The Watcher (Joe Charbanic, 2000): 1/5

Boy if this ain’t the 2000siest movie to have ever 2000ed. (It starts with Keanu Reeves dancing slo-mo to Rob Zombie’s Dragula, which btw: you don’t start a show with a showstopper).

A formulaic serial killer thriller, with a subpar and bland performance by James Spader and everyone else involved, poorly written dialogue, and hilarious early-2000s low frame rate slow motion video editing and directing. Terrible.

Ford v Ferrari (James Mangold, 2019): 3/5 

Old school masculinity with market capitalism - it's SPEED RACER for dads. 

Ema (Pablo Larrain, 2019): 3.5/5

Chaotic evil. Feels like Gaspar Noe’s LOVE fused with an over dramatic telenovela. Some things work, some things don’t, but the soundtrack, visuals, and choreography make it an engrossing watch.

rewatched Morocco (Josef von Sternberg, 1930): 1.5/5
A couple of things: 

1) Saw this way the hell back in the mid 2000s - couldn't recall shit except for Dietrich's scene in the tux. (Great, as advertised.)

2) What in the world was Josef von Sternberg thinking. The camerawork is awful. It's just mid-range set up after mid-range set up, so faces are really vague and hard to read. And he keeps shooting through things that are really distracting - the wire frame in Dietrich's dressing room, and there's an early scene where the actor's face (in mid-range) is almost completely obstructed by a hanging wicker something or other in the foreground. Just really bad, inattentive framing of scenes.

3) I just can't get over what an absolute dolt Gary Cooper is. it's hard to be invested in Dietrich's motivations to pursue a man with few admirable qualities. I don't get it. He sucks ass. Replace Cooper with Cary Grant and this would be amazing.

In Vanda's Room (Pedro Costa, 2000): 2.5/5

Camcorder Caravaggio. And imagine if you will, Jeanne Dielman, except she chases the dragon.

The Peanut Butter Falcon (Tyler Nilson, Michael Schwartz, 2019): 2/5

Narrative is quirky-indie boilerplate. Yeah, there's heart, but throughout the movie I never ever felt glued to the screen. It's kind of hit-and-miss; hit-and-miss material where I did enjoy some aspects, and many others absolutely freaking not.

rewatched High and Low (Akira Kurosawa, 1963): 5/5

Haven't seen this in ~13 years and retained no memory whatsoever of the tour de force sequence in which the kidnapper stakes out a guinea-pig junkie in the midst of what appears to be the Japanese equivalent of Carnival. 

rewatched Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941): 5/5

This time I'm more hugely impressed by it than deeply moved.

First Love (Takashi Miike, 2019): 3/5

Romantic crime thriller about a dying boxer who rescues a prostitute, then gets unintentionally mixed up in Triad/Yakuza shenanigans. Coke flies, blood sprays, heads roll, and a booby trap animatronic shiba “arfs”. It's a decent time at the movies. You just have to make it through a sluggishly expository initial half-hour.

Lions Love (Agnes Varda, 1969): 2.5/5

Varda's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. A misfire, and the three leads are nigh on insufferable.

Sleepaway Camp (Robert Hiltzik, 1983): 2.5/5

Pretty decent mystery with an uncomfortably knotty, problematic final twist. SCREAM owes a chunk, largely for adopting convincingly cynical depiction of the way kids actually treat each other. Here that's helped along by some (amusingly clunky) for-once-age-appropriate teenage actors. On the other hand, while obviously nobody's super invested in seeing the graphic on-screen slaughter of actual fourteen-year-olds, this isn't graphic enough by half.

Don't Knock Twice (Caradog W. James, 2016): 1/5

Don't watch once.

The Kindergarten Teacher (Sara Colangelo, 2018): 2.5/5

what type of mia farrow shit...

The Little Hours (Jeff Baena, 2017): 1.5/5

if you're making a one-joke movie the one joke has to be funny

The Man Who Fell To Earth (Nicolas Roeg, 1976): 2/5

Might have rolled with the distance and vagueness better were I more receptive to Roeg's elliptical style, but he's the most severely dated filmmaker I can think of offhand, employing a combination of zooms, dissolves, jump cuts and associative editing that screams 1970's in the same unflattering way as bellbottoms and feathered hair.

