May 2026 in movies finale (Post #5 out of 5)

 

Ten Things I Hate About You (1999) - directed by Gil Junger - is a high-school romantic comedy based on Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew. I would like to thank Shakespeare for being the inspiration for this movie that I like very much. He's a talented guy who deserves some recognition. 

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I finished the month of May by rewatching another favorite movie. I enjoy romantic comedies a lot, and I've watched a lot of teen rom-coms in particular, but there are a lot of crappy ones out there. It's very much a guilty pleasure; movies that I know are pretty bad, but some part of them makes me feel good, so I keep watching. 

At the same time, it's hard for a rom-com to stand out. I'm picky about them, because they only really need a few things:

1. Two leads with CHEMISTRY🧑‍🔬, and I want to know why they like each other beyond: hot 🥵

2. A logical plot. Don't make me feel like Spock. Maybe teen rom-coms are meant to make as little sense as teenagers do, but I made sense as a teenager (don't ask my mom to confirm). 

3. Be at least a little funny 🤏

 

Apparently, these three tasks are very difficult to accomplish.  

 

When it comes to English-language rom-coms in particular, there are not a lot of movies I can point at and say: that was actually really good, would recommend. But I love Ten Things I Hate About You. I think it's a good movie, it's well-paced, and it only makes me cringe once. Therefore it is the natural recommendation to friends that don't watch a lot of rom-coms. And in order to make sure it gets watched, I sit myself down on other people's couches and watch with them. 

 

The last four times I watched this movie have followed that same pattern. 

 

I'm not sure exactly what it is about Ten Things that has made it one of the more memorable rom-coms of my life and the one I want to share with everybody. Some possible reasons: I love the cast, and I actually understand why someone would fall in love with Kat Stratford. I understand why she would fall for The Joker too (I just want to understand things 😩). I like that things never feel too melodramatic or over the top. It's a chill movie for a chill Pratima. 

This movie was my introduction to Joseph Gordon Levitt, and he will always be Cameron to me, no matter how many Nolan movies he stars in. 

I re-realize every time I watch that there are a disproportionate amount of sexual jokes in here. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ They're funny. The gynecologist dad was a standout of this particular watch. I love that man; he's so good. 

I don't think Ten Things is perfect. It borders on being a bit too low-key, and it brushes past some parts of the conflict. But it makes me feel good every time I watch, and it's mature enough that I don't feel like I'm losing brain cells.

If you're intrigued by this rom-com but don't know when you'll get around to watching, never fear, Pratima is here! I will watch it with you, and we will have a good time. 

Rewatched on: May 31, 2026

Rating: ★★★★½ / 5

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I drove two hours and twenty-three minutes to eat pancakes in New Hampshire last weekend, because somebody (Ranjani) told me it was a nice place. It was going to be my birthday activity and that plan was derailed, but the silver lining is that I had two passengers come along. I ENJOYED my time at Polly's Pancake Parlor, and I would in fact wait 53 minutes to be seated once again. But that's just me. 

The drive up to Franconia, NH is so pretty, and I look forward to doing it again in October when the fall colors are at their peak. We did a short (but not tooo easy) hike at Artists Bluff, and I will go back and complete the 1.5 mile loop next time. 

The next day I did a much more local and much more low-key hike-walk at Mainstone Farm. We saw frogs! I also found myself at another concert, but that deserves a longer post. 

Last week I played badminton, which was good, and I ate a strawberry peach tart, which was GOOD. 

Bye for now. It's time to play Dispatch. 

Breakfast of Losers (Champions)

 

Taking a break from our (not) regularly scheduled movie posts to talk about a book I finished a little while ago now. 

 

It used to be a big secret but is now not much of a secret that I am in 2 going on 3 book clubs. I guess this book club which I call the Carlton Book Club or Ethan's Book Club or the Finance Book Club or my Discord Book Club is the "main" one. Of the 3-ish clubs, this is the one that feels the most like a commitment. We read 20-30 pages every week and then we DISCUSS. And even when I loathe the book we choose, I've always finished it anyway (at least up until now). 

 

From the end of March through the beginning of June, we read Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut, which means that some of my friends have been hearing me complain and/or sing this book's praises since I started it many months ago at this point. Combo of travel and moving and concerts and no audiobook and p e r s o n a l life things had me falling wayyy behind, but I caught up in time for our final discussion and I'm done. Yippee! Me and Breakfast of Champs went on a real journey. 

 

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Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

 

It was kind of love-at-first-chapter for me and Kurt Vonnegut. Something about the way he writes and his specific brand of cynicism really worked for me from the start. He speaks to my brain in a way that few classic authors have so far. I'd read Slaughterhouse Five and Cat's Cradle and maybe even all of his graduation speeches and letters written to high school fans. He just seems like a weird guy with cool thoughts. I think I could become a fan too. 

