4v291o

Wow, I think this is a first.

Watching Andor before Rogue One simultaneously enriches the experience but also makes the film pale in comparison.

Enriches because suddenly you actually care about these people, which ittedly was always a weakness with Rogue One. I cheered when Cassian called out Melshi. The slight smile Mon Mothma makes when she finds out that iral Raddus took a fleet out to Scarif is magnified x 1000 knowing everything she's been through. Everything K2SO says gets louder laughs. Krennic getting force choked by Vader is so much more satisfying after everything he did to Partagaz and Dedra. Cassian actually feels like he shares this movie with Jyn now. REBELLIONS ARE BUILT ON HOPE means so much more now because it came from the Ghorman bellhop! Even Saw Gerrera's demise made me a little sad, and I hate Forest Whitaker's performance in this movie!

Pales because without Andor's ideology, this is pretty much another Star Wars shoot-em-up movie. The tragedy, the complicated ways rebellions work, the underlining of "what are we fighting for" are absent in this film. In fact, it works better if you look at this as a two-hour epic finale to the series, a la Game of Thrones, because then it feels all of that is one with this. Props to Gareth Edwards though because this shit is incredibly shot (also because he worked with Gilroy on reshoots, putting his ego aside).

I watched this again because of Andor, and now I want to continue on to A New Hope. Times like these I am reminded of how much I truly loved that Galaxy Far, Far Away; how it built worlds I would want to revisit again and again with characters I genuinely cared about. I haven’t felt that since… A Long Time Ago.

In my final year in college, I found myself obsessed with two artists.

The first one: Björk Guðmundsdóttir. I it, I found her really annoying in HIgh School, to the point that I kind of hated her. Then I heard "Venus as a Boy". Then she released Post. Then, that Spike Jonze video of "It's Oh So Quiet". And then, Homogenic, a truly miraculous album. When she released her duet with Thom Yorke, "I've Seen It All" from this movie, game over. I was obsessed. I'd seen Björk live four times since, but my favorite will always be watching her in that Swan Dress singing that song in Madison Square Garden.

The second one: Lars Von Trier. It wasn't the films per se, but there was just something about being Le Enfant Terrible of modern cinema. I honestly don't think any other filmmaker called that since has come close. The ethos and attitude of Dogme 95, the audacity of The Kingdom, the undeniable brilliance of Breaking The Waves. I searched out all the old stuff: watching Zentropa on Laserdisc and buying a blind Criterion of The Element of Crime. I still have a bootleg VHS of Epidemic lying around somewhere. I named my dog Lars Von Terrier, Erwin named his Vinterberg. Together they were the DOGme brothers, who lived in DOGville. Get it? LOLOLOLOL.

I was always a weird kid, and these were my weird King and Queen. You can imagine how glorious it was for me watching Dancer in The Dark for the first time.

GUYS, I KNOW THIS MOVIE IS DEPRESSING AS FUCK. My wife and I got into a fight in the Grab home because she told me she knows film is my love language but I should stop showing her shit like this. And now, watching it for the first time since it came out, I wonder if I should still proclaim it as my favorite film of 2000. But I think I'll keep it like that, just as a wink to that weird ass college kid who was into depressing stuff. "You were right, Selma. Listen to your heart"

I love how, of all the Mission: Impossible villains, it’s John Lark who seems to get under Ethan’s skin the most. Is it the fact that he’s taller and still looks hot with a mustache? 

“That’s right, prick.”

I always thought Rebecca Ferguson had a generic pretty girl face and wasn’t too into her when I first saw this but now after watching all those flippant interviews where she curses like a man and of course Lady Jessica I love this movie even more! McQuarrie coming in hot having taken the best elements from previous installments (scary ass villain from 3, suspense scene from 1, humor from 4 and… motorcycles from 2) and putting them in one near-perfect little package! Can’t wait for his post M:I career!

Add to Ethan Hunt’s surprise set of skills (after closeup magic in 1 and geometrical equations in 3): being able to draw uncannily accurate composite sketches on your hand

This is how good Phillip Seymour Hoffman is: in 1998 he shoots a scene playing a nurse for the elderly in Magnolia awkwardly telling Tom Cruise his dad is about to die. Cruise probably sees something in him and BOOM five years later he’s screaming a countdown and making Cruise cry holding a gun to his wife’s temple. I miss you so much, PSH!!!

Anyway now that I’m rewatching everything, I must say  I’m impressed at how this set the tone for the rest of the Mission: Impossible series. It really is an underrated chapter, and I’m happy to report it still kicks ass.

The shocking thing is the amount of talent behind this movie. John Woo is directing. Ronald D. Moore, creator of Battlestar Galactica and Outlander wrote the story. You have Robert Towne, possibly the greatest screenwriter of all time, on script duty. And... most shockingly: Hans Zimmer is the composer. It's Uncanny Valley all the way when you hear the score go all nü metal. Coulda sworn this was Junkie XL.

Anyway, I think this movie is hated on more now than it was at the time it came out because seven movies on, M:I2 clearly isn't a Mission Impossible film. Hunt is cocky and reckless. There's a lot of 2000s style with the high saturation neon green (OMG is this how Euphoria will date in the future?). Everyone seems to have latex masks of each other. It's also hella mysoginist, with Thandie Newton's character having no agency whatsoever and lines like:

"What [does she have no training for]? To go to bed with a man and lie to him? She's a woman - she's got all the training she needs."

and

"You know women, mate. Like monkeys, they are - won't let go of one branch until they've got hold of the next."

