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Just wonderful, a mirthful romp for the whole family. Of all the horror franchises — and there are very few I haven't seen! — I think this is the one that has entertained me, non-ironically, the most consistently. I hope they make a hundred more of them.

A vanity project from The Weeknd, who has little to be vain about. Very disappointed to see talented director Trey Edward Shults involved in this, but I guess a guy's gotta eat. The Weeknd plays himself, essentially, a pop star who's stressed and exhausted, who is visited by a fan (Jenna Ortega) who messes him up further. It's a 20-minute story stretched into 100 minutes, padded with songs by The Weeknd (including a scene where Jenna Ortega listens to them and explicates their meaning to The Weeknd, like if Patrick Bateman actually had Huey Lewis there with him in "American Psycho") and by long close-ups of actors looking emotional. Whoever told The Weeknd he has the screen presence or acting talent to be a movie star was not being kind.

Well, damn me right up the b-hole, this made me laugh. It's funny and weird. I don't know if I've ever liked Jason Momoa more. I know almost nothing about the Minecraft game except that once I heard my nephew tell his friend, "Don't waste your diamonds on hoes," which seems like good advice.

Finally filled in this blind spot. They don't make 'em like that anymore. Thrills, melodrama, destruction, a John Williams score, Ernest Borgnine's huge meaty face — it's pure cinema.

Middling, inessential Blaxploitation update of "Little Caesar."

One of, what, two good movies Zack Snyder ever made? Still pretty good. Somehow even gayer than I ed.

Almost exactly what you would want a slasher movie called Clown in a Cornfield to be. It's only a little meta, not a lot of genre deconstruction, has some humor but isn't cynical, and has one or two genuine trope subversions. Good stuff if you're a fan.

This is somehow even more preposterous on second viewing, but still a good time. It's incredibly well-shot.

This basic crime drama eventually reaches Gareth Evans' usual levels of ultra-violence that seems like it must have called dozens of stuntmen, but it's a bit of a chore to get there.

I often choose old movies to watch on Criterion based only on the fact that they are 1) noir and 2) short. Give me a 75-minute B-movie with "murder" in the title or tagline and I'm set! This one has a plot I haven't exactly seen before: a 17-year-old wimp sees his bar-owner father get beaten up by a local bastard without putting up a fight, and sets out to avenge him. Wormy teen protagonist over his head in the adult world reminds me a little of MST3K's "I Accuse My Parents," but it's better than that.

This is good enough, thought very slight. The humor feels more natural and less snarky than past MCU. There isn’t a lot of “superhero action” (one scene feels like an afterthought, like, “Whoops, we almost made a whole movie without showing the heroes saving civilians!”), but the characters are fun. I do think my enjoyment is partly due to having skipped the recent entries that didn’t look good to me. If I were still seeing everything I suspect this would have felt more mundane to me.

Watched on Tuesday April 29, 2025.

Watched on Monday April 28, 2025.

Quiet, tense film covering a specific one-day incident, based on facts. The sound design is fantastic. Very engrossing.

Watched on Friday April 25, 2025.

Daresay I'd not seen this since theaters in 1999. It's a fun monster-in-the-lake "Jaws" exercise, distinguished by every character being relentlessly, unmotivatedly snarky. Note: Bridget Fonda falls out of two boats and a truck.

Hadn't seen this one in a spell! My DVD looks surprisingly good.

A delightful thriller, set mostly in one location with only a handful of characters, but still surprising and satisfying. Also a subtle indictment of having your phone out all the time when you're at dinner.

What a beautiful movie that is, inside and out. Such attention to 1957 details, not just in sets and costumes but language and even the "look" of the film. Just lovely. If you've never seen it, do.

This one of Sandler's better movies from the '90s, and still isn't very good.

Watched on Saturday April 19, 2025.

Want to hang out with some guys playing baseball? Then this is the movie for you! Pleasant, funny, and cozy.

I'll it, this isn't as much fun as a lot of movies with "kill" in the title. As a die-hard Sam Waterston fan from "Law & Order," I really should have seen this a long time ago. It's good.

They are indeed both.

The director of this died recently and someone on Bluesky said this movie, despite being a punchline, is actually better than you'd think. That person was right (though it's still not *very* good). For one, I was glad to see that most of the film isn't the two guys trying to Bernie off as alive, it's the idiots around them thinking Bernie is alive without the two guys having to do anything. The physical performance by Terry Kiser as dead Bernie is also impressive.

