America: [1776-?] Some good ideas marred by poor direction and unlikeable characters. Greed, racism, sexism, and gratuitous violence. ★★☆☆☆

(And no, my depression is not getting worse, in fact it is becoming more powerful than anyone can possibly imagine.)

Almost All Horror Movie October

 

2024 in descending order of interest

 

The Substance (Coralie Fargeat, 2024): 4/5

There’s a lot of filmmaking going on here, some of it good. The last act gets away from Fargeat, tonally—but it’s all still a pretty fun ride. In part, the movie is about loving the part of yourself that is old and getting older. There will always be a part of you that feels young and timeless, but ya gotta love the aging part too. I also get heavy The Giving Tree vibes, with the younger self taking and taking and taking. Demi Moore earns Oscar nom.

 

Strange Darling (JT Mollner, 2024): 3.5/5

A wild genre ride and, miraculously, satisfying. I didn’t take the flipping of protagonist and antagonist as a surprise twist exactly, just a bit of narrative fun. Both leads are good.

 

In a Violent Nature (Chris Nash, 2024): 3.5/5

There’s a great movie somewhere in here, where we follow 10 feet behind a hulking entity as it wades slowly and inexorably through a series of adolescent dramas, solving through elimination. The viewer’s satisfaction is derived from the commitment of the filmmakers to the formal structure. Unfortunately, this film strays from this rigor too often—like, why is this character lurking!?! It doesn’t lurk!!

 

V/H/S Beyond (Jordan Downey, Justin Martinez, Kate Siegel, Virat Pal, Christian & Justin Long, Jay Cheel, 2024): 3.5/5

I like these VHS movies. Here we have three good ones and three ok ones. No build ups or disintegrations or slow burns. Just all killer no filler. 

 

The First Omen (Arkasha Stevenson, 2024): 3.5/5

This movie is grounded in real characters with their own history, depth and psychology in a way that really makes it stand out from the giallos and Substance’s I’ve been watching recently. Unfortunately, the result is a real bummer, highlighting the real, powerless, rape-y trauma experienced by women in every culture. I heard this very talented director say that Lynch’s Fire Walk with Me is a central text in her artistic life, and this film has that movie’s same equation of violence, sadness, anger, and trauma turned inward.

 

Wolfs (Jon Watts, 2024): 3/5

Floats by on charm alone, but then again so does, say, The Philadelphia Story, and that’s a classic, right? Austin Abrams produces one of the best scenes of the year. And uh yeah, is that fucker Brad Pitt somehow getting even more handsome as he ages?

 

New Life (John Rosman, 2024): 3/5

A nifty first feature that completely delivers on its simple and streamlined (i.e., limited) premise—everyone is after the girl, but why, and who will stop her? 83 mins.

 

Oddity (Damian Mc Carthy, 2024): 3/5

Creepy, but like Longlegs, it never really settles into a kink. Just a bunch of supernatural and non-supernatural elements tossed together. Fun from moment to moment, but hollow all around.

 

Alien: Romulus (Fede Álvarez, 2024): 3/5

In the first half I admired the world building and cast of characters, but the second half is simply overwritten. They somehow can’t figure out how to make one of the best creatures in the history of film scary, so they try to create tension with periodic zero-gravity, plunging elevators, and collisions with planet rings. These hats are wearing hats, friends. 

 

Speak no Evil (James Watkins, 2024): 2.5/5

The first two thirds of the Finnish version had themes—namely, how far one will go maintain civility and how hard it is to make couple-friends. This version glances at these but then adds a half hour of material having nothing whatever to do with these themes. On the other hand, I remember rejecting the ending of the original too.

 

A Quiet Place: Day One (Michael Sarnoski, 2024): 2/5

They made an Alien 3 here—meaning internal, emotional and minimal. But is this the best story they could think of to tell—cancer, pizza, cat and all? At least Terminator 3 had a hot female Terminator. That was cool.

 

It’s What’s Inside (Greg Jardin, 2024): 2/5

Fun premise, but two big things. We should understand the personalities of the characters before they start switching around. And our protagonist should change in some way as a result of her experience. Agree with David Ehrlich who said, “hard to imagine a less interesting film with the same premise.” The eager-to-please filmmaking reminds me that TikTok is changing our culture.

 

 

When Evil Lurks (Demián Rugna, 2023): 3/5

Some folk horror from Spain in gonzo vein—a “cursed” human puffing up and spewing out disgusting bile, etc. But it made me realize how much the The Substance really moved the goal posts on the “gonzo” idea this season, and more power to it.

 

Southern Comfort, rw (Walter Hill, 1981): 5/5

Probably this is a thriller, not horror, but, man, this is the way thrillers should be done—expert action filmmaking, textbook group dynamics, Western and Vietnam analogy, the inexorable pervasiveness of destructive forces from within and out. Movies like this are why I always remain the Bugs Bunny-ish, wry and emotional Captain Hawkeye Pierce (here played by the dream team of Keith Carradine and Powers Booth) in any dynamic instead of the Major Burnses of the world.

 

The Entity (Sidney J. Furie, 1982): 4/5

Classic Sirkian melodrama built around keeping women in the house. Her psychiatrist keeps insisting that the Entity is just her, but she’s saying it’s not her and what she’s really afraid of is the house—meaning conformity to the (rape-y) patriarchy and its repressive models for women’s behavior. Scientists later even recreate her house as a literal cage. It's also— whew—pretty scary in the first half as the world shakes and vibrates around her in a Repulsion sort of way. The myriad split diopter shots also attest to the film’s debt to DePalma (a compliment). The great Barbara Hersey’s best performance? (Or is it Hannah and her Sisters?)

 

Outer Space, rw (Peter Tscherkassky, 1999): 5/5

The Entity, chopped and screwed. Here Barbara Hershey is terrified not only by the penis and the patriarchy but also by the movie frame itself that traps and fractures her. Passes through a system of moods, and ultimately transforms and exalts Hershey ala Falconetti.

