Cosmos (Andrzej Zulawski, 2015): 0.5/5

Filtering Sartre through a slapstick comic lens with a dash of postmodern epistemology: Not My Thing.

I try to reserve my half-star scores for films that have either been compiled with an offensive incompetence, brandish a purposeless contempt for its audience, or lack anything remotely resembling artistic merit and/or ambition. And I will look you dead in the eyes and tell you that COSMOS isn’t guilty of any of those transgressions. If anything, there’s a large chunk of talent involved, nothing actively insulting for its viewers, and plenty of passion-laden, vulgar auteurism at work. But holy fucking shit, this has to have been one of the worst viewing experiences I’ve had. Surprised I stuck it out til the end, honestly, but I was foolishly strung along with false hope in Zulawksi—knowing the name and at least having seen POSSESSION, aware of his aptitude as a moody filmmaker—that he’d somehow bring all this mind-numbing silliness to a sharp point, that there’d be one scene where everything would just suddenly *click* for me and all my prior suffering would be rewarded with a sobering moment of clarity. But no, it's just a hysterical mess, a nonstop cacophony of indiscernible tone and intention.

Hats off to those who can enjoy/appreciate this sort of crap.

David Holzman's Diary (Jim McBride, 1967): 4/5

"I don't know what you're waiting for, I've got nothing to say... unless you wanted to talk about Vincent Minnelli."

Another long-time watchlist piece knocked off thanks to Kanopy. You have to keep reminding yourself that back then there weren't a million people talking to cameras every day and uploading the results to YouTube, that the very existence of this video diary was meant to be representative of an aberrant mindset. (Points for prescience, obviously.) Though at the same time no you don't, because among its many other virtues it makes a fascinating time capsule of NYC in the '60s, walking a wavering, improbable line between solipsism and urban ethnography.

One of the most phenomenal pieces of meta-film out there, precisely because it’s so early and punchy. If you went into this not knowing about it being fictitious as those who saw it did in 1967, you’d leave completely agape. Yet another one that should be required viewing for any acolyte of indie and experimental filmmaking.

Long Day's Journey into Night (Bi Gan, 2018): 2.5/5

Heavy influence from Wong Kar-wai, Resnais, and Tarkovsky here. (Btw this has nothing to do with the Eugene O'Neill play of the same name.) Narrative logic is mutilated by nostalgic interjection, the presence of subconscious fantasy, and a past longing that mists the present. Overall, too far into the abstract and elliptical for my taste. Not to mention impenetrable with a cliche collection of symbols.

However, it does feature a 50-minute long 3-D tracking stunt shot - a flex I can appreciate. I imagine my feelings would be kinder if I had been able to process it in theaters the way Gan intended.

Rocketman (Dexter Fletcher, 2019): 1/5

Or, BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY 2: GAYBOI BLUES

And I think it’s gonna be a long, long time... before we get a musical biopic about a queer superstar that isn’t predictable, contrived, laden with fake CGI crowds, and doesn’t feature a subplot about their gay managers exploiting them.

”You make songs that make millions of people happy. And that’s what’s important.”

I mean, honestly, WTF???

The Grandmaster (Wong Kar-wai, 2013): 2.5/5

You don't need to know anything about Harvey Weinstein, Wong Kar-wai, or even this movie's history of multiple cuts to sense that *something* strange went on in the editing room here. No movie this rigorously composed has subtitles this artlessly expository by choice. There are stretches of this movie that are like the worst Hollywood biopic -- "And then this happened, and then this happened, and then this happened..."

Although the film suffers from uneven, incoherent narrative, the film is indeed ravishingly-looking thanks to its crystalline cinematography and Wong Kar-wai’s stylistic flourishes. The performances are committed. Tony Leung is still at his good form, but the film belongs "emotionally" to Zhang Ziyi whose performance is both beautiful and haunting. As radiant as she and her character is, Zhang creates a beautifully nuanced portrayal of Gong-Er, a strong woman ahead of her time.

In the Name of My Daughter (Andre Techine, 2014): 2/5

Adele Haenel’s dancing/swimming/existing and Catherine Deneuve singing along to the french version of stand by me were the best parts of the movie, the rest of this was a confusing mess.

Dog Eat Dog (Paul Schrader, 2016): 1.5/5

Schrader embracing cartoonish disrepute. Cage doing Bogart. Dafoe doing...something. This is a glorious nothing of a movie.

