Movies I Watched September 2024

Kikujiro - dir. Takeshi Kitano

Coming-of-Age/Road

Yeah there was basically zero chance I was going to give this anything less than four stars. Too fucking precious. A crucial piece of Kitano’s filmography. A film I can see myself revisiting again and again. Pretty much a guaranteed crowd-pleaser.

The only vignette I didn’t like was Octopus Man.

The score??? Joe Hisaishi is absolutely the best film composer ever. Whenever he’s in charge of music for a film you know you’re in good hands.

I love Kitano so much. I love the way his films look, I love the way they feel, and I love the way he plays his characters.

Did I mention this is also a really funny movie?

I could easily recommend it to everyone in my life. You’d have to be Adolf Hitler Jr to not like this. 8/10.

The Strangers - dir. Bryan Bertino

Home Invasion

True crime cinema is the most evil thing in the world. 3/10.

Stray Dogs - dir. Tsai Ming-liang

Slow

We’ve created our own hell, brick by brick, slab by slab, wall by wall. Our collective human effort, manifest in the city, cold and ironically inhuman, utterly hostile to us, so much so that we abandoned parts of it, let it go to the dogs. They feast on our scraps.

It’s inhospitable to love. It swallows up innocence. Affection means just another mouth to feed.

In a moment of what I can only describe as the saddest demonstration of impoverished desperation, the father pulls off his children’s blanket to reveal their creation; a cabbage with a face. In his drunken stupor he destroys the cabbage, and in my mind this was a clear signal for his subconscious desire to kill his own children and the burden they represented.

So much time in this film is spent waiting that the tension becomes unbearable. We stay static with these characters far longer than we are comfortable with. Tsai Ming-liang is notorious for this, his characters are often presented inflexibly, the camera lingering, held still in a certain spot. Their environment is more powerful than them. We are left to read into things far more than we would if the camera followed them laboriously.

Simply put, Tsai is a genius filmmaker. 8/10.

Jacob’s Ladder - dir. Adrian Lyne

Psychological Horror

My dad hyped this movie up to me a lot. It’s good, I’m just not blown away. Perhaps I watched this in the wrong mood. I am usually a big fan of psychological horror.

I liked the conspiracy theory aspect quite a bit. I know it’s bad to like conspiracy theories but I find them very fun to indulge in every once in a while, especially when they are at the expense of the US government.

Tim Robbins is terrific. I miss when male movie stars just looked like normal dudes lmao. 7/10.

Turkish Delight - dir. Paul Verhoeven

Erotic Drama

Paul Verhoeven’s “quirkiest” film. 4/10.

I Don’t Want to Sleep Alone - dir. Tsai Ming-liang

Slow/Romance

There’s a certain angle Tsai Ming-liang films are shot from. It’s not symmetrical, it doesn’t split the room in half as a square, it’s not neat and box-shaped–it is geometric, no doubt about that, the way his characters exist within a wide framing lends itself to rigidity… but it’s not on a “grid”, so to speak, if that makes sense. It’s in the corner and it gives the impression of the room, the setting, being split into two parts. Two paths, almost. Like a V, though less cramped. I’ve noticed it before, and it’s not ALWAYS the way he chooses to frame his subjects, but it’s very consistent and by my money unique to Tsai as a filmmaker.

Why does he do this?

There are a couple of reasons I can think of. First is that Tsai’s films tend to show environment, and to maximize the audience’s view of the environment, he places the camera at a diagonal, to let us see more of the room. This allows him to keep the camera still, as he is wont to do, and leave the surveillance going in the corner for the actors to exist in.

The second reason I can think of is that squares create a comfortable “box” through which we view the scene, and comfort creates laziness. Much as his films may be long stretches of tranquil molasses pacing I believe Tsai is adamant about forcing the audience to engage with the subject. By placing the camera in the corner, splitting the room into a V, Tsai places the viewer within the setting, and this is especially uncomfortable when many of these environments exist in such a weary state.

I say all this now, for this film, because I’ve spent a lot of time digesting Tsai Ming-liang’s work over the last few weeks, and it’s taken me this long to figure out the right words to use to “analyze” his form. Nothing I have said up to now is specific to this film, just thoughts on the filmmaker at large.

Tsai’s films are all extremely similar in tone and theme, but each of his films takes a markedly different approach to the idea of humans finding connection within urban decay. All of them are plotless, with the focus primarily being placed on repetitive, habitual human behaviors and interactions, such as a man eating lunch during his work break or a woman cleaning a paralyzed man, day in and day out, but IDWtSA is special in that it gets pretty close to letting its characters have what they crave–connection–only to take it away, like grapes outside of Tantalus’ reach. I also find that it’s much louder than Tsai’s other films. Several scenes feature people talking over each other. Ambient conversation can be heard often, though of course our main characters never seem to be part of it, their isolation enforced even further by the mysterious fumes that seem to envelop Kuala Lumpur more and more with every passing moment. 8/10.

