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There's a big difference between winging it, and seeing what happens.

Cleaning up my Letterboxd Watchlist.
"You don't just get to BE an Artist!"
An interesting directorial debut from Owen Kline. I'm not quite sure at times what tone Kline wants me to be taking away from this. There's times where it feels like it's supposed to be a dark comedy, and other moments where it plays as just dark drama. It has the vibe and shooting style of a student film, which makes sense for this first . There's some interesting ideas in this coming of age character study of Robert, an aspiring comic book artist. Some of what is supposed to I think come off as clever or funny, sometimes comes off as mean-spirited and unlikeable. Matthew Maher as Wallace really held the movie together for me. He's great every time I see him. His performance reminds me on some level of Tim Robinson in Friendship, if that movie went a whole other way.

Rewatched for this week's Movie Ladder Podcast. Episode #283 with guest Allix O.
creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/the-movie-ladder-podcast/episodes/Days-of-Thunder-with-Allix-O-FASTCAR-e33ouj3

Watched on Sunday June 1, 2025.

I came here for nonsense plots, stunts, explosions, and Vin Diesel doing his Vin Diesel thing. Wasn't disappointed. This movie is incredibly stupid, and really every spy movie cliche in the book activated at full blast. I hope they had fun making it.
Also, Samuel L. Jackson really is in everything.

Cleaning up my Latterboxd Watchlist. Watching a blind sport from a favorite working director.
Soderbergh tackles Mental Health, Therapy, and the Prescription Drug Industry in his patented efficient story-telling way. 5 Years later in 2018 he'll follow up on a lot of the ideas he starts with here in the Anxiety-Drama Unsane. There's some elements of Hitchcock, Gaslight, and Diabolique happening in here as well, all vibes I'm incredibly here for. Soderbergh knows how to use them to make a solid piece of cinema. I
Jude Law is really great in this as the Doctor slowly unraveling, as he obsesses over the actions of one of his patients.
Great to see Frank from Succession in this as Law's practice partner.

Watched for the 2025 Criterion Challenge.
"There are three words that guide me: Inspiration. Creation. Sharing."
Sometimes watching a director comment on their own films, process, and legacy can come off pretentious and self-aggrandizing. Varda is neither of these things, and you know this going in if you've spend a lot of time with her films. She's genuine, loving, and quirky as hell. I really enjoyed going on this journey with her, and celebrating her love of cinema and why she does what she does. She's not just a filmmaker, she's a true Artist with a capital A. As Varda's final film, this is truly just a gift and an inspiration.

Stupidly terrifying, and deliriously funny, once the movie finally acutally gets going towards something about half way through.
At times it feels just like Succession. Jesse Armstrong's still got it.

"You are a Jerk."
Watched for the 2025 Library Ladder Challenge.
Prompt: Dynamic On Screen Duos.
Marriage Story on Steroids...and lots of Cocaine. I was in to just about every moment of this. The vibes are immaculate.
Douglas and Turner are just both at the top of their game with both their worst and most vulnerable moments here. I thought the film did a great job balancing the POVs of both of them at the best and worst.
Ps. Low key kind of a Christmas Movie ?

Cleaning up my Letterboxd Watchlist.
Documentary Streaming on Kanopy.
This is a really well told first person narrative documentary about what it's like to be raised in "King Coal County" of Appalachia, and the history of the area. I've always been fascinated by this area of the US and it's deep wellspring of culture, unique to any other area. Maybe its because it feels like there's some sort of spiritual connection between the Irish People and the People of this area.
Great companion film to Harlan County USA, if not a spiritual sequel.

