Widows (Steve McQueen, 2018): 2/5

Unsatisfying as either social commentary or heist film. Agree with Michelle that Elizabeth Debicki’s height is the movie’s best special effect.

Hale County This Morning, This Evening (RaMell Ross, 2018): 2.5/5

I’m a great champion of documentaries in the poetic mode, but this one didn’t do much for me.

The Favourite (Yorgos Lanthimos, 2018): 3.5/5

Everything in the world is about sex except sex, which is about power. The bunnies were the greatest symbols/images from 2018 (that weren’t in Roma), but I still prefer the provocative and bananas The Killing of a Sacred Deer.

Vox Lux (Brady Corbet, 2018): 2/5

It didn’t earn the evocation of mass shootings for emotional effect—or even address it, really. I was disappointed in Natalie Portman’s multi-accented performance. And what exactly was I supposed to be feeling during the final concert? Was it a triumph or an empty spectacle? Do you think the director knows?

Green Book (Peter Farrelly, 2018): 2.5/5

I get its mild but broad, sit-commy appeal. What I don’t get are the people who exited the theater exhilarated and thrilled. I read about these people!!

Juliet, Naked (jesse Peretz, 2018): 3/5

Entertaining and forgettable. A good performance from Ethan Hawke and a terrible one from (the usually reliable) Chris O’Dowd.

Vertigo, rw (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958): 5/5

He just can’t help himself. He just has to lose her all over again. Watched with Veronica.

The Line Up  (Don Siegel, 1958): 3/5

Another movie from 1958 featuring great footage of late-50s San Francisco. This one’s an OK police procedural with a fun performance by Eli Wallach as a psychopathic hit man. #ColumbiaNoir

Murder by Contract (Irving Lerner, 1958): 4/5

The first (?) of the stoic, sociopathic killers/criminals with a code/method—preceding Pickpocket, Le Samourai, Taxi Driver. One of Scorsese’s favs. #ColumbiaNoir

Inglorious Basterds, rw (Quentin Tarantino, 2009): 3/5

More of a collection of scenes than a movie. Thanks to my low expectations, it was more entertaining than I remembered. Watched with Rosa.

The Holy Mountain, rw (Alejandro Jodorowsky, 2973): 5/5

“Your sacrifice completes my sanctuary of one thousand testicles.”

Missing Link (Chris Butler, 2019): 2.5/5

What exec thought a kids movie needed Zach Galifianakis’ brand of melancholy self-hatred?

High Life (Clair Denis, 2019): 2.5/5

All the big symbols are left unmentioned: like the ship (in a movie obsessed with pregnancy) serving as a seed travelling toward the great round void/womb of a black hole. What’s left is quite a lot of bizarre, unmotivated behavior.

The Return of the Jedi (Richard Marquand, 1983): 2.5/5

Watched this with Jack on May 4 (Star Wars day). He was excited at the prospect of a movie with Han Solo, Chewbacca and Luke Skywalker but was only sporadically entertained, even by the (fucking) Ewoks. Also really weird that it contains a bunch of shots not in the original but still (now) outdated and bad-looking.

Cold Water (Olivier Assayas, 1994): 3/5

A victim of the overhype of the unobtainable. Unavailable for many years because of the (pretty great) use of music in a (pretty great) party scene. At one point, they start a song over and listen to it again. When have you ever seen that?

High Maintenance, Season 3 (Ben Sinclair & Katja Blichfield, 2019): 3.5/5

Continues to feature my favorite tone of any show on TV: warm, funny, open to the unexpected, and interested in people of all description. This season was less consistent than the two previous, but the (ahem) highs were just as high.

The Last of Sheila (Herbert Ross, 1973): 3/5

A sort-of parody of Agatha Christie penned by Stephen Sondheim and Tony Perkins, with all the puzzly self-satisfaction that that suggests. All is not as it seems, you see? Richard Benjamin proves once again why he’s one of the most unlikely stars in movie history.

The Bay (Barry Levinson, 2012): 2.5/5

Not as horrific as Levinson’s Toys.

Dragged Across Concrete (S. Craig Zahler, 2019): 4.5/5

My favorite movie this year so far, and one of the best movies ever in the Tarantino mold. Funny and novelistic. A great performance from Gibson, full of anger and self-loathing.

Thief, rw (Michael Mann, 1981): 4/5

I saw this in the theater when I was 13, and I can’t really see it as anything other than really cool. Cool music, cool visuals and cool performances by Caan, Weld and (the great) Robert Prosky. Influential.