Little Joe (Jessica Hausner, 2019): 2/5

The movie basically has nowhere to go after about 45 minutes and just keeps serving up minute variations on Really Happening vs. All In Her Head.

rewatched Frances Ha (Noah Baumbach, 2012): 5/5

My favorite Baumbach - so damn charming. Frances is undoubtedly Gerwig's creation. So many things I love: the unique mood of depressed effervescence, killer dialogue, Frances offering "well, I guess I should go" with the clear expectation of being contradicted, only to receive detailed directions to the nearest subway station; the repeated use of "ahoy, sexy!", Gerwig joyously running through the streets of New York City. MICKEY SUMNER.

Pain and Glory (Pedro Almodovar, 2019): 3/5

During one of the scenes when he was a kid I literally thought to myself "What if this is just some random other kid and not actually him?" AND SHIT I WAS KINDA RIGHT

rewatched The Chocolate War (Keith Gordon, 1988): 3/5

Mostly faithful adaptation of Robert Cormier's classic YA novel (a favorite of mine back in grade school) with strong New Wave soundtrack featuring Yaz, Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush as well as intentionally gray, muted visuals and terrific performances. Ilan Mitchell-Smith is appropriately understated as the lead. John Glover really excels as the school's supercilious assistant headmaster, adding interesting layers of panic and perversity to a character who would otherwise exist solely as a blunt instrument.

Sharknado (Anthony C. Ferrante, 2013): 0.5/5

Notable quotes:

"he must've wanted a snack" - guy from tasmania

"that's what you get for tryna eat me" - guy from tasmania

"these fish surely do have a hankering for me" - guy from tasmania

*huge wave about to hit the guy* "oh craaap!"

*sharks attacking him* "ow!" - drunk guy

"i hate sharks, i'm from wyoming!" - hippie teacher guy

"oh crap, look at all those sharks!" - the hot girl

Girl on the Third Floor (Travis Stevens, 2019): 1/5

Lemme break this down for you:

You've got about 30 minutes of Tattoos McGee doing home repairs and making Skype calls.

You've got about 30 minutes of chatting with the locals.

And then you've got about 30 minutes of an actual horror movie, which is just OK.

The Dinner (Oren Moverman, 2017): 0.5/5

Horrible White People: The Movie

Fundamentally terrible. When you think of every problem a screenplay could have in terms of character, this has it. There's no motivation, little character building, bizarre structure, missing objectives... everything. There's no overlying theme or goal or tone to hold the film together; it's almost incoherent at times.

Basically a bunch of rich, white assholes I'm supposed to care about discuss what to do about their misguided, privileged, criminal children over a bazillion dollar four course meal that director Oren Moverman pointlessly uses as chapter breaks for what is easily the most pretentious, unnecessary, out of touch film.

Always at the Carlyle (Matthew Miele, 2018): 1.5/5

PR fluff piece for the shareholder’s meeting. Who the fuck cares.

Synonyms (Nadav Lapid, 2019): 1.5/5

The character Yoav is too weird and unlikable for the viewer to care about and his exploits are largely a chore to sit through.The viewing experience ranges from dull to awkward and there's little to enjoy or be entertained by. Labeled as anything from drama to sociopolitical satire, it explores masculinity, it shocks with nudity, it deals with identity, and it does all of that in an unappealing way.

If Nadav Lapid cared as half much about narrative and thematic cohesion as he does about indecorously large penises, he might’ve been able to scrape together a good movie.

The Platform (Galder Gatzelu-Urrutia, 2019): 2.5/5

The Platform is just about what you’d expect. Nothing too original and totally on the nose. Obvious comparisons can be made to other films with similar concepts and themes. Extra half star for the score - a lot of it is made to sound like it was played with kitchen utensils, so that’s pretty cool.

Tiger King (Eric Goode, Rebecca Chaiklin, 2020): 2.5/5

A docu-series about some people who own tigers where the most normal thing about them is that they own tigers. Just some of the weirdest and worst people to ever exist. Didn't have to be 7 hours long though and totally lacks focus. Also, I can't shake the feeling that james franco is somewhere pitching a biographical adaptation of this, casting himself as the lead, seth rogen as one of his scumbag accomplices and, like, channing tatum as one of his husbands.

