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

I’m struck by the rage on my screen, the palpable fury directed at… maybe everything. The nukes took more than just buildings and people, they took more than cities, they took souls, they took generations, they took something metaphysical from Japanese people, and in addendum to the pain the bombs left they also placed in their victims a gnawing, writhing knowledge of the apocalypse. A face-to-face understanding with the depths of human annihilation, and despair.

Akira brims with this kind of explosivity, like it’s being drawn by a hyperactive kid who watched his country razed by flames and has no response other than anguish. The innocence of psychic kids juxtaposed with tangled broken limbs and cities imploded. 8/10.

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.

The Conformist - dir. Bernardo Bertolucci

Finally, a “literally me” movie for Disney adults.

Fascism as cowardice, desperation, and repression. Behind every eager fascist is a little boy replaying memories of perceived emasculation. The imagery is extraneous, perhaps, but you can’t deny Bertolucci’s craftsmanship. 7/10.

The Devil’s Rejects - dir. Rob Zombie

Fun stuff, but if I’m supposed to like the main 3 the movie fails. I was genuinely hoping they’d get killed in the end lmao. 6/10.

The Lords of Salem - dir. Rob Zombie

This is just not really my thing but shoutout Rob Zombie he can make a pretty picture. 5/10.

Ju-on: The Grudge - dir. Takashi Shimizu

J-Horror almost always gets at least a pass from me, especially the 2000’s wave where it seems every Japanese filmmaker was toying with digitality in one way or another. Glitched out screens and curses passed over cell phones. Love it. Just some great scares, really effective for such a low budget. 6/10.

Reds - dir. Warren Beatty

Extremely annoying vibes. I didn’t finish though so take my opinion with a grain of salt. couldn’t get over how lame the shots were or how abundantly clear it is that Beatty directed this to get an Oscar (like most actor-turned-director projects). It’s 3 hours long so I’m probably not being fair but I don’t really care lol. 4/10.

Rubin & Ed - dir. Trent Harris

If you describe your sense of humor as “quirky” and “random” you will love this. 5/10.

Fist of Fury - dir. Lo Wei

Decent kung fu flick, watch if you wanna see Bruce Lee be cool. 6/10.

A Complete Unknown - dir. James Mangold

Did not need to be 2 and a half hours, but watching Timothee Chalamet perform Bob Dylan songs for much of it was really, really fun. Made me want to listen to more of his music.

Shockingly good for a musician biopic. I don’t know what about this feels different but my good friend Abner explained it well. Not sure if I’ll share his insights in my review since he might post his own, but he hit the nail on the head.

For me, I think the reason it worked was because of the leisurely pace. It wasn’t such a wide swathe of Dylan’s life. They didn’t feel the need to show him as a kid or anything, they just showed one poignant slice of his life. 7/10.

The Vanished - dir. Makoto Tanaka

Giving it a 5/10 out of generosity because I was in a bad mood + distracted by the fires near my area + the vibe was ok even if most of it was pretty boring. 5/10.

The Club - dir. Pablo Larraín

Pure festival bait.

Give me a fucking break. So much unearned dreariness. 100% made for upper middle class film critics to jerk off to, no sauce, no soul, nothing interesting to say about spirituality or justice, just kind of an experience in meandering misery (punctuated by several instances of hilariously out of pocket violence to shock the audience). The sad violin strings, the paled lenses, this is a movie that is begging you to take it seriously and treat it like prestige cinema but it is anything but.

The longer this went on the more frustrated I got. 2/10.

The Drug King - dir. Woo Min-ho

Feels like a highly condensed Netflix miniseries. If you need to scratch your Korean crime itch, you will like it, but it’s a little too ceaselessly telegenic for my tastes. Song Kang-ho is ridiculously good, though. 5/10.

Macadam Stories - dir. Samuel Benchetrit

Nothing quite like having a movie sneak up on you the way Asphalte does, each element weaving itself in gradually through the vignetted narrative until by the end you’re looking at what feels like a kaleidoscope of humanity, a slice of existence only film can provide. Surrealist, sentimentalist Bressonian work. Not as stoic as something like The Devil, Probably but equally muted until it isn’t.

Benchetrit shows that it’s possible to shoot people talking in interesting ways, he’s able to turn what most directors would see as an exercise in drab, handheld angles into a series of sharp, creatively staged conversations and gags. Did I mention that this movie is hilarious? It’s kind of the full package. Well-shot, well-written, well-acted, funny, touching, I mean I could go on with the superlatives but those kinds of reviews drive me a little nuts so I won’t. Point is, I was totally taken aback by what a complete artistic vision this movie was. Criminally underrated and deserves everyone’s attention.

9/10.

In the Bedroom - dir. Todd Field

Barely passable, can’t stand this type of Oscar movie. Exists purely as a vehicle for actors to act. Not a single compelling shot. I don’t know man I kinda think a movie has to be more than just a bunch of humdrum scene chewing? Yeah yeah good acting and a decent script but who fucking cares? If all you’re doing is filming a screenplay, it better be like the best screenplay of all time lol otherwise not worth it. 5/10.

Child’s Play - dir. Tom Holland

Boooooooooooooooooring. 3/10.

