Barbie (Greta Gerwig, 2023): 3.5/5

I wasn't expecting Barbie and Oppenheimer to have such commonalities in their presentation of moral-complexity: Oppenheimer being about morality crisscrossed into world devastation and Barbie about the complicated intersections of structural power and simple human feeling. Here, an explicitly and unapologetically feminist film with wall-to-wall gags paper over what is essentially a rehashing of The Truman Show, but the jokes really are clever so complaining about it seems a little fruitless. Robbie and Gosling are both doing career-best work here. They're so excellent at existing in satirical and genuine modes at the exact same time, doing such great physical comedy tonally instep with every part of the production. I think Robbie gets a bit more of the emotion and Gosling a bit more of the comedy and they both dominate. The pastel Barbieland aesthetic is so stylized and committed to a certain feeling/vibe that any transition to "reality" is harsh and almost upsetting.

All around delightful, innovative, and even meaningful. ALSO: The scene where one of the Ken’s explains “The Godfather” to one of the Barbie’s - well played, Greta.

Oppenheimer (Christopher Nolan, 2023): 3/5

Clearly well made and tells what is on paper a fascinating story of moral dilemmas, personal malaise and the global implications of such extraordinary powerful technology, but, and it's an annoying but, it's basically a succession of mini courtroom dramas with an origin story at the beginning and the obligatory explosions of exposition and atomic energy occasionally interrupting things. Cillian, RDJ, and Damon are all terrific here though.

No Hard Feelings (Gene Stupnitsky, 2023): 3/5

Jennifer Lawrence crushes her first fully funny film. Loved the bit of her explaining how old she is in the most confidently convoluted way possible.

Asteroid City (Wes Anderson, 2023): 2.5/5

Confectionary artifice meets labored eccentricities yet again. Wes desperately needs a writer and I need another FANTASTIC MR. FOX from him stat.

Farewell, Friend (Jean Herman, 1968): 2/5

Alain Delon and Charles Bronson what can go wrong. Well apparently a lot. The story premise doesn't really make sense and it takes a long time to get to a plot point that makes it intriguing and even then it is still meh.

Jennifer's Body (Karyn Kusama, 2009): 2.5/5

"It's freaktarded"

Wow Diablo Cody really thought she did something with this script didn't she.

Movie's all over the place, but I am very sympathetic to the idea that ultimate evil lies with impotent talentless douchebags making offensively bland indie rock.

The Blackening (Tim Story, 2022): 3/5

The idea's funny and more jokes probably land than not, but this was bound to feel like a 4-minute comedy short stretched into a 97-minute feature because it's a 4-minute comedy short stretched into a 97-minute feature. I had a good time though.

Gauguin: Voyage to Tahiti (Edouard Deluc, 2017): 2/5

Giving this an extra star because at least it was in French, but how are you gonna travel from Paris to Polynesia in the 19th century and not show any of it? (Also it's in the title of the film???)

I never really liked Gauguin anyways.

All About Lily Chou-Chou (Shunji Iwai, 2001): 1.5/5

Kinda like trying to read Naked Lunch, everyone out there pretentiously pretending to understand it but at the end of the day it’s just a collection of shit.

The End of Summer (Ozu, 1961): 3/5

By this point in his career, Ozu is a full-throttle master. His style and usual themes are simply on autopilot; effortlessly traversing human drama in a way others work towards their whole lives. This is also the gripe I have with the film. I wouldn’t call it a criticism, as it achieves everything it is trying to do, with the intention and creation in perfect flow. It just feels stale. Ozu’s films have always been ascetic, slow, and impenetrable, but The End of Summer simply reminds me of other films of his that crescendo far greater.

Sanctuary (Zachary Wigon, 2022): 1.5/5

SANCTUARY is a pretty poor lay. Has a weak and repetitive script that might’ve worked as a short, but as we watch this millionaire bitch boy and his dominatrix ramble on about the same blackmail video for an interminable ninety minutes, you just want to tell them both to put their pants on and go home.

