Knives Out (Rian Johnson, 2019): 2/5

Frantically tries to entertain, but can’t even muster a decent who-done-it.

Foreign Correspondent, rw (Alfred Hitchcock, 1940): 3.5/5

An expert entertainment. Joel McCrea is terrific, of course, and the airplane crash is startlingly direct. George Sanders rules, naturally.

Jojo Rabbit (Taika Waititi, 2019): 3.5/5

Borrows extensively from many different movies and has trouble resolving it all tone-wise. Still, Taika is aces as Hitler.

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

Sublime. Michelle, when you see this one, I think you’re going to really love it.

The Bling Ring (Sofia Coppola, 2013): 2.5/5

Easily my least favorite of Coppola’s movies exploring her pet theme: characters imprisoned by their own privilege.  

Ash is the Purest White (Jia Zhangke, 2020): 3/5

A strong woman and the week men in her life. Says something profound about the modern history of China, probably.

Under the Skin, rw (Jonathan Glazer, 2013): 5/5

Harrowing, brilliant and full of striking and original images. ScarJo’s best and sexiest performance.

Onward (Dan Scanlon, 2020): 2.5/5

A movie about a fairy tale world where magic is running thin—made by Pixar, a company whose magic is running thin.

Bombshell (Jay Roach, 2019): 1.5/5

A charmless, ugly and redundant tale. To show how humiliating it is for Margo Robbie’s character to lift up her skirt and show Roger Ailes her panties, Roach has Robbie lift up her skirt and show the audience her panties. This is progress?

The Hunt (Craig Zobel, 2020): 3.5/5

Surprisingly kicky retelling of the Most Dangerous Game.

Platform (Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia, 2020): 2.5/5

A vertical prison with one cell per level. Two people per cell. A platform full of foot moves down through the cells, but it only has enough food for the top floors. Is it an allegory? We’ll never know.

The Long Goodbye, rw (Robert Altman, 1973): 4/5

I was surprised how much of the movie’s screen time is devoted to the alcoholic, cuckolded and kind of boring (despite Sterling Hayden’s unfettered histrionics) writer. However, the highs of this movie (pun intended) are very high.

Judex (George Franju, 1963): 2.5/5

Like Assayas, Franju loves Louis Feuillade.

Busting, rw (Peter Hyams, 1974): 4/5

I saw this one in the theater at age 7, and I still remembered every detail about the scene where the fat woman gets shot in the market (which I believe was shot in the now-hot Grand Central Market downtown). Classic ultra-cynical, funky 70s police fare. Gould and Blake are both at their mumbly finest. The dated ideas about gay people and people of color at least tell us how far we have come.

Doctor Sleep (Mike Flanagan, 2019): 2/5

Forgettable and an hour too long. Supposedly very true to the book, so I hope Steven King is happy.

Better Call Saul, seasons 4 and 5 (Vince Gilligan, 2019, 2020): 4/5

Loving everything involving the great Bob Odenkirk. Naturally, the cartel stuff serves as a handy crucible for Jimmy/Saul, but they spend too much time on that side of it for my taste. The last couple of episodes of season 5 were show highlights for me thus far.

Devs (Alex Garland, 2020): 3.5/5

Does Alex Garland believe we have free will? I’ll be fucked if I know. Still a reliably enjoyable headtrip.

Toby Dammit (Frederico Felllini, 1968): 2/5

An ugly and self-loathing mishmash. Since it was only a 1/3 of a movie (the other parts directed by Malle and Vadim, as if you didn’t know), it was mercifully short. Makes me very reluctant to rewatch any of Fellini’s later fantasias (Satyricon, Roma, Casanova), which I liked once upon a time.

The Whole Town is Talking (John Ford, 1935): 3.5/5

Edward G. Robinson in a dual role, and the always-charming Jean Arthur. Ford displays a mastery of lightly comic tone throughout.

Lured (Douglas Sirk, 1947): 3/5

Plays like one of Hitchcock’s lighter thrillers. Efficient storytelling, rich characters, a good red herring or two. George Sanders rules, naturally.

Shockproof (Douglas Sirk, 1949): 4/5

Wonderfully bonkers and emotionally intense. Part Going Straight life-beyond-prison movie and part Lovers on the Run.

Written on the Wind, rw (Douglas Sirk, 1965): 5/5

Trashy, vivid and compelling.

The Tall T, rw (Budd Boetticher, 1957): 4.5/5

The great outdoors of Boetticher’s movies are very pleasurable to watch, now perhaps more than ever. At an hour and 18 minutes, this one’s a brief gem, adapted from an early Elmore Leonard novel.

One Cut of the Dead (Shin’ichiró Ueda, 2017): 3/5

In the first half hour, a film crew making a zombie movie is attacked by real zombies. Then the movie pulls back to reveal that this is a movie, and we follow behind the scenes to see how they made it. Strangely, this “real” crew is not attacked by zombies. Go figure.

This is Not a Film (Jafar Panahi, 2011): 3/5

Panahi is stuck in his house, and I can relate. I appreciated the despair and doubt, the halting and failed attempts at understanding and creating.

Little Women (Greta Gerwig, 2019): 4/5

The movie’s significant emotional power comes from the juggled timeline, making all the happy times sadder and the sad times more nuanced and melancholy. Good acting abounds.

Harakiri (Masaki Kobayashi, 1962): 4/5

Some absolutely killer samurai fighting, contrasted with static storytelling tableau.

