4v291o

This review may contain spoilers.

Transphobic, racist, and sexist, with a plot twist that results in pedophilia saving the world. Which is extremely disappointing, because it has some fun effects, energetic camera work, and silliness. Its tone is all over the place, though, and so is the style. It jumps from moody noir to melodrama matte to slapstick comedy, and all of those are fine, but stringing them all together doesn't really work here.

The trick is to make sure the butt of the joke deserves it; if you can't do that, the next best thing is giving them a happy ending. Here, everyone who gets made a fool of falls into at least one of these categories (this is mostly important with Eunice, who deserves happiness in order to make her not end up the sexist stereotype she threatens to become). It makes Judy's antics go from insufferable to charming pretty easily, even if in reality what she's doing is gaslighting and manipulating a musicologist (if he were a geologist, as I thought at first, this would be okay, of course, yes you heard me, I have it out for the geologists) for no reason (or possibly to make him fall in love with her, which would be more toxic). The intentional comparisons to Bugs Bunny make it all too clear what they're going for here, though, so it's very hard to take this seriously. This film does not exist in reality; it is not a film with a message. It's a film made to showcase Streisand's comedic timing. Everything else is set dressing, even the car chase. Yes, it's fun to watch the Rube Goldberg device smash through the window and bifurcate the canopy, but the dialogue (which is more like a monohemilogue?) is where the laughs are at.

Worth watching for the animation, even if the story isn't your thing, as it very much isn't mine.

It veers between unnerving, heartbreaking voiceovers to cheezy, over-the-top ones. This can at times be jarring in a way that amplifies the point and cruelty of what we are seeing, and at times it is jarring in a way that detracts, becoming cartoonish and absurd. Despite this uneven performance, the end result, highlighted with the final 20 minutes or so of the film, is disturbing, haunting, maddening, and traumatizing all at once, nailing the message about how cruel war and its officers are.

It stops short of class consciousness, something one might ask for from a director who was a member of the Communist Party, and it has some reactionary politics represented in its portrayal of the deaths of indigenous people and its treatment of women. While these are rooted in character and the time period depicted, they're not fully investigated or addressed. The former is definitely portrayed as yet another horror of war, but the latter is simply laced into the film because of our protagonist's heavy influence on perspective and never repudiated. It's unnecessary as part of the film overall - we can still see how flawed and naïve Joe is without it.

The escalation of the flashbacks and dream sequences into more surreal or confused imagery conveys the nightmare that Joe is living, but like the voiceover, they sometimes veer too far into the absurd, losing the tone of the film. Other times, they feel like a distraction from the horrors, which is probably welcome to most viewers - a lot of build up and release can help with all that tension - but I found myself yearning for the despair and horror. It was so well crafted compared to the rest of the film that the quieter moments of Joe's agonized monologue were compelling and mortifying. Any film that could sustain that the whole time would be a true masterpiece.

What good is an allegedly class conscious film if you have to already be class conscious to get it? At best, someone who isn't class conscious walks away from this thinking these rich people were mostly awful, and maybe, hopefully, they extend that to all rich people - that is, those who exploit the people and live in luxury because of it - but it's not guaranteed. If this feels like an argument for hitting people over the head with a class conscious message, it absolutely is. That doesn't make this a bad movie; it just makes it not the class conscious piece I kept getting told it was. Which is fine, because I suspected it wouldn't be.

My biggest problem with its class portrayal is that it still portrays wealth as a good thing, a "happy ending", and it suggests that one might get rich off labor alone (in the case of Harlan and his books), which only perpetuates capitalist myths. One can argue that Harlan and Marta, especially, are metaphors for the working class owning the means of production, but in order to see that, you have to understand all of those things to begin with. And that's useless. We need to spread class consciousness, not cheerlead to those who already have it.

And of course, it doesn't remotely get the cops right. Those jackals should have been clambering to arrest Marta without a shred of evidence if this wanted to be either realistic or class conscious. Show them for what they are - lackeys of the rich people this film is revealing to be awful - rather than use them as devices to liberate the working class character(s). Arguing that Blanc was a private detective doesn't cut it; arguing that the cops and Blanc were kinda absurd doesn't, either. Though they were funny.

Edit to add: It also gets very hamfisted with its racial commentary, coming off as the kind of patronizing it wants to critique the more liberal-hearted rich folks for. It presents some of the more reactionary politics of the rich (especially the kid) in a way that is clearly mocking, but it never delves into the why of it - we need people to understand not just that it's bad, but how it affects them, why it affects them. It's not enough to say "this person is an immigrant and also not a bad person"; predicating solidarity with immigrants on whether or not Hollywood thinks they're good or bad is not the right move. It's better than the average Hollywood film, playing into more hateful stereotypes, but it doesn't hit the mark.

Again, that doesn't make the movie completely bad. Just means it isn't what others have claimed.

What makes the movie good - or fun, anyway - is the dynamics of the camera. The way that thing moves is refreshing in a big budget film. Rattling about as Marta gets waylaid, slipping and sliding through the big mansion, just having a grand old time not sitting too still, it gives energy to a film living in a more static genre. Unfortunately, the color palette is a little too drained to keep up; there's a way to get moody, dreary, and gloomy without sucking it dry. It also drags on a bit too much. That first half needs to be whittled down a bit; the camera gives this thing life, but the plotting is at odds with that up until the last 40 minutes or so.

Still, it's a decent mystery to waste some time with.

I have to wonder how in the world they got away with using Dolly Parton's music in this, and I hope it's a situation where they didn't ask and didn't tell. This is one of those short films where it feels like everyone's having a good time throwing fake blood around, and I am here for it. There could be more done with the juxtaposition between Dolly Parton's image and the gory violence, but in its brief runtime, it still manages to give us enough characterization and story for this to be a decent capsule of horror comedy.

Any film with contempt for the rich gets a little extra affection from me, but any film that portrays cops as heroes gets extra scorn. So I guess this evens out in the end. There are moments in this that are going for some stylish, neon moodiness; there are moments in this that are genuinely creepy. The performances are all over the place. There are scenes where they switch from bad to good between lines, even, but that kinda makes it more watchable. This feels like someone saw Manhunter and took a tenth of the budget to try to blend it with a cowboy cop film. You can see the good movie lurking in those blue lights and random moments of sleaze and uneasiness, but then it ruins everything with corny bullshit. They build up Shanna Reed's character in a way that makes her seem defiant and powerful but also letting you know they're gonna turn her into a damsel in distress before it's all over - and they do it in a patronizing, pathetic way that squanders all of her spirit from before. Special mention goes to the agonizingly bad acting when a particular cop relates the final clue to our "hero" - it's drawn out, over-acted, pointless, and never resolved. That's the kind of complete mess this is. Just give me those long shots of dark hallways and killers watching from afar and leave the rest of this out.

Now that they have announced they will finally be doing Oscars for stunt performers, they need to retroactively award them for every year they missed all the way back the birth of cinema, just so they can give the dog in this film their due.

I never dreamed of running away. Not because I didn't want to, but because there was nowhere to run to in smalltown Alabama. Not because I didn't want to, but because the fear of being caught running away was so intense that I never saw it as an option. But I dreamed often of being myself. I dreamed often of finding a space where I might be safe. I found punk rock as a teenager and dreamed of the empowering defiance it was suffused with. I chose a safer route of escape, hobbled as I was by TSD and a complete lack of self-esteem needed to have this kind of resourcefulness. Pammy tells Nicky early on that she isn't afraid; I never had that option growing up. But seeing the fantasy play out hit me in the heart. It tore from me old memories of old feelings, of times when all I had was the fantasy of independence. It evoked a sense of yearning for the simple freedom of being myself. There are days I forget that I've reached that goal in almost every way I once dreamed of - no journey is ever complete, I suspect - but while Pammy and Nicky aren't transitioning their genders, they still resonate deeply with me. That's the fundamental struggle trans people live - the fight for self-expression against being defined by repressive, patriarchal, capitalist values. I suspect everyone who chafes at their own oppression can find a way to see themselves in Pammy and Nicky. Some more closely than others, but somehow, this film strikes a deep chord.

It's a film about seeing the truth, about freedom, about defiance, about being a teenager, about being human, about gentrification, about America, and about the American Dream. I think the real "American Dream", to use an unpleasant phrase, is to just be left the fuck alone. We're fed lies our whole lives about lifting ourselves up by our bootstraps (a lie directly referenced in this film in a fascinatingly warped manner), about this idea of independence, about this hazy vision of being "free", and because at the same time we are exploited, oppressed, derided, exhausted, drained, tormented by the ruthless system of capitalism, it becomes all too appealing. When the people who are supposed to love and care for us are the people abandoning us, coercing us, using us, imprisoning us, the idea of freedom as individualism becomes the most appealing dream we can imagine. We're indoctrinated to think of liberty as the highest value, misinformed that that takes the form of individualism, and then encouraged to seek that at the expense of others.

This film reimagines that completely.

This film is a fantasy of rebellion, a romantic image of checking out of the system, a beautiful frenzy of bonded survival in defiance of a world designed to tell us who and what we are without our consent. It resonates across ages, races, classes, genders because it spits in the eye of the myth of the American dream and embraces the twisted lies we're told in the most reclamatory way possible. It rebukes the idea of individualism while celebrating individuality.

As much as Nicky clearly seeks fame, it's not truly about fame. It's about the elusive security she believes fame will bring her. One of the more appealing American dreams is that of being a fucking rock star, but just like the myth of 2.5 kids house car couple, it's predicated on the idea of being free of the agonies capitalism forces upon us. It's an ideal of being above the suffering, of having adoration and from a roaring, anonymous crowd, of a sort of liberty that comes only with the of millions. Nicky wants the dream of being free to be her aggressive, guarded, flamboyant self without the threat of being institutionalized (the very threat that makes her aggressive and guarded in the first place, along with all of those abandonments), and she smashes every television and her most ive relationship on the way to get there. She's a feral child living off of fear and audacity, and Robin Johnson's performance of that feels so goddamned real it's painful. She's teenage angst personified and justified and deified with a guitar and an amp on the streets.

Meanwhile, Pammy is the living embodiment of how much the upper middle class American dream is a deception. Her alleged loving father sees her as a prop to his ambitions, which involve gentrifying the titular mythological heart of New York's underclasses, and her rejection of it is probably the film's strongest expression of its thesis statement. It marries the "cleaning up" of Times Square to the suppression of expression, queerness (with a dose of frustrating behind-the-scenes tampering making it all too real), of self, of reality, and ultimately, of the defiance of and consequences of capitalism. Capitalists want it both ways - they want to exploit us till we bleed, but they don't want to have to see us bleed. That's what the Disneyfication of Times Square was about, and that's what every gentrification project, every fearmongering story about crime, every racist homophobic sexist transphobic NIMBY bullshit fight is about. Pammy gets fed up with being a prop for it and lands in a mental institution, and a mountain of lies collapses.

