Movies I Watched November 2023

Sick of Myself - dir. Kristoffer Borgli

Black Comedy

I was sleep deprived when I watched this movie. I had spent almost 18 hours on a plane from LA to Sydney, and it was night, and I felt like checking out a local theater to see some artsy shit, and I pretty much randomly stumbled upon this one.

Now, keep in mind–I was tired as fuck. Borderline on the brink of slipping into a coma.

But I just could NOT take my eyes or attention off of this film. No matter how much my body was begging me to go back to the hostel and collapse into sleep, I refused the call of sanity, and stayed goddamn PUT in my seat. This is an absolutely RIVETING movie, from beginning to end. It’s about an extreme narcissist, and about how she completely derails her life for attention. Not only is it hilariously twisted, it’s genuinely unsettling at certain points. Straight up fucking disgusting, too. My exact kind of movie. 9/10.

RoboCop - dir. Paul Verhoeven

Sci-Fi/Action/Cop

A pretty fun satire of copaganda that has a distinctly 80’s feel to it. I’m a big fan of just how BRUTAL it is. Like that one dude with the toxic waste… jesus. I don’t know if the anti-cop/anti-capitalist message fully clicked with me though. The entertainment value was there, but I didn’t get anything too crazy out of the movie.

Frantz - dir. François Ozon

Period Piece

Just reaaaaaaaaaaallllllly tedious and boring. Sorry. I know this movie is super hyped in Ozon’s filmography (relative to his other work that is), but I just did not give a damn. 5/10.

PlayTime - dir. Jacques Tati

Experimental Comedy

Ingenious set design and comedic blocking, so credit where credit’s due. This is definitely a UNIQUE movie, but did I connect to it? No, not really. I found myself admiring it more than actually enjoying it. I do recommend checking this thing out purely for its aesthetics, though. 6/10.

Double Lover - dir. François Ozon

Erotic Thriller

A real return to form for Ozon, at least in my (seemingly) unpopular opinion. While Ozon has demonstrated the ability to cover the gamut of taboo subject material, he by far most often exceeds at exploring psychology through sex. Double Lover is surreal and sexy; in other words, classic Ozon.

Marine Vacth is a magnetic presence on screen, right up there with Charlotte Rampling as my favorite Ozon regular. She’s able to convey a lot with very little, and elevate the script with only a passing glance. There’s a reason Young and Beautiful is my favorite of Ozon’s filmography. Vacth lives in emotional mystery and sexual bluntness at the same time. She’s Ozon’s notion of feminine sexuality personified, unnerving but unbelievably intriguing.

That’s not to say Jérémie Renier doesn’t keep up, though. He’s basically playing two versions of the same character, and he does it remarkably well.

What brings Double Lover home is just how far it goes into sexual surrealism. It’s been a while since I’ve seen Ozon go to those places, and it’s a breath of fresh air to see it again. 7/10.

Everything Went Fine - dir. François Ozon

Drama

It’s competently made, sure, but does it have any color? Does it provoke? No. It doesn’t. I like the dream sequences, but the rest is just totally uninteresting and predictable. 5/10.

Peter Von Kant - dir. François Ozon

Romance/Melodrama

With this being Ozon’s second Fassbinder adaptation (the first being Water Drops), there are naturally going to be a lot of parallels between the two movies. They’re both based on films that are based on plays, and thus they both take place in one location–that being an apartment. They both deal with toxic romances between older and younger men.

In the case of Peter von Kant, though, the titular character is a lot more flexible and empathetic. Though he’s certainly cunty (peter von CUNT amirite) he’s ultimately just an insecure clingy guy. Amir has power over him, despite his naivete, and that makes the dynamic here a lot less stomach-churning.

The film works as a deconstruction of Peter, whose character is masterfully executed by the likable Denis Ménochet. He’s worshipped by some (Karl) and taken advantage of by others (Amir). His wealth and prestige brings him power but it doesn’t eliminate his insecurity, his need to possess those he loves. Sidonie is a good friend to him and yet his inability to own her pushes them apart.

