Movies I Watched in June 2024 - Greenfield Writes

Clerks - dir. Kevin Smith

Comedy/Slice-of-Life

Just watch Waiting (2005). Same idea but a billion times better.

This is one of the lamest movies I’ve seen in a minute. Embarrassingly unfunny. The dialogue is excruciatingly clumsy. Nobody talks like that. Fuck off.

It’s trying too hard to be entertaining. If the point is to show the boring lives of retail workers, I would expect the movie to lean in to that more. Show the humdrum monotony, show the stupid pointless conversations they have to pass the time. That would’ve been genuinely relatable.

Every choice made here feels counter-intuitive. Why tell the story through telegraphed vignettes? Why have the characters talk like they’re ripped straight out of an Aaron Sorkin script? Why does everyone deliver their lines like they’re doing a shitty Dazed and Confused impression?

Seriously, though; watch Waiting. 2/10.

I Saw the TV Glow - dir. Jane Schoenbrun

Coming-of-Age/Horror

Somewhere here lies a great film. With bolder choices, greater commitment to seeing scenes through to the end, better writing, and a lessened reliance on narration as a plot device, this really could’ve been a lot more than just a middling attempt to create Videodrome for a modern audience.

It’s hard for me to castigate Jane Schoenbrun for wearing their influences on their sleeve. We’re cut from a similar cloth. Vibes wise, the goal is to achieve the energy of a creepypasta, and I can respect that. If only it was creepier. If only it wasn’t bogged down by scenes that either cut too soon or dragged on for far too long. If only it wasn’t so obviously copying Videodrome.

I see the trans angle, and I think that alone is what makes this a 3 star movie for me. The gender dysmorphia angle is subtle enough to fly over most people’s heads but it’s very obvious if you’re looking for it, and I’m familiar with the trans fantasy of wishing you could’ve transitioned at a younger age, to avoid the feeling of your body crumbling under its own WRONGNESS. This movie, I suspect, will resonate with people who have strong emotional investment with that idea. I don’t, but I think it executes that theme particularly well, even if everything else feels like a misfire. 6/10.

Two Friends - dir. Jane Campion

Coming-of-Age

Meh. 3/10.

We’re All Going to the World’s Fair - dir. Jane Schoenbrun

Digital Horror

Packed with a lot more originality than Schoenbrun’s follow-up. Strongly admire what they’re able to accomplish with so little. This comes from a knowledgeable place, in touch with the online experience in ways that quite literally made me anxious to see on the screen. It didn’t help that Casey’s bedroom was similar to my own.

I still feel like more could’ve been done with the concept, and that the ending was really disappointing, but this is the kind of modern auteur work I want to see more of. 7/10.

Mulholland Drive - dir. David Lynch

Surrealist/Mystery

When the homeless guy appeared near the end of the movie, I had a random thought pop into my head that he was almost like the Wizard of Oz. I’m not sure where it came from and I almost dismissed it out of hand, but now that I see the poster this film has on Letterboxd, I’m again reminded of the Wizard of Oz, perhaps inexplicably.

I recognize that the Wizard of Oz isn’t the first tale of its kind. The idea of characters on a quest to obtain something they desire is literally the bedrock of storytelling, and any of Mulholland Drive’s similarities to it are circumstantial at best. But one can’t help and think of Dorothy, a long way home from Kansas, when we follow the plucky Betty Elms as she stumbles her way through Los Angeles–a long way home from Ontario.

The Wizard of Oz is nothing but a charlatan that convinces people he’s magical in order to preserve his power, right? Maybe Hollywood is just like that. Maybe all the smoke and mirrors and “movie magic” are illusions meant to conceal that it doesn’t matter how talented or optimistic you are as a creative, your part is going to go to somebody the mob picked. Hollywood is incestuous and exclusive, but they thrive on convincing you, the hopeful writer/director/actor, that if you just toil long enough as an assistant, working 14 hour days under people who treat you like you’re wasting their time by existing, someday you might make it! Someday you might get to stand up there in front of the entire industry and THANK them for recognizing you as a good artist!

I really have to commend David Lynch for his balls in creating something this aggressively anti-Hollywood. He’s calling the industry out for what it is; a corrupt, lecherous, exploitative, soul-sucking perverter of art, truth, and humanity. It works tirelelessly to convince the consumer that films are something magical, something inaccessible to the average person, something that can only be unlocked by purchasing tickets and merchandise or by drudging through thankless set work for minimum wage pay.

The most bitter part of it all is that in spite of everything I just said, I still want to be a successful actor. I still want my scripts produced. I still desperately want to be part of the club, even though my odds are slim to none. I still hope I’ll meet the Wizard, even if I know he’s full of shit. 8/10.

Butter on the Latch - dir. Josephine Decker

Mumblecore/Horror

Mumblebore. 3/10.

Scream - dir. Wes Craven

Comedy/Slasher

I really tried with this one.

It probably works if you think it’s funny. I don’t.

It probably works if you like the slasher formula. I don’t.

It probably works if you want to have sex with Matthew Lillard. I don’t. 3/10.

Julien Donkey-Boy - dir. Harmony Korine

Experimental

I just watched a film that, without trying, managed to put into images the way it feels for me to exist sometimes. This review will, in all likelihood, be the most personal and difficult for me to write. I don’t feel confident that I can convey my thoughts and feelings clearly, but maybe by the end that in itself will make sense.

It’s been noise for so long that I can barely remember when it wasn’t there.

I have no experience of schizophrenia. It might be somewhere in my gene pool, given one of my aunts, but the noise never came from schizophrenia, not for me. The noise always seemed to come from obsessive compulsive disorder. I thought I’d only developed it later in my life, around 18, but when I think back, it’s always been there.

Until the age of nine, I quite literally could not go to sleep without sucking my thumb. I don’t remember when I started chewing my nails down to the cuticle but I started doing that at some point and I’ve never been able to stop. Sometimes I chew until it bleeds. I clip my cuticles when they get too long. Sometimes those bleed too.

I had a burn once that formed into a scab. I picked and ripped at that scab every time it reformed and now I have a scar on my right arm that will never go away.

When I was a kid, I was terrified of going to parties or big social events, not because of social anxiety but because of fucking balloons of all things. I would legitimately go into hysterics every time a balloon would pop. This went for all loud, sudden noises. Kids throwing down firecrackers in the street? Yep. Cars accelerating too fast? You bet. It was all enough to make me cry.

As far back as I can remember, I had a bad habit of laying up at night and imagining vivid scenarios of my parents dying and I would start sobbing until my eyes finally closed and I could sleep.