Barry, Season 2 (Alec Berg & Bill Hader, 2019): 3.5/5

Very amusing. Hader, Stephen Root, and Henry Winkler are all aces.

x

Blast of Silence (Allen Baron, 1961): 3/5

Allen Baron has the perfect looks for the role; two parts De Niro, one part Lino Ventura, with a twist of George C. Scott.  A textbook on how to kill a motherfucker dead.

Tusk (Kevin Smith, 2016): 2/5

If you've ever wanted to know what Justin Long would look like as a walrus, then this is one of your better options.

The Sisters Brothers (Jacques Audiard, 2018): 3.5/5

riz [to jake]: have we met before?
me: YES ISSA NIGHTCRAWLER REUNION UP IN THIS BITCH!

Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile (Joe Berlinger, 2019): 1.5/5

Turns out he did it.

I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House (Oz Perkins, 2016): 2/5

I Am The Bored Person That Watched This Film

Can You Ever Forgive Me? (Marielle Heller, 2018): 2.5/5

Fine enough for the two central performances, and it’s neat to see McCarthy explore the lonely, melancholy element of her bullish comedic persona, but the rest is fairly pedestrian and executed with an adequate level of muted panache.

rewatched Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (Sidney Lumet, 2007): 5/5

Purely and simply great filmmaking, and also one of Philip Seymour Hoffman's best performances. His character is the engine that drives this gripping but potentially standard crime story into the realm of feverish moralistic melodrama - Lumet's taught razor wire noose tightens around pretty much everyone in the movie as it goes, but it's Andy who puts it all in motion, and PSH nails every facet of this character, from the slightly deranged happiness (as if he's hiding deep reservoirs of personal problems) of the beginning to the resigned psychosis of the climax. Always magnetic and a true highlight even in a stacked ensemble cast.

Mid90s (Jonah Hill, 2018): 1/5

Boys Will Be Boys: The Movie

(And yet another addition to the Lucas Hedges Troubled Son Cinematic Universe)

Naked (Mike Leigh, 1993): 3/5

Sardonically delivered dialogue so sharp you could shave with it. Nihilistic philosophizing spewing forth from our anti-hero like a broken faucet. What a savagely bleak odyssey, and an unbelievably powerful performance from David Thewlis.

La Commare Secca (Bernardo Bertolucci, 1962): 2.5/5

If I told you Bertolucci's first film was a cross between Rashomon & I Vitelloni, you'd be inclined to think it was essential. It's not--but worth a shot if you're a Bertolucci completist.

The Ritual (David Bruckner, 2017): 3/5

Look, it's a simple fucking rule, don't enter a cabin in the woods. The Blair Witch Project meets The Descent, but with an all-male group of friends. An efficient and properly nightmarish Brit horror that boasts tense, suspenseful momentum, atmospheric Swedish settings and original creature designs, despite feeling a bit too familiar, derivative and forgettable at the same time.

Homecoming: A Film by Beyonce (Beyonce Knowles, 2019): 5/5

An awing display — and simultaneous celebration — of black excellence and artistic superiority. Intercut with Beyonce’s paradigm-altering 2018 Coachella performance are the taxing toilings that brought it to fruition, serving to humanize the woman, mother and wife behind the goddess. Knowing that each beat of the drum, hair-flip and bodily pivot were all painstakingly constructed over the course of eight months (!!!) affords them extra weight, and doubly riveting in light of the pitch-perfect execution. “I just might be a black Bill Gates in the making” doesn’t only resonate because of its polarizing intent — the evocation finds power in the fact that it just might be true. And I'm not the first and won't be the last to suggest that this belongs in the concert doc pantheon with stuff like Stop Making Sense, Truth or Dare, or Monterey Pop.

P.S. Jay Z still ain't shit.

Green Book (Peter Farrelly, 2018): 2.5/5

EYYYYYY, DEEP SOUTH, WHASSAMATTA YOU, WHY SO RACIST??? EYYYYY, WHAT DO I KNOW, I'M JUST A SIMPLE GUY FROM DA BRONX, EYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

Aquaman (James Wan, 2018): 1/5

Part Thor, part Black Panther, part Tron, part Power Rangers, part Nicholas Sparks novel, part Disney Channel Original Movie, part the Mummy ride at Universal??? Also, even with a $200 million dollar budget, for some reason they put everyone in a Party City wig.

rewatched Bowfinger (Frank Oz,1999): 4/5

So stupid and silly and terrific. Eddie Murphy's role as Jiff is one of his most underrated characters; Martin is equally great and Terrence Stamp is a highlight as a Scientology-like figure at a place called MindHead.

rewatched Sullivan's Travels (Preston Sturges, 1941): 4.5/5

Glorious in ways that need no belaboring, held back only by its slightly simplistic moral and the necessity to mostly sideline Veronica Lake once Sully is presumed dead. 

