The Man Who Sold His Skin (Kaouther Ben Hania, 2020): 3/5

I can see the appeal, I can see why it was nominated; Yahya Mahayni gives a strong performance, the cinematography is rather good, the concept - exceptionally original. It ultimately feels more like a canvas of interesting ideas that are never properly explored or further delved into though. Also still not sure how I feel about the ending.

The Mauritanian (Kevin MacDonald, 2021): 2/5

Another addition to the "reasons to hate the United States" canon.

Things the movie wanted me to learn: how an inexcusable abuse of human rights stemmed from a fragile post 9/11 America

What I actually learned: Guantanamo Bay has a McDonalds and a gift shop.

Sword of Trust (Lynn Shelton, 2020): 3/5
The story is simple but screwy and enticing with plenty of little turns peppered into its short runtime.

You Can't Take It With You (Frank Capra, 1938): 3/5

Sometimes Capra's naivete and compulsive idealism works for me, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes his films are infused with so much charm and sincerity, so many tender moments that they're close to magic. Here, it doesn't really work. The ideas are just a little too simple and the way he spreads the message - the old "follow your dreams, live life to the fullest" stuff. Which I can be a supporter of, but topics like these just tend to fall a little flat in the hands of someone who maybe wasn't the most complex of thinkers, nor the most subtle of cinematic prophets. (Capra does have a bit of Oprah in him)

I'll mostly remember this for Lionel Barrymore. He's terrific, and a total sweetheart.

In the Earth (Ben Wheatley, 2021): 2/5

Simultaneously overwritten and underdeveloped. It’s an unpleasant sledgehammer of a movie. Points only for Clint Mansell's synth score and one really great sequence of genuine terror.

Human Desire (Fritz Lang, 1954): 3/5

It doesn't benefit from how easy it is to compare to LA BETE HUMAINE, a far more feeling and poetic work (it's the difference between Renoir investing himself 100% and Lang comfortably coasting along). Gloria Grahame is great, and when the film is focused on her woozy, frustrated femme fatale at her wit's end, it's almost as good as the previous year's THE BIG HEAT, made with the same leads working a similar dynamic under the same director. Generally, though, it needs a bit more fury and a bit less coziness with playing to formula. Definitely one of Lang's more sedate films, enormously competent but only interesting when he gets to play with trains.

Zeroville (James Franco, 2019): 1.5/5

I can't wait until James Franco makes a sequel to THE DISASTER ARTIST but it's based on the production of this movie.

Jamaica Inn (Alfred Hitchcock, 1939): 2/5

Hitchcock's most un-Hitchcock film. Two stars for Charles Laughton's eyebrows.

Copycat (Jon Amiel, 1995): 1/5

Has zero atmosphere plus a predominantly loud score that overemphasizes everything that's going on and two serial killers that act like they are in a Wes Craven slasher, which makes them instantly laughable.

U Turn (Oliver Stone, 1997): 2/5

Pretty ostentatious, glibly nasty thing. There's also a very thin thread about the exploitation of Native Americans, bizarrely articulated in a character's gruesome sexual abuse and a race-bending Jon Voight as a Wise Old Indian. Weird shit, with an unresolvable knot of tones.

The Tempest (Julie Taymor, 2010): 3/5

Put this off forever, but it's not so terrible—excellent cast, decent script (yuk yuk), spectacular Hawaii locations.

Planet Terror (Robert Rodriguez, 2007): 2/5

Rose McGowan dancing around a stripper pole in the opening credits, and posing next to the credit of 'Produced By Bob and Harvey Weinstein' aged just terribly.

Radioactive (Marjane Satrapi, 2019): 2/5

Yet another mediocre and stock biopic. While there's ambition and visual flair, it's gravely vapid and excruciatingly uninteresting.

QT8: The First Eight (Tara Wood, 2019): 3/5

Nothing much new here, and the Weinstein stuff feels a little desperate and half-assed, but a lot of nice interview footage, and what am I gonna tell you, I'm sort of in the tank for the guy anyway.

Leviathan (Lucien Castaing-Taylor, Verena Paravel, 2012): 3/5

No dialogue, no musical score, no storyline, no commentary, nothing. Just angry ocean vibes through and through. Watching it gave me the sensation of being an internal organ. Maybe a spleen. Insistent, exhausting, alive.

Kid 90 (Soleil Moon Frye, 2021): 2/5

Quite literally reading a stranger's diaries. Soleil Moon Frye (PUNKY BREWSTER) looks back on hundreds of hours of footage she shot of her and her friends as Hollywood brats in the 90s. Seeing all those stars in their teen years is arguably the biggest (and only draw) of the doc.

The Reckoning (Neil Marshall, 2020): 1.5/5

About what you'd expect from a guy who directed a bunch of Game of Thrones and then saw THE WITCH.

