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Luke 1 watched the first 15 minutes of this until it was interrupted by a shooting outside.

Luke 2 tried again and the fire alarm went off in the theatre sending everyone home.

Lukes 3-16 couldn’t justify the $30 digital rental.

Luke 17 finally enjoyed the movie.
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I do think it’s funny that Bong’s Korean films are intricately plotted with tons of emotional and thematic nuance while his English films feel like him loudly jangling keys for a braindead North American audience incapable of understanding subtlety….but they’re still very enjoyable. This is probably my favourite of the key-jangling ones.

Fucking rules.

Was not expecting this to remind me of Steve McQueen’s Lovers Rock, but it has multiple sequences that capture the same kind of ecstatic joy of experiencing great live music in a small sweaty room with a bunch of people. Transcendent stuff. The touches of magic realism play beautifully, too.

Michael B. Jordan does top-tier Movie Star work here. Coogler knows his angles so well at this point that he just shoots the shit out of him. Delroy Lindo is another standout and made me want to rewatch Da Five Bloods again. Miles Canton and Andrene Ward-Hammond both rock and totally sell their musical chops and ability to command a room. Jack O’Connell gives such a unique and sickly sweet villain performance you just want to keep watching him. Honestly, everyone’s great in this.

It’s not flawless. I think it relies too much on ‘hey, this??’ editing flashbacks and the structure of the third act is a little strange…BUT, this is exactly what I want in a movie theatre experience and films in general. Huge, beautiful big swings. Coogler is the real deal.

Pumped to see it again.

Had no idea this was basically Spielberg making a Coen Brothers film a full decade before they’d made one!

Sags a bit in the middle and not every performance is as good as Goldie Hawn’s (and holy shit is she good)…but it’s a lot of fun, insanely well-shot and seems to be a rough blueprint for like 5-10 films that I deeply love, so that gets it a lot of credit in my book.

Wait…so the giant red FLAMMABLE sign we’ve been watching all movie WASN’T a Chekov’s Gun?

George Bailey’s community coming through for him at the end of It’s A Wonderful Life and Asuka’s last stand in this are the two movie sequences that never fail to bring a tear to my eye.

Not sure what that says about me.

Incredible work of art. Deeply uncomfortable, bleak and emotionally honest with some of the best horror imagery ever created.

So cool to finally see it on the big screen!

It’s actually insane how seriously this movie takes itself.

I still love you, Kyle Mooney.

Spent most of the running time bummed out at how much this didn’t work for me. The POV conceit makes everything feel very contrived and false, especially the performances (to me at least). People simply don’t look each other in the eye that much when they’re speaking.

This artificial feeling isn’t helped by the film including LOTS of extremely on-the-nose markers of the time and place depicted during the main timeline of the story. 

BUT…the last 30 minutes or so are pretty incredible. Some of the best montage editing I’ve seen in recent memory. The fact that it hit me so hard after being at an emotional remove for the rest of the film says a lot about the power of that last act.

An interesting and worthwhile experiment that didn’t totally work for me. I’m glad it exists though.

Weirdos just need each other, Man.

Also, Julio Torres is underrated as an auteur. I’ll see everything that kid does. I will also continue to refer to him as a kid even though he’s pushing 40.

I have met fathers like Scoot McNairy’s character and they need to be sent straight to The Hague. It’s unfortunate that this movie ultimately lets him off the hook almost as easily as life seems to let these guys off the hook. Be a Dad to your goddamn kid!

I wish the writing in this film was like 15% sharper. Adams’ voiceover monologues in particular should not be less clever than the average parenting TikTok my algorithm feeds me daily. Also, everything in the 3rd act wraps up in a frustratingly pat, clean and easy way.

BUT THAT BEING SAID….this is better than I think it’s getting credit for (and WAY better than its trailer). It gets a lot of small moments about parenting very right and really nails the dynamic between Adams and her kid. There’s a weird thing about parenting a toddler (especially when you’re doing it alone) where you can be experiencing boredom and frustration that borders on mania…and yet simultaneously be delighted by and overwhelmingly in love with the small creature that’s making your life hell. I don’t think I’ve seen a better cinematic representation of that specific weird feeling than in Nightbitch.

Also the editing is very sharp and does a great job communicating the time dilation and lost hours of parenthood.

