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Honestly a really wonderful Brendan Fraser performance once he abandons the awkward caricature from the start, when the ride starts it’s an excellent use of his loveable, everyman persona. He’s game for the character sketches and the magical realist melodrama. Never a doubt that this brush with the devil would put him right where he needed to be.

I fell in love with Elizabeth Hurley after seeing the trailer for this when I was a kid. Nice to finally watch it lol.

Pining after a girl you’re not even compatible with is absolutely the best way to get in the devil’s crosshairs, I agree with this, I’ve seen it happen to some good, sweet boys. Fun and frivolous lil fable, Dudley is a real cutie.

Saying this has a breakneck pace basically undersells it, we’re moving so fast and it’s so goddamned funny and I’m very impressed with what Wes is up to lately. Here he stages a tale about how far you’ll go and what you’ll sacrifice to selfishly pursue a selfless dream. It’s a family story, it’s a redemption story, it has a big heart and a bigger sense of humor.

Dodd wants a pet, Freddie wants a master, are they self-destructive drinking buddies or are they stimulating soul mates. Whatever the answer, I found this a much more sentimental affair this time around…doesn’t build to the happiest ending, but both men undoubtedly end up in a better place after fate brings them together.

Messy and earnest in all the ways that I love, found this a very moving ending (??) to the many adventures of Ethan Hunt, lord & savior to us all. Like Maverick, this is another recent Tom Cruise film that feels like a sermon from a guy who genuinely loves the entertainment potential and ideological power of this medium. This is ultimately a movie about faith, about human goodness and how the universe will give the good guys what they need to win, as long as they keep the faith. Destiny isn’t actually preordained, despite what The Entity says, it’s earned.

Endings are harddddd, so it feels remarkable that a franchise this long-running was able to build to a satisfying ending at all, let alone do so while eulogizing the entire series, wrapping up a goofy storyline about an evil AI + its scorned lover, and appeasing the ego of a true Hollywood maniac (complementary). Final Reckoning accomplishes this mission by making the AI a direct stand-in for very obvious problems facing society right now: selfishness, fear, fatalism. It doesn’t demonize tech more than it has to, it demonizes the distrust and isolation that The Entity creates. The Big Screen is for community, the Small Screen is not. Preach guys, preach.

Dap up your frenemies.
Swim down to hell for your homies.
Teach your buddies how to operate on a collapsed lung.
Trust Ethan one more time.

Love that The Entity hates Ethan Hunt so much, and love how that goofy idea is used to create so much of Final Reckoning’s thematic structure. The Entity, this embodiment of the paperclip problem, knows that Ethan’s the only one who can stop it from taking over the entire planet to make more paperclips. Our very special boy and his ragtag group of friends. Ethan basically says that he’ll fight god to save them, which rules...he would absolutely fight god for his friends.

Absolutely crushes at the “introduce cool new characters” game, how rad are Grace and Paris. I think the car chase through Venice is my favorite sequence in any of these films.

Has always felt a little self-serious to me, which I’m even more conflicted about having now seen (and really enjoying) Final Reckoning, a deeply self-serious movie. This one almost feels like a M:I thought experiment: how far can you push Ethan Hunt before he sacrifices his morals, how many times can the government let him down before he walks away. Not that I refuse to muse on how much weight’s resting on Ethan’s shoulders, just feels like a different way to represent the life and death stakes of the franchise…but we’re creating a superhero after all, I get that. Maybe I just don’t need the “how Ethan got his groove back” feeling of this, I do like him more as a righteous, reliable, punch-drunk hero. Maybe it’s simply that this one fumbles Ilsa.

I won’t let you down. I won’t let you down.

We’re not even to the Evil AI movies yet and somehow Ethan’s still wrestling with the concept of an all-knowing, all-scheming baddie. Solomon Lane basically thinks he’s some LLM, capable of kicking a rock down a mountain and predicting exactly what it’ll destroy on the way down. This confidence rattles Ethan in a really fun way, I like how he legit feels like he’s losing his mind at times. “Can you see? Can you see it?” Good thing he’s back with all of his very creative friends. Introducing a femme fatale to the group w Ilsa was such a smart move, I love her!!