Lost Soulz - dir. Katherine Propper

Road/Music

On paper this should be an easy smash hit for me. I am this film’s target demographic. I love hip hop and I used to want to be a rapper, like basically every other Jewish kid.

It’s not bad, it just doesn’t come together.

Comparing this to Malick is ridiculous. Comparing it to Linklater makes sense, but Linklater’s characters are far more defined, generally.

I liked the scenes where they were rapping. Wish the film was as visually evocative as its poster suggests but for the most part this is shot like your standard mumblecore film with a couple of flourishes here and there.

Definitely a movie I’m glad exists but not something I loved. 6/10.

Blonde Death - dir. James Robert Baker

Black Comedy

Camp banger akin to John Waters. Very quotable dialogue, impressive for something with such a small scale.

The shot-on-video aesthetic is cool, especially since this seems like an early film using that DIY punk technique.

A good film to watch if you like Harmony Korine, John Waters, or Gregg Araki. 6/10.

The 4th Man - dir. Paul Verhoeven

Erotic Thriller

TV movie vibes. Just not fucking with this one at all. 4/10.

Pickpocket - dir. Robert Bresson

Crime

The film has aura for sure. I can see why people would want to make this their entire personality. I would like to be one of those people but I was unenthused.

Feels like a character study without much character.

That said, I still can’t deny the appeal of Bresson’s style, even if it is largely lost on me. There’s a cool professionalism radiating off the screen. 5/10.

Other People - dir. Chris Kelly

Comedy/Drama

At the point in my life where I refuse to watch movies like this lmao.

Basic coverage shots and mediocre writing.

Half an hour in and I laughed once. 2/10.

Total Recall - dir. Paul Verhoeven

Sci-Fi/Action

Part of me thinks the entire thing is a false memory, because there’s simply no way your average joe schmoe would be played by Arnold Schwarzenegger, but I prefer the read that it’s all real and that the movie supports the idea of transmutational identity, that your old self can be conquered, that you’re not tethered to the mistakes of the past. Hauser may have been an agent of the state but Quaid doesn’t have to be, even though they are ostensibly the “same” person.

If you take this view it is an optimistic read of the film, and likely the “wrong” one considering Verhoeven’s cruel sense of humor. Far more likely that he intended this to be a film satirizing American escapism, i.e. the desire to feel like a superhero without leaving the comforts of the cinema or the video game. Everybody wants to be Arnold but nobody wants to go to the gym and make that happen. Everybody wants to save the world, but nobody wants to do the boring tedious shit necessary to make that happen.

Thing is, much as I enjoy Verhoeven’s cynicism, I can’t help but feel that this is one of his more humanistic outings. I love Arnold’s earnestly stupid performance, I love that the ending is basically a full scale revolution as opposed to merely executing the big bad, I love that Quaid decides to embrace his current identity instead of trying to squeeze into the mold of the old one. It’s all very radical, and I think this film is open enough to that possibility. 8/10.

Cat People - dir. Paul Schrader

Erotic Horror

Too boring. 4/10.

Basic Instinct - dir. Paul Verhoeven

Erotic Thriller

NSFW review for NSFW film. Be warned lmao

Fucking is a delirious, mutually destructive drug that takes us to the precipice of death and holds us there, and we have to hope that the person we are fucking keeps us alive after the climax. A man is never more vulnerable than when your teeth are inches away from his nuts, and a woman is never more vulnerable than when you are literally inside of her.

Paul Verhoeven made me understand the dizzying eroticism of the dance in Showgirls, and in Basic Instinct he’s finally made me understand the spiritual appeal of the orgasm. Being inside of someone else is a bit of an ego death, isn’t it? And obviously she’s not holding an ice pick, but using the threat of murder to make the climax both sexy and scary is genius.

Basic Instinct is about releasing yourself from your own ego, to allow the man inside, to allow the woman control. Notice how Catherine’s ready to kill him when he offhandedly throws out a patriarchal suggestion (kids, suburbia, etc). But she changes her mind when he acquiesces to her desires. This is ultimately a film about a man ceding power to a woman and a woman opening her heart to a man again. Nick has to abandon his job as a police officer and abandon all his old ties and Catherine has to allow herself to love again in order for them to be happy. A perverted, sleazy Verhoeven love story. 8/10.

25th Hour - dir. Spike Lee

Crime

The implosion of the Great American Outlaw.

I thought this was very good until the last 10 minutes. Then it went from very good to great.

A film as much about second chances as it is about New York. A film about fate, about how we can’t see the machinations behind our lives and decisions until we’re facing the end. Monty Brogan is America. He faces down seven years in the can while America faces down an economic crisis. The end of an empire. 9/11 was a pallbearer for Judgment Day.

Found out that this movie came out 12 days before I was born in New York. Something about that feels cosmically significant in some way. In fact, my parents were inspired to have a kid because they witnessed 9/11. They watched the twin towers go up in flames and they reckoned with the fragility of life. As a result, I came to exist.

And to think that that reality was close to never coming to pass?

What I’m saying is… if you hate my reviews, blame Osama bin Laden. 8/10.

