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This reminded me of watching the Terminator Salvation arcade game loop when no one was playing it. Every scene felt like a trailer, just a combination of aura farming cinematography and hand signals. But also edited like slow cinema to make it even less engaging. It’s like all the actual scenes were cut out and we just got the filler. Literally like two real action scenes and this would be sooo much better. Im honestly surprised how good Hell or High Water is compared to this. I like Prisoners but everything else Ive seen from Villeneuve makes me think you can get away with basically nothing happening in your movie if you’re budget is high enough, your score good enough, and your tone ponderous enough.

That said I didn’t actually hate this. I’m okay that its not as pulpy and surface level entertaining as it so clearly could be in other hands. I really like how Sheridan captures his tough guy operator characters existing in this totally managerial Obama era imperialism. That makes (some) of the creative decisions justified in my opinion. This isnt set in the same military that Bay or his 70s and 80s predecessors captured. For better or worse a less brazen age will get you less exciting pulp. But this movie can be so goddamn serious and it never fully justfies the tone. The Counselor does everything in this movie a thousand times better, managing to be both pulpier and deathly serious, with cinematography that feels alive while staying stark and off-putting. Mccarthy and Scott are fundamentally much less embarrassed artists than Sheridan and Villeneuve.

Watched on Tuesday May 20, 2025.

Watched on Sunday May 18, 2025.

Watched on Friday May 16, 2025.

When this gets going its amazing.

Made me actually want to read a Gillian Flynn book. I always just thought of her as just an airport novel titan but this story is pretty brilliant. ittedly the dialogue was pretty painfully 2010s in some early parts especially with the sister but lets not pretend some idiots dont actually talk like that!

People calling this mysoginistic are showing their asses. This is drawing on an earlier 60s-70s feminism engaged in economic issues thats fallen to the way side. This movie shows that just as the post-recession world is masked in hollow wealth, a feminism which assumes 90s-2000s prosperity hides the desperation underlying many modern marriages, even upper middle class ones.

The maintenance of the image of a happy couple is a financial necessity for these characters. It is, as we are shown by Amys interaction with the girl she meets on the road, a status symbol as well.

Think about it: if Nick and Amy lived in a trailer, what would the scandal even be? Its assumed poor people’s relationships violent and messy.

The scene in the tie shop when the guy brings up the Abraham Lincoln Brigade is such a good touch. This world had already ended before Fife even stepped foot in it.

Watched about a month ago and forgot to log until now. Been working long hours at Waffle House so if I see a movie I dont exactly have tine to ruminate on it. This is my first Sean Baker movie. Im sure I should watch the others but I feel like Ive seen a lot of similar indie movies and cant care too much right now at least. This certainly proves he is a brilliant craftsman but not much else. I had a really good time with this. The way it shifts from indie character study to zany thrill ride and back worked really well impressionistically but Im getting that half potato chip half air feeling.

Anora as a concept and a performance work amazingly but her being the only character who ever makes a decision, theres the risk of her choices coming off inauthentic. Every other characters goals and trajectory are easily discernibled and its just a matter of simple physics to watch how they act. But with the central character Baker runs into a problem. A genuine piece of Hollywood entertainment requires a heros journey, the moment the regular folks choose to become real movie heroes. To get the audience invested we see Anora’s clever and brazen manuvering like John Mcclane before her. Baker has to get us half way there because sticking to pure realism and saying ‘hey this person is weak and scared’ would make for a pretty unpleasant and boring experience (not always a bad thing). But Baker I think has seen too many art movies and is a little embarassed the whole time. So he sets up his dominoes all too far apart to fall over right, not just in a ‘satisfying’ way but in a buyable way. So when Anora cowers and crys in the last act we have no prior evidence to explain this. An attempt to return the movie to the arthouse now comes off more manufactured than a Hollywood ending would. I wish it didnt though! I sincerely respect the attempt at subverting expectations but if Im buying chips I dont care what kind you give me I just expect the whole goddamn bag full. Baker can learn something from Boosie Louisiana Heat Rap Snacks I think.

Watched on Tuesday March 11, 2025.

Watched on Monday January 20, 2025.

Cassavetes could never

Watched on Monday November 25, 2024.

Watched on Friday November 1, 2024.

Watched on Friday November 1, 2024.

Watched on Friday November 1, 2024.

Watched on Saturday October 19, 2024.

Watched on Thursday October 17, 2024.

All the stuff about the mob and Scorsese’s other movies and deconstruction blah blah blah doesn’t get near the center of this movie. For me, any explanation of this movie has to involve one scene: Deniro in his nursing home watching the Kosovo war on TV. This movie is about none of it ever having a point. There is one moment in which Frank Sheehan is faced with a test of what matters to him, and he just shoots Jimmy Hoffa in the back of the head. The focus on Hoffa for much of the runtime is significant. Hoffa himself as the peak of industrial unionism in one man was the bridge point between an era of radical unionism he took over from and an era totally drained of any conception of unions as something other than ways to move money and power. But that trajectory isn’t just the history of the labor movement it’s the entire history of post war America. It’s the trajectory from D-Day to Kosovo. No one in Scorsese’s Deniro gangster movies is killed out of ion. The killings only get more mechanistic as they go on. From Casino to Irishman to Killers of the Flower Moon the basic business reasons for the killing become more and more simple and the main characters more and more empty. The movies length matters a lot, it is the lead up, everything you’ve watched was for nothing, you kill and then you die. And what’s left? A nursing home, one of the most common features in the American economy today. Being able to see Deniro’s old face over the CGI may not be intentional but the cutting to him in a nursing home throughout is. You’re never allowed to forget his incredibly old and sad face. One of the most radical American movies because of Scorsese’s refusal to let the past forget the present.

