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Knocked another off my Most Popular Film on Letterboxd by Year that I Have Not Seen list (replaced by Twilight) and honestly wasn't as bad as I thought. I got a little uncanny valley with the music at times where it was half piped in and half live singing but the energy of the dancing and the performances mostly sweep that away. Except when Bronson sings. That man is straining so much I could see every single vein in his neck about to bulge out and burst.

My big takeaway is that I'd want to spend my whole time with this version of Christine Baranski. Man she was having so much fun and brought the exact right energy to this wacky movie. It seemed like the cast in general was pretty bought into this fun and wacky vibe too which kept this thing on track. I do not think it works at all in the slower serious parts. Might be a little to do with me having no connection to those songs but it also just killed the vibe and I didn't like those scenes at all.

Not sure the story really did much for me, this is definitely a vibes and ABBA love fest more than anything and that carries the film quite far.

Criterion Challenge 2025 - 19/52: 1950s

I found this quite enjoyable as a tourism movie highlighting Venice. It looked gorgeous and I definitely want to travel there someday.

I was less charmed by the love story. Hepburn's Jane Hudson is so very repressed that I found myself getting angry at her more than I was rooting for her. I ended up feeling bad for her at the plaza when he came up but assumed the seat was taken but damn sis, try to help yourself out a bit. My favorite part was the cut to the fireworks show as Jane and Renato consummate their affair. Hays Code times were rough.

Jess said she thought it was weird that after she found out he was married she just continued on and took him at his word, didn't do much fact checking. I'm inclined to agree given her severely repressed nature.

Lovely looking film that just didnt do much more for me through it's story. David Lean has certainly done MUCH better work both in this genre and out of it. Was hoping a Lean and Hepburn collab would be a home run but this is just a good solid single.

Criterion Spine #22

Criterion Challenge 2025 - 18/25: Wim Wenders' Adventures in Moviegoing

I haven't figured out much to say about this one besides it didnt stir a single feeling inside me.

Hans is a disappointing man on a multitude of levels then he kills himself. Life sucks then you 7 out. Peace.

Criterion Spine #758

For being so topical this just feels completely inessential. An all in one location movie where I'm pretty sure every other implied location would have been more interesting than this one.

The 4 characters are very nearly less than one note. Carell is the old head who's dying and needs the technology acceleration to happen faster no matter the cost. Schwartzman is the one who didn't make it and has inadequacy issues. Ramy is the virtue signaling "good guy" billionaire. And Smith is...just the richest guy there. I couldn't possibly care about any of these men. I only slightly cared about the decisions they had to make. Mountainhead is propped up on 4 cardboard cutouts.

The only thing I think worked is showing just how fucked the rest of us (non billionaires) are. I don't think it's too far off with some of the discussions these men had about staging a coup. The deceleration talk was interesting to me as well.

Moutainhead is what you get when Bill Belichick loses Tom Brady. For all those years of success there was conversation about who had more influence, Bill or Tom. Jesse Armstrong's Mountainhead let's us know that much like the Patriots, he didn't have as much influence as we all thought.

2025 Ranked

Criterion Challenge 2025 - 17/52: William Friedkin's Closet Picks

This movie starts with Daniel Webster writing one of his patented rousing speeches with a literal shadow behind him taunting away. I thought to myself, oh boy this is going to be awesome. Not too long later our protagonist Jabez (need to do a deep dive on that name) is visited by Mr. Scratch in another feat of 1940s special effects that was both creepy and awe inducing.

Unfortunately that about where the praise for this film ends. It doesn't go to any deep places with regards to morality. In fact it seems to say that if you can hire a good enough lawyer then you can get away with whatever you want. Wonder if OJ was a fan of this film? The female characters, if you can call them that, are terrible. His wife Mary simply exists to be bedridden and felt sorry for. The bombshell nanny exists to be hot and alluring. There could've been a Macbeth thing with the nanny but I didn't really pick up on that if it was there.

I see why this has a place in the Criterion Collection but it doesn't hold up upon inspecting 80+ years later. There's some cool camera work and special effects but that's about it. I'll give a bonus point to Walter Huston for playing an effectively scary devil.

Criterion Spine #214

Criterion Challenge 2025 - 16/52: 1960s

I always figured this was in the "dude" movie hall of fame. And in some ways it is. These two very cool dudes ride their choppers across America doing drug deal (singular), picking up hitchhikers, and picking up chicks. There's a dad rock anthem hall of fame on the soundtrack which pops up every 5 minutes or so just in case you got as bored with the current location as these 2 men did. I loved every bit of that stuff because I'm a dumb dude who likes dude shit.

That stuff isn't what makes this a great movie though. It's the peaks into the fringes of society that we get at each and every stop. We start with men we can't understand (not you Spanish speakers) doing a cocaine deal. We meet a hippy and travel to his commune. We meet a former college football player (a sublime Jack Nicholson) and just travel the road with him for a bit. This leads us into deep south Louisiana. I thought this was the scene of the movie. In the restaurant are some (too) young girls who are immediately infatuated with our trio. "I'm gonna ask him for a ride." The rest of the bar is filled with old hillbilly men who aren't spouting the expected racist drivel, but instead are railing against Hopper and his "long" hair. Horrible assumption after horrible assumption is made about Hopper and his whole crew before eventually they skidaddle...but not before the girls chase after them and get to flirt a little, to all the old hillbilly's dismay. Of course the hillbillies get the last laugh though, this isn't a fairy tale.

And if you weren't convinced it's not a fairy tale we get the ending. It starts with an LSD trip, complete with Hopper going crazy with his camera and the edit to make us really feel it with them. It ends with an encounter on the road that isn't pleasant this time, as it has been every other time on this trip. Did they blow it or was it taken from them? A little of this and a little of that.

I really dug this movie and have been thinking about it all day since I watched this morning. So glad Criterion finally put it on the channel and made it available to stream.

Criterion Spine #545

War is a genre I don't typically like. We're often thrown in with these faceless characters who we have to watch go through hell for 2+ hours and at its best we feel horrified but most of the time it's just boring. Warfare has a bit of that. We don't know these people. Looks like 2 of them might have been a couple, but that goes unsaid aside from some lingering glances and subdued reaction to the porn they were all watching at the beginning. Ray Mendoza and Alex Garland rely on actor recognition for all of the emotional connection to characters. Sure I care about Will Poulter and Joseph Quinn and Charles Melton but would I have as much if I didnt already recognize those faces? Probably not.

All the technical aspects of the film are pristine. We're inside this war zone with the kids the whole time. The sounds are the best part precisely because they are all so harrowing. The injuries and reactions to things are authentic. I felt inside the movie the entire time and that's due to the excellent filmmaking.

When I step back and think about everything though it leaves me a little cold. Did I learn anything about these kids? Should we be caring more about the larger picture of everything that happened here? I understand the anger being thrown at this film and I halfway agree. I also don't think that means that these men shouldn't be allowed to tell their story in whatever way they want to. I wish I had a stronger conviction on this but I simply don't. I had a good time watching this movie and found it to be very effective at what it set out to do but I'm not sure that feeling sits right with me when I look in the mirror. Either way these filmmakers made a piece of art thats worth talking about and thats not nothing.

2025 Ranked

I love Jackie Chan's style of Kung Fu so much. As much choreographed dance as it is a fight and laced with comedy throughout. If you've ever enjoyed a Chan feature, either directorial or acting, then you'll enjoy this film as well. Hopefully you can find a version in the original language instead of the crappy English dub I rented from Amazon.

I didn't know Jackie was a bit of a cinephile himself. I loved the homage to Safety Last! that we get here in a way that only Jackie could do...by almost breaking his own neck in service of the stunt. It shouldn't be a surprise to me that Jackie is a fan of silent cinema considering his gifts are very much in that same vein. I probably should've picked up on the Chaplin/Keaton/Lloyd influence well before now but better late than never!

The movie does lose some of its luster the further it goes. I didn't really care about the story so all the twists and turns were lost on me. The plot itself is basically a skeleton script rife with clichés that does just enough to get us from set piece to set piece. The set pieces do deliver though so I can't be too upset about the rest of it.

I'd love to see more of these early Jackie Chan movies but would definitely want to seek out a version in its original language. Dubbing, even with Jackie himself doing his own voice work, just robs the scenes of their emotion and creates a disconnect with the audience. This is no Police Story but its still a very fun movie.

Even with the early twist being given away through the marketing I thought the early part of the film worked pretty well with being able to pick out phrases Quaid would say that were obviously voice commands.

I like this cast a lot. Thatcher got a lot of praise here and it's deserved but Quaid brings a lot to this too and I'll always welcome Harvey Guillén in anything.

I just don't think this movie has any ideas which would be fine if it didnt think it had any ideas. We've seen all of this robot stuff in many many things before that have all come out recently. Men are awful is basically the main theme of all indie movies lately. I do credit them with having a few other twists up their sleeve since the main one was given away by the trailers. That at least made for a semi more engaging viewing experience but after that dopamine hit wore off I found myself getting bored again.

Fine as popcorn and turn your brain down to 40% fare which is sometimes exactly what I need but today felt a little light for what I was hoping for.

2025 Ranked

I was lower on Dead Reckoning than most so it's not surprising that I land on the same side as the people who find this lackluster. It's like they expected the audience to not have seen Dead Reckoning so they spent 1 hr+ getting us to the submarine that we all knew he had to go to anyway. I won't say everything in that section was bad but it definitely could've been shortened down to 30-40 mins of perfection.

The submarine scene is epic. Those Dutch angle shots with the water as the sub rolls down the underwater hill is movie making magic. Doing the whole scene sans dialogue was inspired as well (besides one ill advised line about a torpedo shaft). There's also the airplane chase which is at best iterating on things we've seen before but is still pretty exhilarating. I did cringe at the Final Destination ass kill that happens there though.

My biggest gripe about the movie is the script which is a mess. Some of the lines are tuned the corn up to max level. I wish I could the worst offender but I really hated it. There's also way too much reference happening here, and not just to other MI films! This movie felt like almost a retrospective on Cruise's career. Maybe he really is saying goodbye to action films so he can focus on getting that Oscar.

Final Reckoning isn't good enough to justify it's excessive runtime but it is good enough to stand in this series of films and has at least one set piece that will knock your socks off.

2025 Ranked

After binging all 6 of these in under a week I'm impressed with how consistent they all are (not you 4). They don't ever really tip over into the good range but they also stay away from the dreck that most horror franchises eventually (or always were) become. Just rock solid 3 star experience time in and time out.

I like the new aspect of how if one person managed to stay alive for a long time, that would implicitly protect everyone else after that person on the chain. I had never really thought about that before and neither had the movies apparently until now. I also liked them explaining exactly how death marched through the bloodlines because of how that set up the tension, and also the surprises, of what's to come.

This didn't tie into the previous films nearly as much as I thought it would but I clocked a few of the drawings in the book and I bet if I pause on the big bloodline wall then I'd find a few familiar names on there.

Glad I did that little project on my first week of summer break. I had fun with it and will be happy to see the next installment in theaters as well.

2025 Ranked

Back on track after the disaster that was THE Final Destination. Got a decent enough cast together for this one headed by Nicolas D'Agosto and including Ellen Wroe who just turned in the Best TV villain performance of the year on The Pitt.

Kills were fine in this one. Nothing stood out as especially cool though. Maybe the wrench shooting through David Koechner's eyes and skull. I liked the gymnast death but I honestly do not think thats how the human body works at all. I was able to give myself over to most of the other ridiculous deaths but that one bothered me for some reason. Loved the tensions building with the screw on the balance beam though.

It's honestly hard to mess one of these up which is what makes 4 so surprising. Glad they got back on track here in 5. And it might be fan service but I absolutely dug the tie in to FD1 at the end. I don't need deep lore or tons of crossover but I do love seeing a small bit of connective tissue between the stories.

Watched this on-demand from AMC and let's just say that that is not the ideal way to consume this film. Definitely one key scene that is essential is missing a large component.

Other than that though this was still as awesome as ever. I ed it more as a last day of school movie but it's somehow an entire year of school movie done in 90 minutes. We really used to be a proper country.

The most product of its time movie to date. Unfortunately that works to completely undercut everything good about the Final Destination franchise, the cool kills. This movie was made to be projected in 3D which means every kill was done with CGI using the most obvious flying into your face implements possible. When watching back in 2D now it makes everything look especially fake and hokey. Those scene weren't even the worst visual aspect of the film, there were also the premonitions which honestly looked like they were done by a free lance animator that only does this as a hobby.

I didn't really pay close enough attention to pick apart the script like others have done. I thought this moved along just fine and wasn't any better or worse in the acting and writing department than any of the other films.

Hopefully they learned a lesson with this movie and get back to their practical roots for the next couple of films because I can't take any more of that CGI nonsense that this movie tried to pull.