There’s a lot of guilt with how I treated my younger brother too. I’m still convinced I’m responsible for the reason he’s so emotionally closed off. I remember this one time we were sleeping in the same bed and I woke up in the middle night and felt that his head was detached from his body. I got so scared that I ran to my parents’ room to tell them. Of course, he was fine.

Then there was that time I loudly proclaimed I wished he’d never been born. Later, he slipped on some clothes I’d left lying around and smashed his nose into the side of his bed. I blamed myself.

When I started having relationships with women and more complicated relationships as a whole in my adolescence, the OCD spread to those too. I cheated on my ex-girlfriend and the guilt nearly made me commit suicide. This seems like a normal thing to feel guilty over. But occasionally, while I’m in a relationship, a woman will flirt with me, and I’ll react the exact same way. Mentally eviscerating myself for… I don’t know. OCD knows, though. OCD keeps a tab on all the supposedly horrible shit I’ve done to people.

The noise just never really stops. I’ll crack a joke, it won’t land, I’ll spend the next few hours wondering if people now think I’m some disgusting perverse freak. The intrusive thoughts get far, far worse than that, too. Worse enough that I don’t feel comfortable sharing them on such a public platform. But trust me, the intrusive thoughts are a hell of a lot worse than “man, my socks sure could use some color coordination!”

I could go on and on about the way OCD is the literal devil incarnate.

But I don’t have to. Julien Donkey-Boy unintentionally depicted it for me. The constant, anger-inducing noise from everything around you. The need to be understood without being able to properly convey what you want to say. The fuzz in your brain that feels like it obscures the truth.

The worst part of OCD is the stomach-churning feeling I get when I start ruminating. I feel as if I’m going to vomit. I feel starved and lack an appetite at the same time. You can never trust your gut when you have OCD because it hides there and convinces you that what you know to be true isn’t. It erodes not just your trust in other people but fundamentally the trust you have in yourself.

There were scenes in this film that absolutely fucking wrecked me. The phone call scene, of course. The scene where Julien begs the nurse to let him hold the dead baby.

But most of all, it was the scene where Julien just kept slapping himself, and Pearl had to hold him down until he stopped. I think that singular scene spoke to me directly more than any scene I’ve ever seen in any piece of media ever. 10/10.

Osama - dir. Siddiq Barmak

Drama

Not bad, just doesn’t do anything I find interesting or fresh. 4/10.

Holy Motors - dir. Leos Carax

Surrealist Fantasy

Performance without an audience; it’s not only possible, it’s our everyday existence. A limo driver puts on a mask after letting her hair down, which in of itself was an act of performance. Lest I overlook the tour de force that is Denis Lavant, who proves himself one of the most powerful physical actors on the planet (look no further than Beau Travail for proof).

Fascinating film. I wish I could say I was moved by it, but my rating goes towards how ingenious it is at exploring improvisation and social constructs. You could probably write an entire essay breaking it all down, but I won’t. 7/10.

Holy Smoke - dir. Jane Campion

Romantic Comedy/Drama

Maybe Jane Campion isn’t for me. I can accept that. 4/10.

Theater Camp - dir. Molly Gordon, Nick Lieberman

Mockumentary

Actually really cute?

I want Jimmy Tatro in more shit. He’s so good at playing douchebros with heart. Loved him in this.

As much as I hate musicals, I’ve always loved theater. It’s such an incredible communal experience. I met one of my first ex-girlfriends doing theater and it was just generally an environment that made me feel a lot more confident in myself. So I’m not too surprised this movie touched me the way it did.

What held it back for me was the underused mockumentary format. It sets itself up as a mockumentary but never fully delivers on that premise.

I could see this ending up as a comfort movie for me. Really just made me smile. 6/10.

American Heart - dir. Martin Bell

Drama

What a disappointment. Based on the title, the poster, and the premise I was ready to watch what would undoubtedly be one of my favorite films ever. This was unfortunately not that.

It’s still good, but it’s bland and would be a lot stronger if it weren’t so sanitized. Perhaps in the hands of a fiercer filmmaker, like Spike Lee or Harmony Korine, this could be a scathing masterpiece of a critique against the way our society treats ex-convicts. As it is, it’s just kind of a decent grandma movie. The kind of movie your grandma tells you is really great. My grandma likes Manchester by the Sea and Dances with Wolves, but I could easily see another grandma meatriding this film. 6/10.

Aliens - dir. James Cameron

Sci-Fi/Action

You people must be joking LOL.

Alien queen taking the elevator is one of the funniest serious things ever?

Very hard to be scared for our characters when the Xenomorphs can be taken out with a round of bullets. You really expect me to believe these are the same creatures that damn near soloed an entire crew? Okayyyyyyy…

Like yeah I know it’s 50 years in the future or whatever and the marines are obviously more equipped than the Nostromo crew but… really? I didn’t realize that Xenomorphs were weak to bullets. That’s convenient!

VERY hard to be scared of the Xenomorph queen when she gets her ass beat by a robot that is quite literally used to carry boxes.

EXTREMELY hard to be scared of the Xenomorph queen when she can’t catch a kid underneath a sewer grate.

This movie has me convinced I could beat one of these dumbass aliens in a fight. Just give me a gun. It’s all gucci.

3 stars for being a fun movie, but anything more than that would feel silly. 6/10.

A Royal Affair - dir. Nikolaj Arcel

Period Drama/Romance

By-the-numbers period drama. 4/10.

The Game - dir. David Fincher

Psychological Thriller

Shoutout to 90’s movies about rich white collar dudes losing their minds (Vanilla Sky, Eyes Wide Shut). Gotta be one of my favorite genres of all time.

David Fincher operating at peak mindfuck. A film about how wealth isn’t enough to conceal trauma. The only way to be fulfilled is through confronting and making peace with the past. In that sense, it’s a little bit reminiscent of A Christmas Carol. What makes The Game far more interesting, however, is that Nicholas chooses his odyssey, which communicates a lot about his character and his subconscious desire to be free of his wealthy prison.

Radio Days - dir. Woody Allen

Coming-of-Age

A trip down memory lane, a love letter to a bygone era, and the portrait of a family.

Leans a bit on coming-of-age tropes that annoy me but it’s a tender experience. A lot less cynical than Woody Allen’s other work. 6/10.

Panic Room - dir. David Fincher

Thriller

A solid contained thriller. Nothing to write home about. Still, a testament to Fincher’s skill as a director. Even his worst projects are, at the very least, highly watchable. 6/10.

A Fugitive from the Past - dir. Tomu Uchida

Crime/Epic

A good crime film will make you interrogate your assumptions about the truth. What happens when the culprit turns up years later and tells an account that completely reshapes the narrative? The state may be eager to rid themselves of a criminal, but say the criminal, outside of the so-called “justice” system rehabilitates THEMSELVES and in turn creates enough good in society to outweigh their past deeds? What then?

