Bird Box (Susanne Bier, 2018): 2.5/5

Technical merits are largely unremarkable (though solid), characters have starkly varying levels of depth, and the long-awaited conclusion lacks real punch. Mostly effective overall, but way too derivative for its own good.

re-watched Hoop Dreams (Steve James, 1994): 5/5

“People tell me all the time Don’t forget about me when you make it to the NBA!'. What I want to tell them is Don’t forget about me when I don’t make it.”

re-watched The Thin Blue Line (Errol Morris, 1988): 5/5

The OG true crime doc - more satisfying than a six-part podcast with no ending, a Netflix mini series, or a hot mic bathroom burp. Compelling, innovative, and honest to the highest degree.

A Simple Favor (Paul Feig, 2018): 4/5 
Or, "The Sordid Adventures of Brotherfucker and Sisterkiller"

Owns a very particular brand of Mommy Vlogger Noir that grows increasingly/deliciously trashy as the narrative twists and turns. Basically Gone Girl but with two crazy white moms.

Also:
1) I think we should all try to casually sneak the phrase “Are you trying to Diabolique me???" into everyday small talk.

2) I want a sequel to this and I don’t care if there would be no decent storyline just give me Blake Lively saying baby for 120 minutes straight.

3) I have a simple favor, can Blake Lively please make out with me on a couch?

Destination Wedding (Victor Levin, 2018): 1.5/5

A tired It Happened One Night scenario that aims for Linklater but plays like bad Allen.

Lizzie (Craig Macneill, 2018): 3/5

And you thought lesbians U-Hauling on the second date was bad.

Colette (Wash Westmoreland, 2018): 3/5

The Egyptian dance sequence, where Keira Knightly goes full on lesbo-Metropolis, will cure your depression.

Roma (Alfonso Cuaron, 2018): 4.5/5

alfonso cuaron before writing roma: i guess i support men's rights

alfonso cuaron 2 pages into writing roma: men's rights to shut the fuck up! 

#moviepass

Sorry to Bother You (Boots Riley, 2018): 3.5/5

An indie comedy that goes for broke for our tumultuous era, pushing absurdism to cathartic extremes. (Some observations are so brutal that they only work as comedy when exaggerated to a literally insane degree.) But it's not as if one has to admire the big picture in order to laugh, as there's plenty of cherishable micro-humor throughout. Filmmaking can admittedly be clumsy—not always in the intentional, Gondry-esque way—and the ending, both climax and denouement, fall surprisingly flat, leaving an amateurish outgoing impression. But channeling this much justifiably righteous anger into semi-accessible, oft-hilarious form is no small feat.

Elvis Presley: The Searcher (Thom Zimny, 2018): 3/5

A narrow focus on Elvis Presley’s search for emotional authenticity in the music he recorded and performed live. First half devotes some of its running time to the gospel/blues artists who influenced Elvis in formative years. Second half (from 1960 to 1977) chooses to handle the periods of mostly-mediocre programmer movies and post-Vegas performance decline with get-through-it-fast blurriness. Elvis's personal life has been done to death, so this was somewhat refreshing.

The King (Eugene Jarecki, 2017): 2.5/5

Overly ambitious and dizzyingly erratic in its expansive scope. Jarecki abandons the biographical celebrity doc for an assessment of American culture through a loose, allegorical study of Presley's legend and his significance in American mythology. He structures the film around the gimmick of staging interviews in Presley's Rolls Royce, and the arguments frequently veer into indulgent or trite introspection and leave too much room for celebrity interviews that add little beyond a redundant evocation of the emptiness and corrosiveness of fame. All in all, the whole thing forms less of a coherent thesis than a mood piece suggesting a culture in a state of dazed confusion in the Trump era.

re-watched Dangerous Minds (John N. Smith, 1995): 1/5

Two things: 1) Michelle Pfeiffer has an awful and inconsistent Southern accent here and 2) I still know all the words to "Gangsta's Paradise."

re-watched Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (RWF, 1974): 4/5

Slightly prefer this to All That Heaven Allows—in part, perhaps, because adding racism/xenophobia makes it seem a bit less inexplicable when everyone starts freaking the fuck out.

re-watched The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (Luis Bunuel, 1972): 4/5

A single pointed joke that gets funnier and funnier, abetted by a sextet of actors who refrain from any winking or nudging—Bulle Ogier in particular achieves maximum vacuity without calling attention to herself in any way, but they all embody entitlement with zero fuss. Genial drollery from start to finish.