A Fistful of Dollars - dir. Sergio Leone

Inevitability in the frontier in the form of Clint Eastwood. Damn near impossible for me not to love it. Morricone’s score elevates everything he touches to magnificent mythology.

It was hard to avoid comparing this movie to Once Upon a Time. The scope is less vast, it feels less like an artistic statement of magnitudes and more like a warmup for the legends involved. Leone’s just getting started here and you can feel it.

I love that The Man with No Name is more of a trickster than a brute. He gets his ass beat a lot, he gets spooked off his horse at one point, his invincibility is not a given. He outwits his opponents instead of overpowering them. 7/10.

For a Few Dollars More - dir. Sergio Leone

I think this is Leone’s trisection of the masculine identity into three soulless ideals, hopelessly stuck in their ways, violent, exceptional at exercising power of the weak but little else. In the West you communicate with your gun. You talk by way of fire. Violence is a language, Leone communicates this through use of rapid fire editing. Conversations play out more through stares than through words, pistols shooting hats around tell us more than sentences ever could.

Indio represents to me a kid driven by id. He drinks himself into feverish stupor, he kills at a whim, he laughs at violence, he wants money and power for its own sake. He is motivated by feelings of inadequacy at being rejected by his sister (she literally kills herself so as not to be with him). His life is defined by desires, requited and unrequited.

The Man with No Name is a young man, a professional, his motivations generally unclear besides the obvious: his career as a bounty hunter. Like most men he devotes himself wholly to his job. He doesn’t do what isn’t necessary, doesn’t think about himself in any grand terms, only does what must be done for the advancement of his career.

Finally, Colonel Mortimer, an older man, also a professional bounty hunter albeit with a history; presumably a colonel in the Civil War (though I don’t recall if it was specified which side he fought for). He previously had a noble purpose: leading men into battle, fighting for what he at least perceived a just cause. We know he values his time in the army because he wears his title of Colonel with pride. He is dignified. He wears a suit and carries himself with the confidence of a man who has known what it is to fight for a purpose outside of the self.

And yet Mortimer now finds himself doing what amounts to dirty work. Killing for profit. He’s not killing for the advancement of a cause, he’s not killing to defend the nation. He’s not killing for honor, or to protect his men, he’s killing so he can make a buck.

Soulless is the world where life can be weighed on a banknote. 9/10.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly - dir. Sergio Leone

Epic, but I think I prefer For a Few Dollars More…

Jewish actor getting called ugly pissed me off. Leave my boy Eli alone.

Nah, I’m kidding. This is very good, but I don’t know if I have as much to immediately say about it. Good thing it’s one of the most beloved movies of all time.

Leone has entered my favorite filmmakers of all time, easy. 8/10.

Who Framed Roger Rabbit - dir. Robert Zemeckis

Cool idea, but EXTREMELY grating. Migraine cinema. 5/10.

Contact - dir. Robert Zemeckis

Beyond flawed, but I needed a watch like this to soothe my spirits. Earnest alien sci-fi is like a cheat code for me, even if most of Contact is unbelievably frustrating to watch. This movie made me hate men lol. Was very happy when that one guy died. Big W.

All the sci-fi stuff was sick, but the plot dragged like crazy when we had to watch fuckass Matthew McConaughey do his shit. Goddamn did I want to deck his character in the mouth. Insufferable 100% of the time.

Jodie Foster is awesome. Love her in this. 7/10.

Weathering with You - dir. Makoto Shinkai

Makoto Shinkai makes ideal cinema for awkward virgins.

You got your awkward male protagonist who saves a super powerful cool girl from her comically evil pimp (why she works as a prostitute when she can control the weather is beyond me), helps her start the most obvious business idea of all time so she can quit being a prostitute. She looks like a kid so Shinkai later has our protagonist establish her to be “turning 18” so the weeb audience can feel comfortable searching up rule 34 of her and jerking off once the credits roll.

People give a lot of credit to Shinkai’s studio’s animation but to be honest with you I find the images completely sterile, the music choices feel reverse engineered to (robot voice) GENERATE HUMAN EMOTION. They remind me of newer Pixar films where it’s clear they work backwards from “MAKE THE AUDIENCE CRY.” The images are flat. Compare this to literally anything by Studio Ghibli, or Evangelion, or even the much-maligned animation of original Naruto episodes and you will see the difference. No amount of high-tech, high frame rate sheen can disguise the fact that there’s no soul to be found anywhere here.

Then of course you get real gems of narration like “seeing a beautiful sky can really make you feel things.” You’re kidding right? Do people actually find stuff like this life-affirming? I wonder if these people walk into white households and marvel at the quotes they hang up on the wall. 1/10.

John Wick - dir. Chad Stahelski

I have to admit the action genre typically does very little for me, but for what it’s worth I did get some enjoyment out of this, as an inevitable byproduct of its own badassness. It’s a very robust, cool movie, no bells and whistles, with enough merit and self-assured confidence in its own toolset to not warrant an explanation from someone like me as to why it “works”–it just does, man.

I guess if I’m to impart a “Leo-specific” perspective on this I’ll say I’m a bit tired of Russian villains in movies, because my girlfriend is Russian and I’ve liked many Russian people I’ve met. I’m sure it must be tiring to see your nation and its people portrayed as evil grunts for American heroes to annihilate.