This film attempts to answer that question, albeit over an excruciating period of time. We spend an arguably unnecessary amount of time laboring over the life of Yae, who ends up mattering to the story but not nearly as much as her large section of the runtime would suggest. Though I suppose there is something to be said for her inability to escape her past, just like Inukai. She yearns to be more than a geisha, works her way out of it, and yet after her death it’s all she’s remembered as.

Similarly, Inukai comes from poverty, birthed into the story by a freak typhoon, and ends the story back where he started; the ocean. It always reclaims us, doesn’t it? 7/10.

Zodiac - dir. David Fincher

Crime/Historical

I have nothing too elaborate to say about this, it’s just a cinematic master stroke that managed to keep me fully invested and psychologically immersed for almost three straight hours effortlessly. One of those lightning in a bottle films that also manages to convey the autistic experience (through Robert Graysmith’s character) without being corny or stupid. 8/10.

Pups - dir. Ash Baron-Cohen

Crime/Coming-of-Age

It’s like if Harmony Korine and Michael Haneke had a baby. So of course it’s a fantastic film about youth in the United States and the perversity of mass media.

The wheelchair guy nails it: “these kids are the symptom, not the cause.”

Blaming the kids for being obnoxious misses the point. “The dialogue is trying so hard to be cool.” No, the kids are trying so hard to be cool. Stevie’s just impersonating what he’s been taught by media. There’s more to the cocktail than just “video games make kids violent”, though. I don’t think that’s the point either.

A recurring motif is Stevie being unable to breathe. He’s got asthma and he’s also living in the smog-choked city of Los Angeles and together these two things make him very, very angry with the state of affairs. There’s an undertone of righteous rage through this whole script. I get the sense the film isn’t even condemning these kids. In fact, I would consider the kids far less annoying and unsympathetic than many of the adults they hold hostage.

The MTV scene is interesting. It’s speaking to the idea of media exploiting tragedy for clicks and content. Turning real problems into products for consumption. Think Che Guevara t-shirts. Since Stevie ASKED for MTV though, you could expand this into being a commentary on the way people will go to desperate measures for attention when they feel their needs have been unmet.

In a way, the bank robbery is a cry for help, not just for Stevie and Rocky but for a whole generation. The soul of humanity is in crisis, and these kids just want to breathe again. 8/10.

Hit Man - dir. Richard Linklater

This is a really undercooked script. Maybe I’ve been watching too much Fincher but this premise could’ve easily gone a lot harder in the hands of someone who’d be able to explore its philosophical concepts without resorting to the “professor explains the themes of the movie to the class” trope. 4/10.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - dir. David Fincher

Magical Realism

Fincher had to miss at some point.

This reminds me of Spielberg (derogatory).

Pure cheese. Not the good kind. 2/10.

Night Catches Us - dir. Tanya Hamilton

Drama

Kind of a standard drama with some mildly interesting politics peppered in. For the most part, though, kind of sauceless. For being a film that sets itself up as a meditation on the impact of the Black Panthers, it’s not exactly saying anything. The characters aren’t too interesting, the dialogue is screenwriting 101, the visuals are passable, etc. Your life will not change having watched this movie. 4/10.

The Social Network - dir. David Fincher

Biographical Drama

What I learned from this movie is that Mark Zuckerberg is cool as fuck.

Kidding.

But also, maybe not? Tonally it’s hard to tell where the admiration ends and where the criticism begins, but I feel that committing one way or the other would’ve been far too simplistic. Audiences want either condemnation or praise and I feel that combining both is a good way to approach the subject of your story. Creating a piece of art with the sole purpose of either meatriding or judging your lead character is, in my opinion, horrid, and I’m glad this film frequently makes you adjust your perspective on Zuckerberg as it goes. He’s immature, pretentious, awkward, confident, intelligent, short-sighted, cruel, honest, dishonest, rootable, and detestable all at once. Shoutout to Jesse Eisenberg, man. One of my favorite actors. Fuck all the haters. He’s so dope.

Not only is this a great parable about the decimation of a friendship, it’s a story that, in many ways, works towards a modern canon of digitization; the way our lives have become online.

Aaron Sorkin is in rare form here. His rapid-fire dialogue that places wit above earnest humanism works well for the cold, detached hypercapitalist vibe of the film. All the Harvard rich kid business jargon was deliciously horrible. Highly reminiscent of Succession.

Just like in Zodiac, The Social Network gives an incredibly nuanced depiction of autism without pulling any punches or pandering in any way. 8/10.

Sun Don’t Shine - dir. Amy Seimetz

Road

This really could’ve been something special if Kentucker Audley was able to act his way out of a paper bag.

Jesus fucking christ.

He doesn’t have much dialogue in the beginning, but when he starts spouting off what I can only imagine must be improvised bullshit you can really see the absolute failure to commit. Absolutely embarrassing.

It’s a bummer because I went into this very excited. Kate Lyn Shell does her best at pushing forth the film’s vision of pulsatingly uncomfortable and nauseating Florida heat, and it’s almost enough until Audley opens his mouth.

I truly have nothing against the man. I enjoyed Strawberry Mansion. But he singlehandedly ruined this movie for me. 5/10.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - dir. David Fincher

Mystery/Thriller

When I was a teenager, I once made the claim that politeness and manners were akin to Adolf Hitler. I wasn’t joking and I was only slightly exaggerating. For a while, I would contemplate and prod at this position. Was I being silly or was there some truth to the idea of civility being a key element of fascism?

After experiencing this film, I can safely confirm that teenage me was spitting facts.

Don’t get it twisted; I’m not saying kindness or niceness is equivalent to Nazism, but what I am saying (and what this film gets at) is that fascists use civility politics and manners and all these mechanical parts of social etiquette to deliver their messages silently and efficiently.

My mom and I share in this perspective. Her family comes from a Moroccan background, where civility is all but nonexistent. People yell, eat with their hands, communicate via wild hand gestures… and yet I trust these kinds of people more than I would trust the ultra-polite Swedish neighbor, who never breaks social etiquette at all.

And that’s just what this film dissects; the dark underbelly within Sweden’s polished exterior. Sleek Ikea architecture used to mask a society that, by all accounts, has more than dabbled in fascism in the past and present. Within the beautiful modern home of Martin Vanger lies a gas chamber that was used to kill immigrants and Jews, and he lured his victims in with politeness and manners. The fear of breaking social etiquette outweighed their gut instincts to run, and this is how the film spits on the very concept of civility. Fuck etiquette, trust the gut.

