Backrooms (Kane Parsons, 2026): 4/5
All the stuff in the backrooms works gangbusters. Lynchian sense of physical space being psychic space. (“You are your brain, dipshit!”) Very eerie, uncanny and disorienting, recalling (for me) the childhood feeling of being lost. An office space designed by a hallucinating AI—or by an alien, based on descriptions scrawled on a bar napkin. The scene where they finally go “down” definitively drove away Melissa and Jack— all with mere sound, peculiar space, recessed lighting, office furniture, and too much yellow. Despite the fact that there was not a monster in sight up to that point, Jack in fact later had a nightmare that robbed both of us of hours of sleep. Whoops! He wanted to see it! (since he is absolutely YouTube-pilled). Getting Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve to act all this out was a good idea.
* The Odyssey (Christopher Nolan, 2026): 3.5/5
Saw it with Jack in IMAX in Century City. Like most Nolan movies, it displays the effort of a filmmaker attempting something extraordinary for three hours and occasionally achieving it. And like most Nolan movies it’s ponderous—but at least this time it’s justified by its quite formal and ceremonial source material. The Trojan Horse itself is used well physically, symbolically and (for Odysseus) psychologically. Despite what each side says, I find it ambiguous politically. On one hand it hand-wrings about today’s poor treatment of homeless travelers (immigrants?). On the other hand, it portrays a bunch of “guests” as overstaying their welcome and needing to be kicked out!
Power Ballad (John Carney, 2026): 3.5/5
Here it is again: my favorite plot. A person dreams of being a musician, and (in his/her own way) achieves it. Usually this person is much younger (Sing Street, School of Rock, CODA, Michael), but it just as effective (on me) when it’s an old (Song Sung Blue). Of course, Paul Rudd overflows with charisma and good spirits. The ending really works despite how horrible the songs are.
Obsession (Curry Barker, 2026): 3/5
“Consent, The Movie.” Also: “Gen Z Hand Wringing, The Movie.” Yes, the Gen Z (slash my own) sweetness, niceness and sensitivity is great/annoying. Yes, the positive and negative waves of need, insecurity and desire that you feel in any relationship is scary. Yes, having a person love and need you is scary. [Jesus, she loves me and now I’m responsible for her!] And yes, it’s nerve-wracking to have an effect on others and on the universe. Best just kill yourself.
I Love Boosters (Boots Riley, 2026): 3/5
Without a doubt overflowing with colorful and amusing imaginative leaps. It never coalesces into anything like a satisfying dramatic situation or coherent worldview, but there is more to life (and film) than these aspects. Keke Palmer and Taylour Paige are both a revelation. More of them, please.
The Sheep Detectives (Kyle Balda, 2026): 3/5
A perfectly cromulent movie, paying as much attention to the relationship between the characters as to the neat mystery. Sort of a non-ironic Knives Out for the tween set. In every way inferior to the two-minute-long bit in the latest Jackassmovie where a live ram is let loose in a small room full of cringing men. Those fuckers really do butt, sending grown men flying like bowling pins.
The Furious (Kenji Tanigaki, 2026): 3/5
Despite (or because of) its action-packed nature, this movie is not for me. But it’s easy to admire its swift, witty and balletic action sequences. Fight as dance: choreographed, contrapuntal movement of bodies in space.
Buffet infinity (Simon Glassman, 2026): 3/5
An alien invasion story completely told through late-night-style television ads. The premise and execution are so good you wish the story evolved more quickly and more coherently.
Iron Lung (Mark Fischbach, 2026): 2/5
Another tell-tale sign of the film industry in 2026. One tiny location (a 15-ft-long diving bell) and some complex context/lore results in an audiobook of a movie. YouTuber Mark Fischbach financed the film himself for a reported budget of $3 million, and served as writer, director, editor, and star. His online audience requested local screenings, and the film earned $18 million domestically during its opening weekend and ultimately surpassed $50 million worldwide.
The Bear, Season 4 (Christopher Storer, 2026): 2.5/5
I reviewed season 2 of this show back in 2023 thusly: “New season, new tone: kinder, gentler, more heartfelt. It’s the Ted Lassification of The Bear, and I’m here for it.” And damned if Season 4 didn’t follow Ted Lasso’s lead as well, as in: I could barely finish it. The decision to make the whole season one day and evening is utterly disastrous. Only the penultimate and final episodes seem anything other than water-treading. Still, the last episode works really well and got me, so help me.
Criterion Murderous Melodramas
A fun collection, and more than the sum of its parts.