Delirium (Dennis Iliadis, 2018): 1/5

One star only for Patricia Clarkson. And this was produced by Leonardo DiCaprio??? What a waste.

The Public (Emilio Estevez, 2018): 1.5/5

If you want to check out a film featuring Emilio Estevez holed up in a library with a couple of unlikely companions, just rewatch The Breakfast Club.

The Two Popes (Fernando Meirelles, 2019): 2/5

Buddy comedy about one of the most evil organizations on Earth.

Chapter 27 (J.P. Schaefer, 2007): 1/5

Leto gained 67 lbs for nothing.

Late Night (Nisha Ganatra, 2019): 2/5

I would have appreciated more chemical plant humor.

Uncut Gems (Ben and Josh Safdie, 2019): 3.5/5

Or, A Series of Unfortunate, and Avoidable, Events

They always ask to clean something.

You ever notice that? Jewelers, or at least the ones smart enough to earn your business, rope you in by asking to clean your ring, or chain, or watch. Ten minutes in, he hooked KG with his earrings. Boom.

Another technically well-made Safdie bros crime drama with psychological thrills, dark energy and a frustrating albeit rightfully uncompromising ending. Also, the intro and outro vfx blend are everything that makes the cinematic form majestic. Keep an eye out for two great supporting actors, Julia Fox playing the "I'm much smarter than I look" side-piece, and a wicked (couldn't help myself) Idina Menzel as the wife who takes Howard to task.

rewatched Carol (Todd Haynes, 2015): 5/5

my tear ducts: please don't...
me: Carol Time
my tear ducts: oh my god

Dolemite Is My Name (Craig Brewer, 2019): 3/5

Fun not just because it’s a glossily pitch perfect replication of an era, or because it’s entertaining on an elemental level, but also due to the fact that it gets what makes the best exploitation cinema special. They’re movies crafted by weirdos who arguably had no right (let alone the skill) to make them, but were so driven to put their own image (and the image of their people) up on the screen that they couldn’t fail at any cost.

Light of My Life (Casey Affleck, 2019): 4/5

THE ROAD meets CHILDREN OF MEN meets LEAVE NO TRACE. A stealth weepie. Wouldn't succeed were both lead actors not terrific. Affleck does his usual first-rate job, capturing the internal contradictions of someone who's not cut out for this nightmare but is determined to forge ahead for the kid's sake, and he's matched beat-for-beat by Anna Pniowsky, who somehow manages to make Rag atypically thoughtful for her age but not obnoxiously precocious. Plenty of people have noted the ostensible barbed significance of Affleck having written a movie in which women are all but extinct. Didn't come across as vindictive to me though. If anything, this film makes an XY-only world look truly terrifying, as it surely would be.

Guava Island (Hiro Murai, 2019): 1/5

I have a crazy idea: let’s make a musical with Rihanna in it and not have her sing or dance!!!!!!!

A mostly charmless, low-budget, off-the-resort Caribbean vacation. It’s flavorful, I guess. But the music didn’t move me. The dance didn’t excite me, and the Footloosey concept didn’t draw me in. Thank God it was mercifully short.

Tell Me Who I Am (Ed Perkins, 2019): 3/5

Yet another documentary that you have to see to believe. A devastating true story told through the perspective of a man who forgot everything, and his twin, who holds all the secrets. When you learn what the recurring shots of them in the bedroom and of the cars pulling up outside really mean... horrible, but so powerful.

The Fanatic (Fred Durst, 2019): 0.5/5

I never thought I'd say this, but Fred Durst should stick to music.

Don't F**k with Cats: Hunting an Internet Killer (Mark Lewis, 2019): 3/5

The stupidest title ever and the dumbest poster ever but Luka is an endlessly interesting true crime character, not to mention those crazy social media addicts. If I ever go missing, please contact Baudi Moovan and John Green immediately.

Mary Magdalene (Garth Davis, 2018): 1.5/5

i'm starting a support group for lesbians who have slaved through the shittiest films just for rooney mara. we meet once a month in the last standing blockbuster video store on earth. 

Loving Pablo (Fernando Leon de Aranoa, 2017): 2/5

Title ostensibly refers to Cruz's journalist, but more accurately describes the film itself.