The film also proves itself better than the source material. I read the book a good while ago, but I still remember some of my issues with it (which the film expertly sidesteps). For one, I always found it hilarious that the author Stieg Larsson, also a journalist, wrote a novel in which his main character (also a journalist) has sex with every attractive female character he comes across. It was obvious that Larsson saw himself as a white knight and perhaps fantasized about being the “good guy” in a story about evil men. We end the film with a stark reminder that though Blomkvist is a decent guy, he’s still kind of a douche.

Not only is this David Fincher’s greatest achievement as a filmmaker, but it’s also one of the best movies about fascism I’ve ever seen. Truly fucking outstanding stuff. 9/10.

The End of Evangelion - dir. Hideaki Anno

Experimental/Apocalyptic

Death threats are excessive, but the TV ending of Evangelion is absolutely one of the silliest things I’ve seen in a minute. Thus, I’m grateful Anno decided to create this, even if it was out of spite. This goes to show the importance of haters. We’re integral to the artistic ecosystem.

I’ve seen the argument that the two endings are the same thing, thematically. That may be the case, but one ending is essentially a 40 minute podcast of half-baked pop philosophy and the other an opus of animation and existentialism. They’re the “same thing” in the sense that watching End of Evangelion and reading its Wikipedia summary are the “same thing”.

End of Evangelion is fucking phenomenal. Truly one of the finest works of animation I’ve ever seen, with one of the bleakest endings ever. Part of me wants to watch the last rebuild as a palate cleanser, but I want to sit with this for a minute because it’s managed to capture my feelings in this particular juncture of my life. I feel that running away from the film is in conflict with its message of facing life head on.

Pure ego death, right? A total decimation of the self.

You ever eaten so many edibles you green out in a toilet, look at your vomit floating around at the bottom, and say, out loud; “Hey. That’s me.”

My best friend looked back at me when I said it and he asked me; “What are you going to do about it?”

So I flushed it.

I haven’t been the same since. 8/10.

A Quiet Dream - dir. Zhang Lu

Slice-of-Life

A Quiet Dream presents itself as an art film, and it certainly is, but I feel it maintains its accessibility and looseness by having a quiet sense of humor. There were a couple of scenes that genuinely had me laughing. Zhang Lu unhurriedly places in the lives of a group of friends, all outcasts in South Korea for one reason or another. 7/10.

Mank - dir. David Fincher

Biographical Drama

Not sure what the fuck Fincher was cooking here.

It’s really boring. Doesn’t commit to the form as hard as it could. 3/10.

Fantastic Planet - dir. René Laloux

Sci-Fi

It’s a fascinating what-if scenario. Interesting implications all around for the human view of the self in relation to its own theorized insignificance. We’re aware of how luck-based the equation for dominance of the food chain is, so that fuels our anxiety about being caught out in our bullshit. At any moment, we could be sent back to the stone age. 6/10.

The Teachers’ Lounge - dir. İlker Çatak

Drama

It’s tastefully executed (like all of these European Oscar-nominated indie darlings seem to be) but the facsimile of realism falls pretty flat when you realize that not a single adult or child acts believably.

None of this shit would happen lol. I don’t like that it postures as a naturalistic depiction of the life of a teacher.

I wrote for several student newspapers growing up because I wanted to be a journalist for most of my adolescence. I was always the most passionate writer and even I wouldn’t go this hard in the paint for a teacher. Worse drama than this occurred and we still wrote about dumb meaningless shit that nobody read. You really expect me to believe that students would be swarming to buy student newspapers? I guarantee you that realistically none of these kids would give a single fuck about any of this.

And the whole student boycott thing? Yeah fucking right LMAO. I almost started laughing because it came off like fanfiction.

Basically, it’s like the whole universe in this movie exists to torture this one teacher. Which would be fine if it leaned into its own insanity more, but since it presents itself as a serious, “naturalistic” drama it’s just kind of ridiculous. 5/10.

Coffee and Cigarettes - dir. Jim Jarmusch

Hangout/Anthology

Chill vibes. Awkward conversations. An effortlessly cool atmosphere. Jim Jarmusch continues to intrigue and inspire me as an artist. My favorite segment was easily “Cousins?” with Alfred Molina and Steve Coogan.

This is a film about the waiting room of life. Liminal comfort, cozy coolness. 7/10.

Rashomon - dir. Akira Kurosawa

Period Drama

I don’t know man…

Maybe morality tales aren’t for me?

Priest lost his faith in humanity because he heard a story about a woman getting raped and two men killing each other?

Really?

Toshiro Mifune is kinda like Nicolas Cage. He goes all in every time and it’s either awesome (Seven Samurai) or grating (here).

How is it that Rashomon is less than an hour and a half but feels longer than Seven Samurai? 5/10.

Schindler’s List - dir. Steven Spielberg

Historical/Epic

Whoever introduced the law that legally required all Holocaust movies to be the most boring thing on planet earth needs to face trial at the Hague.

One of the most agonizing 3 hour watches of my life, I won’t lie.

As a Jew it makes me sad to give this rating, but consider it generous because part of me thinks it should be lower. I don’t hate this film, necessarily, I just found it terribly boring.

There is some merit to the story it tells but I guess I’m just sick of these Holocaust stories that center non-Jewish characters. Oskar Schindler is a hero but to me it would be like if 12 Years a Slave was about the white abolitionist who saved Solomon Northup. It would be ridiculous.

Is it so impossible to tell a story about the Holocaust from the perspective of the people trying to survive it?

Maybe that is too much to ask. I don’t know.

It’s not the film’s fault that it told a story I found inherently uninteresting. That’s just me, and I don’t think it’s incompetent or morally wrong in any way.

If you want to see a good movie about a non-Jew in crisis over the cruelty of his nation during the Holocaust, watch A Hidden Life. 5/10.

Boy and the World - dir. Alê Abreu

Adventure/Coming-of-Age

Won’t give a rating because this is strongly, affirmatively not for me in any way, shape or form.

Last Days - dir. Gus Van Sant

Drama

My girlfriend said that this film felt like a labyrinth. Repetitive, monotonous, infinite. I have to steal that for my review. This film is a mental labyrinth. A dense, impenetrable glimpse into a doomed soul wandering its last steps before it collapses into entropy.

Utterly, beautifully miserable. 8/10.

Saving Private Ryan - dir. Steven Spielberg

War

SO boring.

Watch The Thin Red Line.

Watch Full Metal Jacket.

Watch Apocalypse Now.

Watch Paths of Glory.

Watch The Ascent.