The Nightingale (Jennifer Kent, 2019): 2.5/5

Sophomore feature from The Babadook director. On paper, it sounds like it’s going to be a ride – 1820s Tasmania, an Irish convict decides to exact revenge on the British soldiers who murdered her family and teams up with an Aboriginal Tasmanian tracker on the way – but the execution leaves too much to be desired. Mostly, it’s sort of dull. When it isn’t just dull, it’s a tedious cavalcade of violence because the director wanted to teach the viewers a history lesson but didn’t have any imagination beyond ”some rapes here and some murders there."

The Mountain Between Us (Hany Abu-Assad, 2017): 2/5

Totally unrealistic. No one waits 3 weeks to bang Idris Elba.

Free Fire (Ben Wheatley, 2016): 2/5

Vapid. An 84-minute shootout without an iota of coherent geography or even the vaguest indication of who's shooting and what and why. Wheatley's a flashy mimic with absolutely no agenda.

The Adderall Diaries (Pamela Romanowsky, 2015): 1.5/5

Suffers from a cruel lack of focus. #irony

Attack the Block (Joe Cornish, 2011): 3/5

Alan Clarke meets Amblin. Kinetic mayhem, rowdy humor, first-rate creature design, and regional specificity are the meat and potatoes; the film works superlatively well as sheer entertainment, a simple yet creative sci-fi siege that accomplishes a lot with relatively little.

Frankie (Ira Sachs, 2019): 2/5

The fuck. The things I’ll watch for Izzy. Pointless bougie puff-party.

Code Black (Ryan McGarry, 2013): 2.5/5

Poorly structured and lacking any objectivity whatsoever (the director, who's also a doctor at this very hospital, is the main talking head), but occasionally inspiring all the same.

The Parallax View (Alan Pakula, 1974): 3/5

Come for Beatty and stay for the wide shots. Get your tinfoil hat out!

The House That Jack Built (Lars Von Trier, 2018): ?

I don’t know whether to give it 4 stars or none. Classic Von Trier.

rewatched It Happened One Night (Frank Capra, 1934): 4/5

"Peter: [in a telegram] What's holding up the annulment, you slowpoke? The walls of Jericho are a-toppling.

Mr. Andrews: Send them a telegram right away. Just say, 'Let 'em topple.' "

rewatched Make Way for Tomorrow (Leo McCarey, 1937): 5/5

A deeply moving work of art, completely wrenching. Definitely one of the greatest and most important (American) movies of all time. Leo McCarey could not be more on point when he stated that he won an Oscar for the wrong film.

rewatched All About Eve (Jospeh Mankiewicz, 1950): 5/5

a classic amalgamation of brilliant direction, excellent screenplay, sophisticated production, outstanding performances & sparkling use of humor and covers the themes of ambition, betrayal, self-interest, fame & fate in the world of show business. hugely enjoyable, with a surfeit of classic lines . Pure and unadulterated fire put to film.

Pete Davidson: Alive From New York (Jason Orley, 2020): 2/5

I think he's funny in small doses. Nice Louie CK story.

The Commuter (Jaume Collet-Serra, 2018): 2/5

Liam back on his bullshit again getting his family kidnapped and destroying public properties

The Wicker Man (Robin Hardy, 1973): 2/5

Or, “wots owle dis den?” the movie

I would love to stage an elaborate mystery with my horny friends just to own some loser virgin.

rewatched Mean Girls (Mark Waters, 2004): 4/5

I was thinking it would be funny to do an all male reboot of this but then I realized it would end with a school shooting, not a song. 

rewatched Inception (Christopher Nolan, 2010): 3/5

Gee what a neat and straightforward movie!

rewatched Gone with the Wind (Victor Fleming, 1939): 5/5

GWTW's vision is a reprehensible one. Just like Scarlett O'Hara, there's an ugliness under that stunning veneer. But what a veneer! The sweep, the grandeur and the characters wield a power that not even the morally indignant can deny. I cannot with any intellectual honesty deny the hold the movie has on me, or how gloriously it works as a big-budget epic. For the visceral grip it has on my emotions, though, I'll always love it as much as I hate it. It's the kind of perverse, deliberately alienating movie for which I always have to justify my affection, except not in this case since it's the most financially successful film of all time.