So, yes, this is the worst Mission: Impossible BUT! The third act is so much fun. John Woo is on fire, and every trick in the arsenal is brought out. Bianca was asking me why there was fire everywhere in one scene and I said "he's just such an OA action director. There has to be smoke, or fire, or puddles or something. In one movie he even has doves."

And, lo and behold, HE BRINGS OUT THE DOVES TOWARDS THE END!!!

I usually reserve viewings like this for my projector and a nice sound system, but I was out of town so I saw it on a shitty LCD. Kind of added to the charm, if I'm being honest.

So basically in the mines of Guanajuato Mexico, there is a left hand encased in an iron coffin. A British man who owns a mining company refuses to listen to his Mexican Employees and sets forth with his wife to raid this ancient tomb. He unleashes the demonic left hand, who possesses the man and makes him leave his wife to become a very successful gambler who is able to control any given throw of dice. This sets in motion a series of intense left hand murders as the left hand travels from person to person, leaving each victim as they die a violent death. Meanwhile the wife meets a priest who has witnessed one of the murders firsthand. Together, they try to banish the hand, which, considering it’s 1981, is very impressively shot. 
 
Yes, you guessed it: this club has everything. An opening featuring a half-naked woman being chained (which surprisingly is available on Youtube and not on Plex, where I watched it), an Indiana Jones type swashbuckling adventure, a strangely affecting domestic drama, some genuine scares considering this is about an evil hand, a shoot out that ends in an exploding car, unintentional comedy, and a satisfying ending. 

Sounds like such an awesome movie. Unfortunately, it isn’t. My metrics for so bad it’s good movies, a sub-genre I love dearly, differs from the ones in my profile page. I base it more on communal enjoyment, that rare combination of disgust, humor and “what the fuck am I watching?!?” that certifies a good time with the gang. Five stars if it’s multiple-rewatch inspiring, The Room levels of enjoyment, two stars if it’s just kind of boring. Demonoid is a solid three, not a waste of my time, but nothing I’m excited to watch again. 

This is the predicament that comes with hunting downs the films featured in the Video Archives Podcast. I’m a big fan of Quentin Tarantino and Roger Avary’s discussions on cinema, but the films themselves are mostly misses. They’re still always enriched by the discussion anyway, and from the films discussed the most rewarding one is probably Delirium. Sometimes I wish they’d just focus their energies on better movies, but a part of me is glad they’re celebrating these pieces of lost cinema.

Wow. I haven’t seen M:I 1 in at least 20 years. And, it breaks my heart to say this, but this film dates. 

In fact, I don’t even know if its logic works for its own time. What kind of email address is max@job 3:15? Or is that just some way of communicating at an alt.site I’m not familiar with? You have a sense that Cruise hasn’t completely figured Ethan Hunt out, so he vacillates between the gum-chewing cocky Maverick to shouty Far and Away drama styles of acting. There’s also this hilarious cut towards the end where Ethan Hunt awkwardly reacts to Claire Phelps taking his hand and kissing it sensually. She is a grieving wife, after all, to a husband only Ethan knows is still alive. To this day I have no idea if they ended up fucking or not. 

In my mind, colored by nostalgia, this was always the best Mission: Impossible. My pre-Final Reckoning marathon might just change that. What it won’t change is how groundbreaking this film is — how at a tight 1hr 46 minutes this not only works as an espionage movie but as a collection of taut, tense exercises in film language. The Langley heist is a masterclass in building tension (beads of sweat + Langley agent dealing with diarrhea + Jean Reno getting tired and then suddenly there’s a rat?!), the train/helicopter fight remains to be one of the best climaxes in M:I history, the dinner scene with Kittridge is the best usage of Dutch angles I can recall, and the opening ambush is still shocking and affecting. Brian DePalma was the only director who focused more on suspense than knock-em sock-em action, so while M:I truly did pave the way for one of the best movie franchises ever, it still stands out as one of a kind.

A slow burn, but when it gets you, it gets you.

I really love how this has so many of the elements of traditional noir: down-on-his-luck cop, femme fatale, serial killer, neon lights, wet streets, a closed case re-examined -- and it doesn't upend those elements like most neo-noirs, but makes everything feel completely different.

Black Coal, Thin Ice is pensive and bleak, but it's also strangely hilarious. Also, I love me a random dance scene. Time to make a new tag. Caught this in the recent Criterion Channel collection of new Chinese Thrillers. Didn't realize there was a movement, but now I'm excited to dive in.

When the credits came on I said “no wonder they’re mostly white this movie’s all white people problems” and then I noticed there were a bunch of white people behind me ✌🏻✌🏻✌🏻

A bit too preachy but thankfully Florence Pugh is there to save the film from both being too serious and too hokey. New Black Widow is now top a Top 5 Avenger for me! A part of me wants her to be in every MCU film here on in but a part of me also wants her to quit and resume her path to greatness.

The MCU, ranked

Had zero idea what this movie was about and just decided to watch it because it rated high on Letterboxd among my friends and it was leaving the Criterion Channel in April.

I am so happy I did. 80s New York is such a magical time and place for me, with the melding of Post-punk and Hip Hop cultures, the threat of Wall Street, the rise of Video Art, the Last Days of Disco, the rise of NYC independent film. Don't know if I'd survive NYC in those days, but looking at it through Film and TV definitely gives it a sense of romance. And the LES was my town! I'd lived in Ave B, Bowery and Stanton/Rivington. I'd walk through Christie, Delancey, Prince, Mercer, Houston every day. Just typing this makes me miss it so much.

