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The lights came up after this UCSB Carsey-Wolf Center screening and there was a blåhaj two seats immediately to my right staring at me. I guess this is this film’s equivalent of the scene in End of Evangelion where people bring their Rei and Asuka plushies to the theatre.
The post-show Q&A was with Haley Dahl, one of the featured musicians. Dahl said this was all filmed in New Jersey and it really did feel like my 90s teen childhood! Only in my case instead of the Smashing Pumpkins it would have been the Ren & Stimpy soundtrack.
I have to apologize to Dahl and the other musical artists because the moment I saw the ice cream van all the dream pop was replaced in my head by The KLF. Tammy, stand by the jams!
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*the narrator says literally anything*
ME: “Getting a lot of Disco Elysium vibes from this.”
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ME: *watching The Umbrellas of Cherbourg* “I hope I see Guy’s testicles someday.”
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Zoned out during each line of dialogue but you know I love a good Satanic orgy!
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Rade Šerbedžija reacts like Lucille Bluth to each one of Val Kilmer’s lame disguises: “He got me again!” At the point you get duped by a six-foot-tall cleaning lady who hides her face that’s on you.
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The music made me want to replay Fez!
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The first half wore out its welcome and I didn’t like that this had the same music and ending as Manos: The Hand of Fate. But every time they showed the murals and whenever it got weird it really worked!
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Found this movie when I wondered what Samantha Robinson—The Love Witch herself—was up to. Still murdering people! It’s also great to see Nancy Loomis, who gives probably the strongest performance.
Too much of Hauntology is flat and tame, with basic “don’t do the thing you’re told not to do” horror plots—they all sound like Homer Simpson’s Halloween story: “So then his wife comes through the door... Did I mentions she was dead? Well, she was.”
But as basic as they are, all the stories and the frame tie together well—and contains an extremely clever final scene about the aftermath of all that horror movie blood.
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]]>Conducted January 2, 2023
YouGov surveyed 20063 US adultsVery confident
MALE: 20%
FEMALE: 7%Somewhat confident
MALE: 26%
FEMALE: 13%Not very confident
MALE 18%
FEMALE: 16%Not at all confident
MALE: 28%
FEMALE: 55%Not sure
MALE: 9%
FEMALE: 10%
While the elderly of the Riviera audience like me laughed at lines like “alive, but unconscious; just like Gerald Ford,” what were the young people laughing at? I found out while exiting.
GIRL: (to her father:) “I thought it was stupid, but then he started pulling eggs out of her mouth and I got it.”
GROUP OF YOUNG PEOPLE: “That was an actual bird; they had to have it in the egg and then it flew around.”
Between this movie and Mission: Impossible, a good weekend for close-up magic.
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Cruise makes repeated reference to a group of Inuit fishermen vital to the film’s backstory. One of the final shots of the movie is African tribesmen waving, welcoming him back to earth after his aerial stunts. One of the characters is a white guy who has “gone native.” He claims it’s the best thing that could have happened to him. If he had stayed in modern civilization, “I would have thought I was happy.”
The only “modern” civilians we see are AI-addicted fanatics—everyone else is a bureaucratic goon or heavily-armed soldier and they are all flirting with nuclear annihilation. There is a world worth saving but we are not part of it.
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5/19: Calling it a night with an hour to go. An intensely delirious film.
I am trying to find the post with a big grinning picture of Esai Morales saying something like, “The Domino’s Pizza Tracker, Ethan. It learns from your hunger—anticipates it. It knows your choice of toppings before you even open the app.”
If I was forced to choose an evil electronic Entity to take over the world, it might as well be Domino’s.
5/20: The rest of the film. Vanessa Kirby is a treasure!
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Watched on Sunday May 18, 2025.
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Champagne Truffles.
Note:—Truffles rooted up from the soil by hogs—A delicacy for pigs and gentlemen.
Fool! Adolphe Menjou toots as he pleases!
Some absolutely genius Chaplin touches like Jean giving Marie a cloth napkin with a huge hole in it—but she places her cup and saucer over the hole so she doesn’t notice. But the pair start as such bland types and their moves to Paris don’t contain any real self-discovery.
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In loving memory of Debra Hill
Never good, but the Pacific Northwest coastal vibes are pleasant early on. But you know how these things go—by the end it’s all bad CGI fire, bad CGI glass shards, and bad CGI fog. Fog should billow, not smear across the screen!
An old historian tells Maggie Grace: “Leprosy. The Chinese brought it over. Wiped out half the island.” Just like the 2019 Child’s Play, which changes Chucky’s origin to a vengeful Vietnamese factory worker, here is another horror remake blaming everything on the mysterious Orient!
Tom Welling is not very good but I guess the draw was him taking off his shirt several times in the first half? How did that sustain his Superman show? He couldn’t have taken his shirt off every episode, right?
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Full confession: I must have been dead asleep watching this on my couch a few months ago. One minute Charles Cyphers was on his way to work and the next Tom Atkins and Hal Holbrook were rolling around on the floor of the church. And I felt great! (Tonight I stayed awake and did not lie down across the seats of the Riviera, though.)
