Blast of Silence (Allen Baron, 1961): 3/5

Allen Baron has the perfect looks for the role; two parts De Niro, one part Lino Ventura, with a twist of George C. Scott.  A textbook on how to kill a motherfucker dead.

Tusk (Kevin Smith, 2016): 2/5

If you've ever wanted to know what Justin Long would look like as a walrus, then this is one of your better options.

The Sisters Brothers (Jacques Audiard, 2018): 3.5/5

riz [to jake]: have we met before?
me: YES ISSA NIGHTCRAWLER REUNION UP IN THIS BITCH!

Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile (Joe Berlinger, 2019): 1.5/5

Turns out he did it.

I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House (Oz Perkins, 2016): 2/5

I Am The Bored Person That Watched This Film

Can You Ever Forgive Me? (Marielle Heller, 2018): 2.5/5

Fine enough for the two central performances, and it’s neat to see McCarthy explore the lonely, melancholy element of her bullish comedic persona, but the rest is fairly pedestrian and executed with an adequate level of muted panache.

rewatched Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (Sidney Lumet, 2007): 5/5

Purely and simply great filmmaking, and also one of Philip Seymour Hoffman's best performances. His character is the engine that drives this gripping but potentially standard crime story into the realm of feverish moralistic melodrama - Lumet's taught razor wire noose tightens around pretty much everyone in the movie as it goes, but it's Andy who puts it all in motion, and PSH nails every facet of this character, from the slightly deranged happiness (as if he's hiding deep reservoirs of personal problems) of the beginning to the resigned psychosis of the climax. Always magnetic and a true highlight even in a stacked ensemble cast.

Mid90s (Jonah Hill, 2018): 1/5

Boys Will Be Boys: The Movie

(And yet another addition to the Lucas Hedges Troubled Son Cinematic Universe)

Naked (Mike Leigh, 1993): 3/5

Sardonically delivered dialogue so sharp you could shave with it. Nihilistic philosophizing spewing forth from our anti-hero like a broken faucet. What a savagely bleak odyssey, and an unbelievably powerful performance from David Thewlis.

La Commare Secca (Bernardo Bertolucci, 1962): 2.5/5

If I told you Bertolucci's first film was a cross between Rashomon & I Vitelloni, you'd be inclined to think it was essential. It's not--but worth a shot if you're a Bertolucci completist.

The Ritual (David Bruckner, 2017): 3/5

Look, it's a simple fucking rule, don't enter a cabin in the woods. The Blair Witch Project meets The Descent, but with an all-male group of friends. An efficient and properly nightmarish Brit horror that boasts tense, suspenseful momentum, atmospheric Swedish settings and original creature designs, despite feeling a bit too familiar, derivative and forgettable at the same time.

Homecoming: A Film by Beyonce (Beyonce Knowles, 2019): 5/5

An awing display — and simultaneous celebration — of black excellence and artistic superiority. Intercut with Beyonce’s paradigm-altering 2018 Coachella performance are the taxing toilings that brought it to fruition, serving to humanize the woman, mother and wife behind the goddess. Knowing that each beat of the drum, hair-flip and bodily pivot were all painstakingly constructed over the course of eight months (!!!) affords them extra weight, and doubly riveting in light of the pitch-perfect execution. “I just might be a black Bill Gates in the making” doesn’t only resonate because of its polarizing intent — the evocation finds power in the fact that it just might be true. And I'm not the first and won't be the last to suggest that this belongs in the concert doc pantheon with stuff like Stop Making Sense, Truth or Dare, or Monterey Pop.

P.S. Jay Z still ain't shit.

Green Book (Peter Farrelly, 2018): 2.5/5

EYYYYYY, DEEP SOUTH, WHASSAMATTA YOU, WHY SO RACIST??? EYYYYY, WHAT DO I KNOW, I'M JUST A SIMPLE GUY FROM DA BRONX, EYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

Aquaman (James Wan, 2018): 1/5

Part Thor, part Black Panther, part Tron, part Power Rangers, part Nicholas Sparks novel, part Disney Channel Original Movie, part the Mummy ride at Universal??? Also, even with a $200 million dollar budget, for some reason they put everyone in a Party City wig.

rewatched Bowfinger (Frank Oz,1999): 4/5

So stupid and silly and terrific. Eddie Murphy's role as Jiff is one of his most underrated characters; Martin is equally great and Terrence Stamp is a highlight as a Scientology-like figure at a place called MindHead.

rewatched Sullivan's Travels (Preston Sturges, 1941): 4.5/5

Glorious in ways that need no belaboring, held back only by its slightly simplistic moral and the necessity to mostly sideline Veronica Lake once Sully is presumed dead. 

Wild Nights with Emily (Madeline Olnek, 2018): 2.5/5

Like DRUNK HISTORY but a sober, lively, dryly comedic corrective to the traditional, heteronormative, patriarchal image of Emily Dickinson.

Vice (Adam McKay, 2018): 2/5

An astonishing transformation for Bale, who really nails Cheney's laconic, gruff persona. Really though, this is the movie no one asked for, no one needed, and no one wanted.

