rewatched Summer Hours (Olivier Assayas, 2008): 4/5
Beautiful slice-of-life family drama. It's a quiet film with nimble camerawork, rich in subtext with a modest look, yet the most complex of themes such as globalization, modernism, art, generational gaps and the inevitability of change.
Also, Juliette Binoche could sip tea in front of a camera for 100 minutes and I'd be enraptured.
rewatched Hi, Mom! (Brian De Palma, 1970): 4/5
For the record, I would watch the shit out of a show called "Humiliate The Honky."
Also probably the greatest title drop of all time.
Down in the Valley (David Jacobson, 2005): 3/5
Is it really an early 2000s movie if they don't put teenage Evan Rachel Wood in a relationship w/ a literal adult
The Mosquito Coast (Peter Weir, 1986): 1.5/5
i wanted a movie with river phoenix (and martha plimpton !!!!!!!) and all i got was annoying, racist and conceited harrison ford in a pseudo jonestown. it’s just the bastard child of Swiss Family Robinson and Lord of the Flies.
Jumbo (Zoe Wittock, 2020): 2.5/5
Or, Portrait of a Tilt-a-Whirl on Fire.
This is basically THE SHAPE OF WATER, but with a carnival ride. And why is it so weird yet it feels so tamed? Noemie Merlant commits to her performance which helps to sell the unusual premise despite the film’s various tonal shifts.
Life Itself (Dan Fogelman, 2018): 1/5
Vapid exercise in narrative kitsch that’s really just overwrought, saccharine, dopey bullshit that can only coax eye-rolls and unintended laughs.
rewatched Annihilation (Alex Garland, 2019): 5/5
There are too many iconic characters to name in this movie: Skeleton Bear With Lady Voice. The Girl Who Became Plants. The Woman Who Threw Up The Universe. The Shiny Dubstep Aliens. The list goes on and on.
Amateur (Hal Hartley, 1994): 3/5
"How can you be a nymphomaniac and never had sex?"
"I'm choosy."
Coming 2 America (Craig Brewer, 2021): 1/5
Makes Tyler Perry look like Billy Wilder.
Allen v. Farrow (Kirby Dick and Amy Zeiring, 2021): No rating
I believe Dylan. He's such a gross creep and hasn't made a good movie since HUSBANDS AND WIVES (1992).
Cherry (Anthony and Joe Russo, 2021): 1.5/5
There isn't a single thing in this that isn't clichéd, recycled, or both. The Russos, news to nobody, are producers and not directors. Tom Holland is bad in it but everyone else is much worse.
Moxie (Amy Poehler, 2021): 2.5/5
Empowering and narratively important for the YA crowd, and I can appreciate that its heart is in the right place. The lead is super bland, unlikeable, and annoying.
rewatched Dance, Girl, Dance (Dorothy Arzner, 1940): 4/5
Super odd film where the plot is all over the place, but it's always really fun to see a young Lucille Ball chewing the scenery so many years before her I Love Lucy success. This movie won’t change your life but it’s a decent romp.
rewatched The Red Shoes (Pressburger and Powell, 1948): 5/5
Why cut between scenes when you could whip-pan instead? Why settle for anything less than Jack Cardiff's camera in Technicolor, with Riviera sunsets pouring into blue-green rooms? Why choose Art or Love when you could have neither?
rewatched Tokyo Twilight (Ozu, 1957): 5/5
One of Ozu's darkest films, containing death, marital problems, and unwanted pregnancy. To top it all off, Ozu complements all these by having the film set in winter. Deeply moving and beautiful.
Dragonwyck (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1946): 3/5
Vincent Price says polite words with such subtle disdain. You can tell immediately how much his character hates his wife. Also, Gene Tierney is too glamazon for a country gal.
Kalifornia (Dominic Sena, 1993): 2.5/5
Agreeably slick and goth-flashy in that quintessentially 90's way, more a fashion statement than a film. Not a thought in its pretty head.