That’s not a critique of the movie, just something I felt like noting. 6/10.

Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters - dir. Paul Schrader

Old world honor codes perceived as universal truth by Schrader’s ultimate longing loner, Yukio Mishima, who sees corruption in all corners of his life and yearns for a way to not just extinguish it from his world, but everyone else’s. Yet he has no understanding of what “everyone else’s” even entails, because he is not a real person, not in the sense that “everyone else” would understand.

Mishima wears masks, his whole life is defined by masks. He lives lies, and so what he wants more than anything is an absolute truth, a doctrine he can devote himself to unquestionably, but even at the end the absolute truth is painful, the solution doesn’t come to him by the hands of the Shinto Gods he dedicated himself to but by his own hand, or the hand of a crying disciple.

What Paul Schrader gets more than any other director, I think, is the spiritual delineation of morality and truth, doing the right thing for the sake of belief or for the sake of goodness, maybe even the illusion of appearing good. And who do you do it for, anyway? God? Your family? Your lover? You might spend your whole life on the proverbial table of sacrifice, waiting for your innards to be splayed out for God, and the answer you may very well get back is silence.

I connect to Schrader’s work and his characters because I see redemption in violence, I see repentance in the apocalypse. I am, despite my better judgment, attracted to the kind of extremity cultists view as their divine purpose. The true believer is admirable to me, in a warped, twisted sort of way. I think it’s why I’ve always wanted to die, but not at my own hand. There’s like… a strange, morbid desire for me to be surprised by the universe, like I wanna be wiped off the face of the earth in a blip, to transcend the mortal coil when God senses my time has come.

Alas, I’m too much of a coward to do it myself. When I watch the films of Paul Schrader, the catharsis I get is seeing someone else vicariously excise their demons through self-destruction. I get to have the uncomfortable, thrilling experience of seeing my own soul desolate. 10/10.

Japón - dir. Carlos Reygadas

When the burden of life becomes too much to bear.

A challenging watch. I’m conflicted about many of the decisions here. I almost always dock points for animal cruelty because it’s easy enough to fake and to me it demonstrates a lack of care on the filmmaker’s part for their subjects.

But I also can’t deny the majesty of the picture. 8/10.

3 Women - dir. Robert Altman

Shallow tiles in the kitty pool with paintings of the great horrors marked the delineation between states of being for the woman. Perched up on the balcony, invisible to all, she plunged to her death, a ghostly figure, haunting, mesmerizing, totally beneath your vision.

I couldn’t take my eyes off. Altman does something which has never been replicated in any way, shape or form. The uncanniest sense of horror I’ve experienced since Inland Empire, perhaps one of the quietest, least merciful depictions of Hell. Everything is WRONG. EVERYTHING IS SO WRONG.

Los Angeles as a deceased entity, a rotting corpse populated only by cultural scavengers who feast on its remains for scraps. Everything about this movie feels apocalyptic, or post-apocalyptic. The rapture already happened and this is what was left behind. 10/10.

World on a Wire - dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder

The more I think about it, the more I think this movie deserves to be heralded as one of the greatest ever made.

Yes, the pace is a little stilted at times, but this is simply one of the most audacious works of art I’ve ever seen.

Just a master class in set design, staging, costumes, etc. Words cannot describe how unreal this movie is to just LOOK at. Blows my mind that Germans got to see this on TELEVISION in the SEVENTIES. TV has and probably never will look this fucking good. 9/10.

Whore - dir. Ken Russell

So tonally bizarre. I’m sure the Ken Russell fans that follow me will be mortified to find out this is my first experience with him as a filmmaker, but rest assured, I remain intrigued. There’s a weird sense of childlike exploitation going on here, like a guy who just discovered prostitution and has a lot of empathy for them but isn’t sure what an actual prostitute would act like.

Theresa Russell is having a lot of fun but I’m just not convinced, to be honest. Camp is all well and dandy but I still have to BUY IT, and I don’t buy it. The core gimmick of the film is one I actually like, even if it does scream “adapted from the stage” and I typically hate these kinds of movies. But I think Russell (the director) prevents this from feeling too stagey by giving us a lot of visual detail to chew on. It strikes me as an inexperienced take on prostitutes as people, but nevertheless specific and endearing.

I think I actually prefer this to Anora lol but that’s a debate for another day. 6/10.

La Libertad - dir. Lisandro Alonso

Freedom here comes from the filmmaking freedom of taking a camera and capturing something totally mundane, free from the burden of what we have come to understand as the framework of a film.

Within the text, however, “freedom” isn’t real. Society imposes restrictions for the sake of the collective good, but if you want to break free of those restrictions and live off the land you are tied to the land. You still don’t achieve freedom.

The act of physical existence impinges on freedom. Man can subsist on armadillo and timber, but if man has the choice, is that what he prefers, or what he is forced to do? 6/10.

In a Violent Nature - dir. Chris Nash

It might not be slow cinema, but it’s one of the most exciting contemporary horror movies I’ve seen, and easily one of my favorite slashers. Chris Nash brings a forlorn pace to a subgenre that usually lives and dies by its victims’ screams, which allows the environment to speak in their stead. By the end of the film, I felt like I’d been swallowed up by the deathly serene forest like prey and spit out by the hair on my chin.