Watch literally any other war film but this. Represents everything I hate about the genre. Inspiration porn, straight up just a pro-war movie lmao. Nothing that hasn’t been said before, of course, but if you love this movie uncritically you bought the propaganda. You sipped the kool-aid. I don’t know what else to say.

Can’t believe my dad was gassing this up for years LOL.

Drenched in saccharine sentimentality. Absolutely reeks of patriotism. You couldn’t clean off that stench with twenty gallons of bleach. 3/10.

Invisible Life - dir. Karim Aïnouz

Drama

Practically, what’s so wrong with inequality? I mean, really, brass tacks, nuts and bolts, what’s the harm of a lop-ended society?

The answer for me was always opportunity.

You realize how much success comes down to luck when you simply account for where on the planet you’re born. You think a genius in a third world country has the same opportunities as a genius in the United States?

Hell no.

So imagine how many cancer scientists we missed out on because we short-sightedly decided to prioritize profit over people.

Invisible Life made me realize that the very same principle applied to the dynamic between men and women. It’s a personal tale of two sisters, and it is a tearjerker, of course, but what it’s saying is that PATRIARCHY robs women of their opportunity to reach their potential.

Imagine how many genius musicians we never got to learn from because they were forced to become housewives, or kicked out of their homes for having children outside of wedlock.

Imagine how much pain is carried in those sacrifices. The women in this story are kicked down, lied to, manipulated, and suppressed, forced make constant sacrifices for their family. Forced to compromise their dignity and their passion for the patriarchal expectation of the family.

I really think this is one of the smartest, most emotionally resonant feminist films I’ve seen.

Sometimes I get annoyed when people are like “men are trash”.

Lowkey though… they might be onto something.

Not me though. I eat pussy. I’m one of the good ones. 8/10.

Fireworks - dir. Takeshi Kitano

Crime

Kitano is one of a kind.

Truly a filmmaker who must be seen to be believed. I’m trying to think of a way to explain this film, even to myself, and I’m really struggling. It’s just so audaciously crafted. Violent, funny, sad, reflective, angry… never seen such a viciously potent combination of feelings in a film before. Kitano’s able to put cold, exaggerated brutality in the same context as warm sincerity without blinking. He’s able to hold a gun up to a kid, pretend to shoot the kid, and have the scene come across as cute instead of terrifying.

“It’s no use giving water to dead flowers.”

An offhanded remark from a random victim of Nishi’s frigid wrath is perhaps the best description of the film’s emotional core. What do we do when our life’s purpose washes away in the tide? What do we do when fate gets the upper hand and takes away those we love?

“It’s no use giving water to dead flowers” makes Nishi snap because the subtext is that the guy thinks him taking care of his dying wife is pointless. Nishi beating his ass is the film’s way of saying “shut the fuck up, you nihilistic punk”. It’s beautiful.

And don’t get me started on the music. Joe Hisaishi is one of the best composers on the planet. 8/10.

Of an Age - dir. Goran Stolevski

Queer/Coming-of-Age

Perfectly captures what it feels like the first time you meet someone who understands you and holds space for you.

It really wouldn’t have worked for me as well as it did if the dialogue wasn’t so damn good. Their banter was infectious.

The Moonlight comparisons are there, but the stakes here are lower. My issue with Moonlight is that it feels like suffering porn. This is a lot more gentle. Less impactful and visceral, maybe, but less reliant on pity as a driving factor in your investment. 7/10.

Homebodies - dir. Larry Yust

Slasher/Black Comedy

Points for weirdness. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like this. A bunch of old people commit serious crimes to avoid getting kicked out of their home, all while sticking it to the big man. A slasher where the slashers are the heroes and the villain is gentrification.

Sounds fun on paper, but the execution is pretty lifeless. 5/10.

Gerry - dir. Gus Van Sant

Experimental/Survival

No film exists that captures the specific feeling this one does.

Grateful to watch it and to relate to it.

If you’ve ever had the epiphany that cheese and crackers taste best at the top of five-thousand foot mountain, you will connect to Gerry.

If you’ve ever hiked for three hours straight with your best friend, you will connect to Gerry.

If you’ve ever felt like all your decisions were wrong, you will connect to Gerry.

A film that understands male friendship without words, that understands that our bonds with our deepest of homies go unspoken.

A film that understands the serene, epic, brutal beauty of the desert and of nature as a whole.

A film that understands being lost. 8/10.

Dead Poets Society - dir. Peter Weir

Coming-of-Age

Watching this movie for me was like being in Mr. Keating’s class. I thought for sure the schmaltz would be overbearing but it seriously sucked me in. I find the use of atmosphere very intentional, there’s a cozy autumn feeling that many have noted, which Weir uses to lull the viewer into security. Only to of course suffocate us under the weight of winter in the final act.

The film is more ethereal than you’d assume. Just like The Truman Show, it crafts its own world and invites you in. It didn’t make me cry like Good Will Hunting did (another English Lit-core classic) but it was a VERY solid film. 7/10.

The Girl from the Other Side - dir. Yutaro Kubo, Satomi Maiya

Fantasy

I thought this was going to be more mature given its first couple of minutes but it becomes a generic “scary guy takes care of innocent girl” movie very fast and that’s one of the most overdone tropes on the planet at this point. 4/10.

The Bird People in China - dir. Takashi Miike

Magical Realism

Paradise in the crossroads between the traditions of nature and the dreams of tomorrow–flight. Taking off, leaving our earthly rheumatic selves behind, embracing something exalted. It’s as if Apocalypse Now was turned on its head; an ascent into Heaven rather than a descent into Hell.

Miike shows such strong visual language that it brings a smile to my face. That, and also the fact that this movie is simply very funny when it wants to be.

Leave civilization behind, but don’t lose yourself to Heaven. 7/10.

Marriage Story - dir. Noah Baumbach

Drama

Dear Leo,

It’s not your fault. When they start screaming at each other in the kitchen I want you to know it’s not your fault. It’s weird how aware of yourself you were, even then, that you could put those thoughts together and come to the depressingly “mature” conclusion that the reason they scream at each other had anything to do with your existence, that somehow in an alternate reality perhaps Dad wouldn’t have been so angry or that Mom wouldn’t have been so anxious if you’d just never been born.

It’s not your fault that things never stop changing. That you can’t get a grip on the world around you, that your parents are putting ideas into your head that’ll stick with you for the rest of your life. It’s not your fault that home is such a stressful place to be in or that your relationship with your brother deteriorated. It’s not your fault that you can’t make things stick because you’re worried about tomorrow, or that you cried yourself to sleep some nights because you thought your parents would get divorced. It’s not your fault that, on some level, you wished they would rip the band-aid off and get it over with.

