4v291o

Oozing cool energy the entire time.

Solid thriller but doesn't reach the heights of Hitchcock's best. The screenplay in particular is pretty weak.

A lot to appreciate here. The first act in particular is very good at getting your stomach to churn several times in rapid succession as you put together just how fucked the entire situation is.

Robin Williams obviously does a great job, and Weir's direction is another strong point. That said, I couldn't click with this one quite as hard as most people. The message is agreeable and not especially interesting, and (as I've seen some people argue), there are occasional veers into anti-intellectualism. Engaging with the humanities on ones own , shirking outside analysis, and emphasizing "ion" over all else is pretty much everything wrong with how most people view art, history, etc.

Watched with (who else?) my dad. Looks good and has enough laughs to keep its head above water, but more than eclipsed by comedy that's come after it.

Overtly spiteful-bordering-on-mean, which makes sense when you learn that it was written by a woman who participated in beauty pageants in MN herself. Remains incredibly funny, and not lacking a heart.

Watched with (among others) a friend I also saw Gummo with, which is a similarly visceral portrayal of poverty. Where Gummo is strange and apocalyptic, though, Meantime is mundane; an early observation I had, which pretty much holds through throughout the film, is that this is a movie about things almost happening. Scene after scene, the characters consider doing something, and then ultimately decide not to. Strikingly apt in portraying the real-life experience of feeling aimless and with too much time on your hands.

This review may contain spoilers.

What makes Lone Star stand out for me is that, when you get down to it, this is a movie about historiography. As any historian will tell you, "history" as a subject isn't just the pure facts of history, but rather the narratives we construct around them, which often fail to paint a complete picture.

Specifically focused on in Lone Star is a pattern you see quite a bit in American history: there's an accepted narrative that's sanitized, romantic, and dubious, which leads one to react with the opposite narrative, while the truth remains more murky and complicated than almost anyone is willing to accept. There's a scene early on where the townspeople are arguing about how to teach Texan history in school — the "Anglos" present see a story of heroic triumph, and a Chicano man counters by saying that the state was founded to protect slavery. Pilar, who's in hot water for not teaching the conventional narrative, says the slavery narrative too is an oversimplification.

The same dynamic plays out with Sam trying to piece together the story of his father, Buddy. The accepted story of Buddy, in which he told off the old sheriff so brutally the man fled the county (with stolen money in tow), is obviously false. But Sam's counter, in which his father is a corrupt murderer, is hardly closer to the truth. In the end, reality proves more nuanced than anyone imagined, and the implications of that are so striking that Sam chooses to ignore them entirely.

Pushes a lot of my specific horror buttons, specifically the very cohesive and explicicable nature of the threat — everything, down to the origin, is explained in some detail. Also does a great job with the setting of a coastal small town; pretty much seems like my hometown but with crabs instead of scallops.

It's alright, but has faded more and more in my mind since leaving the theater. A lot of weird plot holes, overexplaining, mixed messaging, and choppy editing. That one scene is still crazy though.

I couldn't tell what was happening most of the time so I think hiroshi will like this. It is good, though.

A successful capitalist discovering beauty on the beach of a town that wants nothing more than to sell out — the grass is always greener on the other side. A beautiful and hilarious film.

This review may contain spoilers.

Usually, when I change my internal "rating" of a movie after reflecting on it, my rating goes up. Something that seemed a little complicated or tedious looks better once I've considered what everything was doing in the context of the film's ultimate point.

Underground is weird in that for me, the exact opposite happened. I really enjoyed watching it — the script and direction is pretty impeccable — but the more I've thought of it, the more the whole film feels sort of... hollow. And as important as everything technical is, I don't know if I can fully appreciate it in the context of a message that's ultimately vapid at best and much darker at worst.

The whole third act is set in the Yugoslav wars, and, famously, the film was made in the middle of said wars. This is also where its problems became more apparent. Blacky, one of the movie's protagonists, leads a militia, fighting "Chetniks" and "Ustaše" while, explicitly, not being aligned with any side in the war. There are scenes of terrible violence, including against civilians, but who? Where?