Good movie. Could’ve been a home run.

Absolutely loved this. Scratches a very specific itch that I haven’t felt since Being John Malkovich.

This could have gone wrong in a million different ways, but it never strays from its consistently brilliant, darkly comic tone…even when the movie’s plot changes shape dramatically halfway through.

Raises lots of interesting and complicated ideas without ever sacrificing the laughs or the artistry. Great work from Adam Pearson, The Winter Soldier and The Worst Person In The World.

Between this and The Substance it’s been a great year for comedies about self-loathing! I feel very seen!

I hear Simon Rex’s character has just been offered a role in the new istration.

Fun little satire. Great style.

Cool! Gross! Genuinely scary at times! Incredible sound design!

I’ve seen this story so many times that I’m not sure there’s much new here to really think about or consider beyond the aesthetics…but the aesthetics are awesome, so wheeeee!

God Bless you, Eggers, you fuckin’ little weirdo.

Very close to being an annoying movie, but keeps avoiding it with sharp writing and the presence of a broke version of Roman Roy.

A+ premise watered down by 90’s-style TV movie execution.

Apologies to the Clint-heads, but this would have absolutely ripped with someone like Fincher or Soderbergh directing and doing a script .

Technically incredible in many ways throughout. Love the score, love Brody, love the cinematography and much of the editing. The pacing and writing in the first half is unbelievably good. I was floating.

There is, in my opinion, a disastrous narrative choice in the second half that breaks the film. It virtually abandons all the fascinating threads set up by the first half to make what feels like a cheap joke about artists and financiers which then leads into a Behind-The-Music level melodramatic twist that you could see coming from space and I was REALLY hoping was a misdirect.

Character arcs are ignored, thematic concerns are dropped (or given way less time than they should), fascinating narrative avenues go unexplored. The epilogue is at least interesting and unexpected. It brought me back a bit, but not nearly enough. A huge bummer.

Man, that first half sure is great though!

Sometimes all you need are great actors saying well written lines while wearing robes and vaping.
Very solid!

My daughter was exposed to this for the first time 3 days ago. We have now watched it 7 times. Unbelievably powerful.

Is it a stretch to call this the single greatest piece of animation from the 60’s? Definitely blows all modern Christmas media out of the water. 

No song written for a cartoon has ever had better lyrics.

‘Sure I spend a lot of time online, but I’m not like those WEIRDOS. I’ve got my life together. I am currently bidding on black market murder tapes in my immaculate apartment. I’m good. I’m regular’

25% Mumblecore
25% Lynchian surrealism
25% National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation
25% Dazed and Confused

This formula really worked on me! Messy little Christmas indie movie that made me laugh out loud and feel wistful. At least 5 reaction shots that made me cackle.

Watch it tonight or tomorrow if you can!

My wife used to be with a guy who was kinda like this guy. I get a lot of automatic points in our relationship for Simply Not Being Like That.

Had heard great things about Hugh in this movie and he lived up to all of it. Also love to see a Topher Grace character fail at something in a film. Always works.

Fun time at the movie theatre!

Denzel sure was awesome in this!

Impressive and irritating in almost equal degrees.

Living through a new second wave of post-Tarantino pastiche makes me feel very old.

10 minutes into the movie: wow, this kinda rules! I don’t know why so many people seem to hate it…

20 minutes into the movie: Oh. I see now.

It’s frequently compelling and Saldana is pretty fantastic…but even if you give the filmmakers’ intentions the benefit of the doubt, it overall feels flat and surface-level to me in all the places it tries to feel special.

My last Lynch blind spot. It’s very good! Moving and funny.

Really enjoyed the subtle touches of Lynch’s signature editing and sound design during sequences like the cycle race, the barn fire, etc.

The Deer Lady monologue bumps it up half a star all by itself.

This is probably Sean Baker’s 4th best movie, which still means it’s better than most movies.

He makes it look effortless, but it’s incredibly hard to pull off comedy this broad with characters that feel this grounded. He does it every time! I’m very jealous!

In one very important way, this is better than the first one because it strips away all of the Scorsese ripoff pastiche and boils everything down to the pure artistic vision of Todd Phillips and Joaquin Phoenix. A much more honest piece of art.

In another very important way, this sucks shit and is unforgivably boring.