Downsizing (Alexander Payne, 2017): 1.5/5

What a colossal mess. Spends over an hour on intriguing world-building and exposition only to throw it all away in the 2nd and 3rd acts for several pointless tangents that don’t utilize the premise at all. Bullshit bait and switch.

In Fabric (Peter Strickland, 2019): 1.5/5

Great score and stunning visuals, but the story felt excessively chaotic and whatever point it was trying to make about labor and consumerism was completely lost on me. I understand that the general sense of exaggeration and the utterly grotesque nature of the events are a purposeful part of the various euro-horror homages being paid by the director but, in the end, they just amplified my general sense of detachment from what is an occasionally funny but ultimately tedious (and excessively long) narrative. 

Marriage Story (Noah Baumbach, 2019): 3/5

Laura Dern,...pin your heel to my neck, school me in court and drain my bank account DRY, please. Extra half star for Ray Liotta saying “avant garde”

All I Wanna Do (Sarah Kernochan, 1998): 3/5

This opens with the credit A Film By Everybody Who Made it and it's cute AF.

The most feminist film of '98? Full of tough girls who destroy men, are proudly horny, hungry, and ambitious. It made me legitimately crave canned ravioli.

The Forest for the Trees (Maren Ade, 2003): 4/5

Cringe-inducing, beautifully calibrated portrait of toxic neediness. Ade (Toni Erdman) and her remarkable lead actress, Eva Lobau, somehow create a character who's intensely lovable despite her ignorance of pretty much every social convention known to man; each faux pas registers like a million tiny pinpricks. Imagine Single White Female as a naturalistic European drama instead of a dopey American thriller.

The Lion King (Jon Favreau, 2019): 1/5

THEY FILMED "CAN YOU FEEL THE LOVE TONIGHT" DURING THE FUCKING DAY

IT LITERALLY SAYS NIGHT IN THE NAME YOU IMBECILES

I Lost My Body (Jeremy Clapin, 2019): 2.5/5

Intriguing so long as it remains somewhat mysterious; falls apart when its timelines converge.

Seth Meyers: Lobby Baby (Neal Brennan, 2019): 3.5/5

the "skip politics" bit was absolutely genius, better than all of bandersnatch

Circle (Aaron Hann, Mario Miscione, 2015): 2/5

Cube 4: Circle

I had that joke written before I even started the movie.

Errementari: The Blacksmith and The Devil (Paul Urkijo Alijo, 2017): 2.5/5

A fantastical horror journey into an 1800s world of christianity, demons, and predictable plot points. Extra half star because I don’t think I’ve ever seen a movie in Basque before. Nice of Netflix to dive into a region and culture that most people probably have no idea about. Do NOT watch this with the awful English dub 

The Irishman (Martin Scorsese, 2019): 3/5

anna paquin: so do you want me to say anything or-

martin scorsese: no i literally just want you to vibe

Basically Scorsese's FORREST GUMP.

Generation Wealth (Lauren Greenfield, 2018): 2.5/5

Apparently you can get salmonella from bukakke.

Why is this not as good as THE QUEEN OF VERSAILLES, or even Greenfield's photographic worth? Is it because its insights into American (and international) excess and the destructiveness of capitalism isn't really new? Or that the questions it poses feel too broad and limiting? The film ends up being less about "generation wealth" more about Greenfield narrativizing her own life and neuroses and history through the lens of her work. The footage and interviews have enough interesting content to easily fill 3 different documentaries, but the uneven structure and framing device make it clear that greenfield doesn’t really know what to say with this wealth of material.

The Fall (6 minutes) (Jonathan Glazer, 2019): 3.5/5

Immaculately shot and exceedingly haunting, Jonathan Glazer proves once again to be a master of atmosphere and dread. I wish it was longer and cannot wait to see his new feature once it comes out.

Beautiful Boy (Felix van Groeningen, 2018): 2/5

timothée: i don’t do meth! *sneaks off to do meth*

steve carrell: WHHY ARE YOU RUNNING?? WHY ARE YOU RUNNING????????

Imagine this but repeated every 20 minutes over the course of 2 hours and you have Beautiful Boy.

Oh god and the music choices in this movie... well they certainly were choices.

Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Celine Sciamma, 2019): 5/5

I saw this 3 different times the week it played at the ArcLight in Hollywood. Best film of the year. Best of the decade. The greatest cinematic experience of my life, bar none. 

I'm, and I can't stress this enough, yelling.

Stop Whatever It Is You're Doing

And go see PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE, in theaters now. 