To Peter, Amir represents perfection. He’s someone that can, in theory at least, be molded into the perfect partner, the ideal sexual creature. Obviously, this is impossible. Amir is just a guy, and Peter’s need to own him inevitably pushes him away. Is Amir a dick? Yeah, I mean, sure. But the first time jump takes place over 9 months. It’s intentionally placed there so that we don’t see Peter becoming fucking insufferable over time. A trick of time to keep us identifying with Peter for longer. By the end, we can clearly see his flaws, his inability to cope with his own lack of control, and after his outburst he sees it too.

Overall, it’s a really strong, lean script, with some excellent cinematography to boot. The limits of the location never stop the film from being visually breathtaking, and that’s a testament to Ozon’s strength as a filmmaker. 8/10.

Opera - dir. Dario Argento

Giallo/Slasher

A few things immediately prevented me from immersing myself into the world of Opera; the VERY obvious dubbing and the script, which often borders on comical. Out of these two flaws, the dubbing is easier to overlook. The script, however, is not. The dialogue in this movie is really just not good… like, at all. Exposition galore here.

I will say that in spite of the weak script, I enjoyed the vibe this movie had to offer. The violence was well-done, and if we’re comparing Argento movies, potentially even BETTER than Suspiria’s. The kills here are gruesome and Cristina Marsillach can give a pretty good scream where it counts. 6/10.

The Door into Summer - dir. Takahiro Miki

Sci-Fi/Melodrama

Just too melodramatic for me. If you like anime you might like this though because the anime vibes were sort of there, in just how the characters expressed themselves. 2/10.

The Moon Is… The Sun’s Dream - dir. Park Chan-wook

Crime

Stylistically, it’s impressive how much Park Chan-wook can operate and maneuver his way through a scene. As a first feature, this thing is really not watchable (for me at least anyway), because of how weirdly convoluted the script is, but I can commend the effort to carve out a unique directorial identity, which obviously Park would go on to do in his future work. 3/10.

Eat Pray Love - dir. Ryan Murphy

Biographical/Romance

There are some cute ideas and moments here, but it’s severely bogged down by a completely unjustified runtime. Did we really need almost two and a half hours to tell this story? Why is James Franco’s character in this? He adds at least 20 minutes of unnecessary bullshit to this movie. 4/10.

An Elephant Sitting Still - dir. Hu Bo

Drama

Took me a very long time to figure out what exactly I wanted to say about this movie. I watched it frenetically and over the course of several, chaotic days, backpacking across New South Wales with unreliable internet and a bone to pick with just about everything. But was the four-hour odyssey ever boring? Ever dull? No. Bleak, maybe. A four hour snapshot of misery, yes. Similar to the very skin of an elephant, this film is grey, dense, and rough. It leaves you mentally drained, isolated, clouded by the futility offered by the film’s core philosophy, and above all else, deeply empathetic, I think.

Yeah, I mean, look. We can talk about how director Hu Bo committed suicide after releasing this movie, and how that inevitably casts a shadow of desolate tragedy over it, but in my mind, there is a kind of cold, gritting optimism that sorta shines through the muck and turmoil. I don’t think Hu Bo’s intention was necessarily to depress the viewer, I think his goal was to place the viewer in the mind of the miserable. People won’t want to watch this because it’s depressing, but that’s kind of the fucking point. There’s no cheerful resolution, no closure, no satisfaction, it’s just shadow with brief fleeting glimpses of light. It’s hard to imagine ANY movie going this hard creatively, and as an appreciator of art as a means to provoke, I really fucking love that this movie exists. I really love that Hu Bo was able to put his hurting, despondent soul onto the proverbial canvas of cinema.

For four hours, Hu Bo takes us on a winding, methodically simple journey through the fractured existences of four characters in an unendingly grey industrial Chinese city (Shijiazhuang). One, a gangster. Two, students. One, an old man. Each of them carries with them a weight. An unbearable weight on their necks that stops them from feeling, knowing, and processing anything around them. An almost mythological elephant in Manzhouli is a lingering, far-off fantasy for them. An elephant that sits still, and doesn’t react to anything. An impassive object, really. Not even a living thing and an ornament of its own suffering. They hold this idea that if they can somehow get to the elephant, things will be better.