The Fog is a perfect movie to just drift around Antonio Bay, watching the light on the water and listening to Adrienne Barbeau’s voice. You may lose your car, your wealth, and your life to hook-wielding ghosts, but you’ll have a chill time doing so.
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Watched on Thursday May 15, 2025.
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The first hour Monday night and the rest tonight. Smart and funny! It’s too bad the most psychotic, reactionary forces win but at least we got to see them squirm.
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This movie has so much more to it than the decades of film and television that ripped this off led me to believe. I had no idea Camryn Manheim was even in this and she had the best performance!
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This guy sucks!
I hated watching Christo mock his wife for crying and being forced to listen to Eagles covers. The fence and its grinning, shaggy 70s construction workers were fine.
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Very fun with a crowd! Even with a loud guy who shouted out “consider this a divorce” before it happened.
Arnold Schwarzenegger and Ronny Cox are a couple and this movie is about conversion therapy, right?
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Early in my relationship with my last girlfriend*, she introduced me to The Mummy and Pacific Rim and I decided to show her Re-Animator for a movie night.
When Barbara Crampton began calling for Rufus, she touched my arm, “Do they do anything to the cat?” I paused the movie. How should I answer this one?
“Nothing bad happens to a real cat. But yeah, there’s puppet cat violence. It’s not realistic and it’s meant to be funny. We can absolutely stop the movie if you don’t want to see that.”
She said she would be fine and I restarted the film. Soon after Rufus’s corpse was discovered. My girlfriend winced, but at least the worst was over.
But this isn’t the kind of movie where a dead cat stays dead, so a few minutes later Rufus started howling and Dan Cain stumbled down the basement steps. As the undead cat attacked Herbert West and Dan picked up his baseball bat she spoke up, “I don’t like this.” I stopped the movie and told her it was fine and we could watch something else. I didn’t tell her the cat violence was just getting started.
Watching the new 40th Anniversary UHD tonight, I came to the same moment, saw Jeffrey Combs flail around with a plush toy on his back, and I lost it. Just uncontrollable laughter at two grown men terrified by a housecat. Re-Animator is such a treasure but maybe not one I should share so readily.
* Maybe you want to use context clues on my Letterboxd to see how many years it’s been since I have had any form of romantic connection but I will certainly not be doing that.
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At the Riviera with Paul Feig in person. He confessed that one disturbing scene in the movie was based on his preteen desires—he was awkward with girls and thought if he had a duplicate of himself he could practice making out.
The film makes the calculation that justifying Anna Kendrick’s presence in the movie is less important that touring Capri and giving Blake Lively increasingly spectacular outfits—correct choice! But it makes the film too weightless even as the cast and crew—Golding and Lively especially—are putting in solid work.
My family visited Capri last year and took my photo in front of a shop that is just called MIKE. (“That’s your name, dude!”) We briefly get to see it in the movie! The next time you visit Capri, be sure to visit MIKE.
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Watched on Sunday May 4, 2025.
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Careless and incompetent in every respect. Nobody with darker skin than Michael B. Jordan was properly lit, and Jordan himself was not properly composited or timed in the scenes where both twins share the frame. The vampire action was bad! Göransson’s bad taste score turns Buddy Guy into Eric Clapton on the Lethal Weapon soundtrack.
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Women gasped across the Arlington as Hayden Christensen appeared onscreen to introduce the film—he’s still a heartthrob! This was my first time hearing his natural accent; I never knew he was Canadian.
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Watched on Sunday April 27, 2025.
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A movie that is so good at close-ups of middle-aged men that I got up midway through to trim my nostril hair.
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Body Horror? We wrapped that up five decades ago. It’s Memoji Horror now.
Way too talky and the plot trips over itself several times with a nadir of Guy Pearce spouting racist conspiracy rants in the woods. But never not compelling! Kruger is a treasure in all three roles and it was wonderful to see Ingvar Sigurdsson again after a wonderful performance in Godland. Cronenberg basically buys a Cameo from him in Iceland and puts it in the movie. That’s how Robert Wuhl ended up in The People’s Joker!
Cassel calling his company “Grave Tech” made me want a reboot of Rick Moranis in Gravedale High. More Canadian excellence!
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Not too bad, just not ever rising from montage to movie. She Will basically stretches the ten minutes of The Howling of Chris Stone sneaking out of group therapy and into the woods into ninety minutes, except instead of werewolves it’s CGI mud and ash and the legal minimum level of promised witchcraft.
Until his last scene (inexplicably shot like The Shining’s bar scene) I was convinced Malcolm McDowell’s scenes were filmed Bowfinger-style; he’s either alone and looking over his shoulder or on talk shows. How are you going to remake some 1969 movie sexualizing a 13-year-old white girl called “Navajo Woman” in 2021 and not get mega-canceled? The title evokes one of my favorite movie posters on Letterboxd for Soldier Blue which I will probably never watch because my brain instinctively rejects the thought of Murphy Brown ever being young.