*freeze frame* just no fucking thank you

Little (Tina Gordon Chism, 2019): 2/5

At one point two characters break out in song for no reason, it’s never explained, and it’s incredibly jarring. All in all, just a middling comedy in terms of plot but great acting from all three leading ladies.

Sweetie (Jane Campion, 1989): 2/5

Sports an inherently unstable tone - strenuously wacky yet deadly serious. The film accumulates odd touches and unexpected digressions the way bag ladies collect random bits of societal flotsam and jetsam. Individual scenes impress, and compositions are striking, but it feels more like a collection of shorts about the same kooky family than a single coherent feature.

Road House (Rowdy Herrington, 1989): 1/5

Fucking ridiculous scumtrash about a bouncer who for some reason possesses nationwide fame and respect (???). Oh god and then there's the soul-crushing 80s production values...

Island of Lost Souls (Erle C. Kenton, 1932): 3/5

Hollywood to H.G. Wells: I wanna sex you up. Introducing the Panther Woman, played by Kathleen Burke who succeeds in investing her version with a little pathos, but she's still mostly around to flash some leg and make the idea of miscegenation between man and beast seem seductive. What's most striking to my eyes is how matter-of-factly the film introduces its manufactured mutants, in broad daylight on the ship that rescues our hero, without the emphatic reveal you'd expect—they're just wandering the deck like the regular humans, looking vaguely disturbing. I have no real sense of Kenton as a director, as this is still the only film of his I've ever seen, but that choice alone makes me curious.

Stranger on the Third Floor (Boris Ingster, 1940): 3/5

Solid if overwrought B mystery that's considered the first film noir, maybe. No femme fatale or hardboiled detective here (cf. Maltese Falcon), but there's expressionistic visuals, interior monologue, and a wrong man plot, with Peter Lorre embodying Germanic evil for good measure.

Dallas Buyers Club (Jean-Marc Vallee, 2013): 2/5

McConaughey's performance is the sole element of interest here, and he does his best not to choke on dialogue like "Screw the FDA—I'm gonna be D.O.A." That's very clever, Mr. Screenwriter. Good context for very clever.

Revenge (Coralie Fargeat, 2017): 3/5

rApE rEvEnGe MaXiMuM aEsThEtiC.

New French Extremity is back and trenchant AF.

Actress (Robert Greene, 2014): 2.5/5

We follow Brandy Burre (regular on The Wire) as she decides to get back into the acting profession while her marriage slowly crumbles around her. To see Burre attempt to juggle all of these things - divorce, two kids, comeback - would have been interesting to say the least, if we actually got to see it. There's hardly any acting comeback footage, only a smattering of Mother Time and several uncomfortable hints at the divorce proceedings. As a documentary, it doesn't have much to offer. As a manufactured drama, it doesn't have much to offer. As an exploration of non-fiction cinema, it doesn't have much to offer.

Good Will Hunting (Gus Van Sant, 1997): 3/5

Drenched in melodrama, reductionism, and full-blown Hollywood-isms, it’s pretty incredible the movie is as enjoyable as it is. Things like the natural warmth of Williams' performance and the sincerity of the relationships between the initially overbearing Boston boys warmed to me little by little. But take away the central performances and some of the snappy dialogue, and this would be near unwatchable. As it stands, it’s a solidly packaged (if emotionally compromised) feel-good picture that’s heavy on the cheese and light on reality.

The Place Beyond the Pines (Derek Cianfrance, 2012): 3/5

Gripping but super schematic. A lot of formal control over some heavily trod material. All in all, better than I expected. Gosling's segment genuinely thrums.

Rupture (Steven Shainberg, 2016): 0.5/5

A student film interpretation of Aughts torture-porn turned into a full-length feature that somehow managed to snag a few high profile actors.

Proud Mary (Babak Najafi, 2018): 2/5

Good thing they turned a potentially timely blaxplo throwback into a generic crime movie that hinges on its female protagonist protecting some urchin kid.

Free Solo (Jimmy Chin, Elizabeth Vasarhelyi, 2018): 2.5/5

Me to Alex Honnold's gf 500 times during this doc: BREAK UP WITH HIM.

Lonesome (Paul Fejos, 1928): 3/5

Ah yes, the difficulty of finding "The One" in a city of teeming millions. (I suppose it'd be churlish to point out that larger populations just mean more potentially compatible mates.) Jim and Mary alone together are an aw-shucks snooze, even with the help of inter-titles. And the hastily added talkie sequences are actively painful, serving mostly as a demonstration of dead air.

Bisbee '17 (Robert Greene, 2018): 2/5

An important story told. Miners and the IWW teaming up in a rich mining town in Arizona and getting corralled and left for dead in the desert. Still don't really respond to Greene's approach; his entire methodology seems to deny its subjects any sort of meaningful insight or contemplation on their relationship to the past, as he instead focuses more so on making them his own puppets for an exploration on artifice which never really coheres in a compelling way.

Recommended double-bill: Travis Wilkerson's superb, somewhat underseen An Injury to One for a starkly contrasting approach to a related historical flashpoint.