Category: Film
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Speed Racer
“You think you can drive a car and change the world?” Speed Racer (The Wachowskis, 2008) This movie is so propulsive and triumphant. I love it. Just a few years after the third Matrix movie, the Wachowskis release this film to lackluster fanfare and a mixed critical response. It’s largely seen as a colossal failure:…
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Jackass Forever
“We have winners…and we have Steve-O.” Jackass Forever (Jeff Tremaine, 2022) Some truths are difficult to live with, and one of those truths is that this movie is undeniably good. When I wasn’t laughing, I was cringing. When I wasn’t cringing, I was covering my eyes and desperately trying to unsee what I just saw.…
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Road House
“Nobody ever wins a fight.” Road House (Rowdy Harrington, 1989) Okay, so this movie is ’80s trash, but it’s also highly entertaining. It’s ridiculous, and early on I knew it wouldn’t earn more than 2.5 stars, but I also knew that I was having a blast and wouldn’t stop watching it. There’s gratuitous nudity and…
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Anything for Jackson
“You can’t win a moral argument with me –I’ve made a deal with the devil.” Anything for Jackson (Justin G. Dyck, 2020) Starts out strong and then degenerates into the typical, boring paranormal horror fare. I love the genre because of how malleable it is and how playful you can be with it. This is…
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Raising Arizona
“There what’s right and there’s what’s right, and never the twain shall meet.” Raising Arizona (The Coens, 1987) What a weird movie. They never really did anything like this again, did they? I mean, O’ Brother Where Art Thou wasn’t even this kind of full-throttle whimsy and magical realism. This is perhaps Cage’s most appealing…
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The Gentlemen
“There’s fuckery afoot.” The Gentlemen (Guy Ritchie, 2019) When Guy Ritchie decides to make a Guy Ritchie movie, it’s always a fun time. Despite the fact that the narrative structure pretty much only exists to be a cute way to cultivate twists and turns, the movie works. Almost everyone is perfectly cast: Hunnam and Farrell…
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Kingdom of Heaven (Director’s Cut)
“There is so much done in Christendom of which Christ would be incapable.” Kingdom of Heaven (Ridley Scott, 2005) A masterpiece. A staggering achievement in filmmaking. One of the most gorgeous movies I’ve ever seen. The production design is off the charts. That team, as well as the costume design team, should have swept their…
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Elvis
“If I can’t move, I can’t sing.” Elvis (Baz Luhrmann, 2022) I love Baz Luhrmann. I find his filmmaking style so joyous and fun. This film contains many of his trademarks: fantastic flourishes of color, kaleidoscopic effects, endearing camp, and elaborate scene transitions. Unfortunately, this movie is not good. It’s kind of incoherently structured and…
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The Lost City of Z
“That jungle is hell, but one kind of likes it.” The Lost City of Z (James Gray, 2016) An interesting take from Gray that didn’t completely work for me. It’s a bizarrely-paced film –one that lingers overlong in the duller segments and cuts short the more fascinating ones. I bet there’s a killer director’s cut…
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The Menu
“The most offensive assault on the human palate ever contrived.” The Menu (Mark Mylod, 2022) Glass Onion meets Triangle of Sadness. Fun and entertaining enough but more interested in exploiting the statement it’s making rather than exploring it. Seared ham passing as haute cuisine. One of those movies that could’ve been a masterpiece if it…
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Women Talking
“We didn’t talk about our bodies, so when something like this happened, there was no language for it.” Women Talking (Sarah Polley, 2022) A really interesting and important movie about the internal politics of an oppressed and predated upon group of women. Gentle and dreamy cinematography in the Campion, Malick, and Dominik style. All of…
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Synchronic
“The present is a miracle.” Synchronic (Justin Benson & Aaron Moorhead, 2019) Entertaining enough. The movie’s biggest shortcoming is that it goes out of its way to explain the rules of its sci-fi element but not in a way that makes any real sense. Like I said before, I’ll watch anything these directors make because…
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Sixteen Candles
“We have seventy dollars and a pair of girl’s underpants; we’re safe as kittens.” Sixteen Candles (John Hughes, 1984) Despite its super problematic components, this is very obviously a teen comedy classic. Definitely more in the Weird Science mold than really anything else in Hughes’s screenwriting catalog. The story bafflingly focuses far more on tertiary…
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St. Elmo’s Fire
“Marriage is a concept invented by people who were lucky to make it to 20 without being eaten by dinosaurs.” St. Elmo’s Fire (Joel Schumacher, 1985) This and The Breakfast Club come out in the same year, and the Brat Pack is born. The former is an exploration into who we are when we’re young…
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Some Kind of Wonderful
“Don’t go mistaking paradise for a pair of long legs.” Some Kind of Wonderful (Howard Deutch, 1987) A step up in screenwriting and filmmaking from Pretty in Pink. I think it’s because there is a larger population of better actors. Stoltz is excellent, and I wish he got the career that Zemeckis and Spielberg promised.…
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Pretty in Pink
“It’s so insane that someone you’ve never met, never talked to, can be your enemy.” Pretty in Pink (Howard Deutch, 1986) Not the definitive Hughes ’80s classic but a favorite for many. It’s hard to judge these movies because even their faults, the things that don’t age well, seem to derive from a place of…
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Dr. Strangelove
“Peace is our profession.” Dr. Strangelove (Stanley Kubrick, 1964) A surprisingly great comedy given the gravity of the filmmaker. Sellers is preternaturally gifted, and Scott is hilarious. A tight ninety minutes and not a beat is missed. They don’t make ’em like this anymore.
