Creep (Patrick Brice, 2015) --4/5
Answering a Craigslist ad, a man travels to a house in the wilderness to document a dying man's final days. Said man (played by Mark Duplass) is quite odd to say the least, and the unease never lets up. Short in length, high in scares and dread, I'm still thinking about it 4 or 5 days later.


Water Lilies (Celine Sciamma, 2014)-- 4.5/5
Celine Sciamma's debut feature is a queer, coming-of-age French drama about three 15-year-old girls exploring their own sexual identity, and linked together by their membership of a synchronised swimming team. I didn't expect to like it as much as I did, but the performances, the depth of its characters, along with pace and feel, made the film something special and meaningful. Also interesting to see Adele Haenel in an early role.

Dunkirk (Christopher Nolan, 2016)-- 3/5
Three timeline is the new three act. Nolan gets to put into practice a set of theories about time using a specific historical event. I guess it's better than lodging the theoretical into exposition. 

The Lure (Agnieszka Smoczynska, 2017) -- 2/5
Horror, comedy, romance, musical, fantasy, fairytale art-house flick set in 1980s Warsaw about two mermaids who are adopted by a family of musicians. One mermaid sings, dances, falls in love; the other mermaid sings, dances, and kills people without remorse. Intriguing but never engaging or emotionally involving. Images are aesthetically composed but never alluring.

Colors (Dennis Hopper, 1988) -- 1/5
Yeah no nevermind mass incarceration, police brutality, socio-economic exclusion, drug abuse, objectification of black bodies, and institutionalized racism; the real victims here are the two well-meaning but jaded white cops. 

XX (Roxane Benjamin, Annie Clark, Karyn Kusama, Jovanka Kuvokic, 2017)-- 2/5
Horror anthology of four standalone shorts, each helmed by a female director, and each starring a female lead. Initially promising but eventually disappointing, the film fails to deliver as a whole and is merely stitched together by a random stop-motion animated segment. 

The Bad Batch (Ana Lily Amanpour, 2016) -- 1.5/5
Mad Max meets Rob Zombie-lite meets Burning Man. Temporarily engaging with certain actions and visuals, but ultimately just not my textual bag. Also, UCLA film school grad/cool kid Amanpour just looooooooves telling people she's done peyote. WE GET IT. 

Your Name. (Makota Shinkai, 2016) -- 1/5
Soppy, frustratingly long and repetitive, time travel/body swap yarn. Nice Japanese animation punctuated by offputting, cheesy pop tunes. Not my cup of sake. Oh and hey btw, JUST CALL EACH OTHER!!!!! ON!!!! YOUR CELLULAR!!! DEVICES!!! YOU HOLLOW DESKTOP SCREENSAVER TEENS!!! WHAT THE FUCK!!!! 

Girlhood (Celine Sciamma, 2015) -- 4.5/5
No it didn't take twelve years to make, you hush now. Sciamma's definitely in my top favorite contemporary filmmakers list. Beautiful, devastating work of art. This scene where the girls lip-sync their way through Rihanna's "Diamonds" in stolen designer clothing inside a posh Parisian hotel is one for the ages. They are their own light in a cold world. A momentary crux.  Hypnotic. Sublime.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3lDo0v96D8&index=1&list=FLG5qjPsbAS1RWa8GPJpWF_A