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Watched on Friday June 6, 2025.
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Gritty, sweaty and violent, exactly what you would expect from the poster. I did notice one jarring goof, at the beginning of the chainsaw fight, when Rod Taylor is thrown back over a pile of logs sitting on some dead grass, and then it cuts to him again and the grass is all green. Honestly that kind of distracted me from the chainsaw fight, and nothing should distract someone from a chainsaw fight!
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I’ve been on Letterboxd almost ten years now, so it’s now becoming a good benchmark for Man, I Haven’t Watched X Movie In At Least A Decade. And No Country For Old Men was towards the top of that imaginary list. And goddamn, this movie is absolutely perfect. Incredible performances, the buildup of tension, cinematography, the way there is barely a score to set the emotional table for the scenes, everyone involved was at the top of their games.
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Very charming. Inspired by Tom Cruise in the Mission Impossible series which is repeatedly referenced, June Squibb did her own stunts.
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Watched on Friday May 23, 2025.
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I thought this was just OK, I think I would have enjoyed it more seeing it in a theatre (obviously) and maybe seeing the theatrical release instead of the extended cut since the first hour definitely dragged. I love that it ends with Orlok being so distracted by a naked woman that he just loses track of time and forgets he has to be in the grave by cock crow, err...sunrise. Mostly though this movie left me deeply torn, because I desperately want a spin off series of Dafoe's character investigating supernatural occurrences but I never want to hear him say "cock crow" ever again.
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I can’t believe they went to the expense of digitally de-aging Bam Margera to have him in this movie.
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Honestly worth watching for the car wash fight scene climax, as the bubbles slowly rise throughout the fight, it must have been such a blast to film this. And Gloria Hendry grinning after feeding multiple baddies into the crusher of a garbage truck is incredible.
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Watched on Tuesday April 15, 2025.
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Have fun storming the castle!
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Amazing performance by Bing, Naomi Watts is excellent too, and is basically on screen for the whole movie. But the best part was the producing!
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As someone with a basically endless appetite for Jack Black’s schtick, I enjoyed this for what it was. I do wish Danielle Brooks was given a bit more to do.
My kid had a blast though and that’s what is really important.
Is there a special kind of contractor to dig out creepy sub-sub basements? Are the murderers digging them out themselves? Is there a French drain and sump pump in the creepy sub-sub basement? Clearly movie executives saw the success of Barbarian and demanded more creepy sub-sub basement horror movies, and I have questions!
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Stanwyck is good as the an heiress and devoted daughter, the movie does dabble in how differences in politics could affect a marriage, but then it shifts to wartime melodrama in the third act and the movie really suffers for it. Unfortunately there's not enough spark between Van Heflin and Stanwyck (which is not always true, they are great together in The Strange Love of Martha Ivers) for one to really care about their trials and tribulations as a married couple.
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Watched on Wednesday April 2, 2025.
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Watched on Friday March 28, 2025.
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"Isn't it absolutely atomic?"
Solid melodrama exploring the mid-life crisis of a Fred MacMurray. Unfortunately the chemistry between MacMurray and Stanwyck doesn't get to shine like it does in their other collaborations, being more muted and simmering in this movie. The Rex the Walking Talking Robot Man analogy gets pushed a little too hard (in multiple scenes, we get it). And unfortunately Stanwyck, the consummate New York Ambitious Lonely Business Woman, deserves better than what she gets here.
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Rounding up from 3.5 to 4 to just for the joy of seeing an original big budget sci-fi movie on a big screen (even if the audio was slightly muffled by the whirr of an industrial grade dehumidifier in the theatre). I wish it was a bit tighter, and there was less voice-over exposition, but otherwise it was enjoyable. Any movie where the plot is kicked off by a failed macaron business is good by me.
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Fascinating even for someone who isn’t a big theatre person. If it was ever going to work as an ongoing tv series it would have been interesting to focus on a different aspect of a theatrical production for each installment.
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Enjoyable mostly for the great impressions of some of the SNL legends, and the "where do I know that guy from" casting, but JK Simmons runs away with the whole thing despite only getting like 5 minutes of screen time.
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Takes too long to get where it’s going, and the whole subplot with Robert Ryan feels like a way to pad out the runtime (welcome though Robert Ryan always is). Otherwise excellent, Lee Marvin holds the whole thing together magnificently. Oh and shaving with cold water isn’t bad, I voluntarily do it every morning mostly out of being too lazy to wait for the water to get hot, so it being the catalyst for the group finally bonding was funny to me.