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Blade Runner 2049
“In the face of the fabulous new, your only thought is to kill it.” Blade Runner 2049 (Denis Villeneuve, 2017) This movie is visually stunning, wildly inventive, and undoubtedly great. But it’s also a really bizarre sequel to a genre classic that binds itself to every element of storytelling that the original masterfully ignores. Villeneuve…
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Donnie Darko
“Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion.” Donnie Darko (Richard Kelly, 2001) Kelly’s auteur debut is one of the best trojan horse films ever. Moody and brooding and strange. The plot is convoluted, but watching the story unfold is always an enjoyable experience. There are small and delicate touches throughout the film that reflect…
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Gattaca
“They used to say that a child conceived in love has a greater chance of happiness…they don’t say that anymore.” Gattaca (Andrew Niccol, 1997) A gorgeous cinematic achievement in retro-futurism and an evocative commentary on the evolution of self-imposed societal constraints. This is a classic case of how to tell a complicated story simply and…
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Blade Runner (Final Cut)
“The tortoise lays on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs trying to turn itself over…but it can’t.” Blade Runner (Final Cut) (Ridley Scott, 1982) This movie looks incredible. The Sino-Anglo cyberpunk dystopia of tomorrow is filthy and fascinating. I love how the exterior scenes are always crowded and chaotic,…
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The Nice Guys
“I had to question the mermaids.” The Nice Guys (Shane Black, 2016) Just give Black twenty million bucks and let the man make any Los Angeles-based noir comedy he wants. They are stellar. This movie is an absolute riot; hilarious through and through. While Gosling and Crowe don’t quite obtain the natural chemistry of RDJ…
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Possessor
“It makes her do things…predator things.” Possessor (Brandon Cronenberg, 2020) A great idea for a near-futuristic, corpo-crime story. Cronenberg shares his father’s penchant for world-building and technological speculation. I first saw Andrea Riseborough in Mandy but have now seen her in several films, and I’m convinced that she is the next Tilda Swinton. Christopher Abbott…
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The Godfather Part II
“If anything in this life is certain, if history has taught us anything…it is that you can kill anyone.” The Godfather Part II (Francis Ford Coppola, 1974) Coppola’s second of three masterpieces made in the 1970s. Gordon Willis is a god with a camera. Longer, darker, and more complex than the first entry. Also a…
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A Star is Born
“Ain’t it hard keepin’ it so hardcore?” A Star is Born (Bradley Cooper, 2018) A pretty damn impressive directorial debut. It’s certainly not perfect, especially in terms of the editing, but some of the shots are really beautiful. Gaga’s performance is a wonderful, sober deviation from her character work in House of Gucci (my first…
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Punch-Drunk Love
“I don’t know if there is anything wrong because I don’t know how other people are.” Punch-Drunk Love (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2002) A remarkably quaint follow-up to two massive ensemble pieces. Less triumphant than I remember, but a fun time nonetheless. It still surprises me how good Sandler is in this film. He makes all…
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Spring
“I understand about half of myself.” Spring (Justin Benson & Aaron Moorhead, 2014) I don’t always love Benson and Moorhead’s films, but I’m glad that they keep getting made. They play around with the horror and sci-fi genres in a constructive way, and pretty much always produce a technically well-crafted product. The problem with this…
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Drive
“There’s a hundred thousand streets in this city, you don’t need to know the route.” Drive (Nicolas Winding Refn, 2011) Refn steals all the tropes from the Western genre, distills them, refines them, and renders them so effortlessly as a seedy city crime drama that you forget altogether that they actually are tropes. Ryan Gosling…
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Triangle of Sadness
“So is this runway casting for a grumpy brand or a smiley brand?” Triangle of Sadness (Ruben Östlund, 2022) A fun exploration of how wealth, beauty, and decadence only establishes a master class in civil society. But none of those characteristics can save you from the torments of nature and the constraints of true human…
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The Godfather
“We’re not murderers, despite what this undertaker says.” The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972) A masterpiece. A perfect movie. Coppola spends the first twenty-seven minutes of the film on a wedding sequence. What a fucking nutjob.