Holy shit it's Mary Elizabeth Winstead. What an impressive step up in acting quality from the first two installments. Having director Wong back from the first one is also a positive.

I like the addition of the pictures giving the group clues. It worked as a way to keep the audience a little off kilter too since the kills didn't happen exactly as expected.

Speaking of kills, there are some good ones here. I'm partial to the girl getting nail gunned to death and also the dude getting his head split by the rotor on the runaway truck. Never gonna say no to a good splattering like the most annoying dude in the world gets from that crane.

I was disappointed this didn't tie into the lore as much as the other two. We didn't see our man who clues everyone in on death's plan this time. I'm fine with not connecting to any of the other legacy characters but a little more connective tissue than "I did an internet" would've upped this a bit more for me.

These are baseline solid. Some people saying this is the best of the franchise but for me it's exactly in line with the previous two.

Criterion Challenge 2025 - 15/52: 1920s

This movie begins with a disclaimer that it is a dramatic work, the first of Chaplin's career, and that it also doesn't feature Chaplin himself on screen. Much like the audience of the time I assume, I almost walked out (turned it off) right then. Can't say I'm all that happy with decision to watch it anyway because I didn't feel like this did anything with the silent cinema medium.

There's a lot of dialogue to keep the plot moving along so we get very frequent title cards. In his comedies, Chaplin is able to convey story through movement much of the time so we understand the plot without too much interference from the title cards. This drama is too disted as it's a lot of characters just chatting.

First time I've felt a little let down by a Chaplin movie. He tried something different and I didn't connect to it. Happens.

Criterion Spine #1253

I have never driven by a log truck the same after the first time seeing this movie. Same with PVC pipe or really anything that looks like it might carom off the truck and into my windshield.

Shoutout to the guy who got sliced up by the projectile barbed wire fence. Easily outstrips the Seann William Scott beheading from the first installment.

RIP Mickey Milkovich

Watched this movie way too many times when I was younger. First time revisiting since then and it's very 90s, like extremely so. Still, the kills are pretty cool, I especially liked Seann William Scott's decapitation.

I've definitely seen a couple more of these but not all of them so I'm curious to see what they do with the lore piece of this. That receding water is very interesting to me, same with the magical de-electrized power line.

Jess, who has never seen these before (and still hasn't because she refused to watch with me) did recognize Devon Sawa from the HBO Max thumbnail. Apparently he was a thing. I never knew. I did get a few chuckles thinking about Ali Larter's Landman character during this movie. When she shows up with the classic blonde hair at the end it brought it all home.

Still a very serviceable trashy fantasy/horror adjacent franchise. Can't wait to dive deeper.

Jess offered up a suggestion for tonight's movie night and I couldn't have been more elated. Happy to say she also liked it and is open to more Tarantino adventures with me.

This was the first time (of 10+ watches at this point) that I clocked the Alabama reference. I embodied the Leo pointing meme in real time. Naturally I immediately took to the internet to find a slew of people who have noticed this for a long time. Apparently Mr. White AKA Larry was retconned by Tarantino himself to be related to Slater in True Romance. It's not quite as cool as it would have been had he just left it alone but I still eat shit like that up.

This movie still rocks and remains at the top of my Tarantino ranked list. Every time Michael Madsen starts dancing to Stealer's Wheel I levitate off the couch a little bit.

Tarantino - Ranked
Heist Movies Ranked
My Top 100 of all time

Feature length I Think You Should Leave just doesn't quite work especially for someone like me who thinks the sketches go on too long already.

I definitely laughed a lot, there are many extremely funny bits, but like Robinson's show I suspect this movie will only live on in meme form. I look forward to seeing those memes, I will almost certainly laugh at each and every one but I will almost just as certainly never rewatch this movie in full ever again.

I do think having a receptive audience helped me enjoy this a bit more but given that people started laughing the moment Robinson's face showed up, before a single line was spoken, makes me think they went into this from a position of "this is going to be awesome". It's the inverse problem of the person who goes into a film expecting not to like it because of bad buzz and continually confirming that position for themselves as they watch it. I'm guilty of both of these myself. For this experience, I felt like a lot of the laughs in my theater came from the goodwill Robinson has already generated than from the actual comedy of the movie itself.

The meme experience we have coming is going to be awesome. This movie itself, not quite so much.

2025 Ranked

I liked seeing the footage of the final North American tour. Might have to watch the Dodger stadium performance sometime.

This does tread a lot of the same ground that Rocketman does but there's enough new stuff here that I still found myself being drawn in. It may be my faulty memory but I don't anything about the John Lennon friendship and concert in Rocketman so that was really awesome to see here. Loved them playing a Beatles tune as well.

They tried to do a bit of the Beatles Get Back things showing Elton writing Tiny Dancer but it didn't totally work here. I couldn't tell if he was writing for the first time or just describing how it went. And I know Elton is basically a savant at this but that scene was much too short for writing an entire song.

Probably my favorite part was when they got on stage somewhere and announced they'd be playing 8 never before heard songs. I was imagining the audience groaning inside like I have so many times as Elton plays the first few notes of the never before heard Rocket Man lol.

Definitely a bit sweet and tidy but Elton is a fascinating character and I had a good time with this. We still need to make some new rules about Best Original Songs needing to be used organically during the course of the actual film rather than played over the end credits.

2024 Ranked

Criterion Challenge 2025 - 14/52: Film from the CC40 Boxset

Well apparently I'm the weird one for liking all the Shakespeare stuff a lot better than the Mike and Scott stuff. All the grandstanding and the eccentric side characters delighted the crap out of me. William Richert as Bob is having so much fun in his role and that energy reached out from the screen and made me have fun right alongside him.

My biggest hot take is that I didn't find River Phoenix compelling at all. Also, many times when he became naroleptic it was down right laughable. I did like Keanu. Scott was a good vessel for his talents and his overall story was the most compelling part of the narrative.

I also liked some of the formal risks Van Sant took throughout this movie. The magazine scene early in the film stands out. There's also the freeze frame sex scenes. I thought these were an interesting way to deconstruct the traditional sex scene. I don't really have anything deeper to say about those scenes at the moment but they did make me feel something different than usual.

Everything jumbled together here to come out as a net positive for me. I understand all the complaints about distedness but as possibly the only person who enjoyed the interludes those detours completely worked for me.

Criterion Spine #277

Who snuck in this emotionally resonant story about depression into my dumb little Marvel movie??? Well whoever did deserves a raise because I felt invested in the characters and the story for the first time in a long time. They even had me tearing up a bit in the final act. Florence Pugh is frankly incredible in this role and does a lot of the emotional heavy lifting for the cast and story. Almost equally important to her is David Harbour who is the perfect comedic balance to the heavier emotional story being told by Pugh and Lewis Pullman.

This movie also looks good again. Gone are the 100% Volume-ized settings of Ant-Man Quantumania and back is on location shooting and tangible sets. Also when CGI is used such as for the void effect, it looks great! They made that properly terrifying and like a very real threat. Connecting it back to Bob/Sentry and his inner struggles with depression was perfect too. There's also one super hero battle involving Sentry at full strength that was very well shot and edited.

The downsides are that the story takes too long to get going. There's a lot of introducing and exposition needed to catch everyone up and I don't think that worked for either side of the camp (the people who've seen everything versus the movies only people). Also everyone outside of the Pugh/Harbour/Pullman triad (plus Sebastian Stan) didn't really have much going on. We got a little more about Val (although I'd felt like I'd seen that before in something too) but characters like Ghost & US Agent don't get much movement besides some quips and barbs.

Overall this is a good return to form and would've fit nicely as an installment in between any of the previous Avengers films. I'll be very happy if they keep pumping out movies of this quality over the next few installments.

2025 Ranked

I liked when Allison Janney fell down the mountain and hit like 20 times getting smaller and smaller. A+ filmmaking, no notes.

I'm also a fan of what Elizabeth Perkins is doing in this film. She 100% gets it.

The 45 minute YouTube explainer at the end of this movie for a plot that was not clever or hard to follow in any way is so baffling to me I'm not sure how it made it through the initial edit.

Are we all watching A Mildly Inconvenient Favor a couple years from now? I'll bring the wine.

2025 Ranked

Despite this being the most "Did anyone ask for this?" movie in quite a while I still kinda enjoyed myself. Affleck and Bernthal have great chemistry and I got some very good laughs out of them together. This does lead me to my biggest complaint which is why the hell did it take so long to bring Bernthal into the story? No offense to everyone else not named Affleck, but they have zero juice and the movie was feeling very long early on.

The best moments of this movie happen in between the story. Affleck learning the Copperhead Road line dance immediately was a particular delight to me. Bernthal psyching himself up to talk to the woman from whom he's adopting a dog. Affleck deducing that his brother is actually a cat person. That's both a gift and a curse because there's fun stuff happening but the main plot is a complete bore. They also fumble the reveal big time by making the person unrecognizable earlier in the film. It feels like a rug pull here unlike the reveal from the first film.

Watch the Bernthal Affleck stuff on your streaming app of choice and skip everything else.

2025 Ranked

What better day than now to give Desperado my first watch? Everything came together nicely today with some ground beef crispy tacos for dinner and some half mezcal half tequila margaritas to drink during the movie.

I love how in on the joke this is. The action isn't shot all that well, especially by today's John Wick standards, but they make up for that in spades by making every bullet, wound, and explosion the biggest they can possibly be. My favorite action moment happens in Cheech's bar when a bad guy jumps off the bar to attack El Mariachi from above and he counters this move by pulling his feet to his chest and thrusting outward to push the bad guy away then shooting him 18 times while he flies away toward the far wall. There's also the sidekicks at the end who instead of having guns inside their guitar case, they have guitar cases that are actually guns, complete with reloading ability! Desperado is riddled with that sort of thing and it made me smile each and every time.

No aspect of this movie blows me away but the combination of everything we got makes me very happy. The cast of characters, from Buscemi doing his Tarantino thing, to Danny Trejo being silent and deadly, to Tarantino himself doing his whole shtick, is really fun to see. Banderas is solid as El Mariachi and Hayak as the love interest brings a lot of heat. Not sure I really vibed with the sex scene with all the jazz and close ups but I am intrigued by the spur rolling up the bare skin. Seems like that would feel quite nice.

El Mariachi is basically the gold standard of grassroots filmmaking. So I'm happy to see that Robert Rodriguez delivered on that promise by giving us something equally awesome now that he got a budget to work with. Now I gotta find time to get to Once Upon a Time in Mexico soon!

This is not at all what I was expecting and that disorientation lasted through a large bulk of the film. Tatsuya Nakadai is giving one of the most bone chilling performances I think I've ever seen. I was expecting the classic noble but flawed Samurai protagonist but there is absolutely nothing noble about Nakadai's Ryunosuke. There is definitely something demented and deranged though.

This all came into focus for me in the final scene of the movie. Nakadai is finally allowed to show some emotion and boy does he really let it rip. Director Okamoto doesn't even bother ending this scene, or his movie, either. He just makes you sit with the atrocity of what this man has done and how we knew he was capable of that the entire time.

Samurai films generally aren't my favorite thing since they are so closely related to the American Western that I also generally like less than other genres. I like that Sword of Doom took a wildly different approach compared to the classic archetype and paid it off. Always fun to watch a filmmaker take a big swing and knock it out of the park.

Criterion Spine #280

I like Anora

--Igor

Me too.

Round 2 with Jess. She didn't like it because the vampire stuff was too much. I was hoping the music would outweigh that for her. Alas.

I forgoing my 4.5 hedge. This movie is fucking awesome.

The costumes in this are very fancy and look really good. I always love technicolor and it once again looks great here. I have been underexposed to Judy Garland and I'm happy to say she's absolutely delightful in this movie. Sings the hell out of a few songs and plays fiesty lovable role well.

I unfortunately found the narrative to be a bit stale. Young girls are looking to get proposed to. Patriarch is being overbearing yet still aloof. Some weird shit happens on Halloween. Then it all sort of just resolves itself when it turns out everyone is just nice and good out of their own heart. It was the mid-40s after all. No complicated people needed in this family picture eh.

With a narrative as thin as this one, Meet Me in St. Louis needed banger after banger on its soundtrack and it also lacks in that department. We do get the Trolley song which is perfect and the title song a few times but I can hardly much else aside from Garland's rendition of Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.

Cute movie I definitely needed to watch but I'd almost certainly recommend 20 other musicals to watch before this one.

Criterion Challenge 2025 - 13/52: Horror

This is my second Nicolas Roeg after Walkabout and it feels a bit like black licorice for me. His style and my sensibilities just don't gel. I liked that the inciting incident happened in the first 5 minutes. I also liked that the payoff in the last 5 minutes was shocking and effective. I didn't like that there was 1h40 minutes between those two moments that didn't give me much to hold on to or care about.