The more I think about it, the less Kusturica seems to be saying anything of substance. Is he critiquing Yugo-nostalgia? The image of a bunch of people imprisoned by their belief that WW2 is happening, spurred on by a government official, seems to imply that. But the movie ends declaring that the story of Yugoslavia "has no end," with fairly heavy-handed cries for unity spread throughout the movie. All one can really take away is fairly obvious stuff like "war is bad" and "corruption is bad." Kusturica doesn't exactly seem to be a political genius (he has a quote saying he'd hate Putin if he were British, but vote for him if he were Russian, which is embarrassingly vapid), and this is especially apparent in his treatment of the war. Ethnicities other than Serbs are barely mentioned, and the Yugoslav Wars seem to be a consequence of everyone spontaneously going insane. If Kusturica is aware of anything that makes the story more complicated, he doesn't think it's worth showing here.

This all takes on a darker tone in the context of Underground being funded by the Yugoslav state (as it ed ethnic cleansing in Bosnia). To be clear, I don't think this is full-blown propaganda, but quite a bit is at least questionable. In being "apolitical," Kusturica makes no attempt to criticize the genocidal government that was "Yugoslavia" by the time Underground was made. It's a shame the clearly remarkable artistic talent displayed here is all in service of something so tepid, in a time and a place that calls for much more.

Extremely human — people throughout a lot of this one act very "real" in a way you don't often see on film. Loses points for some soap opera-y plot points that contrast with the aforementioned naturalism, but still great overall. I don't know that I've ever found a character's choice as painfully relatable as the boyfriend trying to logically figure out who's sending the letters because he has to know and in doing so totally ruining the emotionality of it.

Good call from my father. Possibly the most heavy-handed movie ever made, but not in a bad way. Absurdly good cinematography.

Thanks, Xas.

Watched on Friday May 16, 2025.

Absolutely wild colors at play

Watched on Tuesday May 13, 2025.

Watched on Tuesday April 29, 2025.

the woman who personally runs one of the largest settlement agencies in the region literally says "it's a complicated issue" at one point

Watched on Sunday April 27, 2025.

everyone in this has a sort of Richard Scarry-esque identifiable role like "racist" or "soccer mom"

Scarier than most horror, and funnier than most comedy.

Watched on Friday April 11, 2025.

A solid thinker; every time I thought I had grasped the meaning, something popped up that completely contradicted that reading. Also managed to capture my attention much, much, more effectively than most slow cinema I've seen.

Fairly blunt but that isn't a bad thing. Much more comedy than I expected, and actually pretty funny. Loses points on lighting.

Decided on a whim to watch on an airplane, and very glad I did. Absolutely hilarious and one of the few movies with the stones to take an outright "drugs are good" position.

Watched on Wednesday April 2, 2025.

Watched on Monday March 31, 2025.

Impressively awful. Pretty much the entire plot occurs in the last 20 minutes or so. One non-white person is on screen in the entire movie and it's Little Richard. Mst3k obviously enhances the experience.

we really have always been this fucking stupid huh

Am I stupid or does this movie not make any sense? Specifically around 30-40 minutes in the plot becomes a complete mess

REALLY fuck with the last two segments.

Watched this in basically one sitting, throwing the first episode on on a whim and finding myself totally unable to put it down. Getting interviews with Milošević, Karadžić, Tuđman, Izetbegović, Kučan, and Bulatović, as well as several other major players, is pretty incredible; imagine a WW2 Doc that had interviews with Hitler, Stalin, Roosevelt, etc. As a film, pretty close to ideal for the information-heavy, interview-y style of facts based documentary; consistently engaging and highly informative. I also liked the part where they worked out a major issue during Dayton by getting Milošević drunk and walking him through the territory on flight simulator.

Watched on Thursday March 13, 2025.

Yeah, it's good. Spends a little too long getting to obvious plot beats, but a fully solid comedy overall.

"It's louder, and scarier, and a lot more dangerous."
"Sounds fantastic."

Recent events have me thinking about conservativism a lot more, and I've always thought that a lot of (at least American) conservatism basically boils down to a denial of complexity — the world just can't be anything more than I see it as being on its face. Pleasantville is a movie about both social change (and the backlash it incurs) and growing up; the world makes less sense, and the lows are lower, but you discover a whole new universe of deep, ionate feeling. Those who try to stop Pleasantville from changing are at the end of the day raging against the idea that the world might be complicated and nuanced, which feels strikingly familiar.