This movie is stupid (complimentary), though also sometimes stupid (derogatory). It's about a guy who can't feel pain, heat, or cold. That part's fine. What's dumb is the movie's ideas for how a person in his situation would have to adapt to life. This guy sets his alarm for every three hours to remind him to pee, as he apparently does not feel pressure in his bladder and otherwise it would "explode." Bruh, your bladder's not going to explode in three hours. Go when you get up in the morning, at lunch, and before you go to bed. You'll be fine. His other thing is not eating solid food because he might bite his tongue and not know it. Which, sure, that is possible. But our ability to feel pain is not what prevents most of us from biting our tongues when we eat. It's actually pretty easy not to bite your tongue when you eat. And anyway, even if he couldn't feel the pain, he would taste the blood. In conclusion, Novocaine is a land of contrasts.

Watched on Wednesday April 9, 2025.

Typical Soderbergh (i.e., great and seemingly effortless at being great).

This wasn't nearly as boring as I've expected it to be for the last 44 years.

Watched on Monday March 31, 2025.

Hadn't seen this in FOREVER, after seeing it many times as a youth. It holds up. Pat Morita’s performance is great. The pivotal scene where he shows Daniel how doing chores was really teaching him karate is an all-timer. One underrated touching moment: when Daniel corrects the announcer on the pronunciation of "Miyagi."

Curious mystery-comedy starring Lucille Ball (!) as a single American woman in London who's in a position to help the cops catch a serial killer of single woman. Not a lot of surprises, maybe, if you've seen whodunnits before, but the interposition of comedy with the crime drama is interesting.

A satirical horror comedy needs to POP! It needs to MOVE! It needs to not exceed 95 minutes in length! (It's not bad and has its moments, though.)

I've watched this twice now and both times have lost interest halfway through. I don't know what's wrong with me or it, but here we are.

This was a radio play, then a one-act stage play, then a movie. We did the one-act in high school (I played the cop, Sgt. Duffy, who in the movie only has one scene but is more important in the play), and I ed it well enough to know it was only about 45 minutes long. The movie is twice that length. To expand the story we get tons of flashbacks (even flashbacks within flashbacks!), but I don't think it's any better than the shorter, more succinct version — especially since it's essentially a one-note "Twilight Zone" kind of story.

Bleh.

Funny that my main recollection of this from childhood is that it was controversial because the title used the Lord's name in vain, because it turns out to be an unabashedly pro-God movie. Anyone who refused to watch it because of the title wouldn't have been offended by the actual content. I don't think they would have been entertained, either, though, because it's a drab, toothless comedy that inexplicably stars dweeby non-actor John Denver in a role that has him shirtless a lot. No one asked for this.

I'd been putting this off because I was afraid it would emotionally devastate me, but it turns out it didn't. I bet it would if I were currently a parent or a teenage girl, though!

Not a lot going on but it's a "good hang," as they say.

This won Best Picture and is now obscure. I can see the reasons for both. It won Best Picture because it's a family saga spanning 33 years and has wars and deaths and ends with resilience in the face of struggle. It's now obscure because there's nothing to distinguish it from the countless other films with the same themes. It's fine, though.

Hadn't seen this since it came out. Yikes, it's rough. Not to relitigate 29-year-old grievances, but the reasons "Tommy Boy" worked and this doesn't are:
1) Farley and Spade's characters aren't friends, they have no history together, and they don't interact enough. This is all Farley.
2) Not only is it all Farley, but "Black Sheep" focuses on one specific Farleyism: physical shtick. There isn't much verbal humor here. It's a woeful miscalculation.

This really is my kind of movie: a horny musical about sexual repression and identity, full of very mature themes, and also with talking gargoyles, one of whom is an old lady named Laverne.

I liked this, but in the end it didn't really land for me. Really fun performances, though.

Checking off the Best Picture winners. This was far more engaging and not stuffy than I expected. Greta Garbo says, "I want to be alone," which I guess became her "thing." I hear you, sister.

Watched on Thursday March 13, 2025.

Apparently this movie (a Best Picture winner) was "saved in the editing," and it definitely does a great job condensing the meat of the book (plot and themes) into a film of average length. And it is good, meaty stuff, a real thick movie with lots to chew on.

