I’m realising lately that I haven’t been remembering all the media I’ve watched before, and I’d like to change that. I think that each movie or show I’ve watched will have left an influence on me, regardless of how they’ve done so. Here’s a collection of the things I’ve watched, just to document them!
2026
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Project Hail Mary (2026)
Notes for Project Hail Mary
Arguably one of my favourite movies of this year. A friend described it as a movie for scientists and nerds (except one particular scene where Grace somehow wrongly uses a centrifuge — don't ask me, I don't work with that kind of lab equipment), and I guess I can definitely see why. The feel-good vibes that come with the movie stands in contrast against a lot of other sci-fi works which often tend to be bleak and somewhat dystopian. This movie gives me hope that the future in space can be a bit more optimistic again.The visual fidelity of the movie is also worthy of some applause. The one particular scene of Grace and Rocky collecting Astrophage where the camera cuts from visible to infrared light and the orchestral piece crescendos gave me chills down my spine when I first watched it in cinemas. I wish I could relive that again.
And, despite its somewhat simple portrayal of an otherwise catastrophic world problem, the movie still doesn’t shy away from portraying things the way they are. The difficult choices world governments have to make to ensure humanity’s survival, and particular that of Stratt to force Grace on the spacecraft, is pretty bleak. But hey, all’s well ends well in this case, because he wouldn’t have ended up in Eris if not for that.
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Weapons (2025)
Notes for Weapons
I had been meaning to watch this movie for a long time already given the praise that some of my bunkmates have showered down about it. I find that the movie was quite an entertaining self-confined watch that doesn't aspire to do too much, and in a good way.The premise of the movie is pretty interesting, and how the directors have handled that portrayal by showing the POVs of different characters in the movie made it so that you can finally understand what’s happened by the end of it.
I found the way the movie played with timing in the horror was quite interesting. An example of this — which happens multiple times in the movie — is the prolonged wait where nothing happens for a significant amount of time after a door opens to an empty void. You’d expect there to be a jumpscare, but the timing makes it so that anxiety builds up about what might come next.
Amy Madigan (Gladys) in this movie is such a stellar performer, and I’m glad she won the several well-deserved accolades for her performance in the movie. She really did portray the overly-kind, slightly-creepy vibe that well-suits her antagonistic role in the movie.
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Obsession (2025)
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Backrooms (2026)
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The Matrix (1999)
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The Matrix Reloaded (2003)
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The Matrix Revolutions (2003)
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Undertone (2025)
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Resident Evil (2026)
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The Djinn’s Curse (2023)
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The Djinn’s Curse 2 (2026)
Notes for The Djinn's Curse and The Djinn's Curse 2
I'd argue that the first movie is much better with the second, with the second causing a lot more laughing moments when watching it with my bunkmates.What stands out to me the most is the specific dialect of the language they use throughout the films. While watching, there were words and phrases used that sounded very familiar — as if spoken in Malay — and the specific vocal enunciation of terms reminded me of the Malay dialects of the northern parts of West Malaysia. The language spoken appears to be Kelantan—Pattani Malay, or Yawi. Pretty cool to read up about!
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The Martian (2015)
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His House (2020)