Chime - dir. Kiyoshi Kurosawa

Psychological Horror

Kiyoshi Kurosawa mixtape. A demo project that serves as a 40 minute introduction to the kind of shit his other movies expand upon more elaborately.

Could’ve easily watched another 40 minutes of this but perhaps that’s the treat, this just makes me want to go back and give Pulse another shot. Or watch another KK movie. Idk.

What is this really about? I am not sure but the last couple of minutes are genuinely so unnerving. Nobody makes corners of rooms look as terrifying as Kiyoshi Kurosawa. 7/10.

Phenomena - dir. Dario Argento

Insanely boring.

The more Argento I watch, the more convinced I am that Suspiria was a flash in the pan. 4/10.

Alone With Her - dir. Eric Nicholas

Home Invasion/Found-Footage

Found-footage horror only works if it feels believable. Stalking is real obviously but nobody here talks or acts like a real person. Usually I am not a stickler for “naturalistic” performances but this is found footage. It’s gotta feel natural. 3/10.

Tetro - dir. Francis Ford Coppola

Drama

God decried by His sons, God defiling His own creation, simply because he can, warping light and shadow to His will. Don’t look into the light, don’t look into the light, obfuscate the borders until they fragment into hexagonal photons. The only way to free thyself from God is to take the light and use it to set Him aflame. Look into the luminescence of the oncoming traffic and trust that love will prevail–REAL love, REAL human love, not the vainglorious navel-gazing love of a tyrant.

This film firmly cements Vincent Gallo as one of the greatest artists in the history of the craft. An inspiration to me in so many ways as an actor and filmmaker, though I will not neglect to heap praise on Francis Ford Coppola for this late period master work. The sheer artistic scope of Tetro is breathtaking. 9/10.

Cloverfield - dir. Matt Reeves

Found-Footage/Kaiju

I don’t understand why so many horror movies insist on having the most excruciatingly annoying characters on the planet. Every time any one of these people opened their mouths it was like nails on a chalkboard.

Some decent moments, but far too sauceless. 4/10.

White Bird in a Blizzard - dir. Gregg Araki

Coming-of-Age/Mystery

I’m convinced that if this movie had a better poster it would be held in equal acclaim to Gregg Araki’s other films. It’s pretty similar to Mysterious Skin in that it uses a campy aesthetic to explore a universal teenage struggle, though I suppose “universal” might not be the best adjective here. This is 100% a story for women. That’s not to say men wouldn’t appreciate it, but Mysterious Skin isn’t about gender the same way White Bird is, making it far more accessible.

In a lot of ways parents expect their kids to bear the weight of their mistakes, and often as a burgeoning adult you don’t even get any good answers for why things transpired the way they did growing up. You don’t get to have that final confrontation that slides all the pieces into place.

Weirdly, this film is an apt companion to the last film I saw, Tetro, because Tetro deals with boys being usurped by their fathers, and White Bird deals with girls falling out of favor with their mothers. Sons see the unattainable greatness of their fathers and mothers see themselves replaced by their daughters. Interesting to note that Eve only shows love for her daughter until she hits puberty and loses her baby fat. Once she becomes beautiful like her mom she stops being her baby and becomes her competition. 7/10.

The Watchers - dir. Ishana Night Shyamalan

Folk Horror

I like when horror movies are scary, as a rule.

Really wanted to be that guy like “GUYS THIS IS ACTUALLY A BANGER” but it’s not sadly.

Elle - dir. Paul Verhoeven

Black Comedy/Drama

The most grounded work I’ve seen from Paul Verhoeven. Basically a character study with zero cinematic flair. Isabelle Huppert is obviously an incredible actress but saying that feels redundant.

I “get” this movie, I think. I do. I just found it pretty tedious. 6/10.

The Man Who Stole the Sun - dir. Kazuhiko Hasegawa

Longest movie ever made probably

4/10.

Unstoppable - dir. Tony Scott

Thriller/Disaster

The way the train roars and groans like a mythological beast, an unconquerable dragon, a portent of the end times. Tony Scott’s heroes aren’t knights on horseback, they’re working class joes put into extenuating circumstances. They know better than their corporate overlord suits, and only their teamwork is enough to slay the dragon. I legitimately got teary-eyed during the climax because it filled me with so much joy to see so many people invested in Will and Frank’s heroism. Tony Scott’s cinema is for the people. His view of humanity is so unbelievably optimistic that it strikes many as corny, but it makes me so so so so so happy. 7/10.

Miami Vice - dir. Michael Mann

Crime

Terrence Malick makes a crime film LMAOOOOO. If you thought I wouldn’t like this you don’t know me. Shoutout @sniper for calling it though.

Michael Mann rapidly becoming a top 10 director for me. This is so much my thing it’s unbelievable.

Had the biggest grin on my face for over two hours straight.

This is the definition of aura.

I will probably write a more flowery poetic “real” review at some point, but at the moment I just want to gush about this film.