That is all.

🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

Sorry for my absence.  The burden of articulating my reactions to daily movie viewing has reminded me why I never wanted to be a film critic: it too often feels like an exercise in finding new ways to express disappointment.  As emotional defense, cheap sarcasm and glib philosophizing become the coin of the realm (e.g., "filmtwitter").  That said, here are some ramblings about a few movies I saw in a theater this year.

The Theatrical Experience, June-November 2019

*The Souvenir (Joanna Hogg, 2019): 5/5
Exquisitely captures the self-doubting, cold-blooded, sweaty-armpit anxiety of being a grad student in the arts.  Julie, like most grad students, is white, average, and middle class, with vague artistic aspirations that have something to do with documenting the lives of laborers she knows nothing about.  In film school, she must affect the detached worldliness required to fit in with the smart set.  Hopelessly plain and out of her depth, she latches on to just the guy who can teach her the ways of the world: older, wiser, aristocratic.  Increasingly estranged from family and schoolmates, Julie naively travels alone down Anthony's road of excess to the palace of wisdom, with no wisecracking sidekick to announce the red flags.  And so with each troubling discovery, Julie's anxieties about Anthony, her lack of self-knowledge, and her place in the world become our own. As the English would say, Fucking brilliant, that.

*The Last Black Man in San Francisco (Joe Talbot, 2019): 4/5
Even without the flimsy narrative, this works as a lyrical documentary--a poetic love letter to a disappearing community and way of life.

*Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino, 2019): 2/5
Sure, it was an entertaining ride.  But what could have been a funny and touching portrait of two aging tinseltown cowboys scraping by in a culture now ruled by teens and TV is undermined by QT's thirst for exploitation.  Putting Sharon Tate next door is just lazy and contrived, exploiting her impending doom for dramatic gravitas that is cheap and unearned.  QT: please stop fucking with history and open a chain of Jack Rabbit Slim's, where you can have it your way.

*Honeyland (Tamara Kotevska & Ljubomir Stefanov, 2019): 5/5
Shot over several years, this haunting observational portait of a middle-aged Macedonian beekeeper living in a cave dwelling with her dying mother quietly documents what happens to traditional subsistence agriculture when a large nomadic family--and the demands of global capitalism--move in.  Beautiful and shattering.  This one stayed with me for a long time.

*Lawrence of Arabia, rw (David Lean, 1962): 4/5
The greatest White Savior in the Desert story since J.C.  And that Larry is so pretty and self-punishing, with hardly a woman to be seen... it's as if MGM had asked Kenneth Anger to re-make King of Kings! But for all its white male privilege and imperialist pomp, the film is astonishingly wise and critical of neo-colonialism: in the end, the Arabs rule the nation but the Brits still rule the utilities. Lawrence realizes too late that the Arabs had won the battle but lost the war.

*Bunuel in the Labyrinth of the Turtles (Salvador Simo, 2018): 2/5
A wry, animated look at how Luis Bunuel shot the weird, subversive Las Hurdes, aka Land Without Bread.  Production wraps, Bunuel's film is premiered, chaos ensues, The End.  But the key to Las Hurdes's subversion--its patronizing Voice of God narration--is NEVER mentioned.  Idiotic.

*Ad Astra (James Gray, 2019): 3/5
Must every American astronaut now explore outer space in search of a lost family member, a la Interstellar, Gravity, and First Man?  Whatever happened to exploring space out of national duty, or scientific curiosity, or just because it's there?  So goes another disappointment from James Gray.  As with The Lost City of Z, which couldn't decide if Percy Fawcett was Indiana Jones or Aguirre, Ad Astra includes a stunning dune buggy gunfight on the moon, a pointless, obligatory attack by space primates, and Big Questions about whether mankind has destroyed the universe.  Gray seems like a smart guy who wants to make ambiguity-riddled art cinema but also wants mainstream box office success.  As a compromise, he makes arty genre pictures that resist proven genre conventions, satisfying neither the demands of art nor genre.

*Satantango (Bela Tarr, 1994): 3/5
A supposedly cinematic thing I'll never do again.  I dropped in at the Egyptian on a Saturday from 2:00-10:45pm to catch the 4K restoration, supervised by Tarr, in all its miserable glory.  For me, this never reached the transcendent splendor of Werckmeister Harmonies, which remains my favorite Tarr film.