Young Donald Sutherland is always a welcome sight and I like what he did with this role. If that was him doing the stunt where he nearly falls to his death then kudos. I was thinking about the time recently where I did a rope swing over a lake and couldn't hold onto the rope for more than a couple of seconds. Sutherland much better than me to no one's surprise.

I can see this working for me in a theater setting where I'm forced to focus a bit more on the smaller details. At home I felt the story meander and that led to me giving into distraction. I stand by my low score for now but would be willing to give this another go in the future for a better viewing experience.

Criterion Spine #745

It feels so good to walk out of the theater and feel like your hype was justified. Coogler 100% delivers on everything the promotional material promised in the lead up to this release. Doing that is pretty hard and if Sinners was just that I'd still be quite positive on it. The thing is though, Coogler ALSO delivers on an entire second movie that was basically absent from the promotional stuff. AND, he weaves the two parts together seamlessly to make this cohesive near masterpiece. I only say near because I'm apprehensive of giving that much praise less than an hour removed from seeing the film.

I LOVE what Coogler and Göransson did with the music in this movie. That's the second movie I was referring to above. They tie both the vampires and the black folks together almost solely through song. The black people singing the blues, the vampires doing Irish folk music. Both singing about how their people have been suffering for far too long. I initially thought it was going to be about how white people have been stealing blues music for themselves since forever but there was too much joy in that second big musical scene for that to be it. I like being surprised by a message and going with a parallel stories theme between the two groups in this movie both surprised and moved me.

The first musical scene in this is in the driver's seat for scene of the year and I'm not sure anything else has a chance now. I vaguely knew about a knockout music scene so when it started I thought it could be the one but it didn't seem to special to me. Then it keeps going and evolves and takes us through a age of time that is really remarkable. That ing of time is another theme that my brain wasn't ready to explore on this watch but I did clock it for future viewings.

Sinners is a rich text and I definitely plan on getting to multiple viewings of this. I thought of 3 different people who are usually out on movies like Sinners that I know will enjoy it so will definitely need to drag them out to see it.

2025 Ranked

I came for dumb fun Statham action and I kinda got it...but not really. This was incredibly light on the action for being what it was supposed to be. There's a lot of talking and military brotherhood and a daughter who shows up juuuuussssst enough to where I can't say her storyline wasn't serviced. Then when we do get the action it's edited down to a millisecond where it's impossible to see what the hell is going on. Ayer and Statham have been semi-successful before, what happened here?

I have to mention the moon at the end of the movie. Where the fuck were these people? That was the biggest moon I've ever seen. Is this set on another planet whose moon is 1 mile away? I couldn't possibly pay attention to anything happening on the screen with that damn moon in the background.

Why is Michael Peña in this role? He's in basically zero scenes. I assume he shot them all in about 2 hours. He's also phoning it in to the highest degree. That lip quiver drew my biggest possible eyeroll.

Was trying to convince myself that I got exactly what I paid for but I just don't think they even executed on the very low bar I set for them. Sad.

2025 Ranked

I know I'm supposed to get the dread of the never ending dance we do in the name of capitalism but what stuck out most to me was how this entire ordeal felt like gladiators in the Colosseum. Everything done here is in the name of "the show". The people want to see the drama. We can't have the actress come out looking like a princess. If you do this your sponsor will give you an extra $4 a week. The dancers are all slaves who's only option is to become a spectacle for the hoard and make the rich even richer.

Jane Fonda is really incredible here as Gloria. Gloria is an absolutely terrible hang and it doesn't matter who she's interacting with, the predatory show host or the sweet pregnant woman who just needs a little money to be able to feed her child. Fonda plays jaded and desperate to perfection. I also loved her willingness to dirty it up. These people are supposedly dancing for nearly two straight months, they better be looking a bit haggard by the end and they certainly do.

The ending is a real knockout as well, bringing us full circle with regards to the title as well as the opening images of the movie cut to voiceover of the rules of the dance competition.

I can't really say I had fun watching this movie last night but it has stuck with me throughout the day today. I'm not sure I've fully wrapped my head around it's meaning either even though I feel like I have a pretty strong idea. This is the kind of movie that will probably rewards some repeat viewings in the future.

I also want to thank the person who ed this to YouTube since it isn't streaming and finding a suitable physical copy didn't seem possible either. Hope this gets the Criterion (or other boutique) treatment soon so everyone has access to a hopefully better rendition of this than a YouTube stream.

First genuine surprise of the year. I'm not even in the target audience for this as someone with a relatively tranquil family life but the final third still hit me like a ton of bricks. Tracie Laymon hits you with scene after scene in those final 30 minutes to really bring the tears out and it worked on me quite a bit. That even extends into the credits with a stinger that lends some real authenticity to everything.

The absolute standout in this for me is John Leguizamo. I've always enjoyed him in things but he's never quite wowed me like he did here. He creates this character who feels unique to himself but also like 100 men you've met before at the same time. He has his full range of emotions on display as well which is great to see from him since I feel like he doesn't get to show that a lot in his other roles. Barbie Ferrera is also strong here. I like seeing her in a role that she seems to be having fun with unlike on Euphoria.

I love a small indie surprise like this. I usually come out of every year having one or two of these in my top 10. Bob Trevino Likes It is definitely the leader in the clubhouse right now.

2025 Ranked

It's all just so senseless. And all done because "welp, it's the law". How do you not have comion for the literal humans crying at your feet with the simple request to just not destroy their home. The only answer is that you don't see them as human, or even less than human but still deserving of respect. You see these people as vermin who need to be exterminated. Sickening.

I like that the filmmaker is not only boots on the ground but has been boots on the ground since he was a teen. This isn't baby's first protest, he's from a family of protestors who have been doing this for a long time (and will unfortunately continue to do it for a long time to come). Putting this all to film and getting these kind of eyeballs on the issue can only help them in the long run. Unfortunately they need some help in the short run too that doesn't seem to be coming at all.

The real juice of the movie is the Yuval and Basel friendship. Yuval an Israeli and Basel a Palestinian fighting on the same side. I like that Basel's neighbors don't let Yuval off the hook too. Sure he's helping, but he's also allowed to drive wherever he wants and go home to take a shower where the people he is helping certainly can't.

As someone who doesn't know much about the Israel/Palestine conflict I found this to be pretty powerful. I know many people who have been entrenched in this conflict for many years and they probably would find this to be a bit "tip of the iceberg". I hope at least the Oscar win and overall strong reputation of the film gets more powerful eyeballs on the conflict so maybe something positive can happen.

2024 Ranked

Criterion Challenge 2025 - 12/52: film under 90 minutes

This film depicts a man Peter Weller, played very well by Peter Greene, with schizophrenia who's really going through it after being released from an institution. It goes for a bit of an avant garde style where we the viewer are unsure whether the events depicted on screen are actually happening or are an interpretation of what is going on inside Peter Weller's head. I found that aspect of the film equal parts intriguing and disorienting. On the negative side I couldn't give myself over to the film because my detective brain was engaged. But within that intellectual mindset I was also happy to recognize that director Lodge Kerrigan was doing something unique with his storytelling.

This is one of those movie I respect more than enjoy, at least on a first viewing. I could see myself returning to this in a year or two with the intention of giving myself over to it a bit more now that I know the whole story. Not a total miss for me but I can't go higher than 3 stars even though this is a pretty impressive debut film.

Criterion Spine #354

So glad I finally got to see this one, at the last showtime anywhere in town too.

Something beautiful about watching the sun set on fat man getting caught stealing.

I played 1 season of men's league baseball post college career. A coworker had a team and asked if I would play so I said yes. Some of my old high school teammates ended up being out there too. I had a lot of fun while out there but it always felt like a chore to show up. Eephus perfectly encapsulates that feeling of having a standing obligation for an activity you nominally enjoy but convince yourself you don't have time for.

The ensemble cast is great, hitting on all the stereotypical characters you see at a ballfield. I wasn't expecting a lot of them to be so old. My men's team was mostly washed up mid-20s - low-30s dudes so I was expecting a bit of the same. Those guys are there, along with some college kids, but it was the old guys that really gave this the juice. Seeing the last game of their entire lives play out over about 90 minutes had me feeling some feelings. "Is this really how it's gonna end?"

If nothing else Eephus gives every viewer a feel for what it's like to spend an afternoon at the field with your buds. It's been a while since I've done that and it was very nice to be back even if only for a short time.

2025 Ranked
Baseball Movies Ranked

Criterion Challenge 2025 - 11/52: Female filmmaker

I did not have finally getting an explanation for the "pooping back and forth forever" card in the original Cards Against Humanity deck on my Criterion Challenge bingo sheet but here we are!

The quirkiness is enough to get me to about the halfway point of this movie but when the charm of that wore off I found myself pretty bored with the awkward slice of life being portrayed. There is pretty strong Todd Solandz's Happiness DNA in this movie and since Happiness is one of my least favorite movies ever I'm glad Miranda July dialed that back to a 2 instead of the 11 Solandz chose to go with.

I was just left wanting a single character arc to occur and instead I was given a few stagnant characters and no conclusion to the story. Some comedic bits will stay in my memory for a while but the movie as a whole just kind of fades to nothing.

The "back and forth"

Criterion Spine #1026

This was recommended to me on the back of The Nice Guys and while I don't find this to be nearly as charming as The Nice Guys I did find that I was being drawn into the story quite nicely.

I feel like this is the audition tape for RDJ as Iron Man. He narrates the story and his A+ quippiness is on full display. Ultimately though I didn't find his character to be all that compelling or sympathetic. The real star of the show her is Val Kilmer as Gay Perry. He's on a heater for this entire movie and I couldn't take my eyes off of him. 100% of my future recommendation of this movie is going to be on the back of Val Kilmer.

I had fun watching Monaghan playing an actress seeing this for the first time during the current run of The White Lotus season 3 where she plays a similar character who's now 20 years older. She's definitely worthy of Harry's crush.

Had more fun with this than not but it never got above good for me. It also never fell into bad territory for me either, just a good solid movie. I'd happily take one of these in theaters every week of the year.

Criterion Challenge 2025 - 10/52: would be my first pick in the criterion closet

My Previous Paper Moon Review

Popped open my brand new 4K Criterion Edition for my 50th movie of the year. Looked impeccable.

9 year old Addie ripping a dart in a dingy motel room after pulling off her Pa's (?) con better than he did is a total mood. Sign me up for 11 more.

My Criterion Collection

Criterion Spine #1241

Interesting horror take on the Pulp Fiction outline. I liked seeing the various sets from 2 different perspectives as we move back and forth through the story. The styling and lighting of the film is also a highlight. I liked bathing our characters in a deep red light in multiple different scenes.

Happy I was far enough removed from the discourse of this movie that I didn't know there was a twist because I found it prettt effective. Even more effective is the fact that the movie doesn't rely on the twist to be it's end of movie hammer, we get it midway through then get to see how other characters interact now with new knowledge. Many directors have aped the Pulp Fiction structure, Strange Darling is one of the better ones at putting that structure to use effectively.

I don't think Opus deserves the heavy criticism I've been seeing in my little film bubble. It's definitely not some great movie but it has a visual flare to it that I enjoyed and a nihilistic ending that isn't as much profound as it is just true. What happens after the cult leader has been taken down?? That isn't the movie Opus is but that is what Marc Anthony Green wants you thinking about over dinner after watching his film.

John Malkovich is pretty much perfect. It's hilarious that a man like him would be a pop sensation. There's a scene where he performs one of his new songs and does various gyrations with the women he invited to the show and it's hilarious. That scene also features my favorite shot of the movie where his acolytes are watching on with literal stars in their eyes that are motivated by reflections from the lighting of the stage. Beautiful visual work.

My biggest disappointment was having this cast of exciting people and giving most of them nothing to do. Amber Midthunder is the most grievous example of this. She has virtually no speaking lines and is there as a stunt woman. Hated that for her. Tony Hale has 2 scenes, not sure why he wasn't at the compound because his character was compelling. Juliette Lewis callously quit Yellowjackets so she could be an extra in this first time filmmaker's movie. She's making great choices. I was excited to see Murray Bartlett's name in the cast after his excellent turns on The White Lotus and The Last of Us but he played the most generic magazine editor of all time and was given what felt like the 3rd highest screen time. Opus turns out to be effectively a two hander between Malkovich and Edebiri and it probably would have been better with a more ensemble approach.

Not going to be on my end of year list but I found some things of value here and I'm glad I went to see it.

2025 Ranked

Consider me surprised that between the 2 Soderbergh's we got this year I found Black Bag to be the lesser of the two, and by a pretty significant margin at that.

I unfortunately found myself completely separated from the plot. To its credit, Black Bag is unconcerned with its own plot in favor of seeing what's up with these fucked up relationships but the plot is still there and without having one ounce of caring about that I found that the character stuff also didn't work for me.