Florida consistently proving to be the best setting ever. Spring Breakers, Beach Bum, Aggro Dr1ft, Miami Vice, Scarface, the Florida Project, Pain and Gain… you put your movie in Florida and that shit is going to be incredible.

Shoutout Carl Hiaasen fr.

People saying this movie has an incomprehensible plot just don’t know how to watch impressionistic films IMO. Granted, if impressionism isn’t for you, that’s just life, but it absolutely is for me. Harmony Korine, Terrence Malick, Michael Mann… yeah I’ll probably watch anything these guys make.

This movie is basically the coolest vibe ever. It made me so happy. so so so so so happy.

What I like is that the film feels no need to explain itself or to provide any exposition. It drops you into its world and you’re expected to just figure it out for yourself. It’s not “incomprehensible” it’s just confident. Blazing, balls-to-the-wall confident. This world existed before you showed up to watch it, and it will continue to exist after the credits roll, and you’re lucky to have gotten to see it at all.

Sometimes shit isn’t meant to last but its impressions will always be felt.

Sometimes you fall in love with a bad bitch but it doesn’t work out.

Sometimes you just have to appreciate racing a speedboat with your best bro in Miami while you can.

Phantom of the Paradise - dir. Brian De Palma

Music/Horror/Comedy

Kind of an excruciating movie to watch, but it features some truly exceptional moments. The extremity occasionally works in its favor, even if most of the time it left me irritated. 5/10.

Carrie - dir. Brian De Palma

Supernatural Horror

The imposition of womanhood on women, blood from menstruation and blisters from high heels. Really just a fantastic horror movie for how many different reads you could have on it. I view it as a treatise of patriarchal internalization, how women (people, really) absorb ideas that hurt them and perpetuate that hurt onto other women. The climax is cathartic because of how much rage is being repressed the entire time. 7/10.

Blow-Up - dir. Michelangelo Antonioni

Slow/Thriller

The language of the thriller stripped down to images and reflections, clues without contexts, and setups with no payoffs. The seductive allure of the mystery wholly disemboweled by the lens of the voyeur. I didn’t get it until I realized that Blow-Up was doing exactly what I was trying to accomplish in my script (work-in-progress), albeit far more abstractly. I am envious of Antonioni’s command of the senses, how he pantomimes the suggestion of a plot while withholding the “truth,” which he recognizes as subjective, up for grabs in the dynamic of the voyeur and the subject.

Thomas’ arc, if it can be described as one, is from dominant voyeur to small subject, he goes from controlling his models to being a sidepiece in a mimed game of tennis, a small dot in a large field, a field that has yet to be imbued with substance for lack of a voyeur to perceive it.

The need for things to be given their context for their worth to become known is best seen in the scene where a halfhearted audience watches a band perform, engaged with their eyes but disengaged physically from the music, until one of the band members breaks his guitar and throws a chunk of it out into the crowd. They go buck fucking wild and chase Thomas down, who managed to catch it. For no apparent reason, Thomas holds onto the neck of the guitar for himself, running away from the fans. It has no inherent value and yet he holds onto it, thus it has been imbued with context. Once he’s safe, he disposes of it–a stranger observes him and hungrily picks it up for himself, only to dispose of it as well. The voyeur gives context to the subject. 9/10.

Turtles Can Fly - dir. Bahman Ghobadi

Coming-of-Age/War

Kids waiting for stuff to happen while trying to avoid bombs planted in their soil. Lots of them are missing limbs, some of them can barely see, but they wait and do kid stuff while they wait. Wait for what, exactly? Wait for the United States to invade? Wait for something to happen? Wait for change? While they wait, they clear the mines under the leadership of Satellite, whose uncanny resemblance to my own thirteen year-old self freaked me out a bit. He is a necessary leader for these lost refugee children, not perfect but intelligent and organized, capable of pushing the aimless kids towards a purpose. Satellite persistently searches for a red fish in a dead pond and the best he gets is goldfish painted red; Satellite waits the entire film for American intervention and is left disillusioned when they show up.

The war in Iraq from the perspective of its most innocent victims. 8/10.

Carlito’s Way - dir. Brian De Palma

Crime

Well worth the price of admission. Seen some people calling this a spiritual successor to Scarface. Kind of agree. It’s like the flipside of the American dream, dispossessed and desperate. All Carlito has left are his dreams. The past is harsh, it doesn’t let you go. What you learn as a kid stays with you your whole life. Everybody’s looking out for their own bottom line. Sad–very sad–but beautiful. 8/10.

Inferno - dir. Dario Argento

Giallo

I wish I enjoyed these kinds of horror movies more. Inferno has a lot to offer in terms of set design and VFX but it all seems like noise to me, a distraction from the fact that it has very little to offer in terms of atmosphere, tension, etc. The gruesome setpieces are impressive but do they actually scare me? Not really. I’ve seen better gore.

The talent gap between this and Suspiria is enormous; Dario Argento has, in my books, never even come close to living up to the magic of Suspiria, and this disappoints me. 4/10.

Eaten Alive - dir. Tobe Hooper

Slasher

1000% not my thing, I accepted a long time ago that Tobe Hooper films were beyond my cinematic purview.

