The Disaster Artist (James Franco, 2017): 3/5 
Back when I worked at Cinefile, we had a section aptly called "Holy Fucking Shit". Guess which title was always prominently displayed on there? 

Brawl in Cell Block 99 (S. Craig Zahler, 2017): 3.5/5
Fantastic genre piece. Loved the stylization, the writing, the characters. #originality #ftw 

The Florida Project (Sean Baker, 2017): 2/5 
Cinematic slog about poverty and the tired theme of childhood resilience, with indie affectations. But even with my general abhorrence for children and the state of Florida, and my apathetic feelings for Sean Baker's work, it's hard not to be smitten with Willem Dafoe. 

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (Martin McDonagh, 2017): 4/5 
Me: Hi 
Frances Mcdormand: shut the fuck up and die ugly 
Me: Oh my god yes anything for you 

I, Tonya (Craig Gillespie, 2017): 2/5 
I, Michelle am glad I didn't pay to see this. 

The Shape of Water (Guillermo del Toro, 2017): 2/5 
WASTING WATER IS NOT ROMANTIC. #wtf #bestpicture #really? #oscarssolame 

Call Me By Your Name (Luca Guadagnino, 2017): 2.5/5
Watching this really was the definition of neutral for me, if not bordering on slight dislike. It feels more like a puzzle with mostly missing and broken pieces and I'm not sure what "brilliant" bigger picture I'm supposed to be seeing. The film itself and multiple characters within it talk about the love between Oliver and Elio as if it is a rarity and a beautiful thing, but where is it ever like that? There's NO chemistry and we barely see them interact together in any significant way, making their inevitable coupling feel blasé. And another thing: Armie who?? Other than being conventionally attractive, I honestly found nothing intriguing, memorable, or revelatory about him or his performance. #overrated 

Battle of the Sexes (Jonathan Dayton, Valerie Faris, 2017): 2.5/5 
This is a GAYS only event, GO HOME 

A Hole in My Heart (Lukas Moodysson, 2004): 1/5 
A conveyor belt of depravity. Despite its [SCREECHING NOISE] efforts to employ avant - [SOUND CUTS FOR 4 SECONDS, THEN SCREECHING NOISE OVER PIXELATION] garde technique to discuss [GOES NIGHTVISION AND SOUND DOESN'T MATCH IMAGE] sexual desire and past trauma and parenting I don [SCREECHING, SCARE CUTS TO VAGINAL SURGERY] 't think the film succeeds at articulating any of its ideas astutely. 

Bone Tomahawk (S. Craig Zahler, 2015): 4.5/5 
Zahler's a talent. Simply superb. A brutal, smart, literary Western about what is basically a story of four white dudes saving a captured woman from Native Americans, made on a low budget. One of the most impressive debuts in recent years. (And I'm no gorehound or genre aficionado.) Zahler is two for two so far. Can't wait to see what he comes up with next. 

Fingersmith (Aisling Walsh, 2005): 5/5
Lesbian Sally Hawkins: way better than Fish Fucking Sally Hawkins. (This is also superior to Chan-wook Park's version.) 

Thelma (Joachim Trier, 2017): 3/5 
Sheltered by her parents to the point of neurosis, 18-year-old Thelma heads off to college and begins to feel the stirrings of attraction toward new friend Anja. Then things kinda take a turn for the worst. And the weird. Kinda like a Nordic version of CARRIE with a more sexually actualized protagonist. 

Beloved (Jonathan Demme, 1998): 3/5
A scene for scene, line for line adaptation of the acclaimed Toni Morrison novel of the same name. A sprawling and bracingly uncompromising studio project. #RIP #jonathandemme 

Black Panther (Ryan Coogler, 2018): 3.5/5 
Ryan Coogler to film composer: "Make every theme so rhythmically intense that no white people can clap along." 

Phantom Thread (PTA, 2017): 3.5/5 
Me Whenever Someone Causes Me Any Minor Inconvenience: are you a special agent sent here to ruin my evening and possibly my entire life? Is this my house? This is my house, isn't it? Or did somebody drop me on foreign soil behind enemy lines? I'm surrounded by all sides. When the hell did this happen? Who are you? Do you have a gun? Are you here to kill me? Hmm? Do you have a gun? Where is your gun? Show me your gun. 

Molly's Game (Aaron Sorkin, 2017): 2.5/5 
Jessica Chastain really brought the "I was told by Apple Care" realness that this role required. 

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.