Come for the brutal kills, stay for the crisp cinematography. 7/10.

Thanatomorphose - dir. Éric Falardeau

Acting was horrible but I wasn’t here for the acting, I was here for the body horror and the movie delivered.

Wallgina 🔥

5/10.

What Time Is It There? - dir. Tsai Ming-liang

Tsai believes in ghosts, and he believes they’re formed in the wake of momentary bonds–and that those momentary bonds are subject to the whims of time, which is itself subjective.

In one corner of the world, Jean-Pierre Leaud is still a kid stealing bottles of milk. In another he’s an old man. 7/10.

Peppermint Candy - dir. Lee Chang-dong

Somehow Lee Chang-dong avoids the melodramatic pratfalls that follow work of this nature, and to be honest I couldn’t quite tell you why this works for me where in the hands of so many others it would bother me. Maybe it’s because Lee makes the more intense moments feel earned, maybe it’s because the central character is so layered–I couldn’t tell you exactly why. It just worked for me. 7/10.

The Wayward Cloud - dir. Tsai Ming-liang

Opulence under the supervision of Tsai Ming-liang is measured, desperate, sugary but hollow. Sex without limits, summer without end, watermelon juice dripping down the lips, down the thighs, fucked raw, eros without love, touch without affection.

Enjoyed the musical segments a lot actually. 7/10.

Babygirl - dir. Halina Reijn

Bear with me here.

Erotic thrillers. They were a thing back in the day. Before I was born. We don’t get them anymore, not really.

This is not that. The movie THINKS it is an erotic thriller but it is anything but sexy.

Which is fine. Because I believe this is secretly a movie about how Gen-Z is the Devil that inherited a doomed world from a hedonistic broken generation.

There are many, many sequences in this film which depict Kidman’s character soullessly repeating lines about her company’s work, about her company’s purpose, about the company’s supposed contributions to sustainability and the planet. It is obviously bullshit but she says it anyway. Her marriage is loveless but she stays in it anyway. The whole operation, the whole situation is a sham, her whole life is a series of hitting the right notes, saying the right words, playing the right keys to the right audience in the hopes that she will win the cosmic game.

Her generation brought Dickinson’s generation into a world they’d already destroyed by keeping up the facade.

There are so many devilish undertones to Dickinson’s character. His ability to control dogs (repeated motif of a black dog suggests Hades’ Cerberus), his quasi-mythic ability to seduce any woman he comes across, his presence as youth personified, the ultimate Gen Z sex symbol. Uncaring, shallow, ripped, white, tattooed, hedonistic, intelligent, sociopathic, in-the-know, with the power to lecture a grown ass woman about consent. He’s got it all baby, he’s a sexy monster that was engineered by a hollow world with no hope for the future. The scene at the club was existentially terrifying to me, not because I’m grossed out by scenes of debauchery but because I see in this movie not sexual liberation, but resignation. A shameful, repugnant agreement between generations to let the world die. Let the AI take over. Give into our worst impulses.

I don’t think any of this is really intentional on Reijn’s part as a director; she is a filmmaker with what seems to be a passive interest in Gen Z as a storytelling tool, a useful archetype with which comedy can be framed around (I don’t think you’re supposed to take the AI references as anything more than topical attention-grabbing). As a film, this is really the furthest thing from “good” to me, I hate the way it’s shot, it’s all pretty hideous, the dialogue feels utterly robotic, devoid of life… but there is something existentially horrifying under the surface here. Something beyond the intentions of the text.

I watch this and I think wow. This is an excellent piece of art about how the entire world is totally fucked. New York not as the New Hollywood auteurs envisioned it, populated by complex humans. This is 2020’s cinema where New York is instead populated by surgically enhanced sociopaths who speak in psychobabble. This is not a film about humans, it’s not a film created for humans, it’s a film created for exactly what Romy’s company creates: drones whose sole purpose is to deliver content to atomized consumers.

The most hilarious thing is that NONE OF THIS IS INTENTIONAL ON THE DIRECTOR’S PART. Everything about the marketing and interviews that I’ve read suggests that this is fully intended to be a seductive, sexy paperback erotic thriller. And look, if you fingered yourself to this, more power to you, for real–I’m not here to knock anyone’s jerk-off sesh. I think at a certain point I have to accept the algorithm is not on my side and that the audience for post-art is bigger than the audience for “Art” with a capital A.

I grew up buying into the idea that my generation was gonna save the world. I realize now that I was totally wrong. And if I can give Babygirl any credit, it’s that it helped me see that the world cannot be saved.

Happy inauguration day. 5/10.

Blue - dir. Hiroshi Ando

A very gentle movie for a definitively lesbian crowd. I’m happy for them but this was not really my cup of tea. I love slow movies where nothing happens… it’s just gotta have a more tangible vibe, don’t know how else to explain it. 5/10.