A very French sci-fi lament for the modern flattening of the human experience and what increasingly feels like the victory of fear over love.

There were some elements that didn’t work for me, but the parts that clicked were probably the most affected I was by a new film all year.

Some stray thoughts:

- doesn’t really look anything like a Tarkovsky film, but reminded me a lot of the way Tarkovsky approached sci-fi.

- the A.I. stuff hit hard for me. Very plausible. Very depressing.

- the central idea of having this vague constant sense of impending doom all the time feels extremely relatable.

- Got some real Scientology vibes from the procedure in the 2044 timeline. Very curious if that was intentional or not.

- Seydoux is incredible. My favourite performance by her so far.

- MacKay is good, but I felt like there was something slightly off about his portrayal of the incel guy. He’s appropriately creepy, but a little too surface level. I don’t think he fully understands that type of guy (which is probably a credit to him as a human being). Role might’ve been better with an American, honestly.

- when it’s funny it’s very funny. When it’s scary, it’s really fucking scary. There are also stretches where it’s a little dull.

- interesting to think about it in relation to Kinds of Kindness, which explores a few similar ideas and also uses actors playing multiple roles. The Beast ultimately uses the technique better and has more to say, I think….but Kinds of Kindness is funnier for sure.

- there are just SO many ideas in this. And almost all of them are presented in intriguing ways. I can’t stop thinking about it. Even the things that annoyed me I’m questioning my reaction to.

- VERY Lynch ending…but I think it earns it.

- currently tied with ‘Do Not Expect Too Much From The End of the World’ for me this year in of Film That Best Captures What It Feels Like To Be Alive In 2024.

*Edit: dropped this down half a star because the things that annoyed me are still annoying me when I think about it. Still good though.

I had seen the other Romero zombie flicks but somehow never seen this one…and it’s actually insane how much 21st Century zombie media took from this film specifically.

Like, this is literally the blueprint for everything they explore in The Walking Dead, 28 Days Later or any number of other post apocalyptic zombie media. It’s incredible how much this did in 1985 that’s been rehashed in various ways over the past 20 odd years.

Also enjoyed how this was Romero going full John Carpenter with the score and the action. Great stuff. Very fun.

Bub rules.

Just imagine how incredible this would be if there was more than one good performance in it!

Well…everyone was right. This rules.

Deeply, existentially upsetting. Gets at some kind of primal terror about the unknowability of your own soul.

Maybe not the like ‘Halloween spooky’ vibe I was looking for, but probably in the top 100 films I’ve ever seen, so that’s pretty good.

Now THAT’S an ending!

There are no half measures.

Great kills. Great iconography. Weirdly relaxing.

The things that make the original film so horrifying and upsetting are absolutely essential to the value of the story being told.

I knew this would change the ending to be more palatable, which I was open to…but the WAY it does it makes this film completely thematically incoherent. And if it’s going to be incoherent, it should be a lot more fun. McAvoy barely even spits while he’s yelling!

Pointless!

Really good film that most people should simply never watch. I would not begrudge anyone for hating the experience of viewing this.

Hit me hardest on the level that felt like a critique of the way “western” society seems to be politely and incompetently allowing a slow fascist takeover to happen. The strength and accuracy of that metaphor superseded the horror I felt at the viciousness on display. Plus, the fact that I knew for certain my family would be OUTTA there within the first hour made it easier for me to handle. 

Incredible filmmaking. Great performances.

Tim Burton sure directed the shit out of this baffling script!

Super fun! Super impressive!

I would love to have seen a version of this that featured deeper or more interesting people as characters, rather than the pack of shallow assholes this film is about…but this does an incredible job of taking those characters and exploring almost every comedic corner provided by the premise. It basically does everything you want to see it do, once you understand what’s happening.

Frankly, it lives up to its premise better than any of the (perfectly fine) recent films it will inevitably get compared to. 

Maybe a touch too manic for my taste, but a very satisfying piece of dark comedy entertainment. That they made it feel this slick at such a low budget is kind of amazing.

My friend Cavan wrote and directed this short film. It’s sad and creepy and upsetting…just like him!

I also edited it, so obviously the editing is impeccable.

What I liked best was the subtlety

Some stray thoughts:

- I would genuinely love to see what Walter Murch could have made of this. He might have been able to save it.