The Tale (Jennifer Fox, 2018): 3.5/5

Horrific. The only comfort here is that it’s skillfully told by a woman from her own experience and on her own terms. and in her own words. I know this is a bit of a hot take but ALL RAPISTS AND SEXUAL ABUSERS AND PEDOPHILES NEED TO FUCKING DIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Land (Robin Wright, 2021): 2/5

Vanity project bogged down by the presence of an ambiguously melodramatic angle. It’s not tragically incompetent, but it has no idea how to evoke emotion and it offers absolutely nothing unexpected - I was able to see every beat coming from just the trailer/premise alone. Minimal progression or development with lots of learning to be woodsy scenes.

WeWork: The Making and Breaking of a $47 Billion Unicorn (Jed Rothstein, 2021): 3/5

I like watching men fail at things they think they’re good at.

Okay, but begs the question: when are we going to get the only hot-new-business-blows-up-then-crashes doc we actually want? MoviePass.

Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (Cathy Yan, 2020): 2.5/5

Margot Robbie has a scene where she skates to "barracuda" by heart, just like she did in I, TONYA.

White Lie (Calvin Thomas, Yonah Lewis, 2019): 3.5/5

Or, The Complete and Utter Exhaustion of Lying: The Movie

rewatched House of Flying Daggers (Zhang Yimou, 2004): 4/5

To this day carries the reputation of a CROUCHING TIGER coattail rider, but while it never reaches those emotional heights it's so much more traditionally Shaw, despite its formal modernity. The bamboo forest fight is as good as contemporary wuxia gets.

Shiva Baby (Emma Seligman, 2020): 3/5

"YOU LOOK LIKE GWYNETH PALTROW ON FOOD STAMPS."

Every Breath You Take (Vaughn Stein, 2021): 1.5/5

You're better off just listening to The Police song for 105 minutes straight, than to sit through this.

Falling (Viggo Mortensen, 2020): 1.5/5

Viggo Mortensen’s directorial debut is a look into a father-son relationship where a father does not accept who his son is. (He also didn’t seem very accepting of pretty much anyone or anything and really was a hate-filled character that I quickly got tired of.) Everything here is either deeply earnest or turned up to 11 to the point where it’s impossible to invest in it as something genuine.

The Last Cruise (Hannah Olson, 2021): 3/5

The couple that complained about the decline in friendliness among the staff during a deadly outbreak on a boat where the staff is working 13 hour days and not being taken care of...those people were definitely the villains of this documentary. While they lounge on their balcony and hope for chocolate, we cut to the woman making their desserts crying, overwhelmed. This is a true upstairs, downstairs look at how COVID impacted the whole country, really.

Godzilla vs. Kong (Adam Wingard, 2021): 0.5/5

BANG BANG SMASHY SMASHY MONKEY MAN AND LIZARD BOY GO BOOM BOOM !

Kong's fur looked really good in this though. Good job to the vfx people in charge of that.

rewatched The Ten Commandments (Cecil B. DeMille, 1956): 4/5

It's interesting how they take like one minute for the plagues, but take the first hour and a half for just Moses realizing he’s not Egyptian.

The Father (Florian Zeller, 2020): 4.5/5

Honestly one of the scariest films I have seen in a while. Plays from Hopkins's perspective like a slo-mo psychological thriller, which is the perfect move to depict something as disorienting and torturous as dementia. Truly fucking heartbreaking to watch, especially with one cruel moment near the end that pushed me into hot angry tears. Big "used to be a play" energy but I don't mind it. Made me really glad I used my final genie wish to never ever ever grow old.

No but really just put me out of my misery if this happens.

The World to Come (Mona Fastvold, 2020): 3.5/5

Pioneer lesbians be like "You smell like biscuit."

Violation (Dusty Mancinelli, Madeleine Sims-Fewer, 2020): 2.5/5

Eschews the standard conventions of a rape revenge thriller: the rape is not brutal, but quiet, and filmed in soft focus and extreme close-ups. The victim's resistance is hard to detect. The rapist is possibly under the impression that he is not committing rape. He is not a neanderthal, but instead a baby-faced loved-one of the victim. It's the rapist who is sexually objectified, in one scene the camera lingers for an uncomfortably long time on his trembling hard-on. The revenge is messy and nauseating, and does not bring the expected catharsis. The structure is not the expected two-act split that is common to this genre and instead conflates the rape and revenge with a non-linear back-and-forth cross-cut. The cinematography is not crude and ugly and instead frames the violence with heavily saturated shots of idyllic nature, as if suggesting that such acts are at home in the wild.

Some of this works, and some of it feels like a couple of yuppies trying to gentrify a slum. Also, the characters were underdeveloped, dialog was all mumblecore, and the disjointed plot turned the film into a slog.

Crisis (Nicholas Jarecki, 2021): 2/5

The easiest comparison here is to call this TRAFFIC but with opioids instead of cocaine, and not as good. An inert thriller that neither excites nor captivates.

Breaking News in Yuba County (Tate Taylor, 2021): 2.5/5

Better than I expected. I mean it's not great and the stellar cast is better than the film deserves. It's a breezy enough 90 minutes though. MVP to Regina Hall's wig. Or Wanda Sykes' wig.

Woman on the Beach (Hong Sang-soo, 2006): 3/5

Simple story. One asshole director, two similar girls. Some obvious metaphors (her car is stuck, then it’s not stuck any more). 

