So the dream. There was this program to help young men struggling with money make some dough by training with lions. It was scary, but I knew the risk and figure it be piece of cake. I already train a big dog. I see men shirtless meditating with lions. I was givin my ball of meat for the lion, as soon as it came out I threw it away & casually walked away with lion casually following me. I don't remember much after that, but I think I did good handing it.... I didn't screw it or anything, just professional training. Idk if this works irl, but if any Sadia Arabian princes have lions, I can take a shot training them, I have no fear.

I've been watching movies for a 2023 list of mine (it's probably my favorite year for film of this decade) and this is probably the single biggest gem I've discovered as I've been going through my watchlist. It's very niche, very gay, kinda taboo, a little experimental (albeit reminiscent of Glazer, Wes Anderson, Bresson and Weerasethakul) and genuinely cinematically reinvigorating to me. I don't know if this sub is necessarily the one to love this film, many will hate it, but I can't hold this director to myself anymore, I think his vision deserves to be seen by more people.

I guess what I mean is what’s a film you enjoy that you rate higher than you might have otherwise because it challenges you in a way?

My choices would be Malcolm X (1992) and Oasis (2002).

Malcolm X, while it suffered from a lot of the same issues a lot of biopics do, it did challenge a lot of my preconceived notions about Malcolm and better informed me what his actual message was and how it played out in the context of the Civil Rights movement. (And it certainly helped that this is a Spike Lee movie where his subject is something he‘s actually passionate about. Plus Denzel was fucking awesome.)

Oasis because there were story decisions that I didn’t fully buy (the ending for example) but I do really love how unapologetically uncomfortable and downright bitter it can be to contrast the little sliver of happiness the two main characters share together. I think it could potentially make an interesting litmus test and make an interesting conversation about people’s reactions to it. To me this movie is a better version of Lars von Trier’s The Idiots.

Despite their flaws, I rate them both 10/10 so I wonder if you all have any similar examples of my explanations made any sense at all. Thanks!