Hamlet ( Michael Almereyda, 2000): 3/5

Undeniably 2000, in every conceivable way. Ethan Hawke delivers the “to be or not to be” monologue while walking through a Blockbuster.

The Staircase (Jean-Xavier de Lestrade, 2005): 5/5

🇺🇸️ RUDOLPH BLOW POKE 2020🇺🇸️

The Retrieval (Chris Eska, 2013): 2.5/5

Ashton Sanders before Moonlight.

re-watched L'avventura (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1960): 2.5/5

That awkward moment when your friend goes missing so you stare at rocks for a few hours. Also has the kind of dialogue that makes me want to watch nothing but silent films for at least a month. Last viewing was in 2006; undercutting all narrative expectations and replacing them with ennui still doesn't click with me. Maybe, like Ebert, I'll enjoy this more later in life. One positive note: Antonioni favors one shot in particular that I'm surprised more filmmakers don't steal, in which a character starts out in close-up, walks away some distance, and then a second character steps into the foreground—the sudden disruption of the plane is a real jolt.

The Last of the Unjust (Claude Lanzmann, 2013): 3/5

Clocking in at 3 hours and 40 minutes, this is a leaner, more focused documentary when compared to Shoah, but less compelling, also.

re-watched L'Eclisse (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1962): 1/5

Last Antonioni re-watch for a while. It's not like I'm expecting actual development in characters or with pacing/plot but even to his standards this was a drag. Vitti and Delon lend their presence, but this was testing the limits of how much star power alone can engage me.

The Rider (Chloe Zhao, 2017): 3.5/5

A lot to appreciate here - the naturalistic feel, the world-building, the themes, the characters, etc. Agree w/ Justin that casting a real cowboy instead of an actor made all the difference. 

Planetarium (Rebecca Zlotowski, 2016): 1/5

What is this movie even about and why does it exist? Is it a Gothic supernatural haunter, a creepy old rich man suspense thriller, a star-is-born actress biopic, a Jewish persecution story, or something that can only be described as "artistic"? Pretty sure anyone involved in its film-making wouldn't be able to answer this question.

re-watched Mission: Impossible (Brian De Palma, 1996): 2.5/5

I completely forgot that they immediately wasted Emilio Estevez in this and then take 51 minutes to introduce Ving Rhames’ Luther. Also, Ethan Hunt typed in a Usenet address with an ampersand in the main part of the address, which was certainly the most impossible part of his impossible mission. Langley break-in is De Palma at his finest, a multi-spacial engineering problem writ large.

Crazy Rich Asians (Jon M. Chu, 2018): 3/5

Pan-Asian Princess Diaries. (And what, no Mandarin cover of any ABBA songs???) Silly and flawed throughout with a truly vulgar display of wealth. But overall a somewhat delightful and satisfying genre movie. Extra half star included for the divine Michelle Yeoh. #moviepass 

Nocturama (Bertrand Bonello, 2016): 2/5

Well directed and edited and gorgeous at times. But what started as a gripping -- if completely mystifying -- execution of best-laid plans becomes a Cubism-level appraisal of the mindset of today's youth.

Kings (Deniz Gamze Erguven, 2017): 1/5

Fascinatingly awful. To say that this film has tonal issues would be like saying the ocean is a little wet. I don't think one right choice was made. 

Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe (Les Blank, 1980): 3/5

20 minutes of Herzog discussing, planning, and eating a fucking shoe. Errol Morris has no memory of this bet and isn't convinced a bet even took place, which makes this a great deal funnier when you consider that Herzog may have confabulated the whole thing and gone through with it anyway. An absurd and inspiring spectacle.

Computer Chess (Andrew Bujalski, 2013): 2/5

Very, very weird. A reflection of anxiety about the digital world as refracted through the analog age. Sort of The Last Days of Diskettes.