 

Vonnegut is so weird, I could tell that very early on, but he sees the world in a really interesting way. Both of the main characters, Dwayne Hoover and Kilgore Trout, are depressing self-inserts in different ways. Trout, in particular, is a science fiction writer who comes up with the wackiest fucking concepts in the same way that Breakfast of Champions is a wacky fucking book. I will be thinking about Dwayne Hoover and Hawaiian Week every time I see a car dealership from now on. 

 

I loved the beginning of this book and the setup a lot, but the culmination of everything just felt so gross to me, and I KNOW that's the point, but that doesn't mean I have to be on board. I knew this book was going to feel pointless, but it was so much more pointless than I could've anticipated. It feels like a whole lot of nothing, but it's nothing that I want to read more of.

 

Consider this a highly-entertained 3 stars. I enjoyed reading this book and I feel positively about it, but do I think it's good? What is it even about??  We-are-all-machines-and-the-story-has-already-been-written-and-nothing-matters-because-the-author-of-the-story-is-god. Vonnegut doesn't seem like a very religious guy to me, but I think that's his thesis here. (He should meet my good friend Joe Abercrombie. They would make an extra depressing duo.)

 

Half of my book club friends are haters. They believe Breakfast of Champions has too many tangents. But to me, the tangents ARE the book; it would be nothing without them. Just Breakfast without the Champions <insert sad Walt Jr. image here>. It's fair to not like that style, but I think they're wrong anyway (though I too could do with a couple hundred fewer words about penises and beavers). 

 

My notes are currently split between two kindles, my phone, and my physical copy. There are way too many great quotes in this book for me to highlight all of them, but here's one snippet in particular that I think I'll remember for a long time: 

 

He said he knew that his truck was turning the atmosphere into poison gas, and that the planet was being turned into pavement so his truck could go anywhere. "So I'm committing suicide," he said... "My brother is even worse," the driver went on. "He works in a factory that makes chemicals for killing plants and trees in Viet Nam... In the long run, he's committing suicide," said the driver. "Seems like the only kind of job an American can get these days is committing suicide in some way."

Depressing and thought provoking. I spend many hours each week working at a company that is doing cool technology things, but are these cool technology things going to have a good impact on the planet in the long run? And if the planet dies, what are the humans going to do? Option 1: die. Option 2: send Ryland Grace to space. 

 

Read: May 30, 2026

Rating: ★★★ / 5

Rewatched a very good movie (May Post #4 of 5)

  

 

If you asked me to tell you one universal truth, there's a nonzero chance I would tell you that the How to Train Your Dragon soundtrack is good. 

 

This is a movie I've always been a fan of. I've watched it many times since it came out in 2010. I watched at least one of the sequels; I even watched some of the TV show that aired on Cartoon Network. But I guess I've never thought about How to Train Your Dragon in any critical manner. It's also not one of MY favorite things from my childhood, so I don't have that intense nostalgia associated with it (it's no PJO is what I mean). 

 

The movie is good though, really good. That is my opinion having rewatched with my critic glasses on. Critic-me has zero criticism. The script is exactly funny enough without feeling over-the-top. There's some good circular storytelling going on. At its heart, this is a wholesome tale of unlikely friendship and a son just trying to make his dad proud. To quote my very wise friend Zainab, "toothless ily you big cat." 

 

THE MUSIC HOWEVER—I've always known the soundtrack was full of bangers, even as a kid. Test Drive has had a place on my Spotify Liked Songs list for many years now. So when I got Instagram ads about the Boston Pops playing the score of this movie, it took me approximately 30 minutes to decide to get tickets for myself, and I dragged my sister along as well. 

 

So I rewatched the movie this time around in Symphony Hall with Jason Seber conducting the Boston Pops. Test Drive scene with a live orchestra was almost enough to make a girl cry, and it might have changed my life. 

 

I feel like live music gives this movie another dimension that I can't really explain in words. The event really just made me want to attend more orchestra concerts, maybe classical or maybe not. Watching the conductor as he cued this music was extra interesting because I know the soundtrack pretty well. I grew up playing viola in a school orchestra, so I know that conductors are important, but it also takes a lot of skill that some people (and maybe me too) might take for granted. You need to know the music inside and out to do a good job. The Pops music director Keith Lockhart wasn't conducting that day, but Jason Seber did a wonderful job. 

 

I'll plan to spend more time in Symphony Hall in the future, and I would highly recommend How to Train Your Dragon as a movie in this format or just on your TV at home. (Is it presumptuous of me to assume you have a TV? Possibly, but even I have a TV as of two weeks ago. It's still sitting on my floor, not connected to the wall...) 

