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Watched on Sunday May 25, 2025.

Watched on Wednesday May 21, 2025.

Watched on Wednesday May 21, 2025.

Watched on Sunday May 18, 2025.

Watched on Saturday May 17, 2025.

"A richer drag act then Tootsie." – Armond White

"Sometimes I feel like I'm pretending I'm not retarded." – Armondo Black

"Take my hands, Boss." – Monster 'Tard from The Green Mile

It's made desperately to impress fans and it's tongue-in-cheek nature gets tiring. The many wide anamorphic frames of dutch angles reveal the filmmakers stylistic obviousness. They project a giddiness towards death that lacks tension in favor for humor. The fun is rooted in an intellectual more than emotional satisfaction.
Tony Todd is great but the film diminishes his mysterious presence.
James Wong's third entry remains the high point of the series and Wong remains a criminally underrated director (due to his one bad film: Dragonball Evolution).

Watched on Thursday May 15, 2025.

Watched on Thursday May 15, 2025.

Watched on Thursday May 15, 2025.

Gone with the Wind-esque in its maximalist Costume and Sets.
Raul Julia kills it. I'm not crazy for Vam Damme but Ken and Ryu are a good leading duo.
Steven E. de Souza has a George Lucas-esque (Which I guess is really a Kurasawa/Ford-esque) way of shooting and editing action. It's too bad he didn't direct more though his writing credits are more than enough to cement his stature.

Alien by way of Demons (But not nearly as good.) and a Xenomorph by way of Power Rangers (Though filmed with enough grace.) and still much better then Alien Romulus (With it's own alien baby even!).
David Decoteau is alright in my book.

Betsy Russell makes this a very watchable movie.

La Mans goes for Nouvelle Vague cool when it should go for Steve McQueen America Cool. The trailer which is edited like the documentary Woodstock seems like a better idea.
It's OK...

Watched on Friday May 9, 2025.

Watched on Thursday May 8, 2025.

The guy who made the pro CIA, anti Black Panther Party, pro NGO Black Panther films made a pro segregation, anti Black, anti White, anti Emigrant film that reduces the important Historical Roots of Blues Music to metaphysical voodoo magic.
What a Shock!
Aggressively Reactionary especially in regards to the most vital of Revolutionary Artistic Expression: Music!

Also the action sucked, and the writing was stupid, and the backgrounds look like fake Disney backgrounds.
It's just not as good as:
From Dusk Till Dawn
Demon Knight
Ganja & Hess
Vampire in Brooklyn
Near Dark

Watched on Tuesday May 6, 2025.

Watched on Saturday May 3, 2025.

Maybe the greatest rom-com I've ever seen?

As inventive and funny as Annie Hall but as someone younger then James Sweeney, let alone Woody Allen, Annie Hall's depiction of relationships has always felt somewhat unfamiliar, Straight Up injects sexual post-modernity into the rom-com formula injecting new life into old clichés. Hilarious scene after hilarious scene (Each one like a comedic house of cards being built up!) showcase Sweeney's erudite wit and playful honesty though the film is further elevated by Kate Findlay's beauty and charm with a face that could make any gay identifying man a little bi-curious.

Watched on Friday May 2, 2025.

One of Sandler's weaker comedies (still very funny at times: Jew face Jonah Hill) yet one of his strongest drama. I think it's incredibly childish humor was to keep kids invested before he dropped the life bombs on em. A turning point for Sandler where from here on out he cares so much more about the humanist qualities. Consider this being his last film with jokes directed towards a transgender character (atleast that I can recall) and his most humane and good natured trans joke up until this point. I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry would come next. An endlessly interesting artist and film.

Watched on Thursday May 1, 2025.

An incredible ing cast and (Presumably Tim Burton's contribution of) dazzling special effects and sets make this sometimes brash comedy something special.
Should have been titled "Captian Corrigible" or is that too much of a fancy-lad title?

Watched on Tuesday April 29, 2025.

Very Fox News Boomer Pilled...
and by that I mean it's all about missing your wife, trying to fuck and being really concerned about Russia and China and how they might be spying on you.
It's pretty funny.

On paper everything about this would make you assume it to be Sundance Sophistry but instead Andrew Ahn opts for honesty. This isn't a sappy coming of age story or a cheap cruising picture, Ahn uses the sexual uncertainty of gay youth to emphasize the universal youthful uncertainty of "what to do?".
As Armond White points out:

Ahn knows David as intimately as he might know himself--and this includes the rarely itted truth of young men who struggle to accept their own sexuality as well as their own morality. David's attendance at the local Korean-Catholic church is both a foundation of his ethnic identity as well as his scruples.

Watched on Thursday April 24, 2025.

Watched on Thursday April 24, 2025.

Watched on Thursday April 24, 2025.

Watched on Saturday April 19, 2025.

Watched on Thursday April 17, 2025.

Watched on Tuesday April 15, 2025.

I thought the book was nice.
This is awful.
The Russo Bros. were fine at making cinematic pastiche that was suitable for TV but in Cinema proper they're abject failures.

Watched on Thursday April 10, 2025.

Watched on Friday April 4, 2025.

Watched on Thursday April 3, 2025.

Watched on Thursday April 3, 2025.