AND YET!

And yet I fucked with this a lot more than I expected. Once I accepted that this was loud and obnoxious, it became a part of its nightmarish charm. The atmosphere is absolutely nauseating, pure hell. Murderous rednecks with gators in their backyards, constant noise, screaming, trying to crawl underneath the house crying out for mom, etc.

Still way too long. Still too grating for me to fall in love with.

But not bad. 6/10.

Old Joy - dir. Kelly Reichardt

Road

Rewatched this because I suspected it would resonate with the current me more than it resonated with the me who saw it just over a year ago.

I’ve been through a lot.

I miss my best friend. I hope we haven’t changed too much.

Adulthood feels like a lot of loss sometimes. Tiny parts of yourself die to preserve the rest. You gotta cut off a leg to save the arms.

The tears started flowing about fifteen minutes in, and they pretty much persisted throughout the entire final act. Quite possibly my new favorite movie of all time. It’s certainly going in the top 10.

I could probably write an essay about it, but right now I don’t want to. Just know that I have a lot to say about this movie. Maybe that essay will happen when I rewatch it in ten years on the eve of fatherhood. Maybe it’ll happen when my kid grows up and leaves my house and our relationship becomes one of happenstance. We’ll see. 10/10.

The Sacrifice - dir. Andrei Tarkovsky

Drama

Apparitions burning down the establishment, the flame is the great equalizer, deliverance in a world marred by inaction and spiritual restlessness. What do we do when we face the end if not let everything go? Andrei Tarkovsky’s final act of defiance as he crosses over to the other side, wishing his disciples the best of luck and for them to discover themselves independently of the old guard.

Also one of the most beautiful movies of all time. But it’s Tarkovsky, so, like, no shit. 8/10.

The Fury - dir. Brian De Palma

Spy/Supernatural

Insanely boring. 3/10.

Tumbbad - dir. Rahi Anil Barve

Folk Horror

A pretty unique take on the “generational trauma” horror trope, all things considered. I like the womb of the Earth, I like some of the lore, but something about this fell flat to me, and I don’t know what it is. Nothing really feels as important as it should be. 5/10.

Shoplifters - dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda

Drama

The ethics of crime are contextual. The radical empathy I witnessed in Kore-eda’s Monster (which wound up being my favorite film of the year at the time) extends now to Tokyo’s destitute, a found family of eclectic outcasts–a sex worker, a couple bonded by murder, an old woman living off her pension, and of course the two kids the couple adopts. Or “kidnaps”, if you’re a bureaucratic asshole.

This didn’t hit me as hard as Monster did, but it’s still great. The last few minutes are heartbreaking, well-worth a watch. Truly empathetic filmmaking will always get my respect. 7/10.

The Birds - dir. Alfred Hitchcock

Horror

Hitchcock possibly the most overrated of all time. Sauceless cinema. 3/10.

Do the Right Thing - dir. Spike Lee

Comedy/Drama

Sal’s not the villain, sorry gang.

Neither is Buggin Out.

The cops are the villains, the apparatus of the state is the villain, and capitalism is the villain for pitting people against each other. Cliche but factual, if you came out of this thinking that the Black rioters were in the wrong, you watched it wrong, and if you came out of it thinking that Sal had it coming, I just frankly disagree. He’s racist, obviously, but so is everyone else in this whole movie. There’s an entire segment where Spike Lee has different characters rant about how much they fucking hate Italians, Jews, Black people, Koreans, etc. This isn’t a movie about how every pizzeria needs to be burnt down, this is a movie about misplaced rage, how our political interests can be misdirected by malevolent influences, how projecting our oppressors onto our neighbors causes nothing to change.

Smiley puts up Malcolm X and MLK on the wall, but behind him the restaurant is burning to the ground… what was seriously accomplished?

Catharsis isn’t the same as change. 8/10.

Body Double - dir. Brian De Palma

Neo-Noir/Erotic Thriller

Maybe De Palma isn’t really for me.

That’s cool. I can still enjoy this as a semi-erotic thriller. There are a couple of transcendent moments, and I fuck with the score.

Pretty much all I got out of this. 6/10.

Frailty - dir. Bill Paxton

Horror

Neat little movie. Can’t really disparage it too much. It doesn’t fuck anything up too significantly, but it doesn’t have any cinematic flair in the slightest. This lack of flair would typically sour me on a film, but Bill Paxton is phenomenal in this role. He really sells you on the dad. Makes you love the guy in a way that makes you despise him too. 5/10.

Throw Down - dir. Johnnie To

Martial Arts

Romantic odes to dreams spliced into sharp contrasts, light against dark and love against despair. I knew Johnnie To would knock it out of the park, I just didn’t realize he’d win my heart along the way, and now that I’ve watched one of his films I want to watch them all.

Judo, the physical language of grappling, proves to be the perfect martial art to allow brotherhood to build, to allow the natural sensuality of it to bleed into To’s direction, where characters are at a constant physical stumble, losing bills, losing shoes, losing their sight, breaking things, throwing tables, carrying each other and wrestling with their bodies and their futures. 9/10.