- Never would have predicted in a million years that Jon Voight would give a better and more interesting performance than Adam Driver in a 2024 movie, but here we are.

- They should invent a new kind of award for what Aubrey Plaza does here. Something that exists in the space between an Oscar and a Sympathy Card. Best part of the movie.

- The politics and philosophy of this film are incoherent wealthy Boomer garbage and the worst part of the experience by far. It’s not even an endearingly batshit or ambitious worldview, it’s just your drunk uncle or grandpa monologuing about half-ed details from news programs over the past few decades of his life. Elitist, faux-progressive bullshit. 

- Maybe the most surprising element is that a lot of the humour actually works! There’s too little of it, but there are several gags that fully succeed. This would have worked way better as a full-on comedy rather than a self-serious screed with a few silly funny bits.

- I would pay real money to watch Neil Breen watch this film. It’s everything he’s always strived for. He might shed a tear.

- I love that this exists. I wish it was better.

Even though they literally originated the idea together, Linklater and Powell might have weirdly been the worst people to execute this story.

This is a concept for a film that’s begging for some strong aesthetic and storytelling choices to make the tone work and Linklater just…does nothing with it. He’s a brilliant filmmaker and I love many of his movies, but this felt like the work of someone with no vision whatsoever. Deeply strange to me.

Powell is charming and he’s got great chemistry with Arjona…but he’s way too handsome for this version of the character to make any sense as written. It would be interesting if the film wanted to examine that he can only get away with what he does because of his face and physique…but I honestly don’t think that’s really in the text. If the point is that he’s a beautiful sociopath and always has been, it leaves me with many questions about his life before the film. But if he really is supposed to be a ‘normal guy who breaks bad and it works out’, I just don’t buy the performance.  Makes me appreciate Cusack in Grosse Pointe Blank all the more.

Also, all the police procedure stuff feels very half-baked. Neither believable, nor satirical.

Fun idea for a movie, though! Really wanted to like this!  Kinda bummed!

This fucking rocks!

I’m so parasocially happy for Jeremy Saulnier! He deserved a big win and he made one happen.

First 2/3rds : A classic De Palma thriller with 75% less horniness.

Final 3rd : A classic Hallmark thriller with 25% less logical coherence.

I had a great time! I used to hate Hartnett as a screen presence and he’s completely turned me around.

This review may contain spoilers.

Love the tone! Love the visual style! Love the performances! It’s effectively creepy and tense for most of the runtime and that’s all a horror film really has to do.

That said, I’m in the camp that’s frustrated with the last act. I think the early stuff with Cage/Longlegs is pretty terrifying and then I also love when the film subverts that by putting him in broad daylight and robbing him of his mystique. In showing him to be the weird, sad creep that he is, it feels like how a nightmare loses its power in the morning and you almost forget what you found so scary about it before. Thought that was great.

…but then the film circles back to his role as a terrifying force of evil and I just no longer buy it. The dancing at the end is the worst example of this for me.

Also, all the business with the cypher and the dolls and the metal balls feels like it’s either thrown in there to satisfy serial killer tropes or to satirize them…and in either case I don’t think they’re fleshed out enough to be satisfying.

But still! Great-looking movie! Creeped me out!

There are two things I believe are true about this Alien film:

1) It is the least conceptually original or thematically interesting Alien film so far (not including the Predator ones, obv)

2) it’s also the least frustrating and most viscerally successful moment-to-moment Alien film since 1986. I groaned hard twice, but otherwise had a great time!

David Jonsson now officially enters the ‘playing a robot’ hall of fame.

Look, I have seen so many of these movies and read so many of the comics they’re based on that it is impossible to not enjoy the jokes in this. The jokes are mostly very good. Many funny bits and gags.

It did feel strangely, cosmically appropriate that throughout the whole screening a group of teenagers were kicking my seat and yelling the loudest, dumbest, most depressing comments at the screen imaginable.

I thought : ‘this is what I deserve. This is what the movie deserves’

This is now officially the first movie my 3-year-old has watched in its entirety. When the credits rolled she said ‘that was so fun!’ with wonder in her voice.

5 Stars!

Bill Burr has a joke I love about how lucky we are that Lance Armstrong chose cycling as his thing and never focused his weird, evil ambition towards something more harmful.