 

Rewatched on: May 31, 2026

Rating: ★★★★★ / 5  

More May movies - finishing a trilogy (Post #3 of ???) + some things I did this week

  

The last time I watched Tobey-Maguire-Spider-Man was approximately in 2023 with my sister in my parents basement (which was also my basement at the time). I always intended to continue the series, but I never got around to it, as is tradition. 

 

The time finally came to watch Spider-Man 2 and 3 in May. I did not watch them in my parent's basement or with my sister, but I assume she doesn't care too much.

 

Spider-Man 2 (2004) - directed by Sam Raimi

 

Spider-Man 2 taught me that asking someone to get chow mein is equivalent to a marriage proposal, and I will be keeping this in mind for the future. 

 

I love Tobey Maguire soo much. Tobey should be in every movie.

 

Watched: May 23, 2026

Rating: ★★★★ / 5 

 

 

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The review I posted on Letterboxd was pretty short; I guess I didn't have that many thoughts immediately after finishing that I felt like talking about on there. Another instance where I spend an entire movie talking and don't really know how to discuss it critically after the fact. It's a fatal flaw of mine, but I do have a few brief plot things to touch on. Maybe skip the next few paragraphs if you're sensitive to spoilers for this 20-year-old movie.

 

I just don't understand the unlimited energy source trope that I've seen in a few places. What is the point of energy if it destroys everything in the vicinity? Is the actual villain actually just some illogical force that wants to expand and expand with no sense of its surrounding? Like your average billionaire, maybe? Yes, probably that. But I guess I don't understand why Doctor Octopus was cool with that, because he is not an illogical force. Maybe the desire for scientific progress is illogical in and of itself. Anyway, this all probably would have made a tiny bit more sense if I paid attention. Either that or I'm expecting too much from a comic book movie. 

 

Doc Ock is a pretty cool guy; iconic main villain, design-wise, but I don't think his personality in this movie is super memorable at all. 

 

I had a few thoughts on the romance, but at this point it's all a blur and my general opinion is: just talk to each other, please. Stop angsting so much. I like Tobey Maguire angst though; I just find it really funny. Talking about your feelings is easier said than done in my experience, so I guess I understand why all movies must have the very same miscommunication tropes. Also why is MJ getting engaged so fast to a man she's been dating for three seconds? Movie romance timelines make no sense to me. 

 

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Spider-Man 3 (2007) - directed by Sam Raimi

 

Can I promise you that I was paying attention to every detail of this movie? No. But I’m willing to bet it doesn’t actually matter. There were too many bad guys, and we just forgot about Harry for a bit there. 

 

Idk I liked this one  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Angst. Choking hazards. Steve from Blue’s Clues. Black on black suits. Tobey. Can’t complain.

 

Look at me go, I finished the series.

 

Watched: May 23, 2026

Rating: ★★★½ / 5 

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I've seen my friends' ratings of these two movies, and I was expecting a pretty stark quality difference, but Spider-Man 2 and the first half of 3 are honestly pretty comparable. 3 goes a little bit crazy once you realize there are actually 4 villains that are only tepidly maybe related to one another. But honestly, the disorganized nature of the movie made it kind of hilarious, and it was an enjoyable watch. 

 

These Raimi Spider-Man movies have birthed a lot of memes, and I love them for it. Genuinely some iconic films, and I understand why they're THE Spider-Man movies for a lot of people my age. Attempted proposal scene cracked me up. 

 

I am not super familiar with Spider-Man canon, but I get baffled by how different the Peter Parker/Gwen Stacy/Mary Jane dynamic is in every single adaptation. Most movies pick one love interest or another, but this movie has both. It feels kind of backwards to me, because Gwen is supposed to be Peter's first love or something. In Spider-Man 3, she's just some girl. 

 

Say what you want about amnesia tropes, but I think this movie is an entertaining example. 

 

One of these movies—I'm not sure which—inspired me to get two model skeletons for my apartment one day. One to display and one to keep in my closet. This is what people mean when they tell me to decorate, right??

 

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Call me a concert fiend, because I went to another one this week: They Might Be Giants. Believe it or not, they didn't play any of the educational kids songs I was introduced to in middle school. Traaagic. How will I dance to I Am a Paleontologist or Meet the Elements? But it's okay, they played a good song I like about a Brontosaurus (I introduced this song to a good friend of mine 4 years ago, and she HATED it smh). 

 

They Might Be Giants put on a really good show. They sang a whole song backwards. An accordion made an appearance. So many horns. I thought the two encores was a bit much, but the crowd anticipation before Istanbul was maybe worth it. My feet hurt by the end of this long ass event though. 

 

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On Saturday, I decided to go to Boston Pride super last minute. I had somehow never made my way to downtown Boston for the parade before. 10/10 what a good vibe.  I went to Micro Center on the same day, and that was also good. 