Watched for the 2025 Criterion Challenge.
"Do you know what a hacker is?"
Cusack and Benning have really good chemistry in this and have a couple really good crackling scenes. Parts of this script though are absolutely mind-numbingly bad. Angelica Houston feels incredibly wasted in this film. Everything around the actual Grifting is pretty solid but it also feels like it has no real energy. There's something missing in the energy of the film to help you really engage with the plot and follow it. Not to mention the just needless violence against Benning and Houston's characters in this film. It didn't service anything except making me want to turn it off. It's just stupid. There's no real fun to be had here. A movie with this premise should be FUN ffs. Or at least have some kind of logic to it if it isn't.
Part of the issue is the score. I had no idea if this was supposed to be a drama or a dark comedy or a send up of a 1940s Noir?. It's just a bad score. Once I finally locked in to what this movie was doing, it was almost too late. I think having no idea what this movie was going in, worked against it really badly for me, which is a rare feeling for me. Or, maybe it all would have been solved if it was shot in black and white like the Coen's The Man Who Wasn't There. The world may never know.

ps I miss J.T. Walsh as one of our great movie "that guys."

"Nobody races unless I say so. That's why I'm here. I'm the Coach."
"All you've ever had is those skis, and that's not enough."
(Read both lines in Hackman Voice for full effect.)
Watched for the 2025 Criterion Challenge.
Gorgeously shot mountain locations and at times incredibly dynamic visually during the racing. However, I just don't find skiing that interesting to watch. Redford is pretty great as a sometimes charming and incredibly cocky "All-American-Hero" type who just wants to win at the Olympics and "be famous. I know it's only 1969 but he already looks sort of too old for this role and what they were going for. It's still hard to take your eyes off of him though.
Hackman in full Coach Mode is great, 15 years before he'll do this again even better in Hoosiers. I would say "this is a pretty standard sports movie" but then you look at the year it came out, and you realize, oh, this is one of the first of it's kind that follows the formula. The confrontation scene near the end of the film between Hackman's Coach and Redford's Chappelin is really what the price of ission is for. Just two of the all time greats, both in the start decades long legendary careers, battling it out to win one truly great scene.
It's a shame there's no depth or personality given to anyone else in the film to make the overall vibe of the film a bit more engaging.

Watched for this week's Movie Ladder Podcast. Episode #282 with Guest Shut up Tim.
creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/the-movie-ladder-podcast/episodes/Speed-Racer-with-Shut-Up-Tim-The-Sand-Prix-e33gjpp

Watched on Tuesday May 27, 2025.

Very fun but absolute nonsense. The plot and editing structure are baffling at times. However, full theatre on a Monday Night. I had a good time. Go movies.

Rewatched for this week's Movie Ladder Podcast. Episode #281 with guest Shut Up Tim.
creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/the-movie-ladder-podcast/episodes/Star-Wars-Episode-I---The-Phantom-Menace-with-Shut-Up-Tim-Ani-May-e334ikv

Cleaning up my Letterboxd Watchlist.
I when this movie came out in 1993 on HBO and what a sensation it was, as the country was still deep in the throws of the AIDS Crisis. The movie was critically praised at the time, and was nominated for dozens of Emmys. It won "Most Outstanding Made for Television Movie." A Category that no longer exists.
The perspective of the epidemic in this film from the Doctors and the Researchers trying to cut through all the bureaucratic red tape so that they could actually try to save lives feels just as relevant now in a "Post Covid" world. It's frustrating as hell at points with it's POV.
The movie's biggest flaw aside from the POV feeling a little one-sided, is that it ends before the story is even over. It cuts itself short due to it being made while the band wsa still playing on. It gives the movie an "educational" feeling to it's release in 1993/94 rather than being a full story.
The cast is really incredible, filled with dozens of All-Stars, even in tiny roles. HBO waited 20 years to follow this up with The Normal Heart, which is a stronger movie overall for me.

Kind of paint by numbers ruse and fall of a business Documentary. A few exciting talking heads, but no time is spent on anything exciting they had to say about their experiences in Tower Redords.
It is definitely a bummer how the music consumer technology has changed. I miss having CDs and Tapes in some ways. But the modern convenience has just made them irrelevant. It's more a bummer for tye artists than anyone that the album revenue stream has been so diminished by digital progress.