*The Lighthouse (Robert Eggers, 2019): 3.5/5
Funny that this would be my next theatrical film experience after Satantango, as both share a B&W square frame, an infatuation with the drunken forlornness of laborers, indifference toward narrative coherence, and a tendency to go on for far too long.

*Pain and Glory (Pedro Almodovar, 2019): 3/5
For mature audiences only.  I share with Almodovar, who just turned 70 (!), an interest in life after work, the treachery of the body in advancing age, the perils of regret and the necessity of forgiveness, and the hope that psychopharmacology might relieve one's burdens, if only temporarily.  (My ticket stub read, "1 Adult Pain.") In this valedictory, semi-autobiographical work, the director weaves these complex strands together with skill and a lightness of touch, but perhaps a little too neatly and with too much contrivance.  Almodovar is, after all, an artist who confronts life's darkest moments but always finds some light.

*Ford v Ferrari (James Mangold, 2019): 3/5
Like Ron Howard, James Mangold is one of a dying breed: a mainstream director who delivers solid, middle-budget, character-driven entertainment that occasionally panders and lacks any discernible stamp of authorship.  FvF features an intriguing backstory and thrilling racing sequences that never resort to comic-book CGI nonsense--no Baby Drivers allowed here.  Is the title mocking Fast v Furious?  I hope so.

Suspiria (Luca Guadagnino, 2018): 2/5

Climax (Gaspar Noé, 2018): 2/5

Two Euro 2018 movies about dancing yourself (and others) to death. Largely forgettable works by a couple of my favorite and least consistent working directors.

Diary of a Country Priest, rw (Robert Bresson, 1951):4/5

The point seems to summed up in the priest’s insistence that “All is Grace.” When I texted Jerry to ask whether he believed this statement (which I guess I figured he didn’t), here was his reply, which it’s hard to argue with: "Grace = Bresson, Folly = Bunuel. Shit = Genet. I’d agree with any of these, depending on my circumstances at the moment."

Triangle (Christopher Smith, 2009): 3/5

Fun time-tripping sci-fi adventure.

Undone (Raphael Bob-Waksberg, 2019): 3.5/5

Fun time-tripping roto-scope-animation sci-fi adventure.

Midsommar (Ari Aster, 2019): 5/5

Playful, trippy, and horrifying. Aster once again grounds the movie’s horrors in the characters’ real trauma, and spins familiar elements into vivid new shapes. Mines the loss of individual identity of the “psychedelic experience” for maximum horror and ecstasy.

Between Two Ferns: The Movie (Scott Aukerman, 2019): 3/5

I’m a fan, and there were plenty of faint pleasures here.

Your Name (Makoto Shinkai, 2016): 2.5/5

I keep thinking that it’s impossible for Hayao Miyazaki’s movies to be that far ahead of any other Japanese animation. But this movie didn’t provide any evidence to the contrary.

Succession, Seasons 1&2 (Jesse Armstrong, 2018/2019): 3.5/5

Lear refuses to give up his kingdom but the three siblings fight and plot anyway.

Too Old to Die Young, Eps 1, 3 & 5 (Nicolas Winding Refn, 2019): 2/5

Watched the first one, which had a devotion to tableau and stasis worthy of Parajanov. Vowed I’d never watch another. Then someone said to watch 3, so I did. Vowed I’d never watch another. Then someone said I had to watch 5, so I did. You can’t say I didn’t try.

The Amazing Jonathan Documentary (Benjamin Berman, 2019): 2/5

People who smoke meth are erratic.

Last Year at Marienbad, rw (Alain Resnais, 1961): 2.5/5

I had a lot more patience for high formalism tom-foolery when I was in my 20s.

The Old Dark House, rw (James Whale, 1932): 5/5

Halloween Watch #1: Delivers ace performances from Boris Karloff, Ernest Thesiger and Charles Laughton, as well as resolution for all the characters—all in 72 spooky and madcap minutes.

City of the Living Dead (Lucio Fulci, 1980): 1.5/5

Halloween Watch #2:  You’ll hear horror people talk about Fulci as a horror master, but this one never got off the ground for me as either an eye-gouging crowd-pleaser or a synth zone-out.

Friday the 13^th: Parts 2&3 (Steve Miner, 1981/2): 3.5/5

Halloween Watch #3: Contrary to my expectations, these were well-made, efficient, enjoyable and blessedly subtext-free.