Fassbender is just on autopilot now with this role. I didn't get anything interesting from him here. Blanchett is fine but doesn't stretch herself out either. And unlike Clooney and Lopez in Out of Sight, the raw chemistry between the two doesn't carry us through to something higher. I liked the surrounding cast a bit more, especially Tom Burke as Freddie and Marisa Abela as Clarissa. I would watch an entire movie of them moving about in this world for sure!

All the Soderbergh hallmarks are here. I got strong Ocean's vibes from the transition music. The characterizations are all dialed in. Unfortunately it feels like a return to the well done with half the ion. Presence worked so well for me because Soderbergh got up to his experimenting again and made it work. I was hoping his return to genre would also signal a return to Blockbuster but now I understand why that isn't happening here. He's still among my favorite directors and has a lifetime from me. Can't wait to see what he does next!

2025 Ranked

Criterion Challenge 2025 - 9/52: Celine Song's Top 10

This is the horniest movie I've seen in quite some time. Set against the backdrop of World War II we enter the story through a young man going to his first day as an apprentice at the train station. But the war itself is the least important thing in our young protagonist's mind, he's much more worried about getting laid for his first time by the cute train conductor. So begins his saga.

I was immediately struck with how funny this movie is. It begins with a voiceover by the protagonist where he details the lives of his father and grandfather who were eccentric men to say the least. He then proceeds to follow directly in their footsteps himself. The script is quite strong, keeping it's focus on this frivolous story until the inevitability of the war creeps in anyway.

I didn't have any expectations for this movie coming into it and was delighted. There are so many WWII movies out there concerned with the capital eye Important ideas and it was nice getting one concerned with a typical human experience during the same exact time period.

Criterion Spine #131

I'm beginning to understand that I like Bong most when he has his feet firmly planted in the ground of reality. This and Okja are definitely in conversation with each other and neither worked nearly as well as Parasite or Memories of Murder for me.

Mickey 17 mostly didn't work because I found myself being quite bored in the middle of the film. There were a LOT of ideas introduced in that section but very little was explored. Characters had pizzazz but no depth. Even with Mickey himself, despite Pattinson's excellent efforts, it was hard to find a single ounce of caring about his fate or his decisions.

Bong does still know how to create an impeccable atmosphere and imbue his film with breathtaking images. I'll probably this film more fondly as time goes on because I'll a shot, like Mickey 1x printing out without the guider, and smile. I just wish the script and ideas lived up to those visuals.

First big disappointment of the year but not so bad that Bong loses his "favorite director" status. There's a good movie in here, I just wish we got to see it.

2025 Ranked

Criterion Challenge 2025 - 8/52: to be added to the physical collection in 2025

A Gene Hackman movie felt right for this week's Movie Monday. Getting a fairly classic noir set in some sunny locale's is just a bonus.

This movie is a lot hornier than I expected it to be. Definitely a bit problematic considering the object of that horniness is mostly 18 year old Melanie Griffith playing 16 year old Della.

Arthur Penn just knows how it create a vibe. He nails all the classic noir while also placing us directly into 70s LA and the Florida Keys. He even directs some solid action scenes. One is an old guy brawl where the old guys get properly tired and pathetic towards the end. The other is a banger final scene with boats, planes, guns, and an ambiguous ending worth the frustration in the moment.

The story is a bit of a mess and motivations are all over the place but if you can get past the nitty gritty and buy into the vibiness then it works really well. Hackman has a big part to play in that himself delivering on the hang dog detective with aplomb.

I don't have many Hackman roles left but there are always rewatches. RIP to one of the absolute greats.

Criterion Spine #1255

Pulled out the 4K I bought during the recent sales. It looks incredible. This movie is still the benchmark for incredible special effects despite over 20 years of technological advancements. Jim Cameron's Avatar movies are probably the newer benchmark but Jurassic Park still gives even those marvels a run for their money.

Shoutout to Sam Jackson who couldn't get the park back up and running without Newman when it was so easy to figure out that a 12 year old fixed it in 2 mins while a Raptor was actively trying to eat her.

Criterion Challenge 2025 - 7/52: Robert Altman film

I'm no Richard Nixon fan, but when he calls Henry Kissinger a fat fuck I stood up and cheered.

Philip Baker Hall is cooking in this. A one man show put to film. My Dinner with Andre if Andre was deranged and paranoid and Wallace Shawn wasn't present.

This doesn't feel like it fits within the Altman oeuvre. I love his sprawling stories with tons of characters and the way he overlaps and intertwines them all. In this there is only one character and only one story. Yet, Altman is still able to mine significant emotional depth from this story as well. He was already in contention for my favorite director and this movie cements his spot in that conversation for sure.

Criterion Spine #257

Criterion Challenge 2025 - 6/52: Janus Contemporaries

So this guy really loves that 7th grader huh?

This is my first experience with this filmmaker and I liked a lot of what we got. I'm a big dialogue guy and this movie has that in spades. A few times the conversations veered into pretentious land but overall I found them intellectually engaging and well written.

All I really want to talk about though is the extremely weird 4th wall break 2 hours into the film. Total what the fuck moment. I have no idea what that choice was trying to say either.

I'm surprised looking back on the film that it was able to hold my attention for its long runtime. I can't point to anything in particular that I loved but I never looked away from the screen or felt drowsy while watching. There's something intangible here that makes this movie feel special. I definitely want to check out this director's other work.

Janus Contemporaries

This list will constantly evolve as I watch a film from it then replace with the next most popular film...

...until it is only films that I refuse to see.

• Heretic
• The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes
• Minions: The Rise of Gru
• Malignant
• The Devil All the Time
• It Chapter Two
• mid90s
• The Greatest Showman
• Zootopia
• Minions

...plus 130 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Original List by Ben

Progress - 19/52

Rewatches - 3 - Paper Moon (but not in 4K), The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Marriage Story

Top 10:
1. Easy Rider
2. The Last Waltz
3. Don't Look Back
4. About Dry Grasses
5. Night Moves
6. Closely Watched Trains

Bottom 5:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Superlatives:
Favorite Acting:
Favorite Screenplay:
Favorite Directing:
Favorite Scene:
Favorite Line:
Favorite Shot:

1. My Own Private Idaho

   Film from the CC40 Boxset

   Criterion Spine #277

2. Mona Lisa

   Movie from the year I was born

   Criterion Spine #107

3. Secret Honor

   Robert Altman film

   Criterion Spine #257

4. Paper Moon

   Would be my first pick in the Criterion Closet

   Criterion Spine #1241

5. Dogfight

   Great Soundtracks

   Criterion Spine #1216

6. Rocco and His Brothers

   John Turturro's Adventures in Movie going

7. A Woman of Paris: A Drama of Fate

   1920s

   Criterion Spine #1253

8. Night Moves

   To be added to the physical collection in 2025 (will probably switch out)

   Criterion Spine #1255

9. Trouble in Paradise

   1930s

   Criterion Spine #170

10. Salesman

    Andrew Garfield's closet picks

    Criterion Spine #122

...plus 42 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Ranking 2025 movies based on Oscar eligibility

1. Sinners

   Movie #12 - Apr 17, 2025

   Theater, Cinemark XD

2. Bob Trevino Likes It

   Movie #10 - Apr 10, 2025

   Theater, River Oaks

3. Presence

   Movie #2 - Jan 28, 2025

   Theater, Cinemark

4. Eephus

   Movie #9 - Apr 2, 2025

   Theater, River Oaks

5. Thunderbolts*

   Movie # 15 - May 10, 2025

   Theater, Cinemark

6. Paddington in Peru

   Movie #5 - Feb 18, 2025

   Theater, Cinemark

7. Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning

   Movie #18 - May 27, 2025

   Theater, Cinemark

8. Mickey 17

   Movie #6 - March 11, 2025

   Theater, Cinemark XD

9. Friendship

   Movie #16 - May 17, 2025

   Theater, River Oaks

10. Warfare

    Movie #20 - May 29, 2025

    Theater, AMC

...plus 11 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Ranking movies I deem to be 2024 releases. Try to stick with the "Oscar eligible" criteria although many of these will not be in competition there.

1. Snack Shack

   Movie #45 - Sep 8, 2024

   Home, Amazon Prime

2. Anora

   Movie #61 - Nov 7, 2024

   Theater, Cinemark

3. Flow

   Movie #72 - Dec 23, 2024

   Theater, River Oaks Theater

4. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

   Movie #26 - May 23, 2024

   Theater, Cinemark XD

5. Challengers

   Movie #20 - April 30, 2024

   Theater, Cinemark

6. Dìdi (弟弟)

   Movie #44 - August 20, 2024

   Theater, AMC

7. Hard Truths

   Movie #78 - Jan 19, 2025

   Theater, Regal

8. A Real Pain

   Movie #63 - Nov 19, 2024

   Theater, Cinemark

9. Hundreds of Beavers

   Movie #52 - Oct 6, 2024

   Home, Tubi

10. Civil War

    Movie #18 - Apr 11, 2024

    Theater, Cinemark

...plus 84 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

I love baseball. If I can't watch a baseball game, then I want to watch a baseball movie. Here's my ranking of all that I've seen. I chose to only include narrative feature length films. There are tons of good docs and a couple of shorts that would make a good secondary list.

1. Major League

   Classic in every sense of the word. I quote this movie so much, even if the context isn't baseball I make it fit. 

2. The Sandlot

   If you can't quote this entire movie then we are not friends. 

3. Moneyball

   They took an incredible book for super nerds (me) and made an incredible movie. Pitt is giving his best performance here, Hill is a pleasant surprise, and Hoffman elevates everything he's in. Setting the climax of the film on the 20 game streak was a stroke of genius. 

4. Everybody Wants Some!!

   Had high expectations as it was described as a spiritual sequel to Dazed and Confused, and this met them and then some. Linklater once again finds the next generation of young stars and puts them together to great effect. More of a hangout film than baseball, but that's mostly what playing ball in college was like. Fun to see your own life experience play out in a movie. 

5. Little Big League

   Ok, so I shit on ROY and Angels because they are kids movies, and this one is too. But I watched this twice a day for what feels like my entire childhood. I still show clips of this in my classroom to lighten the mood. My heart wants to pick this as #1, my brain will settle for top 5.

6. Bull Durham

   This has some of the best in game and dugout dialogue. Also Crash Davis is an amazing character. Tim Robbins looks ridiculous pitching, and you cam leave the love triangle on the cutting room floor

7. The Bad News Bears

   Really great and not at all a traditional feel good sports movie. Just some real folk trying to do a thing.

8. Major League II

   Rare sequel that lives up to its predecessor. Sometimes I think I like this better than the original, but then I go back to it and the original just edges it every time. 

9. Field of Dreams

   If this doesn't make you cry at the end then you don't have a soul. 

10. For Love of the Game

    I ride for this movie against all hate. It's also a love story more than baseball, but they weave it in pretty deftly with the game going on that I'm engaged in both parts. Costner's returns as another old wily veteran, but this time he was one of the best. This movie is good. 

...plus 20 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

My new and growing collection of Criterion Physical media. Currently collecting blu rays because I don't have a 4K TV.

Edit: Purchased a 4K TV and have now started collecting 4Ks as well. I will add 4K to the notes if that's the format I got.

• Seven Samurai

  Criterion Spine #2

• Amarcord

  Criterion Spine #4

  Part of the Essential Fellini Box Set

• The Seventh Seal

  Criterion Spine #11

  Part of Ingmar Bergman's Cinema Box Set

• The Silence of the Lambs

  Criterion Spine #13

• High and Low

  Criterion Spine #24

• The Red Shoes

  Criterion Spine #44

  4K Edition

• Nights of Cabiria

  Criterion Spine #49

  Part of the Essential Fellini Box Set

• And the Ship Sails On

  Criterion Spine #50

  Part of the Essential Fellini Box Set

• For All Mankind

  Criterion Spine #54

  4K Edition

• Charade

  Criterion Spine #57

...plus 115 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Limit 1 film per director

1. Rashomon
2. Rear Window
3. Rififi
4. The Apartment
5. Harakiri
6. 2001: A Space Odyssey
7. A Woman Under the Influence
8. Anatomy of a Murder
9. Le Samouraï
10. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

...plus 15 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Ranked by performance

1. There Will Be Blood

   Daniel Day-Lewis, 80th

2. Training Day

   Denzel Washington, 74th

3. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

   Jack Nicholson, 48th

4. The Father

   Anthony Hopkins, 93rd

5. On the Waterfront

   Marlon Brando, 27th

6. Raging Bull

   Robert DeNiro, 53rd

7. Oppenheimer

   Cillian Murphy, 96th

8. In the Heat of the Night

   Rod Steiger, 40th

9. The Silence of the Lambs

   Anthony Hopkins, 64th

10. The Godfather

    Marlon Brando, 45th {declined}

...plus 30 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Parasite

   Bong Joon-ho, 92nd

2. Gravity

   Alfonso Cuaron, 86th

3. No Country for Old Men

   Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, 80th

4. The Silence of the Lambs

   Jonathan Demme, 64th

5. La La Land

   Damien Chazelle, 89th

6. Oppenheimer

   Christopher Nolan, 96th

7. The Apartment

   Billy Wilder, 33rd

8. The Godfather Part II

   Francis Ford Coppola, 47th

9. Cabaret

   Bob Fosse, 45th

10. The Graduate

    Mike Nichols, 40th

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

1. The Heiress

   Olivia de Havilland, 22nd

2. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

   Elizabeth Taylor, 39th

3. A Streetcar Named Desire

   Vivien Leigh, 24th

4. The Favourite

   Olivia Coleman, 91st

5. Walk the Line

   Reese Witherspoon, 78th

6. Everything Everywhere All at Once

   Michelle Yeoh, 95th

7. The Silence of the Lambs

   Jodie Foster, 64th

8. Anora

   Mikey Madison, 97th

9. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

   Louise Fletcher, 48th

10. Misery

    Kathy Bates, 63rd

...plus 34 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

A ranking of all the best picture winning movies I have seen.