Nobody (llya Naishuller, 2021): 3/5

Not much there there, but it’s fun to watch Odenkirk really enjoy himself while (righteously) beating the shit out of, say, a group of five youths on a bus. 

The Father (Florian Zeller, 2021): 3.5/5 

There are some clever bits that help make the story more intellectual and visceral, both a relief from the natural surplus of emotion in a story like this. Nevertheless, the overall effect is that of pain, so you have to decide whether that’s something you want to put yourself through. 

Citizen Ruth (Alexander Payne, 1996): 3.5/5

The satire of both sides of the abortion debate (kind of) is as broad as shit, but Laura Dern, going from zero to feral possum in two seconds is movie magic. And When Burt Reynolds steps off the plane in full curly toupee with 30 minutes left: now that’s how you intensify the drama and raise the stakes. The most potent and American image comes near the end, when she puts a zippered gym bag in her lap, reaches down into vertical orifice with ecstasy, and produces not a baby but bundles of cash, which she presses to her breast. Now I’ve seen all of Payne’s seven features. 

The Ladykillers (Joel and Ethan Coen, 2004): 2/5

Probably Hanks’ worst performance on top of a very deliberate script. You can recognize stuff that works better in other Coen films. I’ve now seen all 18 of their features.

Four Nights of a Dreamer (Robert Bresson, 1971): 3/5

Adapting the same Dostoyevsky novella as Visconti’s Le Bianche Notti, with the same connection to a river. This version is even hornier and has way more French hippies, musicians and artists. Some top shelf hand shots, as always. 

Moana (Robert J. Flaherty, 1926): 3/5

in this land of plenty, the primitive joy also exhibited by Nanook seems facile, leaving us with blowholes, tree climbing, dress making, fishing, catching a turtle by drowning it and a boar with a snare, building a fire, prepare local delicacies like a little fish in a big leaf with taro and green bananas ($29.95), tattooing with needles of bone (the result looks pretty sweet), and toplessly anointing your man with perfumed oil. 

A Little Princess (Alfonso Cuarón, 1995): 3/5

Quite a beautiful and fairy tale version of the world that still contains flat out racism and WW1. At one point our princess becomes a maid, making it the first of Cuaron’s angelic servants. Lots of set design. 

Great Expectations (Alfonso Cuarón, 1998): 3/5

Modernizes the novel. Another tale about love among the very rich from Cuaron 

McCabe & Mrs. Miller, rw (Robert Altman, 1971): 4.5/5

Altman, noticing the end of 60s idealism pretty early. The small businessman is fucked, and the small businesswoman best just smoke more dope. What’s remarkable is that the main character is dead meat halfway through and knows it. The movie ends with a 20-minute action sequence that also serves as a tour of one of the greatest location sets in cinema history. Very influenced by Foreman’s Fireman’s Ball, probably. Great use of the community experience as the cause of and solution to all our loneliness and other problems. 

California Split, rw (Robert Altman, 1974): 4.5/5

Somewhat renews my fondness for losers. Nearing the climax, Elliot Gould suddenly sings along with a non-diagetic song as if only he can hear it or maybe we’ve been listening to what’s been playing in his head. Elliott’s highly taped busted nose makes a nice entry into Jerry’s (nascent) investigation of main characters with face injuries, kitty-cat.  

Death in Venice (Luchino Visconti, 1971): 4.5/5

I was surprisingly moved. Very stylized and quite naughty and nasty. Made up of beautiful, long, languorous, dialogue-free crowd scenes, like Tati or (some) Altman. Visconti lets long passages of Mahler’s 3rd and 5th Symphonies play out, to enormous emotional effect. 

Le Notti Bianche (Luchino Visconti, 1957): 3/5

In sharp contrast to Death in Venice, this one is just a couple of long conversations, with some slightly more pictorial flashbacks. Filmed on an amazing set in Cinecitta. 

The School for Postmen, 16 min. (Jacques Tati, 1947): 3/5

Dry run for Jour de fete. A couple of excellent silent movie type gags. Contempt for modern efficiency is already present. 

Traffic (Jacques Tati, 1971): 4/5

I had always heard this was second-grade Tati, but no way. After a pokey start, stuff from earlier in the film start to pay off, 10 or 40 or 70 minutes later, and the whole thing picks up steam as it goes. Full of great characters/communities and barely-there comic observations. Lots of French hippies. 

Parade (Jacques Tati, 1974): 1.5/5

Like when you would see Truman Capote on the Merv Griffin Show. One generally understood and believed that he was a genius; there was just no evidence of it. 

Dogville (Lars von Trier, 2003): 4.5/5

The visual conceit never bothered me, which is guess the point. I actually found the movie to be very beautiful, and the gradual and self-righteous exploitation then demonization of the outsider/woman is, of course, extremely on point. The bareness emphasizes the metaphoric or mythic levels of the story. Still: nasty bit of business and overall very despairing and hard to watch. Kidman’s best performance?

Manderlay (Lars von Trier, 2005): 2/5

Von Trier wades into how we treated black people immediately post-Civil War and race relations in general. What could go wrong?? Murkier than Dogville in its lighting scheme as well as in its thesis.