Its treatment of Times Square is something of a love letter. I obviously never saw it as it was when this was filmed. I haven't ever seen it, come to think of it, outside of films and TV shows. But its reputation and place in history - especially queer history - is familiar to me. The film uses it as a metaphor, but it also depicts it as a sort of safe haven. It doesn't exactly cherry coat it, but it doesn't focus on the alleged criminal activity or dangers of the place. Those accusations come from the mouth of a gentrifier in the film; while I don't doubt it had its share of crime, too often that word is used as a (usually racist) excuse by capitalists for their own ends, and the film portrays that accurately. Whether there were dangers to being in Times Square or not, David Pearl's intentions were fueled by greed, not concern. So the film focuses on tacitly arguing against his pseudoconcerns by capturing a sense of community there. It shows the Sleaze Sisters becoming familiar faces to the folks working there. It shows the patrons of a porn theater defend them from a cop, shows them find work there, find everything they need (even if they have to steal some of it). It shows it as a place, most importantly, where they can safely be themselves. That sort of safety isn't found in the over-policed, whitewashed, oppressive environment David Pearl wanted to - and real people apparently did - turn Times Square into. It's a different kind of safety - one that only has room for straight white men with enough money to not look to unclean. Nicky and Pammy find more affection and acceptance from strangers and acquaintances in Times Square than they did in their own homes; their story becomes the story of the location.

There's so much packed into these two Juliet runaways. The story manages to distill teenage disillusionment, reveal its essence as a reckoning with the truth and dismantling of the lies our parents told us, while at the same time not glorifying the pseudo-independence that Pammy and Nicky find. They survive with grit and cunning, with courage and care, but they're still trapped in a predatory system, and more importantly, they're still vulnerable children. The film respects their teenage perspectives, allowing them to be both immature and maturing (Nicky's self-destructive urges and hard-earned skepticism), insightful and naïve (Pammy's for Nicky's art and her awkward initial dance at the club), resourceful and clueless (enough to find a job but not enough to successfully mug someone). It has a deep romanticism to it, but still takes the time to lace that with enough reality to make it not feel like the Disneyfication it is denouncing. If they were too adult, it would feel inauthentic. If it were too childish, it would make this a either a kid's flick or a horror movie. Instead, it walks a fine line, drawing from the spirit of punk, glam, and old school rock'n'roll to capture the myth of teenage rebellion while combining it with enough reality to get its point across. It acknowledges that they are young and have a certain amount of innocence, but it still says they're fucking right.

It's empowering, but it's also Johnny LaGuardia's radio show. He's rightfully called out for exploiting the stories he shares, but at the same time, that act helps catalyze Pammy's journey. It helps rally for the Sleaze Sisters. It serves as a collective organizer - to be very Leninist about it - but with the wrong intentions behind it. Johnny's an opportunist who lucks into the right cause. Nicky sees right through him, allowing the audience to see right through the film. The producers behind it are just Johnny LaGuardia; we can tell by how they chose to hack out the queerest parts of this. They wanna sell us this fantasy without the bleeding parts, but truth won out. The film screams at the straights and throws a phone through the glass partition.

It's hard to tell where the executive meddling begins and ends, so it's not necessarily fair to blame it for every perceived fault. It's fair to say the queer story was butchered by producers, but the film's handling of race probably not as much. The way it addresses the racist claims of developers is mostly relegated to the subtle rejection of racist stereotyping in background characters, but ultimately, they're still background characters whose stories aren't told, despite the film using a location that was not predominantly white. It's a powerful image to see Black men accepting and befriending two white, queer teenager runaways - in a lesser film, they would be presented as preying on them - but that's a fleeting moment in the larger narrative that deserved more attention.

More importantly, the use of racial slurs in one of the film's most confrontational scene is a serious misstep. It's contextualized as an exposé and an act of solidarity in a very fucked up and poorly thought out way, but there's good reasons those words are taboo in the ways that they are. And to lay claim to them as applying to two white women is out of line. Since they are two queer girls, I can't fault them for reclaiming homophobic slurs, but erasing the important differences in oppression of people of color by claiming their slurs isn't the right way to express that sort of solidarity. Our struggles are linked and should be united, but that doesn't mean we can coopt each other's oppression entirely. We need to build that bridge carefully. I am sure there are plenty of people of color who even see the solidarity expressed and appreciated, and in fairness to the characters, they're teenagers with no political training whatsoever. But the filmmakers should and could have been more sensitive, even in an era where that terminology was less of a career-killer, which is reflected in the underserving of the people of color in the film in general. As much as I am certain this film's themes must resonate with anyone experiencing oppression, these flaws likely present barriers to those affected direclty by racism. The context probably helps, though.

But the film's empathy extends beyond just the two girls at the center. The characterizations of some of the authority figures around Nicky and Pammy isn't blunt demonization; while I applaud any film that shows a capitalist for the cartoonish villain they are, here, the complexity adds to the film. It's used not as a humanization or justification for David Pearl's actions, but rather a result of Nicky and Pammy's actions. Pearl is shown to be abusive, bigoted, opportunistic, and cruel, and his most humane moments come when he finally stops acting out of his own interest and finally shows just a fraction of affection for his daughter. It's comes in a quiet confrontation, a phone call, and a brief smile, not in some overblown, hammer-to-nail dialogue.

Meanwhile, Nicky's social worker and the older doctor who treats the girls are both shown to have real sympathy for them, and a real interest in helping them, but both are limited by the system they work in. The doctor who is fully and clearly in David Pearl's pocket comes off as smarmy and manipulative - he also kinda looks and comes off a little bit like Anthony Heald, so I couldn't help but compare him to Dr. Chilton from Silence of the Lambs, perhaps unfairly - but other of the medical staff aren't just mouthpieces for rich assholes. Nicky's social worker serves to counter the ruthless, inhumane tactics of the police and media consultants, and her refusal to let Nicky's disrespect alter her sympathy for Nicky shows a rare spot of true comion from someone embroiled in the system. These are important counterbalances; it shows that the system is mostly made up of human beings. Most are just workers doing the best they can.

Only the cops and capitalists come off as truly terrible, and the main antagonist - David Pearl - only ultimately softens after being completely destroyed.

Watching the scene where Nicky and Pammy scream each other's names, I leaned over to my dear friend who had seen it before and asked, "Is this gonna break my heart?" Xe confirmed that it would, and I spent the film thinking I was gonna see them replay that moment later in some horrifyingly tragic moment. I am so used to stories of teenage rebellion ending with death or some other harrowing loss that their names echoing through the abandoned warehouse seemed like an omen. But the film defied those expectations; its whole premise is liberatory, and it refused to be shackled by its influences. It owes something to Rebel Without a Cause, but it reclaims the genre rather than embraces it. It's influenced by early punk rock in that it still doesn't let the confines of genre limit it. It has a glam sheen, a punk spirit, a new wave energy, a rock'n'roll grit, and a pop ballad heart - and it recognizes that none of those things are contradictory.

Most great films manage one or two great moments, carefully built up to or framed or otherwise packaged with context. This film rejects that model and makes every moment a great moment. Every scene has an impact; every scene tells a story; every scene is evocative and memorable. It takes the American Dream and turns it inside out, shows it for the lie that it really is, and lets us live the fantasy of escape that it promises. It says to us "you can have it if you reject everything about it". And it's not wrong. We have to destroy it and build our own. It makes that clear by doing just that with its filmmaking.

Gloriously colorful, with over-the-top performances that manage to convey just how absurd these children are - and that's the crucial part, these characters are foolish children whose actions are only outmatched in their foolishness by the enmity of their parents. This adaptation conveys it perfectly, from the boorishness of Romeo's cousins and friends to Juliet's dewy-eyed, lovestruck naivete. Every creative choice seems to amplify the absurdity, turning a classic tragedy into a surreal delight. It's jarring, in a good way. The decisions to adapt it to a modern setting and to keep the language from the original film creates just the right dissonance to make it seem more poetic rather than to make it seem anachronistic. What a great fucking film.

She did everything for that lazy jerk and he had the temerity to throw her out? I hope his human-worm-dog eats him, to be honest.

Apparently, I mixed this up with another film, because while rewatching, I felt like this was leading toward some sort of unpleasant doom, so when it didn't turn out that way, I had a nice moment of relief. It works because it's not so much about this outsider telling people how to be, but rather, about her encouraging them to simply be themselves. It removes the condescending tone you might expect and makes it far more enjoyable.

It's always a sadly heartwarming thing to see a film bubble to the top of the algorithm after the death of an actor. There are much better Gene Hackman films, but this is one I hadn't seen before. It's one of those films that feels like it was designed to hit certain beats and has nothing in between to let them breathe, to let the characters grow before our eyes. They do grow, but it's a staccato growth with no throughline. Cheezy, predictable, divorced from the reality that inspired it, but the underlying theme of second chances is nice, anyway.

A kind way to describe these relationships is "messy". Ogie's obsessive pursuit of Dawn, Cal and Becky's affair, Jenna and Dr. Pomatter's affair all weave through various red flags and unhealthy behaviors in a way that could easily be seen as affirmation of toxicity.

Dawn and Ogie comes way too close to a "no means yes" affirmation, which would all be problematic if there weren't just a tad bit more context. We have a previous scene where Dawn has to be bolstered by her friends into breaking past her own anxieties, and Ogie's pursuit is not about his forcing himself on Dawn so much as breaking past those anxieities. It's a subtle distinction and one that should be handled better (and I feel like it is in the original film), but it's there. And Ogie and Dawn have chemistry.

Cal and Becky's affair, honestly, is mostly fine. Becky's assertion that she won't leave her husband because she loves him is as close as we can get to an affirmation of non-monogamy here. It's Cal's unseen lesbian wife that leaves a hole in this that makes it messier, but if he loves his closeted (?) wife, good for him. If they can all make it work, good for them. It's a messy version of things, but there's a sweetness to it that comes through in the performances.

And, of course, Jenna's affair is not about the affair at all. Dr. Pomatter is a stepping stone in her journey to self-esteem. She acknowledges that when she thanks him. He's part of a trio of contrasts, himself, Joe, and Earl. It's interesting how the stage show handles Earl; he's given a showcase song (a villain song, essentially) that manages to convey how dangerous he is and how beguiling all at once. Dr. Pomatter... Drew Gehling is a solid performer, but Nathan Fillion had better chemistry with Keri Russell than Gehling does with Sara Bareilles. That's not a bad thing, though - it ends up reinforcing the idea that the affair is not about him and her, but about her entirely. About her journey to strength, to leaving Earl. It pays off in the end in a way that finds the same emotional power as the film's finale.