1. The Apartment
2. Parasite
3. The Godfather Part II
4. Gladiator
5. The Sting
6. The Godfather
7. The Silence of the Lambs
8. Casablanca
9. Everything Everywhere All at Once
10. No Country for Old Men

...plus 52 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Prolific as hell. Always entertaining. Won't make this list for movies, but the 2 seasons of The Knick were incredible.

1. Ocean's Eleven

   I love a heist movie. And you put this cast together to get it done. And you set it at the Bellagio! Shove me into a cart with a tiny air bottle.

2. Ocean's Thirteen

   Back to the casino! Pacino! Casey Affleck siding with worker in Mexico going on strike! This makes up for everything 12 wasn't. Infect my room while I sleep!

3. The Informant!

   Feel like Stephon here, this movie has everything! Matt Damon giving a top 5 performance, with the body change. A conspiracy involving government agencies and corporations. And a script of ridiculous line after ridiculous line. Let me continue doing crimes while also being wire tapped!

4. Out of Sight

   Heist movie where the heist is the least interesting part. Tough feat to pull off and this did it and then some. Let me watch Clooney and Lopez go at it from the corner of the room. 

5. Haywire

   Extremely fun and supremely well directed. Soderberg uses his MMA lead to her fullest abilities. Not hinging too much drama on her character but allowing her physicality to shine through. 

6. Logan Lucky

   Let Daniel Craig be fun again! Another heist movie which is always going to be good in my book. Adam Driver being his future oscar winning self. And Tatum doesn't get blown off the screen. Chop my arm off and give me a prosthetic!

7. Kimi

   Soderberg does The Parallax Rear Window. Love.

8. King of the Hill

   Excellent coming of age film

9. Contagion

   Been a while, not going to rewatch during Covid-19. But Damon is perfect, the way they set up the mystery is compelling and they pay it off so well at the end. Infect a pig and make me eat it!
   

10. Let Them All Talk

    Better than it needs to be with a great late period Streep performance and some great dialogue especially from Dianne Wiest. 

...plus 25 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Inspired by The Big Picture. One movie per director is the only limit. 2000-2024.

• In the Mood for Love
• Mulholland Drive
• Oldboy
• The 40 Year Old Virgin
• Ratatouille
• There Will Be Blood
• No Country for Old Men
• Inglourious Basterds
• The Informant!
• The Social Network

...plus 15 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

So many I still need to see. He's my third favorite living director, his films are must see. I almost always enjoy them.

1. GoodFellas

   Not much to say here. All time favorite. Layla scene is perfect. Making the sauce. The last busy day. You're a shnook if you don't love this movie. 

2. After Hours

   Amazing story that hits very close to home for me. Scorsese takes a page out of Hitchcock's book and makes a masterful paranoid thriller but also makes a hilarious comedy to go with it. Brilliant. 

3. The Departed

   Finally a best picture for Marty! This is another basic bitch choice for me, but I love this movie. It was my introduction to him where I was fully aware of who I was watching and it did not disappoint. "Go fuck yourself" "I'm too tired from fucking your mother" "hows your mother?" "Tired from fucking my father.

4. The Wolf of Wall Street

   Classic Leo performance. Qualudes scene alone is oscar worthy. And Margot my god. 

5. Casino

   Sucker for anything set in a casino. Got the 2 big guys here, Bobby D and Joe P, giving great and classic performances. 

6. Shutter Island

   Very trippy story. Leo does his thing. Not the best of their team ups, but a solid use of your time. 

   
   

   Upon a rewatch this is much better than I . The ending is one of the most perfect endings I've ever seen. Michelle Williams is perfect.

7. The Irishman

   Very long, but great look at a man looking back on his life. That ending with the view from the crack in the door will stay with me. So will Bob Deniro frailey stomping out a guy on the street (yikes!)

8. The Last Waltz
9. Raging Bull

   In depth look at a deeply flawed and mostly irredeemable man. Not a lot to root for here, but the constant nagging doubt Deniro sows through his entire performance is worth every penny. 

10. Taxi Driver

    Great performances, fun shot composition in parts, something missing for me. 

...plus 15 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

4th year. Hoping I'll finish it this time.

Thanks Ben for putting together the Challenge once again!
Original List

Progress - 42/52
Rewatches: 2 (Traffic, Bull Durham)

Top 10:
1. The Heroic Trio
2. Wings of Desire
3. The Killer
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.

Bottom 5:
1. Baxter, Vera Baxter
2. The Housemaid
3.
4.
5.

Superlatives
Favorite Performance:
Favorite Scene:
Favorite Shot:
Favorite Line:

1. The Naked City

   Spine #351-450

   Criterion Spine #380

2. Le Havre

   Spine #601-700

   Criterion Spine #619

3. Wings of Desire

   4.3 Rating or Higher

   Criterion Spine #490

4. The Housemaid

   First (Criterion) Film in your watchlist

   Criterion Spine #690

5. The Heroic Trio

   Most recently added (Criterion) Film in your watchlist.

   Criterion Spine #1207 (part of a box set with The Executioners)

6. The Eight Mountains

   Longest (Criterion) Film in your watchlist

   Janus Contemporaries

7. After Life

   Most popular (Criterion) Film in your watchlist

   Criterion Spine #1089

8. Downpour

   Martin Scorsese's World Cinema Project No. 3 - Criterion Spine #1044

   Downpour - Criterion Spine #1050

9. Alice in the Cities

   Criterion Staff Picks

   Criterion Spine #814

10. Loves of a Blonde

    New York Film Festival Favorites

    Criterion Spine #144

...plus 42 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

I'm not done yet as you can see. But I'm fully convinced that this man never made a bad film.

1. Rashomon

   Analyzing the faultiness of the eyewitness. Mifune, wow, such a departure from Drunken Angel. Coined a term!

2. High and Low

   This is really good. Like 2 movies in one, suspenseful and full of tough moral questions in the first hour. Then a riveting police procedural down to the minute detail to finish. Mifune is totally different than I've seen him so far, shows just how great he is. 

3. Ikiru

   No Mifune, no problem. Feel like you're wasting your life? Watch this then go about changing it.

4. The Hidden Fortress

   Most fun of those I've seen. The perspective from the idiot's POV is what made it. Inspiration for Star Wars!
   

5. Throne of Blood

   Never read Macbeth, but this is apparently a great adaptation, so I feel like I have now. Real arrows being shot!

6. Dersu Uzala

   Beautiful film about humanity and nature and friendship.

7. Seven Samurai

   Perfect heist movie style of filmmaking. Gets the gang together (plus for being a ragtag group), surveys the situation and enemy, executes the plan, improvises when things go awry. Cool to see the original that influenced so many that came after.

8. Ran

   First I saw in color. I'm blown away at how beautifully he uses it in every shot. 

9. Kagemusha

   Overcomes my dislike of war films with beautiful color work and a story that foregrounds the interesting part of wartime instead of the battles.

10. Drunken Angel

    First one I watched. Like the "modern setting"for it's time. Great performances by the 2 leads. 

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

One of my favorite genres. Needs to have significant scenes in the courtroom. I need to rewatch a couple of these to assess their belonging on this list.

1. A Few Good Men
2. My Cousin Vinny
3. 12 Angry Men
4. Anatomy of a Murder
5. Rashomon

   I wouldn't turn to this if I was in a pure courtroom drama mood, but it fits the category and is one of the best movies of all time. 

6. Miracle on 34th Street
7. Paths of Glory
8. Witness for the Prosecution
9. The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial
10. Mangrove

...plus 28 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Magnolia

   Some of the most mesmerizing filmmaking I have seen. Great performances as well, Tom Cruise blows it out of the water here. Really blown away. 

2. There Will Be Blood

   DDL doing great work as always. My introduction to Paul Dano, who was note perfect as the underwhelming son. Bowling alley in the house. Milkshakes. Another I want to revisit before making my definitive ranking. 

3. Boogie Nights

   Calvin Klein model turns in a good performance, prosthetic and all. Burt Reynolds was born to play that role. Bill Macy, such a convincing cuck. Philip Seymour Hoffman is always great, I'm glad we can return to this role whenever we want. 

4. Phantom Thread

   Unexpected delight. This was funny, "are you trying to ruin my morning and possibly my whole life!" It was crazy, asking to be poisoned! And it was DDL's last hurrah, what a way to go out. 

5. Hard Eight

   I'm a casino junkie, so this is right up my alley. Also love Philip Baker Hall since Mr. Bookman. Controversial ranking here but I stand by it.

6. The Master

   After a revisit, I still don't get it. PSH and Joaquin are great but I'm underwhelmed again. 

7. Punch-Drunk Love

   PTA makes a Sandler movie. I love Sandler, this was very different, but love the swing.

8. Licorice Pizza

   Great performances and filmmaking, confounding story.

9. Inherent Vice

   Really don't get this one.  Seemed like I'd really enjoy it, and then it was just a rambling mess. Another I'll try to revisit and see if I can figure it out. 

Pulp Fiction taught me how to enjoy good cinema. I aspire to sit around a table and talk with my friends the way Tarantino's characters do, minus the copious racial slurs.

1. Reservoir Dogs

   I think about, then watch, the ear cutting scene at least once a month. Stuck in the middle with you is so perfect, and the music cutting in and out as he walks out to the car, just perfect. And Roth telling the toilet story is just so good. 

2. Inglourious Basterds

   Bear Jew. Italian Pitt. Signaling the number 3 with your hand in . Melanie Laurent killing Hitler. Waltz terrifying everyone with a glass of milk.

   Moved up to 2 on a rewatch, sorry Pulp Fiction, but this is a masterpiece.

3. Pulp Fiction

   Just a masterclass of film making. I didn't know a story could be told this way, and everyone's been trying to recreate this style since. Bad Mother Fucker.

4. Kill Bill: Vol. 1

   Pussy Wagon. Blood spurting out of your neck in a fancy fountain formation.

5. The Hateful Eight

   Entire movie is people sitting around a table and talking, I absolutely love it. Channing Tatum tries to save the day, but gets his head exploded by Boyd Crowder and his one black friend.

6. Django Unchained

   Leo! You went full ham for this part my man, and I love it! This should be his Oscar, not that other overrated garbage. 

7. Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair

   The first part still reigns Supreme but the second volume works so much better directly after the first than on its own.

8. Jackie Brown

   Some of the funniest Tarantino in this. And he casts an aging Rosie Perez at the center of this thing. Really underrated. 

9. Death Proof

   Texas! Shiner beer! Partially filmed in the town I went to college. Really well crafted homage to a genre. Performances, camera work, and editing all came together to give it an authentic grindhouse feel.

10. Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood

    Rick Fuckin Dalton. Pitt's 20 min solo trip to the ranch was invigorating at exactly the right time of the movie. Pitt v. Bruce Lee, in a story he definitely embellished. And the end, my god, acid trip Pitt was perfect. Save my girl Margot!

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

I attempted a ranking. It was very hard.

1. Rashomon
2. Rear Window
3. Parasite
4. Reservoir Dogs
5. After Hours
6. Rounders
7. Good Will Hunting
8. Rififi
9. Dumb and Dumber
10. The Sandlot

...plus 90 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Miyazaki is the man, but they've put out some other bangers as well that don't get discussed nearly enough.

1. Castle in the Sky
2. Grave of the Fireflies
3. The Wind Rises
4. The Secret World of Arrietty
5. Spirited Away
6. Princess Mononoke
7. Kiki's Delivery Service
8. Howl's Moving Castle
9. Ponyo
10. Whisper of the Heart

...plus 3 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

My favorite actor from ages 9 - 16ish. As such, my list will skew towards that time period in my life with some of his more acclaimed work peppered in. Still enjoy watching him and love his shots at the big time. American treasure.

