rewatched Written on the Wind (Douglas Sirk, 1956): 4/5

TFW you catch so much dick ur dad dies.

Our Time (Carlos Reygadas, 2018): 3/5

TMI: The Movie. A three-hour excavation of a relationship in free fall, starring Reygadas himself as Juan, the husband, and Reygadas's wife Natalia Lopez as his wife Ester. The couple have three kids, and for years have had an open relationship, although based on what we see, this arrangement seems to be more about Ester taking lovers, and telling Juan the details -- a cuckold sex-play scenario -- than a true egalitarianism. When it appears that Ester develops feelings for one of Juan's friends, a horse breaker named Phil, it brings long-simmering jealousies and resentments to the surface. Probably Reygadas most linear, conventional film.

Monrovia, Indiana (Frederick Wiseman, 2018): 2/5

Wiseman's worst film? "Oooh let's see what Trump voters are thinking and feeling!" Who gives a shit. I've occasionally had my issues with Wiseman's filmmaking, but this is the first time I've come away feeling less informed, if not dumber, than when I started.

Predator 2 (Stephen Hopkins, 1990): 2/5

Unrelentingly stupid, from "what if the jungle were urban this time?" To the Jamaican Voodoo Posse to Bill Paxton's painfully strenuous efforts at providing comic relief. Improves in the home stretch, with flashlight beams struggling their way through particulate matter during the ultraviolet ambush and Harrigan eventually pursuing the Predator onto its spaceship, the interior of which boasts a surprisingly cool design. Passes the time, but I'll have forgotten it all by next week.

Mr. Mom (Stan Dragoti, 1983): 2/5

He's Mr. Mom, so...Dad. Even looking past the dated gender-role bullshit—dudes can't use a vacuum cleaner, grab the bottom grapefruit from a pile and send the others spilling to the floor, lose track of their small children, etc.—this is just almost never funny. Nor is it really actively awful, I guess—just utterly forgettable.

Aquarela (Viktor Kossakovsky, 2018): 2/5

No movie has ever needed David Attenborough more. Basically this is just an Apple TV screensaver with a cheap hard rock soundtrack. Frivolous attempt at feigning depth through minimalism. Water is majestic, it’s dangerous and it will be here long after we all drown in it. There are no doubt beauties and terrors to behold here, but it’s all told from such a cold distance that I felt neither moved nor horrified by any of it.

Everybody Wants Some!! (Richard Linklater, 2016): 2.5/5

No story. No plot. Just dudes being dudes - hanging out and fucking around.

Love the Coopers (Jessie Nelson, 2015): 1.5/5

More like Fuck the Coopers!!!

Nerve (Henry Joost, Ariel Schulman, 2016): 1.5/5

Props for predicting Tik Tok, but this was a chore to get through. Maybe if I was 14 years old, this would be 'like totally the best thing ever', but instead I'm 38 and sad that Juliette Lewis agreed to be in this.

Boo! A Madea Halloween (Tyler Perry, 2016): 0.5/5

For a movie that has "Boo!" and "Halloween" in the title, there is a surprising lack of spooky shenanigans in this, and a surprising amount of discussion about how you should still be allowed to beat your children. Perry also made sure the script he wrote included some teen girls talking about how hot he is - always a cool move.

Billy Lynn's Long Half-Time Walk (Ang Lee, 2016): 1.5/5

I did NOT see the 120 fps 3-D version, obviously. Perhaps it would have made it marginally more bearable IDK.

Ingrid Goes West (Matt Spicer, 2017): 3.5/5

2/3 The Talented Mr. Ripley + 1/3 King of Comedy = Ingrid Goes West. Funny, scary. Plaza is fantastic.

Rebel in the Rye (Danny Strong, 2017): 1.5/5

J.D. Salinger Superficial Cliche Factory. Most great author biopics are just faintly dull and unnecessary. Rebel In The Rye, true to its ridiculous title, is proudly, even aggressively hackneyed.

The Only Living Boy in New York (Marc Webb, 2017): 1.5/5

The Only Narcissistic Little Asshole in New York (A City Which Is a Shadow of Its Former Glory, Guys; Raise a Glass to the Good Old Days, I'm 22 Years Old & I Know My Stuff)

Tour de Pharmacy (Jake Szymanski, 2017, 41 mins): 4/5

Perfectly stupid and hilarious mockumentary with a terrific cast.

Strange Way of Life (Pedro Almodovar, 2023, 31 mins): 2/5

The Tilda one is better.

Nai Nai & Wai Po (Sean Wang, 2023, 17 mins): 3.5/5

Ah yes my tear ducts' mortal enemies; old Asian women living their lives to the fullest. If anyone ever hurts my two new grandmas sleep with one eye open.

American Fiction (Cord Jefferson, 2023): 3.5/5

Loved the film when it's relaxed and observational and lightly funny, didn't connect with it when it aimed for provocative and outrageous. Minor qualm: there's no friggin way Monk could've written an entire novel in what just appears to be a few days, even out of annoyance and spite and EVEN if it's intentionally garbage.