That’s kinda the vibe I get from Jim Cummings. I really enjoy his work and I also think he could have been a truly evil tech guy or politics guy in another reality.

Loved this! Really great balance of tones in a way that feels all too rare in modern horror movies (even good ones!). 

Lotta potentially goofy ideas, but handled in a way that’s impressively creepy and grounded. The story mutates in unexpected ways as it goes and keeps raising the stakes and sense of dread while showing you increasingly bananas stuff.

Choreographed grave dancing with mutilated pig carcasses! Giant fireballs in the sky! A ghost on a leash! Graves within graves! The guy from Oldboy continuing to not catch a break!

There was also some fascinating Korean history stuff that went completely over my head while watching, but has only enriched the film in my mind as I’ve gone on to read about it.

Still probably my personal favourite Canadian film ever made.

I love films about failure and making art!

I got to discuss this and Canadian film distribution in general on the great Cinema Smorgasbord podcast here

My ranking of the stories:

1. Jesse Plemons has a job
2. Emma Stone makes poor decisions 
3. Doggies!

Still turning over my feelings on this, so I may end up liking it way more or slightly less down the road….But for now it has multiple Hall Of Fame scenes and I laughed a bunch, so it’s another win for Lanthimos The Unstoppable.

These are the inspiration films for my first feature, releasing wide in 2023.

These are the movies I used as a reference either thematically, visually or in some hard-to-define way that stuck in my head during production.

To be 100% clear, my film is worse than all of these.

• Sorry to Bother You
• Repo Man
• The King of Comedy
• Raising Arizona
• The Nice Guys
• Vagabond
• After Hours
• World of Tomorrow
• The Informant!
• 24 Hour Party People

...plus 23 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

These are the movies I love the most. These are the movies I think about the most.

Only in the vaguest kind of order. Frequently changing.

• Fargo

  A perfect movie.

• Rashomon

  Burnt in my brain as a teenager.

  - My first true understanding of the power of perspective.
  - The first foreign film I ever loved.
  - The first time I understood how movies steal from each other.

• 24 Hour Party People

  Perfect comedy. Perfect match of subject matter and form. Perfect balance between celebration and indictment of subject.

  Possibly my most quoted film of all time.

• The Master

  There’s just something about this fucking movie.  
  I'm completely captivated by it every time I watch it and I feel like I get more out of it each time.

  Power dynamics. Personal freedom. Self-Confidence. Self-Delusion.

  Pig Fuck!

• Chinatown

  Everything is fucked. Try to make things better and you'll only make them worse. The rich and powerful will always win. The innocent and vulnerable will always lose.

  No other movie this depressing is this entertaining. Maybe the best detective movie ever made.

  Fuck Roman Polanski, though.

• Moonlight

  Blows me away. Maybe the most sadly beautiful film I've ever seen.

• Dog Day Afternoon

  Perfect movie.

• Ikiru

  No big deal, just successfully addresses the Meaning Of Life.

• The Third Man

  Purely enjoyable on every level.

• It's a Wonderful Life

  Pretty sure this is the only movie that makes me cry every time I see it guaranteed.

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

2020 has been a weird fucking year. A full watch/rewatch of Lynch’s film work felt appropriate.

Possibly the purest example of an filmmaker putting his raw psyche up on screen. One of the greats.

Top 8 are all incredible.

1. Blue Velvet

   Still feels to me like the best balance of all Lynch’s best and most interesting gifts. Genuinely terrifying. Surrealist, but with grounded human emotion.

   Works as a powerful social critique of America without being remotely didactic in its messaging. It’s hard to pin down exactly what the darkness represents, but it feels so accurate.

2. Twin Peaks: The Return

   A brilliant, fascinating, hilarious, horrifying, infuriating masterpiece.

   This is the water, and this is the well. The horse is the light of the eyes, and dark within. Drink full and descend.

   Gotta light?

3. Eraserhead

   Terrifying and completely unique. A pure, cinematic expression of the fear of fatherhood.

4. Twin Peaks

   Counting the first two seasons as one piece of filmmaking because this is my list. Would probably be Lynch’s best overall work if it wasn’t for that wayward section in season 2. 

   The sweetest and the scariest moments Lynch has ever put to screen all exist in here.