1. Happy Gilmore

   Top of the heap. Sports, Sandler, Bob Barker. I'm like Stefan, this film has EVERYTHING!

2. Billy Madison

   My first high school girlfriend and I got together because of this movie. It's good. 

3. The Waterboy

   College Football, Adam Sandler, Kathy Bates. Put them in a pot, get some broth, boy you got yourself a stew going. 

4. Uncut Gems

   His most successful trip into serious acting. He transformed into Howard and the Safdie's put him through the ringer. Loved it.

5. 50 First Dates

   Drew Barrymore at her most charming. Sandler's most high concept story. Really heartfelt but still with the excellent Sandler gags. 

6. The Wedding Singer

   Fitting to put both Barrymore's next to each other (both I've seen.) Julia Guglia could never happen.

7. The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected)

   I was late to this film. Feels like Sandler kept the most of himself in this foray into the serious film again. More part of an ensemble here but a quite successful part. 

8. Hustle

   It's Sandler and a bunch of NBA players. He carries the whole thing on his back and is so great.

9. Big Daddy

   This was in the sweet spot of my Sandler fandom. Jon Stewart has a solid role. Scuba Steve!

10. Mr. Deeds

    John Turturro steals the show. That is my Mother. That is my birthday. That is my money? THAT IS MY MONEY!
    
    I'm very very sneaky sir.

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

Original List by Maciej Hutt

Progress - 12/31

Rewatches - 4 (American Psycho, Beetlejuice, Jackie Brown, Barry Lyndon)

Top 5:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Bot 3:
1.
2.
3.

Superlatives:
Favorite Actor:
Favorite Shot:
Favorite Scene:
Favorite Line:

1. A Quiet Place: Day One

   Starring someone from Stranger Things (Joseph Quinn)

2. American Psycho

   A film the previous host Zoey Rose has rated 5 stars

3. Take Me Out to the Ball Game

   I'm 37 so watching a film from 37 years before I was born (1986 - 37 = 1949)

4. An American Werewolf in London

   Features a performer from The Muppets

5. The Last Laugh

   Came out 100 years ago

6. Jailhouse Rock

   Musical

7. Never Cry Wolf

   Forgotten Disney Movie

8. The Kentucky Fried Movie

   On this list, Cinematic Shitposts and “Fuck You” Movies

9. Beetlejuice

   On this list, Live-Action Cartoon Movies list

10. Spun

    Starring Brittany Murphy

...plus 21 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Finished rewatching while listening to Binge Mode, a truly excellent podcast I would recommend to everyone. It's like having two friends that talk ionately about something you love also. If only I could chime in with thoughts as well.

1. Avengers: Endgame

   Epic conclusion to a vision that seemed crazy when it started. This gets my top spot because it satisfyingly ended a huge sweeping story and made me feel every emotion I had. Most TV shows don't end this successfully and they are meant to tell stories like this. Incredible success. 

2. Captain America: Civil War

   Stealth Avengers 3. Black Panther and Spiderman introduced. Pick your side and strap in for a bumpy ride. Besides a finale for the ages, this is the best the MCU has to offer and they offer a lot of good shit. 

3. Thor: Ragnarok

   Hilarious and irreverent take on a character that had been getting stale in his solo films. I was skeptical when I saw the trailer, but Taika delivers one of the best movies this universe can produce. Truly excellent. 

4. Black Panther

   Just so good. We'll miss you Chadwick Boseman. Thanks for making T'Challa the role model the world needs. 

5. Guardians of the Galaxy

   Fun. Action packed. The glue that holds the entire MCU together. What a movie. Who would've thought a film about 4 comic characters that even comic fans barely knew would do so much for the most successful film franchise in history. Stunning achievement. 

6. Avengers: Infinity War

   Ranking stayed the same on a rewatch but rating went up a full star. Just really really good. The new pairings of characters mixed in with some old familiar ones blend well. The pacing keeps all stories afloat, returning to each one in turn right before you forget that part existed. Triumphant filmmaking in an impossible task, great job Feige and Co.

7. Captain America: The Winter Soldier

   Loved the human stories and the biggest threat coming from within. A spy thriller cloaked in a superhero film. What's not to like?

8. Iron Man

   Incredible first entry to an iconic universe. RDJ takes the reins and won't let them go for 23 movies. 

9. The Avengers

   Better than I , perfect new team dynamics and excellent use of humor.

10. Ant-Man

    Hilarious, visually exciting, and a heist movie. Checks all three of my boxes.

...plus 24 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Films from directors interviewed by Sean on The Big Picture. Picked the main film they discussed, but they usually touch on all the films that came before as well. Only put films from the interview segments. If they interviewed someone other than the director that is noted. If others the director then that is noted as well.

• Hidden Figures

  Ep. 1

• 20th Century Women

  Ep. 2

• O.J.: Made in America

  Ep. 3

• Moonlight

  Ep. 4

• A Cure for Wellness

  Ep. 5

• Get Out

  Ep. 6

• The Discovery

  Ep. 7

• Win It All

  Ep. 8

• The Lost City of Z

  Ep. 9

• Free Fire

  Ep. 10

...plus 294 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Last time Zoey Rose hosted I won the raffle the month after. Let's see if lightening can strike twice!

Original List

Progress - 30/30

Rewatches - 2 (The Red Shoes, BASEketball)

Top 5:
1. Escape from Alcatraz
2. Sweet Smell of Success
3. The Night of the Hunter
4. Set it Off
5. Deep Cover

Bot 3:
28. Something in the Dirt
29. The Pianist
30. Trash Humpers

Superlatives:
Favorite Performance: Tony Curtis as Sidney Falco in The Sweet Smell of Success
Favorite Shot: Night of the Hunter playing with shadows
Favorite Scene: Panic attack in Inside Out 2
Favorite Line: "you're excited?!? Feel these nipples!!!" -- Bob Costas in BASEketball

1. The Night of the Hunter

   Last month's host Henry Portable rated 5 stars

2. Down by Law

   On OG Scavenger Hunt creator Wood's watchlist

3. Hit Man

   Choose a prompt from Zoey's previous list

   I chose prompt 27, watch a film from this calendar year

4. We're All Going to the World's Fair

   A film from a trans filmmaker

5. Sweet Smell of Success

   Getting closer to closing a loop on the stats page

   Letterboxd Top 250

6. Am I OK?

   A film matching a prompt from the Queer Film Challenge 2024
   
   I chose prompt 25, A lesbian/WLW/sapphic film directed by a woman.

7. The Pianist

   Most popular movie (that I haven't seen) from a genre that I do not like (War)

8. Escape from Alcatraz

   Movie chosen for another scavenger hunt that I didn't get around to watching

   Scavenger Hunt 55

9. Something in the Dirt

   Asexual/Aromantic character

10. Vagabond

    Top 250 Films Directed by Women

...plus 20 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Ranking Oscar eligible movies for the calendar year of 2022

Below are my choices for the big categories. I'll put my predictions on my Oscar Death List when the noms come out.

Best Picture: Everything Everywhere All At Once
Runner Up: Top Gun Maverick

Best Actor: Colin Farrell
Runner Up: Brendan Fraser

Best Actress: Michelle Williams
Runner Up: Michelle Yeoh

Best ing Actor: Ke Huy Quan
Runner Up: Barry Keoghan

Best ing Actress: Stephanie Hsu
Runner Up: Hong Chau

Best Director: Stephen Spielberg
Runner Up: Daniels

Best Original Screenplay: Everything Everywhere All At Once
Runner Up: Tár

Best Adapted Screenplay: Glass Onion
Runner Up: none

Best Cinematography: Top Gun Maverick
Runner Up: Avatar The Way of Water

Best Animated Feature: Apollo 10 1/2
Runner Up: Guillermo Del Toro's Pinocchio

Best International Feature: RRR
Runner Up: Decision to Leave

Best Documenatry Feature: All the Beauty and the Bloodshed
Runner Up: Navalny

1. Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood

   If any movie knocks this out of the top spot this year it will be a true masterpiece. 

2. Everything Everywhere All at Once

   Only reason this isn't number one is because Richard Linklater makes movies specifically for me alone.

3. Top Gun: Maverick

   Even better than I could've asked for. The action is the best in a movie in years.

4. Close

   A beautiful story told beautifully.

5. Nude Tuesday

   Funniest movie I've seen in a long time. Honestly didn't think I'd ever laugh this hard at a new release again. Bravo Julia Davis.

6. The Banshees of Inisherin

   Best performance of the year Colin Farrell. Must see for that alone.

7. Babylon

   There was not a moment during this film where I wished to be anywhere else in the world. High Art indeed.

8. The Fabelmans

   Heartfelt and exhilarating. Makes me want to go out and make my own movie.

9. Bullet Train

   Wall to Wall fun. Had very high expectations and this met them full stop.

10. The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent

    Funniest movie I've seen at a theater in years. Joyous experience. 

...plus 115 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Haven't been watching movies lately. Trying another hunt to see if I can get back into the groove

Original List by Henry Portable

Progress: 31/31

Rewatches: 5 (Rushmore, Eastern Promises, Tropic Thunder, Broadcast News, Skyfall)

Top 5:
1. Planet of the Apes
2. Wendy and Lucy
3. A Man Escaped
4. Eastern Promises
5. But I'm a Cheerleader

Bottom 3:
1. Shrek the Third
2. Tammy and the T-Rex
3. Cat Person

Superlatives:
Best Performance: Vincent Cassel - Eastern Promises
Best Line: I was once myself a gay. Now I'm an ex-gay. RuPaul in But I'm a Cheerleader
Best Scene: The car/elevated train chase in The French Connection
Best Shot: the final shot of Planet of the Apes

1. Shortcomings

   Directed by an Asian American/Pacific Islander

2. Wendy and Lucy

   Set in Oregon

3. The Fall Guy

   2024 film

4. The Brothers Bloom

   Directed by Rian Johnson who directed a Star Wars film

5. Shrek the Third

   Based on Arthurian folklore

6. Hannah and Her Sisters

   1986 movie

7. Tammy and the T-Rex

   Features a dinosaur

8. The Wicker Man

   Folk Horror

9. New Rose Hotel

   Willem Dafoe

10. Rushmore

    Wes Anderson

...plus 21 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Hangout movie king. Texas legend. One of my favorites.

1. Everybody Wants Some!!

   This film is my life put to screen. I love every bit of this. Another of his trademark eye for new talent. We'll be seeing Glen Powell and Wyatt Russell and Zoey Deutch for years to come. 

2. Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood

   If I had grown up in the late 60s I would have been Sam. It was like seeing my childhood on screen. I love this so much. 

3. Before Sunset

   Wow. Somehow even better than the original. An even more perfect ending and an even more perfect movie. Wow.

4. Before Sunrise

   Masterpiece, never have two people talking been so engrossing. The ending is perfect. The movie is perfect. 

5. Dazed and Confused

   Masterpiece. Everything you want in a summer movie and his now trademark eye for new talent as almost everyone in this is now a star. 

6. School of Rock

   I unabashedly love this movie. A perfect vehicle for Jack Black and his sensibilities. Joan Cusack is perfect. Miranda Cosgrove is perfect. All the kids are amazing musicians and decent enough actors. Beautiful film. 

7. Boyhood

   The dedication to make this film is amazing. Patricia Arquette is phenomenal. The filmed inside Minute Maid Park during the first World Series year (2005) and I smiled so wide through that entire sequence. Linklater makes films just for me sometimes. 

8. Before Midnight

   Devastating finale to the best trilogy ever made. The realities of life and love slap you in the face and I don't think I'm ready for that in any way. 

9. Tape

   Before trilogy light. Since those are all 5 stars a light version is still extremely good.

10. Hit Man

    Really good genre film. Just doesn't quite reach the heights of his other more personal projects.

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

Ranking 2024 Oscar eligible movies plus some others.

My wishes for the Categories I care about:
Best Picture: Past Lives
Best Director: Christopher Nolan
Best Actor: Cillian Murphy
Best Actress: Emma Stone
Best ing Actor: Robert Downey Jr.
Best ing Actress: Ruby Cruz
Best Original Screenplay: Barbie
Best Adapted Screenplay: Oppenheimer
Best Cinematography: Oppenheimer
Best International Feature: (haven't seen enough)
Best Animated Feature: Spiderman Across the Spiderverse

1. Past Lives

   Movie #58 - Jun 24

2. Monster

   Movie #113 - Dec 21

3. All of Us Strangers

   Movie #123 - Jan 19, 2024

4. The Taste of Things

   Movie #125 - Feb 16, 2024

5. Perfect Days

   Movie #130 - Feb 25, 2024

6. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

   Movie #46 - Jun 6

7. Barbie

   Movie #72 - Jul 25

8. Bottoms

   Movie #78 - Sep 5

9. Fallen Leaves

   Movie #117 - Dec 31

10. The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial

    Movie #89 - Nov 1

...plus 128 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Every Cine-nerd's favorite studio

1. Everything Everywhere All at Once
2. Uncut Gems
3. Past Lives
4. Moonlight
5. C'mon C'mon
6. Eighth Grade
7. The Green Knight
8. The Humans
9. The Zone of Interest
10. Beau Is Afraid

...plus 20 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

These are all movies that have heist movie conventions so qualify for the list. The ranking is completely based on my gut where sometimes the heist element takes precedence and other times the overall movie does.

