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Watched on Saturday June 7, 2025.

Watched on Sunday May 25, 2025.

Watched on Sunday May 25, 2025.

Watched on Wednesday May 21, 2025.

Watched on Wednesday April 23, 2025.

I cannot articulate how much I loved this any clearer than just the simple fact that I welled up in the credits and then cried in the car at how overjoyed and awestruck I was. I followed the production from the very beginning, with secret meetings and on, closer than I have anything else I can even think of, and it still sured my ludicrous expectations.

Watched on Wednesday April 16, 2025.

Watched on Tuesday April 15, 2025.

Watched on Tuesday April 15, 2025.

This movie is a hangover. Not from a rowdy night out with friends or from trying to cope from some bad feelings, where on some level it was worth it, but one of those perpetual boredom hangovers from having nothing to do, where at some point you keep drinking thinking it'll at least distract you from the hangover itself. That constant rock in your stomach and every single sensory input being grating. What starts as "yeah, sure, why not" turning into a more and more destitute "yeah... sure... why not...." as you take another after another. The aura of each scene is just increasingly grimy and sweaty and sticky, both physically and spiritually, because it just keeps accumulating layers of filth. Each ill-advised choice making the next one worse. I don't think I've ever watched a piece of media that had the same visceral feel as the smell of dumpster juice in a New England summer, but the constant lingering abbrasiveness of the Yabba's prisoners gets real close. Especially the Doc's mosquito-in-the-ear irritation acting as a perpetual reminder to Grant of what he will devolve into if he doesn't escape the event horizon of the town.

An ugly film about the ugly side of the results of the societal structures that have been built and cultivated around the traditional mindsets of masculinity, patriarchy, and tribalism. Every single character is not without their own flaws, to wildly varying degrees. The townsfolk ostracize outsiders and treat them as a corrupting influence, and as a result feel a need to "reclaim" what they feel was taken from them. The men treat the women as an extension of their property and consciously and subconsciously control them as such. The married couple we're viewing the film through selfishly demand the other behave exactly as they wish and throw tantrums when they have their own autonomy. Bad actions are continuously done or overlooked by a need to maintain an in-group and distinct social order. The final standoff at the house is enigmatic of the violent reaction of masculine honor when it feels disrespected, where the mob is literally beating down the doors to enact the cruelty their ego requires dealt by virtue of their "property" being besmirched. Absolutely not an easy watch, but one that when you're not looking to root for a "good guy" and are just observing the results of a disfunctional couple breaking under the physical and psychological toll that the regressive pillars our society upholds beats them down.

Watched on Sunday March 30, 2025.

Watched on Sunday March 30, 2025.

Watched on Sunday March 9, 2025.

Watched on Saturday March 8, 2025.

Watched on Saturday March 8, 2025.

Watched on Saturday March 8, 2025.

Watched on Friday March 7, 2025.

Watched on Tuesday February 25, 2025.

Watched on Monday February 24, 2025.

Watched on Sunday February 23, 2025.

Watched on Sunday February 23, 2025.

Besides the sloppy ending dialogue, I can't specifically point to anything in particular and go "this was bad." However, my main issue with the movie was that it has a good cast and premise, and then does.... Nothing besides the surface level literal statement? Just a constant stream of seeming like it might expound on a statement it *kinda* makes, and then never doing anything with them. Debatably worse, I couldn't get the thought out of my mind of that "this is just Solaris for Reddit Nice Guys who look at Sophie Thatcher feet pics."

Watched on Friday February 14, 2025.

Watched on Saturday February 8, 2025.

Watched on Sunday January 5, 2025.

Even the non-joke of the unacknowledged FOR SALE sign that didn't get edited out in the background of a chase scene managed to be funny.

Another instance of people being extremists of everything needing to be the greatest of all time or absolute worst. This is a perfectly serviceable kaiju movie with a lot of camp that's mostly just bogged down by runtime and the title's legacy (which this has mostly been reclaimed through various retcons, but that's besides the point).

Definitely vibed more with the first 1/3 than the rest, as the borderline incomprehensible plot assuredly worked better in the original animated format than a feature film. Visually, a fairly interesting movie to look at between the odd tech, weird industrial architecture, whatever new strappy outfit they made for Charlize, and occasional (dated, positive) wild camera work. Larger scale action is definitely not Karyn's bag, and something felt like the editing room was really shaving off some bits that would've probably helped the flow to sneak in a PG-13 rating. What can't be blamed on the editors though is how there's just so much exposition in a movie that shined with the rapid-fire "look at this crazy future" showcase right at the beginning with the intelligence transactions. There was a point in the Aeon/Trevor "this is what is really happening" conversation about 2/3 through that the extremely dry exposition was seeming like they were starting to wrap up, I paused to refill my water, and realized there was still another 35 minutes left. It's really wild how the pacing was so tight and quick to begin with then just absolutely slogged its way to the final action set piece. An absolute product of its time in how much it felt like it desparately wanted to be simultaneously Bourne Identity and Matrix, yet failed on both counts.

