DEVO (Chris Smith, 2025): 4/5

“When the captain says the ship is sinking, you don’t call him ‘a pessimist’ if it is.”

A needed reintroduction to the great Ohio art-punks Devo: Kent State students radicalized-as-artists in 1970 when they witnessed the National Guard open fire on unarmed protestors, killing 4. (It’s a chilling reminder of what we’re seeing today: The normalization of the federal government turning on its own people.) They saw the dehumanization of the factory workers around them and embraced the anger they saw in Dadaism and the multimedia subversion in Pop Art. Their Brian Eno-produced Q: Are We Not Men? remains an astounding debut, and their first several albums are all good-to-great, but their 1 pop hit was a blessing and a curse. For a few years they had a much bigger audience, but in the ‘80s their anti-conformity message baffled their interviewers, who kept asking if they were serious. Because mocking President Reagan's phony-macho conservatism—and having a good time doing it!—was unfathomable to them.

Director by Chris Smith gets great interviews from the guys, and rightly keeps the focus on them and the music to show how much the politics was always there in plain sight. “We were seeing a world that was the antitheses of the idealized, promised future ginned up in the ’50s and ’60s.” The devolution they started seeing in the ‘70s was willfully ignored in the ‘80s and only seems worse now. “We didn’t want to be right,” they say towards the end. But they left a great soundtrack for dancing while the ship goes down.

Thanks to this widely available and entertaining doc, we can all get a glimpse into the right context to appreciate Devo. Synth pop provocateurs that were designed to be too ahead of their time. I mean, that was the point. Right?

It's Never Over, Jeff Buckley (Amy J. Berg, 2025): 3.5/5

Damn that white boy can sing!

Stans (Steven Leckart, 2025): 2.5/5

“Eat a dick.” Thank you, Marshall, truly inspiring.

Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning (Christopher McQuarrie, 2025): 2/5

and

F1 (Joseph Kosinski, 2025): 2/5

I was never entirely comfortable with or even able to comprehend "brat summer" but it beats the hell out of "aging white men with messiah complex" summer.

Superman (James Gunn, 2025): 2/5

Good casting for Superman himself. I hope Guy With The Worst Last Name I Ever Heard gets better Superman movies. But Hoult was a terrible choice. He's great in FURY ROAD and absolutely nothing else. He's the definition of mid and has zero charisma, which would have been necessary to this and most Lexes.

Eddington (Ari Aster, 2025): 3/5

Can someone take Joaquin Phoenix’s dick and balls out of Ari’s peripherals so he can go back to making monumental horror movies

The Thursday Murder Club (Chris Columbus, 2025): 1/5

Chris Columbus has always been a company hack. So basic and televisual. Legitimately an ugly movie, simultaneously too bright and too hazy at the same time, everything lathered in this nauseatingly digitized uncanny valley that makes everyone look like they've been digitally de-aged, even though this is specifically a movie about pensioners! (And the script is an absolute joke.)

I remember some news story about the Netflix algorithm dictating that no new movie should be over two hours, since apparently that's the limit for when people decide not to bother (I'd argue a much bigger hurdle for audience retention is that all their movies are dogshit like this, but that's just me).

Weapons (Zach Cregger, 2025): 4.5/5

IMO not as much Magnolia as it is 23 Short Films about Springfield.

Tightly constructed and thoroughly gripping. Cements Zack Cregger as one of the most exciting voices working in horror right now. No notes!

Together (Michael Shanks, 2025): 3.5/5

You ever love someone so much you become non binary

Sorry, Baby (Eva Victor, 2025): 4/5

"I’m sorry that bad things are gonna happen to you. But sometimes bad stuff just happens. That's why I feel bad for you, in a way. That you're alive and you don't know that yet. "

An exceptionally assured tonal tightrope, and a stirring, exciting debut. Naomi Ackie has the greatest face in cinema today.

War of the Worlds (Rich Lee, 2025): 0.5/5

Data, you understand, is the aliens’ food. They eat it up like spaghetti.

“Mmmm data!” They cry as they nosh on your smartphone.

To them, a thumb drive is but a Snickers bar and a 5G network is a Michelin star restaurant.

(Slop in its sloppiest form.)

I May Destroy You (Sam Miller, Michaela Coel, 2020): 3.5/5

Impressive stuff by Michaela Coel, both writing-wise and acting-wise. There are some ups and downs along the way (particularly the flashback episode and the handling of Kwame's arc), but it's made with love and handled with care throughout, and the finale is terrific. Thematically, it bears some similarities to Fleabag in a way that it is a fresh, sharp and original British dramedy that doesn’t go for traditional closures or happy endings at any point. Plus it comes with a powerhouse lead performance. For the most part, brimming with creativity, pain, and self deprecation. I doubt I’ll forget it any time soon.

 

Eddington (Ari Aster, 2025): 4.5/5

We’re all being pulled in separate directions according to who we find online, and in the end, it’s big tech that wins. That’s a fairly cogent look at today—although admittedly there is tons of static in the storytelling. Privileged young white kids chanting Black Lives Matter and ACAB. The self-righteousness of victimhood. Who else is grappling with these sacred cows? For that and for its anxiousness, it’s a difficult watch but a bracing one. Half the time I’m rooting for our protagonist and half of the time not, and all the characters make sense sometimes. “I wanted to make a movie about what it feels like to live in a world where no one can agree about what is happening.” Phoenix is perfect.

 

Vulcanizadora (Joel Potrykus, 2025): 4/5

A character in the film describes hell not as pain and heat but as sad and nervous. Everything that you figure is going to happen in the first act is only half the story. Funny and dark. Effective use of one-ers in both very long shots and close-ups. 

 

Sorry, Baby (Eva Victor, 2025): 3.5/5

Well written and acted, although I didn’t love the subject matter. Lucas Hedges is excellent and should be in all movies.  

 

On Becoming a Guinea Fowl (Rungano Nyoni, 2025): 3/5

The situation is similar to a different modern classic (not saying which), but the setting, characters and style make it worth watching. A fascinating look at what life Is like in Zambia, with great attention on morays and rituals of behavior, and the feel of village and family life and the nearby areas is vividly rendered. The younger generation all speak English (Zambia being an English colony until 1964.) which makes it significant what language is being spoken (and it’s often a blend).

 

Together (Michael Shanks, 2025): 2/5

Paper-thin body horror for Zillennials. These actors are bad. 