I've never played Minecraft...
Hess brings his Christian ethos to A Minecraft Movie. An incredibly simple and charming movie about the importance of Creation. Henry, Steve and Garett all share a common bond of Creativity and show the ways Men respond to it's challenges. It's exciting and very funny. World looks great and Hess' direction is (as usual) on point. My biggest nitpick would be the two female characters are a little underwritten but as is Hess' great talent with character everyone is so well performed (and there's so much emotion in the little moments you're givin) you feel they could all lead their own story and you'd want to watch.
Plus it's really funny.

Pair with Quentin Dupieux's Daaaaaalí

Daaaaaalí dares us to once again be Creaaaaaatíve, Daaaaaaríng, aaaaaand aaaaaambítíous!

Pair with Jared Hess' A Minecraft Movie

Watched on Friday March 28, 2025.

McCarty Rules!

Watched on Saturday March 22, 2025.

Watched on Friday March 21, 2025.

Should have cut it down to 30 minutes and added two other mid sci-fi horror shorts and MAYBE it would be ok.
Genuinely confused as to what Flying Lotus thought was interesting about this story. It's all very predictable, very meandering, and not very fun at all.
Would much rather re-watch any of the obvious influences to this film then re-watch the film itself.
Also the music is incredibly unremarkable for being made by Flying Lotus.

Watched on Friday March 21, 2025.

I liked it.
When someone adapts Stephen King accurately to his style, as apposed to using his framework for their own ends (As DePalma and Kubrick did), people tend to find it dumb and eye roll worthy. As someone who mostly enjoys reading King, I don't mind it.
McConaughey is chewing it up as the devilish man in black, Elba his heroic and cool. The kid goes through some real shit. I would have watched a sequel although that'll never happen.

Watched on Wednesday March 19, 2025.

Theaters, Zoos, and shops become secret political battlegrounds (Even featuring animations from the most influential ideological propagandist of America: Disney.) for Hitchcocks condemnation of terrorism as a sabotage of the human spirit.
Sylvia Sidney's eyes are so beautifully empathetic and conflicted throughout, a truly outstanding performance. Oskar Homolka has a James Mason esque swagger. Loder is a little hammy but it's better then the modern go to non acting acting.
Like his spiritual successor Brian De Palma's The Fury (1978) the auteur's least favorite film is actually one of his best. And like The Fury, Sabotage is a visual feast and a clear blueprint on how to craft and edit exciting and emotionally suspenseful cinema.

Watched on Sunday March 16, 2025.

1. Babygirl
2. Nosferatu
3. A Complete Unknown

   Imax

4. The Room Next Door
5. Better Man
6. Conclave
7. Presence
8. Hard Truths
9. The Brutalist

   Imax

10. Flight Risk

...plus 21 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Favorite films, released in the United States, in 2023.

1. The Wandering Earth II
2. Rebel Moon – Part One: A Child of Fire
3. The Volunteers: To the War
4. Dreamin' Wild
5. Creation of the Gods I: Kingdom of Storms
6. Winter Boy
7. Incredible But True
8. Leo
9. The Trace of Your Lips
10. Full River Red

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

1. Poor Things

   x2

2. Fallen Leaves

   x2

3. All of Us Strangers
4. Wonka
5. Miller's Girl
6. Past Lives
7. The Zone of Interest
8. Dune: Part Two

   Imax

9. Perfect Days
10. Yolo

...plus 50 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Great Films I watched for the first time in 2024

• Miracle in Milan
• The Long Riders
• Hatari!
• The Wild Child
• Little Buddha
• Mortal Thoughts
• I Am Happiness on Earth
• The Village Teacher
• A Thousand Clouds of Peace Fence the Sky, Love; Your Being Love Will Never End
• Eating Out

...plus 35 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

A ranking of the films I have seen from French Musician and Filmmaker Quentin Dupieux.

1. Deerskin
2. Incredible But True
3. Yannick
4. Mandibles
5. Smoking Causes Coughing
6. Keep an Eye Out
7. Reality
8. Rubber
9. Wrong Cops
10. Wrong

The 20-ish best kid (tried to keep it around 16 and younger) performances of all time. At least to me, at this moment.

1. A.I. Artificial Intelligence

   Haley Joel Osment

2. Pather Panchali

   Subir Banerjee & Uma Das Gupta

3. Come and See

   Aleksei Kravchenko

4. The Wild Child

   Jean-Pierre Cargol

5. The 400 Blows

   Jean-Pierre Léaud

6. Pixote

   Fernando Ramos da Silva

7. La Promesse

   Jérémie Renier

8. Bicycle Thieves

   Enzo Staiola

9. Ivan's Childhood

   Nikolay Burlyaev

10. Where Is the Friend's House?

    Babek Ahmed Poor

...plus 11 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. My Life as a Zucchini
2. Petite Maman
3. Being 17
4. Girlhood
5. Tomboy
6. Water Lilies
7. Portrait of a Lady on Fire

Best older films I watched the for the first time in 2023.

1. Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans
2. Sharky's Machine
3. French Cancan
4. My Darling Clementine
5. Distant Voices, Still Lives
6. Die Nibelungen: Siegfried
7. Die Nibelungen: Kriemhild's Revenge
8. My Life as a Zucchini
9. Any Given Sunday
10. Mr. 3000

...plus 37 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.