 

May 2026 in movies (Post #2 of ???)

Have I mentioned that I like Project Hail Mary (the movie)? I'm a big fan. I'm also a big fan of the Boston Museum of Science, so what better way to combine these two loves than to watch Project Hail Mary in the domed IMAX theater at the museum? Tickets kept selling out, so when I was finally able to get my hands on them, I sent the link to almost everybody I knew as a public service. 

I think three times is enough Project Hail Mary for now, but I'll buy the Blu-ray too. P h y s i c a l  m e d i a. I don't even own the book yet, but I'm sure I'll find a nice copy someday. 

I love this museum a lot, but I had never seen a real movie in the Omni Theater before. It was so so cool. I'm not sure if I would recommend it for your first time watching any particular movie, but the space scenes in particular were AMAZE. I brought my buddy who was seeing PHM for the first time, and she loved it too, so it was an extra good evening :) ended with some good Nepali food. 

Project Hail Mary (2026) - directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller

 

Rewatched in the Museum of Science Omni Theater. Happy to be in my favorite place with some favorite people watching a favorite movie. 

There’s nothing quite like Eva Stratt telling you to “just stop your crying” while you’re tearing up. 

I’ve said everything I need to say about this movie already. IMAX dome was very immersive. Made me kinda sleepy, though. Good.

Amelia overheard somebody say this was their 6th time watching, so really I’m a chill casual fan.

Watched: May 9, 2026

Rating: ★★★★★ / 5 

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Four movies to go. Please be patient with me. 

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In other news, Tor did send Isabel J. Kim on tour, and I did attend. The event was at Harvard Book Store earlier today, moderated by R.F. Kuang. The book she released is called Sublimation, which I rambled about a bit here. I'm genuinely pretty hyped to read it after the discussion today. People came up with some great questions during the Q&A, and that's a talent I'm jealous of. 

(Part of) May 2026 in movies (Post #1 out of ???)

  

After babbling so much about the Hugo Awards last time, my mental state this month has really taken me off track. I've barely been reading enough to keep up with book clubs, but I have been watching an above average number of movies! I waited to post because I thought I could do a May movie wrap-up all at once (7 movies total❗), but I have so many regrets and too many movies to tell you a little bit about. 

 

Beginning to write this post with Michael Jackson stuck in my head. Take a wild guess as to why that might be (hint: just watched my first movie of June).  

 

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I'm not sure what possessed me to watch The Devil Wears Prada finally. Some combination of: I've always intended to watch more Anne Hathaway movies, I thought it was a rom-com (it's not), the sequel came out recently (will I even watch?), and Ryland Grace speaking very highly of Meryl (PHM reference).  

I thought it was fun but not super memorable, especially for a movie that's kind of become a classic at this point. 

 

The Devil Wears Prada (2006) - directed by David Frankel

 

Movie about Anne Hathaway developing the work ethic and shitty work-life balance that my parents wish I had. All it took was one makeover for her to be good at her job! 

 

Blond journalist guy gave me the creeps the whole time. Leave her alone sir. 

 

Meryl Streep can do anything 😌

 

Watched: May 1, 2026

Rating: ★★★½ / 5 

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Emma (1996) - directed by Douglas McGrath

 

Admittedly it’s hard to critique a movie and hard to fully enjoy it when I spend the whole 2 hours yapping (and fighting a war for MY spot on the couch). Tbf every time 26-year-old Mr. Elton calls himself an old man, I am obligated to either take offense or commiserate. 

 

The comedy is good, very vibrant characters (thank u Jane Austen). I think the romance is the weakest part honestly; it just feels like an afterthought.

 

Why doesn’t the movie want me to know Mr. Knightly’s first name 😭 it’s George btw.

 

Watched: May 8, 2026

Rating: ★★★½ / 5 

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I can't call myself a Jane Austen expert yet; have only read one book so far, but I have seen a bunch of (modern day) adaptations. I was familiar with Emma up until a point: she's a matchmaker and the romance is kind of almost incestuous, but the details of the story were a big blur. Um, it's still a blur. The movie features Jane Austen's signature large cast of characters, and I had only a tepid grasp of who all of them were. Would have been even less of a grasp if not for Diane (MVP). Evidently, I watched this one with a big group of people and only half paid attention, but goddammit my opinion still deserves to be known. 

 

I thought Gwyneth Paltrow was pretty good in this along with the rest of the cast. I comment on the romance being the weakest link, but I think that might be a feature of Emma specifically and not a flaw of the movie. The story feels much more focused on Emma growing up and becoming a good person than any romance with Mr. Knightly. 

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More reviews to come eventually maybe perhaps one day. Bye for now.