Showing Up - dir. Kelly Reichardt

Am I an artist if I’m not always creating? To find time in between the interruptions, the distractions, the consumption feels impossible sometimes, and I find myself feeling fraudulent, as if by not regularly expunging creations from my soul I am not living up to my self-imposed title of “artist” or “writer” or “actor” or “filmmaker” or any of the other hats I’ve worn over the years. It was “cartoonist” once, “rapper” later.

Am I an artist if I create for other people? Admitting that a motivation is the reaction of others feels like a conceit, like I’m telling on my own insecurity, my need to be seen and perceived by others. I need my pursuits validated by people who have no idea what millions of tiny factors influenced my artistic choices. And so much art criticism feels meaningless to me, which is why I don’t even bother writing long-form negative reviews too often… it feels a bit stupid to pour so much energy into hating something that had a lot of artistic energy poured into it, even if it didn’t resonate…

Every day we make a choice. I originally was going to give this movie four stars but I am making the choice to give it four and a half because I feel that, despite not being sure I was “enjoying” or “transforming” as a result of the experience of watching the film, the ending left me so profoundly uplifted that I would be doing myself, Reichardt, and universal karma a disservice by not accurately relaying the soothing this movie laid upon me. Like a deep warm pond on summer’s eve, I took a dip, and came out just a little bit less stressed out about my future in this world. And if a movie can do that, does it really matter if it hits all the so-called criteria of good art? 9/10.

Sorry to Bother You - dir. Boots Riley

I tried watching this movie at least twice before without ever managing to finish it for one reason or another. You could’ve given me fifty guesses and I still would not have guessed the direction it took.

It’s got some funny moments for sure but I hate how this is shot, the filmmaking is super plain and just not my cup of tea. I like how absurd it gets, though. Cool ideas for sure.

I like the way Riley positions Cassius’ nihilism as inherently conservative. I abandoned nihilism as a philosophy years ago because I felt it limited the vision of human potential. It doesn’t seem conservative on its surface, but if you believe that everything is inherently lacking in meaning you can use that logic to justify any level of moral corruption. So many people, including myself, are just way too willing to allow evil to exist because we feel defeating it is a pointless effort.

I’m not an evangelist, but… embrace God bruh. 6/10.

Black Mountain Side - dir. Nick Szostakiwskyj

Straight up one of the most embarrassing movies I’ve ever seen. Irredeemable on pretty much every level. The fact that anyone thinks this is even passable is funny.

I’m finding that I have an almost instinctive recoil to psychological horror, and I especially despise when horror movies try to tie cosmic horror to something as banal as psychology. Commit fully to the external presence as a threat beyond human comprehension or fuck off.

Also doesn’t help that not a single actor knew what the fuck they were doing. Embarrassing stuff.

Not a single character was likable. So for most of the movie you’re sitting there watching the most insufferable pieces of shit sit around and do nothing. Is this what passes for entertainment? Am I crazy for wanting a horror movie to be… fun? Thrilling? Dread-inducing? Suspenseful?

There’s a whole bit involving octopuses that was super cool but it went nowhere. Infuriating.

Shot compositions and lighting were incompetent. I’ve genuinely seen CSUN students cook harder. This movie was made on 30k but maybe 10 dollars went to finding a DoP. Wouldn’t be surprised if they found them on Craigslist.

3 star average is crazy. I’d sooner rewatch Shyamalan’s Avatar movie 10 times before revisiting this once. 1/10.

Exiled - dir. Johnnie To

Oh ok so Johnnie To is one of the best directors of all time. Got it.

Sentimentality steeped in the mist of blood.

Lowkey one of the best soundtracks of all time. 9/10.

Liverpool - dir. Lisandro Alonso

I feel like Alonso doesn’t fully get the compositional beauty of Tsai Ming-liang’s work. He sees the long, slow takes and thinks that’s all there is to it, but I think there is intentionality to Tsai that Alonso doesn’t have, and I’ve really given him a few chances here.

None of the shots here spoke to me, I never felt like Farrel was changing his environment in any way, the transition between ship to wilderness felt inconsequential. Every cut in a Tsai movie feels monumental–there were no cuts here where I was like “wow, I am living and breathing this movie.” I love a ‘nothing happens’ movie but it has to evoke something in me. This evoked very little, although I always admire cinema like this so I can’t find it in me to give this a negative score. 5/10.

First Reformed - dir. Paul Schrader

Looks like this is my Bresson month, inadvertently, and I am experiencing the director through what I consider for myself a DNA-defining film (The Devil Probably) and his most devoted acolyte, Paul Schrader, who has absorbed the aforementioned film into his bloodstream and given it what may be seen as a contemporary update.

The immolation of Schrader’s leading men is, as I have said in my review of Mishima, incredibly relatable to me. Their despair makes sense to me, I never once question any of their decisions because it immediately clicks. Many will not have this experience, and that’s okay. It’s probably for the better that you don’t relate to Yukio Mishima lol.

How does one maintain faith in a world that betrays itself? How does one contend with the self-destructive nature of God’s creation? What do you even do about it? How can you bear to watch the world burn at the hands of humans??? How can you look your child in the eye and tell them you let it happen??????

Probably one of the most courageous movies of the decade…. and maybe also one of the most pitiful. I don’t mean that as a criticism, I mean it as a reflection on the state of our culture. We are so much worse off now than we were in 2017 it’s not even funny. We are well and truly fucked, man. I think we can all sense that the end is around the corner, but we can’t stop ourselves from walking… we can’t look away… we have to contend with the desolation of everything we love. 8/10.