Movie Ladder Suggestion: Like A Rolling Stone. The life and times of Ben Fong-Torres.

Cleaning up my Letterboxd Watchlist.
Filling in a Steve Martin Blindspot.
This film should really be revisited and restored to match the Black and White film quality & audio between the 1982 and the archival film footage being used for the classic film noirs. It would make it so much less jarring. The idea just feels way too ahead of it's time to make it work the way it should.
I have at this point scene or at least recognized all of the cut-away films used in the classic noir scenes, so that made me appreciate the attempt much more than the execution. I imagine if you have seen very few of them it's just confusing and nonsensical. For me there was a lot of "Leo Pointing GIF" in here.
The noir satire of Steve Martin's comedy and narration works well at times but man, there's some really bad beats in this too.
The dueling breakdown of the plot at the end between Reiner and Martin at the end of the film, is pretty funny.
Ultimately, I do like what the movie is trying to do, far more than the execution. Movies about movies are always fun.

Movie Ladder Suggestion: Play it Again Sam

"It was a train that took me away from here
But a train can't bring me home." - Train Song
Library Ladder Challenge 2025 Bonus Pick for Concert/Music Docs.
I've never really listening to Tom Waits the artist. I've seen him in plenty of movies, and know his voice and style by reputation or mimicry. This concert was quite the experience to attempt to understand the man, the myth and the artist.
I'd like to see more artists try to sing their songs in to a megaphone in front of a microphone. Most of them wouldn't sound better when they do it like Waits does.
It's really hard to give something that feels this experimental a "Rating" so I'll just leave it at I liked it, and I had a good time with Tom Waits.

Watched for the 2025 Criterion Challenge.
Comedy is hard. Satire is even harder. This movie holds up so well almost 40 years later because everything it's commenting on still feels so relevant, just in new ways.

"Rebellions are built on hope."
Obligatory Rewatch after Andor Season Two...
Holds up pretty well aside from a few awkward diagologue nitpicks after the events of Andor that don't totally track. But hey, nothing's perfect, and they really did their best to lead us right in to this, just like this one leads right in to Star Wars (Episode IV).
The first half of the film is a little shaky, as we get things going, but once we leave Jeddha and galvanize Jin to answer her "Call to Adventure" it's all gas, no breaks through to the end.
This is just another baton in the great plotline of the larger Star Wars story, but it's a pretty entertaining baton .
We may never get the Rogue Squadron movie we deserve but the Battle of Skariff is a pretty decent substitute for it.

The irony of seeing this by myself a few days before my birthday is not lost on me.

Watched for the 2025 Library Ladder Challenge Prompt: "Make your own kind of music." Music Docs & Concert Films.
This was my favorite category I came up with this year for a reason. All bangers, no skips in this concert.
Lindsay Buckingham's audio is a little rough some times when he's on vocals, it's just quieter and a little muffled, but not sure if it's just bad streaming quality.
There are some really great visual moments in the performances with this group. So much tension and so much history. There were beats that feel like they were lifted from this directly in to the Daisy Jones and the Six TV Show a couple years ago.

Maybe Lumet shouldn't have stuck so tightly to the court transcripts when crafting the screenplay for this one. It's a bit narratively messy. It's pretty rough. However I will say, every time I think I'm fully out on the movie, something in the Vin Diesel performance pulls me back in just a lil bit. His performance of the closing argument is really great actually. Too bad it's at the end.
Lumet knows how to stage a great looking courtroom. Linus Roache is cranked up to 11+ as the DA, a role he's pretty familiar with from his Law & Order days.