Aardvark (Brian Shoaf, 2017): 1/5

Watched in a total state of glazed-over disinterest. I couldn’t say why this exists, who this is for, what you should get out of it, or what the hell is with that hair. Its protagonist's mental illness is never properly explored, explained or respected, existing simply to incite a series of low stakes schizophrenic incidents. It makes no sense whatsoever what would attract Shelia Vand's character to Zachary Quinto's hallucinating, child-like weirdo, dressed by mum for the first day of school.

Mediocrities like this Brian Shoaf debut comedy-drama are why Tribeca Film Festival has such a generally low reputation among the "major" film festivals of the world.

The Snowman (Tomas Alfredson, 2017): 0.5/5

Zero stars, honestly. The main crime is that The Snowman got greenlit for release. This is an absolute masterclass in 100% bizarre editing choices and weird direction. Think of every scene. Then remember there's at least one part of every scene where you go "WHAT the fuck was that?". Overly lingering shots, throw away WORDS, strange happenstance, insane plot devices, twins, non-sex sex scenes, a lot of parent-child stuff that honestly has about 8 strands that go nowhere. It felt a lot like an edited down, feature length version of an 8-part BBC crime tv show, where the threads are cauterized in the film, they would've been fully fleshed in the tv show.

Also, everyone is mispronouncing the protagonist's name (in Norwegian the name would be pronounced "Hoo-leh" and yet everyone else reads it literally as "Harry Hole"). Jarring.

Polytechnique (Denis Villenueve, 2009): 3/5

"If I have a boy, I'll teach him how to love. If I have a girl, I'll tell her the world is hers."

A year before Denis Villenueve's name became recognized across the industry for his Oscar nominated drama Incendies he directed a much smaller, yet equally powerful film. Polytechnique tells of the École Polytechnique massacre (or the 'Montreal Massacre') of December 6, 1989 which saw a lone gunmen open fire in a college and take the lives of 14 women over an anti-feminist agenda. Rhythmically tasteful and unobtrusive composition, glaring into the utmost horrifying of realities.

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

Amiable and meandering. Could have done entirely without the little IRL tag at the end, but an extra half star for that Mandarin cover of Badfinger's "Without You" during the credits.

Zombi Child (Bertrand Bonello, 2019): 3/5

A very odd duck. I kind of love that the true horror here is spoiled white girl privilege.

Me, ordering delivery from a local restaurant

via GIPHY

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

do you ever just want to die after watching a film not because it made you sad but because you don't want to lose any of the emotions it made you feel and keep them with you forever exactly as they are and you don't know any other way to make that happen?

i've seen this film in theaters a record-breaking 11 times. I told Celine I wanted to give her/this movie all my money. Here are pictures of us along with Adele Haenel and Noemie Merlant at a screening at The Landmark: 

The Forbidden Room (Guy Maddin, 2015): 3/5

Guy Maddin's Journey to the Center of the Cinema. Volcanoes and wolves and flames and clouds woven through a fossilized digital presentation of a celluloid dreamscape. Various scenarios lead to rituals, tangents, expressions, and grand displays of feeling. Watching this is like discovering a nesting doll in the middle of a rabbit hole which happens to all be occurring in a dream that you're having while you're passed out on the floor of a local Taco Bell. Exquisite yet exhausting.

A Million Little Pieces (Sam Taylor-Johnson, 2018): 2/5

Do you want to see Aaron Taylor-Johnson's penis? Do you want to see Giovanni Ribisi's penis? How about both at the same time? Ho boy, do I have the movie for you.

Amounts to little more than a well-intentioned but unpersuasive echo of a deeply problematic memoir.