High Tension (Alexandre Aja, 2003): 3/5

Halloween Watch #3:  French take on the slasher. Aja has a reputation for brutality, but perhaps we’ve gone a lot farther in the subsequent 16 years?

The King (David Michod, 2019): 3/5

Chalamet lacks the gravitas to really play Hal/Henry V, but his interiority did help to make the character more thoughtful and conscious-wracked than I’ve ever considered him before. Joel Edgerton plays a surprisingly buff and sober Falstaff, and Robert Pattinson has fun channeling Klaus Kinski.

Joker (Todd Phillips, 2019): 4/5

A full-on gaze into the abyss, anchored by another seriously great performance from Phoenix. If you’re going to really notice and feel the meanness, misery, pain and meaningless of our stupid world—well, ya just gotta laugh, right? Or let yourself go crazy, or blow your brains out? The movie gets into trouble when it tries to articulate an alternative, because any response other than anarchic madness just becomes a different brand of fascism.

The Art of Self-Defense (Riley Stearns, 2019): 2/5

Fight Club set in the Napolean Dynomite universe. Yeah, that doesn’t work, does it?

* The Lighthouse (Robert Eggers, 2019): 3/5

Plenty to enjoy here, including two terrific performances. But like The VVitch, it remained too static and open-ended to really satisfy.

The Farewell (Lulu Wang, 2019): 2.5/5

Charming and shallow. Our main character never really acts—and turns out to be just wrong the whole time?

The Tin Drum, rw (Volker Scholondorff, 1979): 3.5/5

Certainly one of the most disturbing movies I’ve ever seen. Free-flowing fuckery, and question marks at every turn. Barbaric, Mystical, Bored: You have given the century its name.

Frozen 2 (Chris Buck, Jennifer Lee, 2019): 2/5

In which Elsa confronts the genocide of the native people by her ancestors (literally, her grandfather), and the conflict is resolved by destroying a dam that is a symbol of the exploitation. So kind of a cross between Dances with Wolves and Zjangke Jia’s Still Life. Jack was as bored as I was, and we didn’t leave humming the songs—but…I didn’t get the first one either, so what do I know.

The Image Book (Godard, 2018): No Rating

Not much point in "reviewing" this, as Godard's post-'80s collage essays operate in a free-associative, heavily allusive (yet somehow didactic) mode that just holds very little interest for me. Been rough sledding ever since nouvelle vague. (GOODBYE TO LANGUAGE, with its radical 3-D experimentation and comparative lack of aphoristic pseudo-wisdom, is a partial exception to the rule, though I still got restless.) It'd be like my trying to assess the value of an opera, or a ballet—I could take a stab, certainly, but there's no particular reason why anyone should care what I think. See also: most avant-garde cinema.

Doctor Sleep (Mike Flanagan, 2019): 1.5/5

"A fundamental difference between THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS and its sequel, HANNIBAL, is that the former is frightening, involving and disturbing, while the latter is merely disturbing." - Roger Ebert

Loving (Jeff Nichols, 2016): 3/5

Good and restrained, very geared towards driving home how ordinary and lovely its central couple were. Has no interest in mounting an argument against systemic racism, nor should it--what this movie is about is a matter of fact, and it wants it to feel that way. It'd work regardless, but Ruth Negga's performance is superb.

Lyle (Stewart Thorndike, 2014): 2/5

Or, Rosemary's Gayby

Also, who names their daughter Lyle? I'm sure not even lesbians in Brooklyn would do that shit.

Pass Over (Spike Lee, Dayna Taymor, 2018): 3/5

The absurdism of Waiting For Godot was a perfect template to explore systemic racism. Fascinating to watch something that's at once blatantly theatrical and aggressively cinematic. (I assume Lee shot multiple performances, each from a variety of different angles, because otherwise he must have spent a fortune digitally removing the camera crew in post.)

Snowpiercer (Bong Joon Ho, 2013): 2/5

What if Tilda had just played all of the roles?

The Souvenir (Joanna Hogg, 2019): 2.5/5

Or, Dump That Mother Fucking Asshole (otherwise known as DTMFA)

With little regard for plot, pacing and narrative structure, THE SOUVENIR is a patchwork of capricious moments that chronicles a destructive, Phantom Thread-like relationship through a random flow of highly-personal memories. Messy, fragmented and autobiographical in nature, it’s the kind of lovesick story that doesn’t really have a clear purpose in mind, nor does it care to take you anywhere in particular, but it does allow Joanna Hogg to get therapeutic, purge some demons, and wax cinematically self-indulgent for 2 hours. A little too muted and emotionally barren for my taste, but some people are gonna absolutely love this stuffy mix of reverie and requiem. With Scorsese, Tilda, and A24 all backing it, I just wished it converted into something more universally moving.