Wild Nights with Emily (Madeline Olnek, 2018): 2.5/5

Like DRUNK HISTORY but a sober, lively, dryly comedic corrective to the traditional, heteronormative, patriarchal image of Emily Dickinson.

Vice (Adam McKay, 2018): 2/5

An astonishing transformation for Bale, who really nails Cheney's laconic, gruff persona. Really though, this is the movie no one asked for, no one needed, and no one wanted.

*freeze frame* just no fucking thank you

Little (Tina Gordon Chism, 2019): 2/5

At one point two characters break out in song for no reason, it’s never explained, and it’s incredibly jarring. All in all, just a middling comedy in terms of plot but great acting from all three leading ladies.

Sweetie (Jane Campion, 1989): 2/5

Sports an inherently unstable tone - strenuously wacky yet deadly serious. The film accumulates odd touches and unexpected digressions the way bag ladies collect random bits of societal flotsam and jetsam. Individual scenes impress, and compositions are striking, but it feels more like a collection of shorts about the same kooky family than a single coherent feature.

Road House (Rowdy Herrington, 1989): 1/5

Fucking ridiculous scumtrash about a bouncer who for some reason possesses nationwide fame and respect (???). Oh god and then there's the soul-crushing 80s production values...

Island of Lost Souls (Erle C. Kenton, 1932): 3/5

Hollywood to H.G. Wells: I wanna sex you up. Introducing the Panther Woman, played by Kathleen Burke who succeeds in investing her version with a little pathos, but she's still mostly around to flash some leg and make the idea of miscegenation between man and beast seem seductive. What's most striking to my eyes is how matter-of-factly the film introduces its manufactured mutants, in broad daylight on the ship that rescues our hero, without the emphatic reveal you'd expect—they're just wandering the deck like the regular humans, looking vaguely disturbing. I have no real sense of Kenton as a director, as this is still the only film of his I've ever seen, but that choice alone makes me curious.

Stranger on the Third Floor (Boris Ingster, 1940): 3/5

Solid if overwrought B mystery that's considered the first film noir, maybe. No femme fatale or hardboiled detective here (cf. Maltese Falcon), but there's expressionistic visuals, interior monologue, and a wrong man plot, with Peter Lorre embodying Germanic evil for good measure.

Dallas Buyers Club (Jean-Marc Vallee, 2013): 2/5

McConaughey's performance is the sole element of interest here, and he does his best not to choke on dialogue like "Screw the FDA—I'm gonna be D.O.A." That's very clever, Mr. Screenwriter. Good context for very clever.

Revenge (Coralie Fargeat, 2017): 3/5

rApE rEvEnGe MaXiMuM aEsThEtiC.

New French Extremity is back and trenchant AF.

Actress (Robert Greene, 2014): 2.5/5

We follow Brandy Burre (regular on The Wire) as she decides to get back into the acting profession while her marriage slowly crumbles around her. To see Burre attempt to juggle all of these things - divorce, two kids, comeback - would have been interesting to say the least, if we actually got to see it. There's hardly any acting comeback footage, only a smattering of Mother Time and several uncomfortable hints at the divorce proceedings. As a documentary, it doesn't have much to offer. As a manufactured drama, it doesn't have much to offer. As an exploration of non-fiction cinema, it doesn't have much to offer.

Good Will Hunting (Gus Van Sant, 1997): 3/5

Drenched in melodrama, reductionism, and full-blown Hollywood-isms, it’s pretty incredible the movie is as enjoyable as it is. Things like the natural warmth of Williams' performance and the sincerity of the relationships between the initially overbearing Boston boys warmed to me little by little. But take away the central performances and some of the snappy dialogue, and this would be near unwatchable. As it stands, it’s a solidly packaged (if emotionally compromised) feel-good picture that’s heavy on the cheese and light on reality.

The Place Beyond the Pines (Derek Cianfrance, 2012): 3/5

Gripping but super schematic. A lot of formal control over some heavily trod material. All in all, better than I expected. Gosling's segment genuinely thrums.