 

Il Demonio (Brunello Rondi, 1963): 4/5

A stark tale of a young woman in a sere and superstitious southern Italian town. Is she possessed or just mad, obsessed and harassed? Prefigures some of The Exorcist, including the upside-down spider walk that Friedkin would cut then add back upon re-release. The scene of gorgeous Daliah Lavi writhing on a bed in some unseen ecstasy or anguish is powerful and sexy, summing up the ambiguity of the entire film. Directed by the screenwriter of La Dolce Vita and 8 1/2, which are also equally drawn to and repulsed by women.

 

Wild at Heart (David Lynch, 1990): 4/5

Droll and narratively dense, filed with intense eddies of memory, fantasy and trauma. Also Lynch’s funniest film. “One time, she found Dell puttin' one big cockroach right on his anus.”

 

Pieces (Juan Piquer Simón, 1982): 3/5

A Spanish giallo full of flamboyant kills and bright red blood. A top ten slasher according to Alex Ross Perry.

 

Cannibal Ferox (Umberto Lenzi, 1981): 2.5/5

Scuzzy, disgusting, take-a-shower filmmaking. The ample machete- and anaconda-kills of actual animals pushes the film to repellent and reprehensible even before the amoral acts, eyeball gouging and murder start. Comes all the way around on the idea that cannibalism is just what colonialists told the world to justify their exploitation of tribes.

 

The Painted Lady, rw (D.W. Griffith, 10.24.1912): 5/5

A primary horror text featuring a trauma that compels obsessional re-creation. Quoth me April 2023: “Key image: the sexy black shawl that “plain” Blanche Sweet once wore to a clandestine meeting with her only suitor and now will never take off again.”

 

 

Giallo Film Fest

All of these films are in Letterboxd’s top 15 giallos, and, hey, they’re all good—although it can be a bit difficult to differentiate them from one another, with their Italian dubs, who-done-it murder mysteries, women in peril, stylish nudity, and driving synth scores. Some are merely more or less colorful, more or less “real” feeling, or in combination with other genres.

 

The Evil Eye/ The Girl Who Knew Too Much (Mario Bava, 1963): 3/5

B/W giallo. A murderer is on the loose, and our female protagonist serves as our detective on the way to a pretty random solution (as usual). In the end, the movie is a series of images of Leticia Roman’s horrified face and her hand turning doorknobs that get her deeper in trouble.

 

The Laughing Woman (Piero Schivazappa, 1969): 1.5/5

Not really a giallo, more like colorful, flirty, torture porn. Unlike the traditional faceless, black gloved killer, here we have a gabby blonde guy who captures a woman and keeps her as his slave inside his creepy overly art-designed mansion while mansplaining the philosophical grounds of his misogyny. In the final third she turns the tables, and somehow the movie becomes even more misogynistic.

 

Don’t Torture a Duckling (Lucio Fulci, 1972): 3/5

Overrated as the sixth-highest rated giallo on Letterboxd. Although it does have a who-done-it aspect (never a giallo’s strong suit), this is more of a folk horror. Kids are being murdered, and everyone blames the outsiders— the so-called witch and the so-called slut. Shot in a relatively lurid, gonzo, pop style.

 

All the Colors of the Dark (Sergio Martino, 1972): 3/5

A beautiful brunette is terrorized in her dream and in real life by a man with ultra-blue eyes, who turns out to run a friendly neighborhood satanic sex cult. Relatively colorful, broad, formal, imagistic, and Lynchian. Also the dreamiest of all the giallos I watched, which I think probably accounts for its high standing, although for me, the making-it-up-as-we-go-along mix of dream and reality denudes the movie of tension.

 

Torso (Sergio Martino, 1973): 4/5

Ample gore and some real moments of horror, a couple of terrific suspense sequences in the last third, and tons of nudity. What more can one ask for? Prefigures so much from (my beloved) Halloween, including an injured ankle, ample killer POV, last girl vibes, and closet-hiding. This one’s a winner.

 

What Have They Done to Your Daughters? (Massimo Dallamano, 1974): 3.5/5

A straight-up police procedural hunt, clue by witness by clue, for a guy who has killed a couple of people. A pretty good, long car chase, some blood, some porno flashed briefly, the killer putting witnesses and then the investigators in mortal danger.

 

Tenebrae, rw (Dario Argento, 1982): 4/5

The second-highest rated giallo on Letterboxd, and absolutely there’s style, suspense, and gore in the extreme. Argento simultaneously cranks up the intensity of the Antonioni/Bertolucci artiness as well as the repulsion and violence. I did periodically marvel at my own ability to enjoy this nastiness, but there’s no doubt of the originality of Argento’s vision and moves.

 

 

Michael Haneke Film Fest

I can’t find Haneke’s (poorly received) most recent film, Happy End, which again features Huppert—even on my scary Russian site. I also haven’t seen the American Funny Games because for it to be meaningful, I would have to watch the original again, and therefore hang out in that sadistic world for almost 4 hours, and just no.

 

The Seventh Continent (Michael Haneke, 1989): 3.5/5

Focused largely on a family’s mundane tasks like shopping, eating, getting a car wash, anonymous tasks at work, and the like, with an alien viewpoint: this is what I have observed in humans. Wraps up with an even-slower-motion version of the end of Zabrinski Point. Ultimately, harrowing in the extreme.

 

71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance (Michael Haneke, 1994): 2.5/5

Has the fragmentary (we were warned), discursiveness of The Seventh Continent, but here the strategy is used to even less emotional purpose. Both films lead up to a massive act of violence, but this one isn’t as horrifying or potentially meaningful.

 

The Castle (Michael Haneke, 1997): 2/5

Circular reasoning, nonsense, bureaucracy, and stasis. But enough about working at USC. (Did you know that Haneke had adapted Kafka? I didn’t.)