Honey Boy (Alma Ha'rel, 2019): 3/5

you inherit your parents' trauma but you will never fully understand it

Wrinkles the Clown (Michael Beach Nichols, 2019): 1/5

Or, How I Learned to Stop Parenting and Hire The Clown

What a waste of a great story. Bogged down by filler material, handholding, and not-so-big ideas. Children are the real monsters.

Peppermint Soda (Diane Kurys, 1977): 3.5/5

Charming and sweet, goes down smooth and easy.

My Life as a Zucchini (Claude Barras, 2016): 4/5

I was impressed with Barras's commitment to ugliness and sorrow, something that once characterized a great many stories for children but has mostly been sanitized out - especially since Walt Disney. Great little film (only 70 minutes), and written by my fave Celine Sciamma to boot.

rewatched Bright Star (Jane Campion, 2009): 5/5

"I wish we were butterflies and lived but three summer days. Three such days with you I could fill with more delight than fifty common years could ever contain."

rewatched American Movie (Chris Smith, 1999): 5/5

Not just the content but the rhythm here screams "mockumentary," so loudly that I checked to be sure Smith hadn't confessed at some point over the past 20 years, despite knowing there's no way I'd have missed that news. Still hilarious as all hell.

Chernobyl (Johan Renck, 2019): 4.5/5

Or, Tinker Tailor Nuclear Lies

The complete harmony of narrative, creative, and technical only serves to further accentuate the utter chaos of the momentous misconduct at the core of the greatest man-made disaster in history. CHERNOBYL belongs to a limited pantheon of media that masterfully engages both factuality and dramatization to deliver the truth within total catastrophe. What creator/writer Craig Mazin achieves is nothing short of astounding, balancing elements with a deft script that explores action and consequence with immense regard for every facet of the tragedy and its unfathomable fallout. Aided by the equally brilliant work from director Johan Renck and the stellar talent of the assembled cast and crew, Mazin's drama comes to life with haunting results. It effectively conveys just how close we approached sheer annihilation while emphasizing the appalling tendencies of those who willingly keep us teetering on that edge. A masterwork of perspective and relevance that's as much an elegy as it is a warning.

 rewatched Stevie (Steve James, 2002): 5/5

Still one of the most anguished and tragic docs I’ve ever seen. I went from shaking my head at Stevie’s family, to shaking my head at him, to finally feeling genuinely worried and saddened about what might happen to him in the end.

For Sama (Waad al-Kateab, Edward Watts, 2019): 3/5

People who take a hard stance against taking in refugees should be required to watch this.

An Elephant Sitting Still (Bo Hu, 2018): 3/5

This film is the color of ice.

Clocking in at four hours, this is about four individuals trying to escape their downward spiral in their futile lives, and whose director committed suicide soon after the film's completion. An elegy to the void spoken into an empty well, so empty you can hear your own thoughts echoing and reverberate back twice as hard. A treatise on the despair of living, of how the world remains a brutal industrial ruin.

This was great. I hope I never see it again.

What Happened, Miss Simone? (Liz Garbus, 2015): 3/5

A by-the-books, but totally competent documentary showcasing Simone's absurdly good repertoire, but it's not that fulfilling as a study of her as a human being. 

The Chambermaid (Lila Aviles, 2018): 3/5

Lila Aviles's debut feature is a portrait of a young chambermaid in one of Mexico’s elite hotels. From the unassuming opening she invites the viewer to almost voyeuristically observe the tasks which constitute her working day. A study in empathy, this film will test your patience if you aren’t willing to commit to its almost real time character study. There’s moments of quiet human brilliance, but if you’re hoping for some dramatic larger than life event, then this isn’t your movie.

Distant (Nuri Bilge Ceylan, 2002): 3/5

Wagons of hopelessness awash, ailing attempts at an escape stunted by the stillness of inadequate existences.

Thou Wast Mild and Lovely (Josephine Decker, 2014): 1.5/5

Too much provocation, not enough purpose. Lacks the clarity to make such disturbed material truly disturbing.

A Matter of Life and Death (Powell and Pressburger, 1946): 4/5

"Tell me, do you believe in the survival of human personality after death?"

"I don't know, I'd never thought about it, do you?"

"I don't know, I've thought about it too much."

