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As a fan of time travel media, I say without reservation that this is the single best example in the 'genre'.

The film picks up a year after the end of the series. Kurisu and Mayuri are safe, and the Steins;Gate worldline has been reached. The Future Gadget Lab is inventing gadgets instead of time machines. The world is at peace, but Okabe is tormented by visions of the other worldlines, and he begins to slip away. At first, he only suffers headaches, but the visions get longer and more visceral, and he disappears entirely into another world line.

It is up to Makise to look for him, as she is the only one who remembers he is gone. The others have no idea. They are clueless. Daru is now the founder of the Future Gadget Lab. The world isn't radically different. Nothing falls apart. Makise gives lectures. Mayuri goes on Mayuri-ing. Daru hacks into CERN. Ruka practices swordmanship. A palpable sense of emptiness lingers over the lab, but that's it.

They still drink Dr. Pepper, though no one knows why. Okabe's influence is still there, but it is not attributed to him. As Bioshock Infinite posited, when the mind is confronted with a reality that its experiences can't support, it changes the nature of those experiences.

This is especially effective in this story, which is based around the concept of deja vu, which in Steins;Gate is a form of Reading Steiner. In the anime, Okabe was shocked to see that he was not the only one with memories of other worldlines. Ferris, Mayuri, Ruka, Daru, and Makise had these other worldlines imprinted on their minds, but they were regarded these memories as nonsense or dreams, just as we would. This is a lot like deja vu, and this film makes the connection even stronger. Deja vu is often foggy, like there's a fact floating out there in the abyss of your mind that you can't quite grasp, and in this film, the characters think of Okabe's existence in much the same fashion, like an ephemeral wisp that they've forgotten and can't quite remember.

Makise can remember better, but she has a hard time grasping his name, as though she is clutching at fog even as she is trying to return him to this worldline. She's the main character of this film, which just seems right. The last two episodes of the regular anime were about bringing her back, and the special was about bringing back the relationship between her and Okabe, so it makes sense for this film to be about her trying to preserve that relationship, to make sure it doesn't fade away. It's so natural, and it's a truly genius decision that helps this film stand out from the last two episodes and the special, that helps it stick in your memories.

She tries to go back in time and stop him from disappearing, but he doesn't want her to, not because he doesn't know what happen, but because he does know what'll happen. Her mind and soul will be torn apart as she desperately tries and fails to make things right. Her humanity will be all but gone, and she will be just a shell of a human being.

He knows this, as he has been through it himself, and he does not want to happen to her. In the middle of this film, he declares these thoughts in a speech to her, a speech that hits so hard, building off the conflict and dynamics that have been building from episode 1, pleading with her to not go back in time. Okabe delivers a lot of speeches at the end of the series and in the special about how hard it has been to time-leap over and over again. They all work, but this one is far above the rest, thanks to the writing, the context, and the amount of feelings and information communicated from Okabe to Makise. She didn't know what he was feeling before, but now she does, and it's torturous. She absorbs all of what he says because it's all completely true, and it's all so painful.

This film hinges on that relationship between Okabe and Makise in a way that no episode of the show, even episode 22, had, and it's wonderful. Their relationship is one of the most emotional, stimulating, and thoughtful in all of anime. I don't just care about these people. I'm enraptured by them, and the film deepens those emotions. It doesn't just capitalize on their relationship; it furthers it. The main conflict of the film is a conflict between them, which is fascinating and adds layering.

The love, care, empathy, and affection between these two people feels alive.

When the film ended, I was satisfied in a way I wasn't at any other point in the series. If the story of Okabe and Makise had ended after episode 24, or after the anime, or after the special, I would have felt content, but there would still be a piece of longing in my heart. There was no longing after finishing this film, except maybe the longing to watch it and the series again for the first time.

El Psy Kongroo.

A film that is more talked about than seen these days, Chinatown is nonetheless one of the most significant films ever made, and it sits at a unique precipice in cinematic culture. Starring Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, and somewhat hilariously, John Huston, it is the story of a private investigator sent to snoop on a cheating husband only to later find that husband turned up dead, setting off a chain of events that leads to the top being blown off a major conspiracy that runs deep into the roots of early 20th century Los Angeles.   It's a shame that the only part of the film the average film-goer knows about is the most famous line, "Forget it, Jake, it's Chinatown." That's a wonderful line, but out of context, what does it mean? Nothing. You could guess or even infer, but unless you've seen the film, it might as well be sitting out on an island. Even you know the general plot of the film, as I did before watching it, you don't get the full impact of the line.

Film quotes stick in the meat of popular culture not just because they're fun to stay or because they role off the tongue, but because they're built up to beautifully and because they hit with a force that sums up the emotions of the moment. Quoting them only works if those present know the film itself. Imagine how absurd it would sound to say, "May the Force be with you," to someone who's never seen Star Wars. They would get the gist of what you're saying, but they wouldn't get the reference or the connotations.