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🥱
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Earns an extra half star for being scored almost exclusively with Chopin’s Nocturnes as they are some of my favorite pieces of music ever. I thought Kieran’s character was a just a tad too overdone but overall this was an enjoyable character study. Certainly a better movie about the anxiety-ridden modern Jewish experience than Between the Temples.
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This movie sucks and I hate it!
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Solid WWII action resistance thriller, Ann Sheridan wielding a machine gun is the best thing I've seen at the movies so far this year. She was a talented actress, a bit under-utilized here, and Errol Flynn kind of seems like he is phoning it in. Great action set piece at the end, Milestone really knew how to direct a battle.
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I’ve seen Wicked twice on Broadway and now once as a movie and every time I completely forget about the talking animals subplot.
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A great way to introduce children to Cronenberg style body horror. Respect to Lil Petey for realizing that a perfect fantasy meal is five soups. Inspired me to order a big bowl of soup at dinner afterwards! The animation style looks great and there are plenty of funny moments (the Life is Unfair hotline cracked me up).
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Start off very strong and somewhat droops in the middle, but the ending was very good and I mean, Satan! Hell yes! Cage is excellent even if he’s a little too close to goofy for him to be actually scary. I will say that having the detective be psychic was kind of unnecessary, she seems to solve the case mostly through actual detective work, but the idea that she can just rely on her intuition/psychic abilities for clues does kind of make the hunt for the killer less interesting.
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I had no idea this was a sequel, maybe some of the gaping plot holes would be filled in if I had? Either way this is pretty terrible, with phoned-in voice acting, unexplained furries and a foot boner.
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Gonna try to watch the movies in QT writes about in Cinema Speculation as I read it and this is the first. Siegel shoots the hell out of this and Eastwood was perfectly cast.
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A pretty incredible achievement to write, cast, direct and edit something this well put together. Infectiously energetic until I thought it slowed down a bit too much in the third act, which made the movie seem just a bit too long. I’ve seen this described as a screwball comedy in a lot of different reviews, and I have to disagree as it lacks many of the hallmarks of that subgenre, nor would I ever describe a movie with such tonal shifts that way. One way I can tell a movie is good is that despite starting it at 10 PM I didn’t fall asleep even once.
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It’s like no cheese I’ve ever tasted.
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Pretty typical Cagney fare, no pun intended, but in this one he does speak some Yiddish and dances with Loretta Young and an uncredited George Raft. Overall it's hard to really enjoy this because his character is so abrasive and unlikeable that any chemistry he had with Young is squandered because you just want her to run away from him.
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Weird seeing all these people as young adults! Love that Frankie Grande is still game for this, and he got the funniest line in the movie (one of a few jokes aimed at the adults). Anyway I’m not rating this because I’m certainly not the target audience but my 7 year old loved every second, the CGI and effects are surprisingly decent, and it’s not a painful watch for the parents.
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Another take on Warner's "men in a rough line of work" formula, only this has some real tension underneath because apparently George Raft and Edward G. Robinson hated one another. Raft is pretty charmless here, at least Ed is trying, and Marlene Dietrich gets to be a housewife, which looks thoroughly incongruous. Alan Hale provides comic relief (mainly in the form of light to medium sexual harassment, ouch), but the main reason I watched this is Frank McHugh, who is funny in the first half and then his character kind of disappears.
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Alternatingly insane and beautiful and terrifying, just like...dare I say...life itself? RIP
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Still holds up really well, the realization of why she has been asked to the task force still hits really hard. My only lingering question is why Kaluuya's character gets to tag along on the missions, as it seems like Brolin's character doesn't want him there and would actively object to having a lawyer tag along. Maybe something I missed explains this. Loses a bit of steam in the last 20 minutes or so.
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Has some funny moments and doesn't overstay its welcome, the line "slappin' ham on the veranda" made me quite chuckle. Honestly though I would watch a whole movie about Curlie, he was by far the best part. And if loving Linda Ronstadt’s Hasten Down the Wind makes one a lesbian then…guilty?
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I don't think I've cackled with glee at such unhinged batshittery since maybe THE NORTHMAN. Sadly had to watch this at home instead of in a theatre, which I'm sure would have been amazing. Way overstuffed and even given that not really much happens. Still a very memorable few hours, I think my rating would come down if I were to rewatch it as a lot of the fun is just being surprised by how it escalates.
