Molly’s Game (Aaron Sorkin, 2017): 2/5

Overwritten. Also overacted and over-directed. And at 2 hours and 20 minutes overlong. Is it weird that Chastain so often picks roles where she’s a genius or goddess? The female Will Smith?

Help! (Richard Lester, 1965): 2.5/5

The Beatles/Lester invent the Monkees, but the faux-Indians in brownface with parody-level accents? #problematic

The Milky Way (Luis Buñuel, 1969): 3/5

A programmatic but occasionally amusing attack on dogma. A warm-up for the superior Discreet Charm and Phantom.

Paddington 2 (Paul King, 2018): 3/5

The whole fam enjoyed this sweet movie containing some nice bits of physical comedy. Sally Hawkins’s best recent performance.

Sexy Beast, rw (Jonathan Glazer, 2000): 3/5

A surprisingly conventional gangster movie in comic mode, with at least two great performances. Forevermore owns the Stranglers’ “Peaches.”

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (Martin McDonagh, 2017): 2.5/5

The less talented McDonagh brother. Defined/marred by intentional whiplashes of tone and character.

The Shape of Water (Guillermo del Toro, 2017): 2/5

Marketed as a romance, but it spends so much time with villain Shannon that it becomes more of a Guantanamo Bay analogy. But then is it OK for the analogue of a Pakistani or Afghanistani to be a fish? #problematic

A Futile and Stupid Gesture (David Wain, 2018): 2/5

A fiction remake of recent documentary, Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead. You know, like Apocalypse Now was the fiction remake of Hearts of Darkness.

The Cloverfield Paradox (Julius Onah, 2018): 1.5/5

Hard to say what makes this movie’s illogic ruinous and Annihilation’s exhilarating, yet here we are.

The Florida Project (Sean Baker, 2017): 4/5

Pastel neo-realism. I could barely stand to be in the company of these grating brats. Still, the end floored me.

Personal Shopper (Olivier Assayas, 2016): 3/5

Un story ghost. Trains, sexy outfits, dead brothers. Surprisingly genre-satisfying.

Creep (Patrick Brice, 2014): 4/5

Michelle was right about this effective and efficient thriller (77 minutes!) of discomfort, shot on a shoestring. Low-key great performance from Duplass.

Le Samouri, rw (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1967): 3/5

Amazing what a great, long coat can do for the audience’s reception of a loser who loses and loses. Not in my Melville top six.

Dawson City: Frozen Time (Bill Morrison, 2016): 4/5

Fascinating in both its subject matter and methodology. All film is documentary.

Valerian and the City of Thousand Planets (Luc Besson, 2017): 1.5/5

Considering (because of?) how much is happening on the screen, it’s amazingly dull.

Winter Kills (William Richert, 1979): 1.5/5

Tonally, a trainwreck. With Bridges, John Huston, Anthony Perkins, Eli Wallach, Sterling Hayden, Dorothy Malone, Ralph Meeker, and Toshiro Mifune—each of whom seems to be performing in a different movie.

Just Ancient Loops, 26 mins (Bill Morrison, 2012): 3/5

Some great stuff here.

The Post (Steven Spielberg, 2017): 2/5

Crack for 60+ liberals.

Columbus (Kogonada, 2017): 2/5

As inert and rigid as the buildings it fetishizes.

Annihilation (Alex Garland, 2018): 4.5/5

A head-trip into mystery. It doesn’t all work, but what does is gold.

Stalker, rw (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979): 4.5/5

A nice pair with Annihilation of course.

Ratatouille, rw (Brad Bird, 2007): 4.5/5

My favorite Pixar movie.

The Wind Rises (Hayao Miyazaki, 2013): 4.5/5

Why oh why did I wait so long to watch this last movie from one of my favorite living filmmakers? Master storytelling, amazing flying sequences, super-expressive hair, and a unique view of just-pre-war Japan.

The Ritual (Davide Bruckner, 2018): 2/5

I’m a sucker for these horror and sci-fi movies that just show up one day on Netflix, although they are mostly forgettable. Case in point: did this rip off Blair Witch or Deliverance? I can’t even remember.

Isle of Dogs (Wes Anderson, 2018): 4.5/5

Wes is nine for nine, for me. Possibly the most detailed movie of all time. Funny and surprisingly relevant.

Better Call Saul, season 3 (Vince Gilligan, et. al, 2017): 2/5

As the show increasingly morphs to a Breaking Bad prequel, it’s as if my favorite TV show is being slowly invaded by an inferior one.

High Maintenance, season 1 & 2 (Ben Sinclair & Katja Blichfeld, 2016): 4.5/5
An anthology show featuring pithy portraits of all kinds of New Yorkers, loosely strung together by their amiable weed dealer, always a welcome presence. It’s a real pleasure to not know what any given episode is going to contain.