Crossing Delancey is both those things, and, like Something Wild, is so full of detail about being in the city at that time. Pickle stores, Grey's Papaya (i believe that's the Upper East one and it still exists), Public Access TV, YMCA type gyms with mini jogging tracks, public handball, vintage book stores where writers would hang out and talk. I LOVE THIS SHIT.

And Peter Riegert! One of my favorite That Guys. I've always found Riegert cool, and not cool in the leather jacket/shades kind of way but cool in the chill, i-know-myself energy kind of way. The only liability in this film is Izzy, but we've all been there at some point in our lives.

Justice for Moana 2, which honestly isn't as bad as everyone says it is. I get the complaints that it's episodic, and that it obviously feels like a TV show they just turned into a movie (something I obviously have no problem with ), but I also think people mis how scattershot Moana was.

Two things going for this sequel:
1. The action is better
2. It's structured like a heist, complete with the "getting the gang together", "the plan" and "the part where things go awry". I love those tropes so much LOL

Even though I gave this and the first one both 3.5 stars, I must say that Moana as a character has truly grown on me. She might be in my top 3 Disney princesses list. Also, man things are really different when you see through your kid's eyes. It's been a month and Conzi is still singing "Monana" every day. Whenever Maui pops up he excitedly shouts "Maui!" When they're attacked by the sea serpent he runs to his mom and hugs her. When she starts to sing "Beyond" he tries to sing it as well, even though he'd never heard the song before. The wonder is contagious.

A total riot, especially for casual gamers like me whose favorite game ever is Grand Theft Auto. Gan get a little too disingenuous at times especially when the Brits are espousing how lost and lonely they are ("I think it's time I go to your room and we be together in real life"), but hilarious in how video games can be valid vessels for art if only people just stopped themselves from violently killing each other for a second. This actually makes me want to play online (something I never do).

This review may contain spoilers.

I wrote a pretty long essay on the plane about how I’m calling out all you woke Letterboxders who love canceling anything recent but are calling this pretty problematic film a masterpiece. I know that the thesis statement of this movie is “in war, everyone becomes animals” but honestly, how can you instantly forgive a dude who raped your daughter because he came back bearing fruits and a non-apology? Everyone in the first act is acting insane except Nora Aunor, God bless her beautiful soul. There’s one scene where Christopher de Leon is talking about raising the fruit of his sexual assault and you can really see her eyes slowly widen with anger. When she tries to throw that baby off a bridge you’re with her 100%, not an easy feat. 

Anyway. Maybe the cosmos didn’t want that thing posted.Still! Masterpieces can date and be problematic, my friends, and this one is (also, it’s strangely pro-Japanese?). Speaking of cosmic, I had a strange experience watching this film. The years 1942-1944 I saw on Cinemo’s Youtube Channel, which had the more recent B&W restoration. When I came back the next day it was gone, so I scoured the internets to find an older restoration that was faded color. It made 1945 feel clearly like the present, and the three Godless years rooted in the past. Also, I wonder if Giuseppe Tornatore ripped this of in Malena, because there’s a scene that’s very similar. O’ Hara just does it better, creepier, simultaneously more ritualistic and barbaric.

Wow where do we find an assistant like Sano

What can I say about this movie that hasn’t been said by someone else on your friends list? Sinners is phenomenal, gorgeous, sexy, magical. It’s a celebration of music and how it can transcend, and in utilizing the power of cinema the film then transcends as well. Fuck all the idiots online who misuse the term, only films like these deserve to be called ✋ABSOLUTE CINEMA🤚

Michael B Jordan is given the opportunity to truly act here, and Smoke and Stack feel so lived-in. Ludwig Goranssön should take home the Oscar, I’m calling it now. I knew Hailee Steinfeld could do anything, but now I know she can be sexy too. Autumn Arkapaw’s cinematography is so full of life and texture and that letterbox expansion to IMAX wide made me breathe in sharply for a second there. Wunmi Mosaku is having her moment, and she more than deserves it. And Jack O’ Connell from Skins may be the best villain vampire with the most compelling reason to turn (complete empathy?! thinking as one? Instant harmonizing? Count me in!).

12 years ago I went to Sundance and an unlikely film entitled Fruitvale won the Grand Jury Prize. The title was later changed to Fruitvale Station, probably because the original sounded like a cartoon. The film was undeniably powerful, and it birthed what is now undoubtedly one of the greatest actor/director couplings in the history of cinema. Ryan Coogler has never done a movie without Michael B. Jordan, and that coupling hasn’t slipped once: Creed, Black Panther, Wakanda Forever, and now Sinners. What a five film run. Bravo.

With literally every app going subscription mode (i had to quit Sleep Cycle because it went subscription even after I bought the damn thing) I greeted the ad tier reveal with both delight and disgust. The shittification of beloved platforms is an easy topic to mess up, but Chris O'Dowd and Rashida Jones have such great chemistry and feel so real that they really bring this home.

After Joan is Awful, this is the second Black Mirror episode that makes a pointed commentary on Netflix (basic tier is NOW ad tier, but that's better for you!). I'm starting to wonder if they're a channel for the executives to exorcise their guilt or a clever corporate wink to show that they're in on the joke.

I'm not a fan of The White Lotus, but I LOVE people who are cast in the show, so every time I get blueballed by The White Lotus i search out and watch or rewatch some of the best work by its cast .

Best In Show will scratch that itch. It's a hilarious mockumentary about dog show competitors and organizers and works great as a comedy in two ways 1) it's a great hang with some of the best improvisers in Hollywood, many of which would find stardom as late as a decade later, and 2) it just brings you back to the time and place when it first came out.