Europa (Lars von Trier, 1991): 2/5

Full of artifice and unmotivated style: unmotivated spots of color, unmotivated back projection, unmotivated shots straight down and spinning, unmotivated voice over talking about “you” did this and that. No wonder he stripped all that shit away. 

Elaine May Rewatch Fest

Difficult-to-like people we love. 

A New Leaf, rw (Elaine May, 1971): 3.5/5

A rom com where he’s planning to kill her the whole time. The tone is funny and unique:  madcap and improvisational, with much acceptance of the clumsy and anti-social among us. He just wants to be left alone. She’s maladroit. I want Matthau and May to be my parents—oh wait, they were. 

The Heartbreak Kid, rw (Elaine May, 1972): 4.5/5

I related to this one HARD. When I watched it 20 years ago (while still in my first marriage), I felt sorry for his wife and was saddened and revolted. That’s all still there, but now I also see in her a pathetic anchor and am cheering for him tearing his stupid life down. Funny how things change. Only time will tell whether the last moments of the movie will also be prophetic. Contains a couple of the funniest long-takes ever (when he tells his wife his new plans, and when he tells his potential new father-in-law his new plans), as our clueless main character thinks he’s impressing everyone. He’s a completely dumb asshole, although a nicer guy than the one in A Place in the Sun. 

Mickey and Nicky, rw (Elaine May, 1976): 5/5

An enormous pleasure to watch great performances by Falk and Cassavetes. Extremely lived-in, physical, present, and full of accidents, improvisations and spontaneity. What a contrast to Audrey Hepburn and Grace Kelly (e.g.), who were born under a snow globe! As in Bergman, each scene contains things that connect the two characters and things that drive them apart. Although, as in McCabe, it’s an outside force that does them in—it’s the thing that’s shaking these two rats in the same cage. It feels similar to a Cassavetes movie, but it’s much lighter and funnier. (Which greatly improves it). May filmed 500 hours and edited it for 2 years. It does feel slightly stitched together, but it’s also all killer no filler. 

Ishtar, rw (Elaine May, 1987): 3/5

There are many movies in film history that are unfunny in much less interesting ways. It’s fun to see Hoffman and Beaty riff together. The best moments have a madcap energy, and there are a couple really funny bits (especially if you’re able to set aside the problematic Arab stuff.) Not everything works, to say the least. 

John Carpenter OK Fest

These movies are OK!

Dark Star, rw (John Carpenter, 1974): 3/5

It’s 1972 and a bunch of stoned out hippies are on a 10-year space mission. Parodies Star Wars and Alien 5 and 7 years, respectively, before their existence. The alien here is a droll balloon with feet. 2001 and Strangelove are the real touchstones. 

Christine, rw (John Carpenter, 1983): 3.5/5

I saw this movie twice in the theater when I was 16, and I still enjoy it today. Completely competent and well-paced like Spielberg, but raunchier. Robert Prosky and Harry Dean Stanton hang around being low-key perfect. 

In the Mouth of Madness, rw (John Carpenter, 1994): 3/5

Steven King and Dario Argento fight for attention within a sitcom-level mise-en-scene. The villain is clearly styled after Cronenberg. Charleston Heston’s 10 mins of screen time = pure production values.

Vampires (John Carpenter, 1998): 2/5

Did you ever wonder what James Woods, Daniel Baldwin, and Sheryl Lee were doing in 1997? Me either!

Ghosts of Mars (John Carpenter, 2001): 2.5/5

Full of state-of-the-art special effects…if it was 1962. A western on Mars that turns into a siege movie and a zombie movie. Ice Cube makes Natasha Henstridge look like Meryl Streep. 

Some notes on Billy Wilder, written during the past year:

The Major and the Minor (Billy Wilder, 1942): 2/5

Avoided this for years due to potential "ick" factor of the plot: Ginger Rogers pretends to be 12 years old to afford a train ride back home, then must keep up the ruse when she meets cute with the Major (Ray Milland).  Wilder chose a light, frothy comedy for his first directorial effort to establish commercial credentials.  It manages to avoid the ick and stay cute, but it's still a contrivance with too many midwestern military school shenanigans and not enough laughs.

Five Graves to Cairo (Billy Wilder, 1943): 2/5

Great opening scene of unconscious soldier in a moving tank in the middle of the desert; then it becomes stagebound in a hotel, with milquetoast Franchot Tone as the lead.  I was hoping Stroheim, playing Rommel, would liven this up with some Teutonic eccentricity, but no such luck.  In his interview book with Wilder, Cameron Crowe repeatedly tries to posit this film as a precursor to Raiders of the Lost Ark (presumably because both have maps, deserts, and Nazis), to which Wilder is flattered but understandably baffled.  Wilder took this story to prove to Paramount he could write and direct dramas, and indeed he would be allowed to follow this with Double Indemnity and The Lost Weekend.