 

The Piano Teacher, rw (Michael Haneke, 2001): 5/5

Passionate and frank—and still shocking. A character unraveling to rival Taxi Driver and Bad Lieutenant.

 

Time of the Wolf (Michael Haneke, 2003): 2/5

Perhaps not surprisingly, Haneke finds the post-apocalyptic world just has empty, pitiless and meaningless as our own.

 

 Anora (Sean Baker, 2024): 4/5

A kinetic, genuinely funny, and ultimately tragic American story. Mikey Madison is all fire, hope and utter desperation.

The hardest I’ve laughed in a theater this year when the film turns into a screwball race against the clock, and Madison’s Anora finds herself stuck in an SUV with her young husband’s three stooges: Igor (Yuriy Borisov), Garnick (Vache Tovmasyan) and Toros (Karren Karagulian) in the supporting performances of the year.

The hype machine behind this film had me walking in with some serious trepidation, but there is a real heart to the way Sean Baker guides this story and these characters. It’s all laughter, sensitivity and sadness. Smiles and cries.

The Apprentice (Ali Abbasi, 2024): 3/5
In some ways this film is both irresistible and a fool’s errand, for the filmmaker and the film viewer alike. In the short term this reverse Icarus myth is going to get attacked for having nothing new to say and, possibly worse yet, humanizing ever so slightly two of the most despicable Americans the last century produced. Stan, Strong, Bakalova, and Donavan are all a joy to watch, maybe especially when they commit to their character’s worst moments. Ali Abbasi seems to be fascinated by how national ideology can turn men into monsters, but the most appalling part in this film as in his last film is seeing the masses put a monster on a pedestal (though in fairness, Trump was still hiding the depths of his monstrousness from the public eye for the most part). Trump tried to have this film blocked but he’s wasting his time. None of his myrmidons are likely to see this film and feel anything but admiration for their Great Leader. And that is scarier than anything any horror filmmaker can devise.

Joker: Folie a Deux (Todd Phillips, 2024): 1.5/5

One of the clearest cases of “this literally only exists because the first one made more money than the GDP of a small country.” Genuinely have no idea who this is for. The Joker bros are going to hate the singing of it all, and that ending feels almost intentionally designed to piss them off. The queers are going to feel Gaga-baited. Casual viewers are going to be completely baffled. And EVERYONE is gonna be bored outta their minds. It’s too self-serious to be campy, but too shallow and silly to be taken seriously. An aimless, empty endeavor. Hildur Guonadottir is the only innocent person here.

Nimic (Yorgos Lanthimos, 2019, 12 mins): 3/5

Polanskian. Effective. Should be played in front of TAR. Also not recommended for anyone in the middle of a painful separation/divorce.

No Other Land (Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, 2024): 5/5

Covers so many aspects of the oppressive occupation with irrefutable evidence captured on the ground. Aside from the blatant destruction and violence of the Israel Occupation Forces and the settlers, it is astounding to see the dehumanising effects of military “law” on the Palestinians and the Israelis themselves as they enact these atrocities. This is strongly countered with beautiful moments of humanity and connection between family and the Palestinian and Israeli filmmakers.

Fanatical: The Catfishing of Tegan and Sara (Erin Lee Carr, 2024): 2.5/5

being a stan should be in the DSM

Woman of the Hour (Anna Kendrick, 2024): 3/5

Solid directorial debut. Some interesting choices, particularly with the editing. I usually avoid serial killer stories like I avoid sitting next to a person with a persistent cough on the metro, but this one does a great job focusing on the victims and underlining how much serial killers are aided and abetted by the misogyny and incompetence of police. Also a great take down of the kind of male superpredator who uses art and the signifiers of culture and enlightenment to lure in his prey (as opposed to garden variety predators).

Last Action Hero (John McTiernan, 1993): 2.5/5

I, uh, was convinced that this movie was going to outgross Jurassic Park. I was seven, sure. But still: bad take.

It’s not hard to see why it was rejected by audiences and critics: the kid is obnoxious, the “Purple Rose of Cairo”-riffing premise doesn’t really work, and it’s unforgivably bloated (running 130 minutes, and ending about six times). Still though, I've got a soft spot for Arnie comedies.

Dick (Andrew Fleming, 1999): 3/5

Political scandals typically get the dramatic whistleblower treatment, so bless Andrew Fleming for giving us a breezy what-if scenario around Watergate. We need a movie like this for every president. I want Kirsten Dunst and Michelle Williams to intervene in all 46 presidencies.

Jade (William Friedkin, 1995): 2.5/5

Remember a simpler time when politicians sleeping with beautiful call-girls was a career suicide scandal? (*gazes off into the distance.*)

Jade is a completely shameless and highly sexed-up rip-off of Basic Instinct with the dialogue of Showgirls, served with an extra side dish of cheese. The film thrives on a trashy cynicism: women are sex-craved harlots in search of defilement and a man's worth is based solely on how much he can resist them. Of course, twenty years later the real reason to watch this movie is William Friedkin's bravado, 10-minute car chase through the streets of San Francisco. Also, David Caruso is the Jeremy Renner of his day; a sturdy supporting character actor who was wrongly convinced he should've been a star.

It's What's Inside (Greg Jardin, 2024): 2/5

Light on its feet and has a lot of stylistic pizzazz but quickly becomes impossible to track character development and motivation as it rapidly blurs identity. Doesn’t help that none of these people feel properly defined before it starts throwing a ton of mayhem at the wall, so it all becomes like a blur of mush. And it's hard to care about the characters switching bodies when you don't care about any of them in the first place!