Eureka - dir. Lisandro Alonso

Starts off VERY promising. When Alonso is in Western mode he goes crazy… then we get to the middle segment and my interest in the film evaporated so fast. My goodness was it lame. 5/10.

After Life - dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda

Would probably go unspeakably hard if I cared about the characters.

Premise is significantly cooler than the execution. I’m not a fan of sci-fi where the artist doesn’t seem to have any interest in their concept… I find the pedestrian vision of the afterlife kinda irritating.

For one reason or another this simply did not click with me. 6/10.

Youth Without Youth - dir. Francis Ford Coppola

It takes a special kind of artist to make something like this, where every idea feels like it’s bursting at the seams out of the limitations of form, where you legitimately get the sense that Coppola cannot even contain his own notions. I think it would take a much smarter person than me to EXPLAIN it all… all I can do is respond to what I see, and what I see is an old man grappling with memory, time, and the soul, a precursor to (and in my view essential to understanding) Megalopolis as a filmic vision born purely out of ambition. An artist attempting to communicate with God through images, an artist attempting to reassemble their brain onto the digital surface. 7/10.

Tale of Cinema - dir. Hong Sang-soo

The feeling of a gloomy morning after a one-sided one night stand, a brief tryst in the life of a woman you project many desires and ideas onto but cannot understand, framed through the act of filmmaking and film watching. Watching this made me feel things I haven’t felt since I was skirting between short-lived, highly charged relationships and hookups, where the scent of romance was there but not the tangible thing itself.

“You don’t have any scars,” he says, having been told that she did, and being surprised–almost disappointed, that the myth of her body is not as storied as he was led to believe. You watch a movie your buddy made and you think it’s about you, or inspired by you–and maybe some of it is, but it’s mostly unknowable. You think because she let you inside her body that you know who she is–and maybe you know part of her, but she’s mostly unknowable.

The beauty of people and art is that they are ALWAYS unknowable, but if you spend enough time with them and let your walls down you can learn a thing or two. Their souls will never be yours to understand. No amount of analysis or sex can give you truth, and though there is something a little sad about that, I choose to look at it as an inspiration. There’s nothing more lovely than discovery, whether that be in fucking or in filmmaking. 9/10.

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives - dir. Apichatpong Weerasethakul

Weerasethakul introduces supernatural elements as if they were anything but supernatural, just a fact of life for people to contend with. People slip into out-of-body trances as easily as they slip out of their monastic robes, ghosts appear at dinner just as easily as stir-fried chili, your son may just wander into the woods, copulate with a monkey spirit, and come back transformed. We don’t know how these things happen, but they do. A man remembers his past lives. It’s not possible but it is, and there’s no way around it. Beauty can’t be measured in imperial units, and beauty is also often a bit terrifying. 8/10.

Eyes of the Spider - dir. Kiyoshi Kurosawa

I was pretty distracted watching this but it also felt like pretty humdrum KK work… realizing he might be a hit or miss director for me. 5/10.

Barton Fink - dir. Joel Coen

Creating is hell, creators are solipsistic, Kafka’s Los Angeles is real and we’re all living in it.

Coens went crazy on this joint.

A bit of a “literally me” situation. I couldn’t NOT give it 4.5 stars. 9/10.

Friday Night - dir. Claire Denis

At night the city speaks to me sometimes. If I walk at a certain rhythm, just above a brisk pace but not quite a jog, I can catch her whispers, when there are no vehicles on the road and the strip malls are all closed. Her voice is a little raspy. Not wisened, just textured; like the sound your dry fingers make when you rub them against each other.

I try to answer with words, but the city doesn’t speak in words, so instead I try to win her affection with my heartbeat. I hope that if I FEEL enough she will hear me. I hope that she does not think I am ignoring her when I can’t summon a teardrop.

I like when she rains. I like how she looks when she’s coated in petrichor, when puddles line her concrete veins and her blue skies are greyed. I even like her when she’s burning. I try to hold her closer in these moments of crisis. I touch her, the storm passes, eventually she heals.

We used to talk a lot more. I think I closed myself off because I blamed her for a lot of the pain I incurred on myself. All the heartbreak was her fault; at least, that’s what I affirmed. She hurt me in ways I’ll never get over. I’ve forgiven the city, but she’s got a piece of my soul forever now, and that’s a kind of pain you can’t even describe, let alone heal.

What makes it harder to reconcile is that I suspect I hurt the city just as much as she hurt me. And in some ways, knowing that I had to be hurt for the city to prosper makes it a little easier. 9/10.

Siberia - dir. Abel Ferrara

I wanted to love this so much more than I did, the premise and vibe seemed like exactly my kinda thing, opaque enough to knock around a bit without breaking but translucent enough that meaning could be discerned from the right angle. I go into every Abel Ferrara movie with my expectations in a strange bind, I consider him a master filmmaker but also a bit of an iconoclast, his films have this perverse blend of care and carelessness, like he’s a sword swallower a micrometer away from brandishing his guts to the circus-goers. He is totally fucking bizarre but also takes ideas to their spiritual conclusions in ways that make me think “damn, how did I not see that it was THAT obvious.”