Going in, I worried they might change too much and take away Jenna's strength and independence, but they didn't, thankfully. She still leaves Earl not because of a contest or an inheritance, but because of her love for her child and her self. It's entirely about her not wanting her child to grow up to be Earl, to grow up in an environment as abusive and toxic as Earl creates, to be in competition with her own father, and about how Jenna finally feels strong enough to realize she deserves that as well as her child does. That she's able to provide that, even if she doesn't have the contest money.

It's one of my favorite moments in all of cinema, and I am glad they managed it here, too.

The footage of nature and the wilds of Bouvet Island are sometimes impressive, even in the low grade quality we have here, and the soundtrack is fucking excellent. But really, this is just a home movie without context that just happens to be on a remote arctic island.

Every story told about living in the wake of a disaster, especially a hurricane, as devastating as this, always repeats a similar pattern when that story is told by someone living in a capitalist country. These stories and images bring back strong memories of the early days after Hurricane Katrina; the disaster is bad enough, but the lack of resources to recover add another layer of trauma, despair, and outrage. Somehow, we find the strength to go on in little moments (like the recovery of a marriage ring), but this is not how it should be.

I don't care if she only wanted to be with him for the money, Marie didn't deserve to be physically grabbed and demeaned. It leaves a vile film of misogyny over the rest of Fred's story to see him do that; we can pretend it's a consequence of his trauma, but it still doesn't excuse it. The film paints Marie as a villain, but it never reckons with Fred's actions in that moment.

There's other moments here, moments where you are asked to accept bourgeois values like glorification of the military or racism. It's ingrained into the story. There's a simmering outrage underneath it all to see how these GIs are treated, the struggles they face, and the context of being GIs adds a layer to it that smacks of jingoism. The capitalists want you to think they care about veterans, because if they were honest about the ways they screw veterans over, you'd never sign up for their armies in the first place. So this film's depiction of hardships has a taint to it as well.

Those hardships these veterans face have only amplified over the decades. The glory of war has lost its power in the wake of the Vietnam War and decades of deceptions and lies being uncovered. The capitalists have stripped every program for that ever existed away, and everything has gotten more expensive and lower paying. Veterans don't deserve to have been used for imperialist war, and they don't deserve to be thrown away afterward. But glorifying them isn't the answer - honest assessment of what imperialist war really is is what is needed. A complete dismantling of the war corporations is what is needed.

So I get the sympathy this has for the plight of veterans, especially ones who fought Nazis. But the other values lurking underneath here are insidious, poisons that afflict the anti-ableist message, the pro-working class ideas, and the moving romantic and personal plotlines that are what make this such a beloved film to so many. It's at its core a story of finding ones confidence again, of finding a way to love oneself and others in the wake of trauma, and that's fucking powerful. If only it weren't peppered with racial slurs and militarist pride.

While there are abundant technical issues with this - sound and editing especially - and the performances are not the greatest, the idea behind this is something I generally , though there's a few lines in here that are softer on the British empire, for example, than I'd prefer. It's an educational tool for children, and it seems to do that just fine.

Remarkable portrait of a young man in Antigua, a slice-of-life film narrated by the subject, giving a peaceful, insightful feel to the entire thing, even in its more lively moments.

This has an intriguing premise, but there's not enough going on to fully explore it. We get what is essentially a set up for a much more powerful film, hints at a traumatic past, glimpses of the protagonist's mental journey, but there needs to be more for this to fully reach its potential.

There's a sort of physical flow to these wherein it seems almost reasonable while also completely denying all scientific laws and theories. It's what attracted me so much to these as a kid.

A document of pure evil.

Badly acted, written, and filmed, but there's a little charm to this. If it had a bigger budget and a bit more technical skill, there might be something here.

The misstep is that when you generate sympathy for a character by subjecting them to humiliation, that generates a desire to see them ultimately succeed. Without that payoff, it just seems mean spirited.

Kinda like looking at an old portrait of some half-ed king; you know they were a monster living off looted wealth, but it's still interesting to see into history.

At first, the solid performances beguile you, but after a while, it becomes clear this film is not going to rise above its copaganda genre trappings. It remains focused entirely on the heavily fictionalized white FBI agents and underserves every Black character, glorifying the FBI's role while not delving at all into the Black lives or those of the activists. By doing this, not only do they give the impression that the FBI investigated out of some progressive motivation, it also inadvertently delivers a narrative that implies that the activism was driven by outsiders.

To be clear, the FBI did investigate the murders of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner (whose names are not used in this film, even though it is entirely based on the investigation of their deaths), but their motivation was to mollify the mass civil rights protests going on at the time. It wasn't out of a desire to see justice; it wasn't out of a desire to fight racism. This was just a few years before the FBI helped murder Fred Hamption; the FBI is as much a force of racist terror as the KKK. They serve the same purpose.

So this is just exploiting the story of anti-racist activists' deaths to sell you on the FBI, which is just evil.

Effectively a public service announcement, encouraging people to avoid processed foods and live healthier lives, but with a blend of historical and social information mixed in. By contextualizing it with a mildly nationalist appeal, it also feels like a subtle critique of imperialism, or at least a quiet pushback against the effects of it, though its funding coming from the UN suggests that might be unintentional. It's simple, direct, and badly acted, but it makes the point it's trying to make.

It's very bro comedy, but not always bad. It has moments of solid comedy and moments where it misses the mark badly. The ending starts to get interesting, then abruptly stops, which is unfortunate.

This needs to be a few hours long, a full, detailed explanation of how to make this dish.

Pretty but meh.

A man's fantasy about what women are like together. It's one thing to tell a story of a woman feeling out of place amongst coworkers; it's another to just have a stream of vapid stereotypes and bad monologue.

Leave the text off the end, and you have a classic.

Mere seconds of history, of captured reality, of preservation of what was, speaking to the profound importance of cinema in keeping the truth, even if it hadn't come into its own yet.

A brief glimpse into refugees returning to their homeland during a time of hardship - though the film fails to give full context of the hardships. It's a powerful, empathetic film with moments of heartbreak and kindness, but without the wider context, it feels incomplete.

It's easy to think, after the first two weeks of Trump's fascist onslaught, that the times were different when this was filmed, but the truth is, we were fighting tooth and nail while this was being filmed against wave after wave of anti-trans legislation and rising violence. So the journey Harper and Will make in this is one through increasingly hostile territory (because of the anti-trans agenda, not necessarily the people), and though the film takes time to show that, it stops short of showing what needs to be done about it.

When I first heard this was going to be released, I was skeptical. It sounded like it could very much end up being a vanity project that was all about Will Ferrell. I was also hopeful. A major celebrity who is beloved by the working class, even a segment of it, showcasing the humanity of a trans woman and combatting the lies being constantly spread could, in theory, help the cause. What we ended up getting is somewhere in between. It's a self-aware documentary that acknowledges its own faults while also allowing for an intimate portrait of a cis-trans friendship. At worst, cis people will walk away from this with the knowledge that it is possible to have a strong, loving friendship across that particular gender divide. That's not nothing, but it could have been so much more.

This is a complicated film. Any film that allows a trans woman room to tell her story is going to hit home. Harper's coming-out letter is deeply moving, bringing me to tears, and she expresses sentiments that are so familiar and relatable I felt an ache inside to hear them. The format of letting Will ask questions (with some clearly stated permission and emphasis on their existing friendship) allows cis viewers to be vicariously guided to understanding, but any trans viewer will feel the vulnerability and honesty of the answers. Harper isn't a prop here; what she chooses to share is not just for to sate cis curiosity. It's clear this is as much about her journey as Will's - more so, in fact. That makes this far, far better than more exploitative, cis-centric trans narratives.

"I don't know if it loves me back right now."

Harper's hesitance about how she will be treated on the road trip is deeply warranted. The film manages to show a variety of responses to Harper throughout. A stop in Oklahoma bucks expectations as Harper ventures into a bar with a prominently displayed Confederate flag. There, she is treated with respect and welcomed with a native folk song. Later, at a gimmicky Texas steakhouse, she is caught in the bubble of attention that Will Ferrell's celebrity draws and excoriated. The wider net draws hostile responses online, and shortly after, Harper reads off some earlier responses to their trip from online commentators. In Indiana, they run into the state's governor, whom they did not know had signed anti-trans legislation, and they both regret missing the chance to speak with him about it. Yet there are multiple times Harper engages with strangers who quietly accept her as she is, which allows for a more-or-less honest view of the people.

However, it doesn't truly for the average trans experience. While Harper's descriptions of her feelings as a trans woman, about her anxieites, about her struggles with dysphoria, about her bad therapists and complicated relationship with makeup, about her history of hiding herself before transition, while all of that is relatable and real, her road trip and some of her experiences are vastly different from what most trans people experience. This is occasionally acknowledged, mostly in relationship to how Will Ferrell's presence affects people's reactions to her. It's one thing to have a cis friend backing you up; it's quite another to have an extremely famous, well liked millionaire celebrity and a camera crew affecting reactions. How would Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb respond to Harper if he weren't afraid of looking bad on camera with a popular comedian? How would the steakhouse have treated her? Would the diner waitress be so quick to apologize if the cameras weren't on her? We'll never know, but the risk mitigation factors present are of course not the reality for most trans people. That doesn't entirely negate her experiences, nor does the obviously careful curation of which clips to include in the documentary. But it is something to keep in mind as you watch, especially if you are a vulnerable trans person.

Another very notable example of Harper's privilege is late in the film. Near the end of their journey, she and Will stop by a house she bought, apparently on a whim, in an isolated desert community. She used this house as a private space to explore her gender, wearing women's clothing where no one who knew her would see her. This is the clearest example of her own personal privilege - clearly she's not impoverished - that we get, which goes completely unexamined save for a brief statement early on about how being in the closet allowed her to have a career in comedy. She must have been in internal hell through it all, but in the end, head-writer-of-SNL money got her that great boob job.

And that's the more unpleasant part of this that is completely ignored. I can't cite specific examples off the top of my head, but I guarantee you that SNL has done more than its unfair share of anti-trans jokes over the last 50 years. Will Ferrell is almost certainly not blameless, nor are any of the celebrities featured in this film. Nor, I suspect, is Harper. Even if she did not personally write them, she was part of an institution whose humor is dangerously reactionary. It is extremely rare for comedy to be anything but reactionary, whether it is anti-trans or just generally appealing to bigotry for humor. We even see Ferrell make a sexist joke (albeit knowingly, winkingly) in this film. That that career gave her the money to transition later on is something that ought to be reckoned with, but we don't get that here at all. Instead, this film paints these various complicit celebrities far more kindly than it should.