Lorenzo's Oil (George Miller, 1992): 3/5

A George Miller film and it isn’t set in the post apocalyptic wasteland. Probably the only reason why this film is not more well regarded is because frankly it’s too harrowing to think of your child being ripped apart by a mysterious ailment. And Miller makes the audience confront that head on. The editing really shines here. We get in and out of scenes much faster than normal which replicated the frenzied urgency of parents fighting for the life of their child and also strips what could be a Lifetime movie from any excess that might lead to sentimentality. Restrained is not a word we typically use to describe George Miller’s work but this film is that because when a medical condition is this horrific a wise director knows not to embellish, just tell the truth. Great performance by Sarandon whose guilt over being the carrier for this unspeakable disease turns her into an Ahabian figure that threatens every relationship in her life. Nolte gives it his all though his horrible Italian accent undermines him. And this film features Becky Ann Baker (as a smart and sexy secretary), Ann Dowd, AND Margo Martindale which is a hat trick of casting middle American white women.

Coma (Michael Crichton, 1978): 3/5

Starts strongly, with Crichton's medical experience giving the drama some verisimilitude, especially with the overlapping background dialogue. For this genre, the Paranoia Movie signifiers here are fairly muted. Then, pretty much right after the romantic montage with the swoony music, it goes dumb. Still, if your fetish is People Sneaking Around Creepy Antiseptic Buildings, then the second half will blow your pleasure centers out. (The exterior of this Creepy Antiseptic Building is played by the former premises of the local Xerox headquarters. I can only imagine the phone call. "Hello, I'm scouting locations for an upcoming Hollywood movie, and we'd like to use your office building." "Okay, but why?" "Because it's terrifying.")

A New Leaf (Elaine May, 1971): 3.5/5

Lovely and loving, in its way. Could this be one of the few examples where studio interference actually ended up working in a film’s favor? Supposedly, screenwriter/director Elaine May’s initial cut came in at a colossal 3 hours, despite her attempts to pare it down after ten long months in the editing room. Dissatisfied with the bloated runtime, Paramount took the film off her hands and cut it down to a much more digestible 102 minutes. It’s frankly a small marvel that the finished product ended up so well-rounded and coherent, given how much of May’s original material had been discarded. Her longer version contained a whole subplot about a blackmailer, two murders, and even a fantasy sequence—scenarios that undoubtedly held potential for some solid laughs, but in all likelihood would probably have made the film unnecessarily baggy and unfocussed. It was disheartening to read about the way May was strong-armed by the studio during this whole process, and the film evidently wasn’t the final product she wanted it to be (she attempted to sue Paramount for breaking her contract terms, and tried to have her name removed from the credits) but by some stroke of fortune her heavily altered movie ended up being a critical success that, while not a box office hit, has rightfully since attained much wider audience appreciation.

Between the Temples (Nate Silver, 2024): 3/5

Ashby is in the air. This falls a bit short of that but the cast is great even if the film overstays its welcome by 20 minutes or so. Caroline Aaron is so good, Dolly de Leon is great, Jason Schwartzman does some of his best work in a while, and as always Carol Kane is magic.

Rumours (Guy Maddin, 2024): 2.5/5
An astonishingly bizarre little movie. The satirical approach to mocking the disorganization of world leaders is smart but ultimately runs dry. Germany is way thirsty, Canada is often emotional and runs away, US is dumb, lazy, and British for some reason? I vibed with the dry humor but wish it was funnier. When it comes to the actual plot, it’s messy and stupid. I didn’t quite understand everything that was happening or what the underlining point was? Ah, the things I will do for Cate Blanchett. Weird, weird, weird.

Spooktober Movies

The Frighteners (Peter Jackson, 1996): 2.5/5

The CGI doesn’t hold up AT ALL. This is a mix of Ghostbusters, 90s Tim Burton, and spooky-themed Disney channel flicks. Would be much better served by a hard R rating and going the Evil Dead parody route like Jackson’s earliest films. At least R. Lee Ermey’s cameo as the ghost of his Full Metal Jacket character is an undeniable high point almost worth the chore of watching the whole thing.

Arcadian (Benjamin Brewer, 2024): 2/5

Cage doing a minimalist, claustrophobic, riff on A Quiet Place with two teenagers and some monsters that look like they dropped out of 2000s anime — nowhere near as wild as that sounds with most of the runtime here focusing on the family dynamics rather than the monsters which just feels like a missed opportunity to have Cage wild out on some live action Ghibli creatures.

The Wolf Man (George Waggner, 1941): 3/5

Lon Chaney Jr. is, I don’t think, anyone’s idea of a great actor, but he’s used well here. Talbot comes across as someone who's just smart enough to know he’s kind of dumb, trying hard to understand the wider world but continually coming up short, clearly feeling like a lumbering dolt compared to his more intellectual father. (Talbot uses the telescope not to look at the heavens but to peep at a girl across the street.) As Chaney Jr. plays him, Talbot always seems out of step with the world, buffeted by forces he can’t comprehend, a protagonist stripped of his agency by Fate. That he’s reduced to an unthinking animal is just the logical end point.

Little Bites (Spider One, 2024): 2/5

I thought this was gonna be about those bags of tiny Entenmann's muffins??

Directed by Spider One (frontman for Powerman 5000 and Rob Zombie's younger brother) and produced by Cher. (???)

This is what it’s like when worlds collide.

Daddy's Head (Benjamin Barfoot, 2024): 2/5

Cool creature design, and it has its moments, but idk, Shudder original movies just generally lack the sauce, y’know? Supremely creepy conceit laid over a suitably tragic story, but just couldn't quite get over the hump into satisfying territory for me.

Alien: Romulus (Fede Alvarez, 2024): 3/5

"I'm afraid that's not in the best interest of the company."

This movie is heavy on exposition and fan service. A bit too heavy on both accounts. But it at least has an acid-spitting vulva in it. I also really loved David Jonnson as Andy. Was truly mesmerized by his cowardly yet calculated performance. Nice that these young people still have faith in human survival in the face of otherworldly horrors, but I’m built differently. I would have off'd myself about a minute in.