True story, I swear: I used to work as an assistant in a small Hollywood prodco, and they had a little cafe where everyone working in the building would eat. One time I saw Eugene Levy eating in a table across me, and I think I just stared. He then looked at me and said "oh, hello! How are you?" I was caught unawares, so just stared a little more and said "good! How are you?"

The next day, at around 830 AM, I ed a small office that was usually empty. I saw Levy again, this time bringing out bagels he bought and getting coffee ready for a meeting. He wrote on notebook paper the words "Schitt's Creek" and taped it on the door. This man 100% deserves all of his success, and it still makes my heart melt thinking about the humble beginnings of that hit series.

ANYWAY. Best in Show. So great. Just hearing Fred Willard's voice makes me crack up. Jane Lynch and Jennifer Coolidge are such a hilarious couple in this. Catherine O' Hara is having a renaissance and I am all for it! And of course, nobody does it better than my spirit animal Parker Posey, whose scene where she rejects all the toys that look like a bumblebee and ends up grabbing a parrot in frustration reminds me of me with high anxiety.

This is probably the most painful 3.5 rating I've ever had to give, because I love the first 30 minutes of this film so much! There's a oner that follows Anthony Perkins around a room as he talks to inspectors, witnesses and other law enforcers that is full of anxious energy and foreboding, and halfway through it I realized "oh yeah, this is directed by one of the guys who defined cinematic language." It's also so different from Citizen Kane, and more my vibe: absurd, angular, Kafkaesque (duh). It's wild watching a master emulate the burgeoning French New Wave, imbuing it with the German Expressionist style and, more importantly, budget.

And while its influence can be so clearly seen in everything from Kafka (duh), to Naked Lunch, to even Severance, I'm appalled that this film isn't celebrated more . I decided to see it mainly because I chanced upon it on The Criterion Channel and wanted to see what a Kafka adaptation would look like. This is exactly what I hoped for.

Unfortunately the film eventually gets too repetitive, messy and, well, indulgent. You know you're in trouble when instead of an end credits scroll it's Orson Welles doing a VO naming the cast, ending with "I play the Advocate, and wrote and directed this film". Cut a little here and there, though, and I am of the opinion that this could have been one of Welles' best-regarded films. It is truly visionary, unfiltered raw talent.

Romy Schneider, by the way. What a breathtakingly charming actress. Such a shame she ed on so early, and it's a crime she didn't become a Nouvelle Vague muse.

It took 3 viewings for Conzi to finish this, and it's only through his eyes that I realized "wow, this cartoon is really talky", which seems to be the biggest problem in Disney/Pixar films these days. I've also come to realize that Moana, which I have very fond memories of, is actually quite episodic and scattershot.

All of this melts away with the power of "How Far I'll Go", easily the best Disney song of the last 20 years (yes, better than "Let it Go"). What a banger. Conzi has literally asked for "Monana" every waking hour, to the point that I hear the damn thing when I sleep (🎵"I know everybody on this island seems so happy, on this island, everything is by design" 🎶). It's so cute hearing him sing the last song of every line and just going "ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh" when Moana sustains the song hahaha

It's like a fucked up Adolescence.

And considering how fucked up Adolescence is, that's saying something.

You know how everyone (including me) always goes “bring movies back! Movies deserve to be seen in a theater!”?

This is that rare movie that made me go “I should be streaming this.” This discount Red Eye had heavy Netflix energy, which isn’t a bad thing. Probably would have been a half point higher had I seen it at home.

The first half is pretty standard B-movie where you have a guy roaming around St. Louis brutally murdering young women. It really picks up in the second half when it's revealed that things go deeper than you think. If you're planning to watch this I suggest you go in blind because it does get pretty exceptional.

I heard Alex Ross Perry say in a podcast once that sometimes all you want to do is watch a good 6. This movie is a good 6.

*speaking of podcasts, thanks to Video Archives for the reco. and it's on Youtube!

Masahiro Shinoda's Double Suicide can be a little too melodramatic and expository sometimes, but then you just have to remind yourself that Shinoda was being very faithful to a bunraku puppet play, where the actors literally can't make nuanced expressions nor subtle gestures. When it works, though, IT WORKS. The movie starts out with the puppeteers getting the puppets ready and Shinoda on a call with a location manager, and when the story actually begins you see the puppeteers all clad in black, like a greek chorus that has the power to manipulate events. Powerful stuff, and things get even more disturbing when the puppeteers actually begin to display empathy.

I wasn't ready for something this Brechtian from what seemed like a classic Japanese drama from the 1700s, but I gladly ate it all up. Oh, and another thing -- Shima Iwashita plays both Osan (the wife) and Koharu (the mistress). What a move.

Yes, I know I saw this movie just six months ago, but much has happened since. Also, I'd never seen Lost Highway in a movie theater, so the temptation to do so was irresistible.

I'm glad I did. It's Lynch's best looking film. It's wild how he and DOP Peter Deming are able to stretch the contrast in this, and how he's able to make a two-storey apartment labyrinthine. I knew I made the right decision from the opening shot alone, when I realized, only on my seventh viewing of the film, that the close-up of the man smoking was not Bill Pullman's.

Also, I thought to myself "if you're really going to dive deep into the life and work of the artist who's inspired you most in life, there's no better time than now." I've found that to be profoundly true: watching all his work on the big screen, taking a moment to look at all the dazed faces as they walk out of the theater, making friends at the cinema and discussing his work, introducing old friends to his work, listening to podcasts about the movies on the train ride from the movie, going to sleep listening to his audiobook as he reminisces about his life, spending my days reading Interviews and "Lynch on Lynch", spending my nights watching BTS material.