Bigger than Life, rw (Nicholas Ray, 1956): 5/5
Stylishly bonkers in the best and most Sirkian of ways: DeLuxe saturated colors, looming shadows, surging music cues, and extreme angles expressing internal states, in glorious CinemaScope. All to recreate what it sometimes felt like (to me) in my house growing up, for there is perhaps no better depiction in cinema of my dad at his worst. (Other possibilities include Whiplash and The Great Santini). Self-loathing and self-aggrandizement. Sobbing on the couch. Punishment for wrongdoings, by hand, belt, wooden panel or slat. Wanting only to control and improve his boy. Such as one incident where he read over my page-long, hand-written essay (in maybe 4th grade) and required me to recopy it over again because of some grammatical errors. But I showed him (or he showed me) because I grew up with those grammatical rules so firmly in mind that it got me my first job (as an editor). So…thanks dad?
Some Came Running, rw (Vincente Minnelli, 1958): 5/5
Grumpy, washed out, drunken, lonely Frank Sinatra charges into town, knocking down smalltown provincialism,repression, and respectability using the huge chip on his shoulder. As a result, he frees some and further locks up others, mostly righteously (with one massive exception). The last 15 minutes are an all-timer, putting Minnelli’s mastery of wide-screen color and movement on glorious display. Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Shirley MacLaine are all excellent.
Home from the Hill (Vincente Minnelli, 1960): 3.5/5
A story of a father and his two sons—one illegitimate (and good) and the other legitimate (and some of each). Epic and full of parallels, turns and ironies. Comparable (favorably) to East of Eden. George Hamilton and George Peppard (certainly two of the blandest actors in film history) underwhelm as the brothers, but Minnelli succeeds in elevating their story to a mythic realm.
No Down Payment (Martin Ritt, 1957): 3.5/5
A fairly early look at the California suburbs and its discontents, contrasted with the beauty and placidity of the setting. Conformity, alcoholism, racism, and (most startlingly) seething sexuality (although to say more would be a spoiler). Lots of terrific parties. Joanne Woodward is fine! Penned by blacklisted writer Ben Maddow. Stands with (and below) other films addressing this topic, including The Reckless Moment (1949), All That Heaven Allows (1955), Rebel Without a Cause (1955), The Desperate Hours (1955), There’s Always Tomorrow (1956), and the aforementioned Bigger Than Life(1956).
Desert Fury (Lewis Allen, 1947): 3/5
Grounds itself not so much in psychological verisimilitude but in hard-boiled teenage emotional intensity. There are only a few characters and past vortexes of the unknown (a deadly bridge incident), so the conclusion is not hard to guess. There are also classic gunzel homo overtones, but I wonder if the director is even aware. Lizabeth Scott is pretty, with a rectangular face, a mid-Atlantic accent and flat and dead-eyed delivery.
The Long, Hot Summer (Martin Ritt, 1958): 2.5/5
Three Faulkner stories twisted into Tennessee William porn, including sexual repression, fading patriarchs, a drop of homosexuality, and a sweaty, sweaty Paul Newman, whose eyes were created to be seen in Technicolor. Presumably Newman and Joanne Woodward (again!) were falling in love here, but it’s not on screen. Raised a half-star for this shot:
The Girl in the Velvet Swing (Richard Fleischer, 1955): 2/5
Script: Stiff, although co-written by Charles Brackett no less.
Acting: Joan Collins.
Direction: Fleischer is surprisingly good (Narrow Margin, 10 Rillington Place, See No Evil, Mandingo (!!!)) but he misuses the large proscenium of CinemaScope and presents much of the drama in disastrous medium shots that, watching on TV at least, keep the emotions at a distance. His use of DeLuxe Color is also garish and horrible.
However: Fleischer and Brackett hit upon one sublime image of sublimation, and it’s right there in the name of the movie: a red swing built in a large domed room by our protagonist, aging married architect Ray Miland. The sequences with Miland pushing nubile Collins in the swing (“You can’t make me your wife, so you make me your daughter.”), spill deliriously over with Hitchcockian and Lynchian fetishism and kink. It’s the only orgasm Miland, Collins, and the movie will have.
John Carter (Andrew Stanton, 2012): 2/5
EWB’s first Mars novel was published serially in 1912 in a quarterly pulp magazine. As a result, it is focused on short-term goals, intense clashes, and small victories that roll into a big picture à la Raiders of the Lost Ark. Instead, here, the ultra-complicated “big picture” drowns much of the joy and liveliness, produced with cartoonish CGI. The ultimate bounced blank check for Stanton after Finding Nemo and WALL-E.
Postcards from the Edge (Mike Nichols, 1990): 3/5
An accomplished screenplay (for someone who played Princess Leia). Strangely, I didn’t love Streep’s performance, but Shirley MacLaine is very good as always, especially in a scene where she’s been in an accident and is “without” make-up and her wig. Very vulnerable and expressive.