Terrifier 3 (Damien Leone, 2024): 2/5

Not enough Christmas themed kills. Where was the impale from a Christmas tree? Ornament onslaught? Gingerbread house of guts?

Faust (F.W. Murnau, 1926): 3/5

You can probably ignore me on why I'm not part of the "masterpiece" crowd on this one; most of my aversion stems from the tale of "Faust" itself, which I just don't find all that riveting in any form. Obviously that's not Murnau's fault, but maybe Faust wasn't the best choice of play to be adapted to film, or more accurately silent film, and if you have relative indifference to the story from the get-go, the movie is at a preemptive disadvantage. Most intriguing aspect is its scrutiny of true utilitarianism i.e., is it worth succumbing to a little evil to ultimately achieve something good? Faith-based parallels are ever-present, too, of course, but I prefer something more generalized and all-encompassing. Murnau does everything he can to direct the shit out of this thing, though, making it a "watching-in-awe" endeavor for even those with a mild allergy to the parable. His mastery of superimposition, framing, and set design is something of a minor miracle considering the time this was made, and e.g. the extended sequence of the flight to Parma is -- in spite of being entirely garnish -- one of the most dazzling visual excerpts in the whole movie. Feels way longer than 85-minutes, much of that thanks to the strenuous middle section: belabored with a great deal of exposition, especially for a silent film. As a counterbalance, the ending sums things up nice and succinctly, though, even if it makes no pragmatic sense (but that's not to say a German legend should make pragmatic sense; just an observation). I will say, I strangely admire the gall of Murnau to get as dark as he occasionally does; it's good that movies from the 1920s can still be somewhat surprising.

rewatched The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Robert Wiene, 1920): 3.5/5

Second viewing, first in over 16 years. A total one-trick pony, but one whose trick is so magnificent that watching it repeatedly is far more pleasing than tedious. (Also, considering the time period, it was the only pony of its kind—no other ponies were quite like this one, and though many other ponies thereafter would try to replicate this pony’s trick, they simply couldn’t muster the same splendor.) Some might mistakenly view this chronology as an advantage, but Wiene deserves all the credit in the world for doing something that none of his contemporaries were attempting. One could argue that Melies and Griffith were on the same visual and conceptual playing fields, and I would agree; but even among the Greats, Wiene was the first to arouse truly unnerving apprehension from little more than atypical geometry, crudely painted canvases, and immodest makeup, stimulating an entire cinematic movement in its wake. It’s easy to watch this now and yawn at the crudely drawn set pieces and shadowy background, but there’s something remarkable about the completeness of vision, no matter how economical—I mean, Christ, even Caligari’s business cards are an odd combination of trapezoidal and minimalist; if nothing else, you have to respect Wiene’s dedication. To say nothing of the variety of artists influenced by his work, even if only indirectly or subliminally so, e.g., Alan’s death–by–pokey instrument shown via towering shadow is a ten-year precursor to Hitchcock, and I maintain that even kid-oriented things ranging from Dr. Seuss books to “Rocko’s Modern Life” would look drastically different if not for this film. Unfortunately, and it hurts to say this, Mayer and Janowitz weren’t half the writers that Wiene was a director or Hameister was a cinematographer, meaning I felt a constant loop of stunned silence followed by nagging, intrusive thoughts like, ”Okay, but what person would honestly care to see Dr. Caligari’s somnambulist act?” Home stretch relies too heavily on gnarly plot conveniences, too, ergo the classic “bad guy leaves his diary full of secrets and all other pertinent information out on his desk, unattended, for anyone to waltz by and read.” (Some of that sting is admittedly rectified by the final twist, which makes the whole movie effectively pointless but is also so superficially awesome that I hardly care.) Hasn’t aged completely gracefully—e.g. Cesare’s first awakening, which today looks and feels like precisely what it is: a guy with face-paint awkwardly twitching on command—but instills enough dread when it’s most necessary; the scene that has Cesare slowly creeping toward a sleeping Jane gave me genuine chills. Not bad for being over one hundred years old.

There’s a serious battle going on for worst movie of 2024 right now. Downright unwatchable slop!  

Borderlands (Eli Roth, 2024): 0.5/5

TAR ends with the comedic gut punch that Cate Blanchett is stuck doing incredible things, for horrible art, for annoying fanbases and I think Cate Blanchett took it a little too far by continuing the joke with her next film.

The Deliverance (Lee Daniels, 2024): 0.5/5

The only thing worse than an exorcism movie is a Netflix original exorcism movie.

Afraid (Chris Weitz, 2024): 0.5/5

TECHNOLOGY BAAAAAADDD!?!

Maybe next time just get a dog.

The Crow (Rupert Sanders, 2024): 1/5

More like The CROCK!

The guy who made this is the same guy that directed the live action Ghost in the Shell movie. Obviously there’s no one better than him to ruin a cult 90’s film.

The Front Room (Max Eggers, Sam Eggers, 2024): 0.5/5

The Front Room is a film attempting to dissect issues of race, interracial family conflict, and the struggle of motherhood…written by two white men, and it shows. It really went nowhere. It gave us nothing and answered no questions. Was it supernatural? Was it Satan? Who tf knows! Who tf cares!

Uglies (McG, 2024): 0.5/5

An expulsion of putrid gas from the bloated corpse of the YA dystopian genre.

Also, how much longer are we going to let joey king play a 16 year old?!?

It Ends With Us (Justin Baldoni, 2024): 0.5/5

There are issues:

Romanticizes DV

Excessive use of the word baby as a pet name

The name "Ryle"

The name "Lily Blossom Bloom" (and she's a florist)

The fact she found her way back to her old boyfriend, whose name is "Atlas"

Very literal music that was too on-the-nose

Everything was terribly literal

And lastly, Blake Lively during promotion of a movie about domestic violence: y'alllll floralsss don't forget to get my hair product look at my dress deadpool sold out

Megalopolis (Francis Ford Coppola, 2024): 1.5/5

Nebulous. Ill-defined. Incomprehensible eccentricity. Maximalist sludge. Will almost certainly die a quick death at the box office and attract its share of scathing pans. It's basically a series of aspirational adjectives and the sunny nature-dappled walks with families you see in still form on any speculative real estate investment, with some space age quirks of questionable utility, unless "travelators" and "involuntary umbrellas" are what you think is lacking in our current dystopia. It's almost a dead cert that we'll get an alternate cut of this at some point: because it's FFC, because it's clearly shorn of connective tissue at points, because there's a few bits of voice that scream of editing fixes.

