February, although the shortest month of the year, marked one of my highest counts for movies watched.
After spending the latter half of 2024 slowly growing my love for movies, analyzing and discussing films has become a favorite pastime. My February films spanned from documentary to horror, filled with movies like Easy A, Toy Story 2, and The Grand Budapest Hotel. However, amongst all the films, only a few stood out as being exceptional.
Zootopia’s equally impressive little sister – Turning Red
When it was first released, I was heavily dissuaded from watching Turning Red. A friend of mine had hated it, and with me being anti-movie at the time of its 2022 release, I had little reason to see it.
Still, in the summer of 2024, after seeing top-tier Disneyland merchandise for the movie, I couldn’t not add it to my ever-expanding watchlist. Finally, three years post-release, I watched the Pixar film about a tween girl’s unique journey through puberty.
While I am extremely hesitant to give a movie a perfect rating, this animated movie sparked a rare 10/10 from me. Its animation is adorable, and it manages a superb speed that is neither too slow nor too fast. In addition, it bears resemblance to my all-time favorite animated film, Zootopia, because of its “real-life” allusions. As Turning Red is set in the early 2000s, it includes a heartthrob boy band, Tamagotchis, and a wildly popular teenage vampire novel that definitely isn’t supposed to represent Twilight.
The film undoubtedly has standard Disney elements, with the main character, Mei Lee, dealing with the difficulties of growing up alongside her nerdy girl group of friends. Still, I enjoyed this wholesomeness more than I typically would. I found the quirkiness of her friends to be cute, even though their personalities were exaggerated for comedy’s sake. The girls were portrayed as the epitome of middle-school awkwardness, making me cringe when reminded of what it was like to be that age.
Even though I loved the movie, I’m glad I waited so long to watch it. If I had seen it as a middle schooler, which I was when it was released, I know it would’ve hit too close to home for me to fully appreciate it. In order to laugh about the awkwardness of middle school, you need to be out of middle school first.
My seventh-grade dream – Skate Kitchen
On the topic of middle school, Skate Kitchen reminded me of what it was like to be 13 years old—but in an entirely different way. As a seventh grader, I discovered my passion—notice that I didn’t use the word talent—of skateboarding. While I didn’t manage to progress far in skill level, it remains a favorite spring activity for when the snow melts each year. Watching this, I had a strong urge to go outside and begin skateboarding once again, but unfortunately, the snow and frigid weather deterred my plan.
The film is set in New York City, and it stars a group of energetic and tough female skateboarders. Similarly to Turning Red, these girls’ friendship is more or less the center of the film. (Though the main character does stray away from her friends in the middle of the movie, leading to an increased focus on an unimportant guy friend.) Especially with non-children’s movies, there seems to be a lack of quality stories about female friendships. But Skate Kitchen, in my opinion, depicts the ups and downs of the girls’ relationships in a way that makes audiences long to experience the same type of intense companionship.
Even more than the plot, the pure aesthetics of the movie make it a favorite of mine. Its setting paints a detailed picture of being a teenager in the city, and the scenes of skateboarding through the streets at sunset make me wish I lived in the movie. The soundtrack features tracks that accompany the movie perfectly, including songs like “Young Dumb & Broke” by Khalid and “Heaven” by Clairo. Altogether—taking costumes, dialogue, and the incorporation of Instagram into account—the movie feels like the epitome of 2018 in a beautiful, time-capsule, nostalgic way.
Outside of some stiff acting, this movie is virtually flawless.
My incentive to become a documentary maker – Minding the Gap
It’s safe to say that, after Skate Kitchen, my yearly hyper-fixation on skateboarding began. Thus, I needed another skateboarding movie to immerse myself in the obsession while stuck inside. Because these films are few and far between, the only accessible one I could find was a 2018 skateboarding documentary, Minding the Gap. With a 4.3-star Letterboxd rating, I figured the movie was worth a watch.
The film follows the lives of childhood friends who grew up skateboarding together and are now navigating their respective difficulties with adulthood. Set in a Rust Belt hometown, the film simultaneously touches on the struggles of living in a deteriorating community. As the story progresses, audiences see that there’s more to the men’s stories than just a love for skateboarding—most turned to the activity as a way to cope with harsh home lives, poverty, and domestic abuse.
Even though it definitely wasn’t the cheery skateboarding picture I was hoping for, I found the movie to be amazingly well done. The documentary’s maker, Bing Liu, is one of the main characters, as the movie is about his upbringing. He doesn’t omit anyone’s faults, and in doing so, he captures an exquisite picture of pain, happiness, and humanity.
Because of this autobiographical lens, Liu caught the intricacies and emotions of the subjects that no other filmmaker could have. To me, this truly displayed how powerful sharing your own story can be.
While my February films included some movies I’d never voluntarily watch again (like 1999’s Notting Hill), the month brought a solid amalgamation of stories. After watching multiple cult-classics, March will hopefully be filled with some lesser-known movies, expanding into the genres of foreign films and science fiction.
And, as always, please recommend life-changing movies to me.