Rupture (Steven Shainberg, 2016): 0.5/5

A student film interpretation of Aughts torture-porn turned into a full-length feature that somehow managed to snag a few high profile actors.

Proud Mary (Babak Najafi, 2018): 2/5

Good thing they turned a potentially timely blaxplo throwback into a generic crime movie that hinges on its female protagonist protecting some urchin kid.

Free Solo (Jimmy Chin, Elizabeth Vasarhelyi, 2018): 2.5/5

Me to Alex Honnold's gf 500 times during this doc: BREAK UP WITH HIM.

Lonesome (Paul Fejos, 1928): 3/5

Ah yes, the difficulty of finding "The One" in a city of teeming millions. (I suppose it'd be churlish to point out that larger populations just mean more potentially compatible mates.) Jim and Mary alone together are an aw-shucks snooze, even with the help of inter-titles. And the hastily added talkie sequences are actively painful, serving mostly as a demonstration of dead air.

Bisbee '17 (Robert Greene, 2018): 2/5

An important story told. Miners and the IWW teaming up in a rich mining town in Arizona and getting corralled and left for dead in the desert. Still don't really respond to Greene's approach; his entire methodology seems to deny its subjects any sort of meaningful insight or contemplation on their relationship to the past, as he instead focuses more so on making them his own puppets for an exploration on artifice which never really coheres in a compelling way.

Recommended double-bill: Travis Wilkerson's superb, somewhat underseen An Injury to One for a starkly contrasting approach to a related historical flashpoint.

Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot (Gus Van Sant, 2018): 1.5/5

Boring, given the numbing familiarity of 12-step struggles. Van Sant toys with chronology, carving the film into what feels like an endless series of disconnected interludes, like watching one of those DVD extras consisting of all the deleted scenes strung together.

Mortal Engines (Christian Rivers, 2018): 1/5

Goofy-ass steampunk tech and airships and tragic robot men and dynastic tale of revenge and elaborate backstory and on and on, crammed into a hectic, convoluted two hours instead of playing out over hours a day for weeks. I'm still a little fuzzy on why the apocalypse meant the cities had to be on wheels but also please don't bother explaining it to me if you know.

Fool For Love (Robert Altman, 1985): 1.5/5

Sam Shepard is Eddie, a stuntman who has a love/hate relationship with May (Kim Basinger). The two fight endlessly over the course of an evening spent in some dusty motel in the middle of nowhere, while a mysterious man (Harry Dean Stanton) who may be either a figurative or literal father to both Eddie and May quietly observes. Randy Quaid rounds out the four-person cast as a gentleman caller. Altman's direction is assured, the performances are OK given what the actors have to work with, but this inconsequential screenplay goes nowhere, and takes its time getting there.

Shampoo (Hal Ashby, 1975): 2.5/5

Fun to watch Beatty do befuddled for two hours—his performance here foreshadows Oscar night 2017—he's not so much playing a character as embodying an ostensibly self-effacing (but mostly self-aggrandizing) stand-in for his own wolfish reputation. And setting it on Election Day '68 feels like a last-ditch effort to generate Significance where there otherwise isn't much to be found. Would’ve preferred something more broadly satirical and less sneakily self-important.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (Bob Perischetti, Peter Ramsay, 2018): 3/5

An unusually offbeat premise with creative use of comic-book text and intermittent hand-drawn dynamism. But of course there's the earnest life lesson, which one can still rarely escape when it comes to mainstream entertainment.

Goodbye, Mr. Chips (Sam Wood, 1939): 2.5/5

The inspirational teacher movie on steroids, and I suppose the forefather of them all.

Piercing (Nicolas Pesce, 2018): 1.5/5

*Close-up of Mia Wasikowska piercing her nipple*

Me, whispering: That’s the Piercing.

First Man (Damien Chazelle, 2018): 2.5/5

Reductive Biopic Cliché #1, the formative tragedy that underlies everything. Suggested tagline: "He traveled 225,000 miles to escape...himself."

DISCLAIMER: I watched this on my small TV set, so any sense of awe or majesty that relies on the big screen and/or IMAX was lost on me. Don't think it'd have made much difference, but one never knows.

Bohemian Rhapsody (Bryan Singer, 2018): 1/5

is this the real life?
is this just blasphemy?
and by a landslide,
worst film in eternity...
close your eyes
or look up to some other screeeeeen
it's just a poor movie, it needs no sympathy
because it's poorly paced, poorly done
lots of lows, zero fun
any way his teeth grow, doesn't really matter to me...