I suppose FFC has earned the right to blow $120 million of his own money combining Roman history, Shakespeare, dozens of other cultural references that probably whizzed past me (though not Marcus Aurelius, quoted and attributed thrice in rapid succession), The Fountainhead, anti-MAGA and anti-cancel culture leanings, and the smoke of ten thousand joints into a defiantly idiosyncratic film. Most $120 million dollar movies are spectacular soulless leveragings of IP designed to please shareholders that may even successfully entertain in the moment but merge into a grey goo in the brain in the course of mere days. This ... this THING, in both positive and negative ways, defies easy digestion. (Indigestible even, I would say. And given the choice of a landscape of free artists vs stockholder-pleasers, I'll take the former every time, outcome be damned.) I tried to get a sense of how people felt outside the cinema, but it turned out to be impossible: the clamor of the clusters of people in the cramped IMAX exit lobby was intense, and I honestly couldn't tell what they were sharing, excitement or mockery or something else. But I've been to enough of these screenings to know you don't see that after a Marvel movie.

Strange Darling (JT Mollner, 2024): 2/5

“Oh I get it. It's very clever.”

“Thank you.”

“How's that working out for you?”

“What?”

“Being clever.”

I can't believe nobody read the script to Strange Darling and told JT Mollner, "You've built your screenplay around a gimmicky reveal, but you don't hide it very well and you do nothing with it. And in expending all this effort to hide what's really going on, you neglected to make this about anything else."

Does he not have friends?

Wolfs (Jon Watts, 2024): 2/5

Or, MICHAEL CLAYTON$

Bland and lifeless, visually and otherwise.

Is it just me, or is Brad Pitt kinda hot?

Blink Twice (Zoe Kravitz, 2024): 3/5

Kyle McLachlan, Christian Slater, and Geena Davis - my kind of casting! It took way too long to get to the point, but once it did, there are some thrills and chills that work.

Million Dollar Baby (Clint Eastwood, 2004): 3/5

Not a huge fan of Clint's directorial oeuvre, nor am I an avid Swank adherent, so believe me when I tell you that not only have I managed to avoid seeing Million Dollar Baby for twenty years, but somehow I've eluded any major spoilers, too, which…well, thank god for that. Actively deplorable for about an hour; seemingly nothing more than a formulaic "dark horse sports flick" -- an overly-specific sub genre that's inherently flawed, typically producing the same tired blueprint of : underdog with a heart of gold starts off shaky, but perseveres and becomes great with the help of someone who at first begrudgingly rebuffs; gets beat, fights back, becomes champ, etc. Well, well, well, how wrong I was. Thought I knew for sure where this was headed, only to be blindsided completely by the [horrific incident] and further relieved when it didn't segue into a tacky, miraculous recovery story, but rather finishes in the vein of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest -- tragic and bittersweet but ultimately for the best. Although the more this film lingers in postscript, the more its flaws continue to nettle me and undermine that bold maneuver. Swank's mother and sister e.g. are so accelerated and overwrought in their self-centered narcissism that their finger-pointing feels by and large mechanical, as does their decision to show up a week late to the hospital fully decked out in Disney World garb. Narratively well-conceived, but the dialogue falters quite often: stagey and direct, especially coming from Eastwood who, despite the praise, remains very wooden and stuffy (and not in a "that's the point" kind of way). The comic relief rarely works, too : I wouldn't mind seeing everything involving Spider or Father Horvak surgically removed. Not sure if the amazing rug-pull completely justifies (or exonerates) the paint-by-numbers first-half, but even among the bevy of whiffs, this is solid.

Missing (Costa-Gavras, 1982): 3/5

Sadly relevant. Imperialism is an away game; but sooner or later, those same tactics get deployed against the homeland that was supposedly being protected.

Saint Jack (Peter Bogdanovich, 1979): 3/5

A Bogdanovich film without a blonde leading lady is a sure sign the director was taking a risk. And it mostly pays off. After a trilogy of period flops, Bogdanovich returns to the modern day with this film that is equal parts New Hollywood and Neo-Hawksian. Having the main character be an unrepentant pimp is going to be a non-starter for many these days, especially since the women in the story take a back seat to the men. However, the women are a presence and have a point of view, they just aren't as prominent as in contemporary filmmaking (again, Bogdanovich shows just enough interest in his female characters that you can see why Polly Platt valued him as a collaborator, and more to the point why he had the good sense to value her). Gazzara serves up middle-middle age sangfroid and believably suggests a depth the script only teases.

A Different Man (Aaron Schimberg, 2024): 3.5/5

I was worried this was gonna be The Elephant Man all over again or your typical "poor deformed person" kinda thing. Luckily this was A Different Movie. The only thing more frightening than who we are is who we become; a hole in the ceiling can be easily fixed, but these holes in our hearts, not so much.

The Substance (Coralie Fargeat, 2024): 4/5

Or, Why can't I all just get along?

Remember “New French Extremity” from 20 years ago? Now it’s time for the New French Unsubtlety. Gross and brutal. I dug it! I do find it weird though that it won Best Screenplay at Cannes, as that's at best the third award I'd suggest it for - maybe Best Direction (certainly *Most* Direction) and definitely Best Actress. I hope Demi Moore rides this film to the Oscars; really enjoyed her essentially making a Robert Aldrich psychobiddy. And I'm not sure what to make of all the ogling of Margaret Qualley, who is a milquetoast nepo baby. Kinda enjoyed the way it’s set in Los Angeles but clearly not shot here. Gave it a strange oneiric quality.