The "Forget it, Jake, it's Chinatown" line works much the same way. There are situations when it would be appropriate to say this, but there's no point if no one in your party has seen Chinatown. For those who have, that line conjures up so much rage, frustration, despair, cynicism and tragedy. It carries a lot of weight.

Neo-noir films are rarely happy affairs (the word noir even means black in French), but this film goes the extra mile. Back in 1974, the neo-noir film was rare. Traditional noir films had not been popular for some several decades, and even those were limited were the Hays Code and the culture of the time. This was a new animal altogether, and so as the film gets darker and the situation more disturbing, you end up feeling as revolted as Jack by the end. When the last night falls and you see the lights of Chinatown for the first time, you feel like you've come the end of an exhilarating, hideous, psychotic day and want it all to be swept away.

A lot of influences went into this film. There were old school noir influences, of course, but there were also influences from the then-cutting edge crime films of the day, as well as the psychological thrillers that had started to proliferate in the late 60's and early 70's. There are also literary influences; I was surprised to learn this was not based off a novel. It is very much a novelist's film.

But the most startling influence is that of Westerns. This works in two ways. First, the film takes place close to the turn of the century, a time not too far away from the settings of Westerns. The dark, cynical Westerns this film is most like took place in the 1880's, in the twilight of the West, after the land had been tamed. Second, the noir film had- at least from an American perspective- grown out of the Western: many of the same ideas, concepts, and perspectives are present. The noir was 'replaced' by the second wave of Westerns that came up during the 50s and 60's: Sergio Leone and like. In the 70's, the Western was in a Golden Age. Heaven's Gate had not yet come out. The genre was booming. America still had use for it, particularly in an era when we as a people were feeling rather lost and alone. Chinatown is neo-noir springing up from the second wave of Westerns, just like that second wave sprang up from original noir flicks.

The characters and acting in this film are first class, and despite some strange choices here and there, the plot pulls you in deeper into its black heart. This is a mystery in the truest sense of the word. There are so many layers to pull back in the seedy L.A. streets, so many secrets to carve out. The titular Chinatown is used to great effect, first as an idea, then as a place. The characters, particularly Nicolson, are perfectly cast.

This is a film that puts its competition to shame. It digs its claws into you and doesn't take them out. It's a definite must-watch.

Breathless is right.

I was enthralled the whole time.

To understand this film, you have to understand its context. This is right up there with Citizen Kane and Star Wars as one of the most influential films ever made. It is the definite film of one of the definitive movements in cinema.

France is the birthplace of cinemas. Many of the artform's oldest customs and traditions were developed there, but after a couple decades, the center of innovation shifted over to America, to the Cecil B. DeMille's and the D.W. Griffith's. Cinema was transformed into a form of high art. It could be analyzed and scrutinized. It could change lives and influence people.

World War II changed this dynamic, as world-shattering events tend to do. Hollywood, of course, didn't disappear, but its Golden Age, which had already been in decline, disappeared completely. America had a crisis of identity in its film industry that didn't really resolve itself until the 60's and 70's. There were a lot of great films made in the 50's, but an overwhelming percentage of them came from out of the States. We had a few classics, a good deal of them either about Hollywood or by Alfred Hitchcock, but overall, the industry lacked both the glitz of the early days and the depth of recent times.

When you think about the era of nostalgia, you probably either think about today or the 80's, but the 50's were like that too. Many of the biggest films took place in the 20's. We were relatively relaxed as a country. We had won a war, and we were in an unprecedented era of economic prosperity. We could afford to look backwards. France, however, could not.

In case you slept through history in school, France was taken over by the Nazis in WWII, and it became one of the key theatres during the later part of the war. Hundreds of thousands of French died, and their country was in ruin. They had to rebuild their country. They could afford to be creative and innovative. In fact, they had to be.

From that environment came the New Wave, an exciting, breezy, flippant new attitude toward filmmaking. The camera could travel freely. Jump cuts were used to clip through a scene. The traditional structure vanished, replaced with rambling conversations that were the direct precursors to Woody Allen movies. Films got more atmospheric and at the same time more sensual. There was a sense of highbrow swagger to them. It was as though film before the New Wave was a housewife, and film after the New Wave was an alluring mistress from a foreign land with a mysterious ill-gotten fortune.

This style, of course, eventually made its way over to my country and became something else entirely, getting a lot darker in the process. But that's beside the point. Even if you're not a film historian, this is a breezy, energetic, clever, exceedingly entertaining flick. The acting is superb. The editing is sharp. The camera-work is exciting. The writing is thoroughly captivating. And yes, it is one of the Frenchiest films I have ever seen- a cultural icon, I could call it.

So if you need a burst of roguish, revolutionary excitement in your life, check out Breathless.