Rec
🎬
Eugene Kotlyarenko’s debut film 0’s & 1’s is still my favorite - and it’s heartwarming to know that it’s only been a decade after its premiere at a tiny Brooklyn theater that it’s finally getting the big screen screenings that it truly deserves. The simple story of a guy retracing his steps trying to find his lost computer - Slacker meets Dude Where’s My Car for the first generation of terminally online. But it’s the film’s relentless art direction that truly sets it apart - a multicam extravaganza framed within dozens of custom interfaces that rival both Hackers and The Net in channeling and elevating the aesthetics of the moment with painstakingly detailed easter eggs to be found on every fleeting frame. I’d also like to give a shout-out to We Are, my second favorite film by Eugene. Self-released almost a year ago, We Are is a continuation of his romantic comedies about breakups A Wonderful Cloud (2015) and Wobble Palace (2018) starring hapless losers mired in technological detritus - in this case, the employee of a pathetic virtual reality arcade. But unlike its predecessors We Are is Eugene’s most casual film to date, made with a whimsical looseness echoed in the character Stick’s XL tourist t-shirts and the soft soothing pace of his fidget spinner. It’s a funny movie, but it’s also sad… when Eugene breaks the 4th wall and slates a scene with Dasha, there is a self-accepting effortlessness that really feels like letting go. We Are is just a movie and that’s all it needs to be.
Dec 21, 2021
Related Recs
Rec
brilliant. beautiful and funny and heartwrenching and silly and all around fantastic. the more i think about this movie the more i love it. tells an unconventional tale of self-confidence, self-sabotage, regret and jealousy, etc etc the ending was a bit silly but i can look past it lol. what a fantastic cast and fantastic production. they frame things throughout as if it were to look like a stage production only for that to be the eventual main plot point. one of my favorite scenes (if not films) of the year
Oct 6, 2024
Rec
one of my favorite movies. at 16 years old, watching it feels nostalgic in itself, but the picture it paints of the era in which it takes place is also nostalgic.
it’s a more real, defined, engulfing world than any i’ve ever experienced through film, and even though i know what happens, i feel the things the characters feel as they feel them. when vr allows us to live in a movie, theme park ride style, “Adventureland Summer” will be my first stop. this thing is dripping with nostalgic heartache to the tunes of the replacements and lou reed, every performance is great / super funny / heartbreaking in it’s own way.
as i’m typing this, i think i believe this is the best film ever made? that can’t be true, probably, but idk watch it you’ll love it and feel a lot.
it’s a more real, defined, engulfing world than any i’ve ever experienced through film, and even though i know what happens, i feel the things the characters feel as they feel them. when vr allows us to live in a movie, theme park ride style, “Adventureland Summer” will be my first stop. this thing is dripping with nostalgic heartache to the tunes of the replacements and lou reed, every performance is great / super funny / heartbreaking in it’s own way.
as i’m typing this, i think i believe this is the best film ever made? that can’t be true, probably, but idk watch it you’ll love it and feel a lot.
May 13, 2025
Rec
Really fascinating, weird, dark, while also being incredibly funny and charming. unlike anything I’ve seen before & cool soundtrack. Can be incapsulated by this letterboxd review:
Oct 4, 2024
Top Recs from @asher-penn
Rec
🤡RIP to this absolute GOAT of a sobriety meme account. I think I stopped drinking around the time that sobriety memes were in their second wave - 12-step inside jokes that were ideally harrowing, embarrassing, and hopeful in their shared hopelessness - and while Brutal Recovery, Fucking Sober, and Dumbsoberbitch are great, no account could perform these lacerations with the expertise of a surgeon as @facebooksober. Like an elephant balancing itself on a dime, facebook sober managed to capture the divine paradox’s inherent to recovery with such aesthetic grace and poetry I was 100% convinced that the person behind the account was a hot girl (it was a dude, lol). Whatever. Hot Newcomers Are Forever.
Dec 21, 2021
Rec
🌚On a recent trip to Paris a friend invited me to an after-party at a place called Silencio aka “David Lynch’s Nightclub.” I got there early, and descending the 6 flights of black carpeted stairs that’s only signage read “no phone use or photographs” became increasingly aware I was entering something special - the carpeting continued into what felt like a sound-proofed underground bunker where every detail - the lighting to the furniture, to the bar, the bathrooms mirrors - was considered which such deep precision that I felt transported into Lynch’s vision in a way that none of his films, writing or music ever has. I stood at the bar drinking an uncannily delicious coca-cola from the bottle in dumbfounded awe. This was not a movie set... it was the real thing. I later read that Lynch’s goal was to "induce and sustain a specific state of alertness and openness to the unknown.” Mission accomplished. I can say with conviction that no interior space that was designed with intention has ever made me *feel* the way Silencio does.
Dec 21, 2021
Rec
🍌They say that the best design is no design, and I can’t think of a better example than No Frills, a low-cost supermarket chain in Canada that since the late ’70s has been easily recognized for its iconic simple in-house branding. Operating on the premise that making graphic design decisions is a major unnecessary expense No Frills follows a strict style guide of Pantone Yellow C combined with large bold Helvetica Neue 75 for all its interiors and packaging: pickles, dark chocolate, hummus, evaporated milk, olive oil all get the same point-blank treatment. The closest I’ve ever seen to this aesthetic is on that TV show Lost where all the food comes from The Dharma Initiative. Walking down their aisles can feel dystopian and autistic but also timelessly chic - a ridiculous marketing concept leaned into with a commitment that I hope they never abandon.
Dec 21, 2021