Also, when I went to the bathroom to wash my hands after the movie, I made a conscious decision not to look in the mirror.

Will & Harper (Josh Greenbaum, 2024): 3/5

Very sweet doc. This film will probably save lives.

Also: "Do you know any trans people?" "I have some friends who are bisexual” might be one of the funniest lines in anything ever.

Rebel Ridge (Jeremy Saulnier, 2024): 3.5/5

ACAB actioner that's lucky Boyega walked out and let a legitimately excellent star-is-born Aaron Pierre in, who is a delight to watch as he's got the screen presence to shoulder this. This is a solid recovery after the intensely mediocre Hold the Dark. Here Jeremy Saulnier cashes in on his lean Green Room potential and comes up with a premise that he gets to have a lot more fun with. Saulnier smartly and effectively gets right down to business, quickly opening with a series of tense racially-charged altercations between Aaron Pierre as the mixed martial arts marine trying very hard to keep his cool and de-escalate the corrupt asshole cops who run him off the road, steal the cash on him, and then put up a series of bullshit, abusive shouldn't-be-legal procedural roadblocks he needs navigate his way around (or through). And it ends quite strong too, with an excitingly unique focus on non-lethal combat that requires logistical choreography and blocking that Saulnier relishes in, consistently finding clever weaponization of geographical space and disarming takedowns.

War Game (Jesse Moss, Tony Gerber, 2024): 3/5

A real-life political thriller set on January 6, 2025, War Game imagines a nation-wide insurrection in which members of the US military defect to support the losing Presidential candidate, while the winning candidate and his advisors—played by an all-star roster of senior officials from the last five administrations—war games the crisis in the White House situation room. They have 6 hours to save democracy as the country teeters on the brink of civil war.

It forces us to confront the uncomfortable truth that democracy is fragile, and that though time has passed, the specter of January 6th, 2021 still looms large over our nation. If anything, that awful day may have been the beginning of something even more terrifying, and if we're not careful, History may repeat itself in the future on a grander scale.

Sorcerer (William Friedkin, 1977): 3.5/5

He followed a film about the Devil in a little girl with a film about a man in Hell. Blends all of Friedkin's greatest hits: a prologue shot documentary style, an examination of masculinity, and a shift from naturalism into expressionist horror. The delicious ambiguity of the ending lingers like the aftertaste of a good meal. Re: masculinity, Friedkin really stood alone in his examination of men in that he began the 70s and 80s with transgressive gay stories long before that was a thing. You'd have to look for Almodovar to find another director pre-90s as at home with the idea that homosexuality was simply one expression of hyper-masculinity and not its antithesis. RIP Billy. Your iconoclasm and inability to bullshit is still terribly missed in a film industry starved for both.

rewatched Logan Lucky (Steven Soderbergh, 2017): 4/5

Or, Magic Mike, James Bond and Kylo Ren walk into a bar.

Second viewing. Continues to be a huge delight. Such a clever, warm and brilliantly executed caper comedy featuring an A-list cast that nails every single second on screen. There's a version of "Logan Lucky" where this exact script is given to a director like, say, Adam McKay and the same material turns into a boorish parody of Southern culture. It's Steven Soderbergh's cool neutrality, combined with a genuine affection for these sometimes slow-witted characters, that really makes the film. This is a heist movie that's so breezy, so charming, the heist hardly feels like work.

Wanda (Barbara Loden, 1970): 3.5/5

Plays like Red State Nouvelle Vague with the major exception that the woman who would normally be a disposable accessory of the protagonist *is* the protagonist. Loden asks us to confront how being a (white) woman (young and attractive enough to have some value in a patriarchal underworld) in this kind of road picture empowers her and how it limits her possibilities as well. Yes this is a feminist film but Wanda herself is no paragon of womanist self-actualization. She’s a deeply flawed character who makes questionable choices but that makes her story all the more compelling. Wanda is slow and rough, and its brutality is only outmatched by its beauty (or is it the other way around?) — because that’s life.

Also, it’s heartbreaking that Barbara Loden was taken so young, and before she could share so much more of her art. This would have certainly been the first of many triumphs.

Hotel (Jessica Hausner, 2004): 2/5

One of those films with a bunch of vague imagery that allows viewers to imprint whatever meaning they want on the movie. And nothing ever actually happens, so they can never be proven wrong.

His Three Daughters (Azazel Jacobs, 2023): 3/5

Coming to terms with the loss of a loved one can be traumatic enough in itself; coming to terms with the loss of a loved one while they’re still around is another matter entirely. This isn’t to say, even remotely, that dealing with a sudden death is somehow worthy of less sympathy than those forced to view a family member in gradual decline, but the processes of dealing with these situations are undeniably distinct from one another, the latter bringing out its own set of complex questions. When you know someone is at the end, do you pray for recovery, or for a quick, painless departure? Do you spend every moment they have left by their side, or do you distance yourself in preparation for the permanent separation just around the corner? There’s no one correct way to grieve, and His Three Daughters provides yet another case study for when these differing processes find themselves under one roof.

rewatched Stagecoach (John Ford, 1939): 4/5

A black-and-white rip off of The Hateful Eight. Kidding, of course, but it’s clear to me now this was the origin of Tarantino’s inspiration for the first 45-minutes of his film. Really, Stagecoach kind of outlined the general blueprint for the “group of multifarious people with various ideals and morals forced to get along and eventually work together in close quarters” schema. John Ford’s direction is simply exquisite here and his insistence on John Wayne as Ringo Kid paid off in dividends—despite him being in the ballpark of 80 films before this one (yes, eighty, but that includes lots of small, uncredited bit-parts), John Wayne wasn’t a household name until this.