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Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
“Do not play detective.” Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (Shane Black, 2005) The directorial debut of one of the most successful and prolific screenwriters in Hollywood history. The use of voice-over narration, mid-scene pauses, and fourth-wall breaking indicates that the script was likely written in the mid-90s but wasn’t able to get produced until the mid…
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Smile
“I’m a PhD candidate, I’m not some lunatic.” Smile (Parker Finn, 2022) The Ring meets It Follows but bad. It gets points for having a solid hook, but it deserved a better script. If you’re susceptible to mainstream horror creepiness or jump scares, then this could be a fun time for you. If you’ve spent…
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Bodies Bodies Bodies
“They’re not as nihilistic as they look on the internet.” Bodies Bodies Bodies (Halina Reijn, 2022) This is not a horror movie despite being marketed as a kind of new-wave slasher flick. It’s basically a Gen-Z, TikTok-culture version of Knives Out…which is a pretty great idea for the current climate. Despite being a silly movie…
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Knight of Cups
“Dreams are nice, but you can’t live in them.” Knight of Cups (Terrence Malick, 2015) Malick isn’t for everyone, but I truly adore and admire his craft. Borderline experimental filmmaking that dances with the poetry of introspection and flirts with the profundity of otherwise unremarkable candid moments. In this film, he attempts to capture the…
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Bottle Rocket
“On the run from Johnny Law ain’t no trip to Cleveland.” Bottle Rocket (Wes Anderson, 1996) Anderson’s directorial debut is a fascinating glimpse into the auteur’s ability before he developed the aesthetic and unique visual language that he now employs. It’s not a bad movie, but it’s not really a good movie either. What really…
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Raging Bull
“Jesus Christ could come off the cross sometime, he don’t give a fuck.” Raging Bull (Martin Scorsese, 1980) My worst cinema sin so far is that I don’t really care for Scorsese’s work before, say, 1986. And yes, that includes Taxi Driver. This film is competently made and includes some truly beautiful cinematography. I like…
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Bones and All
“No one our age is new at this.” Bones and All (Luca Guadagnino, 2022) Guadagnino does it again. A brooding and ravenous love story. A grotesque and tragic coming-of-age tale. A poignant commentary on a core component of the human condition. A story that frames the exploration of self against the backdrop of not just…
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She Said
“He built the silence and people complied.” She Said (Maria Schrader, 2022) Didactic movies about intrepid journalists at prestigious news organizations that expose the horrors of society often make for obvious Oscar fodder. Spotlight and The Post are recent examples of this trend. This film doesn’t seem to be garnering the same amount of attention…
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Color Out of Space
“What touched this place cannot be quantified or understood by human science.” Color Out of Space (Richard Stanley, 2019) A classic example of a poorly executed great idea. This movie was either butchered by the studio or incompetently edited or both. This could have been something special in someone else’s hands.
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The Fountain
“Death is the road to awe.” The Fountain (Darren Aronofsky, 2006) I understand that it’s impolite to consider anything but Black Swan to be Aronofsky’s masterpiece, but I really think this might be it. His use of microscopic images of photochemical reactions as representations of interstellar gas is stunning. The narrative structure of the love…
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Palm Springs
“You gotta find your Irvine.” Palm Springs (Max Barbakow, 2020) I’m old enough to say this without getting put in movie opinion jail: Palm Springs is superior to Groundhog Day in every way. I love it so much. Samberg is hilarious and charming. Milioti is a goddamned revelation and astonishingly perfect in the role. There’s…
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Pig
“We don’t get a lot of things to really care about.” Pig (Michael Sarnoski, 2021) Mandy meets Burnt. A small, simple production that shines a spotlight on solemnity and solitude. Cage is tremendous. The twenty-first century renaissance of his career is truly something to behold, and this performance may be his best yet. I’d pay…
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The Laundromat
“‘Bad’ is such a big word for such a small word.” The Laundromat (Steven Soderbergh, 2019) The rare miss for Soderbergh. Everything about this movie is lazy. A poorly-aped, McKay-esque docudrama composed of haphazardly-constructed vignettes that utilize too many narrative styles to note. Did I mention that everything about this movie is lazy?