Anyway if you begin your movie with the Shudder logo and end it with a twee Echo and the Bunnymen cover, there isn’t much hope for what’s in between no matter how committed the performances of the two leads working from nothing. Sorry!
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Just look at how confident, determined, and joyful the interviewees are compared to their squirming foes Columbia President Minouche Shafik (resigned), Mayor Eric Adams (indicted), and President Joe Biden (no comment). Biden got the biggest scoff in the theatre saying something like, “Free expression is our most fundamental right—BUT” A free Palestine is necessary for our very souls.
The most chilling domestic moment was during the interview with an anonymous Columbia staff member whose boss, when deciding whether or not to consider a request from a student, snapped “Do I have to spell it out for you? What color was their skin?”
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Great representation for awful men with no redeeming qualities.
The horse trainer deserves accolades—many long takes of people mounting and riding horses in character.
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If you look like Naomi Watts in Tank Girl DM me. Nothing she does in Mulholland Drive is as hot as her holding her hand to her mouth to hide her smile or getting choked out by Lori Petty. God! I used to say I’m a Harley looking for my Ivy but maybe I’m a Tank Girl looking for my Jet Girl.
For years I had avoided both Star Trek: Generations and Tank Girl because of their lackluster trailers that just showed the hero fistfighting Malcolm McDowell on a catwalk. He gives a committed performance in both films!
A full-fledged Cole Porter musical number breaks out in Tank Girl! Only Spielberg can match that!
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Oscar Isaac could never.
DeMille knows his stuff! Even if every moment is on rails and biblically accurate, it all works. I liked Pilate’s reveal, pulling back to show the giant fascist Roman eagle statue behind him.
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Very stupid, but really good cast and direction. Cactus Jim’s framed-painting Indian battle and Pete’s flying car dream battle are inventive, as is the Bookhouse speakeasy and its dancers.
The entire plot is instigated by George Arthur’s Pete being jealous of a Spanish guy dating his childhood crush and following him around, certain he must be guilty of something. Finally something sticks and Pete turns him over to Federal Agent Joan Crawford. These days Pete wouldn’t even need proof!
Per Motion Picture News on September 4, 1926, The Boob was the week’s second-worst performing picture. (RIP last place The Jade Cup, a lost film not even on Letterboxd) I highly recommend the third-place performer Ella Cinders!
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First watch in ~27 years, probably from a free HBO weekend.
Every time Data is onscreen I want to die of embarrassment!
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Watched on Saturday April 19, 2025.
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Watched on Friday April 18, 2025.
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It’s all fun and games until we learn next month that William Donloe has been puking his guts out every day for the past 29 years.
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Gorgeous Haskell Wexler cinematography.
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Watched on Tuesday April 15, 2025.
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“Well, mama—now that I’m tea’d up—let’s neck.”
Megawatt performance by Colleen Moore, winning a jitterbug contest, romancing a mannequin, and transforming Winthrop’s silhouette into the Devil’s when she feels betrayed. The last half-hour loses a lot of energy as the lovers overcome contrivances, but we get a lot of good speeches from Moore. She basically gives the Peter Fonda “we wanna get loaded” speech to her father.
I loved the nightclub that’s basically the gay steel mill from The Simpsons!
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4/13: Adding a review the day after only to say that the music choices were excellent and have been in my head since last night. Lucky Star has never sounded so sinister.
As a Mask Guy who spent December 30 through March 14 sick with a bacterial infection (Haemophilus influenzae) that lingered in my throat, causing coughing fits, fever spikes, and general feel-baddery until a fourth round of antibiotics, I have no comment on the plot.
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Watched on Saturday April 12, 2025.
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ME: “Why do I love this movie so much when it’s clearly guilty of the sins that usually give me superhero fatigue?”
PRINCE: “SCANDALOUS!”
ME: “Yeah!”
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The subway/car chase felt awful (and perfect) on a big screen. The final shooting also drew gasps from the women behind me. I think Friedkin is good at this!
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Watched on Wednesday April 9, 2025.
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Watched on Tuesday April 8, 2025.
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Watched on Sunday April 6, 2025.
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Watched on Friday April 4, 2025.
]]>For years I have purchased record albums solely to display them in frames on my living room wall. Since Laserdiscs are the same dimension, I now have some of those as well. I feel bad that I will never actually watch these films, just look at them!
- 2010: The Year We Make
- Baby Boom
- Bound
- Kids in the Hall: Brain Candy
- Brainstorm
- Casablanca
- The Commitments
- The Conversation
- A Day at the Races
- Dune
...plus 24 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.
]]>It took some deep soul-searching to make a list this stupid and yet completely true. Not watched: VII
]]>As of this writing I have rated 51 films five stars. I created this list to keep track of the films I hope to someday see onscreen with an audience.
When I started this list I had 30-something films unseen onscreen and now it’s down to nine. If you know of any Southern California screenings let me know!
]]>- All Cock and No Bull!
