Suspiria (Luca Guadagnino, 2018): 2/5

Climax (Gaspar Noé, 2018): 2/5

Two Euro 2018 movies about dancing yourself (and others) to death. Largely forgettable works by a couple of my favorite and least consistent working directors.

Diary of a Country Priest, rw (Robert Bresson, 1951):4/5

The point seems to summed up in the priest’s insistence that “All is Grace.” When I texted Jerry to ask whether he believed this statement (which I guess I figured he didn’t), here was his reply, which it’s hard to argue with: "Grace = Bresson, Folly = Bunuel. Shit = Genet. I’d agree with any of these, depending on my circumstances at the moment."

Triangle (Christopher Smith, 2009): 3/5

Fun time-tripping sci-fi adventure.

Undone (Raphael Bob-Waksberg, 2019): 3.5/5

Fun time-tripping roto-scope-animation sci-fi adventure.

Midsommar (Ari Aster, 2019): 5/5

Playful, trippy, and horrifying. Aster once again grounds the movie’s horrors in the characters’ real trauma, and spins familiar elements into vivid new shapes. Mines the loss of individual identity of the “psychedelic experience” for maximum horror and ecstasy.

Between Two Ferns: The Movie (Scott Aukerman, 2019): 3/5

I’m a fan, and there were plenty of faint pleasures here.

Your Name (Makoto Shinkai, 2016): 2.5/5

I keep thinking that it’s impossible for Hayao Miyazaki’s movies to be that far ahead of any other Japanese animation. But this movie didn’t provide any evidence to the contrary.

Succession, Seasons 1&2 (Jesse Armstrong, 2018/2019): 3.5/5

Lear refuses to give up his kingdom but the three siblings fight and plot anyway.

Too Old to Die Young, Eps 1, 3 & 5 (Nicolas Winding Refn, 2019): 2/5

Watched the first one, which had a devotion to tableau and stasis worthy of Parajanov. Vowed I’d never watch another. Then someone said to watch 3, so I did. Vowed I’d never watch another. Then someone said I had to watch 5, so I did. You can’t say I didn’t try.

The Amazing Jonathan Documentary (Benjamin Berman, 2019): 2/5

People who smoke meth are erratic.

Last Year at Marienbad, rw (Alain Resnais, 1961): 2.5/5

I had a lot more patience for high formalism tom-foolery when I was in my 20s.

The Old Dark House, rw (James Whale, 1932): 5/5

Halloween Watch #1: Delivers ace performances from Boris Karloff, Ernest Thesiger and Charles Laughton, as well as resolution for all the characters—all in 72 spooky and madcap minutes.

City of the Living Dead (Lucio Fulci, 1980): 1.5/5

Halloween Watch #2:  You’ll hear horror people talk about Fulci as a horror master, but this one never got off the ground for me as either an eye-gouging crowd-pleaser or a synth zone-out.

Friday the 13^th: Parts 2&3 (Steve Miner, 1981/2): 3.5/5

Halloween Watch #3: Contrary to my expectations, these were well-made, efficient, enjoyable and blessedly subtext-free.

High Tension (Alexandre Aja, 2003): 3/5

Halloween Watch #3:  French take on the slasher. Aja has a reputation for brutality, but perhaps we’ve gone a lot farther in the subsequent 16 years?

The King (David Michod, 2019): 3/5

Chalamet lacks the gravitas to really play Hal/Henry V, but his interiority did help to make the character more thoughtful and conscious-wracked than I’ve ever considered him before. Joel Edgerton plays a surprisingly buff and sober Falstaff, and Robert Pattinson has fun channeling Klaus Kinski.

Joker (Todd Phillips, 2019): 4/5

A full-on gaze into the abyss, anchored by another seriously great performance from Phoenix. If you’re going to really notice and feel the meanness, misery, pain and meaningless of our stupid world—well, ya just gotta laugh, right? Or let yourself go crazy, or blow your brains out? The movie gets into trouble when it tries to articulate an alternative, because any response other than anarchic madness just becomes a different brand of fascism.

The Art of Self-Defense (Riley Stearns, 2019): 2/5

Fight Club set in the Napolean Dynomite universe. Yeah, that doesn’t work, does it?

* The Lighthouse (Robert Eggers, 2019): 3/5

Plenty to enjoy here, including two terrific performances. But like The VVitch, it remained too static and open-ended to really satisfy.

The Farewell (Lulu Wang, 2019): 2.5/5

Charming and shallow. Our main character never really acts—and turns out to be just wrong the whole time?

The Tin Drum, rw (Volker Scholondorff, 1979): 3.5/5

Certainly one of the most disturbing movies I’ve ever seen. Free-flowing fuckery, and question marks at every turn. Barbaric, Mystical, Bored: You have given the century its name.

Frozen 2 (Chris Buck, Jennifer Lee, 2019): 2/5

In which Elsa confronts the genocide of the native people by her ancestors (literally, her grandfather), and the conflict is resolved by destroying a dam that is a symbol of the exploitation. So kind of a cross between Dances with Wolves and Zjangke Jia’s Still Life. Jack was as bored as I was, and we didn’t leave humming the songs—but…I didn’t get the first one either, so what do I know.