I’m not entirely sure what the elephant symbolizes. In any case, it’s not really important to appreciating the emotional stakes of the film. What you see is really what you get in that regard, because a lot of the weight here comes from seeing the futility of these character’s lives, the lack of real love. The lack of any respite. No hugs, no smiles, no laughter. There is nothing but the cold, claustrophobic city. Dogs killing dogs. People screaming at each other. Hurled insults from across a badminton court. Precious little light (almost none) is allowed to shine through, which makes this movie a really, really difficult experience. You just can’t get through it without being sucked into its grey atmosphere.

The camera work here feels reminiscent of two movies I am particularly fond of. The first is James White, wherein the similarities lie in the way the camera presses into the characters, making them feel trapped and claustrophobic. The second is A Brighter Summer Day, and similar to the Taiwanese classic, the camera here seems uninterested in capturing the full minutiae of its own scenery. Characters talk off-screen, faces are blurred out of focus, and sometimes a character’s back will be to the camera while they talk. It adds to this sense of emptiness, loneliness, isolation. It’s just another layer to the grey of Hu Bo’s artistic vision. Before this movie, you had no idea there were this many shades of grey. Now, you’re overwhelmed.

I think this is going to be one of those movies that I eventually re-evaluate and give a perfect score to. It is one of the saddest tragedies in all of cinema that Hu Bo took his own life after making this movie. He had so much empathy and art to give to the world. It is goddamn fucking depressing that this is his first and last feature film. Fuck man. Please watch this movie. Have someone you can hug after. But please watch it. 9/10.

The Cave of the Yellow Dog - dir. Byambasuren Davaa

Slice-of-Life

Actually kind of nuts that the family in the movie is a real family of Mongolian herders and not a bunch of actors. Awesome that Davaa just put a camera in front of them and documented what really is just a simple story of a transitory period of their lives. A girl discovers a dog, but the dog isn’t welcome in the family. It’s barebones, but it’s very sweet, and informative. It’s a slice-of-life fable that puts you right in the heart of modern Mongolian nomad culture (at least in 2005). 7/10.

Trio - dir. Park Chan-wook

Crime/Comedy

One of the funnier movies I’ve seen in recent memory. A lot of absurd, dark humor here that really tickles my funny bone. Characters are fun too, and the story is a lot more rhythmically engaging than Park’s debut. I get that he doesn’t like it, and obviously he’s entitled to have that opinion on his own work, but I really did find this movie to be a lot of fun. 6/10.

Joint Security Area - dir. Park Chan-wook

Mystery/Thriller

Initially, the investigation premise was sort of lost on me. I had a tough time following it, and I just wasn’t too invested, even if I though the music cues were sick. Where the film captured me was in the friendship that developed between the North and South Korean soldiers. Took me by surprise, nearly brought me to tears. Highly unusual for a Park Chan-wook film to feature such a wholesome segment, but obviously he had to pull his classic maneuver of still finding a way to end it as miserably as possible. Really poignant story about Korea, that I have no doubt would probably resonate with me even more if I was more familiar in the history of the North and South divide. 8/10.

Sleeper - dir. Woody Allen

Comedy/Sci-Fi

Woody Allen’s schtick will probably never not be funny to me. The nebbish, neurotic Jew is an annoying trope, but Allen never fails to get a chuckle out of me. As much as I wish I didn’t, I find myself relating to his obnoxious, whiny characters. His chemistry with Diane Keaton here is off the charts. Both of them are just so goddamn funny, and all the visual gags from the delightfully constructed setpieces add onto their already charming dynamic. This is just a very funny old-school comedy movie, with Futurama-esque satire in its sci-fi elements. 7/10.

I’m a Cyborg, but That’s OK - dir. Park Chan-wook

RomCom

It’s cute for sure, and I do think this would appeal to a lot of people, but it kinda just left me feeling meh. I enjoyed it but I wasn’t terribly invested in the romance or the characters. Especially the stuff with her grandma. It just didn’t click for me, I guess. I love the visuals here, for sure. The weird, dated CGI actually adds a lot of character, plus the more violent scenes feel like classic Park Chan-wook. I’m glad he has a film like this in his canon, but it’s too ‘quirky’ for me. 6/10.