Momo Yashima
- A Biltmore Christmas
Jonathan Frakes and Robert Picardo, directed by TNG guest star John Putch (this wasn’t too bad, just flimsy!)
- Bitter Vengeance
Tim Russ (I guess Bruce Greenwood and Virginia Madsen are Star Trek actors, too, but I haven’t seen them onboard.)
- The Book of Clarence
Babs Olusanmokun, Alfre Woodard, and Benedict Cumberbatch
- Disaster on the Coastliner
William Shatner
- First Cow
René Auberjonois
- The Jolly Monkey
Dominic Keating (with a manbun!)
- Keeping Company
Gillian Vigman (Dr. T’Ana gets the movie’s last word!)
- Marlowe
Colm Meaney
- Ninja Cheerleaders
George Takei
...plus 7 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.
]]>- Star Trek: The Motion Picture
- Star Trek: First
- Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
- Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
- Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
- Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
- Star Trek III: The Search for Spock
- Star Trek: Insurrection
- Star Trek: Generations
- Star Trek: Nemesis
...plus 4 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.
]]>The year movies revealed their true evil nature.
- Longlegs
Blair Underwood doesn’t want to go home until he gets a few drinks in him.
- Mars Express
“You were made for more than this,” I whisper to my parents’ Roomba.
- First Time Caller
How significant is it that the stranger outside the house is a woman?
- Late Night with the Devil
The most evil moments are the interstitials.
- Hundreds of Beavers
Man can only amass corpses. Beavers are able to ascend this world.
- Perfect Days
Should Hirayama get a pet?
- Red Rooms
*self-facing camera flash*
- Evil Does Not Exist
The two spokespeople are so sure they’ve found a compromise and everyone can be happy.
- The People's Joker
I don’t think I can watch Saturday Night Live or comedy in general after seeing The People’s Joker.
- Joker: Folie à Deux
Brendan Gleeson singing in the background.
I made a ranked list of horror movies last year to prove something to myself. Why am I doing it this year? Habit!
- Longlegs
- Late Night with the Devil
- In a Violent Nature
- The First Omen
- MaXXXine
- Blink Twice
- Alien: Romulus
- Immaculate
- When Evil Lurks
- Apartment 7A
...plus 3 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.
]]>Making this mood board list before I forget to do it.
I am looking for contemporary films (~1984–88) with 1) outgoing young 80s women and/or 2) distinctive 80s club scenes.
Do any of you have examples that aren’t just white girls?
- Spaceballs
- Dune
- Modern Girls
- Electric Dreams
- After Hours
- Assault of the Killer Bimbos
- Streets of Fire
- Absolute Beginners
- Earth Girls Are Easy
- Sticky Fingers
...plus 16 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.
]]>On August 30 I went to Amoeba Records in Hollywood and gave up some of the blu-rays taking up space in my apartment. Together with the CDs I got $83 in precious cash!
CDs:
Caleb Landry Jones — The Mother Stone
The Best of Cheryl Lynn
Curtis Mayfield — Super Fly
Das Efx — The Very Best Of
Del tha Funkee Homosapien — I Wish My Brother George Was Here
Haircut One Hundred — Pelican West
Jenny Hval — Blood Bitch
Marching Church — Telling it Like it is
Rogers Dameron— The Marauder (the Amoeba employee spent a long time looking this one up on Discogs)
Square Pusher — Music Is Rotted One Note
Soundtracks/Compilations:
Divinity
The Harder They Come
Heavy Metal
The Island Story
After seeing Amélie through gritted teeth, I’m trying to get my head around what turns a movie into a Bad Time for me. Why hate Amélie when The French Dispatch was even more formally aggressive? Why loathe Sunshine when I’ve tolerated Alex Garland’s brainless sci-fi provocation elsewhere? Why condemn the mass death of modern Star Wars and Star Trek when I’ve watched Alderaan explode countless times?
You got me! Below are the Bad Time films in reverse-viewing order with a note of their most queasy moment for me.
Needless to say, these films are all undisputed classics—you can always count on a Mike Mariano Incorrect Movie Opinion!
- Amélie
opening credits and every extreme close-up
- Stop Making Sense
huge grins on the backup singers’ faces being met by Byrne’s contempt
- Knives Out
Fran dying offscreen and the old people in the theatre chuckling
- Local Hero
they cook the rabbit
- Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Laura Dern commits suicide
- I Am Not Your Negro
the audience applauds for Obama
- Arrival
Russians blow things up because they are Russians
- You're Next
Barbara Crampton is pitilessly murdered
- Star Trek
cheap greenscreen version of Vulcan is destroyed
- Sunshine
Freddy Krueger attacks
I am creating this list as a cry for help. Not only do I obsessively buy movies on disc sight unseen, but once they arrive I put them on the shelf and never look at them again. This is a list of every film I own still sealed in plastic.
I have already seen a good number of these movies streaming or in theatre—that’s not a defense! Why did I buy the disc?
This also narrowly avoids films I bought and opened but never watched. The Long Goodbye Kino Lorber 4K, the Vinegar Syndrome Miami Connection box... I deserve nothing!