   Agent Dale Cooper is quite possibly my favourite fictional character.

5. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me

   A strange artifact that works beautifully as a unique horror film, while also deepening and enriching the larger world of Twin Peaks and Laura Palmer’s place within it. Just good stuff!

6. The Elephant Man

   The perfect answer to the question ‘what would you get if you gave an Oscar Bait script to the guy who just made Eraserhead?’

   It shouldn’t work, but it really does. Beautiful and fascinating and tragic.

7. Mulholland Drive

   I rate this slightly less high than some do just because I think a lot of the imagery and ideas feel similar to things he did better in Twin Peaks or Blue Velvet...but it’s still an incredible film.

   What’s most impressive is that despite how overwhelming and confusing it seems on first viewing, it all fits together quite beautifully.  It rewards multiple rewatches by allowing you to piece it all together and remaining entertaining on multiple levels as you start to figure it out.

8. The Straight Story

   It’s good!

9. Lost Highway

   Expertly-directed version of a student film nightmare neo-noir.
   
   Mid-90s Lynch is not my favourite version of Lynch, but this is a pretty cool movie. Some truly incredible imagery and sound design.

10. Dune

    Very fun to watch with a lot of great moments buried within a huge fucking mess.

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

Marathoned these while awake at ungodly hours with my infant daughter over the first 2 months of her life.

Utterly delightful movies about blowhards and grifters.

1. Sullivan's Travels

   One of the best cinematic examinations of artistic pretension and the value of comedy ever put to screen.

2. The Palm Beach Story

   Non-stop joke machine.

3. Christmas in July

   It’s a real shame about the janitor at the end because otherwise this is a perfect little comedy and it’s barely over an hour!

4. The Lady Eve

   Eve might be Sturges’ best overall character. Great film.

5. The Great McGinty

   Great little political satire.

6. The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek

   Betty Hutton is incredible.

7. Hail the Conquering Hero

   My least favourite of the ones I’ve seen. A lot of repeated tricks done better in earlier movies…but still a lot of fun.

Top 2 are perfect, flawless masterpieces.

They’re all very good.

• In the Mood for Love

  Quite possibly the most beautiful and heartbreaking film ever made

• Happy Together

  20+ years later this still feels so fucking fresh and creative. Emotionally hits me in the chest like a wrecking ball.

• Days of Being Wild

  Really captures something special and true about being a beautiful, tortured scumbag in your 20’s.

  I was never hot enough or enough of an asshole to be like any of these characters, but I knew and even loved many who were back in the day.

• Chungking Express

  Classic for a reason. Stylistically not my favourite of his films, but you can’t argue with those performances and that palpable sense of yearning.

• Fallen Angels

  His funniest film by a wide margin. Pure 90’s music video chaos. A bit dated in places, but a ton of fun.

• 2046

  Zhang Ziyi and Tony Leung are impossibly hot in this movie.

  I’m not a big fan of the ‘future’ sequences. They feel like perfume commercials to me.

• As Tears Go By

  Messy but very fun little gangster movie. Love the little flashes of what WKW would grow into as a filmmaker.

• Ashes of Time

  Not bad by any means, but a bit long and not my favourite genre. I could see someone liking this a lot.

Currently on a Kurosawa Quarantine to fill in some blind spots.

Probably the greatest filmmaker of all time. A perfect blend of clear-eyed cynicism and deeply human empathy.

1. Rashomon

   Broke my brain open as a teenager. Funny, scary, unpredictable and beautifully shot meditation on the nature of humanity and the unknowable truth of the universe. 

   One of many times Kurosawa just up and invented an entire genre of film. It’s impossible to list how many movies this influenced, but it still feels unique.

   I love Rashomon so much.

2. Ikiru

   I do not think it is an exaggeration to say that Ikiru accurately defines and captures the meaning of life.

3. High and Low

   Crams a first-rate parlour drama and a first-rate procedural together and makes it one of the best cinematic critiques of wealth inequality ever made.

   Probably Mifune’s best performance. The train ransom sequence is the most exciting piece of filmmaking in Kurosawa’s whole catalogue, which is saying something.

4. Ran

   Just absolutely beautiful. One of the most visually stunning films ever made.