A lot better made than people give it credit for, overall really entertaining, and makes me think I don’t particularly care what a wine baron thinks about the news and the books he reads.

Watched on Wednesday October 2, 2024.

Watched on Tuesday October 1, 2024.

Watched on Sunday September 29, 2024.

One of the coolest movies ever made

Ratioed by The Last Laugh tbh. Pig scene is great tho.

Watched on Tuesday September 24, 2024.

Liked this a lot when I saw it before but found it pretty tiring this time around. I think a lot of it comes down to Spencer Tracey being a really uninteresting character pretty nakedly in the movie to provoke the moral crisis the movies about and do nothing else. Really well shot of course but got very little out of it this time besides that. For a movie resting so much on characters, they’re all pretty plain, outlines of interesting characters. Smith is very engaging at points but is far too weak and pathetic to feel like a threat by the end, same with his henchmen. The only woman in the movie has some great scenes but her death throws away anything potentially interesting about her. Essentially everyone besides Tracey is a weak fool and it’s just a matter of waiting 70 minutes for Tracey to show he’s tough. Also has the most John Kerry ‘the democrats are the real patriots’ politics which is the least interesting and possibly least honest viewpoint for an American Western.

Watched on Saturday September 21, 2024.

Watched on Friday September 20, 2024.

Watched on Thursday September 19, 2024.

Watched on Tuesday September 17, 2024.

Has some great moments but come on this takes way too long to get anywhere

Watched on Monday September 9, 2024.

Watched on Tuesday September 3, 2024.

Watched on Sunday September 1, 2024.

Watched on Tuesday August 27, 2024.

Watched on Sunday August 25, 2024.

What is there to even say about a movie made by people at such heights of their power? Some of the best performances ever put to screen. A movie which only comes from a lifetime of human observation and love.

Watched on Friday August 23, 2024.

Watched on Thursday August 22, 2024.

Watched on Wednesday August 21, 2024.

Watched on Sunday August 18, 2024.

Never so excited by mundane details as in a Todd Haynes movie. Burch's script and Haynes' direction compliment each other so well. I love how you completely get why every character is the way they are, even if theyre only in the movie for a few scenes like the kids. Portman does a great job playing just a kind of really annoying person. I think the whole thing where she slowly takes on the voice, mannerisms, and personality of Gracie is really hilarious cause you can see an actor freak start to pull their bullshit in real time. Moore in maybe her most reserved role to date toes the line between oblivious and evil so well. Charles Melton though, absolutely steals the show though. Everything you see him do and everything you learn about his character just paints the picture so perfectly. My favorite detail maybe in the whole movie is how he dresses like its the 90s in every scene. I hope he doesn't become Rom Com fodder cause he deserves a lot more.

I understand the complaints that the movie isn't prepared to deal with all the issues it presents but neither are any of the characters! Haynes is certainly a very loving director, he rarely makes you truly hate a character, but he's also a very cruel director. He's great at presenting how pathetic his characters are, letting them hang themselves. Think back to the last scene of Safe, when Moore says probably her longest unbroken line in the whole movie, and thats all she really had to say the whole time. Here you have the same thing, Haynes is a master of showing you the limits of characters.

Funny to watch this right after Trap cause they both use the timing of when you root for characters in really important ways. This is a great and very accurate movie about the South, masculinity, the military, and counter-insurgency. Its accuracy when it comes to the South is not the depiction of Cajuns but how the different soldiers related to their upbringings and surroundings felt exactly on point. Boothe and Carradine especially are perfect versions of two kinds of cynical Southern males who lived through the 70s. Fuck I love this movie. The opening scene is an absolute all-timer. 10/10 performances all around, we need to bring back faces like these in movies!

Watched on Tuesday August 13, 2024.

Watched on Tuesday August 13, 2024.

Shyamalan really brings out the most pretentious writing from people on here.

Watched on Friday August 9, 2024.

Watched on Thursday August 8, 2024.

Watched on Thursday July 25, 2024.

Watched on Wednesday July 24, 2024.

1. Star Wars
2. Kes
3. Early Summer
4. Safe
5. Dog Day Afternoon
6. First Reformed
7. Thief
8. The Counselor
9. Cure
10. Bad Lieutenant

• Sudan's Forgotten Films
• Talking About Trees
• Cinema in Sudan: Conversations with Gadalla Gubara
• Uncle Cankle and the Dancing Ankle
• Song of Khartoum
• Hunting Party
• Hopes and Dreams
• The Dislocation of Amber
• The Tomb
• Tigers Are Better Looking

...plus 15 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Technology, shitty jobs, no connections, no meaning!!!!

• Heat
• The Matrix
• Office Space
• The Mission
• Miami Vice
• Magic Mike
• Fighting in the Age of Loneliness