- The Bat Woman
Shout Factory Mystery Science Theater 3000 Gizmoplex Collector’s Edition Season 13 Blu-Ray
- Beyond Atlantis
Shout Factory Mystery Science Theater 3000 Gizmoplex Collector’s Edition Season 13 Blu-Ray
- The Bubble
Shout Factory Mystery Science Theater 3000 Gizmoplex Collector’s Edition Season 13 Blu-Ray
- Buster Keaton Rides Again
Canadian International Pictures Blu-Ray
- The Christmas Dragon
Shout Factory Mystery Science Theater 3000 Gizmoplex Collector’s Edition Season 13 Blu-Ray
- Cluny Brown
Criterion Blu-Ray Edition
- Criminally Insane
Vinegar Syndrome Blu-Ray
- Dead Girls
Vinegar Syndrome Blu-Ray
- Demon Squad
Shout Factory Mystery Science Theater 3000 Gizmoplex Collector’s Edition Season 13 Blu-Ray
- Doctor Mordrid
Shout Factory Mystery Science Theater 3000 Gizmoplex Collector’s Edition Season 13 Blu-Ray
...plus 26 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.
]]>- An American Werewolf in Paris
This is what we tell ourselves 1997 sounded like.
- The Associate
I have no idea what this movie is about and I can't tell from the soundtrack, either.
- Baadasssss!
I listen to the Roy Ayers track a LOT.
- Beverly Hills Cop
I’ve only seen bits of the movie but never the whole thing. I love Patti LaBelle!
- Beverly Hills Ninja
The soundtrack highlight is Tsugihagi Boogie Woogie.
The dialogue samples on this CD make the film seem dire.
- Boomerang
Boyz II Men - End of the Road
- Chariots of Fire
I bought the CD in September 2021 but didn’t listen until May 19, 2022. RIP Vangelis.
- First Love, Last Rites
This has a wild, only-in-the-nineties lineup of guest artists like Jeff Buckley and Nina Persson ing Shudder To Think on the soundtrack. I haven’t listened yet; I wonder if it’s any good?
- Flashdance
Besides He's A Dream and Maniac this soundtrack is surprisingly limp.
- Girls Town
Great selection of 90s female hip-hop and alternative. Apparently the film has Lily Taylor and Guillermo Díaz? Maybe I should see this one...
...plus 31 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.
]]>Another year of wanting to like horror movies more than I did!
Expected to like but didn’t:
Enys Men
Evil Dead Rise
Suitable Flesh
Thanksgiving
Exorcist: Believer
Surprised to like:
Infinity Pool
About what I expected:
The Boogeyman
Talk to Me
The Pope’s Exorcist
Scream VI
- Mission: Impossible
Sweat sweat!
- Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning
Crash crash!
- Mission: Impossible – Fallout
Tick tick!
- Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation
Vroom vroom!
- Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol
Punch punch!
- Mission: Impossible II
Bang bang!
- Mission: Impossible III
Phoooooom!
The year movies were saved—but at what cost?
- A Man
A very sharp study of how to unmake and remake yourself.
- May December
Wins the 2023 Decision to Leave award for characters that are the most fun to think about.
- The Crime Is Mine
Fizzy!
- The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial
The sad, sad truth; the dirty Lowdown.
- The Settlers
Pretend you didn’t see years of massacres and smile for the camera.
- Final Cut
A copy is never as sharp as the original but it’s nice to have a copy.
- Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning
Henry Czerny!
- Killers of the Flower Moon
Still thinking about Ty Mitchell in this film.
- Poor Things
Still thinking about the woman in my screening who gasped at Margaret Qualley’s first appearance.
- Infinity Pool
I wish this wasn’t our world.
I took a neglected bag of VHS tapes from my grandmother’s house, thinking it would contain precious memories that I could convert to a video file. There was one worn tape containing her mother’s (100th?) birthday, but the rest were taped from television.
In addition to the TV movies below, there was also a special September 5, 2001 episode of the Today show in which Katie Couric and Matt Lauer hosted a wedding.
I didn’t digitize these tapes. Do I owe it to history to do so?
- Black Widow Murders: The Blanche Taylor Moore Story
According to Wikipedia this was May 3, 1993.
Twin Peaks cast: Grace Zabriskie and Phoebe Augustine
- Woman on Trial: The Lawrencia Bembenek Story
Part Two only? According to Wikipedia this was May 17, 1993.
Twin Peaks cast: Kenneth Welsh.
- The Beatles Anthology
Part One only. According to Wikipedia this was November 19, 1995.
- In The Footsteps of Alexander the Great
Part One only. According to Wikipedia this was May 4, 1998.
- Too Rich: The Secret Life of Doris Duke
Parts One and Two only? According to Wikipedia this was February 21, 1999.
- Alice in Wonderland
According to Google this was February 28, 1999.
I buy too many Blu-Ray discs! Here are the ones I got rid of this weekend, all but one of which I purchased new from the distributor. Some of them I never even opened!