Watched for the 2025 Criterion Challenge.
"Force does make leaders its true, but you forget one thing, it also destroys them."
I came here for the Heroic Burt Lancaster performance which delivered in spades. I was not prepared for the utterly chilling Hume Cronyn performance as the Captain of the Guards.
I love a good prison movie especially when it has a strong POV and thrilling escape or attempt at it.
The movie spends a lot of time getting you invssted in all the prisoners in Cell R17, so that when the climax hits, you feel every moment of it and their fates.

Movie Ladder Suggestion: From Here to Eternity.

Rewatched for this week's Movie Ladder Podcast. Episode #280 with Guest ShutUpTim.
creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/the-movie-ladder-podcast/episodes/Ponyo-with-Shut-Up-Tim-The-Sea-was-Angry-e32qb9h

Cleaning up my Letterboxd Watchlist. Streaming on Hulu.
Solid "Garbage Sci-Fi" staring two of my favorite people in Sophie Thatcher and Pedro Pascal. This feels like a straight to video, Blockbuster DVD secret gem type of movie that would have felt like a hell of a find to 90s me. It still has a bit of that magic as a streaming find. v Lone Wolf and Cub survival story on an Alien Planet with these two actors feels a little on the nose, but is a pretty good time. At only 98 minutes, I actually would have enjoyed this being a little bit longer and spending more time with these two. Luckily I've got plenty of other spaces to see both of them!

Movie Ladder Suggestion: High Life (Also on Hulu, also released in 2018, with a similar post, and a movie I did confuse with this one back when I watched it.)

An interesting commentary on the idea of "celebrity" and "Show Business" through one of it's Pioneers in Buffalo Bill Cody.
Newman's performance as Bill seems to be commenting on his own career and celebrity as well. He's fantastic in this as the titular legend Bill Cody. Newman even pulls off the magnificent locks of long hair which is not a look you'd expect him to be able to rock so well.
The music and score a really great. I love how the live music of the band and the opera are used throughout. Altman is so great at making his films feel immersive and lived in.

Movie Ladder Suggestion: The Greatest Showman

Watched on Sunday May 11, 2025.

Watched on Saturday May 10, 2025.

Watched on Saturday May 10, 2025.

Watched on Saturday May 10, 2025.

Finally caught up with this from the Filmspotting Podcast Lumet Marathon, sliding it in to my personal Movie Ladder for the year.
This movie is a bit of a slow burn pot boiler, as Treat Williams' Detective Danny gets deeper and more tangled up in the incredibly complicated web of this detective story.
Overall enjoyed it, but the plot is so dense I found my mind wandering quite bit and getting a bit lost.
There are moments that Treat Williams looks like Colin Farrell, he'd be great in a remake of this.
Great to see Bob Balaban, James Tolkan and Lane Smith,, some of our greatest movie "that guys" in this. Never knew James Tolkan ever actually had hair! A shocking revelation.
Speaking of hair. There are some epically bad haircuts and or wigs in this movie.

Movie Ladder Suggestion: The French Connection

Artists deserve more cool spaces to make art and express themselves. Michael Townsend is a legend.
Unfortunately we live in a world where there are fewer and fewer spaces for art every day.

Movie Ladder Suggestion : Faces Places

Ok fine this was a good movie and I'm kind of mad about it.
However. As a total theater dork. This movie works incredibly well as a prequel to Angel's In America.

"You know how to whistle, don't you Steve?"
Just electric energy everywhere around Bogie and Bacall.
Walter Brennan is a true come with guy.
No one puts together a great film quite like Howard Hawks.
The rebellion and message of this movie have aged like the finest French Bourdeux.

Movie Ladder Suggestion: Cabaret.

"Everything's spoiled, including our dispositions."
What's not sour is how effortlessly cool Bogie and Bacall are in this film.
Robinson is a terrific heavy as to be expected but I really clung to the Lionel Barrymore performance which was really the heart of the movie for me. His physical performance and way he reacts to everything that unfolds before him is just magnificent to watch.

