re-watched Last Year at Marienbad (Alain Resnais, 1961): 1/5

Well it ain't called Last Year at MarienGOOD lol.

Bitter Rice (Giuseppe De Santis, 1949): 2.5/5

Italian Neo-Realism meets pulpy noir meets Marxist dogma + sultry dancing. Just OK to me really.

Three Identical Strangers (Tim Wardle, 2018): 2.5/5

Bit like a tabloidy talk-show - but wait there's more! Wheel out another guest/shock. The nature vs. nurture debate got a bit messy and it skated over the disintegrating relationships and dealt poorly with the suicide. The ex-researcher old German lady was a much needed injection of personality - such a perfect illustration of detachment. ("Do these people need to know?" shrugs her shoulders and cuddles up to her Picasso). I'd totally watch another doc about her.

The Furies (Anthony Mann, 1950): 3/5

I do always love a scheming, sassy Stanwyck. Walter Huston is pitch perfect here.

November (Ranier Sarnet, 2017): 2.5/5

Bonkers bizarro monochromatic Estonian folk horror, filled with style and a whole lot of wtf head tilting moments. NOVEMBER is a testament to visual beauty not equating to greatness. While its pristine b/w cinematography and imagination can be admired, the story is severely weak and unfocused, and just super fucking weird, man.

The Man Without a Past (Aki Kaurismaki, 2002): 3.5/5

Another great Kaurismaki film with his usual brand of dry humor and proletariat musings.

"What do I owe you?"
"If you see me face down in the gutter, turn me on to my back"

Kameradschaft (G.W. Pabst, 1931): 3/5

Pabst's depiction of a mining disaster involving the French and Germans. I'm retroactively flabbergasted to learn that everything we see underground is a set, not location work. Some of the fire/cave-in sequences are so realistic that it's not entirely clear to me how the actors survived. Essentially a suspense film that wears its pacifist politics on its sleeve.

Did You Wonder Who Fired the Gun? (Travis Wilkerson, 2017): 3/5

Still love the formal conceit, still cringe at the admirably earnest, but dubiously performative digressions and endpoint.

Leon Morin, Priest (Jean Pierre Melville, 1961): 3/5

Emmanuelle Riva as a bisexual commie atheist and Belmondo as an intellectual priest in a film by Jean-Pierre Melville?
OUI S’IL VOUS PLAÎT

Tipping the Velvet (Geoffrey Sax, 2002): 4/5

Another gay love story set in the 1800s and it’s SO BAD. But in spite of its excessive cinematic flourishes including but not limited to: quick cuts; swish pans; iris in; iris out; every PowerPoint transition from the 2000s; extreme close-ups; cartoon sound effects; slow-mo; over dramatic editing; histrionic acting from the lead... I liked it?!? And Sally Hawkins plays ANOTHER 19th century lesbian AGAIN. Respect.

re-watched The Red and The White (Miklos Jancso, 1967): 3.5/5

Richard Linklater's SLACKERS with war crimes. Last seen 2007. I know this is a veritable visual feast of b/w long takes and widely considered a masterpiece, but I still just don't "like" it.

Winchester (The Spierig Brothers, 2018): 1/5

There's a scene in this movie where Helen Mirren tells a bunch of ghosts "go to your rooms" like she's grounding them, and the ghosts listen.

re-watched La Bête Humaine (Jean Renoir, 1938): 3/5

Second viewing, last seen 2011. Doesn’t help that it’s sandwiched between Grand Illusion and Rules of the Game in Renoir’s filmography, but Zola’s a tough adaptation under any circumstances. The film has an especially difficult time making sense of Lantier, whose homicidal impulses arrive out of nowhere; Gabin seems wholly disconnected from the horror, just dutifully following his script rather than overcome by inexplicable urges. Low-key melodrama works well, though, and Renoir makes the most of shooting on and around actual trains—at times, he loses all interest in la bête humaine, so enraptured is he by la bête mécanique.

Gemini (Aaron Katz, 2017): 2.5/5

A film seemingly focused on female friendship, only to have one of the two leads abruptly disappear early on, supplanted by genre hijinks. Has so very little percolating beneath the surface, that its foregrounding renders the movie inert on every level save for the purely visual. Admittedly, Katz and his DP Andrew Reed fashion a terrific look, shimmering and neon-drenched; it's hard for me to dunk on an indie movie that finds exactly the right distant spot from which to shoot a police car tailing a motorcycle over a winding L.A. road, with both vehicles exiting the frame at top left and then reappearing at top right. Ultimately, though, Gemini doesn't seem to be about anything apart from mood and '80s nostalgia.

Mandy (Panos Cosmatos, 2018): 2.5/5

I can understand being mesmerized by the sheer beauty of the thing. All in all though, I remain truly, deeply ambivalent. It was just kinda there, leering madly at me for two mostly lugubrious hours.

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (J.A. Bayona, 2018): 1/5

a character in the movie: *is dead*
me: god i wish that were me

The Amazing Spider-Man (Marc Webb, 2012): 2/5

a beat-for-beat rehash, aside from a few details, of Raimi's original, with the tension recalibrated from Tex Avery anarchy to CW teen angst.

Book Club (Bill Holderman, 2018): 2/5

THE GENTLEST HORNY MOVIE OF ALL TIME!

The Cloverfield Paradox (Julius Onah, 2018): 1/5

Maybe all of those think pieces about how Netflix really isn't a film industry disruptor but more of a dumping ground for big budget studio rejects are on to something...

The Meg (Jon Turteltaub, 2018): 2/5

I burst into tears once the film ends on “Fin.” Basically a 150 million dollar syfy movie.

Slender Man (Sylvain White, 2018): 1/5

The Babadook, The VVitch and King Paimon are LGBT warriors and Slender Man is their wealthy alt-right cousin who posts Breitbart conspiracy theories on Facebook.

re-watched Mildred Pierce (Michael Curtiz, 1945): 5/5

Third viewing, last seen circa 2010s. I recall yelling "OH MY FUCKING GOD" every time Veda showed up.

Drag Me to Hell (Sam Raimi, 2009): 2/5

how many gross things can Sam Raimi put in Alison Lohman's mouth: The Movie