Haruhara-san’s Recorder - dir. Kyoshi Sugita

Drama

If you’re not going to grip me with a plot, you better at least give me some good dialogue, cinematography, or acting (really anything) to keep me engaged. This movie has boring composition, boring dialogue, no story, and mediocre performances. 2/10.

10 Things I Hate About You - dir. Gil Junger

Teen Comedy

Corny dialogue that is not backed up by strong performances at all. David Krumholtz is basically the only actor here who actually pulls off the tryhard dialogue. I am not sexually attracted to men so I got zero value out of this movie, but it was mildly entertaining enough to watch in a group setting so it gets extra points for that. 5/10.

Thirst - dir. Park Chan-wook

Erotic Horror

Lust is beastly, hideous, violent, sexy, delicious, irresistible. Thirst explores that through the premise of vampirism, taking a priest and turning him into a creature of lust, a vampire with a desire to fuck and feed on flesh and blood. Not only does Park capture some of the most vile body horror I’ve ever seen, he also places it in the same context as intensely erotic, hungry sex. This film made me want to vomit, but it also made me horny at the same time. That’s gotta be an achievement. 9/10.

Stoker - dir. Park Chan-wook

Psychological Thriller

Got about 20 minutes in before I realized that the screenplay was complete and utter trash. I don’t say this lightly–it is one of the most shoddily written scripts I’ve ever seen. Dialogue sounded like absolute shit. Jesus fucking christ. 1/10.

Ikiru - dir. Akira Kurosawa

Drama

Man. I just could not get through this movie. I’m sorry. I love you Kurosawa but this was boring. 5/10.

The Woman In Black - dir. James Watkins

Gothic Horrror

Boring. 2/10.

The Handmaiden - dir. Park Chan-wook

Historical/Erotic Thriller

Park Chan-wook’s masterpiece of the decade, it’s up there with Oldboy as one of his finest contributions to the canon of the thriller. This is a sexy, brilliant, spellbinding script elevated by a sweeping score, transporting you into the world of handmaidens and ladies, of abuse and control. This is very much a film about patriarchy and its concerted attempt to control the lives of women, and it’s just masterful cinema. Breathtakingly, agonizingly well-paced. I could barely feel the runtime (and I watched the extended cut!). I could gush about The Handmaiden all day. It’s just fucking genius. 9/10.

Dazed Flesh - dir. Grace Passô, Ricardo Alves Jr.

Experimental Horror

Grace Passō’s performance is dynamic, vulnerable, electric. Unfortunately, it’s just not enough to carry this lean experimental film. The brilliant premise of a cross-dimensional invasive creature occupying the flesh of a woman feels mostly wasted. I’m not expecting some Spielbergian blockbuster, but just seeing it pan out as a one-woman play feels unsatisfying and underbaked. I wanted to love this, especially after the first, black screen monologue, but it lost me. 6/10.

10 Cloverfield Lane - dir. Dan Trachtenberg

Sci-Fi/Thriller

A thrill-ride from the beginning to (almost) the end. Really well-written screenplay in terms of subversions and twists, and obviously a phenomenally good villainous performance from John Goodman. There’s not a whole lot I can say about 10 Cloverfield Lane that hasn’t been said already. It’s just a very solid sci-fi thriller with a practically airtight series of twists keeping it nail-bitingly suspenseful the whole way through. 7/10.

Hare Krishna! - dir. John Griesser

Documentary/Religion

Backstory for how I ended up watching this is that I was staying at a Hare Krishna farm community as a backpacker in Australia, and they were showing this documentary in one of the rooms. I said fuck it out of curiosity and was sort of delightfully surprised by what I ended up seeing.

It’s not a game-changing or life-changing documentary, but it definitely justifies its own existence by celebrating the teachings of the Swami Prabhupada, and his influence on the Western world. There’s a lightness and joyfulness to the documentary that feels cozy in a way, unifying. It is a boring movie so I can’t really justify giving it a high score but I do think it’s valuable if you want to learn about Krishna consciousness in the West. I’m agnostic but it was still pretty cool. 4/10.