And I could forgive that if the film were more directly and intentionally a statement about fighting transphobia, especially about how to do so. What we drastically need is a primer for how to convince people - trans or cis - to start standing up to these anti-trans laws and policies, to organize, fight back, and shut shit down in the name of fighting fascism. While I don't expect that of a Netflix documentary about SNL alumni, I did want to see a bit more defiance. A bit more outrage. A bit more explicit direction on how best to engage newly out trans people. Or at least enough awareness to exclude some of the film's worst moments. The aftermath of the steakhouse scene shows Will crying over not being better about standing up for Harper, making the moment about himself and ending with her comforting him. She was subject to vile transphobia, amplified by his celebrity, and he makes that moment about himself. It's galling. With the self-awareness shown in other parts of the film, it's clear the filmmakers are capable of calling themselves out a bit; why couldn't they have done that here? It's entirely possible to deliver the message "stand up for your trans friends" without making it about the shame of a cis man.

Another mistake is later, when they are both dressing for their fancy date in Las Vegas. They parallel Will getting into disguise with Harper dres and putting on make up. That parallel has an unfortunate implication that both are creating false images in that moment, which is exactly the opposite of what they want to be saying. Perhaps not every viewer will interpret it that way; a single montage isn't going to spoil the more intimate, raw moments of Harper's truth that we get. But it's glaringly out of theme, a clear misstep.

So it's a flawed but well intentioned documentary. All in all, I think cis people will come away from this with a little more understanding and empathy for trans people, and for that, it's worth watching. For trans viewers, the chance to see an older trans woman live and speak her truth is powerful and relatable. This is not the vanity exercise I feared it would be, even if it veers too close to that at times. But it's not the best use of its massive platform, either.

Others have covered in depth the music, the issues of race, and the filmmaking in general, so I want to focus on gambling. More specifically, the depiction of gambling as the sin of an individual.

I am not at home to Christian morality for obvious reasons (I'm a disgusting pervert), but that's not really my complaint. My complaint is that gambling is depicted here and often elsewhere as something weak people get addicted to and can't escape while ignoring the social and economic circumstances. Capitalism sucks workers dry and dangles the hope of allegedly easy money in front of them just to suck them ever drier, and then they make moralistic garbage that tells them it's their fault. I don't care if you make a bet here and there; I don't care if you like the slots. I care that casino owners and sports gambling companies make billions off our suffering.

Anyway, it's also weird to me that some of these big jazz stars would agree to be in a film that depicts them and their music as tools of the devil in such a directly judgmental, negative way (if it were promoting it as the devil's music in a positive way, it'd be a much better and more interesting film). But that's Hollywood for you; it will have you playing against your own interests in a heartbeat.

The first time I watched this, I was left speechless. Years later, revisiting with friends, I finally found the reason - the impact of their long-distance friendship hit so close to home that it hurt. It hurts even more now that the pandemic has turned close friendships more distant. I struggle against the feeling of isolation so keenly that any realistic depiction of it, even as movingly accurate and beautiful as this, turns me inside out.

Watching now as fascists strip every right and social program away from workers in the United States makes the imagery of resistance in here stand out. It might seem quaint or silly to some, but they do exactly what they should do in fighting back against oppression - they take their show on the road and sing to the people. They go everywhere, raising awareness of the issues. I can't speak to how effective they are at it - I don't know French and I don't think I can analyze the insights of the French working class - but the subtitle versions of it make some compelling points, even if they don't hit the full class argument (I'll go into that below, just in case you don't know it). And the songs are catchy and pretty.

But that's exactly what any revolutionary or activist should be doing: going to the people. Finding workers where they are at and explaining how these attacks affect them, the workers, not on a moral basis, but on the basis that every attack happening right now is hurting them. Whether it's abortion rights or feminism, as it is in the film, or whether it's trans rights, immigrant rights, and social programs, as it is right now in the U.S., the argument has to be "you, cis citizen worker are being hurt when they attack trans people and immigrants. Help us fight for your rights."

It's pretty simple: people who are desperate and afraid will work for lower wages. If it's legal to fire us for being trans or deport us for being immigrants, we won't complain as long as we have employment at all, because our employment is tied to our survival. So trans people and immigrants end up working for super low wages. And the capitalists pit worker against worker in competition for wages, right? They want to pay as little as possible for wages, because the less they pay us, the more they put in their own pockets. So when one group is paid less in wages, it drives down everyone's wages, since there's competition - they can always fire you and hire someone cheaper if you complain, right? So you speak up less and get paid less.

It's that simple. Anti-trans and anti-immigrant laws drive down your wages. That's why you fight anti-trans laws and anti-immigrant laws.

There's a ton of other reasons - these laws empower people who are willing to crush you, these laws are telling you and me what we can wear what bathroom to use what healthcare you can have what your name can be what your schools can teach and that they can take your children away. But at the core of it, it is always about profits. So go out and talk to workers - especially those working jobs critical to the capitalist economy, like transportation or logistics workers - and do the hard work of getting them on our side.

Anyway, back to the movie.

Varda captures the warmth of the friendship throughout hardship and distance by painting this film gold and green, light blue and deep brown, making it infinitely summery even when it's not. The situations are designed to emphasize women's struggles, but in a way that isn't heavy-handed. It's simply true to life; it captures closeness by letting the viewer feel close to the characters. By doing this, they center the character's viewpoints and emotions, keeping a tone of defiance that is rooted in optimism and everyday worries at the same time (singing or not, so to speak). And it allows each character to be seen as a full human being who find their own happiness on their own , without judgment.

I have a few dozen more Varda films to go before I have seen them all, but if this isn't her best, it's hard to imagine what could possibly be.

To say that this film is bloated, padded heavily with cartoonish car chases and unnecessary musical numbers is not an insult; it's a celebration of what is actually good about it. The pure joy of seeing major dance sequences to Aretha Franklin, James Brown, and Ray Charles wedged into a plot that's just an excuse to have those dance sequences wedged into it is why this film exists. It's just a buncha white dorks saying, "Let's celebrate Black music by giving these legends a paycheck while we do cocaine."

That's not say there aren't some problems here. Landis is a piece of shit, even if he hadn't yet committed his terrible crimes. This film doesn't really treat women well - their grief and rejection is treated as a punchline throughout, though there's something deeply satisfying about seeing Carrie Fisher with an absurd amount of firepower. And ultimately, this is a film built on Black music that enriched more white men. But.

But this is a film where the cops and the Nazis are the bad guys, which is tragically controversial these days. This is a film where being anti-union is depicted as bad! This is a film where every time a song plays, the whole world becomes choreographed perfectly. This is a film where as soon as you see a giant propane tank, you know it's going to explode. This is a film where Pinetop Perkins gets to be on screen, for fuck's sakes. Also, this is a film that knows that comedy is best done when it takes itself way too seriously.

Absurd attempt at re-creating the energy, tone, and form of a silent comedy, but it doesn't hit the mark.

An interesting look into the struggle for a gender quota in the parliament of Sierra Leone - they fought for and won a quota so that at least 30% of parliament has to be women, with their victory coming in recent years - that blends oil painting animation and non-animated segments seamlessly, this film gives voices to those at the heart of the struggle, letting them give context to it. It doesn't, unfortunately, detail the methods they use in their struggle (not entirely, anyway), and there's a major economic context that is missing. But it provides a cultural and historical snapshot that is worth watching for.

This feels like the set up to a much bigger film; it's just the call to action, not the entire story. It resolves - and doesn't feel rushed - but it has this energy that tells you it could sustain a grander, longer narrative. While the film has a digital coldness that saps some of its power, it still hits all the right notes for some kind of spiritual adventure.

The extremely heavy-handed message about choosing family over work is delivered in such an odd way - the father doesn't seem to be given a choice except to stay late by his boss, so how is it his fault? Not that I expect his child to know the difference, but certainly the audience does. And given that his occupation is being a clown, he must be economically dependent on the job for him to be at the whim of his employer as it is not a job that has any sort of emergency aspect to it. So it's not entirely effective at its overbearing message, either. But he looks great in his clown outfits.

The animation is at times jagged and angular, and at times just short of squiggle animation, but it still manages to have moments of beauty when it takes a step back and lets the depth of the setting fill the screen. The simple story has a moral about gender and work equality, which seems progressive enough, but certain aspects of the film beg deeper questions - are these chickens selling their own eggs for other people's food?!

It needs more context. Hating an ex isn't really that interesting, and devoid of context, it comes off as unlikeable. The vital component to understanding and relating to someone hating their ex is knowing why. So the monologue comes off as at best immature and at most gross. The visuals are effective at conveying the intended mood, though.

I first discovered Tony Conrad's work via his music, decades ago, as a natural progression from listening to the Velvet Underground. His abrasive droning minimalism appealed to my sense of guardedness and isolation. It felt like the screams of hell. This film emphasizes film as a sensory experience rather than a means of storytelling or the conveying of ideas; this is a piece that challenges your body as you watch it. It's a perfect visual manifestation of his music, repetitive, off-putting, and entrancing.

It made me think again on an idea I have had on-and-off for years - an event that I have developed in my mind as an anti-dance party. I am sure real artists have come up with better ideas, but I have often thought it would be fun to hold an event in a multi-room space with different films playing. One room might play a film like this or Hurlements en faveur de Sade.... Another might play the un-soundtracked works of Stan Brakhage, or perhaps a room with T,O,U,C,H,I,N,G and Toshio Matsumodo's or Shuji Terayama's short films. No matter where you go, there would always be imagery and sounds that aren't commonly danced to, except the final room, which would be soundless versions of Cannibal Holocaust, August Underground, Mondo Weirdo, and Wife to Be Sacrificed playing on its four walls while italo disco classics played. And to be there, you would have to dance, no matter which room you are in.

Anyway, watch this with the lights off.

There's a moment where the stranger pauses before responding, and you can sense the choice in the air. It's a moment of soft tension; you aren't expecting violence, but it's possible for the stranger to say the wrong thing. She chooses encouragement and kindness, which is interesting, as she has before shown a certain amount of edge, a tautness to her boundaries, a defensiveness, a subtle, almost sarcastic prickliness. She isn't hostile - she wouldn't be here if she were - but you can feel her hesitance. When she chooses to be encouraging, it's a relief so potent it made me tear up.

The film doesn't say the words out loud - anorexia, bulimia, or eating disorder - but the point gets across. A few lines of dialogue tell us so much. The actresses live inside the awkward exchanges, letting their respective personalities carry them while their characters' barriers refuse to let them have a deeper rapport. It must be tricky, acting a scene like that. But it pays off - they show us so much with body language and tone of voice, with delivery. There's a realness to it - only broken a couple of times via poorly chosen dialogue - that makes the apparent kindness and vulnerability here so much more moving.

It takes a while before Danny Kaye hits his stride, and there aren't enough musical numbers, but it has the right energy for a solid comedy. You can tell Kaye outclasses the material.

How does something with so many actual stunts come off looking so fake? It's like they decided to drain this of life after the fact in an act of sheer greed or cowardice or both. They went to all this trouble and digitized it in all in post-production anyway. Why? What a complete waste of time.