5. Stray Dog

   ‘you explore the notion that cop and criminal are really two aspects of the same person. See every cop movie ever made for other examples of this.‘

   - Charlie Kaufman, Adaptation

   This movie did it first. Pretty sure it’s the first time Kurosawa invented a genre.

   It’s also just incredibly entertaining. The run of movies from this to Red Beard is probably the best run any director’s ever had.

6. Yojimbo

   Just a fucking blast. A concept so simple and perfect for an action movie people can’t help ripping it off over and over again.

   Off-the-charts charisma from Mifune.

7. Dreams

   I saw this while stoned at a friends house in high school, bought it on DVD and proceeded to watch it (or at least parts of it) at least several nights a week as I drifted off to sleep. 

   I think it’s hypnotic and beautiful and sad...but I also can’t be objective about it because it’s just a part of me.

8. Throne of Blood

   One of the best Shakespeare adaptations ever made.

   The walking forest is one of the best images Kurosawa ever out to film. 

   Obviously Hall of Fame death scene for Mifune.

9. The Bad Sleep Well

   Underrated masterpiece. Deeply cynical and morally complex political corruption thriller that clearly influenced everything from Chinatown to The Insider.

10. Seven Samurai

    Invented the modern Blockbuster Action film. Epic and exciting the whole way through.

    I’m always tempted to call this overrated since it’s the one most people define Kurosawa by and I think he made better films...but it’s still just so fucking great.

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

Probably the most consistently great director in Hollywood over the past 5 decades.

• Taxi Driver

  An absolute Masterpiece. Still feels dangerous more than 40 years later.

• GoodFellas

  Perfect movie. Endlessly rewatchable. Flows like music.

• The King of Comedy

  Profoundly, uncomfortably hilarious.

  It’s insane how accurately this predicted modern fan culture.

• The Wolf of Wall Street

  As far as I’m concerned, this is the defining film about the 2008 financial crash and 21st century Capitalism in general.

  Leo’s best performance. Quaalude sequence is a contender for funniest of the decade.

• Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore

  Just love this movie. Ellen Burstyn fucking rules.

• After Hours

  My mom showed me this when I was 14 and it blew my mind. Total anarchy on screen in a way I had never seen before.

  This is like if cocaine was a movie. It rules.

• The Last Temptation of Christ

  Beautiful and strange. Probably the best Jesus movie.

• Raging Bull

  Brutal, incredible film about obsession and rage. Some of Thelma’s greatest editing.

• Shutter Island

  Underrated! 

  ‘Which would be worse - to live as a monster, or to die as a good man?’

• The Irishman

  Devastating. A portrait of a hollow life lived in service of evil and banality. 

  Also a beautiful repudiation of every lazy, bad faith accusation levelled at Scorsese that he glorifies this lifestyle.

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

The most underrated comedic auteur in cinema history.

• The Heartbreak Kid

  So painful. So funny. So perfect.

• A New Leaf

  Pretty sure if I could see the 3-hour cut it would be one of my favourite films of all time.

  Unbelievably great comedy writing.

• Ishtar

  A love letter to creating bad art which was in turn mistaken for being bad art itself when released.

  So meta!

• Mikey and Nicky

  I struggle with this film, but I respect it.

It feels very cliché and basic of me to love PTA and his movies as much as I do...but I can’t lie to myself. All these movies rule.

1. The Master
2. Boogie Nights
3. There Will Be Blood
4. Punch-Drunk Love
5. Magnolia
6. Phantom Thread
7. Inherent Vice
8. Hard Eight

As a dude on the internet, here’s my obligatory MCU ranking. 

The definition of cinematic junk food. Everything that Marty says about these things is correct, but I like junk food and I like amusement parks.

I'm also a long-time comic book reader and an itted sucker for the way they've pulled off the shared universe thing.

1. Avengers: Endgame

   They stuck the landing. 

   Even if everything after this flops hard, they created a reasonably cohesive, mostly enjoyable, 22 film superhero story from Iron Man to this. It’s just very impressive to think about and mostly a lot of fun.

2. Captain America: Civil War

   This to me was the first movie that ever really felt like the crossover events in the comics. It’s full of great movie star charisma and fun superhero bullshit. Still one of the only MCU climaxes that focuses on character instead of spectacle. I’ve revisited this a few times and always enjoy myself.

   Also, before Spider-Verse came out this was the best Spider-Man movie.