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The Passion of Joan of Arc
The Passion of Joan of Arc (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1928) Three stars for existing. A tip of the cap, as always, to the Criterion Collection. Falconetti gives an impressive and admirable performance. I suppose Dreyer and Maté can be forgiven for the dreadful cinematography due to the state of the medium at the time. The…
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The Virgin Suicides
“We knew that they knew everything about us and that we couldn’t fathom them at all.” The Virgin Suicides (Sofia Coppola, 1999) An important if imperfect movie. I admire how much Coppola wanted to convey a novel on film so early into her career, and her attempt here is sublime. Her impulses are all correct,…
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Solaris
“We don’t want other worlds; we want mirrors.” Solaris (Steven Soderbergh, 2002) Dreamboat Space Clooney a full eleven years before Cuarón cast him in Gravity. This film has no reason being as beautiful and compelling as it is, but that’s what makes Soderbergh such a master. He builds, unravels, and reconciles mysteries within the tight…
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Beyond the Black Rainbow
“The trappings of the mortal world are but a distraction.” Beyond the Black Rainbow (Panos Cosmatos, 2010) Not as good as Mandy but still innovative and unabashedly ambitious. Cosmatos knows how to use the mechanics and chemistry of photography to help tell his stories. He moves from an impeccably composed shot to a scene with…
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Sicario
“You should move to a small town where the rule of law still exists.” Sicario (Denis Villeneuve, 2015) This movie makes Training Day look like a PBS after school special. I love Emily Blunt and the rest of the stacked cast, but Benecio Del Toro is the star of the show. He contains multitudes. It’s…
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White Noise
“Family is the cradle of the world’s misinformation.” White Noise (Noah Baumbach, 2022) I’m honestly surprised that Netflix didn’t just force Baumbach to make this a limited series, seeing as how they spend eighty million dollars on it. It’s not offensively bad; it’s just suboptimal as a feature-length picture. I wanted and needed more time…
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Locke
“We do okay because I straightened the name out.” Locke (Steven Knight, 2013) An impressive and audacious screenplay. Tom Hardy owns the camera. There are many reasons why this movie is great, but my favorite among them is the fact that the story takes place over almost the exact run-time of the film. After it’s…
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Near Dark
“The night has its price.” Near Dark (Kathryn Bigelow, 1987) Very surprising how much better of a filmmaker Bigelow becomes in the four years between this and Point Break. The main problem with the movie is the script, which fails to establish characters let alone develop them, and behaviors get muddled from there. The only…
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The Endless
“Dying just takes a second, but a shitty life is long.” The Endless (Justin Benson & Aaron Moorhead, 2017) This is the kind of movie I like in the paranormal genre. Fewer poltergeists and more aberrations in the natural order. At a certain point in the movie, in quite a flamboyant fashion, I came to…
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Possession
“Goodness is only some kind of reflection upon evil.” Possession (Andrzej Zulawski, 1981) Touted by filmmakers I love and respect as a classic of the horror genre. Nonsense. It’s incoherent drivel. I literally booed the movie when it ended.
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Mandy
“A psychotic drowns where the mystic swims.” Mandy (Panos Cosmatos, 2018) 1980s synth-metal psychedelia wrapped in vengeance horror and tucked into a solo D&D campaign. I love every molecule of the world in which this story takes place. This movie is an acid-laced adrenaline shot directly into the eyes.
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Good Time
“Don’t be confused, it’s just gonna make it worse for me.” Good Time (Safdie Brothers, 2017) Josh and Benny Safdie are the true heirs of Michael Mann. A gritty, street-level crime thriller that’s honest about everything. The world ain’t pretty, but this film’s depiction of that grotesque menagerie is gorgeous. An adrenaline shot that’s laced…
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Paterson
“I go through trillions of molecules that move aside to make way for me, while on both sides trillions more stay where they are.” Paterson (Jim Jarmusch, 2016) I suppose this film challenges the audience to reckon with the extent to which we find poetry in the mundane, how often we allow ourselves to slow…
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The Vast of Night
“You are entering a realm between clandestine and forgotten, a slipstream caught between channels, the secret museum of mankind, the private library of shadows.” The Vast of Night (Andrew Patterson, 2019) Atmospheric and wondrous. Simple but elegant. A remarkable debut film from Patterson, who remediates mistakes made from inexperience with some of the the most…
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The Card Counter
“We are going to have a dramatic reenactment.” The Card Counter (Paul Schrader, 2021) So much squandered potential. This movie was designed for me to love it, but it just flat out falls short in all the important ways. Oscar Isaac is great as always, though. Some of the other casting decisions leave a lot…
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Only God Forgives
“Time to meet the devil.” Only God Forgives (Nicolas Winding Refn, 2013) An absolutely bizarre follow-up to the spectacular Drive. A meandering, nightmarish, macabre journey through one of the many seedy underbellies of Bangkok. At times, I couldn’t tell if the protagonist is navigating the world of the film or his own dream palace. Also,…
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First Reformed
“Even a pastor needs a pastor.” First Reformed (Paul Schrader, 2017)A movie about damaged people believing in corrupted faiths living in a doomed world. I liked it.
olde zoetrope 