Every inch of this film is etched with symbolism, from the broom to the imagery of workers to the words that are spoken. The bad blood that comes to the surface was already there, so is the stranger a devil seeking to take advantage or an angel forcing confrontation and cleansing? More the former than the latter, probably, but the message is the same either way - these conflicts must be had to move forward. It is a rallying cry to address the struggles, the contradictions, and see them through. I will leave the exploration of Black history and tradition and the conflicts therein to the experts, but anyone can watch an appreciate the craft and storytelling, even if we don't see it all.

Charles Burnett stands out as a filmmaker to me because he has an eye for making mundane settings look like they have a depth most filmmakers fail to see. Between him and the cast he has, they also end up with performances that blend subtlety, natural expression, and melodrama in a way that would feel wrong if just one part of the mix were out of balance. But they make it work beautifully. Quiet movement, big emotion, and honesty is all it takes.

About as subtle as a... well, shuttle launch seems appropriate. This film is a blunt commercial for NASA, using one of their greatest failures (by their own ission, even in the film) as an argument to fund their programs and send people to the moon (or beyond). It's a nice fairytale, this idea that we can divorce space travel from imperialist ambitions, but in the wake of the now-open militarization of space, that's not only impossible but irresponsible to the point of being suicidal.

De-contextualizing the U.S. space program from the Cold War - it gets mentioned, but not explored within the film - is similarly reckless. It served as both a distraction to the public (better to look to the moon than the parts of the world the U.S. imperialists were exploiting or burning) and a jingoistic rallying cry. Every rocket launched into space was simply building up to Star Wars (the Reagan-era program, not the film franchise) and Space Force, a weaponization, a statement, a threat to the world on par with the dropping of atomic bombs in WWII. The message was always simple - "we can kill you, do as we say".

Oddly enough, it's slightly more honest in a particular moment than, say, Hidden Figures - it includes a mention of Gunter Wendt, one of the Nazis recruited by NASA. It doesn't give further context than the fact that he was German, but it's more of a recognition than other imperialist propaganda gives us. Granted, this film does what Hidden Figures tried to undo, which is erase the contributions of Black women to the space program, so it's not exactly a win in of honesty here.

The point is, this romanticized vision of space exploration is just a grubby fucking lie.

Which is a shame, because this makes for a pretty fucking fantastic thriller if you ignore the propaganda. It's a strong argument against the "no spoilers" crowd, too - if you go into this not knowing the ending, that's a testament to how bad your high school education was (assuming you're from the U.S.). Very famously, they survived. This sets the film up to be a classic howdunit thriller, but it still manages to squeeze tension out of the question of their survival, even though, again, this is all well-known (I hope) history to its primary audience. You still feel it as everyone holds their breath (sometimes literally) throughout the film.

The behind-the-scenes "how did they do that?" of it all is also impressive. The infamous Vomit Comet filming to get the zero gravity scenes required less funding than CGI would have, giving a more authentic performance / effect and saving hundreds of millions of dollars. (Although the exterior shots of the spacecraft were very much CGI, and you could really tell.) Reportedly, they found a way to do this relatively safely as well, which is a lesson more filmmakers should take into , both in of practical effects and the safety of their cast and crew. Assuming, of course, the reports are accurate.

It's tragic that the wonders of outer space are so fraught with politicization. What would it be like to live in a world where the ambition to see the surface of the moon or the rings of Saturn weren't in bed with the capitalist drive to dominate, exploit, plunder, and kill?

1. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
2. Still Life
3. Killer of Sheep
4. House
5. Four Women
6. The Little Girl of Hanoi
7. Je Tu Il Elle
8. Emitaï
9. Bush Mama
10. La Région Centrale

...plus 597 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Saving Face
2. The Watermelon Woman
3. But I'm a Cheerleader
4. The Matchmaker
5. Man's Favorite Sport?
6. Moonstruck
7. The Lady Eve
8. Flying
9. His Girl Friday
10. Gregory's Girl

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

Thrillers and suspense. Trying to avoid horror, noir, gialli, and mysteries when I can, as they are covered elsewhere.

1. The Night of the Hunter
2. The Laughing Woman
3. The Wages of Fear
4. Seconds
5. Picnic at Hanging Rock
6. A Man Escaped
7. Manhunter
8. The Candy Snatchers
9. Trans-Europ-Express
10. Deep Cover

...plus 114 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Films that actual existing socialism, oppose imperialism, raise class consciousness or are emphatically in of workers, proletarian revolution, the right of a people's self-determination, actually anti-fascist, come from a communist nation/group/filmmaker, or otherwise uphold and/or might have some value to Marxism Leninism.

Don't read my reviews for these. Good gosh, I was an ignorant git six months or more ago.

Recommendations will be considered, but they must be

1. Explicitly Marxist AND/OR
2. Explicitly Leninist AND/OR [yes, I know, somewhat repetitititive]
3. From a communist nation AND/OR
4. Anti-imperialist/colonial AND/OR
5. Pro-worker AND/OR
6. Pro-revolution AND/OR
7. From a communist director AND/OR
8. About a communist

Or something close, at my discretion. Before recommending anything, scan the comments to make sure no one has already recommended it, because the next person to say Snowpiercer is getting blocked.

This list is imperfect and in continual flux, and it serves as much as a discussion point for finding new Marxist Leninist films as it is for ranking/listing them.

If your comment is to argue about the merits of communism with me, you will just be blocked.

To watch:
* More films from communist countries, duh
* More films about/by the Black Panther Party

1. I Am Cuba

   Soviet film about Cuba.

2. The Little Girl of Hanoi

   From Vietnam, anti-imperialist.

3. The Red Detachment of Women

   Chinese film.

4. What You Take for Granted

   Working class feminism.

5. Salt of the Earth

   Workers' film, blacklisted, anti-McCarthy film.

6. Sambizanga

   Anti-imperialist.

7. Emitaï

   Anti-imperialist.

8. Jonathan

   Anti-fascist, pro-proletarian revolution.

9. Measures of Distance

   Anti-imperialist.

10. La Commune (Paris, 1871)

    About the Paris Commune.

...plus 116 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Includes any film with a significant depiction of war/military, even if that isn't the primary focus.

1. The Little Girl of Hanoi
2. The Red Detachment of Women
3. Ivan's Childhood
4. Night and Fog
5. The Night Porter
6. Emitaï
7. Measures of Distance
8. Dogfight
9. October (Ten Days that Shook the World)
10. Mueda, Memory and Massacre

...plus 127 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Every horror movie I watch and rate positively, ranked.

I don't know that I would say horror movies are my favorite genre (I am more readily moved by feminist experimental documentaries about how traumatizing life is), but it is certainly the one I gravitate towards for sheer pleasure.

Though I do like being scared by a film, it's a rare occurrence. Not for lack of quality in these films, but just as a matter of course as someone who watches to analyze (which I love doing) more than to escape. Instead, I come to this genre because its conventions, its quirks, its sounds, its imagery are familiar like old friends. When they come with something new, it's a special delight, but when they adhere to the old formulas, I usually still enjoy them.

The rankings are always subject to change, usually within seconds of being updated. It's really impossible to properly compare Pieces with The Innocents or Cat People with Cat People. But I love making ranked lists, so I try to do it anyway.

1. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
2. House
3. Stage Fright
4. The Seventh Victim
5. Torso
6. Witch's Cradle
7. Kissed
8. Night Tide
9. Ginger Snaps
10. The Woman Who Powders Herself

...plus 628 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Actual release dates.

Not in database: Cinderella (1985)

1. Daughter Rite
2. The Angel
3. Desert Hearts
4. Buddies
5. Measures of Distance
6. Suzanne, Suzanne
7. Times Square
8. Losing Ground
9. Crime Wave
10. Four Days in July

...plus 621 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Every 2020s film worth mentioning that I have seen.

1. I Saw the TV Glow
2. The People's Joker
3. We're All Going to the World's Fair
4. The Lights Are on, No One's Home
5. Good Mythical Evening
6. The Place that is Ours
7. So Vam
8. Satranic Panic
9. Little Sister
10. 100 Best Kills: Texas Birth Control, Dick Destruction

...plus 71 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Best of the 2010s.

1. No Home Movie
2. Pride
3. Drunktown's Finest
4. Two Days, One Night
5. Lingua Franca
6. Something Must Break
7. Strawberry
8. Another Year
9. Blood Below the Skin
10. Pariah

...plus 321 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

A list of all the films from before 1900 that I like.

1. The Kiss
2. Something Good — Negro Kiss
3. Pierrette's Escapades
4. Déjeuner du Chat
5. Poor Pierrot
6. age of Venus
7. Danse Fleur de Lotus
8. Falling Leaves
9. The Little Girl and Her Cat
10. Falling Cat

...plus 67 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. The ion of Joan of Arc
2. The Angel
3. Water for Maya
4. The Woman Who Powders Herself
5. Different from the Others
6. At the Floral Ball
7. The Doll's Revenge
8. Pierrette's Escapades
9. Danse du papillon
10. Contribution to Light

...plus 162 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Short films. Not in database: "Fluxes," "Death of a Rat," "First Time Here," "The Virgin Sacrifice," "Tuning the Sleeping Machine," "Expansion," "Enigma," "Connection," "Relation," "Stuffy Durma," "The Fruitful and Honorable Lifetime of the Red Pencil," "Formation," "Glue Man," "Portrait of a Lazy Woman"

1. Measures of Distance
2. Breakaway
3. The Sewing Circle
4. The Woman Who Powders Herself
5. Witch's Cradle
6. The House Is Black
7. Strawberry
8. Four Women
9. The Private Life of a Cat
10. Water for Maya

...plus 737 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

From the good to the bad, every depiction of transgender characters in media or media created by (out) transgender people (director or writer) that I have seen.

Drag queens/kings not included, unless they're also trans.

Recommendations and reminders of films I've obviously failed to include welcome. A lot of bad depictions don't come to mind easily, for instance. I will only add things I've seen, as this is a ranked list.

Need to see or rewatch:
Georgie Girl
Paulista
Field Full of Secrets
Screaming Queens
Midori
The Adventures Of Iron Pussy
The Christine Jorgensen Story
Breakfast on Pluto
Escape from LA
Dallas Buyers Club
Miracle Mile
Wild Side
Tales of the City
Ghost in the Shell
Too Scared to Scream
Homicidal
40 Year Old Virgin
A Soap
Tomboy
A Wrinkle in Time
Tirerisa
The Cobbler
Dr. Jeckyll & Sister Hyde
Austin Unbound
Flawless
everything I haven't seen from Val's comment
The World According to Garp
The Iron Ladies
Sick Nurses
Shutter

Other lists:
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |

1. A Trans with a Movie Camera
2. I Saw the TV Glow
3. The People's Joker
4. Lingua Franca
5. By Hook or by Crook
6. Trans
7. Something Must Break
8. The Lights Are on, No One's Home
9. Satranic Panic
10. Behind Every Good Man

...plus 158 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Punk rock movies are movies that meet some of three criteria:

(1) They have lots of actual punk fucking rock in them.
(2) They have the snarling "fuck you" attitude of punk rock.
(3) They're aligned with the downtrodden, outcast, and misfit peoples of the world.

