"I HAVE GREAT WOULD-YOU-RATHERS!"
I didn't expect to see this again, but friends were going and I like laughing with friends.
maybe I'm being presumptuous or over-reading here, but I feel like the lens the makes the most sense to interpret this movie is not "male friendship" but "neurodivergence and social cues." the real horror of the movie is in a person searching for a way to learn the rules of engagement in friendship but finding that they are consistently…
pure joy to see this in a packed theater with an audience of many generations of parents and children. one observation: way back when, movies used to be raucously funny without being comedies. I found myself laughing through almost every minute of this at every brilliant little facial gesture and saucy retort, and then crying all the others. transcendent, unreal, etc. also *way* too real right now. feels like I'm seeing way too many Rolfs around these days and not…
watched with a completely packed sold-out theater for the early screening at The Belcourt. the whole room was laughing within the first 30 seconds and didn't letup for the next couple hours. a truly electric comedy experience. definitely see it with a crowd, if you can!
I will say, I almost felt like the movie could've gone...further? there are moments where it feels like it's going to branch into some heightened magical realism or absurd horror, but it never quite…
I can't believe we're finally here. My feature documentary, A Kingdom of Tea & Strangers, is officially available on YouTube! Link here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iyGVHUrI
I've written about it quite enough already, but suffice to say it's been a long road to this point: 3 years of production since starting shooting around this time in May 2022, and 8 months of touring showings since our original premiere in August of last year. I'm glad that we gave the film some space to breathe…
unprecedented levels of "my shit" here, very much in line with the values and sensibilities of films that I've made and would want to make. temporal art within physical space, gathering people who are forever connected by the time they shared in a little heightened realm of their own making, bending the rules of an anti-human adult world to better serve whimsy and community. others have noted it, but more than anything, I was left feeling melancholic (and radicalized) by…
a few assorted rewatch notes:
- Surprisingly invigorating to see this in IMAX and realize that the intentional expanded aspect-ratio sequences had been very well thought out. I'd have to rewatch some other MCU entries to compare, but this one looked great in the format and never once jumped between ratios for a cutaway or anything; the first 10 mins or so are all 1:90:1 and look excellent.
- Truly a privilege to hear Son Lux's score in full surround…
very enjoyable, even touching and poignant stuff! I haven't cried in a movie in a while (other than Sinners) and this got me several times. that's not to mention that it looks and sounds great! Schreier really has some sauce, and this cast is charismatic—spare for Julia-Louis Dreyfus, who realllyyyyy feels like she's phoning it in. but god, Florence is electric and her father/daughter chemistry with Harbour is just as resonant as it was in Black Widow. the two of…
absolutely chilling stuff. every day lately, it feels like I watch more and more seemingly ordinary people say horrifically cruel and dehumanizing things with a grin on their face and no shame. I saw it when the director of ICE said they needed to treat the operation "as a business, like Amazon Prime but with human beings." I saw it with every justification of throwing hundreds of innocent Venezuelans into a torture prison for the rest of their lives with…
fairly overwhelming to see this in a theater for the first time. it's pretty eerie how relevant much of this political commentary has continued to become; it feels worth noting how successfully Palpatine manages to employ the argument that "actually, stopping me from becoming a fascist dictator is the real fascist dictatorship." that bad-faith reverse logic which claims to uphold the importance of democracy and rule-of-law while simultaneously undermining and dismantling them is all too familiar right now. and all…
"and he knows in that moment that time is a lie."
crazy how quickly this flies past. I don't think there's any other movie that better captures the existential angst of recognizing that time has ed, feeling like you're essentially the same person you were "back then," and yet also knowing that the experiences you've had since have also changed and shaped you in drastic and subtle ways. and even as much as you might feel you're the same, there's…