 

The Man Who Wasn’t There, rw (Joel Coen, 2001): 3/5

Maybe the hardest Coens movie to watch. It’s true that it’s filled with comically exaggerated characters and good roles for some of our favorite character actors, but the tone and protagonist are somnambulant, the Citizen Kane dramatic lighting is stultifying, the pace is glacial, and the worldview is grim. 

 

He Who Gets Slapped, rw (Victor Sjöström, 1924): 4/5

A clown fetishizes his moment of greatest degradation and reenacts it for laughs over and over. Smiley-face emoji. 

 

They Shoot Horses Don’t They (Sydney Pollack, 1969): 3/5

A lot of human suffering, a static drama, and no catharsis. Like Beckett without the laughs. 

 

The Wings of Eagles (John Ford, 1957): 3/5

A little bit of everything wrapped up in one corny but watchable autobio-pic swiftly covering 40 years. A slap and tickle tale of the rivalry between Navy airman and Army airman with plenty of drinkin’ and brawlin’. A domestic drama. An accident and hard-won medical triumph. A portrait of a writer. And finally a war drama with some very authentic footage. John Wayne plays Frank Wead, who wrote They Were Expendable and 20 other mostly military-themed films throughout the 30s and 40s. Maureen O’Hara is his impossibly forbearing wife, profiting from the familiarity built from their work together on The Quiet Man five years earlier. (They would work together twice more, in 1963’s McClintock! and 1971’s Big Jake.

 

Kanehsatake , 270 Years of Resistance (Alanis Obomsawin, 1993): 3/5

The town of Oka, near Montreal, wishes to create a 9-hole golf course (!) on land that belongs to the Mohawk Nation, so the Mohawks create an encampment on the land, leading to a stand-off with the Canadian army. A portrait of the state and society of Original People in Montreal and across Canada at a crux point with White politicians, the army, and the general community (all hostile). In truth, I don’t really think occupying an area of land in defiance of the government is a great strategy. Think the Occupy Wall Street folks, the Branch Davidians in Waco, the Malheur Standoff in Oregon, or the Pro Palestine encampment at UCLA. Without debating the relative righteousness of the different groups, real discussions happen in court, for better or worse. 

 

Toute la mémoire du monde, 21m (Alain Resnais, 1956): 3/5

A multi-focused portrait of the Bibliothèque Nationale of France. Part homage to the those who document and catalogue art works, part a marveling at this great brain, the closest thing there was to the internet in 1956. Plus a Wiseman-like portrait of Kafkaesque or Brazil-like bureaucracy—the shoveling of books like coal. Arty and boring (if it had Ed Wood’s name on it).

 

The Blood Spattered Bride (Vicente Aranda, 1972): 3/5

I just read Carmilla, the short novel that this erotic horror Eurotrash film is based on, about a young female vampire (15ish years old) and her relationship with her newest victim, another young girl. (Written 25 years before Dracula). The film literalizes the novel’s lesbian anxieties. But unlike the book, our female protagonist is not a victim but a villain (for not wanting to have sex with the male but instead with the woman) that must be eliminated. And even this lurid movie didn’t dare touch the very young/underage “vampire,” and instead they made Carmilla’s mother the vampire—although the girl character (here with an unnervingly adult face) is still there, mooning about without much to do.

 

 

Joel Potrykus Film Fest

 

Unemployees, 27m (Joel Potrykus, 2023): 3/5

Two free spirited/ dispirited young women trip messily through a series of surreal Michigan tableaux. Think Daisies and Roy Andersson. Funny!

 

Joel Calls Indie Film Type Dudes, 12 (Joel Potrykus, 2020): 3.5/5

Highlights the high quality of Potrykus’ sense of humor and Rolodex. The second-best film I’ve seen about the pandemic-times (after Eddington).

 

The Alchemist Cookbook (Joel Potrykus, 2016): 2.5/5

The acting is good, which reminds me that the acting also always good in Poltrykus’ productions. This one does not star Joshua Burge and is really a monster movie, and as such comes with certain genre expectations, which unfortunately are not met. 

 

Buzzard, rw (Joel Potrykus, 2014): 3.5/5

Wherein we follow the increasingly desperate actions of a squirrely, sweaty young scammer. Joshua Burge is obviously an enormous discovery, and it’s shocking that no one has figured how to use his naturalism and deeply hurt eyes. I imagine a future for him like that of Martin Donovan, who I see everywhere these days just the way I wanted to when he was Hal Hartley’s go-to protagonist in movies like Trust and Amateur. 

 

Ape (Joel Potrykus, 2012): 3/5

Worth watching for “fans” of Buzzard and Vulcanizadora. An origin story for Joshua Burge’s character, showing him somewhat unformed. You actually see moments where he is joyful, and it’s kind of amazing to see Burge’s face light up. Vital and alive in a Cassavetes way (although way less gravity, obv).

 

Coyote, 22m (Joel Potrykus, 2010): 3/5

Poltrykus often flirts with horror as a metaphor for the disgusting, disheveled nature of living. A bit of a spoiler to say exactly how here. 

Gordon, 15 (Joel Potrykus, 2007): 3/5

A droll take on a zombie film. A family man tries to make it work. 

 

 

Kira Muratova Film Fest

Seven critics or filmmakers put the first two of these movies on their 2022 Sight and Sound top ten lists, and six put the third on theirs. I’m fine with that. 

 

The Asthenic Syndrome (Kira Muratova, 1989): 3/5

The most difficult of Muratova’s films here. Moves from person to person in a litany of random complaints and miseries. Anger, frustration, unhappiness. Pushing, hitting, broken glass. Tears, grudges, disgust, shame, cruelty, hatred, “You have to educate the soul…and cut off some hands.” A director character lists important Russian directors: Aleksei German, Sokurov, and Muratova (herself!), and yeah this movie has the same pretentions to great, ineffable, puzzling, defiant art that that those other two directors’ films have.  

 

Brief Encounters (Kira Muratova, 1967): 3/5

“When I watch a movie or I read a book, the women and men are so beautiful, their feelings and actions are so sensible and complete. Also in suffering, everything is logical and correct, there is cause and effect, the beginning and the end. Here everything is so vague….” A kind of love triangle, but this. Time is jumbled and feelings are uncertain, even to the characters, one of whom never even realizes she is in a triangle, I believe.