It might sound bad, but now that David Lynch has ed I'm having the grandest time celebrating him and his work.

This review may contain spoilers.

Bianca really wanted to watch this because apparently Sydney Sweeney broke up with her fiancée and has been hanging out with Glen Powell so now she’s really invested in what’s happening and wanted to see them fall in love. And who am I to say no to Sydney Swe— este, my wife? 

I really hated the ending — not the one where everyone sings Natasha Bedingfield’s “Unwritten” (that was really 90s romcom fun actually) but the one where everyone takes turns giving him a speech on how he should go after her and then he jumps into the ocean because he knows harbour rescue will come get him and he convinces the helicopter to drop him off at the Royal Opera House and gives her one of those “I love the way you bla bla bla I love the way you bla bla bla” speeches. Aside from that, it was fun! Glen Powell has excellent comedic timing as always and is charming AF, Sydney Sweeney is not the greatest actress but has mastered that puppy dog look that makes you feel like you want to protect her, Gata is in here for some weird reason, and the gang is a good hang. It’s a high 3! Haha. 

By the way, can I brag? To the three people reading this review? Midway through the film I told Bianca “hey you know this score is actually really good” and in the credits the film was scored by… Este Haim. FUCK YEAH!!!

Don't mind me, just watching feature-length behind-the-scenes documentaries of my favorite director's movies, basking in his glory, missing him every day.

A dystopic film that combines two of my favorite sci-fi subgenres: cyberpunk and lo-fi sci-fi, starring Keanu Reeves, Robert Downey Jr., Winona Ryder, Woody Harrelson and Rory Cochrane, directed by none other than Richard Linklater using the Bob Sabiston Waking Life animation method to bring a Philip K. Dick novel to life. This should be automatic 5 stars! But... it's not.

It's a great story with acting that's actually some of the best of the people involved (RDJ and Keanu especially), considering they've been rotoscoped. And I understand why Linklater used the Waking Life style: it affords him crazy drug-addled hallucination effects and "7 years into the future" tech (apparently they'll have rapidly-shifting chameleon suits 7 years into the future but Nokias are still the norm ) without compromising his signature heady philosophizing, But, just like in Waking Life, the roto creates this uncanny valley that distances you from the content, making most of the conversation scenes... deathly boring.

A shame, really. A Scanner Darkly is saying something important, but I teared up more at Phillip K Dick's text epilogue than the stuff that was happening in the film. I actually think it would make a great live action movie. This didn't age that well, especially because you can do everything Sabiston did with AI. Now that's dystopian.

Watched on Saturday March 29, 2025.

What a weird movie. Marc Webb, director of music video masterpieces such as My Chemical Romance’s “Helena” and “I’m Not Okay” and (my personal favorite) Brand New’s  “Sic Transit Gloria” totally phoning it in with a cheap-ass, Disney Channel Descendants-quality, “was this shot during COVID?” live-action adaptation of the first ever Disney feature-length animated film.

In a perfect world DC would have done their job and Gal Gadot would have kept doing Wonder Woman movies so we wouldn’t have to sit through her trying other things like this godawful attempt at being the Evil Queen. Does everyone keep saying she’s evil because Gadot can’t convince us she is? 

Also— the dwarves. There’s a moment where the rebel Quigg, a real little person, stands side by side with the Seven Dwarves. That, to me, is the epitome of The Uncanny Valley.

On the plus side, the songs are surprisingly good and so was Rachel Zegler. She really deserves better.

Wow. I've become quite wary of reviews of bloated, overhyped British shows on Netflix but Adolescence has got the goods. It's a perfect marriage of style and substance, and will put you through the wringer because of its disinterest in creating a mystery or a political statement, even though the capacity for both is very present. It is solely focused on the effects, and the effects are heart-wrenching.

I have no words for Owen Cooper. How is this his first anything?! The transformation from ep 1 to ep 3 -- the transformation within ep 3 -- might be the most affecting acting I've ever by someone in their early teens. And we've always known Stephen Graham was a great actor, but he completely subverts his tough guy image with this one.

Something this successful and lauded must have backlash, and I've read a few reviews saying how unnecessary the oners are. I beg to differ. It's the oners that highlight the silent moments, the real-time confusion, the blip of joy when reminiscing to A Ha's "Take on Me", the uncomfortable ride home after a violent incident, and the prolonging of the pain and regret that one feels as a parent. Cutting to other scenes or locations lets you escape all that. Capturing life in one shot, by its very nature, won't let you go.

(EDIT: Just realized this is my 1000th review on Letterboxd! Omg I’ve wasted so much time here and I’m loving every minute of it!)

sex, lies and surveillance. 

(also: TWO NEW SODERBERGHS IN THEATERS ON THE SAME WEEK?! what a time to be alive)

Steven Soderbergh, ranked

First Half: Anya Taylor Joy revisiting that New Mutants Eastern European accent, flirting with Miles across a miles-wide gorge, playing chess with Miles Teller (GET IT?), Miles Teller playing drums with her (GET IT AGAIN?), dancing to Yeah Yeah Yeahs' "Spitting Off The Edge of the World" (perfect needledrop), sporting a really great hairdo. 4 stars

Second Half: where suddenly everything is a video game and these two are walking around looking for clues and playing file videos in between fight scenes with hollow men. 2 stars

Average Score: 3 stars

I was going to make some clever comment like "the real MVP of this movie is the steadicam operator!" But then I waited for his name in the credits and it was still Peter fucking Andrews AKA Steven fucking Soderbergh and I can't believe a 62 year old man is going up and down stairs through hallways and doors for 5 minute long takes following people a third his age are you kidding me what a legend

Soderbergh Ranked

This is probably the only review I’ll ever write that I hope you read before watching the film discussed, because I have some tips.

