Movies I Watched January 2025 - Greenfield Writes

The Rocking Horsemen - dir. Nobuhiko Obayashi

Nobuhiko Obayashi’s movies feel exuberant in a way that few, if any, filmmakers are able to achieve. I think it’s because they feel childlike. The way Obayashi splices a scene together is like a kid approaching filmmaking with completely fresh, curious eyes, and it reflects in his subject matter as well. No matter how old he gets he’s always fixated on the experiences of being young, and his movies are grounded in that experience too, fully expressed through the eyes and hearts of the characters themselves. Put simply, when you’re watching Obayashi, you feel like you’re a twelve year old girl at a sleepover or a young biker falling in love, or in this case, a kid starting a band with his buddies and discovering girls. 7/10.

We Are Your Friends - dir. Max Joseph

I shit you not if this movie was shot with more directorial juice I would’ve given it 4.5 or 5 stars. As it stands it’s exactly my type of thing but lacking in the language that directors like Korine or Malick have.

Nevertheless, still an exhilarating time. Love me a movie revolving around house music. I’ve been tinkering with a screenplay that’s a bit like this, conceptually, so it got my gears turning at least. 8/10.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon - dir. Michael Bay

Middle managers ceding the world to overlords who want to exploit us and all of our planet’s resources for their own selfish gain, and the irony is that the whole thing is a rat race all the way to the top; the whole paradigm is built on backstabbers and power-hungry lunatics, so the system can never function even if they get what they want, which is impossible. Yet we end on a happy note, the cheesy idea that humanity is strong enough to make the right choice when neocon oligarchs plunge the planet into disaster.

I think the first Transformers was pretty satirical–by the third movie, though, Bay is going all in on the sincerity. Produced by Spielberg you really can’t get more “indomitable human spirit” than this. 8/10.

Akira - dir. Katsuhiro Otomo

Knowing - dir. Alex Proyas

My favorite brand of ridiculous. Shyamalan-core, not on his level at all, but the movie still fully leans into the Twilight Zone-ness of its premise and I will pretty much always respect and enjoy that kind of commitment, especially when the premise is as fun as this. 6/10.

Transformers: Age of Extinction - dir. Michael Bay

Dialogue in the first 3 movies was hilarious, dialogue here was ass lol

Human characters in the first 3 movies were dope (mostly), humans here are ass

Extremely cool ideas (insane that they fucked up aliens + dinosaurs), horrible execution. 3/10.

The King of Marven Gardens - dir. Bob Rafelson

Very, very dreary. 70’s malaise at its blackest and most nihilistic. You’d think I’d go crazy for this but I mostly found it insufferable. It’s a little bit of everything, a little bit surreal, a little bit gloomy, a little bit erotic, a little bit screwball, but a whole lot of boring.

Rafelson meanders with Nicholson at the helm just like in Five Easy Pieces, so I’m trying to figure out why Five Easy Pieces is one of the best movies of its decade and why this one falls flat on its face. My best guess if I were to try and intellectualize this difference is that Five Easy Pieces is just a totally different concept, one that allows Nicholson’s natural star power to elevate the work. 4/10.

American Sniper - dir. Clint Eastwood

You can view this film two ways, because the ambiguity allows for an American conservative hero’s mythology and also a leftist analysis of American patriotism. I would of course lean towards the latter, though I really can’t argue that the former is an equally valid and unfortunate interpretation as well, which is why I can’t fault too many people for their negative reviews. The text is muddy, in my view.

Until the ending, I was firmly certain that this was a definitive Eastwood anti-hero project, more a hard look at Chris Kyle as a figure than a celebration of his character. I don’t think the film needed to go out of its way to criticize him, him shooting children and calling Iraqis savages does the part. The ending, however, reframes Kyle as a martyr, which I cannot abide by in any capacity and almost sours my experience with the film, though I also can’t deny the truth of the subject. Eastwood isn’t creating fiction, this is based on a true story and true stories should be told.

The ending, which shows a long highway procession of American flags in the rain, fogged up against the camera lens, could, again, be viewed by a conservative as a loving tribute to the “hero” that was Chris Kyle, or as some leftist reviewers point out, a funeral for America. A national project that gives its citizens guns and the tools to be psychopaths and sends them out into the world as murder puppets. I tend to lean towards the latter, but it’s the possibility of the former that bugs me. I can’t help it.

This certainly isn’t a pro-war movie, it’s anti-war all the way through but I think it damns itself a bit by limiting the perspective to only Kyle’s. As a character study this is functional enough, and gives us a clear window into his psyche, why he does what he does, how he only feels alive when he’s out killing Iraqis, but as a piece on the Iraq War? Doesn’t fully work, not really, not in my opinion. 8/10.

A City of Sadness - dir. Hou Hsiao-hsien

Wen-Ching’s silent helplessness, arrested before he gets to watch his daughter grow up, disappeared by just the newest imperial presence in Taiwan. A peoples passed from empire to empire, never able to speak out, never able to live in freedom.

Despite its political, historical density, Hou is able to ground the viewer through his long takes. Small details create a bigger picture, which can be inferred through patience. Like all his films–this one is exponentially rewarding. 8/10.

The Devil, Probably - dir. Robert Bresson

The revolution WILL be televised, I think. It’ll be available at a discount for a multi-streaming bundle deal, three services for the price of one. A bargain. The revolution will be a gourmet meal served to customers, three dishes to hit all the flavor receptors, maybe a cigarette to cleanse off the palate afterward before the dishes get tossed in the wash. The revolution might even be an algorithmic recommendation, a lesson from a tenured professor of economics, who teaches you what makes sense and what doesn’t.

Almost certainly the revolution will be just around the corner. Maybe. If you hold your breath through the smoke you might get to see it. No promises.

Or, and here’s an idea, you could opt out of it. Give up. You could recognize (and I won’t tell you if you’re correct or not on this assertion) that the jig is up. The revolution isn’t coming to this side of the Seine, you’ve been had a fool by these intercontinental mercenaries who took nature by the throat and fucked it silly. It’s comical how lowbrow the violence is, how casually you’ve come to accept the atrocities committed against nature, the power the state exercises in its full capacity to annihilate you and everyone you know at the knees.

You being aware of it means nothing. Your arguments mean nothing. You can stand up in church and tell off the priest for fabricating it all, your words mean nothing though. Nature gets raped, the smoke fills up the room, you can’t even breathe anymore it’s too hot it’s too hot it’s too fucking hot. It’s just too. Fucking. Hot.

So you opt out. You opt out of politics. You opt out of love. You opt out of money. You opt out of life. And in the end, your soul just changes hands, like a stolen wallet. Meaning eludes you, even in death. You thought it would be sublime, but it isn’t. 10/10.

Inside - dir. Julien Maury, Alexandre Bustillo

Very brutal. Not the wisest choice on my end to watch this on a full stomach but sometimes you gotta ball. 6/10.

Helter Skelter - dir. Mika Ninagawa

Back when The Substance dropped, this movie got referenced a lot as a “better version” of it, but I don’t see it, not really. Similar themes but completely different filmmaking objectives. I didn’t love this, sadly, I’m not a fan of this style at all where every frame is screaming for your attention. Yes I get it, it’s supposed to be overwhelming but it irritates me.

That said, I can’t deny it had its moments. Sawajiri is a terrific actress, she brings a real depth to the character that the text doesn’t provide. I was moved by her emotional outbursts and though the story had zero buoyancy and just sorta trudged along from atrocity to atrocity, I was invested in her feelings. 5/10.