Some Kind of Heaven (Lance Oppenheim, 2020): 3/5
Aestheticized portrait of a pre-fab retirement community in Florida that’s like a hermetic Disneyland for the elderly. But it eventually settles into a more narrow, conventional (albeit engaging) bit of portraiture.
Best part of the film is when the old guy calls his mom and everyone goes “his mom??”
Tom & Jerry (Tim Story, 2021): 1/5
Maybe I hate movies.
The United States vs. Billie Holiday (Lee Daniels, 2021): 2/5
A Bland and Reductive Screenplay vs. Bad Directing vs. Billie Holiday
Ten minutes into this dreary melodrama, Harry Ainslinger, the mustache-twirling villain, growls in a smoky conference room, “This jazz music is the devil’s work. That’s why this Holiday woman’s gotta be stopped.” Who talks like that besides a cartoon mob boss?
Billie Eilish: The World's a Little Blurry (RJ Cutler, 2021): 3/5
Not recognizing Orlando Bloom is a hilarious (unintentional) power move. Also Billie saying “Justin Bieber could ask me to kill my dog and I would” and the camera panning straight to the dog looking sad was my favorite.
Palmer (Fisher Stevens, 2021): 1/5
Painfully unremarkable in every factory made way. Good guy Palmer is a movie about the attempt of an actor seeking awards validation in every baity way possible. Save yourself the time and watch the trailer. Hell, look at the movie poster. It's exactly the aggressively average movie you expect.
Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar (Josh Greenbaum, 2021): 3.5/5
I Care A Lot (J Blakeson, 2021): 3/5
Lesbians vs. Mafia sure is better than the legal drama that I was expecting. Sometimes, all you really want to see in a movie is the great Peter Dinklage playing a lethally sincere crime lord who rocks a man-bun.
Bliss (Mike Cahill, 2021): 1/5
An incoherent mess of a film that suffers from a horrible script, over-the-top performances, and some of the most convoluted world-building ever to be put on screen. The characters' motivations are vague to practically non-existent, and the conflict is so unclear and muddled, you'll spend most of the movie just trying to figure out what the hell is going on. Although, for once, I didn't hate Owen Wilson as much as I usually do, which should tell you exactly how bad the rest of the movie is.
The Climb (Michael Angelo Covino, 2019): 2/5
The movie is at times very funny and it tries to explore a deeper side of male friendship than the usual surface level fare. However, the one friend is so toxic and emotionally destructive that it goes beyond humor and then beyond belief. It just becomes pathetic that they remain friends as the movie goes on and tries to patch it all up by the end, but it's completely unearned.
The Kid Detective (Evan Morgan, 2020): 3.5/5
I had assumed from the title that this was a movie for kids, which most definitely it is not. and then i thought, "oh god do we really need 'what if encyclopedia brown, but dark,'" which, bleh, but thankfully it isn't that, either.
What it IS is a little hidden gem of a movie with a performance by Adam Brody that's both sharp and understated, mixing neo-noir and dark comedy and coming up with a genuinely emotional concoction and a surprisingly affecting and effective ending.
Willy's Wonderland (Kevin Lewis, 2021): 1/5
It's hard to think of this as anything other than a goof, although the endless scenes of Cage silently scrubbing bathrooms or exuberantly playing pinball have their charms. It's just that there isn't really a movie around them.
Run Hide Fight (Kyle Rankin, 2020): 1/5
It's an action thriller centered around a school shooting and it's produced by Ben Shapiro, what, you don't want to watch this?
Sylvie's Love (Eugene Ashe, 2020): 2/5
It’s all pretty but it reminds me more of a TV movie than Sirk or Minnelli or Ray. The script is deeply contrived and weak. Unlike Todd Haynes, this director is so obsessed with aping the past he hasn’t asked what from that time period should be challenged (aside from the fact that Black people are not the romantic leads) and where it might be interesting to layer in modern sensibilities to a recreation of the past.
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