Punk rock films are often loud, abrasive, anarchic, and strange.

This is a list of my favorite punk rock movies.

1. Times Square
2. La Commune (Paris, 1871)
3. A Question of Silence
4. Mädchen in Uniform
5. Daisies
6. Funeral Parade of Roses
7. Chain
8. Style Wars
9. Blue
10. Pink Flamingos

...plus 123 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Movies with either a feminist message, feminist elements, or relative feminism, which is to say, given their context (genre, era, etc.), they show a more progressive attitude toward women than is expected of them. Baby steps, as it were, on the road toward feminism.

They are ranked not exactly by quality but more by how feminist they are--the latter ones are more in the relative feminism category. The top ones are unequivocal.

Suggestions welcome, but I will only add films I've seen, in large part because of a sentiment best described by "I'll be the judge of that." I would like to try to favor intersectionality, but I am still working on how to best do that.

1. Daughter Rite
2. Suzanne, Suzanne
3. Losing Ground
4. A Question of Silence
5. The Day I Became a Woman
6. The Company of Strangers
7. Pariah
8. A Portrait of Ga
9. Blood Below the Skin
10. Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles

...plus 425 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Films with any lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual, pansexual, agender, aromantic, questioning, bigender, third gender, queer, non-binary, or otherwise not cisgender or heterosexual content. Or directors/performers where noteworthy. Not necessarily explicit nor even positive depictions; I merely have to have a more or less positive view of the film overall.

Includes films I or others have drawn queer or trans readings from without explicit trans or queer content, but as always, I will be the judge of that.

1. Funeral Parade of Roses
2. The Watermelon Woman
3. BloodSisters: Leather, Dykes, and Sadomasochism
4. Desert Hearts
5. But I'm a Cheerleader
6. Nitrate Kisses
7. Drunktown's Finest
8. The Long Day Closes
9. Pride
10. Buddies

...plus 502 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Women loving women. Lesbians, bisexual, queer, or pansexual women, or films where women love women romantically or sexually.

1. The Watermelon Woman
2. Sink or Swim
3. Mädchen in Uniform
4. Desert Hearts
5. BloodSisters: Leather, Dykes, and Sadomasochism
6. Times Square
7. But I'm a Cheerleader
8. Saving Face
9. Portrait of a Lady on Fire
10. Nitrate Kisses

...plus 114 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

I am going in part by cloudy memory here, so if I'm wrong on some of these locations, (politely) let me know!

1. Times Square
2. Krush Groove
3. Alma's Rainbow
4. Variety
5. Desperately Seeking Susan
6. Across 110th Street
7. Just Another Girl on the I.R.T.
8. News from Home
9. Style Wars
10. Do the Right Thing

...plus 29 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Films based on Shakespeare, ranked.

1. West Side Story
2. The Bad Sleep Well
3. Romeo + Juliet
4. Amleto di Carmelo Bene (da Shakespeare a Laforgue)
5. Chimes at Midnight
6. Ran
7. Forbidden Planet
8. My Own Private Idaho
9. A Midsummer Night's Dream
10. Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead

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

Brightly, happily colored, but not neon. Also, not animated.

1. Gabbeh
2. The People's Joker
3. Happy-Go-Lucky
4. Crime Wave
5. The Muppet Movie
6. House
7. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
8. Le Bonheur
9. Babe
10. Romeo + Juliet

...plus 51 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Movies from the Soviet Union.

1. October (Ten Days that Shook the World)
2. I Am Cuba
3. Ivan's Childhood
4. Come and See
5. Man with a Movie Camera
6. The Wishing Tree
7. Triumph Over Violence
8. The New Babylon
9. Stalker
10. A Sixth Part of the World

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

Not listed: "The Fisherman and the Cobbler," The Fruitful and Honorable Lifetime of the Red Pencil," The Legend of Robin Hood (2003)

1. Son of the White Mare
2. Sleeping Beauty
3. Fantasmagorie
4. Bambi Meets Godzilla
5. A Colour Box
6. Short Subject
7. Whisper of the Heart
8. Danse macabre
9. The Thief and the Cobbler
10. Meat Love

...plus 348 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Weird films that aren't necessarily experimental, or are at least partly narrative.

1. House
2. Crime Wave
3. Daisies
4. Funeral Parade of Roses
5. Shirin
6. Blood Below the Skin
7. Night Tide
8. I Saw the TV Glow
9. The People's Joker
10. The Third Part of the Night

...plus 167 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Nitrate Kisses
2. BloodSisters: Leather, Dykes, and Sadomasochism
3. The Body Beautiful
4. The Company of Strangers
5. The Watermelon Woman
6. Muriel's Wedding
7. Empire Records
8. Daughters of the Dust
9. But I'm a Cheerleader
10. Mermaids

...plus 533 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Films from the Caribbean.

1. One Way or Another
2. The Man by the Shore
3. Sugar Cane Alley
4. Picking Up the Pieces
5. Fly, Fly Sadness
6. Memories of Underdevelopment
7. Dadli
8. Mala Mala
9. I'm Going to Santiago
10. Rockers

...plus 3 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

And essay films.

1. No Home Movie
2. A Horse Is Not a Metaphor
3. When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts
4. The Odds of Recovery
5. History Lessons
6. La Commune (Paris, 1871)
7. BloodSisters: Leather, Dykes, and Sadomasochism
8. The Body Beautiful
9. Looking for Langston
10. What You Take for Granted

...plus 228 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Includes traditional musicals and concert and rock'n'roll movies.

1. Fiddler on the Roof
2. Into the Woods
3. West Side Story
4. Style Wars
5. The Muppet Christmas Carol
6. Linda Linda Linda
7. The Muppet Movie
8. Distant Voices, Still Lives
9. Four Women
10. Empire Records

...plus 235 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

My quasi-annual favorites list update. One per director, to change things up.

1. I Saw the TV Glow
2. Funeral Parade of Roses
3. BloodSisters: Leather, Dykes, and Sadomasochism
4. Nitrate Kisses
5. Daughter Rite
6. The Watermelon Woman
7. Desert Hearts
8. The Company of Strangers
9. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
10. The ion of Joan of Arc

...plus 229 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Whisper of the Heart
2. Only Yesterday
3. The Tale of The Princess Kaguya
4. Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind
5. My Neighbor Totoro
6. When Marnie Was There
7. Spirited Away
8. Kiki's Delivery Service
9. Grave of the Fireflies
10. Ponyo

...plus 12 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Actual release dates.

1. The Seventh Victim
2. Gaslight
3. One Wonderful Sunday
4. Late Spring
5. The Private Life of a Cat
6. Witch's Cradle
7. His Girl Friday
8. The Lady Eve
9. Stormy Weather
10. It's a Wonderful Life

...plus 117 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

My contribution to the 52 films by women project. All films I've seen since 2016 that were directed by women. First-watches only.

Not in database: "Dancing in Peckham" (3), "Portrait of a Lazy Woman" (4)

2016 total: 111
2017 total: 148
2018 total: 77
2019 total: 59
2020 total: 44 (BOOOO!)
2021 total: 57
2022 total: 35 (BOOOO!)
2023 total: 54

1. No Home Movie

   2016. Chantal Akerman.

2. Daughter Rite

   2017. Michelle Citron.

3. Nitrate Kisses

   2017. Barbara Hammer.

4. BloodSisters: Leather, Dykes, and Sadomasochism

   2020. Michelle Handelman.

5. The Watermelon Woman

   2018, 2019. Cheryl Dunye.

6. Desert Hearts

   2019. Donna Deitch.

7. Measures of Distance

   2017. Mona Hatoum.

8. Mädchen in Uniform

   2020. Leontine Sagan.

9. Suzanne, Suzanne

   2020. Camille Billops.

10. Drunktown's Finest

    2017. Sydney Freeland.

...plus 679 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Fantasmagorie
2. At the Floral Ball
3. The Doll's Revenge
4. Pierrette's Escapades
5. Danse du papillon
6. Enchanted Glasses
7. The Sick Kitten
8. Falling Leaves
9. Turn-of-the-Century Surgery
10. Good Evening (The Flower Fairy)

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

1. The Night of the Hunter
2. Ikiru
3. Howlings in Favour of De Sade
4. Night and Fog
5. Sleeping Beauty
6. A Portrait of Ga
7. Salt of the Earth
8. The Wages of Fear
9. Ugetsu
10. Sound of the Mountain

...plus 230 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. A Horse Is Not a Metaphor
2. The Day I Became a Woman
3. The Odds of Recovery
4. Waitress
5. 35 Shots of Rum
6. History Lessons
7. Chain
8. Saving Face
9. Wendy and Lucy
10. Cecil B. Demented

...plus 326 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

The wide open spaces of the desert seem to beg cameras to take long, thoughtful looks at them. The best sort of pornography. Also includes other arid places of beauty and expanse.

1. Desert
2. Bab'Aziz
3. Dry Season
4. Woman in the Dunes
5. The Desert of the Tartars
6. The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
7. The Wind Will Carry Us
8. Taste of Cherry
9. Zabriskie Point
10. Wake in Fright

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

Films set in New Orleans. MY HOME. Or the general vicinity.

Not in database: "Yeah You Rite"

1. This Little Light
2. When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts
3. Bayou Maharajah: The Tragic Genius of James Booker

   "Why leave New Orleans if you're just going to hear New Orleans everywhere you go?"

4. Trouble the Water

   I evacuated two days before Katrina hit and came back six weeks later. My house was fine. I now work for organization that builds homes for low income families because I couldn't take the feeling that I was doing nothing after the storm.

5. Tchoupitoulas

   I don't know that they even go to the titular street.

6. New Orleans

   Cool is for jazz records, like this one.

7. Big Charity: The Death of America's Oldest Hospital
8. All Dogs Go to Heaven

   I haven't seen this since I was a kid, but I liking it a lot.

9. The Wacky World of Dr. Morgus

   New Orleans legend.

10. Miller's Crossing

    They never identify the city, but it's so blatant that they filmed in New Orleans.

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

1. A Question of Silence
2. Antonia's Line
3. Broken Mirrors
4. The Last Island
5. Mrs. Dalloway
6. Carolina
7. The Luzhin Defence
8. Within the Whirlwind

My favorite film by country or nation. In alphabetical order by country or nation.

Criteria:

1. Nations are distinct groups of people with a shared culture and history, language, currency, and territory, as defined by Lenin. This means that indigenous nations and Black Americans are separate nations and will be included. Solidarity to all nations resisting imperialism and colonization!

2. Countries are political designations. Most contain many nations.

3. Only films I like are included.

4. There is only one China. Free Palestine.

5. If you have decolonial/imperialist descriptions for any country/nation, please let me know.

• The Patience Stone

  Afghanistan.