Vengeance Is Mine - dir. Shōhei Imamura

Crime/Drama

Really strong direction. Makes me want to check out other movies from the Japanese new wave movement, especially from Imamura. I think the script was too jumbled for me to keep track of, but there’s this cold, bitter soullessness to the characters that makes it somewhat captivating. It’s a character study of a psychopath and the devastating ripple effect his behavior causes in the people in his life. 6/10.

Mystic India - dir. Keith Melton

Documentary/Spiritual

Very cool story, definitely sells me on the spiritual majesty of India, but just not a very interesting or subversive documentary. Like it’s very cool that this 11 year old survived in the Himalayas with nothing but yoga but maybe be more specific? What did he do to survive exactly? What mantra did he repeat to himself? What was it like for him? What wisdom did he obtain from the experience? It’s all very vague, and thus boring. 4/10.

Smiley Face - dir. Gregg Araki

Stoner Comedy

I wish people hadn’t tried selling this to me as a comedy because it honestly wasn’t that funny. The thing is, I don’t believe it needs to be to work as a surrealist take on the aimlessness of life in your twenties. Anybody who knows me knows that those kinds of stories resonate with me and Smiley Face was no exception. Especially as an aspiring actor too? Man. Too real.

On top of Jane being just a very relatable character, Araki pulls out all the stops to make the movie a visual experience. The editing is hilarious, more so than the dialogue or the scenarios. The crudish powerpoint presentation style transitions work well with the dejected loser stoner vibe. Plus the fucking opening title sequence? Dude. This shit rules. 8/10.

Decision to Leave - dir. Park Chan-wook

Mystery/Romance

Man, I’m so bummed out. I’ve officially completed the filmography of Park Chan-wook, and I was hoping to finish with a banger on the level of The Handmaiden but this was unrepetently convoluted and boring. Nonsensically edited and characters as dry and lifeless as scarecrows. God fucking damn I’m bummed out. I love PCW so much but this was unbelievably disappointing. 4/10.

Unicorn Wars - dir. Alberto Vasquez

War/Fantasy

Christ almighty, where do I begin?

Though I knew going into the movie that it was probably not going to be a kids’ movie, I was still somewhat fooled by the opening sequence, which though creepy, didn’t exactly ring any alarm bells. I saw plenty of violent animation as a kid (courtesy of my parents showing me Princess Mononoke at 6 years old and watching Happy Tree Friends in elementary school), but where Unicorn Wars really cuts deep isn’t in its misanthropic presentation of unrepentant gore but in its unbelievably nihilistic themes. I mean, we’re talking full-on fundamentally disturbed perceptions of humankind and human nature.

The last sequence brings it home, I think, where we take this background element of the ‘simians’ and show how the conflict between the teddy bears and the unicorns really is just the core of the human psyche. Tribalism, faith, abuse. The film tells us these are all encoded into human DNA, and it doesn’t shy away from it. Psychopaths aren’t born, they’re created in the fertile soil of pride and envy. Your brother is born a minute earlier and immediately your underdeveloped baby monkey brain cooks up a complex that eventually boils into full-blown psychopathy. Your parents get divorced and you decide your mother’s an evil cheating bitch because it’s an easier, simpler reality to swallow as a kid than the fact that maybe relationships are complicated.

Using childish imagery doesn’t disguise the fact that this is a spitefully cruel movie, with little in the way of relief or kindness. If anything, the cutesy visuals and surface-sheen of PG-ness only contributes to this feeling of grotesque pessimism that permeates the film. Some may deplore the unbridled cynicism, and it’s certainly not going to do you any favors if you’re in a mentally shitty place, but personally I respect its commitment to misanthropy. I may not agree with it philosophically, but director Vazquez thematically executes his message in, what is to me, a very satisfying story. 9/10.

The Secret of Kells - dir. Tomm Moore, Nora Twomey

Fantasy/Family

Basically just a lesser version of Wolfwalkers in pretty much every capacity. I like the cool Pagan lore, but beyond that, I just didn’t care much about the characters or the story. 5/10.