Ace in the Hole, rw (Billy Wilder, 1951): 3.5/5

A prescient portrayal of American culture's postwar corruption that is still recognizable today.  But this is where the hardness sets in.  After Sunset Blvd in 1950, Wilder inexplicably breaks off with longtime writing partner Charles Brackett; his films will lose considerable lightness of touch and humanity from this point onward, as he dominates his next writing partnership with IAL Diamond.  Brackett, years later, on Ace in the Hole:  "Billy used to say he thought it failed because it was too tough.  I don’t think he’s right about that.  Tough is all right.  I admire toughness.  I don’t admire hardness.  That picture wasn’t tough.  It was hard.  But then, Billy’s hard, isn’t he?"  Recommended read:  Matthew Dessem's essay on Wilder-Brackett in The Dissolve.

Sabrina, rw (Billy Wilder, 1954): 1/5

Two filthy rich brothers fight over Audrey Hepburn (age 25), a poor anorectic who is sent to cooking school in Paris but returns with no skills and no agency.  She likes the playboy brother (William Holden, age 36), but the older, responsible brother prevails (Bogart, age 55).  Bogart already looks shriveled and sickly and will be dead in two years from lung cancer.  Audrey, the poor princess and victim of paleolithic Hollywood casting practices, will continue to search for an aging prince to provide for her in Love in the Afternoon (Gary Cooper, age 56) and Funny Face (Fred Astaire, age 58).  Ick.

Witness for the Prosecution, rw (Billy Wilder, 1957): 3/5

Typical Agatha Christie yarn, with too many surprise witnesses and last-minute plot machinations.  Cheese, but well prepared cheese, with Laughton chewing it up.

Kiss Me, Stupid, rw (Billy Wilder, 1964): 3/5

Some wag accurately called this "one long traveling salesman joke," and it's punctuated by smutty adolescent one-liners throughout--no sign of "the Lubitsch touch" here.  First half is ruined by Ray Walston's incessant mugging and makes one yearn to see what Peter Sellers could have done with the role (he had a heart attack after six weeks of shooting).  It settles down a bit in second half, and some mature adult relationships are allowed to emerge.  Dean Martin is cool, classy, and charismatic throughout, and is the best thing about this.  Felicia Farr (real-life wife of Jack Lemmon, for whom the film was originally written) is also very good.  Kim Novak does her usual reluctant sex kitten in the tart-with-a-heart role written for Marilyn Monroe (whose presence would have overwhelmed this).

The Fortune Cookie, rw (Billy Wilder, 1966): 3/5

Great concept, but typical late Wilder: cynical bordering on caustic.

Judas and the Black Messiah (Shaka King, 2021): 2/5

LaKeith, Kaluuya and Plemons (channeling Phillip Hoffman) are really good in a cracking real-life story. Yet the screenwriters still don’t seem to know how to raise the stakes or the tension. Serpico or Prince in the City are obvious touchstones, but Shaka King is no Lumet, obviously. The movie fails to summon the necessary gravitas and authenticity, and just comes off as high schoolers wearing cool berets. 

The Cars That Ate Paris (Peter Weir, 1974): 2/5

It is a first feature, but even so, this offers a surprisingly amateurish and boorish mix of tones, mostly dumb. Obviously blew the mind of a pre-adolescent George Miller. Have now watched all 13 of Weir’s features.

I Care a Lot (J. Blakeson, 2021): 1/5

Our protagonist spends the first 30 minutes joyfully robbing 100s of humans of their will, imprisoning and drugging them. So I really couldn’t ever get over the fact that she is a horrible, horrible monster—basically worse than a mass murderer. And I resented being made to supposedly root for someone I hated and whom I wanted to die. If she was stealing or dealing drugs or something, ok. But this? I just couldn’t have fun with it. I was hung up! haha

Every Man for Himself (Jean-Luc Godard, 1980): 2/5

A couple of funny bits here, but I honestly don’t know what Godard is up to. It seems to be a broken love story, then suddenly Isabelle Huppert shows up as a prostitute, and now we’re just watching scenes where men order prostitutes to do stuff and everyone is degraded. Godard’s multi-film prostitution obsession is challenging. I guess it lays bare our social games of power and sex? At least for Bunuel, the need is more deep-seated, psychedelic and unknowable.

Cronenberg Film Fest

Have now watched all 21 features.

Fast Company (David Cronenberg, 1979): 2/5

Cronenberg makes an unsuccessful play for normal professionalism. I think this story about stock car racers was supposed to be a bro-ish hang-out movie (like Hooper, the year before), but the film lacks humor, the characters lack charisma, and the movie never achieves the necessary level of ease and relaxation. 

Videodrome, rw (David Cronenberg, 1983): 4.5/5

One of the rare movies that I can remember possibly even my dad turning off to shield my brother and I from the heinous quality of the images and ideas herein. He was right. This is a disgusting, greasy, nihilistic, perverted, sweaty, nonsensical mess of a masterpiece. A real vomit that surely should have seen Cronenberg locked up 

M. Butterfly (David Cronenberg, 1993): 2/5

Cronenberg’s Age of Innocence. A parlor drama that begins with sadomasochistic power trips during which the protagonist realizes himself to be powerless. Finally, it yada yada yadas over some pretty crucial action. Like he lives with the John Lone character for two years and never discovers he is a man. Worst lover of the century or of all time? Actually, in the end, I find this movie a bit racist and definitely anti-trans, anti-gay and anti-penis. So there’s that. 