 

Getting to Know the Big, Wide World (Kira Muratova, 1978): 3.5/5

A triangle of young people with time to kill and their lives ahead of them—light, free and improvisational in a Band of Outsiders mode. Find a large shard of a mirror? Goofing around with that’s worth a minute of screen time. Find a harmonica? That’s worth a couple of minutes—with first the girl blowing and then the boy, it’s almost like kissing, you see. Beautiful soft colors, and a perfectly romantic final passage.

 

 

Jess Franco Film Fest

Franco (like Ozu, Hong Sang-soo, Wes Anderson (and Bach)), creates his own cosmology of style and theme, where repetition and variation are part of the point. For a director who made about 200 movies, the films here are surprisingly competent, fun, enjoyable, idiosyncratic—and with the same surface pleasures and stillness (or let’s say boredom) of Antonioni. It’s fortuitous that I am just reading Sontag’s On Interpretation, which argues for dealing with a work of art not by analyzing its content (which replaces the art object) but its form. “In place of a hermeneutics, we need an erotics of art.” By which I mean I’m pretty sure these Jess Franco films don’t have meaning, but they are at times beautiful and strange. (Although, gee, come to think of it, many were made by a Spanish director whose country is ruled by a different Franco).

 

The Diabolical Dr Z (Jesús Franco, 1966): 3.5/5

A Man Scientist (here female) and her Igor. Facial disfigurement and replacement. Cabaret and cool orchestral jazz. Keeping a gorgeous blonde in a see-through cat-suit at bay with a chair like a lion. Revenge. Mind control. Girls in prison/cages. Long nails. Asphyxiation and strangulation. A spiral staircase. Franco himself plays a fun character. Skinny dipping. 

 

Venus in Furs (Jesús Franco, 1969): 4/5

A fun, sexy, drifty, singular and very of-its-time revenge ghost story. Beautiful girls (actually really beautiful), slo-mo, wavey lens effects, ample but not gratuitous nudity, a blonde stripped to the waist and whipped, exotic locations (here Rio and Istanbul and (beautiful) Black Sea beaches). And of course zooms. Reminds me that there are almost no depictions of sex in media these days—or even people being in their private spaces without clothes on—something that happens in every house and apartment every day. Such images have been isolated into their own shameful “porn and soft core” ghetto.

 

Vampyros Lesbos (Jesús Franco, 1971): 3.5/5

Languid, sensual, and filled with Franco’s stylish signatures. Atonal yet groovy music. cabaret (diegetic, staged productions of arty nudie dancing and music)—and often the genesis of a character’s obsession with the artist. A palatial estate in an exotic location, here Istanbul. Zooms. Arty and free pillow sequences and unmotivated abstract sequences. A spiral staircase. Franco himself playing a fun character. Skinny dipping. Recurrent images: here a kite, a scorpion, a white moth, blood running down a window. 

 

Bloody Moon (Jesús Franco, 1981): 3.5/5

The most giallo of the Franco I’ve seen, complete with murder mystery and some effective scenes of tension, and ample and welcome nudity. Features really pretty blondes and a psycho with a horribly scarred face interacting on a palatial estate. Killer POV. Incest. Disco music and color. And of course zoooooooooms. 

 

 

Ed Wood Film Fest

To state the obvious, Ed Wood’s films are not the worst movies of all time. In fact, there is no way that any low-budget genre picture by someone with passion, however misguided, uneducated and unfounded—could be the worst. Only a soulless, lazy and uninteresting piece of product could be. These movies feel like cover songs by a sincere and naive amateur band. And within the amateur nature of the acting there are performances and moments that are as direct as in any movie you might name. 

 

Plan Nine from Outer Space (Edward D. Wood Jr., 1957): 3/5

Combines horror tropes and sci-fi tropes, and manages some moments of actual tension. The scenes in the graveyard appear to be shot in a room about as big as my living room, and are in the tradition of similar shots in (say) The Night of the Hunter, Black Narcissus that use artificiality as an aesthetic. 

 

Bride of the Monster (Edward D. Wood Jr., 1955): 3/5

There is a “let’s make a movie” quality here that lays bare the requirements of a film: actors, a script, sets, lighting, music, costumes. “The Monster” is represented by (1) beautiful scientific stock footage of a pretty cool octopus and (2) a large rubber one. This doesn’t work dramatically, but from a certain angle it’s charming. I like the way Tor Johanson’s Igor character, Lobo, suddenly leaps to the center of sympathy and attention at the end. 

 

Final Curtain, 22m (Edward D. Wood Jr., 1957): 3/5

Wood’s Goodbye Dragon In (although I see that the great Will Sloan makes the same observation in his Letterboxd review). A theater is empty except for one man and undead ghouls, although there’s more attention to the theater than the ghouls. “This blackness that permits a new world to appear, a new world of the spirit and unseen.” Explains why Duke Moore, is dressed in a tuxedo in Night of Ghouls—Wood was able to use footage shot for this film in that one.

 

Night of the Ghouls/Revenge of the Dead (Edward D. Wood Jr., 1959): 3.5/5

The most accomplished of Wood’s genre movies. Some scenes in “a car” that have more dynamic blocking than anything in his other films. Lobo makes a reappearance, and there’s a character named Dr. Acula, which is so dumb that it’s brilliant. 

 

Glen or Glenda (Edward D. Wood Jr., 1953): 3.5/5

I don’t quite understand why this is not celebrated as an early trans text. I have only really heard about it in a tone of ridicule—and it does reflect some out-of-date beliefs— but it stands among the most pro-trans movies I have seen, and certainly of its era. It’s coming from a baldly autobiographical place, and it’s a laudably sincere confession and plea. Wood himself plays the title character, flying his trans flag, expressing all his shame but also all his lust. He uses stock footage of D-Day (for example) but Wood was in fact present at D-Day. (He claimed that during combat he wore women’s underwear under his uniform, and he said that he would have preferred to die than to be injured because if injured he would have been exposed.) Contains some psychologically intense high-contrast fantasy sequences worthy of Lynch and Anger. Begins with Bella Lugosi, skulls and skeletons, and a laboratory just like all of Wood’s movies, but here he’s playing I guess God, looking down at the humanity that he created, laughing at the humans who can’t help being what they are.