The Second Mother - dir. Anna Muylaert

Drama

Brazilian cinema is just too good. When it comes to examining class structures, nobody does it like the Brazilians, man. The Second Mother is a pristine character study about class inequality and an attempt to bridge across generations, mother to daughter, maid to architect. To try and sum up what makes the movie work so brilliantly is difficult, but I will give it my best effort.

The heartfelt honesty behind the character of Val. She reminds me a lot of my grandmother, and Regina Casé’s performance feels less like acting and more like living, which is exactly how I’d describe “good acting”. It doesn’t look like acting. The story here is Val’s journey to understanding her place in society, deconstructing it with the help of her estranged daughter. To her, all the subtle rules behind class are second nature. She doesn’t need to be reminded of etiquette, she simply lives it. Her parental role to Fabinho is just who she is, she’s not going to flout social expectations to give herself the upper hand in a class war. She loves the boy, even if he is a symbol of her inability to escape her low status. I think the disconnect between Val’s role and that of her employers is the scene where she celebrates her daughter Jéssica passing an exam that Fabinho failed. She has this innocent joy that’s awkward for her rich employers to observe because to them she’s more like a dog than a person. Like awww isn’t it so cute how happy she is for her daughter? There’s a kind of envy behind it too, like… the rich kid with all the advantages couldn’t do what the daughter of a housemaid could? That’s gotta hurt.
The feeling of claustrophobia that comes with being at the mercy of your employers (and in the case of Val, landlords). Val lives in the house of the people she serves, and to her this is normal. It’s normal to live in fear of making the wrong move, to observe all the rules of etiquette to ensure that the line is never crossed and she doesn’t lose her job. She can’t afford to ask for what she deserves or put her foot in her mouth. The job is her life, and this is compounded by her motherly bond with Fabinho, who has served as a surrogate child for her all these years. When Jéssica shows up, she’s not used to etiquette, and hasn’t spent years building up a tolerance for the filthy rich the way Val has, so naturally this causes conflict between mother and daughter. The thing is, neither of them are really in the right. Yes, Val puts up with some serious bullshit and actively believes herself to be inferior, but she’s had to learn that in order to provide for Jéssica, and Jéssica, while more forward-thinking, must accept that fact. Without Val’s sacrifice, Jéssica wouldn’t have made it to a point in her life where she could rise above her status and pursue architecture. Under the patriarchy, it’s just not possible for something like that to come without sacrifice, especially if you’re poor.
The scene where Val enters the pool from the first time. I almost cried watching that. Fucking hell what a beautiful scene.

9/10.

Song of the Sea - dir. Tomm Moore

Fantasy/Family

I’m gonna tell you how to make a Cartoon Saloon movie, so pay attention. First, the main character has to come from a quasi-urban environment, have no mother figure, and have a father figure who means well but misunderstands the protagonist in some key way. Second, the protagonist must have a cute animal companion. Finally, the protagonist must be paired up in some way with a female character who has a connection to nature/pagan mythology in some way.

Now, in all fairness to Song of the Sea, it is probably the best example of the formula in Cartoon Saloon’s catalogue. I find the formula pretty boring, but at the very least the animation is gorgeous and Irish accents are fun to listen to. Story-wise, Song of the Sea is totally mid, and would probably not work at all if Saoirse wasn’t adorable and I felt a twinge of pity for her every time her older brother was an asshole to her. Basically the movie only works because the animators fulfilled the extremely simple task of making a small child adorable. 7/10.

Redline - dir. Takeshi Koike

Action/Sci-Fi

Straight stab of adrenaline into my sluggish veins. Like a frenzied cocaine binge in the context of science fiction, it’s pretty much everything I wanted from a racing movie and more. The roar of the engines is palpable, the explosions are screen-shuddering, and the titties are REALLY nice to look at. On top of all of that you get a banging electronic soundtrack that leans into its own cheese, and I’m grinning ear to ear just watching the magic unfold. The art is grungy, detailed, so full of life. There’s frenetic passion behind every frame. It combines racecars with kaijus with robots with hot babes with gangsters with planet destroying missiles with HAIR (?!) with sentient noodles with crying cyborg warriors with kawaii princesses with oh my fucking god just watch the fucking movie dude. 9/10.

