly first steps.
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Prince of Darkness (1987)
Quantum babble meets apocalyptic theology. Cinema’s longest opening credits putting Spaceballs’ to shame sets the tone of things to come: “competent” grad students sprint headlong into horror stupidity, science transmogrifies to séance, and eldritch horror reduced to ectoplasm. Carpenter’s surprising synth-drenched atmosphere salvages our ears. No Thing, but its campy bastard sibling.

Welcome back Memfree! Your positive review for ‘Hyenas’ led to it being added to my watchlist.

I’m waiting for one night when everyone’s down for ‘Sinners’ so I can finally watch it. I also have a smattering of Tarkovsky’s films on the watchlist, would you have a recommendation on which order?

Agreed. The director played it safe; aspired to be John Wick but is a soulless Nobody - which is already derivative.

My - often banal - reasoning for each:

‘Ghost’ - I love love (when done correctly) and it’s been long on my watchlist thanks to its cultural zeitgeist.

‘La Collectionneuse’ - ‘Ma nuit chez Maud’ is on my watchlist then I discovered it was part of Rohmer’s collection prompting me to watch it in order.

‘Secret Admirer’ - It’s love and I have a tenderness for the 80s making it a simple light choice and watch when browsing.

‘Topkapi’ - Scrolling through and the name caught my eye as I chose not to enter the palace on a previous trip.

‘Love Hurts’ - I wanted to view it in theatres but nobody else did so here I am finally streaming it. I’m now relieved no-one wanted to go.

Ghost (1990)
Posthumous love transcends its pottery-wheel kitsch into genre-blending mastery: part romance, part thriller, part cosmic comedy, and all metaphysical yearning. Swayze’s unchained melody leads to Goldberg’s Oda Mae stealing every scene with perfect levity. Though there, plot issues be damned in the face of love’s victory over death! Its zeitgeist grip is earned and is indeed transcendent. Ditto.

La Collectionneuse (1967)
Gamine Haydée’s sexually-liberated presence fractures the languid hypocrisy of two “intellectuals” summering in ennui. Gallery-hopeful Adrien narrates in first-person deceit his moral superiority while coveting Haydée and his friend, sculptor and self-proclaimed barbarian Daniel mimics nonchalance with faux-libertine shrugs. Against their pompous barrage, her nightly routine soon evolves, left ambiguous by agency or mirror. Offering no verdict, but a capsule of 60s moral rot under the sun-kissed Riviera.

Secret Admirer (1985)
80s teen tropes abound from slack-jawed parents to mistaken love letters but what sets it apart is its search for romance over sex. Its comedic elements are as effective as Reaganomics yet its embrace of young love’s naïveté and gawky earnestness disarms. Objectively cliché, irresistibly nostalgic.

Topkapi (1964)
A meretricious caper gilded by Istanbul’s sun-drenched glamour, buoyed more by location than larcenous genius. Istanbul’s bazaars and palaces shimmer like stolen emeralds, while Turkish wrestling adds cultural heft; both dearly required to divert from languid plotting. It includes the famed wire-dangling theft which birthed a beloved genre trope. This film remains a minor classic, a postcard from heist cinema’s adolescence.

Love Hurts (2025)
Anemic Valentine’s entry where romance’s absence is murderously felt. The action sequences are generic edited schlock, but the mismatched casting prove fatal as Quan’s treacly realtor-ex-hitman flails in a role demanding Jackie Chan charm and suffocates on arrival, overshadowed by DeBose’s femme fatale’s negative presence. Their chemistry is even worse, all heart-shaped packaging without a pulse. It exists as a foreclosed property copied from superior blueprints. Mediocrity indeed hurts.

I preferred when the weekly thread was pinned a few days at the top for easy access and viewing.

I just left a short review in the weekly thread with this movie. While I do not count K-pop amongst my proclivities, it was an enjoyable albeit shallow fare - though it never promised to be more.

Garden State (2004)
A funeral sparks rebirth as a chemical fog lifts when Andrew, numbed by prescriptions, meets Sam, a grounded manic pixie dream girl who radiates sans cloying artifice. Expertly maneuvering clichés with earnest sweetness; each new apt soundtrack elevates his awakening. Though underutilized, the father and he together suture the chronic wound, feeling closure’s quiet catharsis. After long night, sunrise.

The Shop Around the Corner (1940)
James and Margaret are bickering clerks unknowingly courting via epistolary exchanges filled with adoring prose. A timeless manuscript of hate-to-love romances, etched permanently into cinema’s DNA. The simple predominant setting elevates characters’ depth, including the side characters to beyond mere fixtures. Eternally charming.

The Menu (2022)
Overcooked satire skewers haute consumerism with the subtlety of a cleaver. Chef’s lament, “he aspires for greatness but he’ll never achieve it” echoes the film’s fate. Theming and plating entices as we’re given an amuse-bouche of compelling premise giving way to an entrée of undercooked absurdist narration and a dessert of bland resolution. Style over sustenance; as our protagonist, Margot, says, “I’m still fucking hungry.”

KPop Demon Hunters (2025)
Delivering exactly what the title promises, a generic synthesis of K-pop and their idols while slaying demons. Tropes abound as if produced in autotune, character depth flatlines like a dropped verse, and animation occasionally stutters but the original songs in K-pop style, true fandom archetypes, and exaggerated anime-esque reactions crackle with youthful fun verve. Formulaic as K-pop’s mandatory concept change, yet easily palatable like listening to American Top 40.

The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim (2024)
Hark! An avaricious shadow falls upon Middle-earth and another withered branch upon the White Tree. Hallowed memory desecrated by this wraith of the Riddermark; landscapes faithfully rendered in mimicry, pallid heroes bereft of myth and soul, animation jerks with the grace of orcs. This is no heir to Peter Jackson’s reverence. Fly! Even The Hobbit’s follies shone brighter.

I completely understand, where you are now in life will always tint what you think and consume regardless of your attempts otherwise. At their age and time, the world is newly blossomed and everyone’s a friend. It most assuredly helps that neither of them are vapid creatures, shown to be capable of discourse despite dissenting opinions - I only truly recall the one, with the fortune teller. And above all else, they’re in love.

The ‘Before’ trilogy are amongst my favourite series of all time and I never felt, even in minutiae, a hint of sophistry. However, it may be my internal romantic bias rearing its head.