The first tip is this: just let it wash over you. This is easier said than done because the first half (Side A) actually does make sense, so there’s an actual plot to follow no matter how esoteric it may be. When you get to the second time you see a needle on the record (Side B), you can throw all the goddamn rules out the window. NOTHING WILL MAKE SENSE. So again, just enjoy what you see. Don't try to make sense of it. Let it wash over you.

This leads me to the second tip : take note that this is an experimental film. It started out as a long monologue Lynch wrote for Laura Dern to perform, which appears in the movie as the conversation with the bespectacled man. He shot it with the terrible 3CCD camera (and I say this with a lot of affection because I shot "A Date with Jao Mapa" with this camera) the Sony PD 150, and liked the result so much he decided to just keep shooting. Some other old stuff, like his short series "Rabbits" for his website, shows up, so it really is a hodgepodge of random things.

Which leads me to my third tip: consider Laura Dern the co-author of this film. She is in almost every frame of the movie, and when she's not whatever happens is usually from the point of view of one of the characters she plays (I count four so far). This is unquestionably a showcase of her talent, evidenced by Lynch sitting along Hollywood Blvd with a Cow campaigning for an Oscar nom for Dern. She is a tour-de-force in this film, and your experience of Dern in Blue Velvet or Wild at Heart (or anything else, for that matter) will not ready you for this performance.

The first time I saw Inland Empire, my college professor/mentor asked me what I thought of it. I told him, "I can't believe I'm saying this about a David Lynch film... but it's a really weird movie." It's the hardest Lynch film to watch, alienating for even the most hardcore of fans, but it's also the kind of film I find myself falling more and more in love with the more I watch it (two weeks ago was my third time, and I'm upping the rating from 3.5 to 4). There's some really powerful imagery (two of the most terrifying scenes in the film are of Laura Dern's face); there are some unforgettable scenes (my favorite being a Terry Crews cameo); and if you allow it to, it'll entrance you. This is the perfect film to end a film career with, unless you count the other thing as an 18-hour film like he does, in which case that's the perfect film to end a career with as well.

we discuss David Lynch and his legacy on our Endslate tribute to Lynch! Hope you can give it a listen

perfect needledrop tag: "Sinnerman" by Nina Simone

Writing this as the credits roll. 

Revisiting Blue Velvet Revisited, after David Lynch’s death, after immersing myself in his life and work, just hits different. 

This is a portrait of  an artist rediscovering himself by an artist just about to discover himself. It’s dreamlike, it’s vibey, it’s poignant. Listening to Lynch talk about the freedom he hopes digital technology would bring makes me appreciate his process for Inland Empire so much more (he also hilariously talks about how into computers making films Francis Ford Coppola is, which as we know will lead to disastrous results). Isabella Rossellini says the most poetic thing about the film, which is that it reads like one man’s subconscious if you just read the lines all the way through. Even Dennis Hopper, who disses how long Lynch takes to shoot one moment then goes on to say that he is a true artist the next, is so genuine.

The most affecting aspect is really how often Lynch talks about how happy he is. Now that we know that this follows probably the greatest trauma of his life — Dune, and now that we know The Elephant Man was work-for-hire, it’s so touching watching a man find his voice again, putting up “Lumberton” signs by himself with masking tape, shaping the prosthetic head of the well-dressed man. Lynch is a true artist, and he likes working with his hands. And he is finally in touch with the work again. I’ve never seen a filmmaker who is without ego, but who also probably thinks ego gets in the way of the work. It’s about the work, and it will always be about the work.  And thankfully, the work survives.

When I was about to turn 13, my mom asked me what I wanted for my birthday.

"I want to watch Blue Velvet," I answered.

And so it happened -- an awkward screening of Blue Velvet with my mom's then-boyfriend. Funny how my early experiences of watching David Lynch are all with father figures: watching Dune with my dad at 4, him showing me Erasherhead at 11 (I WAS 11!) and now, Blue Velvet with Tito Joey.

For the longest time I considered Blue Velvet to be one of my five favorite films ever. Now it's not even my favorite David Lynch. Rewatching it I've come to realize how... normal it is compared to what was to follow. But holy shit it's almost 40 years later and Goddamn this film still has the juice!

It's interesting watching Lynch films in the theater, because you don't know how people will react to things. There was a lot of laughter at the cheesy dialogue between Jeffrey and Sandy at this screening, and also a collective gasp when Frank turns up at the hallway to see Jeffrey for the first time. The number one thing I always notice and love, however, is that there will be a stretch where everything is so tense, the world onscreen so real, that it sucks everyone in so effectively you can hear a pin drop. It happens a lot in Mulholland Drive. It's the Bobby Peru harassment scene in Wild at Heart. For Blue Velvet, it's Frank's first appearance.

And what a character he is, that Frank Booth. Bar none one of the greatest onscreen villains of all time. A potty mouthed, pent-up, coiled motherfucker who needs to express his anger every moment he's onscreen. My favorite bouts of anger in this screening where when he puts on lipstick and just angrily makes out with Jeffrey, and him shedding the well-dressed man costume in Dorothy's apartment announcing himself while repeatedly calling Jeffrey a fuckhead. A great actor's greatest role.