Map to the stars (David Cronenberg, 2014): 2/5

An overly broad Hollywood satire full of dumb, rigid, miserable, narcissistic people. I fully stan Cronenberg’s body horror stuff, but I confess that I really don’t dig Crash and Naked Lunch that much and this is in the same airless and lugubrious style—but a comedy! The great Julianne Moore sits on the toilet and then wipes her ass. The characters have no psychological depth but, robots that they are, they do manage to do a lot of crazy and subversive shit before it’s all said and done 

Cronenberg shorts: Transfer (1966), Camera (2000), The Nest (2013): 2.5/5

This 6-minute short is not as good as The Fly or Dead Ringers!!!! Actually, The Nest (about a woman who believes there is a nest of wasps in her breast) is worth watching on YouTube.

Billy Wilder Film Fest

Life is a series of ironic and bitter lies, rip-offs and self-deceptions. Now watched half of his 26 features, and I have my doubts as to whether I will ever watch any more.

Ace in the Hole, rw (Billy Wilder, 1951): 5/5

“For all I know there’s not even a Leo down there.” One guy stuck down a hole, and every last person in the community profits. It’s a movie version of The Lottery, where one figure must suffer and die to keep the rest safe, Kirk Douglas serving as Pontius Pilate. Upon reflection, this guy embodies everything I was taught when earning an MBA at USC: growing economies profit everyone. 

Witness for the Prosecution (Billy Wilder, 1957): 2.5/5

“He’s chipper isn’t he? An hour ago he had one foot on the gallows and the other on a banana peel.” Courtroom dramas are not at all my bag, and this is no exception, and this was adapted from a play (by Agatha Christie) with all of the static nature that implies. Laughton is terrific of course, and the movie is about as peppy and efficient as can be. Features a warning at the end asking viewers to not reveal the shocking ending of the movie, which does present as quite a series of twists, although dramatically it’s a bit late. 

One, Two, Three (Billy Wilder, 1961): 2/5

“’I spit on your money. I spit on Fort Knox. I spit on Wall Street.’ ‘Unsanitary little jerk, isn’t he?’” Fast-moving screwball satire where everyone yells and is wound so tight it’s tiresome. A joke about taking Benzedrine gives us some insight into what is driving this bus. Many lines that are clearly clever, if not funny. Still, comedy is subjective. I don’t like Some Like it Hot, either. I would say it boldly satirizes boorish American culture, but in truth everyone is boorish and stupid here regardless of party affiliation. 

Kiss me, Stupid (Billy Wilder, 1964): 3/5

“I have an amazing mother. She is 85 years old and she don't need no glasses. [pauses] She drinks right out of the bottle.” Nervous Songwriter Ray Winston hires prostitute Kim Novak to pretend to be his wife and entertain singer Dean Martin for the evening so Ray can pitch Dino his songs. Much prolonged ogling of Novak’s butt ensues. One can almost see Three’s Company being invented (a compliment), yet surprisingly the final act pivots to more frank sexual politics and adult emotions. 

Avanti! (Billy Wilder, 1972): 3.5/5

“A coroner, he eats very well. He knows all the widows.” A broad, Local Hero-ish tale of a city slicker seduced by an Italian island. But it can never really settle down its satiric tendency, and the main character is quite a hung-up asshole for more than two hours, ensuring cinema’s most misanthropic rom-com. 

Preston Sturges Film Fest

These Sturges movies remind me of the Saturday Afternoon movies I watched over and over on Channel 5 as a kid. The Abbott and Costello movies, the Road pictures, Danny Kaye. Despite the WW2 jokes they always had a gag-a-minute sensibility and rich secondary character universe that just felt entertaining. Here there’s a cartoony sense of bigness, eyebrow waggling, and pratfalling exaggeration, fading into a smart alec-y Coen-ish condescension. William Demarest is in all of these films and makes each better. Anyone out there seen The Great Moment (1944), The Sin of Harold Diddlebock (1947), The Beautiful Blonde from Bashful Bend (1949), or The Diary of Major Thompson/The French, They are a Funny Race (1955)?

The Great McGinty (Preston Sturges, 1940): 4/5

An urtext for ironic rags-to-riches stories like Lancomb Lucien and The Godfather, with the goofy humor and insouciance of Goodfellows and Miller’s Crossing. Prefigures the political careers of George Bush, Bill & Hillary Clinton and Trump. Brian Donlevy in a wide and expressive selection of mustaches.

Christmas in July (Preston Sturges, 1940): 4/5

A cross between Hudsucker Proxy’s go getter-Ism and It’s a Wonderful Life collectivism. Expert character actors. Dick Powell looks like he’s about to break out in song. 67 minutes. 