The Human Voice, 30m (Pedro Almodóvar, 2020): 3/5
The composition and art direction (all pretty great) does all the heavy lifting of storytelling here. Emotional connection is a different thing.
A Strange Way of Life (Pedro Almodóvar, 2023): 3.5/5
Deliciously Sirkian. Overheated and swift melodrama that also exposes societal repression. Hawke Is excellent. Why should there be only one gay cowboy movie? (Setting aside all those starring Randall Scott).
Laura, rw (Otto Preminger, 1944): 4/5
A perfectly satisfying murder mystery. Just a small cast of characters and yet even with so few suspects, the solution is both unexpected and inevitable. Gene Tierney is gorgeous. Her face reminds me of Zendaya’s—wide, with high cheekbones and an upside-down mouth. Screenplay by Ring Lardner Jr, who also wrote MASH.
The Warped Ones (Koreyoshi Kurahara, 1960): 3.5/5
Released the same year as Breathless, but this is an even more twitchy, wiry, jazzy, ravenous, exploratory, feral, and impulsive. Also fairly rape-y. Reminds one how much Godard’s movie(s) have such quotations around them—whereas this protagonist refers to and points to nothing and is just really an aimless scumbag—a man trying to tear through the reality he is in. The final scene, involving two abortions, is an all-timer of nihilism. I watched this because one of my favorite critics, David Ehrlich, had it in his Letterboxd top four of all time along with Marie Antoinette and Close Up.
Borom Sarret, 18m (Ousmane Sembène, 1963): 4/5
A portrait of two Dakars. The title translates to The Wagoner, and indeed our protagonist drives a horse-drawn taxi that connects and binds a community (the “native quarter”), taking poor people from their wooden hovels down dirt streets to their jobs, the hospital, the cemetery and church—never making enough money to feed his own family. But until he gets an unexpected fare, he never, never goes to the plateau: where the rich and modern people exist in their office buildings, sports cars, paved streets, parks, and high-rise apartment buildings—like beings in a different galaxy.
Eno (Gary Hustwit, 2024): 3.5/5
Great to hang out with this brilliant and creative idol of mine. (I love especially his 70s “rock” albums and of course ambient music.) Parenthetically, the idea that this was a modular movie that could be watched in any order (“film that’s different every time it’s shown!”) is uninteresting and dumb—and in fact completely fudged for this locked-down version.
V/H/S Halloween (Alex Ross Perry & 6 others, 2025): 2/5
Disappointing batch, over-reliant on degraded and glitchy video. However, the Alex Ross Perry’s entry rocks. So grotty, horrible and upsetting it almost breaks this pop format.
Book Nook
A Princess of Mars (Edgar Rice Burroughs, 1912)
Written in an oddly stilted and formal tone that isn’t completely explained by the era of its creation. Still, it’s packed with event, action, violence, daring do, and romance—so it’s easy to see why it was so popular. There’s a strong anthropological bent to his vision, as he takes long passages to describe societal norms and machines of the various warring factions of the planet. First serialized in the pulp magazine All-Story Magazine from February to July of 1912, this is ERB’s first novel, and the first (of 11) of his John Carter Mars novels. He began writing at the age of 31 and wrote 91 books in all, including 24 Tarzan novels, 7 Pellucidar (Prehistoric, hollow earth) novels, 5 Venus novels, 3 Lost World novels, 3 Moon novels, 3 Mucker (street brawler) novels, and 2 Apache novels. Of course, Burroughs eventually lived and died on a massive ranch in the San Fernando Valley, now called Tarzana.
Ice (Anna Kavan, 1967)
A neurotic return over and over of a girl, her arm, ruins and forest, war, a cruel and repressive man (who is possibly the protagonist himself), and of course ice and snow. “In a peculiar way, the unreality of the outer world appeared to be an extension of my own disturbed state of mind.” It’s a tone poem, so I wonder how she decided it should be its current length. Why not twice as long or half as long? William S. Burroughs and Ballard are comps.
Bluebeard (Kurt Vonnegut, 1987)
Takes on subjects as disparate as the American Abstract Expressionist movement (he’s pro) and the Armenian Genocide by the Turks of 1915-1916 (he’s anti), and ultimately circles back to WWII. Early in my reading life, I blew through all of Vonnegut’s novels, but no memory of this one remained (nor of Hocus Pocus). I appreciated today the same quality as I did in my teens and 20s: Vonnegut’s voice and tone that sees everything with an ironic and cock-eyed grin, conflating the horrific and the ridiculous—forgetting nothing and, If not forgiving, at least accepting everything. Joins the list of works (I’m thinking primarily of Michel Houellebecq’s extraordinary The Map and the Territory) that contain descriptions of other works of art that don’t actually exist, something I’m told is called notional ekphrasis.