Public Housing (Frederick Wiseman, 1997): 4/5

 Wiseman takes us inside the day-to-day events that occur in the Ida B. Wells Homes, a predominately-black public housing project that was once located in the south side of Chicago before being demolished in 2011. One of the failures of U.S. bureaucratic government programs is that they remove the individuality of people targeted for aid, creating a system of spreadsheets, departmental mandates, quotas and pie charts systematically turning flesh and blood into data. Wiseman reverses the process, focusing on complex human lives to expose a more exact tragedy: institutionalized degradation as racism's endgame.

re-watched The Silence of the Lambs (Jonathan Demme, 1991): 5/5

SOTL has it all: corpses in bathtubs! Night vision! Cannibalism! A cute dog! Jodie Foster's career best performance! Weird bugs! An iconic mask! Killer lines! One of the best final acts ever! A movie so good it premiered in February and then won Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay at the Oscars a whole year and one month later.

re-watched Le Trou (Jacques Becker, 1960): 5/5

This veritable knockout is one of my all-time faves. Great prison movie, no bullshit, just plenty of scenes of dudes digging holes. So understated and unpretentious, yet so poignant and dynamic that the underlying scrupulousness hardly ever comes to the fore. Revisiting it is always every bit as enthralling as experiencing it the first time around.

BlacKkKlansman (Spike Lee, 2018): 4.5/5

Shaggy, furious, bold as hell, and red hot. Miraculously funny and fun considering the subject matter, but never at the expense of its convictions. Spike Lee's overtness here, as ever, is not condescending. It allows a rip-roaring undercover cop caper to function as a primal scream. And that dance scene near the beginning made me feel this may be the Best Picture of the year. #moviepass

re-watched Rosemary's Baby (Roman Polanski, 1968): 5/5

Why was everyone making fun of Mia Farrow's cute Vidal Sassoon haircut??? That's not part of being in a satanic coven.

Zama (Lucrecia Martel, 2017): 2.5/5 
Or, No Exit: Colonial Oppressor Remix

A feignedly strained take at colonialism, approached through conventional academicism and formal rigor. Btw, when folks call Zama "difficult," what they really mean is "kinda dull."

The Harder They Come (Perry Henzell 1972): 2/5

Jamaica's most famous movie, which happens to be their first feature length film. Features a charismatic performance from Jimmy Cliff and a trio of genuinely great sequences: footage of poverty accompanied by his spellbinding Many Rivers to Cross, the neat photoshoot sequence that gave the film its one truly iconic image, and a classic, vital performance of the title track (which ultimately gets played to death). But it can never get over its completely ridiculous story, the generally abysmal acting and some of the most incompetently staged scenes I've ever seen.

Missile (Frederick Wiseman, 1988): 3/5

Air Force cadets studying in the very competitive program to launch the world ending missiles. The inherent disconnect between trying make the best possible version of the thing that shouldn’t be.

Close-Up (Abbas Kiarostami, 1990): 2.5/5

Set in Iran, Close-Up covers the real-life trial of a cinephile who impersonated acclaimed Iranian filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf and successfully conned a wealthy family in Tehran into believing that they would star in his new feature, that is until his luck ran out. The plot captures the ensuing trial that's filmed by the crew as it transpires in the courthouse while interspersed within those images are reenactments of the case. I admire how it bends narrative and reality, but I can’t say that I was riveted while watching it. Perhaps a re-watch further down the line will result in the more fruitful experience that so many others seem to walk away with.

Flower (Max Winkler, 2017): 3/5

Neither particularly insightful nor shocking to anyone well-versed in indie flicks. The film mixes teen angst with bouts of (supposed) dark comedy that takes inherently risky material and nearly destroys it with utter implausibility in the third act. Overall though it's a well crafted film and worth watching for Deutch and Hahn's performances alone. Also, all I thought about when I saw this film was how Ladybird and Erica would be great girlfriends if they ever met.

Berlin Syndrome (Cate Shortland, 2017): 3/5

A tightly wound and solidly constructed thriller that does a nice job of avoiding some of the more one-dimensional brutality that similar films rely on.

