Undertone (Ian Tuason, 2026): 4/5

Unnerving in the most pleasurable of ways, although I can’t really disagree with my brother’s assertion that it makes no sense and amounts to little. Although there is plenty of event, I would still call its pleasures ambient in the Skinamarink sense. At one point the protagonist is listening to a spooky audio file through headphones in her house at night and she hears a gonk sound; she nervously rips her headphones off and peers around the dark room wondering if the sound was in her headphones or in the room—and I fucking swear I simultaneously did exactly the same thing in my own dark living room.

 

Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie (Matt Johnson, 2026): 3/5

A hand-made take on Back to the Future. Likeable and funny.

 

The Testament of Ann Lee (Mona Fastvold, 2025): 4/5

Narratively compelling and vibrating with beauty. In its best moments (and there are multiple) the acting, music and choreography raise raise raise the movie into a hypnotic religious paroxysm. An achievement equal to the excellent and equally odd The Brutalist. I’m a fan of Amanda Seyfried (indelible in a minor role in Lynch’s third season of Twin Peaks), and she leaves it all out on the table here. 

 

Marie Antoinette, rw (Sofia Coppola, 2006): 5/5

The apotheosis of Sophie Coppola’s one character (not a criticism): the innocent woman held captive by her privilege. Some of the most perfect frames of the 21st century. Kirsten Dunst (my Queen) manages to achieve her mission of being the most sweetly beautiful person in the world here, but she is also expertly expressive. 

 

World’s Greatest Sinner (Timothy Carey, 1962): 3.5/5

Naïve and truly nutty folk art. Middle aged insurance salesman has a midlife crisis slash  nervous breakdown, dons a stick-on soul patch, and re-fashions himself as a political figure who calls himself God. Part commentary on charlatanism, part genuinely searching religious psychodrama, all bananas. Considering this is the purest glimpse we have into one of the great Hollywood eccentrics, I would consider it essential. 

 

Berlin Express (Jacques Tourneur, 1948): 3.5/5

American, English, French and Russian ex-GIs take a twisty tour through a bombed-out Frankfurt and Berlin. Like Rossellini’s Germany Year Zero and Wilder’s A Foreign Affair, this film grounds it’s worldview in the literal rubble of Berlin in 1946. This gravity deepens a fun espionage plot where distrust and suspicion reigns. At least four people — good guys and bad guys— turn out to be something different than who they say they are. Robert Ryan is perfect as the loose-limbed insouciant American, but Merle Oberson frankly sucks.  

 

Resurrection (Bi Gan, 2025): 3/5

A ravishing and mysterious set of short films, overflowing with visual ideas and reverent references to cinema, analogous to Holy Motors. (I especially appreciated the recreation of the hose gag from the Lumieres’ L’Arroseur Arose, one of the first examples of a staged gag in cinema, as well as The Lady of Shanghai mirror bit.) Unfortunately, it’s also ponderous, feeling every minute of its 2 hour 40 minute runtime. Compared to Bi Gan’s other work, this uses a lot of artifice, which is not really my flavor. I liked the silent section the best, followed by the unbroken take (although somehow Bi Gan’s signature move seems a bit less interesting with each film). I’m a little disappointing that here Bi Gan uses a dwarf to enhance the uncanny, but then again so does Herzog in….

 

My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done (Werner Herzog, 2009): 3/5

“I hate that the sun always comes up in the East,” non-sequiturs Michael Shannon while ushering two live flamingos out his front door at the conclusion of an airless hostage drama. Also features Chloë Sevigny, Willem Dafoe, Brad Dourif, Udo Kier, Grace Zabrinskie, and Michael Peña. Executive produced by David Lynch, and it shows.

 

DTF St. Louis, 7 episodes (Steve Conrad, 2026): 3/5

A literate, funny and sex-positive first episode, but the series gets increasingly less fun—right up to the ending, which is zero fun at all. David Harbour is a national treasure.

 

 

Book Nook

 

The Mill on the Floss (George Eliot, 1860)

Twenty years in the lives of the Tullivers (who own a mill on the river Floss), focusing on the headstrong Maggie, who we meet at the age of maybe five and who it’s very easy to love and care for. Will she marry the kind, intelligent, and steadfast hunchback over the objections of her father and brother? Or will she betray the hunchback and follow her growing feelings for the handsome and headstrong fiancé of her best friend? Weighs all kinds of obligations and love-feelings. Like all of Eliot, it’s narratively driving and packed with insightful and witty observations.

 

Mischief (Ed McBain, 1993)

A police procedural that Interweaves three cases being investigated by three teams of detectives. A mere three hours on audio and absolutely pared to the bone. Fascinatingly, the only flourishes are multiple passages that veer into the detective’s dirty thoughts and sexual encounters—weird and welcome. Part of a series of 87th Precinct novels that stretch back to 1956. Although this is obviously during the books’ decline, it still provides the cheapest of thrills.

 

The Burnt Orange Heresy (Charles Willeford, 1971)

Willeford wrote the novels that served as the basis of George Armitage’s Miami Blues (classic banger) and Monte Hellman’s Cockfighter (managed to avoid it so far). My brother has been urging me to see the movie made of this one (featuring Elizabeth Debicki) too, but I don’t think I will soon. Compared to Mischief (which, mind you, was a very minor achievement), I found this verbose and lacking in both event and irony.