Don’t Look Now - dir. Nicolas Roeg

Psychological Horror

Some very beautiful images… totally fails as a horror movie, though. Not even remotely close to spooky. First few minutes are where this film peaks. The editing, the colors, the compositions, it’s perfect. Rest of the movie is pretty boring. Giallo without the camp. 5/10.

One from the Heart - dir. Francis Ford Coppola

Romance/Musical

Somewhere along the way, the dreams of America became cardboard cutouts, billboards in deserts for the vehicles of the frontier, arrows pointed towards neon motel signs, casinos, and clubs. When you pass them, you better not look back or all you’ll see are the outriggers holding it up… so keep your eyes on the road, look ahead, let the wind blow your hair back as you coast down the I-15 to Vegas. The dreams are dreams.

Coppola spends a billion trillion bajillion dollars to make this masterpiece, and its extravagance speaks for itself. Every frame oozes with expression. At any given moment the landscape is liable to switch, the skies may bleed hazy purple one moment only to melt into a summer orange the next.

In a way the film feels post-apocalyptic–Leila rolls around on an old 76 gas station sign, abandoned out in the desert while the city lights flash in the horizon. Every single frame, man. Every single frame is packed with these kinds of details.

The artifice is the expression. The love is desperate, haggard, seductive but never REAL. Hank was never willing to change, Frannie was never willing to leave. A match made in Heaven, America. 10/10.

Mission: Impossible - dir. Brian De Palma

Spy/Action

Wish De Palma had made more Mission Impossible movies. He knew exactly what made the franchise tick from the jump, and his ability to craft suspense is airtight. This is probably the only action franchise that consistently gets me to hold my breath and gasp. I feel like a little kid when I watch the M:I movies and that’s a good thing. 8/10.

The Bridges of Madison County - dir. Clint Eastwood

For four days, Robert Kincaid enters the life of Francesca Johnson. In those four days, both of their lives are irrevocably changed.

Clint Eastwood works in fundamentals here. I say fundamental to describe how simple the story is, how it seems so obviously phenomenal at every point. No symbols, only images. No plot, only points of contact, emotional movements that drive the two characters towards romantic salvation.

This movie is pure magic.

Romance is probably my favorite genre because a good romance movie changes your entire fucking life. And this is a perfect love story. A perfect script. Gentle, sincere, unyieldingly human. Straight up called my mom after I was finished watching it to tell her I loved her. Clint Eastwood is her favorite director too.

“The old dreams were the good dreams… they didn’t work out, but I’m glad I had them.”

I genuinely feel as if this film made me a better person. It gave me decades of perspective in two hours and fifteen minutes. A lifetime condensed into four days. 9/10.

Wendy and Lucy - dir. Kelly Reichardt

Drama

The world wasn’t designed for Wendy to survive in. At every turn it puts her through the wringer, stacking obstacles that wear her down and force her into spaces that only ever should be worn transitorily. She’s passing through but her existence is defined by it so much so that she effectively lives IN the areas of passing; gas station bathrooms, parking lots, train tracks. Tragically, Wendy’s only option in the end is to renege on her only truly loyal companion, to abandon Lucy for both of their survival.

Reichardt is a modern cinematic master through and through. 8/10.

The House That Jack Built - dir. Lars von Trier

Psychological Horror

Possibly the most self-loathing film ever made. I can’t think of another movie with this level of auteurship that is so singularly focused on self-castigation. It is an insane thing to say that I felt seen by this film, but I’ll risk sounding like a psychopath to say that in terms of OCD representation, Jack feels eerily accurate. Most OCD-havers are not serial killers, mind you, but our meticulousness and self-hatred is really unparalleled, I would say, by the average person. In my experience, pretty much everyone with OCD basically thinks they themselves are a serial killer anyway. The strive for perfection, the aching pain of falling short of it, the debasement of the self… I am not shocked Lars von Trier has OCD himself, the level of authenticity and vulnerability on display in this film is absolutely unreal to me. 8/10.

Winter Brothers - dir. Hlynur Pálmason

Drama

Very boring. 2/10.

The Vanishing - dir. George Sluizer

Psychological Thriller

Horror for people who hate the horror genre. Horror for people who think the horror genre is “dumb”.

Yes, yes, very smart movie. So smart. So intellectually profound. Anywhere you look there may just be a sociopath eyeing you up as prey for one of their disturbing psychological tests.

I give this film credit for a few moments of genuine terror, but for the most part it’s unfathomably dull, allergic to suspense, and barely beyond the realm of true crime slop.

European cinema at its most pseudo-profound. 5/10.

Bully - dir. Larry Clark

Teen/Crime

Not bad, though I think Larry Clark is just a lesser version of Harmony Korine at this point. Without Korine on screenplay duty I feel like I’m watching a PSA. A well-directed PSA, but still a PSA. What Korine adds to Clark’s directorial instincts is a touch of real, honest-to-god humanity. Color, life, dimension, eclecticism. “Kids” had this impressionistic, cheeky quality to it that endeared me to its world, even if the subject matter was grim.