I sold these discs to Amoeba Records on Saturday and took $115 in cash instead of $150 in store credit. I’m rich!
- All-American Murder
Vinegar Syndrome Blu-Ray
- The Bermuda Triangle
Unopened; Vinegar Syndrome Blu-Ray as part of the Cardona Collection
- Burning Paradise
Unopened; Vinegar Syndrome Blu-Ray
- The Cellar
Vinegar Syndrome Blu-Ray
- Cloak & Dagger
Unopened; Vinegar Syndrome UHD/Blu-Ray
- Cyclone
Unopened; Vinegar Syndrome Blu-Ray as part of the Cardona Collection
- Judgment Night
Widescreen DVD, used
- Last Gasp
Vinegar Syndrome Blu-Ray
- Married to the Mob
Kino Lorber Blu-Ray
- Mastermind
Kino Lorber Blu-Ray
...plus 9 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.
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]]>The year movies got to be movies again.
Superheroes and prestige television haven’t gone away, but this past year is the first in a long time that has felt like movies as movies got to reach for something only they can. To answer questions we don’t know how to ask. Movies only work when they let us inside of someone else’s head!
2021/2022 Listless Limbo: Drive My Car, Nightmare Alley
- Decision to Leave
Just a lovely world to inhabit.
Decision to Leave firmly and seamlessly absorbs cell phones and texting into film language. Will that ultimately be good or bad for cinema?
- RRR
A true crowd-pleaser and one of the sturdiest recent films. You can’t go wrong with Evil Brits.
- Emily the Criminal
I think this is tenser than Tár with a very similar ending. Why would Emily stay in this life? As Gina Gershon shows us, there’s no trust and no money anywhere else.
- The Absent Director
A wonderful stunt, like all cinema should be.
- Official Competition
The shallowest depths are still depths.
- TÁR
“I used to think my life was a tragedy. But now I realize: it’s a comedy.”
- BARDO, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths
Alejandro González Iñárritu has given his self-inserts grand deaths—will he be prepared for a real death with no spectacle?
- The Batman
Such an unnecessary film with many flat moments, but when it needed to dazzle it was pitch-perfect.
- Crimes of the Future
The “Bye Bye All Of Evangelion” for my generation.
- X
I saw X in the perfect setting (West Coast premiere at The New Beverly) and had a great time.
I have now re-watched every movie I have personally rated five-stars since I began using Letterboxd nine years ago. But what about the four-star films?
Currently there are 28 films I have not yet logged on this site ,yet at some point in the past I considered them near-classics. Could it really have been so long since watching some of these Kubrick and Wilder films? And PCU! Surely that film holds up! Anyway this list will remind me what to rewatch.
- Bad Seed
- Best in Show
- Blazing Saddles
- Charade
- A Clockwork Orange
- Death to Smoochy
- A Fish Called Wanda
- Fitzcarraldo
- Ghostbusters
- Groundhog Day
...plus 15 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.
]]>I don’t agree with this at all! But that’s how I rated them.
- Halloween Ends
Not a very good Halloween movie or a very scary horror movie but an *interesting* one.
- Halloween
I love the beginning and end of this movie but can’t stand Bob!
- Halloween Kills
Lowers the stakes so much it becomes a hangout movie. And that kind of works for the series?
- Halloween H20: 20 Years Later
The opening is terrific and shows how to adapt Halloween for the post-Scream world. The rest of the film fails to do that.
- Halloween II
It looks great and builds out the slasher vocabulary of the first film, but it struggles to remain interesting.
- Halloween
This is a Halloween movie that needs to mean something but I don’t think it does?
- Halloween II
I love the opening and Danielle Harris’s performance. But I feel like the film’s interest and mine don’t overlap at all.
- Halloween: Resurrection
Not as bad as I thought it might be but still not worthy of existence.
- Halloween
I think it’s gross!
Leonardo DiCaprio has given us so much, but mostly we’ll the memes.
- Inception
Squinting Leo and Strutting Leo have faded slightly with age but only from massive heights in which they were two entire categories of memes. When they show up now they are still effective.
- Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood
Pointing Leo is so potent that we forget Dancing Leo, Listening to Music in the Pool Leo, and Crying with Gun Alongside Head Leo also make steady appearances.
- The Great Gatsby
More people have seen The Champagne Toast than will ever read the novel—and the novel’s required reading!
- Django Unchained
The crash zooms, the Monster energy lolling tongue laugh: endlessly entertaining.
- The Wolf of Wall Street
Solid effort even if in the wild it’s mostly just different gifs of the same scene of DiCaprio on a yacht. Hill and McConaughey get just as big a portion of the meme energy.
- Titanic
Surprisingly light, even if Spinning Leo and Submerged Corpse Leo still make appearances. Even “I’m king of the world!” is seen more often with James Cameron than with DiCaprio.
- The Aviator
Naked Leo Watching Movies showed up well after The Aviator’s release but it’s a solid choice.
- The Beach
Every once in a while you’ll see Young Leo from this movie.
- Shutter Island
“We’re duly-appointed federal marshals,” had a brief moment.