I know you resent them so deeply for taking you away from a place that you were just beginning to love. It’s not your fault, but it’s not theirs either. It’s not their fault that just like you they grew up in difficult environments. It’s not their fault that they tried their best and made mistakes, even if those mistakes ended up costing you dearly. It’s not Mom’s fault that she made you neurotic and it’s not Dad’s fault he made you defensive.

It’s nobody’s fault.

It’s just what happened.

Love, Leo

10/10.

They Cloned Tyrone - dir. Juel Taylor

Sci-Fi/Comedy

Black (sploitation) Mirror.

Shit’s kinda gas, I won’t lie.

Didn’t have to be two hours long. Dragged a bit after the midpoint reveal for sure. But I’m not gonna complain about a solid, fun movie in 2023. One of the worst years for movies, so it’s good to see something genuinely inventive, funny, and twisty in all the right ways.

Almost Shyamalan-esque, in that sense?

Maybe I’m off-base. Either way, check this one out for a good time. 6/10.

The Adventures of Prince Achmed - dir. Lotte Reiniger

Fable

It’s okay guys you don’t need to pretend to enjoy this because it came out in 1926.

Andromedia - dir. Takashi Miike

Teen Melodrama/Sci-Fi

Pre-internet charm isn’t enough to save this movie, but there is something there. A view of cyberspace in opposition to capitalism, where digitalization provides humanity with love and connection instead of isolation. 5/10.

Easy Rider - dir. Dennis Hopper

Road

A film about the death of the American dream, not incidental, or at the hands of communist hordes, but by the vitriol of its constituents towards its very values. There’s nothing Americans hate quite as much as they do people exercising their freedom, unless of course they use their freedom to exploit. America dies at the hands of fascist numbskulls who’d sooner kill long-haired hippies for what they represent than join in on the defiance. For a nation that came from a revolution, we fucking hate upending the status quo.

Conservative talking heads defending the British monarchy in this day and age tells you everything you need to know about who really cares about individual freedom in this country. 8/10.

Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood - dir. Richard Linklater

Coming-of-Age/Surreal

What I find interesting is the film’s optimism, though maybe that can be attributed to the fact that it’s so thoroughly bathed in nostalgia. Stan describes the era of his childhood as a carefree environment without much concern for the future. He handwaves away the political turmoil of the time period, choosing instead to focus on the generally laissez-faire bliss of childhood. And it works, it really does. I mean I certainly felt nostalgic myself. The warm summer aura does wonders for presentation, almost whitewashing the past with dreamy rotoscope pastels, yet I never felt like Linklater was trying to glorify the Nixon-era conservatism in any way.

I look back on my own childhood and I wonder if it was any different from Linklater’s. Did I feel that same optimism for the future? Is Vicky’s leftist cynicism a sign that maybe the childhood nostalgia isn’t an accurate representation of the cultural zeitgeist? Gen Z doesn’t believe in a future; is this because we’re in our teens and twenties or because of the way the world is?

Maybe this film is just what it appears to be; Linklater waxing nostalgic. The Tree of Life but idyllic, all its rough edges sandpapered off to create a delightfully two-dimensional view of a childhood. 7/10.

Blues Harp - dir. Takashi Miike

Yakuza

When I set out to watch the filmography of Takashi Miike, I was worried that taking on even a third of his filmography would be too much. Even picking thirty or so of his films seemed like it was doomed to fail, or that I would quickly discover that nothing came close to rivaling the perfection that is Audition.

Now, granted, I haven’t seen anything of his up to that standard yet… but what I have seen are some very, very good movies, and if not–at least interesting, like Andromedia. Simply put, I don’t think Miike is capable of making a “bad” or boring film. Time will tell.

Blues Harp is a yakuza film, this much is true. But more than that it’s about friendship and the fringes of Japanese society. Our main character is Okinawan, who are a historically oppressed group within Japan. The story of Blues Harp is partially a character study and a look at the inescapability of his fate. It’s really powerful stuff.

What’s fucking crazier than all of that, though, is that the ending of the film features a moment IMPOSSIBLY similar to The Sopranos’ ending. So I have to ask… did David Chase take inspiration from Blues Harp??? I gotta know, man. I gotta know.

All in all, great yakuza film. Can’t recommend it enough. 7/10.

Nosferatu - dir. F.W. Murnau

Vampire

Needed more Subway Surfers gameplay. 4/10.

Happiness - dir. Todd Solondz

Black Comedy/Satire

It’s like American Beauty if it wasn’t written by a 16 year old. It didn’t make me nearly as uncomfortable as something like Sitcom by Ozon, but it’s still VERY funny. Unflinchingly bleak but never self-serious or self-important. A perfect satire. 7/10.

A Streetcar Named Desire - dir. Elia Kazan

Melodrama

Come for Brando, stay for Leigh.

An absolute tour-de-force. Felt things I was not expecting to feel. Genuinely one of the saddest movies I’ve ever seen from this time period. I know I’m uneducated on pre-70’s cinema but this feels totally exceptional. The writing hasn’t aged a day. Shockingly well-written women. Puts into perspective how inexcusable its contemporaries are on the subject of female characters.

Marlon Brando is terrific, yes. Absolutely twisted performance. His physicality is insane here.

But Vivien Leigh is fucking nuts. She taps into something so beyond personal that it feels like I’m watching a woman go through an actual mental breakdown. So multi-layered. At times, she frustrated me. At others, I wanted to give her a hug. She reminded me of my grandmother in some ways, in her desire to pepper the past with perfume, to romanticize and to avoid difficult subjects. My grandma drives me fucking crazy a lot of the time, but I love her.

“You didn’t know Blanche as a girl. Nobody, nobody, was tender and trusting as she was. But people like you abused her, and forced her to change.”

Heartbreaking. 8/10.

Ley Lines - dir. Takashi Miike

Crime

Constant movement, a transitory existence, “no one can ever stop living.” What a movie, man. What a movie. The ferocious, rebellious creativity of Takashi Miike seemingly knows no bounds. This is especially important in this instance because Ley Lines is quite literally about the bounds of identity. A crime boss in Tokyo (from Shanghai) paying prostitutes to read him bedtime stories to take him back to China. Our protagonists are always on the move, always thinking about their next destination, never satisfied. It hits close to home, I’ll say that much.

I love love love the way Miike injects humor and violence and heart into his genre films. I love how every shot feels meaningful yet playful, never pushing the audience away, always expressing exactly what needs to be expressed. 8/10.

Final Prayer - dir. Elliot Goldner

Found Footage/Supernatural Horror

So cool to see a supernatural horror movie where the villain isn’t a ghost/demon/poltergeist/the same fucking thing we’ve seen a billion times doing the exact same shit over and over and over.

