4v291o

one of David Cronenberg's less focused scripts elevated, however, by an all-timer Jeremy Irons performance

authenticity fetishism at the expense of literally everything else.

silliness that too often tips over into idiocy, especially as the movie keeps trying to one-up itself.

race, religion, capitalism, imperialism, identity, community, culture, sex all so deftly, expertly interwoven that it fits inside a vampire movie.

spinal meningitis sister ruined my childhood

not much new that hasn't been known for some time now, but does have a way of allowing monsters to show themselves as such.

amazing ideas, poorly represented, and quickly abandoned. i was never a huge fan of Wings of Desire (1987), but this nonetheless pales in comparison.

Watched on Tuesday May 6, 2025.

Michelle Williams putting in work

do you enjoy interviews punctuated by mumbled recreation?

about to drop everything and buy a falafel cart

Watched on Saturday April 12, 2025.

Watched on Sunday April 13, 2025.

Watched on Sunday April 13, 2025.

for all the coolness of the script, its revelations of information are uneven at best and dysfunctional at worst

Watched on Tuesday April 1, 2025.

car crash full penetration car crash full penetration crash penetration and this goes on and on and back and forth for 90 or so minutes until the movie just sorta ends.

This review may contain spoilers.

a lot of riveting work in here, especially from Owen Cooper, Stephen Graham, and Erin Doherty. but, i felt like the long-take was an albatross around their neck, forcing them to stay in a scene and a point of view, rather than a helpful story-telling device. the show seems to comment on that precisely in perhaps the best criticism of it: "Right, the perpetrator always gets the front line. 'A man raped a woman.' We've followed Jamie's brain around this entire case. […] Katie isn't important. Jamie is. Everyone will Jamie. No one will her. That's what annoys me. That's what gets to me." and we can't see what's going on with katie or her family or whatever because we're stuck in this fucking long-take. being exceedingly right in the drive-by self-critique doesn't stop it from being lampshading.

a lot of cinematic flexing that, at least for me, got in the way of the narrative rather than enhanced it. the flexing is insanely creative. the narrative is great. but do they belong together?

shot out of a canon with an amazing first hour. looses some steam, to the point that i'm not sure if the final half hour did anything for me beyond dilute the story.

also, more lies told to children than the brothers grimm.

for as bananas as this is, a more coherent Wild Robot (2024). also, i guess i hate rabbits and anteaters now.

i sadly do and simultaneously very deeply don't understand why Kelly Reichardt isn't perpetually recognized for her brilliance as a director. a dissolve early in that had me blurt out "fucking perfect." this is certainly among her best.

a few interesting ideas, uninterestingly developed and less interestingly represented.

five stars and "liked" isn't exactly how i'd put it, but that's all letterboxd offers me in order to highlight it as one of the more impactful and important documentaries i've ever seen.

Greener Grass (2019) meets Synecdoche (2008)

historical authenticity as a crutch rather than a tool

aspects of Quentin Tarantino's dialogue, Ingmar Bergman's blocking, Alfred Hitchcock's characterizations, but entirely a Rainer Fassbinder version of Tár (2022) from 50 years earlier.

a surprisingly subtle exploration of the whole spectrum of racism, xenophobia, heterosexism, homophobia, transphobia, etc. in german society, from "the bad ones" through to the mitläufer and those who want better and are willing to work towards it.

rough

first hour felt like possible wheel spinning or more likely my own western boy ignorance. but it all comes together so well in the last half hour that so much of the previous hour retroactively clicks into place.

better than aggressively mediocre. some surprisingly interesting things done here, but all within one of the most asinine and pointless frameworks imaginable.

an extended zillow 3D tour of a house you'll never afford, ruined by a truly awful family

what i'd give to go on a road trip with Lily Gladstone

like a Kelly Reichardt film without quite as much social commentary. what it loses there it makes up for in its heartfelt mother-daughter connection.

The Wrestler (2008) without good writing, good direction, or good cinematography… but with vegas showgirls.

many moments of transcendence, but fewer and fewer as the movie progresses, exchanged for surprisingly blunt allegory of dynamics already intricately, occasionally even gracefully, represented.

take a drink any time Robert Deniro repeats himself and you'll die

pedestrian, all too pedestrian

pleasantly anarchic and heartfelt

an important story well told, but it sometimes felt as though the film itself was learning how to use the pov along with the audience learning how to understand it. i'm not sure the best pov was always chosen, particularly when it came to conversations.

it would be decades before something came close to the wildness of the second half of this movie.

starts a touch slow, has some hilarious gags, but never quite gets up a full head of steam

Mrs. Novak drops some of the most bone-crushing versions of "ya basic" i've ever heard.

Watched on Friday February 14, 2025.

another in the long line of films that have no idea how to represent women being assertive without being absolutely horrible, cruel human beings.

Watched on Tuesday February 11, 2025.

Watched on Saturday February 8, 2025.

what if Michael Haneke was a woman?

more in every conceivable way, but ultimately less.

horrible person being horrible while fundamentally misunderstanding and misrepresenting (sexual) liberation as being horrible to people. plus a star for George Michael dance sequence.