Reading Crime and Punishment right now, this reminded me of that lol.

Also not sure why Bobby was a closeted gay guy. Doesn’t feel like a worthwhile inclusion. 6/10.

Snake Eyes - dir. Brian De Palma

Loved Nic Cage in this role. Dude pulled off the sleazy charming cop vibe exceptionally well.

Otherwise, pretty standard De Palma fare. Solid, nothing crazy. 6/10.

Bad - dir. Jed Johnson

Black Comedy/Horror

Very bold to make a horror comedy that is neither scary nor funny. 2/10.

Sing a Song of Sex - dir. Nagisa Ōshima

Interesting ideas about displaced youth and sexual violence, very boring execution to me. Love slow cinema, this didn’t hit. 4/10.

Mission to Mars - dir. Brian De Palma

Realizing that these kinds of movies are always gonna be good to me. Love melodramatic sci-fi involving aliens. Event Horizon, Mission to Mars, 2001, if anybody has any recommendations of this ilk, hit me the fuck up in the comments.

The first half is kinda meh, it’s pretty standard sci-fi rigamarole, but the final act is incredible payoff. It’s obvious Brian De Palma is doing journeyman work here because no way in hell would his auteurism otherwise allow for such an optimistic story. Can’t believe this is based on a Disney ride. 7/10.

Bulbbul - dir. Anvita Dutt

Period Horror

Solid feminist folk horror. A pretty breezy watch but nothing too spectacular. It’s honestly not scary at all, so don’t go into this if you want a “horror” film. It’s putting forth some pretty original imagery, though that could just be its Indian background doing the legwork. 5/10.

Femme Fatale - dir. Brian De Palma

Feels very much like how you would expect a late style De Palma film to feel, in the sense that is converges on itself near constantly. The whole thing is like falling into a spiderweb being stretched out further and further down. Not very clean, but interesting for sure. If I was a big fan of De Palma’s I would no doubt love this, as it feels like a thematic capstone to his whole filmography. I’m not surprised his work after has been spotty because he said everything he needed to in here.

Lots of voyeurism, lots of sex, lots of horniness clashing with rationality. 5/10.

Let Them All Talk - dir. Steven Soderbergh

I like it when movies are movies and not podcasts. 3/10.

Candyman - dir. Bernard Rose

THEY MADE A WHOLE HORROR MOVIE ABOUT INTERRACIAL CUCKOLDRY???

Insane.

Once you realize what it’s trying to say it’s impossible not to like it. Scrolling through other people’s reviews, I’m kind of shocked that this read isn’t more common? Obviously this film can also be interpreted as anti-gentrification, or the way white academics neutralize the potency of Black stories by absorbing it into their jargon. But I think it’s very clearly about the white anxiety of getting cucked by a Black dude with a “hook”. If you know what I’m saying.

Also lowkey about reparations?

Just a banger horror movie all around really. Works as a fun popcorn flick but has awesome subtext. 8/10.

Mikey and Nicky - dir. Elaine May

Crazy how the best movies about masculinity are directed by women.

This movie is a pretty good explanation for why I have almost zero straight guy friends. The kind of attitude that our society fosters makes men pretty much insufferable to everyone around them and it’s genuinely one of the saddest things ever.

Mikey broke my heart. Nicky did too, but Mikey reminded me a lot of myself and it hurt. So much family shit he’s kept buried and it’s so obvious that he’s a sensitive soul at heart. He’s not cut out for the business he’s in. 8/10.

Saturday Night - dir. Jason Reitman

Very cute, could’ve been a lot worse.

Jerks itself off a little bit but I can forgive that.

I find it bittersweet that 50 years later SNL is no longer this counterculture force and has instead become the establishment. Cycle of life n shit. 6/10.

Deadly Blessing - dir. Wes Craven

Shot like a TV movie. ugh. 2/10.

The Substance - dir. Coralie Fargeat

I just typed this big autobiographical story to preface how much I fucking loathe this film, but the more I typed the more I realized I was just beating around the bush. This is genuinely one of the most vile, putrid, irredeemable pieces of media I have ever seen. I have a hard time calling it art because to me this is anti-art. This is anti-human. This movie hates you, it hates women, it hates its audience, it hates cinema, it hates art itself. It is reverse-engineered and hermetically sealed in an anti-curiosity black hole from which no joy, love, or humanity can escape.

I cannot express how much I deplore this pseudo-intellectual, self-important, substanceless pap. This is tiktok cinema, a collection of shocking moments meant to be clipped for provocation, repetitive and self-defeating to the end of meaninglessness–no, beyond meaningless, actual cruelty. This movie fucking HATES you. It legitimately has no desire to empathize with even its central subject. The extent to which this film engages with its theme is through a satirical finger-wag, a meaningless, judgmental, condescending gesture to women that says “you deserve to suffer for trying to adhere to standards you didn’t create.” Demi Moore tries her best to inject soul into an artistic vacuum but even she cannot save this film from itself. There is no room for humanity here, no room for anything other than the paper-thin whims of the bludgeoning screenplay. There is nothing resonant or ephemeral to engage with–there are only instances of manufactured brutality to react to.

