Nope (Jordan Peele, 2022): 2.5/5

In gymnastics, when someone attempts a really hard move but can’t land it, you still applaud the effort. So, I'm glad Peele is out here swinging, and I don't want him to stop. But he didn't land this one. Fun ideas with some great moments, but ultimately has the depth of a sketchbook. One thing I find interesting is how Peele is carving out this monopoly on what I’m calling “non-scary horror” (it's a shit name, open to suggestions). He’s using the aesthetics of horror and tension films to make interesting but ultimately widely palatable movies for people who normally can’t fuck with the genre. They're not scary, they're just wearing the clothes. And it's obviously tremendously effective. Make of that what you will.

Nekromantik 2 (Jorg Buttgereit, 1991): 1/5

Like most infamous shock cinema, this is more notorious than it is actually any good. The first one at least rubbed up against some vague post-war Berlin Wall-era anti-establishment anger with its antics. There's a hint of mistrust of German reunification here, but mostly this is interested in what it can get away with, which even then isn't particularly shocking.

The Blob (Chuck Russell, 1988): 3/5

Solid semi-solid movie!

The Gray Man (Anthony and Joe Russon, 2022): 1.5/5

I think if someone watched Bourne Ultimatum, got a concussion, and then went to sleep immediately after, this movie would be the dream they'd have.

The Russo brothers cement themselves as dull corporate hacks with this film.

Leaving Las Vegas (Mike Figgis, 1995): 2/5

The pre-credits scene is a superb little 15-minute short. It's only when he meets Shue that the whole thing turns putrid.

Broadcast News (James L. Brooks, 1987): 3/5

Some days I'm Al Brooks, some days I'm Holly Hunter. But every day I'm Joan Cusack running full-speed into a water fountain.

Citizen Ashe (Sam Pollard, Rex Miller, 2021): 3.5/5

The film is a monument to the gentlemanly and cerebral Ashe, the way he met the challenges of his times, and the toll it took on him. I wouldn’t call him the anti-Ali since Ashe and Ali wanted the same outcomes, they just had completely different styles of going about it. I loved when Dr. Harry Edwards acknowledged that Ashe, whom he initially wrote off as an Uncle Tom, was in some ways more radical than himself while maintaining an elegant, soft-spoken persona. He learned something from Ashe that I think far too few of us (who prefer loud performative defiance to quiet efficacy) have learned.

Persuasion (Carrie Cracknell, 2022): 1/5

A "Fleabag" style punch up of an Austen novel. Horrendous miscalculation. The anachronistic language was another awful decision. AND it's completely UN-HORNY, lacking any real sensuality or romantic vibes. Also, Dakota is just that person who can't be in a period piece...She looks like someone who knows what an iPhone is.

Parallel Mothers (Almodovar, 2021): 4/5
Fantastic. Should have been in a neck-and-neck race with Power of the Dog for the Oscar, but maybe Almodovar's color fetish and flirtations with kitsch and excess don't appeal as much as a good-old stolid drama. How the mothers/lovers' lives and the lives of their babies intertwine is the reason to see this film. It is a film of power and honesty, without a single false note along the way.

Secrets & Lies (Mike Leigh, 1996): 3/5

“We’re all in pain.

Why can’t we share our pain."

A bit dated and melodramatic but I found it moving at times.

The Secret Lives of Dentists (Alan Rudolph, 2002): 3/5

Harrowing trip into the reticent male psyche with Campbell Scott, plus nimble assistance from a beautifully flustered Hope Davis, and Dennis Leary in the Tyler Durden-esque motormouth role he was born to play; shows a family unit with neither sentimentality nor garish caricature.

The Automat (Lisa Hurwitz, 2021): 3/5

Nice and sweet. Like any good American film it slowly convinces you its subject is somehow integral to understanding modern America even if you knew nothing about it beforehand. Some might think it frivolous or a trifle but I think the film has something to say about the shift in American capitalism before and after World War Two and what we lost as a country in the modern age. Also liked how the editors used the subjects asking questions of the director (which most docs would have cut) and also allowed the subjects to ask questions of one another.