There are some pretty amazing shots in the film, especially when you consider its 1939 timestamp. The desert chase between the Native Americans and the stagecoach remains thrilling after all these years, including bold shots of a Native getting trampled under the cart and a daring crawl amongst the moving horses. I do think the film stutters a little bit in terms of characterization—it’s assuredly a western, but at its core, it’s most certainly a character driven film. That being the case, a few of the characters and their interactions with each other felt ever-so-slightly undernourished. I want to know more about the gambler’s dodgy habits, or the banker’s shady past, or what drives the doctor to drink like a sailor, or the acclaimed notoriety of Ringo Kid, etc. Maybe I’m just being greedy, but I was hungry for a deep dive into what made these characters act the way they do towards each other.

Still a good amount to marvel at, though. I love how Ringo Kid is always looking out for the harlot, Dallas (although his marriage proposal seems a bit rushed in the context of the movie); perhaps because they’ve both chosen wayward paths? “But you don’t know me. You don’t know who I am,” Dallas tells Ringo, to which he replies, “I know all I wanna know.” Thanks to the collected confidence in John Wayne’s voice, we know he really means it. I’m also glad Ringo gets his revenge on Luke Plummer and even more gracious that the Marshal turns a blind-eye after growing close to Ringo during their stagecoach travels. I don’t know why, but I’m a sucker for moments when a law enforcer sides with ‘the technically unlawful but not actually bad-intentioned’ guy (see also: the end of Casablanca).

Bug (William Friedkin, 2006): 3/5

Key plot ingredients: Claustrophobia, isolation, delusional schizophrenia, self-debasement, murder, and bugs. William Friedkin’s Bug has powerful visual suggestion within its suffocating fleabag motel. You feel the stench through Friedkin’s feverish hot colors, and you may tip into feelings of nausea too by its squalid, sweltering aura. As apropos, Tracy Letts’ ripe dialogue has a scintillating paranoia. The actors – Ashley Judd (devastating) as a depressed mother of a dead child, Harry Connick Jr. as sociopath ex-husband, Michael Shannon as Gulf War vet whose obsession is bug classification, Lynn Collins as the buffer of reason—all reach delirious highs in their performances that skirt over-the-top yet are strictly relegated within a story that earns its finale of tripped-out freakiness. Tripped out, as well as, explosive.

Shutter Island (Martin Scorsese, 2010): 3.5/5

Between this and Inception, 2010 was not a great year for Leo to be a father.

rewatched Inland Empire (David Lynch, 2006): 2/5

Last saw opening night - no change. I'm all for cinematic oddities and uncompromised vision, but Lynch gives us quite literally nothing to champion here; not so much as a ledge from which to dangle. (Furthermore, I do not enjoy nor understand the desire to capture this with crappy digital video; it is not eerie or obfuscating, just annoying.) Even Lynch's most abstract works have the meat necessary to build an interpretative thesis buried somewhere under the glossy surface texture, but I don't see it here. The “story”—and I use that word loosely—draws uncanny similarities to Mulholland Drive but mingles with so many ancillary and seemingly irrelevant sequences that surmising everything's legitimate purpose quickly becomes a full-time job. I found a handful of fifteen or twenty-second blips thrilling and appropriately nightmarish, but they're scattered too thinly among the three hours. Strange conversations with a mysterious fat guy, hookers dancing to 80s music, sitcoms with rabbit masks, and Laura Dern doing her worst possible southern rube impression into the camera for long periods of time—I'm failing to make the connection, and still don’t feel compelled enough to keep trying. One bright spot: the sound design is mostly excellent and, several times, physically made me jump. But there were far, far more times where I found myself checking the clock or getting distracted piecing this inane jigsaw puzzle together.

rewatched Lost Highway (David Lynch, 1997): 3/5

This one was widely dismissed when it was released from what I understand and not without reason. I’m sure part of it was due to the fact this was Lynch’s first L.A. film (though the trained eye will notice L.A.’s Arts District at the end of Wild At Heart standing in for the American South). The fall of Twin Peaks prompted a Lynch backlash that held until Mulholland Drive. Barry Gifford has long been scapegoated for this critical nadir. But these films are now clearly part of Lynch’s journey and while they may not have worked as well as his earlier or later work he clearly used these films as a bridge from one creatively rich period to another. All of the films between Twin Peaks’ debut and Mulholland Drive have developed a following and enjoyed a degree of critical rehabilitation. Lost Highway, in the larger scheme of things, took Lynch somewhere interesting and for that the film’s shortcomings have to be forgiven.

Welcome to Collinwood (Joe Russo, Anthony Russo, 2002): 1/5

Just terrible. Inept. Annoying. Unbelievable these guys got anyone to trust them again. What did Soderbergh see in them

The Remains of the Day (James Ivory, 1993): 4.5/5

I’m gagged. I’m floored. I’m shooketh!

This film has dignity. It has restraint. It has nuance. And that’s all I ask of a period drama—characters unable to express themselves, a dash of unrequited longing, and an emphasis on the importance of hands occasionally touching.

The Two Jakes (Jack Nicholson, 1990) 2.5/5

Strips Chinatown of its nihilistic mystique for a barely serviceable sequel, Jack Nicholson’s reinstatement as Jake Gittes stringing it all along. Attempting to follow up Polanski’s genre-defining classic was always an ill-advised move, but with the help of convicted performances, a cameo from Tom Waits, and the great Vilmos Zsigmond’s cinematographic prowess, this cheap outing down memory lane is almost worth it. It’s sad Nicholson gave up the director’s chair after this due to bad reviews, he shows a lot of promise both visually and narratively, even if the outcome is largely pointless. Robert Towne’s poetry is all but lost here, mostly for the fact that the film is missing its other key off-screen components: Roman Polanski and Jerry Goldsmith. If Gittes was a man out of time before, here he’s ancient history. Forget it, Jake. It’s not Chinatown, and it was never going to be.