The Breadwinner - dir. Nora Twomey

Drama

Peak Cartoon Saloon, and given the direction they took after this film as a studio (see my review of My Father’s Dragon), I’d hazard a guess to say that this is probably the best we’re going to get from them. The Breadwinner is an inherently gripping story about a young girl’s survival in a hostile Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. Naysayers will point out that the writers/director are all white, and to that I say, who cares? They did a fantastic job telling this story in a three-dimensional way. Even the primary ‘antagonist’ is portrayed as a misguided teenager, corrupted by the propaganda of the Taliban, so I don’t really see the argument that the movie trivializes or simplifies Islam in any way, shape, or form. Turns out that religious fundamentalism corrupts, regardless of race or nationality. Hot take, I know. 8/10.

Love Actually - dir. Richard Curtis

RomCom

I rewatched this for a movie night because everyone wanted to watch a christmas movie. I hate christmas movies and my mind has not been changed. Pretty much every part of this movie totally sucks major fucking ass. There’s not a single relationship here that’s interesting, believable, entertaining, or well-written. It’s 2 hours long, for no discernible reason. It’s got some of the blandest cinematography I’ve ever seen. I’ve seen porn with better color grading. The dialogue isn’t funny or charming, it’s like Ted Lasso without any of the emotional depth. I’m starting to think that British comedies are just generally terrible. And if you’re gonna say “oh man this isn’t supposed to be a comedy this is romance” WHERE THE FUCK IS THE ROMANCE? NOBODY HERE HAS ANY CHEMISTRY. FUCK OFF. God I fucking hated this movie. 1/10.

Song to Song - dir. Terrence Malick

Experimental/Romance

Hollow profundity emanates from Song to Song in a reminiscent way to Spring Breakers. The latter didn’t work for me, though, but this film does. It’s not a home run, but the themes and cinematography spoke to me.

For some, seeing a bunch of pretty white people meander through drug-addled romance and music festivals will be boring, but I think the mundaneness of it all is kind of the point. These are people blessed and cursed by their own hedonism, repeating the same patterns over and over again in a dreamy haze. The same shots, the same vapid dialogue, hell even the same kinds of people, physically. Nothing ever changes. The hedonistic pattern of sex, music, parties, drugs, etc, it’s unbreakable.

Even by the end, when things are seemingly resolved by this declaration of love and newfound commitment, I can’t help but roll my eyes. Where have I heard this before? Oh, right. For the entirety of the last two hours. Duh. And I think that’s the point too. We’re supposed to roll our eyes at these people, but also to relate to their bullshit. We’re supposed to go, “jesus christ, do I SOUND like that?” Because yeah. You do. You and me. We’re corny fucking assholes.

All of us are corny fucking assholes. Thanks, Terrence Malick. 7/10.

My Father’s Dragon - dir. Nora Twomey

Fantasy/Family

This is a movie for small children. I am not a small child, so I didn’t enjoy it. It’s not funny, interesting, unique, or even visually stunning like other Cartoon Saloon movies. It’s just kind of a baby movie for babies. If you are a baby you will enjoy this. I highly recommend this movie to babies. 4/10.

Sicario - dir. Denis Villeneuve

Action/Thriller

If you like Sicario, you should watch the Brazilian “Elite Squad”. And then you should watch its sequel immediately after, because they’re both jaw-droppingly good. Sicario hits the same thematic beats as those movies, just less effectively.

The tension isn’t really there because our main character, despite being played well by Emily Blunt, doesn’t actually have much agency in the story. She kind of just stumbles around the narrative, and makes very few challenging decisions. She accidentally leads a plot device back to her house. She accidentally walks into the wrong tunnel and sees something she shouldn’t have seen. Most of the interesting decisions are made by the people around her. Now you could say “oh yeah that’s the point, the story’s emphasizing her inability to maneuver through the corrupt system”.