Watched on Monday March 10, 2025.

This review may contain spoilers.

Did half the top reviews just not watch this movie to the end lmao

Every single "stoner movie": Protagonist is a boring loser, minimal agency in the story, clearly stupid.

Boozer Film (The Thin Man): A couple who are in love solve a murder through their genius while day drinking constantly.

Curious.

Watched on Thursday March 6, 2025.

The Ellie Goulding scene lmfao

Officially on team "the ending is genius"

Kind of a weird movie to matter to me, but not in a bad way. Both leads were involved in David Lynch projects.

Very fun! Proud to say I clocked Igor as chill from the start.

Watched on Saturday February 22, 2025.

Pretty ingenious. Anti-fascism that works by showing what is for all intents and purposes a fascist utopia — and it sucks! The corny Archie comics stuff in Act 1 feels very Lynchian.

A lot to love here, although some of the plot feels a bit questionable (as some have pointed out, Moore blatantly never benefits from taking the substance). Lighting and photography are standouts.

Not really good or bad, just kind of there. I can't say I was particularly impressed by anything in Wicked, but on the flip side the lighting is the only thing I'd really point to and say it was outright poorly done.

• Blue Velvet
• Videodrome
• Local Hero
• Lone Star
• Matewan
• Annie Hall
• Starship Troopers
• Body Double
• The Red Shoes
• Stalker

...plus 54 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

All films I have given 5 stars to; not in any particular order. No shorts, TV shows, etc.

• Hot Fuzz
• 12 Angry Men
• Lawrence of Arabia
• The Lives of Others
• Hard Boiled
• The Bridge on the River Kwai
• Rear Window
• The Truman Show
• Spirited Away
• The Godfather

...plus 59 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• On 'Orientalism'
• The Death of Yugoslavia
• Plague at the Golden Gate
• Umm Kulthum: A Voice Like Egypt
• Rachel Carson
• Louis Theroux: The Settlers

1. I'm Still Here
2. Hit Man
3. Kneecap
4. Conclave
5. Anora
6. The Substance
7. Monkey Man
8. Longlegs
9. Dune: Part Two
10. I Saw the TV Glow

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

1. Seven Samurai
2. Neon Genesis Evangelion: The End of Evangelion
3. Chungking Express
4. 2001: A Space Odyssey
5. Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai
6. The Searchers
7. The Night of the Hunter
8. The Celebration
9. After Hours
10. Parasite

...plus 184 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Documentaries I watched in 2024

• Dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y
• Triumph of the Will
• Man with a Movie Camera
• Louis Theroux: The Ultra Zionists
• The Act of Killing
• Grizzly Man
• Don't F**k with Cats: Hunting an Internet Killer
• Baby Reindeer
• REFORM!
• Louis Theroux: Louis and the Nazis

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

Movies I saw in 2024 that (for various reasons) I can't just place in my main ranked list. Art films, early cinema, most documentaries, etc.

• Dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y
• The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat
• Black Diamond Express
• Railroad Smashup
• Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory
• Feeding the Doves
• Going to the Fire
• A Trip to the Moon
• Life of an American Fireman
• Kuleshov Effect

...plus 53 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

My attempt to get into the horror genre this October

1. Lake Mungo
2. Evil Dead II
3. The Shining
4. Scream
5. Halloween
6. Possession
7. The Thing
8. An American Werewolf in London
9. American Psycho
10. The Exorcist

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

• Baby Reindeer
• Neon Genesis Evangelion

Some of these weren't logged properly because I didn't realize how the app works. In order of watch date.

• Airplane!
• Avatar: The Way of Water
• The Long Riders
• Akira
• 12 Angry Men
• John Wick
• Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy
• Goldfinger
• The Producers
• History of the World: Part I

...plus 132 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

A movie being on this list doesn't mean I don't (or do) still like it

• The Adventures of Robin Hood
• Paul Blart: Mall Cop
• Raiders of the Lost Ark
• Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
• Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
• Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
• Duck Soup
• Safety Last!
• The Princess Bride
• Star Wars

...plus 26 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.