God bless The Projector Sg -- they had a little mixer before the screening, and everyone from first-timers to film critics to Lynch diehards were there. They served donuts and coffee and I sat in a circle talking to around 8 people about their first and favorite experiences of David Lynch. One of them said she was trying to watch everything in chronological order : she had seen Eraserhead and The Elephant Man and was now about to see Blue Velvet for the first time. How I envy her.

"I'm seeing something that was always hidden. I'm involved in a mystery. I'm in the middle - of a mystery. And it's all secret."

That's the thesis statement for all of Lynch's work right there. David Lynch is forever hailed as a great director, but I don't think he gets enough respect as a writer. Velvet is endlessly quotable. I don't know how many times I've said "Heineken?! Fuck that shit. PABST! BLUE! RIBBON!" or "Let's fuuuuuuck! I'll fuck anything that moves!" Beyond that, there is something about how he writes certain lines that they start to shed their literal meaning and begin to sound like incantations. Think "Fire, walk with me." Think "no hay banda". Think "in Heaven, everything is fine." It's only now, with the new Dolby 5.1 remix in a loud theater, that I realize the line "now, it's dark" is oft repeated. And once Dennis Hopper utters it, Frank comes out. Powerful, powerful stuff.

"I don't know if you're a detective or a pervert," Sandy Williams wonders, shortly before her and Jeffrey Beaumont go out on their little mission. "Well, that's for me to know and you to find out," Jeffrey cryptically answers.

I think David Lynch is a little bit of both.

we discuss David Lynch and his legacy on our Endslate tribute to Lynch! Hope you can give it a listen

(perfect needledrop tag: "In Dreams" by Roy Orbison)

Decided to celebrate Gene Hackman's life and career by watching my second favorite performance of his: Harry Caul in The Conversation, so great because he's not the usual snappy, aggressive, "pasugod" actor, and is instead someone so withdrawn and pensive that even you sometimes get annoyed at his lack of reaction (especially with that dick Bernie Moran. fuck you, Bernie Moran).

If you've seen Megalopolis and have been filled with a profound doubt at the capabilities of Francis Ford Coppola, just watch this film. It's the complete opposite of his most recent offering: quiet, subtle, intimate, and, well, brilliant. It's amazing that this film is 50 years old and he's able to convey such a deep sense of loneliness and isolation through mise-en-scene alone, and it's impressive how this is actually a character study sneakily disguised as a suspense thriller.

The last time I saw this was in college, and I watching Enemy of The State (which almost feels like a tribute-cum-fanfic-sequel) the year after. In my memory The Conversation was something like a low-budget Enemy of The State, but no -- it's much better, and it holds up more. It's the portrait of someone so good at his job that his excellence has cost more than he was prepared to pay, of someone so paranoid that he refuses to let anyone in, and of someone so filled with guilt that he's dedicated the rest of his lonely life to making sure that never happens again. Bravo, FFC.

This review may contain spoilers.

The first and only time I saw La La Land, I bawled like a child. I don't know exactly why, but I loved it, much to the chagrin of my hater friends and film snobs who felt the script was basic, the songs were forgettable and the movie was saccharine.

I see their point, but fuck it I guess I do know exactly why I loved it. I was in a 5 year relationship once, and she and I were both young and wide-eyed and ambitious. Eventually all the what-ifs and the work got in the way, and I realized too late just how loving and wonderful the relationship I was in was.

That moment in the movie when Seb re first meeting Mia and changes the course of their history by grabbing and kissing her was pure cinema. I suddenly gasping at that moment, everything from my own life coming back to me like a punch in the gut, waterworks gushing before I could even realize what was happening. I wept throughout that entire ten minute montage.

La La Land became my favorite film of 2016. In fact, it became my #5 favorite film of the decade. Strangely enough, I never watched it a second time, though I'd been meaning to for a while.

I'm glad I waited. Earlier tonight I finally did a rewatch, and in a very special way: the film was scored live by a complete orchestra (+ full band set up), conducted by none other than composer Justin Hurwitz himself. It was kind of miraculous seeing the jazz being performed by Gosling onscreen and looking to the side to see a real jazz band performing for him. "Another Day of Sun" was a tour-de-force with a full brass section and pounding drums. Even John Legend's The Messengers performance had extra oomph when it was played by a live band. It was stunning and spectacular, and in the end I found myself bawling yet again, though this time holding the hand of the person I'm lucky to share a happy ending with.

Scarlet is now 10 years old, so of course I'd let her watch Blade II!

Which may not have been such a good idea. There's a lot of weird BDSM shit in here, the most graphic being someone’s back being flayed to reveal their spine, enjoying herself as her partner pokes and prods around. There's also a bed full of spikes, a guy cut in half, a number of people eaten by a vampire whose chin splits to reveal an alien-like mouth... you get the point.

I always thought I preferred Blade more, but after rewatching both I'm changing my mind and choosing this one. In a weird twist of events, this also isn't as good as I it being. But that's fine. I miss 90s-early 2000s action heroes. The 80s were pure Machismo. The 2010/2020s have this self-deprecating sense of irony that's become annoying. The 90s/00s guys were just cool, with their black leather jackets and their one-liners. When Whistler throws Blade his shades and Blade catches them we were all howling in laughter.

SCARLET REVIEW
Me: So what's your review of this?
Scarlet: How many stars do I get?
Me: Five stars.
Scarlet: I give it three stars.
Me: What did you like?
Scarlet: I didn't like the Vampire fight in the end.
Me: No, what did you like?
Scarlet: Everything else, I guess.