 

 

rewatched Margaret (Kenneth Lonergan, 2011): 4.5/5

Extended, three-hour cut, of which the first 150-minutes constitutes a messy masterpiece. Simultaneously personal and sweeping. It's almost oxymoronic, the way it can identify as an "intimate epic." Last half hour comes a bit unspooled -- even in the context of the film's slovenly disposition -- and is far too dense and sprawling for such a short amount of time. However, whereas my normal critique would be to "cut this" or "cut that," Margaret is so effortlessly compelling that I'd be happy had it run an additional hour or two.

Materialists (Celine Song, 2025): 2.5/5

My note to Celine if I were her producer/studio exec: "1. Pick a fucking tone. 2. Make it hornier."

The Surfer (Lorcan Finnegan, 2024): 2.5/5

Are Australian people really that mean?? Because between this movie and The Royal Hotel, I’m kind of concerned.

I don’t know what frustrated me more: watching everyone be mean to Nicolas Cage or the fact that he could have just left at any time but didn’t.

Dangerous Animals (Sean Byrne, 2025): 2.5/5

terrible year of film for the Australian surfer community

rewatched In the Mood For Love (Wong Kar-wai, 2000): 4.5/5

A film about love, or a film about time? Perhaps a film about the way that love can seem to render time stagnant for those tangled within its extensive web—jammed into a forbidden, emotional stymie, paralyzed at the crossroads of passion and integrity—only for them to blink and realize how much time has actually passed, how many opportunities have been missed, and are reduced to looking backwards over their shoulder, lingering indefinitely on What Could Have Been and What Will Never Be, every subsequent minute elapsing faster than those before it now that the apex is behind them.

In the Mood For Love isn't particularly sentimental in the traditional sense—in fact, it's actually quite clinical in its approach, and almost mannequinesque in its characterization—but its emissions of Virtue trumping Affection (and therein Settling trumping True Happiness) sting like vinegar in a fresh wound, able to conjure up a particular envy for something we may never even have known.

I don't think I need to expound upon this formally at all: what else is left to say? So many brilliant things about the way Wong Kar-wai shoots this—from the way that the main duo's adulterous spouses are never given a face, to the cramped frame-within-a-frame shots that always enclose a singular Su or Chow, putting their emotional isolation on explicit display, to the overarching theme of Red that inhibits almost every shot—but my favorite is the way that Su and Chow's "reenactments" of their respective spouses are interpolated without warning and eschew any discernible caveat. Is it therapeutic? Is it a vicarious smokescreen for their own feelings of each other? (And does it feel less unscrupulous if so?) Or maybe it's just an attempt to make light of each other's situational duress and avoid facing the scathing truth head-on?

I'll admit that I think this commits a minor violation by extending itself past an ending that would've otherwise been perfect i.e., when Chow's leaving after a visit to his old apartment years later, he hesitantly stops and smiles outside the door of where Su "used to" live—obviously unaware that she's actually back there now—then walks away, never realizing how close he was to brushing against serendipity. Cut to black right there and it's cinematic perfection. Everything after feels a bit adjuncty and the acting out of the "whisper into a hole and cover with mud" ritual was slightly too forthright for a movie so cleverly underpinned everywhere else.

But nevertheless, this film is pretty damn great. (Also: "Yumeji's Theme" for most internally erupting score of the new millennium?)

Bring Her Back (Danny Philippou, Michael Philippou, 2025): 2.5/5

Awww, little tiny blind Asian girl

The Ladykillers (Ethan Cohen, Joel Cohen, 2004): 2/5

I've now seen all the Coen Brothers films. And that's the only real upside of seeing Ladykillers.

Being Maria (Jessica Palud, 2024): 3/5

This uneven film is a welcome opportunity to give voice to the experience of Maria Schneider and her role in Last Tango in Paris. The film is strongest in its portrayal of the film's production and the betrayal and humiliation dealt her by Brando and Bertolucci. The fallout of the film's reception and its impact on Maria's life and career is not as focused though. Still, there's no denying that Anamaria Vartolomei is a revelation as Maria. She's got a very bright future ahead of her.

Trainwreck: Poop Cruise (James Ross, 2025): 2/5

Unessential and disgusting.

The people in that bridesmaid party are complete anathema to me. Really crap people.

I’d make a joke about heading to the poop deck but I’m beyond caring at this point.

Sovereign (Christian Swegal, 2025): 3/5

If you've ever watched bodycam or courtroom footage of a sovereign citizen, you can probably skip this movie.

 

The Shrouds (David Cronenberg, 2025): 3.5/5

“I’m a non-observant atheist.” I was surprised how satisfying this was in terms of sci-fi, near-future, world building. Classic Cronenberg, where one’s ex-lover’s rotting corpse could, through the intimacy of images, become an erotic experience. Considering this film with Crash and Videodrome (etc.), it seems that, to Cronenberg, focusing one’s attention on an intense experience (including pain, fear, dismemberment, and now putrefaction) is the very source of pleasure. Although this takes place in the (near) future, it’s the one movie that somehow feels most 2025—with its silent, gliding Teslas and phone-based AI assistants. The “plot,” which involves Chinese and Russian politics and surveillance, generated zero interest.

 

Pavements (Alex Ross Perry, 2025): 3.5/5

I stan Pavement, so seeing old live footage and people talking about their music was a great pleasure. The tongue in cheek biopic, museum show, and off-Broadway musical aspects allowed the introduction of some biographical information in a characteristically smart-alecy and non-cliché way (but were not the main attraction).

 

Misericordia (Alain Guiraudie, 2025): 3.5/5

Like a James M. Cain story except every character is sexually attracted to every other character, man or woman, young or old. 

 

* Superman (James Gunn, 2025): 3.5/5

Lots of laughs and bright colors. Superdog rules. Certainly the best Superman movie.

 

KPop Demon Hunters (Chris Appelhans, Maggie Kang, 2025): 3.5/5

Fun and entertaining, with catchy tunes. 

 

The Life of Chuck (Mike Flanagan, 2025): 3.5/5

Your reaction to this movie entirely depends on your capacity to appreciate sincerity and naked emotion. Mine is pretty high! Godlevel Matthew Lillard monologue (!)

 

A Minecraft Movie (Jared Hess 2025): 2.5/5

Jumanji: The Next Level (Jake Kasdan, 2019): 3/5

Swift, effects-heavy and a bit better than they strictly have to be. Jack likes these but even he seems to realize how weightless they are. Jack Black is cleanin’ up, man.