1. Rififi

   The blue print that started it all. The heist in this is still the best heist every committed to screen.

2. Inception

   Heist movie conventions are here with so much more. Probably #5 on my all time faves

3. Ocean's Eleven

   Classic heist movie, so much fun

4. Ocean's Thirteen

   Return to the winning formula after a slight detour with 12

5. Inside Man

   This is so good, great ending, and solid performances from Denzel and Owen

6. The Asphalt Jungle

   The OG heist film. No complaints, it set the bar and has rarely been bested.

7. Reservoir Dogs

   This is so much more than a heist movie. One of my all time faves.

8. Heat

   Classic. 

9. The Usual Suspects

   I am Kaiser Soze

10. Dog Day Afternoon

    Great film overall. So much more than a heist film. Missing a lot of my favorite heist elements, but has so much to offer in other ways. 

...plus 43 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

He's my #1 boy
Ok there are 3 sections:
1-35 Damon is in the lead or co-lead or at least has a significant role. These are ranked by his performance, not by movie.

36-47 are Damon jump scares. He pops up for a few minutes, is delightful, then he's gone. These are ranked by how delightful his popping up is. Euro Trip is an obvious number 1 and you're wrong if you disagree.

48-51 movies I've seen that I don't Damon in. Letterboxd is probably wrong about his presence. These are ranked by movie since I don't him.

1. The Informant!

   This is my favorite and you can't convince me I'm wrong.

2. The Martian

   Probably objectively his best performance 

3. Air

   Basically mixes Mark Watney with Mark Whitacre which is a complete delight.

4. Oppenheimer

   He plays a jerk in this which is not the mode he usually takes. He's great at it! We call that RANGE!

5. Stillwater

   Great body transformation. He embodies the role perfectly. I have some problems with the movie but Damon's performance is top notch. 

6. Rounders

   I've seen this performance more than any other. He's perfect.

7. The Bourne Identity

   Bona-fide action star

8. Good Will Hunting

   It wasn't his fault.

9. Ocean's Thirteen

   The nose plays. 

10. The Departed

    A cog in the machine but it is a really beautiful and greasy cog (greasy cogs work better)

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

FINISHED!!! With an hour to spare.
Progress - 53/53 (38/38 features)

Awards (Prediction - My Pick) (Winner)
Best Picture: Oppenheimer - Past Lives
Best Director: Nolan - Nolan
Best Actor: Murphy - Murphy
Best Actress: Gladstone - Stone
Best ing Actor: Downey - Downey
Best ing Actress: Randolph - Randolph
Best International Feature: The Zone of Interest - The Teacher's Lounge
Best Animated Feature: Spider-Man - Spider-Man (The Boy and the Heron)
Best Documentary: 20 Days in Mariupol - Four Daughters
Best Original Screenplay: Anatomy of a Fall - Past Lives
Best Adapted Screenplay: Oppenheimer - Barbie
Best Cinematography: Oppenheimer - Oppenheimer
Best Film Editing: Oppenheimer - Oppenheimer
Best Visual Effects: Godzilla Minus One - Godzilla Minus One
Best Sound: Oppenheimer - The Zone of Interest
Best Original Score: Oppenheimer - Killers of the Flower Moon
Best Production Design: Poor Things - Barbie
Best Costume Design: Poor Things - Poor Things
Best Makeup and Hairstyling: Poor Things - Poor Things
Best Original Song: What Was I Made For? - Wahzhazhe
Best Live Action Short: The Wonderful World of Henry Sugar - The Wonderful World of Henry Sugar
Best Animated Short: WAR! What is it Good For? - Pachyderme
Best Documentary Short: The ABCs of Book Banning - Nai Nai and Wai Po (The Last Repair Shop)

1. Oppenheimer
2. The Holdovers
3. Killers of the Flower Moon
4. Barbie
5. Poor Things
6. Maestro
7. American Fiction
8. Anatomy of a Fall
9. The Zone of Interest
10. Past Lives

...plus 43 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Villeneuve is officially on the opening night list.

1. Arrival

   Slow burn film that doesn't make an impact at first, but leaves you continually thinking about it for long after. It grows on you quickly even without a rewatch. Real masterpiece work. 

2. Incendies

   Really fucked up story of a family torn apart by war, religion, and circumstance. 

3. Dune

   After Part 2 I could see this being a combined favorite for Villeneuve, for now the three spot is the best I can do.

4. Sicario

   Masterpiece in action filmmaking, great story with complex characters working in the gray the entire time.

5. Prisoners

   Excellent world building with beautiful shots and an interesting mystery thriller to keep you tense and interested throughout. 

6. Dune: Part Two
7. Enemy

   Goes from WTF to growing inside your brain and taking root. Expect this to move up the list with rewatches in the future. 

8. Blade Runner 2049

   A bit disappointing, but I didn't love the original either so maybe just not for me. Really highlights Villanueve's trouble with female characters. 

9. Maelström

   Some inklings of what was to come from Villeneuve but this is too rough to be entertaining to today's audience. 

10. Polytechnique

    Disappointing story I was excited to see told but Villenueve loses the perspective and ends up giving way too much voice to the men in a story about women victims, too bad. 

Still the shortest month even in a leap year.

Original List by Sean

Progress: 6/29

Rewatches: Babylon, Bull Durham, The Lobster, The Talented Mr. Ripley, A History of Violence

Top 5:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Bottom 3:
1.
2.
3.

Superlatives:
Favorite Performance:
Favorite Scene:
Favorite Shot:
Favorite Line:

1. eXistenZ

   On this list of Weirdo Movies for Beginners

2. El Conde

   Movie I didn't get to on a previous Scavenger Hunt

3. The Eternal Memory

   Under 90 minutes

4. Babylon

   Over 150 minutes

5. Better Days

   Movie Hideo Kojima mentioned on Twitter

6. Reprise

   Shuffle watchlist on first row

7. Kung Fu Panda

   Starring an actor who also does music (Jack Black)

8. Virtuosity

   Uses internet/television and/or phones as a narrative device

9. Lift

   Heist movie

10. Totally Killer

    Horror-comedy

...plus 19 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Back after a brief hiatus. Excited to do another one of these and get back into the habit of watching films regularly.

Thanks to Gigi Bell for the Original List

Progress - 27/31

Rewatches:

Top 5:
1. Eat Drink Man Woman
2. All of Us Strangers
3. Upgrade
4. Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai
5. American Fiction

Bottom 3:
1. Cat People
2. Foe
3. Chaplin

Superlatives:
Favorite Performance(s): Andrew Scott - All of Us Strangers, Sterling K Brown - American Fiction
Favorite Scene: Adam solo convo with his dad - All of Us Strangers
Favorite Shot: The Commandant in the garden with the red flaming smoke stack in the background - The Zone of Interest

1. The Quick and the Dead

   Leonardo Dicaprio

2. The Teachers' Lounge

   2023 Release

3. Millennium Actress

   Movie about movies

4. American Fiction

   Adaptation

5. Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai

   1999

6. Cat People

   David Bowie on the soundtrack

7. Aguirre, the Wrath of God

   Werner Herzog

8. El Conde

   Latin American movie

9. Watching the Detectives

   Cillian Murphy

10. The Secret of Kells

    Irish

...plus 21 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Going back in time to complete more challenges.
Original List by Community
Progress - 20/31
Rewatches - 4 (Good Will Hunting, Big, Lethal Weapon, Schindler's List)
Top 5:
1. Jeanne Dielman
2. The Straight Story
3. Tucker and Dale vs. Evil
4.
5.
Bot 3:
1. Mac and Me
2.
3.
Favorite Performance: Richard Farnsworth - The Straight Story
Favorite Shot:
Favorite Scene:
Favorite Line:

1. Evil Dead

   Film from long running horror franchise

   Starz

2. The Straight Story

   Harry Dean Stanton

   Disney+

3. Good Will Hunting

   Autumn vibes
   
   Starz

4. The Brothers Grimm

   Set in  
   
   HBO

5. Mac and Me

   0% on Rotten Tomatoes
   
   Paul Rudd this is your fault, I must know what happens before and after that clip.
   
   Showtime

6. Big

   Gender flipped born sexy yesterday

7. Skate Kitchen

   Movie about skateboarding
   
   Hulu

8. Lethal Weapon

   Uses the song Bad to the Bone
   
   HBO

9. Test Pattern

   Under 90 minutes

   Starz

10. It's a Wonderful Life

    Exemplifies one of the seven virtues (Hope)
    
    Amazon

...plus 21 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Hoping to keep up better than I did in 2022. Still planning on finishing 2022, but definitely will be doing some cramming. I've started a collection of physical media from Criterion so I'm probably going to include some rewatches so I have a reason to bust out my Criterion editions.

Original List by Ben

Rewatches - Blood Simple, Tampopo, Anatomy of a Murder, The Player, Drive My Car

Progress - 35/52

Top 10:
1. Harakiri
2. I, Daniel Blake
3. Being There
4. Secret Sunshine
5. Graduation
6. Pale Flower
7. A Brief History of Time
8. The Blot
9. Daddy Longlegs
10. Opening Night

Bot 5:
1. Sanshiro Sugata Part 2
2. Topsy-Turvy
3. Two Days, One Night
4. Walkabout
5. The Phantom Carriage

Favorite Performance:
Favorite shot:
Favorite scene:
Favorite line:
(Might add more superlatives later)

1. Graduation

   My random number

   Criterion Spine #924

2. Two Days, One Night

   Belgium

   Criterion Spine #771

3. A Brighter Summer Day

   Taiwan

   Criterion Spine #804

4. The Daytrippers

   Canada

   Criterion Spine #1001

5. Ossos

   Portugal

   Criterion Spine #509

6. Au Hasard Balthazar

   Animals

   Criterion Spine #297

7. Tokyo Story

   Film to fall asleep to

   Criterion Spine #217

8. Trances

   Black Music Films

   Criterion Spine #689

9. Black Is… Black Ain’t

   Black Lives Collection

   Criterion Spine #1082 (Part of The Signifyin' Works of Marlon Riggs Box Set)

10. Mississippi Masala

    Films to watch when you're questioning Love

    Criterion Spine #1127

...plus 42 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Just saw Blade Runner for the first time and decided I needed to rank him

1. Gladiator

   Lot of nostalgia here, but this film is so good, and Phoenix is one of the greatest villains ever. 

2. Alien

   Phenomenal monster movie. Top notch performance from Weaver

3. The Last Duel

   Excellent. Lets keep Ridley in the past.

4. The Martian

   Put Damon by himself and let him do his thing, great stuff 

5. Thelma & Louise

   Icons. Need to find my ride or die.

6. Blade Runner

   Seminal scifi film, not as good as I wanted it to be

7. Prometheus

   Not as good as alien, but I'm a Lindleof stan so I still love this. Need to rewatch.

8. The Duellists
9. American Gangster

   Bad Denzel is the best Denzel

10. Alien: Covenant

    Interesting Fassbender performance as an android.

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

Absolute master, close to number 1 in appearances in my top 100. Not on this list, but Mindhunter is a masterpiece of television as well.

1. The Social Network

   Perfect film, no notes.

2. Zodiac

   Incredible entry into the serial killer genre. Basically perfect film.

3. Gone Girl

   One of the most chilling characters brought to screen. Expected less, got way more in this film.

4. Fight Club

   Incredible film. A little dude bro now, but still near masterpiece level.

5. Se7en

   My first in an ongoing love affair with David Fincher

6. Panic Room

   Underrated. 2 great performances and the camera work is mesmerizing.

7. The Killer
8. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

   Some very interesting shots in this, but more forgettable than most of his.

9. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

   This is fine. Nothing special

10. Mank

    I'm hoping I was just not in the mood for this on a first watch. I'll give this another shot soon. Loved Oldman.

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

Trailers viewed before movies I've watched in theaters ranked by number of times seen.