ALSO: Margaret Qually. Blegh. Don't know who's a more annoying Nepo-Baby: her or Zoe Kazan. Sanctuary just proves Margaret does not have the voice or demeanor for psycho femme fatales the way Jennifer Jason Leigh, Sharon Stone or Rosamund Pike do, tbh.

The Thief of Bagdad (Ludwig Berger, Michael Powell, Tim Whelan, 1940): 3/5

Imagine receiving three wishes from a genie and using your first one on a pan of sausages.

Early Michael Powell sans Emeric Pressburger shooting some scenes that definitely foreshadow some of their later Arrow work. This actually has some of the most contorted and chaotic storytelling I’ve ever seen, but it’s all so colorful and weird and melodramatic and goofy that it’s hard to care.

Moonstruck (Norman Jewison, 1987): 1/5

THIS is Moonstruck?? The movie everyone and their mom has been raving about for ages??? This movie makes no sense!!!! No sense whatsoever!!!!! Nicolas Cage being mad at his brother because he was dumb enough to chop his own hand off! The whole my mom is dying!!! Now my mom is alive!!!! cant marry you now cuz otherwise she will die!!! And then Nicolas and Cher getting engaged after knowing each other for what??? three days?????

Anyway, just neither funny nor particularly enjoyable.

You Hurt My Feelings (Nicole Holofcener, 2023): 3/5

Light, breezy, and totally vanilla. And that's OK!

Steel Magnolias (Herbert Ross, 1989): 2/5

Just can't claim to enjoy jokes from your aunts' refrigerator magnets combined with a terminal illness* saga made worse by obligatory motherhood!

*The whole premise is stupid. She just had diabetes ??? Like maybe listen to your doctors you dumb bitch ??

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Joaquim Dos Santos, 2023): 2.5/5

Well it's no COME AND SEE.

rewatched The Celebration (Thomas Vinterberg, 1998): 4/5 

Also known as America's Funniest Home Videos: Crazy Danes Edition.

Drunken Angel (Kurosawa, 1948): 3/5

Kurosawa regulars Toshiro Mifune and Takashi Shimura star in this grimy look at post-war Tokyo. Shimura plays the titular hero, an alcoholic doctor who strikes up an unlikely friendship with Mifune’s small-time yakuza. Slowly succumbing to tuberculosis, and either bedridden or coughing up blood for most of the film, an unnervingly young Mifune still manages to take complete command of the screen, as Kurosawa explores a wounded city and population sifting through the mud and rubble of the Second World War. Far from the director’s best work, this is nevertheless a worthwhile piece of work, not least because of its two central performances.

rewatched The Marriage of Maria Braun (Fassbinder, 1979): 3.5/5

Smartly presented classic motif "hero is the embodiment of a whole nation and money isn't everything"

Fox and His Friends (Fassbinder, 1975): 2.5/5

Establishes its critique early, and sticks to it with little variation. It's certainly not a subtle or surprising film.

Murina (Antoneta Alamat Kusijanovic, 2021): 3/5

Sparse, but a very good eye for all the power dynamics at play, strong central performance and good use of both Curtis and the well shot scenery.

rewatched Breaking the Waves (Lars Von Trier, 1996): 3.5/5

Second viewing, last time was circa 2004 before my cinematic knowledge was anything other than ground-level wherein I spent much of the time wondering why it was filmed in such dismal quality. I did "like" it, though, despite my ignorance to Dogme 95 (or Lars Von Trier in general) at the time; I distinctly remember the moral conundrum being an absolute dagger, one of sadistic consequences betrothed to genuinely stirring sentimentality rooted in an obsessive, unhealthy display of unconditional love. What I hadn’t retained, however, was how brashly the film follows a contour of blind faith. Worth enduring, however aggravating, to see one of the rawest performances of the 90s. This film lives and dies at Emily Watson’s hands.

Overlord (Julius Avery, 2018): 2.5/5

Was expecting for this to be NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD but WWII/Nazi zombies. I was surprised that the first half was such a straight-faced men on a mission war movie with little hint of the supernatural, and even more surprised that when the supernatural comes in full force it suddenly switches tones to something RE-ANIMATOResque, only with big studio notes.