The Adults (Dustin Guy Defa, 2023): 3/5

Having siblings as an adult is really weird. You used to grow up together. As kids you share so many experiences, create your own little games, have secrets, look up to each other, shape each other as a person. But as soon as you become an adult to find your own way of life this intense connection quickly disappears. Now you only see them maybe once a year, rarely text or talk, and although you still love them you don't even really know them anymore. And whenever you do get back together it is so hard to share your actual feelings and problems. Instead you just start acting like the goofballs you were as little kids. You just stop being that person you have become.

THE ADULTS perfectly brings that experience to the big screen, creating funny, but also cringey and emotionally heartbreaking scenes that hit almost a little too close to home. Seeing those fictional characters makes you think about your own siblings. Maybe you should call them some time. Wonderfully gentle, autumnal US indie about three siblings maneuvering adulthood and letting go of past slights. Perfectly cast.

Cobweb (Samuel Bodin, 2023): 1/5

Like cobwebs: full of holes, thin, and more clichéd than scary.

Her Socialist Smile (John Gianvito, 2020): 3/5

Though her life generated voluminous literature, most people ignore the fact that iconic deaf-blind author Helen Keller was one of the most passionate socialist advocates of her time. John Gianvito resurrects Keller's radical views, which have been largely suppressed or sanitized over the years. In HER SOCIALIST SMILE, he researches how, beginning in her early 30s, the pioneer leftist thinker fervently and eloquently spoke out on behalf of many progressive causes, from the rights of women and the disabled, to international socialism and world peace. Gianvito combines onscreen text taken from her most memorable public appearances, recorded voiceover by politically engaged poet Carolyn Forche, and quiet images of nature, creating another unique blend of activism, historical analysis and poetry. Reminding us that leftist struggles are inseparable from disability advocacy, Keller's words remain remarkably pertinent today.

rewatched Flirting with Disaster (David O. Russel, 1996): 3/5

Good old Ben Stiller! Always the most neurotic and unlikable one.

Also, I wanna be friends with the Richard Jenkins/Josh Brolin FBI power couple so bad.

Inventing the Abbotts (Pat O'Conner, 1997): 2/5

A post-war tale of young love crossing class boundaries, set in a patriarchal all-white, all-heterosexual 50’s where everyone looks like models. It’s almost as horrendous as it sounds, as taken straight from some nostalgic postcard of a time that never was. The plot doesn’t engage, the direction is uninspired, and the premise ideologically suspect and conservative. The film’s only selling point seems to be that it’s full of pretty people. And well, they are very pretty, I’ll give the film that. Too bad that the only one who impresses not only with looks but also with her acting (Jennifer Connelly) disappears halfway through, leaving the rest of the cast just as confused as the narrative is meandering.

The Sweet Hereafter (Atom Egoyan, 1997): 3/5

Like EXOTICA in its carefully concocted structure, Atom Egoyan plays doctor once again, surgically incising a straightforward throughline and splicing it meticulously back together non chronologically to produce an entirely different narrative that becomes not so much about the tragedy of losing someone, but the anguish of living without them (there’s a small, but very clear distinction). The story is fed to us little by little, fragmented not for showmanship, but with a purpose; the precise sequencing does not follow Time, but Emotion—it’s not so much about an accident as it is about coping with things we cannot change, for better or for worse. There’s a staggering depth to THE SWEET HEREAFTER, a film that continues to peel itself back like an onion, layer by layer, only there’s no real core to grab onto in the end; the “resolution” is murky at best, but not in a pompously evasive way, rather it mimics true sentiment in that there’s no clear-cut right-or-wrong way to handle such hefty baggage.

The Starling Girl (Laurel Parmet, 2023): 2.5/5

A perfectly adequate indie coming-of-age drama centered around a daughter stuck navigating the religious zealotry and hypocrisy of her own religious morality. It places a special emphasis on escaping that community and the perils of staying.

It’s a sturdy movie, but suffers from hitting too many of the same beats in too similar a way as a hundred other movies just like it.

rewatched The Gleaners and I (Agnes Varda, 2000): 3.5/5

Could be considered a self-portrait, even though Varda never exposes herself as a gleaner per se. She becomes a gleaner of images, video, and experiences.

La Cienaga (Lucrecia Martel, 2001): 2.5/5

I'm sorry, this just didn't work for me. Abstractly, I get it -- careful and exact observation, check. Organizing metaphor, check. I'm even down with the Chekhov comparisons, up to a point. But the inert, apathetic deadness of all these characters just left me inert, apathetic and half-dead; the happiest moment of my viewing was when I realized it was a half hour shorter than I expected.

The Big Combo (Joseph H. Lewis, 1955): 3/5

Fundamentally a functional b-movie crime film, The Big Combo is elevated by its style. The sultry jazz score, the inky visuals, razor sharp dialogue and measured direction. On the other hand, the plot lacks some credibility and Cornel Wilde is typically one dimensional.

Insidious: The Red Door (Patrick Wilson, 2023): 1/5

Doesn't deserve a scathing review from me, because nothing happens in this movie to warrant it. In fact, nothing really happens in this film at all. 107 minutes are spent wallowing from scene to scene with surface level explorations of a fragmented father-son relationship and the trauma from previous installments. This repetitive plot jump-scare reliant ass franchise has finally ended which means at last the true evil has been defeated.

Lost River (Ryan Gosling, 2014): 2.5/5

Ryan Gosling in his directorial debut shows an aptitude for constructing moody imagery and soundscapes, but I had a hard time following the narrative, which at times seemed to disappear in a daze. Like a pilfered, Fabergé egg, it is a sight to behold but completely hollow beneath its bejeweled veneer. Favorite aspect of the film is easily that luscious Chromatic score.

House by the River (Fritz Lang, 1950): 3/5

In spite of being a part of Fritz Lang's fascinating shift from Nietzschean supermen to everyman protagonists suddenly pitted in a situation of life and death, House By the River is a mere exercise for him. He makes little use of the limited abilities of the cast, the setting, the story and even lets the film fly with a particularly shabby ending. The film remains enjoyable for the most part as a thriller about an unhinged central character, a guilt- consumed accomplice, a terrible crime, and the symbolic shift of fate caused by the nearby river.

On Golden Pond (Mark Rydell, 1981): 2.5/5

Sort of works as an elegy of Old Hollywood. Two of its biggest stars get one last chance to dominate the screen and they do. It's got lots of eye-rolling moments to spare but luckily it's still got a few scenes of genuine warmth and earned sentimentality to go along with it. The actors featured in the film are some of the finest on screen talents of the 20th century, it's just too bad they couldn't find a director capable of matching their talents.

One thing that really irritates me about On Golden Pond is that it contains an overly orchestrated score that underscores every emotion on screen to the point of parody.

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (Tim Burton, 2007): 3/5

Musical about baking pies and slaughtering the cast of Harry Potter.