A Dark Song (Liam Gavin, 2016): 3/5

Low-key but often intense and eerie depiction of a grueling, protracted occult ritual makes for a fine directorial debut and features a pair of fascinating, deeply committed lead performances. Quite a nice change of pace and well worth a look.

The Spy Who Dumped Me (Susanna Fogel, 2018): 2.5/5

Gillian Anderson exudes so much Big Dick Energy in this she could take down an army of men. #moviepass

Chronicle (Josh Trank, 2012): 1.5/5

"Kidz Bop Unbreakable". Interest to continue watching the film really decreased when Michael B. Jordan’s character was killed off.

Ant-Man and the Wasp (Peyton Reed, 2018): 1.5/5

More like Ant-MEH lol

#moviepass

Geostorm (Dean Devlin, 2017): 1/5

More like geoSHITstorm lol

Graduation (Cristian Mungiu, 2016): 2.5/5

Or: Franz Kafka's A Cunty Doctor. (Mungiu catfished me by making a Dardennes film.)

Marjorie Prime (Michael Almereyda, 2017): 3/5

Alain Resnais-esque understated chamber drama. Almereyda beautifully dramatizes memory as the hazy intersection of history and emotion, and nearly every performer is doing some of the richest work they've ever done. "How nice that I could love somebody."

Solaris (Steven Soderbergh, 2002): 3.5/5

Soderbergh's 2002 remake retains the dreamy, sometimes glacial pace of Tarkovsky's version without sacrificing its dazzling ideas. Loved Cliff Martinez's eerie score.

The Brothers Grimsby (Louis Letterrier, 2016): 2.5/5

Monumentally stupid and raunchy, but I did laugh several times. Mark Strong maintaining his stonily serious expression throughout all of the outrageous genitalia humor, as if he's genuinely in a shitty Bond ripoff, was great.

Chronos (Ron Fricke, 1985): 3/5

Basically “civilization Koyaanisqatsi” without Philip Glass. The first half of humankind constructed, the second half documented. A Brick and a Camera.

Le Doulos (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1963): 4/5

A deft fake-out movie/clinical portrait of dishonor among thieves, shot in deep shadow and anchored by Belmondo's curdled insouciance and Ruggieri's soulful anxiety.

Guest Netflix Friend: "Don"

Young Karl Marx (Raoul Peck, 2017)

Despite a title that pays tribute to Mel Brooks and the Marx Brothers, this is surprisingly short on laughs.  Only funny line is "Property is theft," which is so absurd I nearly choked on a truffle.  Strains believability by making the main character fluent in German, French, and English (impossible!) yet this overeducated loser can’t even get a job at the post office.  Then he has the gall to attack children who choose honest factory work over book learning!  Last laugh on this pathetic commie: nobody reads books anymore!

The Other Side of Hope (Aki Kaurismaki, 2017)

Another head scratcher:  a coward turns his back on his dead family in war-torn Syria and criminally enters Finland to feed at the trough of EU socialism.  Finland?  Without even considering the great USA?  Of course, we would have caught him and sent him straight back to his shithole country--but still.

The Staircase (Jean Xavier de Lestrade, 2004-2017)

A stunner.  If the best legal defense money can buy fails to keep a wealthy murderer out of prison, then the whole concept of getting rich and killing people will need to be re-examined.

The Vietnam War (Ken Burns, 2017)

All that hand-wringing over such a small country... most of our states are bigger than this, am I right?  Seems like the French were doing an OK job civilizing the place, but then I found out there were 9 more episodes--and this snoozefest was paid for with taxpayer dollars!  If the History Channel has taught us anything, it takes a lot of commercials to make the past bearable.  Like in "Ice Road Truckers," for example--great show!

A Story of Opportunity (Destiny Pictures, 2018)

Now this is more like it!  Simple, direct, inspiring.  The future remains to be written--in 140 characters or less.