A few weird one's on here that I saw before movies at the museum that they were screening later that month

1. Transformers: Rise of the Beasts

   13 times

   Puss in Boots at Cinemark
   Scream VI at Cinemark
   Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Theives at Cinemark
   The Super Mario Bros. Movie at Cinemark
   A Thousand and One at Cinemark
   Air at Cinemark
   Suzume at Cinemark
   Renfield at Cinemark
   Beau is Afriad at Cinemark
   How to Blow Up a Pipeline at Cinemark
   Guardians of the Galaxy Part 3 at Cinemark
   Spiderman: Across the Spiderverse at Cinemark
   The Boogeyman at Cinemark

2. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem

   12 times

   Shazam Fury of the Gods at Cinemark
   Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Theives at Cinemark
   The Super Mario Bros. Movie at Cinemark
   Are You There God? It's Me Margaret at Cinemark
   Spiderman: Across the Spiderverse at Cinemark
   Transformers: Rise of the Beasts at Cinemark
   The Blackening at Cinemark
   Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning Part 1 at Cinemark
   Indiana Jones and The Dial of Destiny at Cinemark
   Joy Ride at Cinemark
   Barbie at Cinemark
   Theater Camp at Cinemark

3. The Flash

   11 times

   A Good Person at Regal
   Shazam Fury of the Gods at Cinemark
   Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Theives at Cinemark
   Beau is Afriad at Cinemark
   Showing Up at Regal
   Sisu at Cinemark
   Guardians of the Galaxy Part 3 at Cinemark
   Hypnotic at Cinemark
   Fast X at Cinemark
   Spiderman: Across the Spiderverse at Cinemark
   Sanctuary at Regal

4. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3

   9 times

   Missing at Cinemark
   Knock at the Cabin at Cinemark
   Ant Man and the Wasp Quantumania at Cinemark
   Close at Regal
   The Super Mario Bros. Movie at Cinemark
   A Thousand and One at Cinemark
   Beau is Afriad at Cinemark
   How to Blow Up a Pipeline at Cinemark
   Showing Up at Regal

5. Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

   8 times

   A Man Called Otto at Cinemark
   Ant Man and the Wasp Quantumania at Cinemark
   Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon at Cinemark
   Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre at Cinemark
   Scream VI at Cinemark
   Champions at Cinemark
   John Wick 4 at Cinemark
   Shazam Fury of the Gods at Cinemark

6. Chevalier

   8 times

   Saint Omer at AMC
   Corsage at Regal
   Living at Cinemark
   Alice, Darling at AMC
   Magic Mike 3 at Cinemark
   Scream VI at Cinemark
   Champions at Cinemark
   Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Theives at Cinemark

7. Evil Dead Rise

   8 times

   Missing at Cinemark
   Women Talking at Cinemark
   Infinity Pool at Cinemark
   Magic Mike 3 at Cinemark
   Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon at Cinemark
   Luther: The Fallen Sun at Cinemark
   Scream VI at Cinemark
   Renfield at Cinemark

8. Fast X

   8 times

   Ant Man and the Wasp Quantumania at Cinemark
   Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre at Cinemark
   Creed III at Cinemark
   Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Theives at Cinemark
   A Thousand and One at Cinemark
   Air at Cinemark
   Showing Up at Regal
   Sisu at Cinemark

9. Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning

   8 times

   Sisu at Cinemark
   Hypnotic at Cinemark
   Fast X at Cinemark
   You Hurt My Feelings at Cinemark
   Transformers: Rise of the Beasts at Cinemark
   Past Lives at Cinemark
   Asteroid City at Cinemark
   No Hard Feelings at Cinemark

10. The Last Voyage of the Demeter

    8 times

    Renfield at Cinemark
    How to Blow Up a Pipeline at Cinemark
    Hypnotic at Cinemark
    The Boogeyman at Cinemark
    Sanctuary at Regal
    Transformers: Rise of the Beasts at Cinemark
    Oppenheimer at AMC
    Talk to Me at Cinemark

...plus 128 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Movies eligible for the 2021 Oscars that I have seen.
Oscars (categories I care about):
Best Director: Christopher Nolan (don't @ me)
Best Original Screenplay: Minari
Best Adapted Screenplay: The Father
Best Actor: Chadwick Boseman
Best Actress: s McDormand
Best ing Actor: Paul Raci
Best ing Actress: Yuh Jung Youn
Best International Feature: Another Round
Best Documentary: Boys State
Best Animated Feature: Soul
Best Cinematography: Nomadland
Best Sound: Sound of Metal (don't traditionally care about this category but what Sound of Metal did with sound is extraordinary)


Razzies
Worst Performance: Blu Hunt
Worst Director: Alex Lee Moyer

1. Tenet

   It's Nolan. Saw it one the big screen after a 6 month Covid layoff. This is easily my favorite of the year. 

2. Minari

   Beautiful tale of a family struggling to make it. I miss my grandma right now. 

3. Another Round

   Teachers day drinking to get through the day? Sign me up.

4. Nomadland

   Beautiful film about some not so beautiful situations. Reminds me a lot of my parents and got to have a great conversation with them after we watched this separately. That's what special films are all about. 

5. Soul

   Pixar is still undefeated

6. Sound of Metal

   Sound design is incredible. Riz is amazing. Really effective and one of the best of the year. 

7. Mangrove

   Move over Trial of the Chicago 7, there's a new sheriff in town. 

8. The Assistant

   Devastating look at a Weinstein type workplace. 

9. Palm Springs

   Great take on the time loop story. Samburg and Milioti shine. 

10. Boys State

    Fascinating look at a situation intended to be Lord of the Flies and how they live up to and buck that moniker.

...plus 76 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Beginning to think I have a list making compulsion
Original list by wood
Rewatches: 1 (Blackhat)
Progress: 26/31
Top 5:
1. After Hours
2. Citizen Kane
3. Tenet
4. Casablanca
5. Cinema Paradiso
Worst 3:
1. Porky's
2. Fatal Attraction
3. The Lodge

1. Modern Times

   Silent

   HBO

2. The Lodge

   Hammer horror

   HULU

3. The Big Sleep

   Film noir

4. Invasion of the Body Snatchers

   50s sci-fi

5. Django

   Spaghetti western

6. New York, New York

   New Hollywood

7. Dolemite

   Blaxploitation

8. Gremlins

   80s horror

   HBO

9. Porky's

   80s teen comedy

   Amazon

10. Eyes Wide Shut

    90s indie

    Showtime

...plus 21 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

This one will be interesting
Original List by samuel_shovel
Progress - 21/31
Rewatches - 3 (Django Unchained, Inglourious Basterds, Erin Brockovich)
Top 5:
1. Top Gun Maverick
2. Cronos
3. Doctor Strange 2
4. In the Heat of the Night
5. Pleasure
Bot 3:
1. Moonfall
2. It's a Disaster
3. Rocky V
Favorite performance: Rod Steiger - In the Heat of the Night
Favorite shot: Angel drinking the blood off the bathroom floor - Cronos
Favorite scene: 2 on 1 dogfight at the end of Top Gun Maverick
Favorite line: "Sex in high school is so 90s." - Vada in The Fallout

1. Moonfall

   Sci fi in our solar system

2. In the Heat of the Night

   Won an Edgar Allan Poe award for best mystery screenplay

3. In the Line of Fire

   Unclear and Present Danger podcast master list

4. McCabe & Mrs. Miller

   Features Rene Auberjonois from the main cast of Deep Space Nine

5. Cronos

   Mexican director

6. Killer's Kiss

   Film noir from the classic era

7. Django Unchained

   Filmed in New Orleans

8. Madadayo

   Director's last film

9. Downton Abbey: A New Era

   Has a horse in it

10. Murder on the Orient Express

    Train movie

...plus 21 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Hadn't heard of this man before and he's managed to shoot up the ranks of my favorite directors.

1. Secrets & Lies
2. Another Year
3. Life Is Sweet
4. Naked
5. Topsy-Turvy

Sort of like PTA he's a bit of an enigma for me, but I'm committed to figuring him out and finding my favorite.

1. 2001: A Space Odyssey

   A classic in every sense of the word. Haven't seen it in so long. Need to rewatch soon.

   Edit: Rewatched it. Easily number 1. What was I think putting this masterpiece at number 4?

2. The Shining

   Nicholson at his best and Kubrick at his creepiest (maybe?) One of the few horror genre films I genuinely like. 

3. Barry Lyndon

   3 hours of shots that look like paintings, hilarity in watching a bumbling fool fall backwards to the top, and the idiocy and brutality of the period.

4. Full Metal Jacket

   First half is my favorite film of all time, second half I fell asleep. Need to rewatch this. 
   

5. A Clockwork Orange

   Well if it's not The Shining then this is definitely the creepiest. Another where the first half far outweighs the second. I'll have nightmares about the little bit if ultra violence and the good ole in out in out. 

6. Paths of Glory

   What started as a typical war movie morphed into something else entirely and blew me away. Black comedy and rage inducing scenes test your range of emotions. 

7. The Killing

   A Kubrick heist film, who could ask for anything more? Non linear style you say? Pump this into my veins.

8. Eyes Wide Shut

   Way too enigmatic for me on a first watch. Some exhilarating scenes, mostly at the party, but too much dragging for me to put this higher. 

9. Lolita

   Stellar performances and a great first hour but its brought down by the dour second half and a confusing opening scene.

10. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

    I know there is a strong satire here but it didn't work for me at all. I had way more questions at the end than answers. Not always a bad thing but I had no satisfaction at the end of this.

Birthday month! Very busy time of year for me but mama didn't raise no quitter. The hunt will be done.

Original List by Kelli Madden

Progress - 14/30

Rewatches - 2 (Uncut Gems, Clerks 2)

Top 5 New Watches:
1. A Simple Plan
2.
3.
4.
5.

Bot 3
1.
2.
3.

Favorite performance: Billy Bob Thornton in A Simple Plan
Favorite scene:
Favorite shot:
Favorite line:

1. A Simple Plan

   Criminal cover up

2. Princess from the Moon

   In Crap in Space list

3. Jubilee

   Time travel not classified as science fiction on LB

4. Houseguest

   Features Sinbad

5. The Woman King

   Fraternity or Sorority (a stretch but I think it works)

6. Morbius

   Features Jared Leto

7. Rabid

   Hospital horror

8. They'll Love Me When I'm Dead

   Making of Documentary

9. Long Weekend

   Mother nature primary villain

10. Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale

    Krampus

...plus 20 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

The scavenger hunt centennial is finally here. What a ride it has been.

Original List by Community

Rewatches - 3 (Mission: Impossible, Moneyball, The Sound of Music)

Progress: 29/31

Top 5:
1. Past Lives
2. They Live
3. Through a Glass Darkly
4. Barbie
5. Oppenheimer

Bot 3:
29. Ghosted
30. Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
31. Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey

Superlatives:
Best Scene: The ending of Past Lives (the camera movement!)
Best Performance: Harriet Andersson in Through a Glass Darkly
Best Line: Theory will only take you so far. -Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer

1. The White Tiger

   Shuffle watchlist and watch 8th movie that comes up

2. Shrek

   You haven't seen that (popular film)

   Most popular film on LB that I haven't seen

3. Your Place or Mine

   Actress I had a crush on as a kid

4. Past Lives

   On the Women Directors: The Official Top 250 Narrative Feature Films list

5. Highlander

   In someone I follow's Top 4

   Knthrak

6. The Law

   Movie from a country I haven't seen one from

   Burkina Faso

7. The Underneath

   Movie I haven't seen from a director I like

8. Mission: Impossible

   First movie from an anthology/trilogy/franchise

9. The Death of Dick Long

   Edited by the Editor of one of my Top 4

10. Moneyball

    Movie I want shown at my funeral

...plus 21 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

My criteria to make this list is that the film must be eligible to compete for Best Picture at the Academy Awards presented in 2022.
My Picks for the Oscars (in the categories I care about) if I was the Oscar Czar (bad term, sorry) regardless of nomination status.
Best Picture: Dune
Best Director: Denis Velleneuve
Best Actor: Nicolas Cage
Best Actress: Jodie Comer
Best ing Actor: Kodi Smit Mhee
Best ing Actress: Ann Dowd
Best Original Screenplay: Mass
Best Adapted Screenplay: The Last Duel
Best Cinematography: The Tragedy of Macbeth
Best International Feature: Drive My Car

1. Dune

   Epic and beautiful. Might end up being my number 1 before the year is done.

   
   

   Only took a week to make number 1. Damn this is good.

2. The Last Duel

   Rashomon homage and Jodie Comer take this one to the moon.

3. Riders of Justice

   Apparently eligible for the 2022 Oscars. Now one of my front runners that has no chance at winning or getting nominated for anything. 

4. Drive My Car

   Stunning screenplay, stunning performances. Going to watch this many times the rest of my life and expect to feel and learn something different each time. 

5. Nine Days

   Don't be a cynical jerk and enjoy the emotional journey this film will take you on.

6. Red Rocket

   Yes I'm easily pleased when I see my hometown depicted on screen. 

7. Pig

   Nicolas Cage is good.

8. CODA

   This is how you make a grown man cry for 30 minutes. 

9. Mass

   Excellently performed and written treatise on grief

10. Belfast

    Great cinematography that mirrors the child like story it is trying to tell. Branaugh put himself on the map in this house.

...plus 120 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.