Really appreciating that Mission: Impossible is a HEIST franchise more than an action franchise, such a smart building block. There’s always something new to acquire, always somewhere new to go. And a heist means a team and I love our team so much. To that end, really appreciate that Brad Bird let things be goofy again – right from the jump there’s a lighter touch to the violence, a more playful layout to the set pieces, a more baffled look on Ethan’s face. Good one! Ending still bad unfortunately.

Cracks are starting to spread in the IMF, makes sense the institution is basically busted by the next movie…here there’s a very handsome traitor causing problems for everyone, Ethan Hunt and his new life most of all. What is it about working for a foreign intelligence service that makes you go insane and decide killing people is fine as long as you can convince yourself it’s for a Good Reason. Democracy or false flags or preemptive strikes or whatever. Oh wait I just ed that’s the explicit purpose of these organizations!!

I wonder how big of a promotion Musgrave would have received if his plan actually worked and they had an excuse to bomb the middle east.

I did not expect to like the James Bond movie titled “Octopussy” as much as I did, definitely a fun one. India’s a good location. Simple story, and lots of time spent at the circus with cute ladies. Makes the American Military men seem so stupid lol.

It’s always false flag operations with these bad guys innit.

Ethan Hunt earned this melodramatic, romantic, and surprisingly personal adventure after the early torment of M:I1. He’s still raw and healing after that film’s betrayal, and the world accommodates by making Hero Ethan fight Villain Ethan as an almost therapeutic exercise. He needs to kill Villain Ethan so that Happy Ethan can exist once again. The vibe is mythic and ridiculous and a great representation of Ethan’s apparent inner conflict. Like yes the opening sequence of him rock climbing is absurd but it also feels like a real “would a depressed person do this” kinda activity. This dude isn't quite well just yet. Tom largely abandons Ethan’s wild-eyed intensity in his performance, and then every once in a while it comes back stronger than ever – like when Nyah says “you can’t save us both, can you?” and his eyes scream “OF COURSE I CAN!”

It’s fun that being a spy is like a communicable disease in this movie, if you kiss a spy you become a spy.

Enjoyed a very good museum exhibit before watching this, so was primed to go to the ends of the earth to Protect the Art Train.

Pool boys 4 lyfe

I love how wild-eyed and broken Ethan is for this first adventure. Surviving the movie + defeating the bad guys is what heals him, what puts him back together, so naturally he'll never refuse the call to save us once again.

Zany crime comedy / heartfelt coming of age romance / jokes and goofy stunts / I’m just like fully a Hess guy now

I too have been left wanting after purchasing a foot long subway sandwich

Thought the disaster movie shit at the end was extremely cool! The rest of it less so.

Omg it’s real life Don Verdean!

The Hess’ most grounded approach yet and that adjustment worked really well for me, I liked the bittersweet, almost lonely flavor and how they applied that to the entire world. It’s still uniquely goofy with absurd and loveable characters, there’s still rival megachurches jockeying for relics and power…it’s just also a little sweeter and sadder and more approachable. Story doesn’t have a ton of meat on the bones, especially as it goes on, but it’s really fun to see Don & Co march around The Middle East (read: Utah) and dig up silly shit to confirm other silly shit.

Pumpkinhead clocks in and simply refuses to clock out, what a star employee!!

The dream sequences ( / potential flashbacks?) in here are some of the most troubling, heartbreaking things I’ve ever seen in a movie. Helplessness leading to obsession leading to some semblance of hope. How do we grieve, how do we conspire to move on.

Did not think Vincent was good in this unfortunately, whereas everyone else is so dialed in. Very funny flick.

Exists to be a delivery system for jokes about poop and how folks in creative fields will always try to take advantage of you. Hilarious.

Extremely simple and impossibly complex. Overflowing with images and ideas and inspirations where nothing is new and everything is new. One of those “movies are the coolest thing in the world” experiences where even the messiness feels aspirational.

Very polished and compelling but I can’t quite wrap my head around this one. Wanted more shape, more impact, more caution and context.

The Barbie stuff in here feels sooo influential to Greta’s movie lol.

Watched on VHS like god intended.

Gareth Evans does the grounded-action-fantasy vibe so well, these are basically superhero movies where the lucky few are invincible until facing off with another special (and obvs v cool) supernaturally tinged fighter. Tom Hardy good, still goofy, he’s kinda Venom coded here lol. Lots of badass ladies I’d like to get killed by.