 

Bring Her Back (Danny Philippou, Michael Philippou, 2025): 2.5/5

I related to the protagonist’s predicament: a big, judgmental eye forcing him to behave in a way that is antithetical to his desires and personhood. But it takes too long to get to the plot, time that is filled with authentic and agonizing human suffering.

 

The Assessment (Fleur Fortuné, 2025): 2.5/5

Describes a concrete-bunker future that reminds me Ex Machina (also featuring Alicia Vikander, here deciding whether a couple can have a baby). When her judgement came down, I had a tremendous, job-hunting panic attack and started hating the film. I concede that this is not (necessarily) the film’s fault.

 

Materialists (Celine Song, 2025): 2.5/5

On its surface, this reads like a classic Austin-ish love triangle, with the protagonist deciding whether she will marry for love or money. But the movie lacks passion, and is instead chock full of overwritten monologues—clinical and not quite incisive or bravura—about the nature of modern love blah blah blah. A surprise, since my review for Past Lives called it “vibrating with feeling.”

 

A Desert (Joshua Erkman, 2025): 2.5/5

A naïve photographer runs into a couple he shouldn’t have, out in the desert. Then the private investigator looking into his disappearance, then the photographer’s wife run into the same couple. A grotty, nihilistic exercise. The director’s feature debut.

 

* The Naked Gun (Akiva Schaffer, 2025): 2/5

Hell is watching sporatically amusing movie in a theatre with two guys who find every joke hilarious. 

 

 

Girlfriends (Claudia Weill, 1978): 4/5

A tremendously likable protagonist: smart and self-aware, smiley and awkward, but also very sure of herself and an artist. Quick with a joke. Open to new things. Proudly Jewish. Makes mistakes.  An ur-text for stories of smart and neurotic modern young women trying to make it in New York, and in a precarious and shifting emotional landscape, regarding friendship, partners, career, and artistic ambition. Dunham paid off her debt of influence by giving Weill some episodes of Girls to direct.

 

Welfare, 2h47m (Frederick Wiseman, 1975): 4/5

Stories, stories, stories: Divorce, sickness, death, pregnancy, domestic abuse, homicide, racism, anger, prayer, hopelessness, having an apartment you like but that is $10 more than the $150 a month limit for housing support, patience and forbearance, frustration, and just doing the best you fucking can. The crux of the problem is that each individual has a complex story full of unique circumstances. Ideally, there would be a rule for each of them, but in the event the social workers try over and over to understand what rule applies to each person—frustrating to everyone. Full of empathy (or at least a lack of blame) for everyone involved. 

 

Belfast, Maine, 4h8m (Frederick Wiseman, 1999): 3/5

A good long, benedictory look at the industry (fish cannery, mashed potato factory, bakery), institutions (court, church, social services), and hobbies (painting, bowhunting, drum circles, ceramics, flower arranging, taxidermy) of the people of Belfast, Maine. 

 

An Occurrence at Owl Creek, 28m, rw (Robert Enrico, 1961): 5/5

A gem, very interested in expressing subjective experience. Full of anxious hyper-focus as well as dreams and reveries. The last minute is incredibly recognizable as one of my recurrent dreams: always almost approaching, over and over and over, a desired goal. Scorsese remakes this movie in 1988—watch it on Vimeo before you look that up. 

 

Love and Anarchy (Lina Wertmüller, 1973): 2/5

A country bumpkin travels to Rome to assassinate Mussolini. Dramatically, the whole movie is just waiting around for Mussolini to show up in a certain square to give a speech, and In meantime our protagonist has plenty of time to fall in love with a prostitute. The movie concludes that fascism demands the degradation and destruction of the innocent as its lifeblood. 

 

Seven Beauties (Lina Wertmüller, 1975): 4/5

I started out kind of hating this phantasmagorical, confused, and satiric presentation of ideas about women (good, bad, and what they are good for), the holocaust, the Italian’s role in WWII, etc.—for its grotesqueness and bad taste. One scene has our handsome protagonist in a concentration camp, complete with the ghastly iconic striped clothing, (comically) seducing the obese German woman who runs the camp. Later he very much sexually assaults a woman tied to a bed in a mental institution. Fernando Rey literally throws himself into a pool of shit. It’s funny, you see! But in the last 20 minutes of the movies I sort of came around and decided that if this was directed by John Waters I would have thought it a genius-level satiric provocation. In the end, it has a lot to say about the way fascism works: one must harm others and throw out one’s most central values and beliefs simply to survive. Wertmüller was the first woman to be nominated for an Academy Award for directing.

 

Cisco Pike (Bill L. Norton, 1971): 3/5

Driving around L.A. selling pot with Kris Kristofferson (doing a lot of hair acting), Gene Hackman, Harry Dean Stanton, and Karen Black. Cool views of Venice, Malibu, Hollywood, the Valley and all over. The Troubadour has tables and chairs! 

 

Jane Eyre (Robert Stevenson, 1942): 3/5

Orson Welles plays brooding Rochester (with a false nose, of course) and reportedly contributed to the direction, including plenty of lovely, long, gothic candle-lit corridors. Joan Fontaine is a bit reserved as an eyes-downcast Eyre, and whoever designed her hair should be caged. Stevenson went on to direct The Shaggy D.A., (Herbie) The Love Bug, and That Darn Cat.

 

The Moon Has Risen (Kinuyo Tanaka, 1955): 3/5

Tanaka is a regular in many Ozu films as well as many of Mizoguchi’s (with whom it’s rumored she had a longstanding affair)—not to mention films by Naruse and Kurosawa. This film is also written by Ozu, features several more of his usual cast, and uses characteristic Ozu shots such as pillow shots, people speaking directly to the camera, and ground-level camera placement. Still, it has a different tone from Ozu—more romantic and even rom-com-like, with hints of Austin’s Emma.

 

The Eternal Breasts (Kinuyo Tanaka, 1955): 3.5/5

In the first act, a rural wife and mother of two (and poet) divorces her drug addicted husband who is having an affair. Soon she is diagnosed with breast cancer. Pretty deep stuff for 1955, much less in repressed post-war Japan. In its simplicity and directness, as well as its sepia color and boxy aspect ratio, it seems like a product of the 30s. Although one can also see how the domestic weepy melodrama qualities as coming right out of the 50s. 

 

Dracula: Dead and Loving It (Mel Brooks, 1995): 2.5/5

Part of Brooks’ precipitous decline, but even so has a handful of killer bits. 