The Lady Eve, rw (Preston Sturges, 1941): 4.5/5

This may well be the best movie Surges made, but I would argue it’s not the best “Sturges movie.” Fonda and Stanwyck bring a lot of their own personas to these characters, creating a different feel from the ensemble nature of his typical work. Tonally, this seems more like a classic Hollywood star-driven vehicle, and the pace of dialogue is more traditional. As with Morgan Creek, though, everything in the plot happens a little earlier than you expect it to, saving us from having to wait for the next beat to play slowly out. Which makes it possible for Sturges to play out a fun and brilliant formal trick of final act, where the first half is permitted/compelled by both parties to be replayed, Vertigo-style. 

Sullivan’s Travels, rw (Preston Sturges, 1941): 4/5

Folks do love their movies about movies, and it’s easy to see this (surely incorrectly) as Stuges' most autobiographical work. The great opening scene ((“Ants in your Plants of 1939” “….but with a little sex in it”) is an unbroken 4-minute scene with 5 minutes of dialogue stuffed in it. Ironically this movie about the value of comedy contains no virtually no levity for most of its final half hour. 

The Palm Beach Story (Preston Sturges, 1942): 3/5

A comedy of remarriage. Joel McCray, a dreamer and idealist, can’t afford his Park Avenue life and wife. Wife Claudette Colbert leaves for Palm Beach and hooks up with a befuddled billionaire, a pretty thin supposed husband alternative/foil. Rich eccentrics shoot up a train car with shotguns.

The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek, rw (Preston Sturges, 1943): 4/5

Astounding, 2-3 minute unbroken shots, often tracking Eddie Bracken and Betty Hutton as they are walking and talking, give a great spontaneity and feeling of live performance. Tells enough story for three movies. In a fun bit of continuity, The Great McGinty himself and his sleazy boss/sidekick show up. 

Hail the conquering hero, rw (Preston Sturges, 1944): 3/5

Nervous young man is afraid to return home because he was discharged from the Marines for hay fever. He runs into a bunch of Marines in a bar, and they force him back home and tell everyone of his heroism. Much anxious cover-up and spin control ensues. One of the longest, most frenetic and linear of all of Sturges’ work. Great to see all the usual faces, but this is a bit of an anxiety dream. 

 rewatched Summer Hours (Olivier Assayas, 2008): 4/5

Beautiful slice-of-life family drama. It's a quiet film with nimble camerawork, rich in subtext with a modest look, yet the most complex of themes such as globalization, modernism, art, generational gaps and the inevitability of change.

Also, Juliette Binoche could sip tea in front of a camera for 100 minutes and I'd be enraptured.

rewatched Hi, Mom! (Brian De Palma, 1970): 4/5

For the record, I would watch the shit out of a show called "Humiliate The Honky."

Also probably the greatest title drop of all time.

Down in the Valley (David Jacobson, 2005): 3/5

Is it really an early 2000s movie if they don't put teenage Evan Rachel Wood in a relationship w/ a literal adult

The Mosquito Coast (Peter Weir, 1986): 1.5/5

i wanted a movie with river phoenix (and martha plimpton !!!!!!!) and all i got was annoying, racist and conceited harrison ford in a pseudo jonestown. it’s just the bastard child of Swiss Family Robinson and Lord of the Flies.

Jumbo (Zoe Wittock, 2020): 2.5/5

Or, Portrait of a Tilt-a-Whirl on Fire.

This is basically THE SHAPE OF WATER, but with a carnival ride. And why is it so weird yet it feels so tamed? Noemie Merlant commits to her performance which helps to sell the unusual premise despite the film’s various tonal shifts.

Life Itself (Dan Fogelman, 2018): 1/5

Vapid exercise in narrative kitsch that’s really just overwrought, saccharine, dopey bullshit that can only coax eye-rolls and unintended laughs.

rewatched Annihilation (Alex Garland, 2019): 5/5

There are too many iconic characters to name in this movie: Skeleton Bear With Lady Voice. The Girl Who Became Plants. The Woman Who Threw Up The Universe. The Shiny Dubstep Aliens. The list goes on and on.

Amateur (Hal Hartley, 1994): 3/5

"How can you be a nymphomaniac and never had sex?"

"I'm choosy."

Coming 2 America (Craig Brewer, 2021): 1/5

Makes Tyler Perry look like Billy Wilder.

Allen v. Farrow (Kirby Dick and Amy Zeiring, 2021): No rating

I believe Dylan. He's such a gross creep and hasn't made a good movie since HUSBANDS AND WIVES (1992).

Cherry (Anthony and Joe Russo, 2021): 1.5/5

There isn't a single thing in this that isn't clichéd, recycled, or both. The Russos, news to nobody, are producers and not directors. Tom Holland is bad in it but everyone else is much worse.