Watched on Wednesday December 25, 2024.

Watched on Wednesday December 25, 2024.

Watched on Tuesday December 24, 2024.

Initially, I thought this was being goofy on purpose, like it was really leaning on the live-action-anime type beat. That benefit of the doubt was completely lost after the first ~1/3, then it became fairly incomprehensible. However, Lakeith being a weirdo the entire time frankly does a lot of heavy lifting in the entertainment department. Absolutely not as bad as the reputation, but not a lot going for it either besides a certainly unique visual style and apparently an Atticus Ross score??????

Watched on Saturday December 7, 2024.

It really is just one of those days.

Watched on Saturday November 23, 2024.

Watched on Saturday November 23, 2024.

I don't know why I gave this a 3.5 the first time, but I'm atoning for that mistake. Ridley, you're the king, always have been.

Watched on Tuesday November 19, 2024.

Watched on Saturday November 16, 2024.

Frankly, fell flat for me. Anora is almost completely undeveloped despite being the titular character, leaving me constantly flipping between reactions of "but why?" and "I guess?" throughout her entire ordeal, where it's never really given any foundation for why she was so quick to give up her seemingly alright life, why she was so intent on staying with Ivan, or why she was so resistant to acknowledging her family. Unless the entire gist of her motivation comes from an assumption that sex work is inherently bad, which I'd disagree with and is not argued in the text of the film itself, the only hardships she seems to be shown to have are a single hamfisted line about not having benefits at her job (same, bestie) and a single instance of her sister waking her up to ask if she got milk? Every single other main character, all men, got more characterization than her, and she just seems to be there to be the inciting incident of what's alluded to be continuous family drama. The comparisons I hear to Uncut Gems also don't land because there's never any tension built about what may of may not happen. Ivan being missing is played more like a joke of, "oh that rascal" slapstick than there being stakes to actually finding him. And again, it's barely been a couple weeks at this point, and despite her doing nothing with him but drinking and fucking, with some intermittent laying on the couch while he half-asses some Gears of War, I'm supposed to believe she's really in love? And if she wasn't in love, and just wanted the money, where was the actual desire for this shown? If her job made her confuse the money for love, potentially going back to the "sex work bad" angle, she was never shown to be using it as a replacement for affection? And she seemed to be friendly with her coworkers minus one and was at least on good enough with her sister to live with her, so she didn't seem to be completely starved for care in the glimpses we did get? idk, man

Watched on Wednesday November 13, 2024.

Watched on Monday November 11, 2024.

Visually, real cool. Concept, kinda neat. Had 2/3 of a story there, then had the ol' fell apart in the third act moment.

But god, I just can't do this style of horror. I can't consider it a fault of the movie, because it's clearly something audiences seem to like, but I physically cannot handle jumpscare horror. Genuinely think I dissociated for a solid 10 minutes, maybe more.

vibe

Impeccably crafted, but lacks any stakes and is overstuffed with Lorne ego-stroking. The Prometheus line in particular was painfully up its own ass. It's 30 Rock trying to be Oppenheimer.

There was almost a poignant bit here about the whole "whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster," thing. Then, Sarah gets about 90% of the way there, and it leaves it in the microwave beeping that it finished cooking as they leave the house to go have some liquid metal cg showcases. Everything else was pretty cool though, and I definitely haven't heard everything Dyson was fantasizing about from every techbro looking for vc donors to fund their next reinvention of the wheel that inevitably becomes another piece of the military industrial complex 😎👍

Watched on Sunday October 6, 2024.

I appreciated it more on this second watch after being more properly Cameron-pilled, but Alien singular is still my ride-or-die. Sorry, Jim.

I could've used a bit of trimming down on the grand conspiracy into making it more a "this is just how it is," because, well.... but damn, what a dominant amount of sauce from Aaron Pierre.

• 12 Angry Men
• 2001: A Space Odyssey
• Alien
• Apocalypse Now
• Blade Runner
• Braindead
• Clue
• Crazy Rich Asians
• Deep Cover
• The Elephant Man

...plus 60 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Nope
2. Everything Everywhere All at Once
3. Glass Onion
4. RRR
5. Avatar: The Way of Water
6. Cyberpunk: Edgerunners
7. Bullet Train
8. Men
9. The Batman
10. The Northman

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

1. Uncut Gems
2. Knives Out
3. Weathering with You
4. The Lighthouse
5. Little Women
6. 1917
7. Ford v Ferrari
8. Ad Astra
9. Promare
10. The Lonely Island Presents: The Unauthorized Bash Brothers Experience

...plus 10 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
2. Annihilation
3. BlacKkKlansman
4. Mission: Impossible – Fallout
5. Bumblebee
6. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
7. Upgrade
8. Halloween
9. Roma
10. Black Panther

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