While the City Sleeps (Fritz Lang, 1956): 3/5

Starts out as a serial-killer thriller (with Drew Barrymore's dad as the super-sweaty psycho) but speedily shifts gears into an oddball journalism melodrama involving a hugely improbable competition among various beats (newspaper, TV, wire)—not merely to land the story, but to actually catch the murderer! This particular corporation boasts a bizarrely incestuous staff who are not only fucking each other but all seem to live and/or tryst in the same apartment building, and the film's primarily about the ways in which their professional and romantic machinations coincide. Might have loved this had the killer truly become an afterthought, but the film keeps returning to him for interludes of conventional suspense, even though Lang's attention is clearly elsewhere. Worth watching for its stellar cast (including Thomas Mitchell in an atypically abrasive turn) and its subtle perversity, plus the amazing moment in which Lupino conveys her character's raging libido by tapping her lower teeth against a highball glass.

Eureka (Nicolas Roeg, 1983): 1/5

Nicholas Roeg out Roeg's himself. An incomprehensible mess of biblical proportions that is at times watchable and surreal but you're not entirely sure why and then a mixture of horrendously pompous and wildly unwatchable nonsense that makes you wonder if you're being left out of a joke.

Stay Hungry (Bob Rafelson, 1976): 2/5

Someone randomized like 7 scripts into one and that's how this movie came to be.

Roadgames (Richard Franklin, 1981): 1.5/5

This one tries way too hard to be like Rear Window on 18 wheels and fails at every turn. Even Jamie Lee Curtis' character is named Hitch. She's the lead actress and is barely in the film.

Stacy Keach is fine, but his lines are ridiculous. He espouses cliches, puns and quotes books and poetry as he rides his rig with his pet dingo/dog through Australia chasing after a suspected serial killer.

Club Zero (Jessica Hausner, 2023): 2/5

About the physical and psychological dangers of radical dieting. Whatever the film claims to want to say about eating disorders and cultish behavior, Hausner barely scratches the surface. Hollow and devoid of precious nutrients.

Seymour: An Introduction (Ethan Hawke, 2015): 3/5

A lovely portrait of a virtuoso pianist. In learning from and about Bernstein, we essentially learn a great deal about music, as seen from a particular perspective. Whether or not you’ve studied piano, it is fascinating to observe Bernstein’s gentle but rigorous technique in correcting errors, training the musicians’ bodies, and helping them to locate their own place within the piece they are trying to perform.

Making Waves: The Art of Cinematic Sound (Midge Costin, 2019): 3/5

I have some issues with the structure of this film, which starts chronologically then suddenly moves into an explanation of an infographic provided an hour earlier. But I think most of my issues stem from the fact that this is a hell of a scope for one film to cover, and so it's necessarily a whistle stop tour which presumes (rightly or wrongly) that basically everything worth mentioning about sound happened in America and ignores everything after 5.1. The rest stem from some workman-like moments (the same visual sting for each year place card gets old very quickly).

Putting those qualms aside, this is a fine celebration of innovation and innovators in cinema sound. If it only skims the surface, there's a *lot* of surface to skim, and it does take the time to revel in certain moments and scenes that help keep it from being entirely superficial, and I did enjoy it on a moment-to-moment basis. 

Fractured (Brad Anderson, 2019): 1/5

Another lineup in Netflix's Crap-O-Rama for people who have never watched a single movie in their life. (It's literally just "he imagined the whole thing".)

'Pimpernel' Smith (Leslie Howard, 1941): 3/5

Leslie Howard reworking his success as The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934) with a modern day Nazi angle as 'Pimpernel' Smith, infiltrating the Third Reich in his sly British manner. The fat knob, head of the Nazis, didn't have a clue and Howard played him lovely like a fool.

Mammoth (Lukas Moodysson, 2009): 3/5 

Unfortunately this doesn't beat the "sounds an awful lot like Babel" allegations, and Moodysson is a lot shakier at global profundity than he is at grounded, difficult human drama. But it's often good enough on a scene-by-scene basis to mitigate its failings in the macro.

The Company of Wolves (Neil Jordan, 1984): 1/5

Even for a film with this title, I was floored by the sheer number of wolves!

Speak No Evil (Christian Tafdrup, 2022): 4/5 

Masterfully unsettling and ghastly bleak and uncompromising - totally reminds me of Haneke, who I love. Get ready to never wanna make new friends ever again. 

This is Me...Now (Dave Meyers, 2024): 1/5

If you liked This is Me… Now, you will also like:

-the Gal Gadot “Imagine” video
-"Music" directed by Sia
-the movie montage from the end of "Babylon"
-Barbra Streisand’s 100-hour audiobook memoir as read by herself
-any Sprite commercial ever made
-Gigli

Also, how old is J.Lo now because 1) she looks amazing and 2) she has views on love comparable to that of a 14 year old.