Holiday (Isabella Eklof, 2018): 3/5

Has maybe the most graphic and terrible act of sexual violence I've seen in a film (more so than IRREVERSIBLE which is at least placed within a heightened cinematic space that allows a bit of distance. This is in your face objectivity, quiet and awful and normalized.) A slow burn, and I can't say one's patience is rewarded with anything other than resigned pain, but this is a powerful piece of work all the same. 

1917 (Sam Mendes, 2019): 2.5/5

this wants what dunkirk had.

and by that I mean harry styles.

Serviceable. Congrats on the whole one-take thing too, I guess.

Lords of Chaos (Jonas Akerlund, 2018): 1/5

This doesn't give a shit about black metal music, only in blandly sensationalizing a story about a couple of bad people who either did terrible things or encouraged them or both. Even if this tried to examine the music that they made or the reasons why they made it, which it doesn't, who cares?

Paradise Hills (Alice Waddington, 2019): 2/5

Or, Suspiria❣️ (dir. Katy Perry, 2019)

Shallow and forgettable. Feels like it missed its target audience a good decade too late; between the aesthetic and typical YA Movie dystopian plot this feels like it would have been hot shit for Tumblr teens in the late noughties.

The Death of Dick Long (Daniel Schienert, 2019): 2.5/5

Film about two idiots in a podunk town trying to cover up a murder. Has a Papa Roach reference, a character's ringtone is Down With the Sickness by Disturbed, and it ends with Nickelback. Ends up feeling like a white trash Southern Coens movie. I really like the movie poster though:

Knives Out (Rian Johnson, 2019): 3/5

The main attraction is, as expected, the incredible cast, which tears into the material with aplomb and hams it up like there’s no tomorrow. It’s fun, but also a really lovely production and a great excuse to get all these actors in the same room to be assholes to each other.

Hustlers (Lorene Scafaria, 2019): 2.5/5

They could have made way more money just straight up selling all the pills and K.

You’ve Got Mail, rw (Nora Ephron, 1998): 3/5

The politics (sexual and otherwise) are blinkered, but Ephron fully harnesses the formidable charms of its leads.

Everyone Says I Love You, rw (Woody Allen, 1996): 3.5/5

Movie stars singing and dancing in a realistic and amateurish way. Charming, graceful and casually moving—rare pleasures in this day and age. Who is this generation’s Woody Allen? (And don’t say Hong Sang-soo.)

The Irishman (Martin Scorsese, 2019): 3.5/5

Scorsese tries to ruin his movie with CGI and almost succeeds. The last half-hour functions like The Wild Bunch—trying to dash a genre on the rocks.

American Honey (Andrea Arnold, 2016): 3.5/5

Overlong, and the unprofessional actors are a straight-up problem. Yet LaBeouf is great, and I continue to think about the kids singing joyfully along to their hedonistic, nihilistic hip hop.

Cold War (Pawel Pawlikowski, 2018): 4/5

Beautiful and moving, simple and epic. Why did I wait so long to see it?

Ad Astra (James Gray, 2019): 3.5/5

I liked the first half of this quite a lot. Pitt does a lot by doing little.

Atlantics (Mati Diop, 2019): 2/5

I don’t think this is as feminist as the director thinks. It turns out the women are just channels for the missing male characters. Interesting to see Dakar, tho.

Marriage Story (Noah Baumbach, 2019): 4/5

Personally painful, but writing and direction of the very highest caliber, and Driver is great. The singing scene at the end knocked my wig back, and during the end credits I granted myself a prolonged sob.

Honeyland (Tamara Kotevska, 2019): 3.5/5

All these immigrants! Ugh! Takes such a classic turn to initiate Act 2 that it really didn’t even seem like a documentary. I love how she lit up when the kids came around.

Dolemite is My Name (Craig Brewer, 2019): 2.5/5

I didn’t like it as much as Rocketman or Bohemian Rhapsody, but maybe I just like music?

Married to the Mob, rw (Jonathan Demme, 1988): 3.5/5

Just as cartoony as I remembered, but Pfeiffer is luminous.