And that’s why I brought up Elite Squad, because it literally makes this exact point perfectly without sacrificing any sense of character agency. The first film features two idealistic rookie cops who constantly find themselves struggling to actually make a difference in their communities, and it’s gripping to watch because they approach the issue from every angle. They’re constantly making active decisions that put them at odds with corrupt officers, anti-cop protesters, politicians, criminals, etc.

Sicario lacks a compelling protagonist, and thus lacks my investment. It’s an exceptionally well-made movie but its story is really just lazy and boring at its core. 6/10.

Beach Rats - dir. Eliza Hittman

Drama

Eliza only got Hitts, man. Between Beach Rats and Never Rarely, it’s clear to me that Eliza Hittman is one of the best modern directors, without a doubt. She’s got this ability to squeeze out fraught, oppressive tension in her character’s inner lives, that just magnetizes me to the screen. Frankie is a character who would likely be fumbled in the wrong hands, but between Harris Dickinson’s razor-sharp, authentic performance, and Hittman’s genius, vulnerable direction, imbued with sensual life and sadness, Frankie becomes a figure for the tragedy of young manhood. A tragedy of performed masculinity. Just beautiful. 8/10.

Jour de Fetê - dir. Jacques Tati

Comedy

My system for choosing directors to binge is that I add any director who I’ve given at least 3 stars to before to a big list of directors, and then I randomize that list to determine which director I binge. Usually I’ll scrap them from the list if they’re not an auteur of some kind because I don’t really see the need to complete someone’s filmography if they don’t have a discernible style and approach. Jacques Tati ended up on my list because although I found PlayTime to be very boring (got about halfway through), I still thought it was an impressive enough vision in cinema to give at least 3 stars. So by chance, I landed on Tati as my next director after Park Chan-wook. And I gave this debut film about 10 minutes before I realized–hold on, I actually have zero interest in watching this. I don’t feel right giving it a score considering I barely watched it, but I did give it a shot and thought it’d be a good excuse to rant about my autistic spiel a bit. I might give it another twenty minutes or so, we’ll see.

Dream Lover - dir. Nicholas Kazan

Not for a long time have I finished a movie and gone–wow, that’s a 10/10. But Dream Lover clears the bar, easily. It’s just genius. I don’t like throwing that word around casually, but it’s genius. Transfixingly, anxiety-inducingly, genius. I had a pit in my stomach for just about all of the second half. You’re watching a guy realize that his shallowness, his ignorance to learn about a woman beyond her sex appeal, his male vulnerability, have all come back to basically bash him upside the head. Repeatedly.

That’s not to say Ray is at fault for being the victim of a psychopath. I don’t like the mentality of victim-shaming men, not at all, but there is an underlying idea in this movie that our society’s ideas of manhood and womanhood cause such manipulation to take place. Ray is effectively seduced not just by any woman, but by the very woman he fantasizes about, who thus becomes a stand-in for every guy’s dream girl. Us guys can talk shit about Ray Reardon all we want, but if we were approached by our dream lover would we behave any differently? Would we able to resist the desire of a fantasy come to life? Even if we KNEW it would lead to our own demise? That’s the funny thing. Even if I knew I’d get fucked over, I don’t know if I could honestly tell you I’d act any differently. If a woman had studied my every desire and trained herself to meet it with the hope of seducing me, how could I POSSIBLY resist? Her plan was PERFECT.

And the way it all unravels? Oh man. Oh MAN. The way Mädchen Amick’s eyes go from seductive to poisonous is downright terrifying. She has full control over Ray and she KNOWS it. She SAVORS it. She twists the knife and tortures him with the truth like a cat with its prey. She’s his dream girl. And by that token, she’s got all the power. It makes every verbal blow from her cut deep, puncture the gut like a knife.

Cynical is the movie about the idea of soulmates. This, to me, is the fundamental theme of Dream Lover. Our soulmates are the people who have the power to drive us crazy. By the midpoint, Lena’s managed to drive Ray to the point that he’s doubting his own identity. To her, a psychopath, an identity is as discardable as a piece of paper, and she thinks nothing of creating a life around a lie. It’s all part of the plan, the perfectly executed plan to play the part of Ray’s soulmate.

But soulmates? Fantasies? Dream girls? Dream lovers? It’s all bullshit. 10/10.