 

 

Jacques Rozier Mini-Fest

An underrated French New Wave figure.

 

Rentrée des classes, 20m (Jacques Rozier, 1956): 3/5

All the kids are back to school after a long summer, except for our protagonist who throws his homework off a bridge and then, with remorse, sets out downriver to retrieve it. There follows a lovely reverie in nature before a comic resolution. Displays a great preference for the relaxed, spontaneous, and natural over order at any level. 

Blue Jeans, 22m (Jacques Rozier, 1958): 3/5

There are worse things than hanging out in Cannes with a couple of young lads trying to pick up girls. But there’s not much going on here beyond a great freedom of camera, two year before Breathless and four before Jules and Jim.

 

Adieu Philippine (Jacques Rozier, 1962): 3.5/5

Interested in both young boys and young girls. Youth culture. buying cars, picking each other up, music they like (Elvis and Mario Lanza), their morays, television, advertising, crap jobs. Not that far from Girlfriends, Francis Ha, or Girls. Lots of shots on the Paris streets. A shot down two escalators in a 1960s Paris department store would still be noteworthy if done today. Our protagonist will be shipped off to Algeria in two months. 

 

 

Apichatpong Weerasethakul put these three on his 2022 Sight and Sound Top 10

Le Nez, 11m (Claire Parker, Alexandre Alexeieff, 1963): 

An adaptation on Gogol’s novella about a man whose nose leaves him and starts running around town. Animation, surrealism, with Asian sounding percussion score, sounding like the music in The Puppetmaster.

Rehearsals for Extinct Anatomies, 14m (Timothy Quay, Stephen Quay, 1988): 2.5/5

Precise camera movements within very abstract tableaux, sometimes with human dolls in an undefined heady emotional state and sometimes just balls and stairs—or discs with twine. 

Quick Billy, 50m (Bruce Baillie, 1971): 4/5

A suite of abstract phases. Some pure color field stuff of great reds and oranges, also blues and purples. Lots of aqueous imagery and sounds on soundtrack. Can easily see Weerasethakul inserting 5-minute reveries of this beautiful and abstract stuff to connotate a drifty dream state—complete with tiger imagery. The second half starts with a (pretty sexy) sex scene/dream. Thoughtful and emotional soundtrack throughout, with meadowlarks, music, voices, in synch and out with the images. “Deep blue as emeralds would be if they were blue” The thanks at the end to “friends, family, animals, teachers, dear ladies, other critters” describes well the warmth and grab-bag quality of the piece. Baillie was the co-founder of the San Francisco Cinematheque.

 

Castro Street, 10m (Bruce Baillie, 1971): 4/5

A masterclass in using audio to create intensity and then reverie. Baillie is completely in control of tone and eager to use every aspect of cinema. Uniquely beautiful and overflowing with effects and feeling. Full of little triple-exposure eddies of image, sound, memory and emotion. Watched it twice. 

 

The Dentist, 21m (Leslie Pearce, 1932): 3/5

W.C. Fields, playing an uncharacteristically high-status dunderhead, works with Max Senett to produce a comedy of frustration and pain. Frederick Wiseman (!) put it in his Sight and Sound Top Ten in 2022, saying “The Dentist is a great porno film because it leaves everything to the imagination of the viewer,” and I have absolutely no idea what he means by this.

 

Adebar, 2m (Peter Kubelka,1957): 3/5

A primitive, silhouette version of people dancing (to rock music?). Reminds me of the opening dance contest sequence of Mulholland Drive.

Allures, 8m (Jordan Belson, 1961): 4/5

A sizzle reel, well-mined by Hollywood. It looked cool in their movies and it looks good here. Plus some stuff and Nolan and Villeneuve (those hacks) should get up on ASAP. Remember: slow is the new fast. 

 

9/11 Simulation in Roblox Environment, 7m (James Ferraro, 2017): 3/5

Subversive. The title says it all. Jack plays Roblox all the time, but this brings out a new tone, to say the least.

 

Les Maitres fous, 27m (Jean Rouch, 1955): 2/5

A dozen residents of Accra go a bit wild out into the jungle during a ceremony parodying the English governors of the country, complete with farcical outfits, eye-bulging, mouth-foaming, and a bit of dog sacrifice and eating. As with Pasolini’s Notes Towards an African Orestes, it’s wise (and easy) to be skeptical of these French takes on Africans.

28 Years Later (Danny Boyle, 2025): 2.5/5

Putting aside my nag that we didn't get to see the logical next installment titled 28 MONTHS LATER - does that bother no one else? - Lots of literal big dick energy here. A gang of pimped out blonde parkour kids in tracksuits was probably the last type of people I thought would show up. The film might resonate with younger audiences, but for us oldies, the primal thrill is gone. From the opening scene, comparisons begin—and they aren't flattering. Boyle seems to sense this. Maybe that's why he inserts a jarring Godard-style archive footage intercut to scrub away some of the mainstream gloss, and those experimental moments were my favorite in an otherwise overly polished, Hollywood-ized journey.


28 Weeks Later (Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, 2007): 2/5
Torture having to follow these dipshit kids as they single-handedly decimate the global population. (I cannot believe this movie had four writers. Four!) Further demerits: severely lacking Cillian Murphy dong.


Barbara Walters: Tell Me Everything (Jackie Jesco, 2025): 3/5
Weawwy intewesting documentewwy.


The Phoenician Scheme (Wes Anderson, 2025): 2.5/5
It’s yet another beautiful Wes Anderson film with a star studded cast but what else? Should’ve been 102 minutes of the basketball scene.


Final Destination Bloodlines (Zach Lipovsky, Adam B. Stein, 2025): 2/5
There's an unintentionally hilarious scene in this where the main character explains the tree traversal algorithm Death uses to eliminate a person's descendants and how its path through the graph can be blocked at specific nodes. All of these movies seem to position the antagonist as a sort of computer that can be wildly creative within a certain problem space (finding Rube Goldbergy ways for people to die) while having strict logical rules that it can't violate under any circumstances. I guess that's nothing new — The Seventh Seal is about trying to beat Deep Blue at chess.


Clown in a Cornfield (Eli Craig, 2025): 2/5
Clown in a Cornfield fully delivers on its title—there are clowns, and they’re in a cornfield.


Hurry Up Tomorrow (Trey Edward Shults, 2025): 1.5/5
DADDY CHILL, I'm unABEL to process this bad trip!