What Women Want (Nancy Meyers, 2000): 1.5/5

The premise of this film is that Mel Gibson has to electrocute himself multiple times to be a decent person.

rewatched Harold and Maude (Hal Ashby, 1971): 2.5/5

I really just want to strangle Maude, to be honest. She's a Manic Pixie Dream Crone, embracing life and seizing the day with the kind of pushy, simpleminded vigor that in reality would drive somebody like Harold to demock his mock suicides. That Harold sleeps with her is still shockingly bold (even given that nothing but the afterglow is shown) but there's only so much ostensibly delightful nonconformity I can stomach, and around the time Maude steals the cop's motorcycle I started actively rooting for her demise.

The Blob (Irvin S. Yeaworth, 1958): 1/5

All downhill from the title song. I'm not an aficionado of bad genre films, but this seems insufficiently cheesy/fun even by those limited standards.

Straw Dogs (Sam Peckinpah, 1971): 1.5/5

Lots of smart folks, including Peckinpah himself, have attempted to make a case for this as something other than vile misogynistic Neanderthal bullshit, but I remain unconvinced. Superbly made does not trump hateful.

rewatched Schindler's List (Stephen Spielberg, 1993): 4/5

me: [starts a 195 minute movie at 12:50am]
me: this is a great idea

The Lady in the Van (Nicholas Hytner, 2015): 1/5

Ungrateful old hag meets dull-as-dishwater playwright. What could pozzZzzzZzzzZzZzZzzZzzzzZZzz… zZZzzz… ZzzzZzzzzz… oh sorry, I dozed off there for a while. What was the question again?

rewatched The Bridge on the River Kwai (David Lean, 1957): 4/5

Guinness' Col. Nicholson one of the all-time great movie characters. Holden section does flag.

rewatched Young Frankenstein (Mel Brooks, 1974): 5/5

Few things have ever been funnier than young Gene Wilder shouting. But the film's genius is how seriously it takes everything except the jokes, faithfully replicating the look of Universal's '30s horror and constructing a credible narrative framework that serves to heighten the absurdity.

The Wind (Emma Tammi, 2018): 2/5

The Witch, but make it a Western and not good. But also the goat should be white. #WhitePhillip

Toy Story 4 (Josh Cooley, 2019): 4/5

Remember when the Toy Story saga felt complete without the fourth film? We were such fools back then...

The thing I like about the TOY STORYs is that because the toys' existential angst is so foregrounded and palpable, the movies can go from almost cloying to downright upsetting on a dime. This one even gets near the idea that Woody and the gang's relative stability is a privileged experience, that the life of your average toy is probably a sad, lonely one, that their self-actualization is rare. The adventure this time is slight but the egalitarian streak is ramped up, I really related to the new character who only wants to go in the trash, and I'd gladly sit through another story if it's going to be this stealthily thoughtful.

The Lighthouse (Robert Eggers, 2019): 3/5

Carl Th. Dreyer presents Bela Tarr's THE SHINING.

An ambitious divergence from The Witch’s occult dread into the genre’s more obscure depths. The film is a roaring tempest of style and performance: a descent into cackling insanity, writhing with furious energy against the confines of its square frame. I still prefer The Witch, but Eggers’ dedication to authenticity, the riveting visuals, and fascinating interplay between the central duo are unparalleled as a unique, exquisite cinematic experience.

El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie (Vince Gilligan, 2019): 2/5

Not even a coda, more of three-episode-long narrative digression that never feels as spontaneous or desperate as the series. Well made and the cast is fine, but absolutely not a story that needed to be told in any way, shape, or form. Take it or leave it.

The Laundromat (Steven Soderbergh, 2019): 2.5/5

Stevie was like "Have you guys read Das Kapital?"

Skin (Guy Nattiv, 2019): 2/5

if clint eastwood was more liberal but just as tone deaf

Ma (Tate Taylor, 2019): 2/5

Must a movie be good? Is it not enough to see Octavia Spencer, unhinged?