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

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

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

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

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

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

Shampoo (Hal Ashby, 1975): 2.5/5

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

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

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

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

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

Piercing (Nicolas Pesce, 2018): 1.5/5

*Close-up of Mia Wasikowska piercing her nipple*

Me, whispering: That’s the Piercing.

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

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

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

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

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

Us (Jordan Peele, 2018): 3.5/5

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

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

No way this is a real movie.

The Oath (Ike Barinholtz 2018): 1/5

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nancy (Christina Choe, 2018): 3.5/5

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Seconds (John Frankenheimer, 1966): 3/5

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

Paddleton (Alexandre Lehmann, 2019): 3/5

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

Lianna (John Sayles, 1983): 2.5/5

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

Climax (Gaspar Noe, 2018): 4.5/5

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

Ninotchka (Ernst Lubitsch, 1939): 4/5

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

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

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

Caligula (Tinto Brass, 1979): 1/5

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

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

bradley cooper: hwshhmmvzagsrrd

lady gaga: hwoooahhoooahhhOOOAAHHOAAA

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


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

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

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

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

It's a yes from me.

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

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

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

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

more like mary queen of FLOPS

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

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

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

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

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

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

Spellbound (Alfred Hitchcock, 1945): 2.5/5

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

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

Kinda like if early Linklater made Coyote Ugly.

Vazante (Daniela Thomas, 2017): 2/5

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

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

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

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

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

Whitney (Kevin Macdonald, 2018): 4/5

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Under the Silver Lake (David Robert Mitchell, 2018): 2/5

More wandering and pointless than Inherent Vice, which is an accomplishment. Makes me want to lock my slightly similar novella, Whatever, in a dark drawer forever.

Shirkers (Sandi Tan, 2018): 1.5/5

Who gives a fuck about some half-assed film you made and lost 20 years ago?

The Endless (Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, 2018): 2.5/5

Low-budget sci-fi; inspires extremely mild interest throughout.

Support the Girls (Andrew Bujalski, 2018): 2.5/5

Probably the most competent of Bujalski’s movies, but competency is overrated.  Nice performances from Regina Hall and (especially) Haley Lu Richardson. James LeGros adds another squirrelly asshole to his resume.

Bad Times at the El Royale (Drew Goddard, 2018): 2/5

Remember when every season would bring a sub-part Tarantino rip-off with verbose characters (and titles)? Things to Do in Denver When You’re Dead, 2 Days in the Valley, 8 Heads in a Duffel Bag. Yeah, here’s another one. Why is the hotel half in Nevada and half in California? It’s cool, I guess??

Eighth Grade (Bo Burnham, 2018): 3/5

A terrifying horror film. Well written and acted, but a lot to put yourself through. Say what you will about Solanz’ cruelty, but at least he would have used more exaggeration and grotesquery to permit the audience a bit of distance.

The Sisters Brothers (Jacques Audiard, 2018): 4/5

Comic and very melancholy. With some things I had never seen before, and some authentic Western genre pleasures.

The Old Man & the Gun (David Lowery, 2018): 3/5

For the first half especially, I really enjoyed just watching Redford and Spacek talk to each other in the car or a booth in a diner. Their great performances do what very-late career roles are supposed to do—utilize and make you appreciate their whole body of work. The plot interested me less.

My Darling Clementine, rw (John Ford, 1946): 5/5

I was surprised by how savage the Clantons were allowed to be. Walter Brennan = great.

Blaze (Ethan Hawke, 2018): 2/5

Inert music biopic, populated by Townes Van Zandt and other mean, miserable drunks. Go listen to the song Clay Pigeons by Blaze Foley. It is pretty great.

The House that Jack Built (Lars von Trier, 2018): 1/5

Melancholia was thrilling cinema on the subject of depression. This one just seems the listless act of a severely depressed person. I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to hear that Lars von Trier has killed himself. That’s dark, but somehow I don’t think von Trier would mind.

Mission Impossible: Fallout (Christopher McQuarrie, 2018): 3/5

I couldn’t care less about Ethan Hunt, James Bond or Jason Bourne, but the last half hour was actually a pretty amazing state-of-the-art thrill ride. Also, I was a coming down off a general anesthetic and whatever sedatives were used to make my colonoscopy that morning such a pleasant experience.

Rams (Grimur Häkonarson, 2015): 3/5

Two nearly silent brothers in remote Iceland struggle with sick sheep and long-simmering sibling problems. Starts severe and moves inexorably toward the primal.

Three Identical Strangers (Tim Wardle, 2018): 2/5

Like so, so many docs, this would have been much better at 30 minutes long. Is there any alternative to turning docs like this into “stories” with all the usual McKee-required dramatic beats?

Prime Cut (Michael Ritchie, 1972): 3/5

A surprisingly nasty bit of Midwest noir involving slaughterhouses and drugged sex slaves (including Sissy Spacek). I thought Michael Ritchie was supposed to be a gently satiric humanist? Lee Marvin’s face has never looked more like a hatchet.

At Eternity’s Gate (Julian Schnabel, 2018): 3.5/5

Struggles with the perennial artist biopic problem of how to get the artist’s inner life up onto the screen. But the last half has some startling depictions of madness that I actually really related to.  Always a supreme pleasure to watch Defoe, and this is one of his very best performances.

To Live and Die in L.A., rw (William Friedkin, 1985): 4/5

The first time I had seen Defoe, I believe (although he’s also in Heaven’s Gate, The Hunger (naturally) and Streets of Fire before this). Plenty of gonzo 80s fun with color and music.

Bohemian Rhapsody (Bryan Singer, 2018): 3/5

Turgid dramaturgy, but a great silent-movie-huge performance from Malek, who seemed to be the only one who realized they were making a movie about Queen, for Christ sake.

They Shall Not Grow Old -3D (Peter Jackson, 2018): 5/5

Yep, Jerry was right. One of the great war movies. Demonstrates the enormous power not only of 3D and color but also of sound. A film lovers’ movie.

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