- Catch Me If You Can
A flutter of Leo With Stewardesses, once in a while.
...plus 11 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.
]]>Usually I only see enough current releases to list a Top Five, but this year I’ve rated double that amount above three stars! Listing this in early December might be dangerous but I don’t know what else I’ll be able to see this year.
- Parallel Mothers
Family from death to birth.
- Mass
Actors trusting actors.
- Pig
Sincere.
- The Card Counter
The one American still able to feel guilt.
- Last Night in Soho
The Coke can.
- The Cinderella Addiction
Why pay a price in your fairy tale when others can pay it for you?
- The Lost Leonardo
Greed makes truth meaningless.
- No Time to Die
COVID origins
- The Guilty
Natural disasters, police brutality, and obvious COVID-era filming. Truly captures our current zeitgeist.
- Nobody
Still not sure why the Russian director’s fantasy is just an endless supply of anonymous Russian corpses.
Not watched: Uhhh, the one before Skyfall.
- Skyfall
I like that he’s bad at his job.
- No Time to Die
I like that he gets really angry and spins his car around in a circle.
- Spectre
I like how he drove a car real fast and then crashed.
- Casino Royale
I will never respect Texas Hold-Em.
In May 2021 I broke down and actually paid money for a streaming service. 30 films* in 23 days, all unimpeachable classics and I only hated 60% of them!
*The films I watched are loosely ranked, while the remaining 17 were added to my queue after the start of the challenge and I tapped out before watching them.
- M*A*S*H
- Ivan the Terrible, Part II: The Boyars' Plot
- WR: Mysteries of the Organism
- Hellraiser
- The Last Detail
- Kuroneko
- Paris, Texas
- Sullivan's Travels
- A Man There Was
- Pinkus's Shoe Palace
...plus 37 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.
]]>2020: The year movies died.
- Family Romance, LLC
The hug. The child happily banging on the glass door. These two shots have stayed with me all year.
- Color Out of Space
Definitely the film that speaks the most to my own viral transformations this year.
- VHYes
This descent into channel-flipping catatonia might be completely incomprehensible for anyone under 35 but guess what? It’s my middle-age and I get to pick the movie!
- Planet of the Humans
Apparently there is a huge, ongoing backlash to this film but this really is the right way to frame the environmental movement. We don’t have a bright, shiny future ready to overtake fossil fuels, we have decades of broken green energy promises.
- Bill & Ted Face the Music
A warm feather touch.
There are many Oscar-nominated films I never even knew existed! Following are nominees for the big awards (Best Picture, Director, and Lead/ing Actors/Actresses) during my lifetime that I don’t recall ever even hearing the name.
This list is solely to display my own ignorance and should not reflect on any of these films. Many of these are real movies and not just Oscar bait!
- The Great Santini
1980 Best ing Actor Nominee: Michael O’Keefe (no idea who this is)
- Inside Moves
1980 Best ing Actress Nominee: Diana Scarwid
- Resurrection
1980 Best Actress Nominee: Ellen Burstyn
1980 Best ing Actress Nominee: Eva Le Gallienne (never heard this name before) - Tribute
1980 Best Actor Nominee: Jack Lemmon
- Only When I Laugh
Wait how many Marsha Mason movies were there in the early 80s?
1981 Best ing Actor Nominee: James Coco
1981 Best ing Actress Nominee: Joan Hackett - s
1982 Best ing Actress Nominee: Kim Stanley
- Missing
1982 Best Picture Nominee
1982 Best Actor Nominee: Jack Lemmon - Cross Creek
1983 Best ing Actor Nominee: Rip Torn
1983 Best ing Actress Nominee: Alfre Woodard - The Dresser
1983 Best Picture Nominee
1983 Best Director Nominee: Peter Yates - Educating Rita
1983 Best Actor Nominee: Michael Caine
1983 Best Actress Nominee: Julie Walters
...plus 40 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.
]]>- The Lords of Salem
- Real Life
- The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension
- Kirikou and the Sorceress
- Trouble in Paradise
- The Shining
- Psycho II
- Unforgiven
- Animal House
- Burke & Hare
...plus 20 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.
]]>Over the years I have ripped and ed enough movies to my big hard drive (creatively named BigDrive) to have many films I have never seen.
So, a challenge: before the end of the year, I will watch these 47 films. Maybe I’ll even like them. I must have ripped them for some reason!
- Absolute Beginners
- Across the Bridge
- Animal Kingdom
- The Captain's Paradise
- Circus Kid
- Clockwatchers
- Cowards Bend the Knee
- D.O.A.
- Dave Chappelle's Block Party
- Eddie and the Cruisers
...plus 36 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.
]]>The 2019 version of this Onion headline.
- Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood
Late 60s Columbia logo.
- Joker
Ugly Saul Bass WB logo: very appropriate.
- Doctor Sleep
Ideally this would have the Saul Bass 70s WB logo just like The Shining did, but Doctor Sleep instead splits the difference and uses the mid-80s/90s logo, which, uh, no part of this movie takes place in.