• The Silence of the Forest

  Aka nation.

• Bab El Oued City

  Algeria.

• Sambizanga

  Angola.

• An Angel at My Table

  Aotearoa.

• The Last Summer in La Boyita

  Argentina.

• Apricot Groves

  Armenia.

• Muriel's Wedding

  Australia.

• Angst

  Austria.

• A River Called Titas

  Bangladesh.

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

Right now, in the United States, there are concentration camps holding immigrants for no reason other than that they showed up at the border. These immigrants, most of them, fled horrific conditions created mostly by the actions and power of U.S. capitalists.

Whether their social programs and were stripped away by austerity measures imposed by the World Bank, IMF, or "foreign aid" from the U.S. or if a right-wing, repressive government took control in a U.S.-backed coup or sanctions have starved and deprived them of medical care or U.S.-made and -sold bombs are being dropped on them right now, or all or some of the above, the U.S. and the rich who run it are responsible.

For a brief moment, before the last election, it seemed like there might be an uprising to address it, but that was quashed alongside much of the left-wing movement here as the 2020 elections swept through and pacified people, the media stopped covering any form of resistance and ignored the concentration camps entirely, and movements were otherwise disbanded or dissolved.

So the concentration camps remain. Those of us who oppose them still speak out, take action, and otherwise denounce them, but there's not enough of a movement to get them closed. (For now. Some of us are trying to build, but you need to help us out.)

Meanwhile, the far-right in the U.S. is on the rise. The events of January 6th were a publicity stunt that gave the far-right free advertising for years as Congress trotted them out and gave them slaps on the wrist, and the U.S. media never stopped plastering their faces all over the news. They gave the far-right heroes and martyrs and victories galore. So the far-right grows stronger.

Eight years ago, the U.S., under Obama, Clinton, and Biden, installed a Nazi government in Ukraine. There are many bourgeois news sources covering this - it's not from Putin or Russia or whatever other excuse you want to latch onto to dismiss what I am saying. The U.S. backed Nazis in Ukraine. And those Nazis engaged in an eight-year war on those in the Donbass who rose up against them, killing 14,000 people. In the last six months, the U.S. escalated their antagonism of Russia in order to start a war there, glorifying those same Nazis. So now the Azov Battalion, a literal death squad wearing Wolfsangels and Sonnenrads, gets a lot of airtime, and the far-right in the U.S. gets more free advertising. On top of that, many of the far-right in the U.S. volunteered to go get trained by Azov, Right Sector, etc.

So now they'll be coming back with training and combat experience.

And to add to this the repression of LGBTQ people, women, people of color, Jewish people, Romani, disabled people, and the elderly, to name but a few, has gone very nearly unchecked. This has culminated in a pandemic that is being ignored - and thus killing over a million people, most of them elder and/or disabled - and the (potential) loss of abortion rights. It has led to the criminalization of trans youth (and their parents, cis or otherwise) and rising violence against all oppressed people.

Fascism is the capitalists' response to crisis. When their economic system trembles and they see 40 million people march in the street demanding an end to the police and police terror, they fear what might come next. So they pacify the movement and tell the far-right to "stand by" (literally). Fascism is a capitalist government under which all resistance, all left-wing forces, all unions and organized workers, and all oppressed people are repressed, murdered, and terrorized by state violence and state-endorsed stochastic violence. Fascism is the rich and powerful stamping out any chance of fightback.

They do it with the carrot and the stick.

The carrot is the promises they make to parts of the working class whom they lie to. They tell them they're the right people, the pure ones, the superior ones, even as they keep their boots on their necks. In the U.S., it's white cis straight male able-bodied, etc. people and the alleged "middle class". They make them think they're immune to the terror so that they will be part of enacting it. But when the time comes, they are also subject to it.

The stick is the terror itself. The stick is concentration camps, the death penalty for abortion or trans healthcare, mass incarceration, assaults on union organizers, loss of rights across the board, and no healthcare housing jobs education.

But they also use the "compromise". They use the social democrats, the liberals, and other non-fascists in government to appease the masses, thereby disenfranchising and disenchanting them and pushing them to the right by demonizing the left. As fascism rises in the U.S. Biden, AOC, Pelosi, and Sanders are playing their part to ensure it takes hold - just as German Social-Democrats did when they murdered Rosa Luxemburg and ended the German Revolution in 1919 while selling out the German working class to capitalists interests throughout the 20s.

They make billions from it. Every prisoner in the German concentration camps made the German capitalists 1,200 marks a piece, according to Triumph Over Violence. The Nazis were funded in part by American capitalists, including Prescott Bush. Yes, that Bush family.

Today, it will be Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos (and George Bush). Today, it will be the Proud Boys instead of the Klan. Today, it will be ICE instead of the Gestapo. Today, it will be trans people and immigrants at the fore instead of Jewish people, though Jewish people are already facing rising attacks in the U.S.

The Holocaust was the intentional murder of tens of millions of Soviets, Jews, Romani people, LGBTQ people, labor organizers, communists and other anti-capitalists, Jehovah's Witnesses, disabled people, and anyone else the Nazis wanted to murder. What we face today has not reached that level, but the building blocks are all there, and genocide was not and is not unique to the Nazis.

In Japan, they had Unit 731. Italy had its own camps and atrocities. (And the capitalists amongst the Allies had their own war crimes and camps as well - whether Japanese "internment" or Thiaroye or every horror Churchill inflicted upon the world.) Only the Soviets did not attempt to exterminate anyone - though they sent war prisoners to prisons (imagine that! Nazis being imprisoned!), they never attempted to systemically wipe out anyone, no matter what western lies you've been reading.

It did not happen with the complete consent of the working class, however; millions rose up against it. In Italy, they ousted and killed Mussolini (the Italian people, led by communists, nearly had a revolution). In , resistance fighters were heavily repressed and killed, but they kept fighting. Across Europe, there was resistance in many forms. But there was no unified front. It took the Soviet Red Army to end the Nazis - and even then, the U.S., Britain, and saw to it that many Nazis were simply reinstalled in West and NATO and CIA-backed programs like Operation Bloodstone or Gladio.

We need the left to unite against the rise of the right. If we don't act - and soon immediately yesterday - it will be... worse. Worse even than now. Which is terrifying.

You need to organize and take to the streets. Do not go peacefully. There are already people in camps. The time is past to get started, so get started today.

• Night and Fog
• Ivan's Childhood
• Triumph Over Violence
• German Concentration Camps Factual Survey
• The Red Tree
• Men Behind the Sun
• Tell Me
• The Ties That Bind
• Come and See
• Conspiracy

...plus 6 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

We cannot let business-as-usual continue while a of unelected millionaires seeks to enslave us on behalf of their capitalist backers. The over-turning of abortion rights is part of the capitalists' unending war on workers which cannot be stopped without mass resistance. Let's follow the example of the women in Mexico, Argentina, Poland, and Ireland who fought for abortion rights with militant action.

If you are part of an organization, union, political party, or other group who will not tolerate this attack, us here or and print this flyer (below) to spread the word.

We must unite against these attacks and the rise of the far-right in the U.S.!

, print, and share this everywhere.

1. Sound of the Mountain
2. One Sings, the Other Doesn't
3. Girlfriends
4. The Student Nurses
5. Gas Food Lodging
6. Vera Drake
7. 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
8. Fast Times at Ridgemont High
9. The Marriage of Maria Braun
10. Wish You Were Here

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

All first-watches from 2021, ranked.

This has been another year where my mental health impeded all things I take pleasure in, including watching movies. I haven't gotten to watch nearly as many as usual. Instead, my brain shuts down and I put on the same TV shows over and over again (Buzzfeed Unsolved, Habbinal, and Hill Street Blues) or certain films I have seen a thousand times and don't log (Jurassic Park, Pride, and especially and inexplicably Spotlight).

I have written elsewhere that the pandemic (and all the other hell that these years have brought) has caused a major downturn in my mental health. I can't focus as well as I used to. I need about five things going at once to turn off the germaphobia (which I have had since I was a child and which is really more obsessive-compulsive disorder, but germs or the perception thereof play a strong role in it), suicidal ideation, panic and anxiety, and depression depression depression. Movies were part of the distraction, but it's no way to watch a movie, especially a good one.

And yet, I found time for more movies than most people, I think.

There have also been bright spots, such as when I started my GoFundMe for vaginaplasty. I still need more money, in case you were interested in contributing. Click here. And that led to an unexpectedly fun thing where the dear folks at Letterboxd interviewed me for How I Letterboxd. It's still a little mortifying, but also the from it was really wonderful. I am happy I did it. I was also mocked, unbeknownst to me, by one of the most prominent imperialist rags out there, and I think that is among the highest compliments I have ever received. It's good to be hated by the enemy.

It's weird to know anyone reads this blog of mine, but apparently some of y'all do. Including sometimes people who were part of or made the movies I write about, which is surreal to me. So please as you read these that I am nobody! Just a Marxist-Leninist enjoying a hobby. Go organize against capitalism, please.

Happy New Year!

Top moments from first-watches, 2021:

10. Bambi meets Godzilla in Bambi Meets Godzilla.
9. Taking the head in The Bloodettes.
8. Angie and Eric laugh after Eric says he thought it would be easier after he came out in Edge of Seventeen.
7. Susan Tyrell wraps a phone cord around her son's neck in Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker.
6. Serena speaks Alex's name in The Binding of Itzik.
5. The epidemiologist interview in Audience.
4. The appearance of Viy in Viy.
3. Joan Jett composes "Love Is Pain" in her head while lying in bed, depressed, in The Runaways.
2. A lobster attacks Divine in Multiple Maniacs.
1. Hari Nef shoots a man with a nail gun while fighting him underwater in Assassination Nation.

1. Lingua Franca
2. The Binding of Itzik
3. I Dream You Dream of Me
4. Night Tide
5. Fantasmagorie
6. Multiple Maniacs
7. Blue Diary
8. Bambi Meets Godzilla
9. A Trans with a Movie Camera
10. Hail the New Puritan

...plus 184 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

It looks like I ed 20,000 followers recently.

I started this blog as a hobby, a therapeutic outlet, and a thing to do to take my mind off things. Somewhere along the way, things just got out of hand. And you all just came along for the ride, which I don't pretend to understand, but I am flattered.

I have been struggling for a few years, as I think I have mentioned. The pandemic has hit my mental health hard, and it has made it hard to watch movies. It's made it hard to do much of anything. This hardly makes me unique, but my therapeutic outlet being out of my reach when I need it so badly has not made this any easier to handle. I've been meaning to write this list since I noticed the milestone, but I haven't had the energy or focus. I don't think I would have survived this long if I didn't have something to look forward to.

So. This list. This list is a little celebration. I need a celebration right now. I'm putting ten movies on it where I am happy with what I wrote about them, and I want you to comment here with what you think is your best review. I want to read what you've written and what you think.

