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No one told me it was Inception.

Is this the best film series ever? Maybe. 

This one is almost perfect - not quite up to the level of the previous installment. 

I love how these movies are so unabashedly untethered to reality - more so even than the MCU or Fast and Furious films. 

I could watch Shea Whigham begrudgingly hunt down Tom Cruise all day.

Watched on Saturday May 10, 2025.

You can clearly see how Oswald and his special lady Ortensia were simply regrafted onto Mickey and Minnie after the copyright issue. No changes needed for Pete the Cat.

A stand-up bit based primarily on a weird-looking guy eating weird things like cigars and his shirt.

Feel sorry for the dancers who are upstaged by the drummer

Watched on Friday May 9, 2025.

Takes a while to get going. Once it hits the middle stretch and decides to actually be a musical, it's great to watch. Definitely a must-see for Kenny Ortega completists.

Sorry but Raul Julia and Nastassja Kinski were the better choices.

Head, body, head, body

Saw this again at the Atlanta Film Festival followed by a Q&A with director David O. Russell afterwards. 

Great to see a rousing sports film in a packed theatre with an audience that’s into it. 

This movie so perfectly captures how your family can drive you absolutely fucking crazy but you can realize that you still love them and you still need them. 

There have been a lot of great boxing match scenes in movies but the last two from this movie really stand out.  The second-to-last scene makes you want to stand up and cheer, then the last scene makes yo bawl.

At the start of this movie I thought to myself that the film couldn’t decide whether it was an actual movie or a feature-length ITYSL sketch. Then halfway through I realized: oh, it’s definitely a sketch (for better or worse),

This had a lot packed in for a little short.

Watched on Thursday May 1, 2025.

Really great, shades of Tarkovsky and Jodorowsky.

Saw this at the Atlanta Film Festival. Great coming-of-age story set in rural NZ.

Watched on Thursday May 1, 2025.

Saw at Atlanta Film Festival. 

Didn’t know what to expect. Didn’t even know Chloe Sevigny was going to be in it!

It was pretty funny, hard to follow and semi-obtuse; about a group of extremely obtuse people. 

I enjoyed all the performances and liked watching them but the more I think about the characters the less I like them.

Unredeemable

Watched on Tuesday April 22, 2025.

Watched on Friday April 18, 2025.

Watched on Thursday April 17, 2025.

Completely forgot that I already watched this until midway through. Liked it better the second time.

Not a great idea to watch this with my 12-year-old daughter, but that's how we roll in our family.

I don't know if this helped or hurt my appreciation of this film on this reviewing: the fact that I'm simultaneously reading Cormac McCarthy's "Blood Meridian." It was impossible for me not to compare the two, and to think of this film as Iñárritu's adaptation of a McCarthy story in the style of Tarkovsky.

Like McCarthy, the beauty and the brutality are undeniable but perhaps overwhelming.

Whoopi Goldberg is so iconic in this role. I watched most of the movie liking her performance but kind of surprised that she actually won an Oscar for it. Then came the scene at the bank and with the nuns and the check. Classic!

Another basically perfect Coen Bros movie. Brolin is great, Javier Bardem is of course unforgettable, but wow Tommy Lee Jones eats everything up.

This is pretty brutal to watch. Thank God the Coens haven't made Blood Meridian; it would literally be impossible to watch.

"My life is full, because I know that I am loved"

Watched on Tuesday April 1, 2025.

Watched on Monday March 31, 2025.

Watched on Sunday March 30, 2025.

I thought I'd be watching a spy movie; instead I ended up watching an Agatha Christie cozy mystery. Fassbender isn't George Smiley; he's Poirot.

Doesn't get any better than this

Watched on Thursday March 20, 2025.

I tried watching this movie TWICE with my daughter and she fell asleep BOTH TIMES.

Bane here is a Warner Brothers cartoon version of a Cormac McCarthy villain.

Watched on Thursday March 20, 2025.

Watched on Thursday March 20, 2025.

Watched on Thursday March 13, 2025.

Watched on Wednesday March 12, 2025.

The baby creepers!!!

Definitely near the top or at the top of the Pantheon of movies about movies, alongside "Day for Night" and "Mulholland Drive."

Taking a Chandler-esque noir and throwing it in 90s Hollywood and adding a gazillion references to other Chandler-esque noirs.

This is peak Fax machines - there is no better use for a Fax machine than faxing someone a death threat.

Watched on Saturday March 8, 2025.

Watched on Saturday March 8, 2025.

Watched on Saturday March 8, 2025.

Watched on Saturday March 8, 2025.

Watched on Thursday March 6, 2025.

Many similarities - occasionally uncanny - to "Harlan County USA." Like that other excellent doc, this one is light on the context. But in both cases the context isn't the point; no context can justify the blatant abuse of power seen here.

Watched on Wednesday March 5, 2025.

It's hard to predict others' taste in movies, but I can guarantee that if you watch this, you'll suffer through three excruciating hours and will most definitely not enjoy your time.

I've seen several films like this that are long/slow/aimless/plotless/disturbing/disgusting/surreal/uninterpretable, but this one struck me as uniquely punishing. Compared to Jeanne Dielmann, Inland Empire, or even the seven-hour Satantango, with Hard to Be a God there's not even a hint of blue skies in sight.

Can we find dignity, or meaning, in a world and in a life filled with brutality, inhumanity, blood, mud, shit, and torture? The film is asking us this but most definitely not providing an answer (or at least not providing the answer "yes").

About three-quarters of the way through, after we've experienced more than two hours of this depravity, we see one death that's (I think) meant to hit us hard. After all that time, if we can still find some sympathy or hope, or at least recognize shared humanity, then maybe there is a bit of hope to be found here.

Watched on Friday February 28, 2025.

Really well-crafted and some great action sequences (should expect nothing less from Nolan) - especially the opening bank robbery scene nakedly inspired by “Heat.”

Feels a bit rushed/cramped. Perhaps that was intended to maintain the tension and tone but for me felt like this should have either been a 3 1/2 hour film or they should have cut a handful of subplots. 

Ledger’s performance as Joker is so iconic even just less than 20 years later, it’s hard to assess how good of a performance it actually is. Is there anything to this character behind the makeup and smirk and accent and wit? Is anything supposed to be behind that?

Kudos for foregoing any attempt at realism - unlike most superhero movies aiming for a “they’re just like us except they have super powers” vibe. On the other hand the heightened presentational style risks being a bit off-putting; perhaps like Ozu an acquired taste.

Watched on Tuesday February 25, 2025.

Watched on Monday February 24, 2025.

It's getting harder for me to rank these every year. They're all good so everyone should just watch all of them. The top two are really good, though.

Honorable mentions for two movies that should have been nominated: Hard Truths and A Real Pain.

1. Anora
2. The Brutalist
3. I'm Still Here
4. Nickel Boys
5. Wicked
6. The Substance
7. Dune: Part Two
8. Emilia Pérez
9. Conclave
10. A Complete Unknown

Barbie way out in front; everything else more or less a tie for 2nd place

1. Barbie
2. Killers of the Flower Moon
3. The Holdovers
4. The Zone of Interest
5. Past Lives
6. Maestro
7. Oppenheimer
8. American Fiction
9. Poor Things
10. Anatomy of a Fall