La Chienne, Toni, La Bête Humaine (Jean Renoir, 1931, 1935, 1938): 3/5

Filled with criminal acts of all description yet imbued with a gods-eye view of humanity that somehow forgives it all. Humans…what are you going to do?

Normal People (Lenny Abrahamson, 2020): 2.5/5

Promisingly romantic start, but then both characters descend separately into clinical depression. Weird!

Onibaba, rw (Kaneto Shindo, 1964): 4.5/5

Two women living in an existential field of reeds kill samurai and throw them down a profoundly yonic black hole in the ground. A new neighbor stokes new-found (and profound) sexual feeling of the younger one. One of the best masks in cinema.

Pather Panchali, Aparajito, Apur Sansar (Satyajit Ray, 1955, 1956, 1959): 5/5

Startlingly shot and deeply felt. Full of sudden tragedy and hard-won redemption. I especially loved Aparajito, which contrasts so movingly the village and the city, but its power is doubled by the trilogy.

The Big City (Satyajit Ray, 1963): 3.5/5

Entertaining tale of a housewife exhilarated to be getting a job for the first time.

The Only Son (Yasujiro Ozu, 1936): 3/5

A mother gives up everything to send her son to be educated in Tokyo. What is success, anyway?

A Hen in the Wind (Yasujiro Ozu, 1948): 2.5/5

Surprisingly standard “Woman is poor and has to turn to prostitution” storyline. See The Life of Oharu, Street of Shame, Osaka Elegy—and probably some movies not by Mizoguchi, too.

The Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice (Yasujiro Ozu, 1952): 3.5/5

After watching A Hen in the Wind and The Only Son, it was a pleasure to watch some folks who have some dough, at least. A tale of marital disconnection with a satisfying happy ending.

Tokyo Story, rw (Yasujiro Ozu, 1953): 3.5/5

I appreciated how large-scale this was, with so many characters sketched so specifically. I remain surprised this is the Ozu that people have decided is the masterpiece.

The End of Summer, rw (Yasujiro Ozu, 1961): 3.5/5

The love lives of (at least) three characters, gently contrasted. Ozu’s second-to-last film, and one that is already shadowed by death. All these 3.5s: Ozu the most consistent director? I always adore the tones of his movies, which tend toward the placid and peaceful. There is hardship, but Ozu doesn’t punish either his characters or his audience. Drinking and smiling abound.

The Cloud-Capped Star (Ritwik Ghatak, 1960): 2/5

One of my least favorite stories: one misery after another is visited upon a woman. Lars von Trier would love it, I’m sure. Beautifully shot.

The Insect Woman (Shohei Inamura, 1963): 2.5/5

Here’s “one misery after another is visited upon a woman” again. At least this one has tons of perversion.

Three Colors: Blue (Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1993): 2/5

This is one of two movies that I feel asleep during in the theatre (the other was Woody Allen’s Another Woman). I forgive myself, because this movie is truly boring.

Blind Chance (Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1987): 2/5

I guess the point is: for god’s sake don’t fly to Paris.

Stray Dog (Akira Kurosawa, 1949): 4/5

Cop loses gun and hunts the guy who has it, who is on a robbery and killing spree. Satisfying as a detective story, and Mifune’s debut performance as a rookie cop driven by guilt is riveting.

Red Beard (Akira Kurosawa, 1965): 3.5/5

Engrossing but overlong story of a rural hospital overseen by a saintly despot. Since it’s 1965, I suppose this is Kurosawa’s entry into the roadshow-prestige-picture-with-intermission trend.

Rashomon, Derzu Uzala, rw (Akira Kurosawa, 1950, 1975): 5/5

Still good.

The Gentleman (Guy Richie, 2020): 2/5

Full of smug monologues and wasted actors of merit.

Taipei Story (Edward Yang, 1985): 2/5

A somnambulist couple is very, very, very slowly ground down by a Taiwan that only seems to offer opportunity.

Run (Vicky Jones, 2020): 2/5

Each episode worse than the last

Robocop, rw (Paul Verhoeven, 1987): 4.5/5

Nasty, brutish and short.

Antrum: The Deadliest Film Ever Made (David Amito, 2018): 3.5/5

A faux 70s horror movie about opening up the gates of hell, padded out with some documentary footage about how anyone who watches the movie dies. Not everything works, but it is chock full of eerie scenes.

The Vast of Night (Andrew Patterson, 2020): 4/5

An unseen UFO hovers above a small town, making spooky noises. Some terrific one-ers, including a mind-boggling dash across town and a tension-building scene where a switchboard operator (it’s the 50s) discovers that the sound is coming from all over the town. Really nice grasp of the power of audio.

The Taking of Power by Louis XIV (Roberto Rossellini, 1966): 1.5/5

Are all the actors being instructed to be extremely stiff and robotic? Is the movie’s extremely static nature a bug or a feature?

Nightfall (Jacques Tourneur, 1956): 3/5

At 1:18, the movie is swift and unique. Aldo Ray is a real stiff, but Anne Bancroft, Brian Keith and especially James Gregory are all terrific.

The Deeper You Dig (John Adams, 2020): 3/5

Ari Aster has succeeded in bringing Bergman to contemporary American horror. A ghost story that flows out of real trauma.

Intimate Lighting (Ivan Passer, 1965): 3.5/5

Charming and slight sketch of 24 hours of family of musicians. Pleasant tone.

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.