- Gretel & Hansel
Orion Pictures?
2019: A more conventional list than ever before!
- Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood
Expert storytelling.
- Parasite
How can you throw a party on that lawn the day after a major storm without all the furniture sinking into the ground? The rich really do live better.
- One Cut of the Dead
So sweet and charming!
- Midsommar
I probably wouldn’t like this at all if it wasn’t such a funny movie. It badly mishandles its horror and trauma elements, but as setups in between gags Midsommar does a great job!
- The Man Who Killed Don Quixote
It felt good being in Spain with Jonathan Pryce.
“Berthold Wolpe’s Albertus typeface played a recurring role for credits in a variety of John Carpenter’s films.“ — Rumsey Taylor, Fonts In Use
]]>2018: A year of films as sick jokes.
- The Clovehitch Killer
So uncomfortable! I re-watch The Silence of the Lambs a lot and I could watch a whole movie about Clarice interviewing people in small towns and how they go on after their losses. This is probably as close as I will get to that movie.
- First Reformed
First Reformed becomes its most uncomfortable when Ethan Hawke throws a canned environmental statistic into his conversations. The discussion dies and all others stop listening to him. Environmental facts are truths, and truths fall dead to the ground. If Hawke doesn’t have his words, he only has his actions, and those actions fall prey to the screenplay’s ruthless economy.
- Mandy
This movie turned me into a Nicolas Cage true believer. There is never any doubt that he is in perfect control of his craft.
- We Have Always Lived in the Castle
The movie itself might fall over if you look at it sideways, but Daddario’s performance is amazing.
- The Other Side of the Wind
I enjoyed the ride.
Movies in which Matt Damon shows up unexpectedly and people in the theatre ask, “Is that Matt Damon?”
]]>As usual, here are the five new releases this year that I've thought the most about. Now with lower star ratings than ever!
- Colossal
Vigalondo's Timecrimes and Open Windows spent too much with masked men with knives menacing women, so I had low expectations for Colossal. But his direction really impressed me. Sudeikis gives a standout performance, one of the most well-drawn film characters I've seen.
- Get Out
There is so much movie here!
- Elle
In the words of Matthew Christman: "How pissed off was Michael Haneke when Paul Verhoeven rolled up and effortlessly made a way better version of the one movie he makes?"
- Raw
Mostly just spectacle—but what spectacle!
- The Void
Really disliked this movie overall, but the work put into the creature effects created some really haunting images.
Three releases that were technically 2015? Only two films getting more than three stars? 2016, baby!
These are the five films that I've spent the most time thinking about this year; all of them are definitely worth a revisit—or a first watch if you can trust the author of Letterboxd's first (maybe only?) one-star review for Arrival!
- The Invitation
There was always only one way this movie was going to end.
For some reason, the threat of violence hanging over this movie worked for me, but the same spell didn't take in Green Room.
-
So many tonal red flags, and Egoyan isn't very subtle, but the cast more than elevates the material.
- The Handmaiden
This remake of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is funnier than the original.
The Japanese occupation of Korea left deep psychic wounds in the people of both countries. This film does a good job offering examples why—it's a dense film filled with many meaningful choices. Not all of them are obvious (Why show a tasteful sex scene focused on the characters, then show it again in a prurient style?), but they are all deliberate.
- The Love Witch
This film is completely what it wants to be.
- The Witch
"Oh, why show the witch? Why not cast greater judgment on Puritan society?" Would that really improve the film? I really ire how this movie held its ground and followed its vision all the way.
- One False Move
- Night Shift
- Greenberg
- The Devil's Rejects
- The Second Arrival
- Two Moon Junction
- The Sender
- Running Scared
- Singapore Sling
- Hard Eight
...plus 29 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.
]]>I only saw the Mystery Science Theatre 3000 version.
- Boggy Creek II: And the Legend Continues
- Gorgo
- Monster a Go-Go!
- Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie
- The Giant Spider Invasion
- Quest of the Delta Knights
- Jack the Giant Killer
- Battlefield Earth
- Dr. Who and the Daleks
- Sharknado 2: The Second One
...plus 2 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.
]]>Look, I don't see enough films and definitely don't see enough important films, but these are the 2015 theatrical releases that I have enjoyed and thought about the most.
- The Wanted 18
The stop-motion animation, cel animation, interviews, and live recreations combine to create one of the most unique films I've ever seen.
- Where to Invade Next
Great scenarios and great structure. And it's got great John-and-Yoko spirit—everything in the film is possible if we want it.
- Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter
I keep thinking if I figure out the beginning of the film, I'll figure out the ending.
- Chi-Raq
I laughed throughout and was delighted by the cast and their antics.
- Results
I have had Split Enz stuck in my head all year because of this film.
Devin Faraci: Is Dark Water going to have a scene with you standing on a pier? Is this going to be your fourth film with that?
Connelly: [laughs] No it won’t! It’s funny, I said to Vadim [Perelman, director of House of Sand and Fog] “Wait, how many times have I done this now?”
]]>