Movie Ladder Suggestion: Bad Times at the El Royale

Watched for the 2025 Criterion Challenge.
"No, not in the Cupid Room!" Good to know Hitchcock still had his biting sense of ironic humor even in his final films.
"Do I look like a sex murderer to you?" Dude, do you really want me to answer that honestly?. Ya kind of do.
The silent reverse tracking shot employed about an hour in to the film, is one of the coolest and most haunting things in any Hitchcock film.
Definitely Hitchcock's second "meanest" film after Marnie.

Movie Ladder Connection: Gone Girl.

Watched for the 2025 Criterion Challenge.
"One can't suddenly show up out of nowhere and expect to be a father."
Movies about theatre will always be a draw for me and this Ozu film has drama on and off the stage. The travelling theatre troupe at it's center is filled with both the best and worst personality traits of artists. Despite my personal connection to the theatrical elements, this may be however, the most disconnected emotionally I've felt from an Ozu film. It didn't resonate for me as deeply as some of his other works. Maybe because the characters in this film all feel like they're constantly putting on a performance within the performance even when off stage? Maybe that's intentional? Ozu is a master at melodrama but this one was just a bit too much for me.

Movie Ladder Suggestion: Kiss me Kate.

Watched for this week's Movie Ladder Podcast. Episode #279 with Guest AllixO.
creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/the-movie-ladder-podcast/episodes/Noah-with-Allix-O-Epocryphal-Storms-e32g5i2

I'm not going to sit here and say "The MCUS is back! " But...this was a good "first step" in the right direction to something fun and interesting. It's an ice change of pace from what we've been getting. The characters feel like real people, and maybe that's because it's leaning to hard in to the fact that these people are not superheroes. They're the Leftovers.
I want to watch this again divorced from any pre-conceived expectations or baggage from past MCU, just to see if that's possible. I think it's an incredibly strong film all on it's own.
There's just something magical in this cast on screen together, anchored by actors who we love and appreciate in so many other things outside of the MCU in Sebastian Stan, Florence Pugh, David Harbour and Wyatt Russell.
It did strike me very funny and hard to get past a little that Lewis Pullman's character's name is Bob, when his call sign in Top Gun Maverick was also call-sign "Bob." I know that the name is comics cannon but it just struck me so oddly. I couldn't stop thinking about it every time they called him "Bob."

Watched on Sunday May 4, 2025.

Library Ladder Challenge 2025 May Bonus Watch. U2 Song Titles.
Don't be fooled by the song title. This movie is not about Those Troubles. These troubles are much more intimate and of the heart.
The performances are great and there's some real anxiety at work here around Glenda Jackson's Alex as she navigates her complicates family and relationships. I wish we'd spent the whole movie with her babysitting her nieces and Nephews though. That was the best part and gave me my own new anxiety being a fairly new Uncle myself.

Watched for the 2025 Library Ladder Challenge Prompt:
Watch a film that shares its title with a U2 album or song.
PRIDE! In the name of love!
The cast of this movie is pretty unbelievable. A veritable who's who of amazing UK & Irish Talent. The subject matter and the themes are just as important as when the movie is set in 1984. Revolutions and change take cooperation, comion, ion, and understanding. Oh, and a hell of a lot of bravery.

Movie Ladder Connection: Harlan County USA and It's A Sin.

Rewatched for this week's Movie Ladder Podcast. Episode #278.
creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/the-movie-ladder-podcast/episodes/Moonrise-Kingdom-The-Island-of-Misfit-Boys-e3263nj

Watched on Thursday April 24, 2025.

Watched on Saturday April 26, 2025.

Watched on Sunday April 27, 2025.

I will give Evans this. He shoots the actions scenes like it's a Zombie movie and that's pretty cool visually and stylistically. If the hordes of bad guys were actual zombies knstead of humans this movie would be so much better. Instead it feels grotesque in the worst way.
I do love me some Oluphant, Hardy, and Whitaker but they're so wasted in this absolute mess of a plot.