So like with most of his work, I saw the middling ratings and I thought “boy these suckers just didn’t get it. I can’t wait to watch it and love it and drop a revelatory bombshell of a review that shakes the letterboxd community to the stratosphere because I AM the ONLY one who understands Ferrara’s vision.” But here I am, a dumb overwrought idiot pontificating to stall the inevitable: I didn’t get it either.

The simplest conclusion one can draw is that it is dreaming made literal, an attempt by Ferrara to capture dreams on film, perhaps his own, and any further interpretation is as useful as dream interpretation–which is not useless, I am not attaching value judgment to the idea of dream interpretation. I do believe in the significance of the oneiric world, I just feel like this is one of those situations where other people’s dreams could never be as interesting as your own. Like Clint’s environment, it all feels a little cold, distant, impenetrable.

RIP David Lynch, by the way. I think this was undoubtedly influenced by his work…. but you could say that about everything. 6/10.

Damnation - dir. Béla Tarr

Is it strange to say that Tarr’s depressive industrial godless wasteland brought me comfort? Does it say something unnerving that I found solace in the blackened mud? I find it so bizarre that out of everything I watched this month, Damnation was the one to make me feel okay about being depressed. It does not shy away from misery, it does not shy away from nihilism, it does not give much in the form of comfort, it’s exactly what you expect; an atmospheric descent into the lives of hollowed-out souls, betraying one another, cheating on one another, stuck in the rain, caught with the stray dogs looking for scraps, unable to escape the noise of the coal transports over head draining them of their blood like vampires sucking at an artery. I imagine that the black and white photography isn’t even an artistic choice, it’s simply the reality of this world, drained of all color so that every day is drudgerous filth, dirt inside your boots, mud clinging to your clothes as the torrent beats down, ceaseless, unyielding, cold.

I feel so often that I am searching for an escape from my depressive phases, like being depressed is not the correct way to be, that I must work towards bettering myself so that I no longer experience the depression, but Damnation offers solace in the rejection of betterment–there was never any betterment to begin with. I do not think this movie offers advice, but it does offer me a sense of tranquility, an alm to a beleaguered spirit. I did not choose the illness, but I must continue to live with it. We are animals in the cold, we wait for the rain to stop but it never does. Still, if the ship is sinking, I’ll dance until I’m submerged… until the ocean takes me to the depths, I will remain in the music. 10/10.

The Last Temptation of Christ - dir. Martin Scorsese

Easily, and I mean EASILY my favorite Scorsese. Can’t remember the last time I had a discussion about a film for an entire car trip home with my friends. I almost feel like trying to boil down our conversation to a review would be a disservice to the wonder I felt leaving the theater, the sense of redemption-through-violence I get watching any film with Schrader’s involvement, to attempt to congeal my gut response to verbiage.

I can feel Schrader’s fingerprints allll over this. I find it so bizarre and yet fitting that he sees a Bressonian protagonist in Jesus Christ as a figure. A man empowered and cowered by his own destiny. 9/10.

The Card Counter - dir. Paul Schrader

The violence wasn’t imposed on you, it was brought out of you. It was coaxed out of its cave like a hibernating bear, the promise of blood thick on the breeze.

Redemption is prescribed, never offered. You decide when the game has gone on long enough, when the final hand has been dealt. You bet small, you lose small. 8/10.

Master Gardener - dir. Paul Schrader

The weakest in Schrader’s trilogy for me, but still possesses a lot of what makes his work so special to me, so I’m easier on it than I would probably otherwise be.

All things considered it’s a bit too literal for my liking. The most optimistic of the trilogy. Maybe that doesn’t do much for me in my current state. Maybe I’m too used to “romanticizing immolation” Schrader to accept him at a more forgiving state. 6/10.

Affiction - dir. Paul Schrader

Writing about a film like this is challenging for me because it lays it all out on the table, maybe more so than any other Schrader picture. If I were to show somebody one film that fully condensed his ideology into a singular force, I would show them this–but that’d be a bad idea, probably.

Affliction is unrelenting, beyond bleak, freezing cold, a character study where a man’s life is toppled brick by brick. The immolation of Wade’s character is slow, frosty, a blue flame so hot that it burns through all his relationships, tears through his mind. Nick Nolte plays a fairly affable guy at the start, becoming a drunken animal by the end, consumed by his own demons.

Road to Nowhere - dir. Monte Hellman

A lot to unpack, in some ways I feel I did myself no favors by thrusting to the end of Monte Hellman’s filmography, but ever since throwing myself into the deep end with Inland Empire being my first Lynch I’ve been comfortable with going into late period movies blind as a bat.

Befitting that a man who carved a unique lane for himself in New Hollywood as a radical alterer of story structure and genre norms (making Westerns slow as shit and fantasies like Iguana as beleaguered as they were opaque) would reflect on his own filmic ideals, turning the narrative into more of an interconnected network of illusions and dead ends. The whole movie takes place in a limbo between the artistic scaffolding and the final product, the contradiction between truth and dreams.