People are hyping up the ending, and I agree with them–it’s worth your time. But I think the buildup is great too. A lot of the time with found footage you’re basically just forced to hang out with boring characters until the good shit starts. Here, I didn’t feel that way at all. Each character is interesting and well-written.

What a refreshing surprise.

Thank you Jamie for the recommendation. 7/10.

Mickey and the Bear - dir. Annabelle Atanasio

Coming-of-Age

The kind of movie you will watch, think “hmm, pretty good” and then never think about again.

Poster makes this look like thrift store Sean Baker. Nowhere near as funny, smart, observant, provocative, colorful, rich as what it wants so badly to be.

The kind of movie that will have critics saying shit like “powerful” and “authentic” and “moving”.

It’s fine.

I won’t even say that I would’ve liked this if I “related” to it more, because I’ve learned that a good movie can have you fully immersed in the emotional reality of the characters even if you don’t necessarily “relate” to them.

I can think of like twenty directors who could’ve elevated this story. I hate the acting here but I lowkey blame the direction because there’s no way all these actors are incompetent.

If you have daddy issues, I guess I recommend this movie. You might feel more personally attached. 5/10.

This Girl’s Life - dir. Ash Baron-Cohen

Erotic/Slice-of-Life

Thought this was gonna be gas because I liked Pups but it’s sooooo boring. 4/10.

Dead or Alive - dir. Takashi Miike

Action/Comedy

Wish the entire movie was as batshit as the opening and the ending but idk man I don’t think Miike can make a boring movie either way. 7/10.

Dead or Alive 2: Birds - dir. Takashi Miike

Action/Slice-of-Life/Comedy

Simply one of the most creative, soulful, outrageous films I’ve ever seen. If you told me that an ultraviolent yakuza film by Takashi Miike would make me tear up, I probably would’ve believed you because he’s one of the best directors to ever live but I still would’ve needed to see for myself.

Hard to put into words just how unbelievable this movie is. LITERALLY hard to believe. You look at the poster, you look at the title, you think “this can’t be THAT good.”

BUT IT IS.

IT IS THAT GOOD.

IT’S ACTUALLY EVEN BETTER.

Every single frame of this movie is visual perfection. Nostalgia, gore, CGI wings, practical wings, fake nebulas, food, a wild theater piece, it doesn’t stop. I was transfixed watching this. Literally smiled to myself several times just appreciating the creativity on display.

And fuck dude. The brotherly relationship? How the fuck does Takashi Miike make me believe in the tenderness between two hitmen? How can he do it??? How can he make them so brutal but so fucking adorable? How does he do it???? SERIOUSLY????? HE MAKES LIKE TWENTY MOVIES A YEAR AND THEY’RE ALL THE MOST INVENTIVE HEARTFELT SHIT EVER???? HOW THE FUCK????

A film about the past, about rose-tinted lenses, about how it catches up to you, about the picturesque minutiae of friendship, about platonic soulmates in a lonely world, about violence, about family, about destiny.

And it’s still funny as fuck too.

I’m just wowed on all fronts.

One of those pieces of art I wish I had half the cojones necessary to create.

10/10.

Kinds of Kindness - dir. Yorgos Lanthimos

Surreal/Comedy

It’s pretty funny but people are gonna act like it’s the smartest movie of all time. 6/10.

Time to Love - dir. Metin Erksan

Romance/Melodrama

This would’ve been one of my favorite movies of all time if it had a score that better clicked with me, because I think the lack of investment I had in the mood of the film is a product of me just not fucking with classical Turkish music much.

It matters too because ultimately the writing isn’t doing much of the heavy lifting. This is a VERY simple story carried by its atmosphere and stylistic choices. Shades of Kaurismaki, Wes Anderson, and Jim Jarmusch, and not necessarily in a good way lol. 5/10.

Millennium Mambo - dir. Hou Hsiao-Hsen

Experimental/Romance

Imploding memory like the remnants of a human face imprinted in the snow–intrinsically ephemeral. Youth like a heartbeat, a pulsating rhythm in the languid chaos of the night, which, like the snow, fades fugacious into the rising sun.

Cinematic poetry that exists in the present, the past, and the future all at once. Shu-Qi narrates a film set in 2001 from 2011, she speaks of her old self in third person, as if it was in fact someone else making her decisions for her, which is often how memories feel–like someone else’s belongings. Why did I do that? How could I have done that? What was I thinking?

Extrapolated further we can understand identity as a transient property, anachronistically out of sync with the present. Is this movie fourth dimensional? Fuck dude maybe??

The turn of the millennium, the changing of the seasons, the snowman melting upon contact with the sun only to be reborn under the blanket of the moonlight. The flickering, pounding drone of youth superseded by time’s ceaseless movement. The film may be fourth dimensional, but humans aren’t, not yet. We don’t get to live all of time at all times.

All we get is memory. 9/10.

Freehold - dir. Dominic Bridges

Horror/Comedy

I was not surprised that this was available on Tubi. 4/10.

Starship Troopers - dir. Paul Verhoeven

Satire/Sci-Fi/War

What I learned watching this movie is that fascism is cool as fuck and awesome.

A great movie because it’s like a rorschach test for media literacy. Also a great movie for obvious reasons. Effective jingoistic spectacle built on fantastic visual language. It’s not a subtle film but it doesn’t need to be. It’s a sledgehammer of propaganda, but I feel you could enjoy this without necessarily being “in” on the joke, so it’s not as obnoxious as a lot of newer satirical films. 7/10.

Hannah and Her Sisters - dir. Woody Allen

Slice-of-Life/Comedy

Woody Allen is the king of the 6-7/10. I’m never gonna have a bad time watching his Jewish neuroses play out on screen, but I’m not gonna lose my shit either. This film is perfectly presentable Woodycore. The closest I came to really loving it was when Hannah and Elliot argued in the bathroom. Mia Farrow is something else man. 6/10.

Visitor Q - dir. Takashi Miike

I hate tragedy porn more than just about anything, so I’m pleased to say that Miike’s approach in this film sidesteps much of it simply by being beyond fucking insane. I won’t go into any detail but this is maybe the absolute nastiest, funniest, bleakest (and lowkey beautiful?) takes on the suburban family I’ve ever seen. If you thought Happiness was dark comedy, you aint seen shit. 6/10.

The Swerve - dir. Dean Kapsalis

Psychological Horror

Elevated horror is evil. 1/10.

Lake Mungo - dir. Joel Anderson

Mockumentary/Horror

Feels very much like a documentary to an impressive degree, but then you get a couple of moments that just throw the whole thing off. Like I don’t believe a grieving family would allow a filmmaker to include their daughter’s secret threesome sex tape in the final cut.