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Didn’t really do it for me, it seems like a common consensus is that it should have been weirder. Thought it was pretty funny when the husband is like “Look, look at what you did” and he’s standing next to a kid’s merry-go-round covered in taxidermy. Amy Adams is excellent though.
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Mia Goth drags the trilogy across the finish line with a great performance in the weakest installment of the three, it’s just not as tight as the first two and suffers for it.
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My main takeaway is that I need to watch the version of this that's just Otis Redding's performance because his portion is transcendent. Could have used a bit less of Ravi Shankar's feet but his performance is incredible too.
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Constance Bennet tries her hardest to be a frumpy, forgettable secretary but the disguise can't hold for long as she soon takes on her usual form of Beautiful Woman Wearing A Black Dress In A Fancy Sitting Room. Great if you like Constance Bennett, she has a few good lines, and Basil Rathbone rocks a great pencil 'stache.
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First time watching the new extended cut that includes Cities and Big Business/I Zimbra, very cool to see them included even if those two songs don't seem quite as polished. There are a few shots of the camera operators in there too, and they don't really appear much in the original version. I probably would have cut Swamp and kept in Cities, though I acknowledge that Swamp is more visually interesting, I just like Cities better.
Anyway I reviewed this like 4 years ago and mentioned how my then 3 year old was jumping around and dancing along, and 4 years later nothing has changed as she ed me for a few parts; she enjoys yelling out "BURNING DOWN THE HOUSE" and did her own dance routine to Take Me To the River.
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Watched on Sunday December 29, 2024.
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One star for the costumes/production design, one star for Christine Baranski, half a star for the rest.
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Spent 5 minutes trying to explain the concept of “Bend over and I’ll show you!” to my daughter who didn’t quite seem to get it. This movie is definitely not appropriate for a seven year old but nevertheless we persist.
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Amazingly I didn’t hate watching the colorized version, seeing as how it helped my kid actually watch a movie this old. And she really seemed to love the story.
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I'm sure I'm not the first person to point out the irony of the internet that brings these two together ends up being the thing that will decimate their entire industry. Anyway I was hoping to come around on this, as I really enjoyed When Harry Met Sally the last time I watched it, but I don't think Ryan and Hanks have all that great of chemistry (a very important factor if I'm going to enjoy a rom com, ittedly not my genre) and the fact that Joe knows that it is Kathleen he's been corresponding with allows him to be extra pushy towards her (knowing that he can reveal that the person she's been falling for online is him) when she appears to just want him to leave her alone feels kinda gross to me. Oh and Joe brings his dog to the park where they meet without a leash and that is a pet peeve of mine, no pun intended.
]]>- The Kid
- A Woman of Paris: A Drama of Fate
- The Gold Rush
- The Circus
- City Lights
- Modern Times
- The Great Dictator
- Monsieur Verdoux
- Limelight
- A King in New York
...plus 3496 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.
]]>Whatcha gonna do when you get out of jail?
I'm gonna have some fun.
What do you consider fun?
Watching the movies of Tom Hanks and Tom Cruise from the 1980's and 1990's in chronological order!
- He Knows You're Alone
- Endless Love
- Taps
- Mazes and Monsters
- The Outsiders
- Losin' It
- Risky Business
- All the Right Moves
- Splash
- Bachelor Party
...plus 15 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.
]]>Women can have a little movies, as a treat.
- Coyote Ugly
- Serendipity
- Save the Last Dance
- Drive Me Crazy
- Can't Hardly Wait
- Runaway Bride
- My Best Friend's Wedding
- Something Borrowed
- Can't Buy Me Love
- The Wedding Date
...plus 16 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.
]]>Meryl Streep's Frisky Dance
- Julia
- The Deer Hunter
- Kramer vs. Kramer
- The French Lieutenant's Woman
- Still of the Night
- Sophie's Choice
- Silkwood
- Falling in Love
- Plenty
- Out of Africa
...plus 42 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.
]]>- Le Doulos
- The Sisters Brothers
- Syndromes and a Century
- Lupin the Third: The Castle of Cagliostro
- A Generation
- Barking Dogs Never Bite
- Ghost in the Shell
- Code Unknown
- The Circus
- A Hidden Life
...plus 123 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.
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