In a way I think I was always destined to be a film lover, even though it took me a while to get here. Dreams have consistently been a big part of my life, vivid and intense, sometimes therapeutic. Is film not, as Hellman posits, an attempt by humans to capture the elusive nature of their own dreams? It’s why film can be so personal, the ability to bend image to the will of the camera allows the filmmaker the gift of dream-sharing, to give someone else a piece of their soul. I’m jealous of artists who can so effortlessly translate their dreams into cinematic prose. But maybe all it takes is picking up the camera and hitting record.

I fell in love once with a woman I am sure my subconscious mind invented in REM sleep–I believe that perhaps this is what Mitchell sees in Laurel/Velma. 7/10.

Yojimbo - dir. Akira Kurosawa

I have found it extraordinarily difficult to connect to any of Kurosawa’s movies outside of Seven Samurai. I am not sure why, but it is as frustrating for me as it is for the numerous Kurosawa fans in my gigantic audience reading this review.

I prefer Leone’s take on this story, even if he got sued for ripping it off. 5/10.

Sanjuro - dir. Akira Kurosawa

Hmm. Maybe I prefer Kurosawa when he’s operating on a grander scale? This duology had almost no impact on me. I respected a lot of the filmmaking efforts, the shot compositions are pretty stellar and demonstrate Kurosawa’s skillful blocking and fight choreography, but the actual content leaves me cold. Simply put I do not care about what is happening on screen. I grow ever more frustrated. I hope that the few other films of Kurosawa I intend to watch in the next few weeks are more my speed. 6/10.

Twenty-Four Eyes - dir. Keisuke Kinoshita

If you are the kind of person who feels a pang of sadness whenever you see a small child because you know that their innocence is going to be worn down over the years, because you know that their emotional lives are only going to get more complicated, even exploited, because you know that the world does not necessarily have good things for them in store, this movie is for you.

I am in awe.

Keisuke Kinoshita is a master. My only criticism of this film is that towards the end of the movie a lot of the tragedies that befall Oishi feel extraneous.

This movie should be held in equal if not greater regard than some of its contemporaries, no shade, no shade. 9/10.

Night Moves - dir. Kelly Reichardt

All the change we want to make is several explosions away. I can’t fathom that. I can’t fathom that violence will have to occur for catastrophe to be averted. And it might not even be enough anymore.

Reichardt applies Dostoyevsky character psychology to the issue of climate change. The weight placed on the shoulders of those who want to make a difference. The callous indifference of the world. It’s never enough. Nothing could ever be enough.

This is a problem that will consume you. No individual is powerful enough to make a difference.

Reichardt’s bleakest picture–maybe even more so than Wendy and Lucy. 7/10.

The Cloud-Capped Star - dir. Ritwik Ghatak

Miserablism that I found rote, you sorta just watch this woman experience an onslaught of sadness and shitty circumstance for 2 hours. To be fair, there is at least a strength of presentation, the movie does not FEEL torturous, and it does not LOOK abysmal at all, but it does feel tedious to sit through. 5/10.

Box of Moonlight - dir. Tom DiCillo

A thoroughly likable movie. Guarantee this would’ve been in 15 year old me’s top 10.

Tom DiCillo is a bit of a 90’s New Hollywood director (not a real term, but a trend I’ve observed in 90’s American cinema). Hippie sensibilities. An affinity for the outcasts of the world. A film about a guy trapped in the “American dream” who has to escape it for the REAL “American dream”, i.e. living off the grid, by his own rules.

The intrigue is in the contradictions. The American dream is freedom but also stability. How can it be both? It can’t.

John Turturro is terrific, as always. Peak 90’s indie shit. Throw Sam Rockwell and Keener in there too, you can’t really go wrong. 7/10.

Caveat - dir. Damian Mc Carthy

You ever see “Shudder original” run like the wind. 3/10.

Morvern Callar - dir. Lynne Ramsay

I just didn’t feel much of anything watching it, even though I did kinda enjoy the movie and like the filmmaking.

Maybe Ramsay is just not for me? Ratcatcher looks worthwhile, though… I’ll check that out at some point. 6/10.

A Scene at the Sea - dir. Takeshi Kitano

This works on such a fundamental level that I think even if the subtitles hadn’t worked I still would’ve fallen just as much in love with what I was seeing. Kitano is just exceptional at communicating formally, his sense of humor is as simple as seeing a guy throw up a shoe to get his girlfriend’s attention through a window only to resort to a rock and accidentally smash the glass. Insanely charming stuff.

The soundtrack <3

Just a perfect little movie. Love it. 9/10.

Summer of Sam - dir. Spike Lee

Sweltering, the communal foundation of humanity built upon in-groups an out-groups, nobody understands inter-tribal dynamics like Spike Lee and nowhere does he demonstrate quite as nuanced an understanding of how “villains” cut to the heart of society. Our reality is a facsimile of media and storytelling, the memes we share, the proselytization of religious institutions. The serial killer is only real insofar as the community elevates his status. Like that one woman points out–if he was Black, it would’ve destroyed the Black community. Everybody in New York is a hair’s breadth away from setting off the fuse that implodes the city. If we cannot conquer our tribalism, our need to punish the sinful with hellfire, we are doomed to consume ourselves. 8/10.