Us (Jordan Peele, 2018): 3.5/5

Most of this is just a very good don't get out of the car, hey look behind you movie but Peele has such a well of imagination that he creates this additional tantalizing scenario that absolutely begs for both a more coherent idea to tether it to and also an explanation that would kill the whole movie if it was offered. Tough tightrope, fun movie.

Top Gun (Tony Scott, 1986): 2/5

No way this is a real movie.

The Oath (Ike Barinholtz 2018): 1/5

Barely even a comedy, and the ending makes absolutely no sense, both as a Trump parable and as to how these characters in this specific movie would act. It's a shame that Barinholtz assembled these incredible comedians (Haddish, Cho, Brownstein) and gave them nothing to work with.

The Favourite (Yorgos Lanthimos, 2018): 3.5/5

Everything is Sex, Except Sex, Which is Power, You Know Power is Just Sex: The Movie

Night Comes On (Jordana Spiro, 2018): 3/5

Another journey > destination film. Climactic confrontation merits a shrug, but virtually every moment en route is clear-eyed and anchored by two superlative performances with barely a false note between them.

At Eternity's Gate (Julian Schnabel, 2018): 1.5/5

Standard shapeless biopic with stupid camera tricks that drove me up the wall and Tatiana Lisovkaia's tinkling piano score ruining every moment. 

re-watched Le Plaisir (Max Ophuls, 1952): 2.5/5

Second viewing, last seen 2013, no change. Once again, Ophuls' distinctly visual style/masterful use of camera movement/blocking is the one pleasurable factor of this film.

Nancy (Christina Choe, 2018): 3.5/5

Tightly structured story that will leave you guessing about, and feeling for, the broken people at its center. (Unfortunately, there is a high possibility that Andrea Riseborough becomes type-casted as sullen, sardonic goth lady with a name that ends in Y and has a terrible haircut BUT she plays that role so damn well that it isn’t necessarily a bad thing.) Director Christina Choe also displays a keen sense of building tension and holding on key moments. A promising new director to watch.

Boy Erased (Joel Edgarton, 2018): 3/5

Serviceable. Not terrible, or remarkable, remarkably terrible, terribly remarkable. It just is. 

Vox Lux (Brady Corbet, 2018): 3/5

Natty P trying her hand at a fictive pop-diva biopic. Tonally exceptional; stylistically, it owes quite a bit to Michael Haneke, especially in its first half.

Burning (Lee Chang-dong, 2018): 3.5/5

Was not expecting this Cannes sensation to be a Brick-styled mystery with a Manic Pixie Dream Girl for the ages, but I guess if you make it 2.5 hours people go nuts.

Seconds (John Frankenheimer, 1966): 3/5

Begins and ends unforgettably, and then there's the comparatively flaccid midsection, in which Tony Wilson butts heads with the incipient counterculture. Honestly went from thinking, "this might be a new masterpiece," to "oh my god, when will this be over?" 

Paddleton (Alexandre Lehmann, 2019): 3/5

Totally on board with Ray Romano's renewed career as a dramatic actor. Simple, but inspired; heavy, but sensitive. And plenty of chemistry between the two leads.

Lianna (John Sayles, 1983): 2.5/5

A woman in a straight marriage coming to grips with a realization that she's actually a lesbian. I'm just here to point out that her husband's name is Dick, so she's literally leaving dick behind. That is aggressively Pynchonian.

Climax (Gaspar Noe, 2018): 4.5/5

Did everyone try the sangria? I thought the sangria was lovely.

Ninotchka (Ernst Lubitsch, 1939): 4/5

Another gem from that wondrous year of cinema, and the first Lubitsch that's really clicked with me. Now I need to go back and re-watch everything he's done. Also, deadpan Garbo may be the best Garbo. I could listen to her praise Soviet society all day long.

The Third Murder (Hirokazu Kore-eda, 2019): 2/5

Kore-eda tries to combine his trademark intimate humanism with a legal procedural, to disappointing results. He can’t generate the proper tension needed, so his film feels overlong as a result.

Caligula (Tinto Brass, 1979): 1/5

Watched the original theatrical version with the Guccione porn inserts, which aren't remotely erotic but do nonetheless occasionally puncture the general tedium. Fascinating to see such a stellar cast flailing so pathetically—you'd never guess that McDowell, Mirren, and O'Toole had a speck of talent among them. Also hard to believe that a film so aggressively lurid could be so stultifyingly dull, rarely even rising (or sinking, I guess) to the level of camp. Just long, unpleasant and cruel—the cinematic equivalent of sitting in the Colosseum as Christians are thrown to the lions.