Good Luck to You, Leo Grande (Sophie Hyde, 2022): 3/5

Never really transcends its dull overlit look or PSA mindset, but charming enough on the strength of its leads. Obviously I knew Emma’s performance would be spellbinding but goddamn where has Daryl McCormack been hiding? Goes from holding his own to fully stealing scenes.

The 355 (Simon Kinberg, 2022): 1.5/5

Women…we gotta do better than this

Chastain if you don’t stop bussin down for the CIA…

Peggy Sue Got Married (Francis Ford Coppola, 1986): 2/5

Where Kathleen Turner and Nicolas Cage have weird fucking faces that somehow pass as both 18 and 43 years old.

JFK (Oliver Stone, 1991): 2.5/5

This movie is almost as long as the actual Kennedy administration. The whole thing is just one long argument and every detail of that argument is wrong.

Dog (Channing Tatum, Reid Carolin, 2022): 1/5

More like Dog SHIT. This is probably Tucker Carlson's favorite movie.

Clean (Paul Solet, 2021): 2/5

Adrien Brody must be going through a midlife crisis. Lead, Co-Writer, Producer, and Original Music & Score.

The Bob's Burgers Movie (Loren Bouchard, Bernard Derriman, 2022): 3/5

“Cotton Candy Dan? Is that the guy who sold corn dogs?”

Delightful and accessible. (Never seen one episode of the show. I might change that.)

The Black Phone (Scott Derrickson, 2022): 2/5

You’re telling me kids in this small town are being kidnapped and murdered every few weeks and no one is hip to the giant black van circling the school that says “Abracadabra” on the side?

Miracle Mile (Steve de Jarnatt, 1988): 3/5

Essentially Los Angeles AFTER HOURS meets THREADS. Who wouldn't want to die at Canter's Deli?

Ozark (Bill Dubuque, Mark Williams, 2017-2022): 3.5/5 

Our anti-heroes are the Byrde family, with Jason Bateman and Laura Linney as the wily, resourceful "our means are better than your means" parents who are digging out of their drug cartel obligations and on the road to "normal" backdoor deals and power brokering that are part and parcel of the free world of a democratic society. On the one hand, the ending begs for continuation, on the other, the cycle of vengeance is never complete as those hillbilly mainstays, the Hatfield and McCoys remind us.

The series is best in the family dynamics with the Byrde kids moving from pre to post-adolescence over the course of the series (as they actors themselves age) and taking polar opposite stands vis a vis their parents, but then there's the cartel family dynamics and Ruth's and Darlene's families as well, all of which reveal flaws that if not classically tragic are still tragic enough to bring death and woe upon those who survive.

And the Byrde parents, though capable of just about anything, never commit violence themselves. Both are supremely skilled at talking their in and out of pickles and devising bad ends for others but always at arm's length. It's a tribute to smarts of a peculiar but vivid kind and is one of the qualities that makes this a worthwhile series to check out. 

SUCCESSION (Jesse Armstrong, Seasons 1-3): 4.5/5

I love Shiv (Sarah Snook's) facial expressivity. She lights up or dims down in a 100 different ways and contrasts with the semi-frozen monster dad, Logan (Brian Cox) and her two brothers Roman (Kieran Culkin) with his straight-faced witty, naughty and sometimes stinging quips, and Kendall (Jeremy Strong) with his slightly tensed, not quite there look and seething anger. Unlike Lear, Logan never turns power over. Instead, maybe because we have much more time to fill, he flatters and seduces one offspring after another with promises that never quite materialize. The betrayals and undercutting piles up, dirty secrets leak out, crises recur, and much of the time the series is a mix of intense close ups and barbed dialogue. It keeps one's focus, and, apart from the predictably musical chairs, interest. It's not quite over but you can bet it won't be changing stripes either.  There's a reason I didn't want to be in the world of business.