Moxie (Amy Poehler, 2021): 2.5/5

Empowering and narratively important for the YA crowd, and I can appreciate that its heart is in the right place. The lead is super bland, unlikeable, and annoying.

rewatched Dance, Girl, Dance (Dorothy Arzner, 1940): 4/5

Super odd film where the plot is all over the place, but it's always really fun to see a young Lucille Ball chewing the scenery so many years before her I Love Lucy success. This movie won’t change your life but it’s a decent romp.

rewatched The Red Shoes (Pressburger and Powell, 1948): 5/5

Why cut between scenes when you could whip-pan instead? Why settle for anything less than Jack Cardiff's camera in Technicolor, with Riviera sunsets pouring into blue-green rooms? Why choose Art or Love when you could have neither?

rewatched Tokyo Twilight (Ozu, 1957): 5/5

One of Ozu's darkest films, containing death, marital problems, and unwanted pregnancy. To top it all off, Ozu complements all these by having the film set in winter. Deeply moving and beautiful.

Dragonwyck (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1946): 3/5

Vincent Price says polite words with such subtle disdain. You can tell immediately how much his character hates his wife. Also, Gene Tierney is too glamazon for a country gal.

Kalifornia (Dominic Sena, 1993): 2.5/5

Agreeably slick and goth-flashy in that quintessentially 90's way, more a fashion statement than a film. Not a thought in its pretty head.

Some Kind of Heaven (Lance Oppenheim, 2020): 3/5

Aestheticized portrait of a pre-fab retirement community in Florida that’s like a hermetic Disneyland for the elderly. But it eventually settles into a more narrow, conventional (albeit engaging) bit of portraiture.

Best part of the film is when the old guy calls his mom and everyone goes “his mom??”

Tom & Jerry (Tim Story, 2021): 1/5

Maybe I hate movies.

The United States vs. Billie Holiday (Lee Daniels, 2021): 2/5

A Bland and Reductive Screenplay vs. Bad Directing vs. Billie Holiday

Ten minutes into this dreary melodrama, Harry Ainslinger, the mustache-twirling villain, growls in a smoky conference room, “This jazz music is the devil’s work. That’s why this Holiday woman’s gotta be stopped.” Who talks like that besides a cartoon mob boss?

Billie Eilish: The World's a Little Blurry (RJ Cutler, 2021): 3/5

Not recognizing Orlando Bloom is a hilarious (unintentional) power move. Also Billie saying “Justin Bieber could ask me to kill my dog and I would” and the camera panning straight to the dog looking sad was my favorite.

Palmer (Fisher Stevens, 2021): 1/5

Painfully unremarkable in every factory made way. Good guy Palmer is a movie about the attempt of an actor seeking awards validation in every baity way possible. Save yourself the time and watch the trailer. Hell, look at the movie poster. It's exactly the aggressively average movie you expect.

Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar (Josh Greenbaum, 2021): 3.5/5

(STARTING A CHANT) Trish. Trish. Trish. Trish. (OTHERS JOINING IN) Trish! Trish! Trish! Trish! (JUST EVERYBODY FUCKING SCREAMING NOW) TRISH! TRISH! TRISH! TRISH!

I Care A Lot (J Blakeson, 2021): 3/5

Lesbians vs. Mafia sure is better than the legal drama that I was expecting. Sometimes, all you really want to see in a movie is the great Peter Dinklage playing a lethally sincere crime lord who rocks a man-bun.

Bliss (Mike Cahill, 2021): 1/5

An incoherent mess of a film that suffers from a horrible script, over-the-top performances, and some of the most convoluted world-building ever to be put on screen. The characters' motivations are vague to practically non-existent, and the conflict is so unclear and muddled, you'll spend most of the movie just trying to figure out what the hell is going on. Although, for once, I didn't hate Owen Wilson as much as I usually do, which should tell you exactly how bad the rest of the movie is.

The Climb (Michael Angelo Covino, 2019): 2/5

The movie is at times very funny and it tries to explore a deeper side of male friendship than the usual surface level fare. However, the one friend is so toxic and emotionally destructive that it goes beyond humor and then beyond belief. It just becomes pathetic that they remain friends as the movie goes on and tries to patch it all up by the end, but it's completely unearned.

The Kid Detective (Evan Morgan, 2020): 3.5/5

I had assumed from the title that this was a movie for kids, which most definitely it is not. and then i thought, "oh god do we really need 'what if encyclopedia brown, but dark,'" which, bleh, but thankfully it isn't that, either.

What it IS is a little hidden gem of a movie with a performance by Adam Brody that's both sharp and understated, mixing neo-noir and dark comedy and coming up with a genuinely emotional concoction and a surprisingly affecting and effective ending.

Willy's Wonderland (Kevin Lewis, 2021): 1/5

It's hard to think of this as anything other than a goof, although the endless scenes of Cage silently scrubbing bathrooms or exuberantly playing pinball have their charms. It's just that there isn't really a movie around them.

Run Hide Fight (Kyle Rankin, 2020): 1/5

It's an action thriller centered around a school shooting and it's produced by Ben Shapiro, what, you don't want to watch this?

Sylvie's Love (Eugene Ashe, 2020): 2/5

It’s all pretty but it reminds me more of a TV movie than Sirk or Minnelli or Ray. The script is deeply contrived and weak. Unlike Todd Haynes, this director is so obsessed with aping the past he hasn’t asked what from that time period should be challenged (aside from the fact that Black people are not the romantic leads) and where it might be interesting to layer in modern sensibilities to a recreation of the past.