What I despise more than anything is that this is where we are, as an art form. A community full of film lovers has collectively assigned the most hateful, close-minded, regressive film I’ve ever seen a 4.0 rating.

Are we fucking serious? Please.

Are we so starved of theme in our films that we gush over the bare minimum presence of theme? I have to wonder if the people who gave this positive reviews have ever thought about feminism for longer than the runtime of this film because the level of attempted intellectualism on display in this film is so laughably pathetic that I have to imagine you’d only be impressed by this if you have never spoken to a woman in your entire life. Two and a half hours and all this film has to show for itself is a needlessly sadistic “depiction” of female beauty standards–and it can’t even do that right because it can’t even do the bare minimum of EMPATHIZING with its female character.

I was laughing at this movie at every turn. I couldn’t believe how comically manipulative it was. Truly a sociopath’s vision of cinema. Reminds me of Haneke, but at least in Haneke’s version of feminism (The Piano Teacher) there is humanity to be found, empathy to be gleaned for Erika Kohut.

Worst of all, this film looks like garbage. Ugly compositions, ugly editing. Formally this is one of the most hideous pieces of shit I’ve ever seen. It’s exactly how a robot would make a film for screen-addled teenagers who have had their empathy fried out of them by the nonstop deluge of slop content force-scanned into their retinas from the minute they could conceive of themselves.

I have hope for the art form. I have hope for the romantics, the ones who love radically and explore tragedy with all of their spiritual strength. But I will never, ever make excuses for art this manufactured, hollow, and evil. If this is what the future of the craft looks like, then we shouldn’t be surprised when AI takes over. You get anti-human enough and AI is only the natural outcome. Fuck that shit. Fuck satire, fuck irony, fuck anything other than complete artistic sincerity. 1/10.

Megalopolis - dir. Francis Ford Coppola

Very interesting as a Coppola fan but I feel it fails to fully embody the radical spirit it suggests by never following through on Cesar’s enmity with Cicero… maybe it’s intentional, maybe Coppola is purposefully vague about the radical’s relationship with the liberal status quo (Cesar is, after all, still a member of the aristocracy), but I hoped that Coppola would lay it all out on the table in the way he does for many of his films.

Does he, though?

Don’t get me wrong, I love Coppola, genuinely one of my all-time favorite directors, but his work has always been about meeting at the precipice between two extremes. Tetro teeters in the balance of embrace and abandonment, One from the Heart tiptoes on the string between artifice and romance, Apocalypse Now is a journey into Hell but through Hell enters Heaven… Megalopolis comes very close to a full acceptance of Utopia but still holds on to the feudalist state. Coppola’s filmmaking is fraught, haphazard, impossibly personal and earnest. He’s a rebel but a king at the same time, a man who has consistently fought for his vision but a man who is also a part of the industry machine. An iconoclast who was nonetheless born into a dynasty.

Perhaps it is not the purpose of the artist to change the world, but merely to inspire people with their vision. Cesar’s future comes at the expense of the people now, and is thus incompatible with the everyman. He is fundamentally disconnected from reality, but his art can be used as a barometer for paradise, a way for people living in reality to measure their progress and to see a future untethered to the present–and reach for it anyway. 6/10.

Dead Sushi - dir. Noboru Iguchi

I haven’t figured out what the line is between annoying and charming but I found this pretty lackluster. Action is poorly choreographed and the drab digital look of the film leaves a lot to be desired. 4/10.

Hundreds of Beavers - dir. Mike Cheslik

Genuinely excruciating, had to turn it off after 10 minutes.

Lots of my mutuals like this. Not trying to be a contrarian, swear to god.

Kinda feels like being in class with an extremely unfunny person who is convinced they are funny and will not shut the fuck up. 2/10.

Trap - dir. M. Night Shyamalan

Absurd to the point of parody, but Shyamalan is still able to root it in pathos, to plant the viewer firmly in the drama within the heightened reality of the “serial killer” myth.

Very fun movie, a breath of fresh air after watching a string of stinkers. Can’t sing enough praises for Josh Hartnett, the guy simply understands Shyamalan’s screenwriting in a way few other actors seem to.

Seen a few people criticizing the “equation” of OCD with serial murder but I don’t think it’s that relevant here, I think it’s clear that Shyamalan is employing a lot of stereotyping to elicit the aforementioned serial killer mythos (mommy issues, OCD, above average looking white guy with a dark side, etc). He’s treating the whole thing like hyperbole, which is exactly what true crime is; a relationship between atrocity and audience, where the audience gets off on the sickening taboo and the atrocity gets to perpetuate in our culture as a sick memetic virus.

Historically Shyamalan has always been a filmmaker deeply interested in what storytelling is, his films are all about myth in one way or another. The mental illness angle is just an aspect of the serial killer legend. 7/10.