3. Thor: Ragnarok

   One of the only MCU films with its own distinct style. Genuinely funny the whole way through and a lot of fun visuals. Great to watch high.

4. Iron Man

   Gets huge credit for launching the whole thing. RDJ gives an all-time Movie Star Charisma performance. Very fun, very solid.

5. Captain America: The First Avenger

   Chris Evans as Cap is great. Just totally gets and sells a very difficult character. Movie has genuine heart and a great ending.

   Tommy Lee Jones barely tries in this and still rules. Tucci is delightful.

6. Captain America: The Winter Soldier

   This one honestly might drop if I watched it again, but I having a great time watching it.

   Redford!

7. Avengers: Infinity War

   The ultimate test of the MCU up to that point. If it’s not utterly exhausting to you, they’ve thoroughly succeeded. 

   Being in a crowded theatre when everyone turns to dust was a great moviegoing moment.

8. Iron Man 3

   Shane Black is the only filmmaker besides Taika Waititi to successfully make a Marvel movie that feels distinct to his own vision (Gunn is also arguable).

   Very fun movie. If the third act wasn’t such a generic toy commercial action piece, this might make top 3.

9. The Avengers

   Parts have aged badly, but the good parts still work really well and it gets credit for being the first one to pull together the other movies successfully.

   Truly crazy thing to experience for the first time as a comic book reader.

10. Guardians of the Galaxy

    Very fun! Gunn did a great job making this work. Could’ve been a disaster.

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

Nolan has a very specific set of filmmaking skills and instincts at a level that almost no one else alive can touch.

Those skills don’t always produce a successful film...but even his worst ones are interesting and watchable.

1. Dunkirk

   Nolan uses a gigantic Hollywood budget and makes an experimental, chaotic tone poem exploring the fragile line between heroism and cowardice.

   I’ll be shocked if he ever tops this for me. Feels like the purest distillation of all his strengths as a filmmaker.

2. Memento

   Perfect puzzle box thriller.

3. The Prestige

   Batshit insane and an absolute blast.

4. The Dark Knight

   There are a million problems with this movie and none of them matter because it’s awesome.

5. Batman Begins

   3rd act is pretty bad. Everything else is pretty great.

6. Interstellar

   HUGE swing. Has some of the most embarrassing stuff in any Nolan movie, but also some of the best moments he’s ever put to film.

7. Inception

   Probably the film where Nolan really becomes Nolan. For better and for worse. It’s definitely fun to watch!

8. Tenet

   Pretty stupid! Also pretty cool!

9. The Dark Knight Rises

   Tom Hardy’s Bane voice was a gift to the world.

10. Insomnia

    Totally watchable.

...plus 1 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Probably like him best as a sci-fi director.  Nobody has ever approached that genre in the same way and it's really something special.

All these films are great, though. Some require a real commitment to focus on, but all of them reward it. Some of the absolute greatest pure cinematic moments in history belong to these movies.

1. Stalker
2. Solaris
3. Nostalgia
4. Mirror
5. Andrei Rublev
6. Ivan's Childhood
7. The Sacrifice

Top 5 are life-defining milestones.

Top 10 I'm comfortable calling Masterpieces.

Ladykillers is the only one I actively dislike.

1. Fargo
2. The Big Lebowski
3. Inside Llewyn Davis
4. Miller's Crossing
5. Raising Arizona
6. Barton Fink
7. Blood Simple
8. No Country for Old Men
9. A Serious Man
10. O Brother, Where Art Thou?

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

There are only a few modern filmmakers that can accurately claim to have never made a bad film.

Of those few, Bong Joon-Ho has the most interesting and varied filmography.

Endlessly fascinating and entertaining.

• Mother
• Memories of Murder
• Parasite
• The Host
• Barking Dogs Never Bite
• Snowpiercer
• Okja

Top 5 are great.

I like all of them to some degree at least.

I'm fairly convinced that if Sally Menke had been alive to edit Django, it would be better (and higher up).

1. Pulp Fiction
2. Inglourious Basterds
3. Jackie Brown
4. Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood
5. Kill Bill: Vol. 1
6. Reservoir Dogs
7. Kill Bill: Vol. 2
8. The Hateful Eight
9. Django Unchained
10. Death Proof