A total fanfic movie in that it’s all about the specific relationship between these two goofy characters, with an entire story built to explore their emotional state. The macguffin is literally the love Venom and Eddie have for each other, the fact that they live and die for each other. Your friends are always right around the corner. Fascinating sense of resignation hanging over this all, and yet it’s breezy and fun and appropriately stupid. Good time tbh.

Nonsensical for sure but there’s no denying how charming the Eddie + Venom relationship is. And thankfully that's most of the movie, all the Carnage stuff is...roughhhh.

A smaller adventure for Bond, world domination is a few steps away even if we are still dealing with submarines and missiles. Fewer hugely colorful characters, although the Olympic backdrop is used really well. And I really like it when Bond has friends or allies, Columbo is awesome and it’s cool for Bond to go be a cute lil paramilitary buddy for a sec. Our guy Bond could always use more friends.

If the big-screen watch revealed anything it’s how much these characters communicate through wordless glances. Inside jokes, hidden emotions, nothing is missed, for us or for them. The world is so lush and lived-in and we’re so lucky to through!!!

Honestly impressed how unabashedly clout-chasing this franchise is – yeah, let’s do a sci-fi movie now, why not!! Money well-spent, the design of this is terrific even if it takes a whileee to actually get to space. The baddies had so many opportunities to kill James Bond in this one, and if you can believe it, he slips out of each!

Electric, real movie shit. Extremely cool to do a musical-group origin story that’s more about ideology and purpose than how the group was actually formed. Even cooler to make a movie that’s simply this fast–paced and engaging.

Could be the best of the Masculine Parables, it's such a poignant, ferocious story. Love how quickly Jon Voight clocks this entire event on the train as fated, his performance has such a resigned energy to it…he knows this is just the next level he has to play through on his way to find redemption. He's been playing this game his whole life.

And his “you’re gonna get a job” speech to Eric Roberts genuinely took my breath away.

Feels so smart and modern!! Good guys and bad guys, victims and perpetrators, bathed in a very special light. Patty Mullen’s gonna live forever with this one.

Bond villains really love to have their Giant Machine gobble up Smaller Machines and every time I love it. Also funny how often the villains are just anti-social elitists who want to create their own world.

He didn’t make the best movies, but Lewis Gilbert really was the best Proper Director the franchise had, his entries are so slick and dynamic.

Simpler times

I think this was kinda built to be unsatisfying but in a lot of ways that makes it feel more immersive, and certainly more abrasive. Still trying to find the point which also very much feels like the point…been thinking about it all day at any rate.

Plane crash disaster movie except the plane is still airborne! And get this – THE PLANE IS FULL OF SNAKES!

Genuinely good, this is no joke maybe the scariest situation I can imagine. The goofiest thing about the movie is the title. And I guess the Cobra Starship song that plays over the credits. Everything else is heartfelt and tight and surprisingly human. “I’ve had it with these motherfuckin’ snakes” isn’t a joke, it’s a pump up speech to a group of survivors that just went through hell and are once again staring death in the face.

Really good coming-of-age / summer camp comedy that suffers when it re it’s supposed to be a horror movie. Killing and intrigue isn’t their strong suit, but there’s so much to like here otherwise! Good kids, well-balanced performances. Promising stuff.

Pretty weak overall, with some awesome sets and design flourishes. Bond feels improperly calibrated, he spends the first half of the movie slapping his way through witnesses who can lead him to Scaramanga and only lands like 2 of his many jokes along the way. More social-engineering and sneering than genuine spycraft? Loveeed Nick Nack.

A Christmas movie all about how much the Devil hates Jesus Christ. Pretty wacky stuff going on in Miles County!

Just a smidge behind Jurassic Park in my “Most Formative Spielberg Movies” ranking. And if we're being honest it's up there pretty high in my “Most Formative Movies” ranking in general. Feeling defensive after the Blank Check episode lol.

Very formative for me! Not quite as strong as I , especially in how it handles the horror scenes, but still feels ahead of its time in how it discusses horror and the genre’s purpose in our world. More a love-letter than a satirical takedown, with some genuine sadness throughout. Performances are all so good, very nice to see these goofballs again.

