Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot (Gus Van Sant, 2018): 1.5/5

Boring, given the numbing familiarity of 12-step struggles. Van Sant toys with chronology, carving the film into what feels like an endless series of disconnected interludes, like watching one of those DVD extras consisting of all the deleted scenes strung together.

Mortal Engines (Christian Rivers, 2018): 1/5

Goofy-ass steampunk tech and airships and tragic robot men and dynastic tale of revenge and elaborate backstory and on and on, crammed into a hectic, convoluted two hours instead of playing out over hours a day for weeks. I'm still a little fuzzy on why the apocalypse meant the cities had to be on wheels but also please don't bother explaining it to me if you know.

Fool For Love (Robert Altman, 1985): 1.5/5

Sam Shepard is Eddie, a stuntman who has a love/hate relationship with May (Kim Basinger). The two fight endlessly over the course of an evening spent in some dusty motel in the middle of nowhere, while a mysterious man (Harry Dean Stanton) who may be either a figurative or literal father to both Eddie and May quietly observes. Randy Quaid rounds out the four-person cast as a gentleman caller. Altman's direction is assured, the performances are OK given what the actors have to work with, but this inconsequential screenplay goes nowhere, and takes its time getting there.

Shampoo (Hal Ashby, 1975): 2.5/5

Fun to watch Beatty do befuddled for two hours—his performance here foreshadows Oscar night 2017—he's not so much playing a character as embodying an ostensibly self-effacing (but mostly self-aggrandizing) stand-in for his own wolfish reputation. And setting it on Election Day '68 feels like a last-ditch effort to generate Significance where there otherwise isn't much to be found. Would’ve preferred something more broadly satirical and less sneakily self-important.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (Bob Perischetti, Peter Ramsay, 2018): 3/5

An unusually offbeat premise with creative use of comic-book text and intermittent hand-drawn dynamism. But of course there's the earnest life lesson, which one can still rarely escape when it comes to mainstream entertainment.

Goodbye, Mr. Chips (Sam Wood, 1939): 2.5/5

The inspirational teacher movie on steroids, and I suppose the forefather of them all.

Piercing (Nicolas Pesce, 2018): 1.5/5

*Close-up of Mia Wasikowska piercing her nipple*

Me, whispering: That’s the Piercing.

First Man (Damien Chazelle, 2018): 2.5/5

Reductive Biopic Cliché #1, the formative tragedy that underlies everything. Suggested tagline: "He traveled 225,000 miles to escape...himself."

DISCLAIMER: I watched this on my small TV set, so any sense of awe or majesty that relies on the big screen and/or IMAX was lost on me. Don't think it'd have made much difference, but one never knows.

Bohemian Rhapsody (Bryan Singer, 2018): 1/5

is this the real life?
is this just blasphemy?
and by a landslide,
worst film in eternity...
close your eyes
or look up to some other screeeeeen
it's just a poor movie, it needs no sympathy
because it's poorly paced, poorly done
lots of lows, zero fun
any way his teeth grow, doesn't really matter to me...

Us (Jordan Peele, 2018): 3.5/5

Most of this is just a very good don't get out of the car, hey look behind you movie but Peele has such a well of imagination that he creates this additional tantalizing scenario that absolutely begs for both a more coherent idea to tether it to and also an explanation that would kill the whole movie if it was offered. Tough tightrope, fun movie.

Top Gun (Tony Scott, 1986): 2/5

No way this is a real movie.

The Oath (Ike Barinholtz 2018): 1/5

Barely even a comedy, and the ending makes absolutely no sense, both as a Trump parable and as to how these characters in this specific movie would act. It's a shame that Barinholtz assembled these incredible comedians (Haddish, Cho, Brownstein) and gave them nothing to work with.

The Favourite (Yorgos Lanthimos, 2018): 3.5/5

Everything is Sex, Except Sex, Which is Power, You Know Power is Just Sex: The Movie

Night Comes On (Jordana Spiro, 2018): 3/5

Another journey > destination film. Climactic confrontation merits a shrug, but virtually every moment en route is clear-eyed and anchored by two superlative performances with barely a false note between them.

At Eternity's Gate (Julian Schnabel, 2018): 1.5/5

Standard shapeless biopic with stupid camera tricks that drove me up the wall and Tatiana Lisovkaia's tinkling piano score ruining every moment. 

re-watched Le Plaisir (Max Ophuls, 1952): 2.5/5

Second viewing, last seen 2013, no change. Once again, Ophuls' distinctly visual style/masterful use of camera movement/blocking is the one pleasurable factor of this film.

Nancy (Christina Choe, 2018): 3.5/5

Tightly structured story that will leave you guessing about, and feeling for, the broken people at its center. (Unfortunately, there is a high possibility that Andrea Riseborough becomes type-casted as sullen, sardonic goth lady with a name that ends in Y and has a terrible haircut BUT she plays that role so damn well that it isn’t necessarily a bad thing.) Director Christina Choe also displays a keen sense of building tension and holding on key moments. A promising new director to watch.

Boy Erased (Joel Edgarton, 2018): 3/5

Serviceable. Not terrible, or remarkable, remarkably terrible, terribly remarkable. It just is. 

Vox Lux (Brady Corbet, 2018): 3/5

Natty P trying her hand at a fictive pop-diva biopic. Tonally exceptional; stylistically, it owes quite a bit to Michael Haneke, especially in its first half.

Burning (Lee Chang-dong, 2018): 3.5/5

Was not expecting this Cannes sensation to be a Brick-styled mystery with a Manic Pixie Dream Girl for the ages, but I guess if you make it 2.5 hours people go nuts.

Seconds (John Frankenheimer, 1966): 3/5

Begins and ends unforgettably, and then there's the comparatively flaccid midsection, in which Tony Wilson butts heads with the incipient counterculture. Honestly went from thinking, "this might be a new masterpiece," to "oh my god, when will this be over?" 

Paddleton (Alexandre Lehmann, 2019): 3/5

Totally on board with Ray Romano's renewed career as a dramatic actor. Simple, but inspired; heavy, but sensitive. And plenty of chemistry between the two leads.

Lianna (John Sayles, 1983): 2.5/5

A woman in a straight marriage coming to grips with a realization that she's actually a lesbian. I'm just here to point out that her husband's name is Dick, so she's literally leaving dick behind. That is aggressively Pynchonian.

Climax (Gaspar Noe, 2018): 4.5/5

Did everyone try the sangria? I thought the sangria was lovely.

Ninotchka (Ernst Lubitsch, 1939): 4/5

Another gem from that wondrous year of cinema, and the first Lubitsch that's really clicked with me. Now I need to go back and re-watch everything he's done. Also, deadpan Garbo may be the best Garbo. I could listen to her praise Soviet society all day long.

The Third Murder (Hirokazu Kore-eda, 2019): 2/5

Kore-eda tries to combine his trademark intimate humanism with a legal procedural, to disappointing results. He can’t generate the proper tension needed, so his film feels overlong as a result.