Just a rollicking good time with the fellas down Mexico way. The dialogue is a little smarter and snappier than you expect (well, now you will).

I had dim memories of really liking the visuals when I saw this in 1998. The VFX, which won an Oscar, actually hold up pretty well. Everything else is OK.

One of the Best Picture winners I'd never seen (though I've seen the play). Nowadays you can't be a man for ALL seasons, because of wokeness.

There's a LOT going on here, more than just the clone thing. I really enjoy Mr. Bong's style of blunt, brutal satire.

• Every Little Thing
• Mickey 17
• Companion
• Final Destination Bloodlines
• Warfare
• Presence
• The Monkey
• Black Bag
• You're Cordially Invited
• Heart Eyes

...plus 16 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Films released in 2024, ranked more or less according to how much I liked them.

1. The End
2. Will & Harper
3. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
4. Rebel Ridge
5. Heretic
6. Hit Man
7. Strange Darling
8. River
9. The People's Joker
10. The Wild Robot

...plus 108 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

A24 releases but not counting documentaries, comedy specials, or TV shows.

• A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III
• Ginger & Rosa
• Spring Breakers
• The Bling Ring
• The Spectacular Now
• Enemy
• Under the Skin
• Locke
• Obvious Child
• The Rover

...plus 149 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. On the Count of Three
2. Living
3. Everything Everywhere All at Once
4. TÁR
5. The Banshees of Inisherin
6. The Fabelmans
7. Glass Onion
8. The Menu
9. Resurrection
10. Marcel the Shell with Shoes On

...plus 109 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

The films I've seen that were released in the U.S. in 2023, ranked more or less according to how much I liked them.

1. Poor Things
2. The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial
3. Asteroid City
4. The Holdovers
5. All of Us Strangers
6. Killers of the Flower Moon
7. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
8. Theater Camp
9. Fair Play
10. Barbie

...plus 93 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. West Side Story
2. Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar
3. Titane
4. The Tragedy of Macbeth
5. Bad Trip
6. Dune
7. Malignant
8. Nightmare Alley
9. PG: Psycho Goreman
10. Licorice Pizza

...plus 108 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• Living
• Resurrection
• When You Finish Saving the World
• After Yang
• The Worst Person in the World
• The Mission
• Dual
• Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul.
• Good Luck to You, Leo Grande
• Brian and Charles

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

• Annette
• Pinocchio
• Hugo
• W.

A list of all the movies in which s McDormand defecates in a bucket.

• Nomadland

Films that played at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival.

• CODA
• John and the Hole
• I Was a Simple Man
• Mayday
• Jockey
• On the Count of Three
• ing
• Wild Indian
• Superior
• Together Together

...plus 63 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Films that played at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival.

• Before You Know It
• Big Time Adolescence
• Blush
• Brittany Runs a Marathon
• Clemency
• The Farewell
• Hala
• Honey Boy
• The Last Black Man in San Francisco
• Luce

...plus 113 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Films that played at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival.

• Blast Beat
• Charm City Kings
• The Courier
• Dinner in America
• Downhill
• Dream Horse
• The Evening Hour
• Falling
• Farewell Amor
• The Father

...plus 108 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Here are the movies I've written Pitch Meeting columns for, with links in the Notes. They're in reverse chronological order. Now you can read them all in one sitting and notice how often I recycle jokes (very often).

• Maleficent

  www.complex.com/pop-culture/2014/06/maleficent-pitch-meeting

• Last Vegas

  www.film.com/movies/last-vegas-pitch-meeting

• R.I.P.D.

  www.film.com/movies/r-i-p-d-pitch-meeting

• The Lone Ranger

  www.film.com/movies/columns/the-lone-ranger-pitch-meeting

• Peeples

  www.film.com/movies/peeples-pitch-meeting

• Playing for Keeps

  www.film.com/movies/playing-for-keeps-parody

• The Oogieloves in the Big Balloon Adventure

  www.film.com/movies/oogieloves-in-the-big-balloon-adventure-review

• New Year's Eve

  www.film.com/movies/pitch-meeting-new-years-eve

• I Don't Know How She Does It

  www.film.com/movies/pitch-meeting-i-dont-know-how-she-does-it

• The Smurfs

  www.film.com/movies/pitch-meeting-the-smurfs-in-3-d

...plus 9 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.