A Star Is Born (Bradley Cooper, 2018): 3/5

bradley cooper: hwshhmmvzagsrrd

lady gaga: hwoooahhoooahhhOOOAAHHOAAA

me: why does he have a southern accent if he’s from Arizona


Birdman of Alcatraz (John Frankenheimer, 1962): 2/5

Burt Lancaster looking solemnly at birds and calmly challenging authority is not enough on which to hang a movie, particularly one that is two and a half hours long and takes almost two of those hours to get to its titular location.

The Letter (William Wyler, 1940): 3/5

Bette Davis shooting a man to death while showing no emotion whatsoever.

It's a yes from me.

Operation Finale (Chris Weitz, 2018): 1/5

operation finale? more like operation finally it's fucking over this movie blows

Mary Queen of Scots (Josie Rourke, 2018): 1.5/5

Mary: "I'm not a regular queen, I'm a cool queen"

more like mary queen of FLOPS

rewatched Le Cercle Rouge (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1970): 4/5

HOW DARE YOU SHOOT MY BELOVED MUSTACHIO'D ALAIN DELON. Also, Vogel voluntarily entering the trunk of a car with a lit cigarette is just about the most gloriously French thing I ever saw.

Cries and Whispers (Ingmar Bergman, 1972): 1/5

Everything I hate about Bergman concentrated into a single film. The dour humorlessness; the mannered performances; the ticking clocks that infiltrate portentous silences with metronomic reminders of mortality; the overwrought arias of verbal cruelty; the expository flashbacks; the random mood swings designed merely to startle...it's as close as he ever came to self-parody. Honestly, if I wanted to scare someone away from art films forever, this is what I'd show them.

 The Bronte Sisters (Andre Techine, 1979): 2/5

Strike one: biopic. Strike two: biopic about writers. Strike three: biopic about writers who led utterly uneventful lives, apart from their writing. (Plus, all the Brontes died young, so at a certain point you're just waiting for the entire cast to keel over.)

Spellbound (Alfred Hitchcock, 1945): 2.5/5

Conclusive proof that superlative direction can't redeem an awful script. I've already forgotten most of the film's multitude of idiocies, retaining only a general sense of its pseudo-Freudian nonsense.

Support the Girls (Andrew Bujalski, 2018): 3/5

Kinda like if early Linklater made Coyote Ugly.

Vazante (Daniela Thomas, 2017): 2/5

Unimaginative arthouse drama with overwhelmingly boring characters who offer basically no background or accessible pathos as they exchange flat dialogue. Almost exploitatively bleak in its meditation on slaves' plight, a girl's abuse, and their mutual oppressor's burden, and having nothing new to say about those exhausted themes.

Dead Reckoning (John Cromwell, 1947): 3/5

Unnecessarily convoluted plot. (By the end I wasn't really sure what had happened or why.) But Bogie noir anything is always one of life's comforts.

rewatched The Passion of Joan of Arc (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1928): 5/5

Were I teaching cinema 101, this would be Exhibit A in what the medium can uniquely do.

Whitney (Kevin Macdonald, 2018): 4/5

This is a really great documentary, but it commits one of the greatest sins you could commit: talking over Whitney's Star Spangled Banner performance.

The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry (Robert Siodmak, 1945): 2.5/5

Stupid fucking Hays Code fucked up the original ending!!!!! Ella Raines is one good-lookin’ broad.

rewatched The Rules of the Game (Jean Renoir, 1939): 4/5

Another evolving-taste flip-flop: it's entertaining, much more so than I recalled. MORE LIKE EVERYONE HAS THEIR CRAZY SELF-INVOLVED BULLSHIT AMIRITE. (Spoiler: Iamrite.) Blasphemous missing star is mostly due to Nora Gregor, who's too bland to serve as a credible object of passion for every man in sight; how I wish Arletty had played the role instead.

American Mary (Jen and Sylvia Soska, 2012): 3/5

Body horror with a medical license. The diabolical Dr. Caligari in a black leather apron and pumps. And I’m fairly certain the Soska sisters are as smitten with Katharine Isabelle as we are. Funny, stylish, and wickedly perverse, although burdened with a rudderless (and occasionally dumb) third act.