(In which Trey Edward Shults valiantly tries to perform life support on a thinly conceived vanity project.)

Predator: Killer of Killers (Dan Trachtenberg, 2025): 4/5

One of my favorites of a lousy half-year. Excellent action filmmaking á la classic Spielberg.

 

* F1 The Movie (Joseph Kosinski, 2025): 4/5

Jack wanted to see it, and I was concerned that it would be talky in a normal, adult way. But no. It’s basically a dozen races that are exciting in a traditional action-movie, pure-cinema way. Brad Pitt continues to perfect doing more with less.

 

Friendship (Andrew DeYoung, 2025): 3.5/5

Comedy as horror. Jack can take any violence or suspense in a movie, but if a character is embarrassed or humiliated, say…in front of his class or friends, he literally can’t watch it. During this movie, I felt the same way—perhaps because this was me in junior high. Michelle, you are certainly onto something with the Marvel angle. We are just all babies, wanting our dose of superhero Mayors with wigs. 

 

Final Destination Bloodlines (Zach Lipovsky, Adam B. Stein): 3/5

Horror as comedy. The (pretty great) first 20 minutes sets up that this movie doesn’t give a fuck. It will kill anyone at any time. Afterwards they set up quite a lot of lifeless plot—and we have not exactly been given instructions to care. Like Starship Troopers, this movie keeps building eye-rolling dramas up and … knocking ‘em down. 

 

Clown in a Cornfield (Eli Craig, 2025): 3/5

A Gen Z take on Scream (non-supernatural murder mystery), with a much different culprit. I, for one, feel the frustration that this movie is violently expressing—where the olds are sitting in their positions of power and the rest of us just have to, I guess, fuck off.

 

* The Phoenician Scheme (Wes Anderson, 2025): 2/5

I know you’re going to find this a familiar feeling, but… this just didn’t click for me. I found it cold, insincere, grating and just not funny. Cool production design tho!

 

* Lilo and Stitch (Dean Fleischer Camp, 2025): 2/5

Possibly because he doesn’t look very good, the filmmakers rarely just rest the camera on Stitch and let him do his thing. Instead, he skitters around, knocking stuff over as if desperately trying to prove he exists in the real world. It’s tragic that this was Camp’s follow-up to the magical Marcel the Shell with Shoes On. 

 

* How to Train Your Dragon (Dean DeBlois, 2025): 3/5

I liked the original a lot, and that’s basically exactly what you get here. A low bar, but after Lilo and Stitch, this seems like an accomplishment.

 

* Elio (Domee Shi, Madeline Sharafian, Adrian Molina, 2025): 3/5

Inventive, colorful and entertaining. Jack said he didn’t like it, but I suspect that’s because sadness and loneliness so thoroughly underly the drama. 

 

Mountainhead (Jesse Armstrong, 2025): 3/5

A venomous take on tech bro amorality and dick-swinging. Funny, true and glib. 

 

The Code (Eugene Kotlyarenko, 2025): 1/5

Young people looking at screens x1000 (plus COVID). 

 

Hi Diddle Diddle (Andrew L. Stone, 1943): 3/5

An amiable gag-a-minute war-time farce, with several misunderstandings and scams going at the same time.

 

The Taste of Things (Trần Anh Hùng, 2023): 3.5/5

An almost drama-free process film about making art and the power of a collaborator—as exquisitely beautiful as an 18th-century still life, and just as overflowing with dead animals. 

 

The Battle of Chile, Parts 1-3, 4h23m (Patricio Guzmán, 1975): 3/5

A traditional documentary in everything but it’s length and its timeliness (released just two years after the coup it analyzes). One thinks of Latin American revolutions (like Cuba) as the poor rising up to overthrow the rich and powerful. Here (as I’m sure you know but I hadn’t really groked before) the script is flipped. The Socialist president, Allende, has been legally elected twice (!) and it’s the bourgeoisie (backed by the U.S.) who rebel and take over the government by force. #Allendesuicide

 

Nostalgia for the Light, rw (Patricio Guzmán, 2010): 4/5

A big-brained, arty and heartfelt film about the way we look (and fail to look) at the past. Perfect companion piece to The Battle of Chile, by an older man. 

 

The Hour of The Furnaces, 4h20m (Octavio Getino, Fernando E. Solanas, 1968): 3/5

Begins as an examination of “neo-colonialization” in Argentina—meaning that forces from outside of the country own almost all of the industry and access to natural resources, taking all wealth out of the country and keeping the people poor. Then tells the story of Argentina’s democratically elected Socialist leader (Juan Perón) overthrown because he attempted to do something about this (nationalization of industries and factories, etc). Ends with a call for an armed uprising in Argentina, Venezuela, Colombia, and Guatemala—an “epic struggle for all of Latin America,” akin to Vietnam. Stylistically, it’s mostly interviews with people from all levels of society, some passages of exciting montage, and lots of on-screen text. This—and the fact that that the directors took the film around Argentina to screen at various union meetings, village halls and other community spaces as a way to raise awareness of the causes of injustice—must have made Godard apoplectically jealous.

 

Subarnarekha (Ritwik Ghatak, 1960): 3.5/5

Told in multiple chapters or movements, with leaps forward in time—and with the characters being affected by the events of the drama and changing. I always like that: like a novel, or as the title would have it, a river. After Ghatak’s The Cloud-Capped Star, I was concerned this would be more misery porn, but instead this is a lovely star-crossed romance with consequences. Very free and expressive camerawork and music. #suicide

 

The Age of Earth (Glauber Rocha, 1980): 1.5/5

I don’t begrudge any drama students who want to put on crazy costumes and dance around and chant ritualistically, waving sticks wrapped in red ribbons and shouting poetic revolutionary statements and nonsense—possibly obliquely referencing past events or literatures. Do it for two and a half hours! Or in the case of Out 1, do it for eight hours for all I care. Just don’t piss on my leg and tell me it’s creating a new and essential cinematic form.

 

Throw Down (Johnnie To, 2004): 2.5/5

Bizarre premise and tone. For much of this semi-comic movie, it feels like a melodramatic gangster flick. But eventually we realize they are not fighting about money but about who is the best judo fighter(!?). All they want is the honor of challenging and fighting the best. One of the judo dudes has fallen from the straight path through gambling and drink. To seek redemption, he and another judo guy must spar a lot, which consists of rolling around on the ground, wrapping one’s legs around the other sweaty person, and making grunts of exertion—until finally falling to the mat in detumescent satisfaction. 