Help me celebrate something in the midst of this nightmare.

1. I Am Cuba
2. River's Edge
3. Finally Got the News
4. BloodSisters: Leather, Dykes, and Sadomasochism
5. Permanent Record
6. Pride
7. Muriel's Wedding
8. Victim
9. Olympus Has Fallen
10. What's Love Got to Do with It

Really just need a place to keep track of things I wanna watch this October. Might update yearly, might forget it even exists!

I will obv. not be watching all of these this October (unless I am very lucky?).

• Night Tide

  Folk horror?

• I Bury the Living
• Creature from the Black Lagoon

  Universal

• Viy

  Folk horror
  Witches
  Russian

• Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker

  Slasher

• Swoon

  Gay
  Serial killer/true crime

• Visitation

  Directed by women
  Animated

• The City of the Dead

  Folk horror
  Witches

• So Sweet... So Perverse

  Gialloween

• The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave

  Gialloween

...plus 88 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

I need your help.

I have written more words than I can count on being trans, trans representation, dysphoria, and surgery. Some trans folks don't need surgery. Some do.

I do. I do more than anything I can imagine. So I need your help.

I have been talking with a surgeon about SRS for a few months. edit: MY SURGERY DATE IS MAY 12, 2021!!!! I've been dealing with my insurance company for a while, too. Very few insurance companies cover it. Mine is being... rude. I'm tired of it. If they come through, great, it means I can take a little off the goal here. But I'll need your help regardless. They won't cover it all.

I need your help so that the worst source of dysphoria in my life will be turned into possibly the greatest source of euphoria. I need your help so that that part of my brain that has been conditioned to send self-loathing through every part of me has one less weapon against me. I need your help so I can live as the person I know I am.

If you love (or like or hate-read or just are occasionally aware of) my writing, appreciate my thoughts, or just have a little bit extra to share, please please please take a moment and do so.

Thank you,

Sally Jane Black

• The Body Beautiful
• Let Me Die a Woman
• Go, Go Second Time Virgin
• Desperate Living
• A Trans with a Movie Camera
• Nitrate Kisses
• Barbarella
• Come Back to the 5 & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean
• Funeral Parade of Roses
• Something Must Break

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

My favorite film villains.

I am forgetting some crucial ones, I am sure. My favorite villains are charismatic bastards, serial killers, warlords, conmen, invincible slashers, actual people, Nazis and fascists, and implacable forces.

But no abstract villains. That's cheating.

1. Cannibal Holocaust

   Jack, Mark, Faye, Alan.

2. The Night of the Hunter

   Reverend Harry Powell.

3. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

   Leatherface.

4. Harlan County U.S.A.

   The anti-union man in the truck who fires upon the strikers.

5. Gaslight

   Gregory Anton.

6. Men Behind the Sun

   Lt. Gen. Shiro Ishii.

7. Two Days, One Night

   Jean-Pierre.

8. Halloween

   The Shape.

9. Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom

   The Duke, Signora Maggi.

10. Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer

    Henry.

...plus 46 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

First-watches of 2020, ranked.

Best moments in first-watches in 2020:
1. Suzanne and her mother speak to the camera about their experiences on "death row" in Suzanne, Suzanne.
2. Marianne sketches herself while looking into a mirror perched on Heloise's body in Portrait of a Lady on Fire.
3. Demonstrating the paint sticks on the submissive during the impact demo in BloodSisters.
4. Paula confronts Gregory, mocking his abuse, as he is tied to the chair at the end of Gaslight.
5. The missing footage from Symbol of the Unconquered.
6. "It's our last chance to be honest..." in Some of My Best Friends Are...
7. David Boyeur says "My color is my country" to Mavis in Island in the Sun.
8. "Sunrise, Sunset" in Fiddler on the Roof.
9. Paul makes braised pork with Edwin Chu in The Half of It.
10. The inky black waves in Samoyed Boy.
11. John's speech about coming out in Happiest Season.
12. Bisexual werewolf threesome in The Howling 2: Your Sister Is a Werewolf.
13. Jenna brings the popsickles out in Good Kisser.
14. Reggie glimpses the hell-planet in Phantasm.
15. Dotty and Stella in the rain in Cloudburst.
16. Megan embraces her mirror self and covers herself in blood in Mirror Mirror.
17. "The pellet with the poison is the in the vessel with the pestle" scene from The Court Jester.
18. Taunting the devil in Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things.
19. Karen's final broadcast in The Howling.
20. Viv dances with her cousin's vibrator in The Slums of Beverly Hills.

1. BloodSisters: Leather, Dykes, and Sadomasochism
2. Suzanne, Suzanne
3. A Horse Is Not a Metaphor
4. Portrait of a Lady on Fire
5. Janie's Janie
6. Gaslight
7. Fiddler on the Roof
8. The Symbol of the Unconquered
9. Tender Fictions
10. Slums of Beverly Hills

...plus 187 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

First watches in 2019

Best moments:
1. Su Friedrich stands naked before the camera and talks about her pain in The Odds of Recovery
2. Robert masturbates while David gently holds him in Buddies
3. Ted Bundy writes "hacksaw" on the window to Liz in Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile
4. Val enjoys standing in the pool, violating the rules, in The Second Mother.
5. Wil and Vivian dance and kiss at the end of Saving Face
6. The defense attorney tries to demonize a child in Unspeakable Acts
7. "I kill with my cunt!" in Liquid Sky
8. The names of the dead are shown in Major!
9. The final confrontation and reveal in The Final Terror
10. Sun Wu Kong fights the 4 Heavenly Kings in The Monkey King

1. The Odds of Recovery
2. Saving Face
3. What You Take for Granted
4. Buddies
5. 20 Fingers
6. The Ties That Bind
7. holes where eyes did once inhabit
8. Unspeakable Acts
9. MAJOR!
10. Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!

...plus 183 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Recently, I hit 10,000 followers on this site.

For the last 6.5 years, this blog has been a therapeutic outlet, a creative outlet, a social outlet, a soapbox, a sandbox for thoughts, a hobby, a place to grow, a place to escape, a place to explore cinema. It has been a haven, even when the trolls and dissenters are at their worst.

I could never have become much of anything on this site without the encouragement and of other writers here, especially Willow, who sent my work to a well-known film site to be quoted. I've made close friends, gotten death threats, become a better writer, blocked more people than can be reasonably counted, and loved almost every bit of it. In the last 6.5 years I have transitioned, become a communist organizer, written over 3,000 reviews, found and lost love a few times, excelled at my job, failed to get over Kaylie's death, started to come to with some deep traumas, explored my sexuality and gender in ways I couldn't have before, and discovered art and media that has enriched my world beyond words.

Thank you to everyone who has made this site so incredible. I could not possibly name you all, so I won't try. Thank you to everyone who has guided me to amazing movies I never would have heard of. Thank you to everyone who follows my words here.

Listed below are ten films whose reviews are my ten best, just because I have to list movies here to make this post:

• Funeral Parade of Roses
• Daughter Rite
• The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
• No Home Movie
• Muriel's Wedding
• Ginger Snaps
• What's Love Got to Do with It
• The Odds of Recovery
• A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors
• The Royal Tenenbaums

In early June, 2013, my best friend killed herself.

She took a cab to the middle of nowhere and vanished, and three months later, her body was found. In the wake of her disappearance, I was... obliterated. Utterly and completely obliterated. I still have not recovered, and I know I probably never will.

Sometime shortly after she disappeared, I ed this site. At the time, I could not have told you the real reason why. I had been trying to make a list of my favorite movies through Facebook's piss poor interface, got fed up, and ed this site that some of my online friends had been using. I decided shortly thereafter to take up a project: to watch the 1073 (I think) on an old list compiled by a bunch of LiveJournalers in 2007 or so.

It took me a few months to realize that what i was really doing was drowning out my grief and depression by filling my time watching movies. Having a list to check off as I went gave me a sense of doing something. It let me pretend I wasn't wasting my time. Mostly, I just logged my films here with a short word or two. In part, I just wasn't in any condition to think or write about film, and in part, I hadn't found my voice.

Then I watched Funeral Parade of Roses and ed my voice, as it were. It was like waking up.

Like myself, Kaylie was gender non-conforming--she was in the process of transition, in fact, unlike me. She was much braver than I am. She was much stronger, in her way, than I am. But she was unhappy on a fundamental level that I struggled with on her behalf for over a decade, trying to get her to be the person I saw in her rather than the pain-swallowed, life-hating person she had become. I failed; she lost her life.

I watched Funeral Parade of Roses, and some of my grief and guilt crystallized. I was able to talk about myself again. I realized why I had been watching movies this last year or so--to both escape and process my pain--and I redoubled my efforts. I have now mostly completed that list. It hasn't lessened my pain, but it helped me get through the darkest times in the wake of my loss.

It might have saved my life.

So here it is. The original AOV canon game films, ranked. Here is where this list comes from. There are two films I have been unable to find: Stan Brakhage's s on the Walls of Heaven and Claes Fellbom's topless Swedish rendition of Aida. If you know where I can get a copy, please, let me know.

Not listed in Letterboxd (numbered parentheticals denote my ratings so you can guess roughly where they'd rank): New Wave Hookers (2), The Voyeur and the Exhibitionist (2.5), "First Time Here" (3.5), "Death of a Rat" (4), "Poeme Electronique" (4), In Thru the Back Door (0.5), Through the Looking Glass (Middleton) (3.5), "Making a Splash" (3), Corruption (Watkins) (1.5), "Fluxes" (3.5) Moans of Pleasure (3), "Two Dogs and a Ball" (2.5), "v.o." (4.5).

1. Satantango
2. Red Beard
3. Sweet Movie
4. La Commune (Paris, 1871)
5. In a Year with 13 Moons
6. Goodbye, Dragon Inn
7. Andrei Rublev
8. Drifting Clouds
9. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
10. Still Life

...plus 1042 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

30 days, 30 countries.

May 2014 featured country: Estonia. Film: The Last Relic
March 2015 featured country: Chile. Film: Three Sad Tigers
March 2016 featured country: Iran. Film: The White Meadows
March 2017 featured country: South Korea. Film: Our Sunhi

As of 2018, I have chosen to simply aim to watch as many films from as many countries over the course of the year as I can. Only the first film per year per country will count.

1. The Little Girl of Hanoi

   Vietnam. 2017.

2. Two Days, One Night

   Belgium. 2016.

3. The Red Detachment of Women

   China. 2018.

4. Orinoko, New World

   Venezuela. 2015.

5. Kedi

   Turkey. 2017.

6. Sambizanga

   Angola. 2014.

7. God's Gift

   Burkina Faso. 2015.

8. Face

   Taiwan. 2016.

9. Mueda, Memory and Massacre

   Mozambique. 2017.

10. The Child of Another

    Cameroon. 2016.

...plus 155 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.