Honestly thought this ripped, welcome back Jared Hess and welcome back Nacho Libre. Basically zero story, but the jokes are plentiful and absurd and FUNNY and it never stops moving. More of this, it actually feels like it has a unique fingerprint on the joystick.

I love a Big Time Big Swing Sequel! Leone is doing right by his main man Art, expanding his lore and amping up the gore. The first movie was just a random side quest, this is a genuine battle between good and evil. It’s fun to take this leap narratively, and I can’t help but laugh at how Leone wrote a story that justifies the extreme violence AND lets him show off his skills at creating it. Art’s just a showman, he’s a creature who exists to make a mess on screen and sell some fuckin merch. He’s also here to anoint our next savior.

Such a good “lean into your strengths” debut – simple story, slathered in blood, guts, and iconography. Knowing how deep the mythology gets, I love that it all starts with a one-night-in-hell altercation with this kooky demon who feeds on human pain and suffering. Art's a scamp! A silent movie star if ever there was one!

You know for a second there I thought Ben Foster was going to process this experience in a completely normal way, nothing weird about it. Good joke, Ben!

Charmed by this one! Still coming around to Roger Moore, but it’s easy to see the appeal…he’s extremely pretty and extremely British and I liked that they tossed him into such an American stew for his first adventure. I didn’t know there was a Blaxploitation James Bond and I didn’t know that Yaphet Kotto would be our baddie! An exaggerated world for sure, but one that highlights just how unflappable Moore’s version of bond will be, not even the borderline magic flusters him.

Obsessed with the idea of an otherwise grounded villain using a genuine mystic to help chart his evil course, didn’t know the Bond movies had that in them and yet it never feels out of place. Even more obsessed that Solitaire is played by DOCTOR QUINN???

Clockwork 🕰️ 🥰

💛 my favs 💛
————————
adding to it as I watch or
there’s no ranking 
not a lot of reasoning 
many good movies out there though!!!

• Toy Story 2
• Brief Encounter
• Dirty Rotten Scoundrels
• An American Werewolf in London
• 12 Angry Men
• Toy Story
• Cactus Flower
• The Taking of Pelham One Two Three
• If You Could Only Cook
• Thelma & Louise

...plus 394 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• Victoria
• Fish Story
• Happy End
• Exhuma
• Heavenly Bodies
• Riders of Justice
• A Stolen Life
• The Heiress
• The Cobweb
• Hobson's Choice

...plus 169 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. On Her Majesty's Secret Service
2. You Only Live Twice
3. From Russia with Love
4. Live and Let Die
5. Goldfinger
6. Diamonds Are Forever
7. Dr. No
8. A View to a Kill
9. Thunderball
10. The Man with the Golden Gun

1. The Boy
2. The Ring
3. The Bad Seed
4. Green Room
5. Young Frankenstein
6. The Substance
7. Obsession
8. Ravenous
9. Stage Fright
10. I Married a Witch

...plus 39 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. The Thing
2. Psycho
3. The Exorcist III
4. Appendage
5. The Boy
6. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
7. The Invisible Man
8. [REC]
9. Signs
10. Frankenhooker

...plus 41 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Ranking the season’s horror watches. 
The doors opened in September this year.

1. Jaws
2. The Birds
3. The Fly
4. Braindead
5. The Lair of the White Worm
6. Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit
7. Donnie Darko
8. Pumpkinhead
9. Crimes of the Future
10. Hellraiser

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

It’s Halloween Season 2021, we’re watching spooky movies again! (And ranking them)

1. The Exorcist III
2. Psycho
3. What We Do in the Shadows
4. The Invisible Man
5. The Testament of Dr. Mabuse
6. Mad Love
7. Night of the Eagle
8. The Cabin in the Woods
9. Bud Abbott and Lou Costello Meet Frankenstein
10. Train to Busan

...plus 31 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

The genre movies I watched October 2020 — ranked!

1. The Birds
2. The Changeling
3. Red Eye
4. Little Shop of Horrors
5. Black Christmas
6. Village of the Damned
7. Sisters
8. Jennifer's Body
9. The Blair Witch Project
10. Thirst

...plus 31 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.