Quite shocked at how mixed the reviews are for this movie because this type of thing is like crack for me -- handheld, blown out, droney, Michael Mann-esque tales about journalists journaling with a fetish for process. Now I know how they used to create supers in old news shows, can't believe how they were rushing in reels of film to develop right away and understand how they'd pull off instant replay in slow-motion! So good.

Casting John Magaro was a stroke of genius. All hail mr. stressed everyman. Also, the lady I love from The Teacher's Lounge shows up to give us more of that deer-in-the-headlights goodness.

I disagree with most people who say that the promise of what Bong will become is already apparent in this film. Not to say that Barking Dogs Never Bite isn't competent. It's fun, it's likeable, and it's oftentimes hilarious. But so are 90% of first time Korean films anyway.

What's more important to me is that his obsessions, his themes are already very clear from the start. How acts of selfishness can destroy the purest souls around you, how you can never truly win in this society. I love me an uncompromising filmmaker who stays resolute through his entire career!

We discuss this movie and rank director Bong's entire filmography on our Bong Joon-Ho Endslate episode!

Kind of all over the place, but also a lot more violent than i expected?! Like two people die in the first 10 minutes and there are shootouts that involve grenades and bazookas. And here I was thinking I should show Conzi this movie because it's cute little yellow alien things speaking gibberish and eating bananas.

They set this movie in late 60s London, which is one of my favorite eras, but it's not late 60s London enough, with the exception of one thing; THE MUSIC BUDGET. Donovan, The Kinks, The Monkees, The Who, and not one but TWO BEATLES SONGS?! The Minions don’t deserve the Fab Four.

CONZI REVIEW: He liked it. After the intro he said "more more!" then more came and he finished the damn thing and when the credits came up he said "more more!" again. Thankfully there was a post-credits sequence. But again, this kid isn't even two and he sat through this whole movie. He still hasn't been able to finish Moana after 3 viewings.

Ganda talaga. Even better the second time around. As a Nora, it cuts deep 😂

Went for the final screening at The Projector, on its 80th week(!), and Celine Song was on Zoom to do a virtual Q&A. Sharing a great quote about directing and collaborating from her: 

“You have the responsibility to make sure the film does not suck. Never that responsibility to anyone else. 
You’re the boss, and part of being the boss is to be robust enough to create a safe space where your collaborators can say what they want. You can’t be so fragile that you’re closed off from other ideas.”

I love how when Bong Joon-Ho directs a Hollywood film he always turns into Terry Gilliam.

We discuss and rank director Bong's entire filmography on our Mickey 17 Endslate special!

I could have sworn I l’d seen this movie before. I have it on original DVD! And in my mind, I liking it. Last night I saw it on my Criterion Blu-Ray in anticipation of Mickey 17, and it dawned on me that I NOTHING. Was my mind playing tricks on me then? Did I actually never see this movie? Either way, watching it with a completely rebooted memory was a gift.

This was the opposite of my experience with The Man Who Fell to Earth. Because I have a one year old, I can no longer stay awake enough to watch movies late at night. With Memories I'd always tell myself, "after this scene. After this scene I can stop and just continue tomorrow." But I couldn't. Before I knew it, the 2hrs and 10 minutes were over. What a solid, solid storyteller -- someone who can effortlessly mix laugh-out-loud hijinx with true-to-life-violent-crime and make you realize what the movie is about only in the last 10 minutes. Zodiac before Zodiac, and even then a superior film because of how much more human it feels.

During our dinner with Bong, Erik mentioned that he really loved Memories of Murder ("I wonder if he noticed that I ripped him off during the OTJ field search shot", Erik would later whisper to me). Bong then told us, "you know, they caught the guy." That was a surprise to us, that this cold case that was already 34 years old was finally solved, but what Bong failed to tell us was the killer apparently watched Memories of Murder three times in jail! That's some wild shit, bro.

Putting the "could have been the Philippines" tag because while this film was set in '86, the ineptness, the lack of technology, the desperation to close cases by just finding fall guys and the brutality the Philippine National Police has exists to this day.

I love Walter Tevis. I love Nicolas Roeg. And I love, love, love David Bowie. 

What the Hell happened?!

I wanted to like this movie, but my circadian rhythm doesn't lie. It took me THREE VIEWINGS to finish this film (and even during the last ten minutes I was constantly dozing off and rewinding). I blame editor Graeme Clifford. I'm a fan of experimental editing and all, but this is next level. Random cutaways to aliens on trampolines rolling in the air, abrupt cuts in the middle of conversations, sudden digressions to unfamiliar characters in the last third of the movie. I had to look at the date of release because it felt like a first film, but this film was released after both The Walkabout and Don't Look Now, two masterpieces! 

There are other things. Everyone except for Rip Torn acts like they're not of this Earth. There's an extended section where it's just David Bowie and Candy Clark running away to some cabin doing God-knows-what and the acting is painfully ghastly (Bowie gets a because he's an alien). Also, I now have no doubt in my mind that Roeg is a perv. Lots of ladygardens in this film, mostly with women playing teenage students. I'm tempted to tag this "so bad it's good" but it's too artful for that. 

Not giving up on Roeg! Watching Performance next. Maybe Jagger is the right rockstar to collaborate with!

Keri lang. It was funny, and it was fun, but then at a certain point it gets a little too repetitive. If it was the first chapter of a Creepshow remake I would consider it a masterpiece, but yeah this one is an hour too long. Also, when it actually tries to get emotional it ends up feeling hollow. Osgood Perkins proves he’s pretty versatile with this film, but he also proves that he misses the mark with drama. 

I really love the final scene, though.  Powerful imagery. And Theo James is a revelation, especially as a VO talent.