• The ion of Joan of Arc

  Faces & Close Ups

• Mask

  Faces & Close Ups

• Sorry to Bother You

  Voices

• Do I Sound Gay?

  Voices

• Sound of Metal

  Voices & Gestures

• Footloose

  Gestures & Dancing

• Modern Times

  The Capitalist Body

• The Marriage of Maria Braun

  The Capitalist Body

• Tangerine

  The Capitalist & Gendered Body

• Boys Don't Cry

  The Gendered Body

...plus 19 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• The Student of Prague
• The Doll
• The Man Who Laughs
• Nosferatu the Vampyre
• Kuhle Wampe or Who Owns the World?
• I Don't Want to Be a Man
• The Oyster Princess
• Diary of a Lost Girl
• The Blue Angel
• Mädchen in Uniform

...plus 34 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• One of Them Days
• Sinners
• Dog Man

• Rear Window

  Wes Anderson film

• The Brothers Bloom

  Wes Anderson film

• Galaxy Quest

  Star Trek movie

• The Incredibles

  Fantastic Four movie

• The Rock

  James Bond movie... or is it?

• How to Blow Up a Pipeline

  heist film

• Brick

  film noir

• Super 8

  Steven Spielberg movie

• Upgrade

  super hero origin movie

• Some Kind of Wonderful

  John Huges movie

...plus 2 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• Love Lies Bleeding
• Dune: Part Two
• Civil War
• SPERMWORLD
• Immaculate
• Hit Man
• I Saw the TV Glow
• Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
• We Grown Now
• Thelma

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

• Toxi
• Ali: Fear Eats the Soul
• Herzsprung
• Black Rider
• Everything Will Be Fine
• Teza
• Our Rhineland
• Little Big Voice
• Precious Ivie
• Measures of Men

  😬

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

• Nimona
• Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret.
• Barbie
• Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
• Bottoms
• Joy Ride
• They Cloned Tyrone
• Killers of the Flower Moon
• The Holdovers
• Anatomy of a Fall

...plus 10 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• They Live
• Videodrome
• Starship Troopers
• Nightcrawler
• Blow-Up
• Blow Out
• The Cabin in the Woods
• Dogtooth
• The Truman Show

• Ways of Seeing

  media as art

• The Society of the Spectacle

  media as industry

• Stuart Hall: Representation & the Media

  television and representation

• The 400 Blows

  auteur theory

• The American Astronaut

  genre theory

• Green Porno

  auteur theory

• Seduce Me

  auteur theory

• The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

  psychoanalysis (Freud)

• City Lights

  psychoanalysis (Lacan)

• The Pervert's Guide to Cinema

  ideology

...plus 13 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• The Fly

  The Metamorphosis

• The Metamorphosis of Mr. Samsa
• Franz Kafka's a Country Doctor
• Class Relations

  The Man Who Disappeared

• Europa

  The Man Who Disappeared

• Synecdoche, New York

  Theater of Oklahoma

• Eighth Grade

  Theater of Oklahoma

• The Trial
• After Hours

  Before the Law

• A Serious Man

...plus 2 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• Baraka
• Planet Earth
• Mountain
• The Searchers
• Leviathan
• The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
• The Secret Garden
• Aguirre, the Wrath of God
• EO
• Honeyland

...plus 14 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
• Nosferatu
• Metropolis
• Berlin: Symphony of a Great City
• Pandora's Box
• M
• The Blue Light
• Triumph of the Will
• The Murderers Are Among Us
• Sun Seekers

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

• Lucy and Desi
• Everything Everywhere All at Once
• Top Gun: Maverick
• Prey
• Catherine Called Birdy
• TÁR
• The Menu
• The Banshees of Inisherin
• Aftersun
• Women Talking

...plus 5 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• Judas and the Black Messiah
• The Mitchells vs. the Machines
• Bo Burnham: Inside
• CODA
• Old Henry
• The Green Knight
• Pig
• Titane
• Dune
• C'mon C'mon

...plus 7 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• Boys State
• Babyteeth
• Feels Good Man
• Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution
• Extra Ordinary
• Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets
• Sarah Cooper: Everything's Fine
• Alone
• Possessor
• The Forty-Year-Old Version

...plus 20 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• Apollo 11
• Toy Story 4
• Fighting with My Family
• Booksmart
• American Factory
• The Art of Self-Defense
• The Peanut Butter Falcon
• Parasite
• Ready or Not
• Marriage Story

...plus 20 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• The Dawn Wall
• Eighth Grade
• Annihilation
• Leave No Trace
• If Beale Street Could Talk
• Paddington 2
• Mountain
• Sorry to Bother You
• Hannah Gadsby: Nanette
• First Reformed

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

• Babyteeth

  The Fault in Our Stars (2014)

• Leave No Trace

  Captain Fantastic (2016)

• Lonesome Jim

  Garden State (2004)

• The Teachers' Lounge

  Dead Poet's Society (1989)

• Observe and Report

  Paul Blart: Mall Cop (2009)

• Barbie
• Swiss Army Man
• Ex Machina
• Under the Skin
• I, Robot
• A.I. Artificial Intelligence
• Wings of Desire
• TRON: Legacy
• Bicentennial Man
• Pinocchio

...plus 5 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.