The 4D stuff was by far my favorite part.

The biggest scare of the movie, on Lake Mungo itself, is well done. But why does it receive so little attention? Wouldn’t a documentarian latch onto that specific moment for longer? I dunno. The whole thing just falls apart. 5/10.

Bāhubali: The Beginning - dir. SS Rajamouli

Epic

I’ve really tried with Rajamouli.

Eega is incredible but everything else is just terrible. I haven’t watched RRR yet but the rest of his filmography just bums me the fuck out.

Indian cinema as a whole seems to really not work for me. Too long, too many song breaks, too morally flat. 3/10.

The Captive - dir. Chantal Akerman

Drama

You can look at this film in two ways.

Either you look at it as a deconstruction of all the bullshit that goes on in heterosexual relationships or you view it as a story of a lesbian suppressing her true desires to fit into a heterocentric mold, who liberates herself in the end by leaping into the ocean to her freedom (and death).

Honestly, it could be both. Which is what I love about Chantal Akerman. Your view of her work will depend on which eye you’re closing.

In some ways I related to both characters, because their conditions go hand in hand. It’s a lot of psychobabble but it comes down to attachment styles. She needs someone to obsess over her (if you go with the hetero angle) and he needs someone to obsess over. It’s infuriating to watch because the dynamic is so true to life.

Lowkey I might’ve talked myself into an 8/10. This really is one of the smartest movies about relationships I’ve ever seen. 8/10.

Kamikaze Girls - dir. Tetsuya Nakashima

Teen

Really wanted to love this. The recipe is there but I’m obviously not enough of a weeb or gay enough to be sold on its charm. 5/10.

Re-Animator - dir. Stuart Gordon

Supernatural Horror

Cackling mad scientist of a film. The kind of movie that snickers with cruelty before cutting open a brain and probing it violently. Just nasty. Stuart Gordon does gore like nobody else, and I grow increasingly convinced that he may be the greatest horror filmmaker we don’t talk about enough. 8/10.

I Saw the Devil - dir. Kim Jee-woon

Revenge/Thriller

One of the side characters says the theme out loud at one point which immediately made me sort of cock my head to the side. Show don’t tell man. It’s still a great example of that South Korean cinematic brutality but if we’re talking revenge thrillers it’s not touching Oldboy.

Nevertheless, it must be said that Choi Min-sik is God. The animal physicality, the desperation, the hollowness of his soul… man. Possibly the greatest actor on the planet right now? He’s up there. 7/10.

From Beyond - dir. Stuart Gordon

Sci-Fi/Horror

Neon-lit slime from another dimension and it’s tied back to the deeply rooted human desire to fuck. Gordon’s films feature characters driven to insanity by their need to exceed their own humanity, and just like the Greek myth of Prometheus they’re punished for trying to take what belongs to the Gods, or the unknown. The secrets to life and death, the expansion of the pineal gland, the antidote to nihilism. The characters in Gordon’s gleefully cruel cinematic world pursue the BEYOND and fail. What prevents his films from feeling like misery porn is the commitment to schlock, to FUN. Do you need to show a fifth-dimensional blob monster slobbering on Barbara Crampton’s tits to talk about trans-humanism? Of course not, but why the fuck wouldn’t you?

Pills of philosophical poignance hidden in peanut butter, so to speak. 8/10.

Dancer in the Dark - dir. Lars von Trier

Musical/Drama

An unrepetantly optimistic movie about finding joy in spite of overwhelming cruelty. Keep the song going, keep singing, keep dancing, don’t let the world bring you down. A film as much about the ice of the human heart as the depth of our warmth and our love. It’s literally a movie about a mother sacrificing everything for her son to live a better life than her–how can this be anything other than a testament to human passion?

My rule of thumb with misery porn is whether or not the filmmaker allows their characters agency and humor. Dancer in the Dark does depict some truly unimaginable despair but it shows beauty and kindness in equal measure.

Bjork is spellbinding. 9/10.

Dolls - dir. Stuart Gordon

Supernatural Horror

Stuart Gordon aint perfect and neither was Jesus. 4/10.

Girl 6 - dir. Spike Lee

Comedy

Vibrant, sexy, confident, but a little bit too meandering. I wanted some more meat on the bones, I suppose. Still, this was a good time and makes me excited to watch more of Spike Lee’s work. 6/10.

Dagon - dir. Stuart Gordon

Cult Horror

Continues the tradition of Stuart Gordon’s transhumanist philosophies, though I would say this one features some of the most squeamish sequences of his yet. I think I almost vomited toward the end.

Acting was pretty awful, very wooden and obnoxious. Gordon also should’ve co-written this script because the dialogue was terrible. 6/10.

The 39 Steps - dir. Alfred Hitchcock

Thriller/Comedy

Hitchcock is so mid man.

Just such a lackluster director.

We gotta stop pretending this guy is one of the GOATs just because he influenced directors better than him.

People who think this movie is suspenseful should watch a dishwasher do its thing. They would be amazed. 4/10.

U.S. Go Home - dir. Claire Denis

Coming-of-Age

Womanhood and the maturation into adulthood as a malignant, foreign presence… sort of languorous, not really ever alive. Denis once again blending colonialism with sexuality in ways that you could never in a million years predict or expect. It’s almost like she views burgeoning womanhood (under patriarchy) as this imposition on the female body and mind, which she would later go on to explore in Beau Travail, albeit from a masculine perspective.

I think this one will grow on me the more I think about it. 7/10.

4:44 Last Day on Earth - dir. Abel Ferrara

Apocalyptic

Thousands of times I’ve seen you, and I don’t even know your name.

This movie helped me figure out why I find the idea of global apocalypse so weirdly comforting. It’s not a radical fear of the future. It’s the communal togetherness of a universal catastrophe. We’re all in it together. All we have is each other. It’s easy to forget that. Nothing like climate apocalypse to remind us. 9/10.

Castle Freak - dir. Stuart Gordon

Gothic Horror

By-the-books gothic freak horror from Gordon. It’s fun because of Jeffrey Combs. 5/10.

Lilya 4-ever - dir. Lukas Moodysson

Drama

Somewhere in what was once the Soviet Union, we follow a story of abandonment. Parents abandoning their children, the government abandoning the poor, a nation abandoning communism. Lilya abandoning hope, living only to survive.

This movie broke me. I burst into tears when she bought Volodya a basketball, and my girlfriend sobbed when the credits rolled. We spent the next twelve hours trying to get the film out of our minds, but it was impossible. Lilya 4-ever digs its way under your skin.

Her story, her descent into despair, it will be immortalized forever. 9/10.