 

Green Fish (Lee Chang-dong, 1997): 3/5

Guy gets out of the army and falls in with a gangster, also falling in love with the gangster’s girlfriend. These are cliches, but Lee keeps the proceedings on edge with unpredictable rhythms and stabs of violence. 

 

Peppermint Candy (Lee Chang-dong, 1999): 3.5/5

Digs back, back, back into our protagonist’s life, through small degradations, missteps, and heart-closings—to learn how he came to behave as he does in the opening scene. A tremendous performance, as he becomes increasingly young, unmarked, and innocent.

 

Notes Towards an African Orestes, 65m (Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1970): 2/5

Pasolini describes the plot of Euripides’ play over footage from his vacation across Africa, while musing aloud about connections between the play and what he sees as a rising Africa, newly throwing off colonialism and embracing democracy (and how did that go?). To their credit, the actual Africans he talks to seem confused about the project and dubious about Pasolini’s naïve projections onto the African people. A film that surely launched a thousand dissertations.  

 

The impossible Voyage (Georges Méliès, 1904): 3.5/5

Amazing that the template for the colorful, effects-heavy sci-fi blockbuster is established in 1904. Emotional engagement is secondary to the eye-tricking technology (which here is pretty great). 

 

El Mumia/ The Night of Counting the Years (Shadi Abdel Salam, 1969): 3/5

Called by some the best Egyptian movie, this in many ways is a mummy movie. There are ancient tombs (real ones, not sets), graverobbers, curses, murder, and music that invokes dread. All very authentic and in a chillingly still style. Safe to say the ancient dead haunt these people. 

 

Trás-os-Montes (Margarida Cordeiro , António Reis): 3.5/5

A dreamy portrait of a village and its inhabitants. Stories, music and dances, weaving, rolling hills and fields, the milling of flour, sheep and donkeys, childbirth, and the introduction of disruptive technologies such as a phonograph and a toy ball. Also examines politics (a voice expressing a feeling of isolation from the capital and powerlessness), sociology (a voice that expressing that the villagers intermarry and ask people in other families to be godfathers, etc., until the whole village mourns when a tragedy happens), plus, I think, actual dreams and other reveries. 

 

A Bundle a Minute, 6m (Harmony Korine, 1991): 3/5

Korine’s student film. A comic monologue with skits. Edgy but traditionally funny. Available on YouTube.

 

The Hedonists, 26m (Jia Zhangke, 2016): 3/5

Jia gets a new drone camera and tests it out with the short tale that contrasts old traditions and new realities, as is his wont.

 

Revive, 18m (Jia Zhangke, 2017): 3/5

As in The World, we have a family drama set in a milieu rich in metaphoric resonance (here an old palace where our protagonist performs in recreated scenes of drama for tourists. Her standard melodrama of wanting a (newly permitted) second child is, in this way, contrasted the fate of a possibility former self from centuries before. Jia’s contribution to the omnibus film Where has the Time Gone.

 

Surface Tension, 10m (Hollis Frampton, 1968): 3.5/5

Quite a lot of ideas in 10m. A high-speed walk through New York City is enjoyable and influential, as today’s movie editing speeds up. Brilliant curlicue, Golden Ratio-type narrative in last three minutes, where the film’s third part tells a new story with three parts. 

Process Red, 4m (Hollis Frampton, 1966): 3/5

Carrots and Peas, 6m (Hollis Frampton, 1969): 3/5

 

 

Julien Duvivier Film Fest

Based on these films and the three from last month, I would say that Duvivier’s ample talents peaked at the dawn of sound. His silent films are all excellent, and his early sound films are remarkable for their unusual protagonists, stories and storytelling. Mostly diminishing returns as the years go on (Pepe Le Moko aside). 

 

La Divine Croisière / The Divine Voyage (Julien Duvivier, 1929): 3/5

A tale of shipwrecked sailors and the community that despairingly awaits their return. Outdoor adventure under crystal clear skies, some mild rioting involving tearing down curtains and fire, plus mystic religious ecstasy in the tradition of Ordet. Several moving sequences feature a series of faces, akin to those sequences in Red River.

 

David Golder (Julien Duvivier, 1931): 3.5/5

A portrait of a longtime successful Jewish businessman overturning his life as he realizes his wife and daughter are just spending his money. An unusual and unpredictable narrative filled with visual invention, rich characters, empathy all around. Hints of Billy Murray in Rushmore, and I saw Wes Anderson cite this film as an influence on The Phoenician Scheme. it’s easy to see that WS admires and emulates Duvivier’s propensity to take everything with a light and humorous touch, even when dealing with sad characters and situations. Both moods are there.  #suicide

 

Poil de Carotte (Julien Duvivier, 1932): 3.5/5

The main character is a (presumably red-headed), spirited boy, always in a good mood but dealing with people who make his life difficult, especially his comically horrible mother. I like how lightly it takes the sadness of our young protagonist (maybe 10 years old) lightly, while still taking it seriously. #suicide

 

They Were Five / La Belle Equipe (Julien Duvivier, 1936): 3/5

Jean Gabin is one of five friends who win the lottery and decide to open a restaurant and dance hall in the country, beside a lazy river. Like Poil de Carotte, this is remarkable for its sense of joy (until it isn’t). 

 

Pepe Le Moko, rw (Julien Duvivier, 1937): 4.5/5

Shot with magic lenses that distort and rarify the images in a completely unique way, and the characters on both sides of the conflict are complex. A love letter to Paris from the Casbah, a rat maze that Gabin can’t escape. Visually and dramatically, up is divine cool and down is resignation to fate and death. This could be one of the movies that Breathless is based on, especially the end.

 

Un carnet de bal / Life Dances On (Julien Duvivier, 1937): 3/5

A similar narrative strategy to Jarmusch’s Broken Flowers, where our protagonist travels to see what became of her past lovers. The result is series of short stories or sketches, some banal and others exaggeratedly dramatic. Includes a variety of photographic novelties to bring the audience into the protagonist’s mind space: forced perspectives, shadow play, horizontal split screens, rear projection. A massive hit. 

 

The End of the Day (Julien Duvivier, 1939): 3/5

Melancholy and even mournful portrait of a community of aged actors in an old folks home. They have spirit left in them, but precious little.