Uncut Gems (Benny and Josh Safdie, 2019): 4/5

Harrowing but compelling. Score of the year by Daniel Lopatin of Oneohtrix Point Never. At one point near the end, I cheered audibly when Kevin Garnett made a basket on the TV: I was involved!

Long Shot (Jonathan Levine, 2019): 3.5/5

Setting Fleabag aside, I believe this is the funniest, rom-commiest movie of the year.

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (Jake Kasdan, 2017): 3/5

Much better than I thought it was going to be. All the actors were charming. Jack liked.

Silicon Valley, Season 6 (Mike Judge, et al., 2019): 3/5

Satisfying.

John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum (Chad Staheiski, 2019): 3.5/5

No idea what’s going on with the title or any of the “mythology.” Still, the best action scenes of the year.

Happy Death Day 2U (Christopher Landon, 2019): 2/5

I never saw the first but heard this was fun in a Back to the Future 2 way. Disastrously cheery and self-satisfied.

Ready or Not (Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, 2019): 2.5/5

Like Stephen King’s It, it’s too “feel good” for horror, but Samara Weaving shines.

Peanut Butter Falcon (Tyler Nilson, Michael Schwartz, 2019): 4/5

Surprise of the year. Shia LaBeouf is great, and the movie has classic story-telling chops.

I, Tonya, rw (Craig Gillespie, 2017): 2.5/5

I guess I’m kind of in love with Margo Robbie, but not in this movie, which wants to be Goodfellas for some reason, but is really just a mess.

The Mandalorian, Season One (Jon Favreau, 2019): 4/5

Enjoyably subtext-free excuse to cart out some cool stuff and zoom it around.

Monos (Alejandro Landes, 2019): 2/5

Kids fucking around in the jungle. Frequent Apocalypse Now comparisons are … unwarranted.

* Parasite (Bong Joon Ho, 2019): 3/5

Unpleasant and pedantic. The up/down, dark/light visual scheme is … schematic. I related most to the mother who just wanted the best for her son. But no, she was guilty guilty guilty! I guess everyone who likes this movie is for the overthrow and death of everyone at the top? #1789.

Ford v Ferrari (James Mangold, 2019): 4/5

Expert entertainment, with career-high(ish) performances from Damon and Bale. The pleasure I took in it proves that I am indeed a 50-something white male.

Kiki’s Delivery Service, rw (Hayao Miyazaki, 1989): 3/5

My least favorite Miyazaki (although I’m no Porco Rosso fan either). Oddly mundane.

Veronica’s taking an avant-garde cinema class:

Flaming Creatures, 45 mins. (Jack Smith, 1963): 4/5

http://ubu.com/film/smith-jack_flaming.html

Wowsers. Glamour, sensuality, an orgy, a party, an earthquake, a reverie. I was confused and occasionally bored. It was great! Its divorce from original context probably changes its meaning irreparably.\

Hold Me While I’m Naked, 17 min. (George Kuchar, 1966): 4/5

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QL3yU3fyxo]

Delightful, hilarious, completely relevant, and very dark. Lynch totally rips off the bird bit plus so much more in its criticism slash subconscious relish of Hollywood glamour.

Desistfilm, 7 mins. (Stan Brakhage, 1954): 3/5

[https://vimeo.com/119999624]

Primitive and sensual.

Atman, 11 mins. (Toshio Matsumoto, 1975): 4/5

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1095169/?ref_=nm_flmg_dr_13

Stunning, beautiful, frightening, overwhelming, and obviously deeply psychedelic. Impossible to believe it’s only 11 minutes.

Transit (Christian Petzold, 2019): 2/5

I had no idea who abruptly loved or stopped loving anyone or why.

A Rainy Day in New York (Woody Allen, 2019): 3/5

75% delightful; 25% awkward.

For Sama (Waad Al-Kateab, Edward Watts, 2019): 2.5/5

A miserable viewing experience, but it’s important innit?

The Perfection (Richard Shepard, 2019): 1/5

MeToo# revenge porn.

* 1917 (Sam Mendes, 2019): 1.5/5

I would say that there are basically the same number of cuts in this film as in a normal film, they’re just stitched together with bad CGI. Paper thin script and zero gravitas. Will win best picture.

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.