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When a child (Joseph Lucien) is taken for the mad scientist Krank (Daniel Emilfork) can try to extract children's' dreams to retain youth, his brother (Ron Perlman) and the children will make it their mission to bring him back, despite the challenge. I found this to be a bit... French for my taste, so it did not capture my attention as much as I would have liked. The story meanders quite a bit and the tone was not quite for me, but the film is successful at creating a vibe. The set design utilizes Turn of the Century set design and filters colored burnt seinna and shadow to provide a dark, retro flair. Fittingly for a story featuring dreams, the images are phantasmagoric and meandering story follows a dream-logic. Machinery is pervasive throughout the film, particularly around Krank's laboratory station. One of my favorite moments is when the heroes are spared through the conclusion of a chain of random effects, resembling a Rube Goldberg contraption; this machinery of daily life contrasts the gears and switches in Krank's devices. While Ron Perlman does a decent job with physical acting here, his command of the French language is lacking, made all the more noticeable by playing the protagonist and being in a cast made up of native speakers. While I am unsure what The City of Lost Children is going for, it is quite effective at doing something.

"There's always gonna be people that project some kind of dynamic onto us that serves them."

A young woman (Georgina Campbell) ignores every red flag when she stays at an Airbnb rental. Hijinks ensue.
Barbarian draws upon current misogyny for its horror, such as domesticity, generational trauma, and the numerous threats to women's safety. Indeed, the landlord AJ (Justin Long) is there due to credible accusations of inappropriate behavior with a female co-star. This is coupled with its Detroit setting's decay & recent gentrification after the decline of the auto industry, opening the film to be read as a depiction of Rust Belt masculinity's response to the changing labor environment. Honestly, I would love to see a feminist reading of this film. An aspect I enjoy is how the film engages with the mood through dramatic irony and rapid narrative shifts during climactic moments. This command of tension also is apparent in the film's comedic moments. Barbarian takes many unexpected turns, but I am unsure how well they add up to the whole; overall, this was still pretty solid.

"You haven't learned much about Panmunjom yet. Here, the peace is preserved by hiding the truth. What both really want is that this investigation proves nothing, after all."

Dudes rock. The power of dudes rocking can destroy barriers, but can also be harnessed by the very forces that prevent the dudes from rocking. At first, t Security Area seems like a mystery to uncover what caused an international incident at Panmunjom, but by the middle shifts into something else. The film utilizes a meandering pace to flash back to the past before the incident — "spoiling" the mystery in some respects — as a balance between the momentary sweetness of guys being dudes to balance back into the tragic foregone conclusion. Interestingly, I think this would be an interesting companion to Lone Star (1996). While t Security Area is a military/political thriller and Lone Star is a Western/neo-noir, both use the secrets and tragedies of individual characters to explore borders and the lives they cross. The performances here are strong, but I want to mention Song Kang-ho's portrayal of North Korean Sgt. Oh Kyeong-pil, whose patriotism at first glance starts to reveal a different side as the film progresses. It is a stunning-looking work, and I enjoyed this immensely. I highly recommend checking this out.

"Whatever I photograph, I always lose."

A science-fiction work on the possible future effects of family vloggers. Peeping Tom interrogates of the camera as a tool of control, pinning the fragile, fleeting beauty of a moment to be preserved and scrutinized forever. Mark Lewis (Karlheinz Böhm) is both a product and creator of this environment; his life since boyhood has been captured on celluloid and he himself tries to see the world through the lens of a camera. In his act of filming and capturing a person and their experience, he destroys them; as voyeurs to these actions watching through the camera's eye, the audience becomes complicit. This is beautifully shot. I found this fascinating and ahead of its time in some ways.

"A troll is not merely a sorcerer or merely a supernatural creature; the term includes both of these meanings. The troll is every strange thing that is evil and imbued with magic, whether it has magical powers itself or has been made by magic. The troll is supernatural, in that it is not restricted by human limitations. Thus it is often used as a metaphor for anything excessive, anything which is unrestrained, unhinged, uncivilised and unmeasured."
— "The Trollish Acts of Þorgrímr the Witch: The Meanings of Troll and Ergi in Medieval Iceland" (2008) by Ármann Jakobsson in Saga-Book Vol. 32, p. 63

A team of film students start a simple project around a recent spell of bear attacks but wind up stumbling into something much bigger. (Some might say "gigantic.") This is presented as a found-footage mockumentary. It is interesting to see what happens when a US-style conspiracy narrative meets an international setting. Far from the "Men in Black," the authorities here are floundering; there are only a few people, and only a few events need to go wrong for the secret to be burst wide open. In a way, this marriage is also reflected in the naturalistic explanations for mythical creatures. The film goes to great lengths to differentiate the trolls of fairy-tales and providing scientific-sounding explanations for their various traits. This is especially notable given the history of the term in Medieval — particularly Old Icelandic — literature, where it is ill-defined. Jötunn are described as trolls, elves and dwarves are described as trolls, draugr are described as trolls, and even humans are described as trollish; what seems to unite them is a mysteriousness, monstrosity (as mixing or crossing cultural boundaries), and hostility to humankind, rather than being a distinct, taxonomic species. By using a found-footage genre, government bureaucracy, and scientific-sounding descriptions to provide verisimilitude combined with the multiple heads and cartoonish noses, Troll Hunter creates tension that plays for both horror and dry comedy. My favorite aspect is how the film used exposition. By putting explanations after the action, it provides the viewer with context for the preceding events, managing suspense. The viewer is well into the film before evidence for trolls is explained, so the viewer already can work through figuring things out. This is also used to throw in some effective twists. The found footage element is used in some neat ways, prominently when there is a change in style partway through. That said, I wish the geography made a bit more sense for understanding where the camera is in a particular scene. The film makes the most of limitations in CGI by using the darkness of night, blurry night-vision cameras, or brief flashes to allow Troll Hunter to make the most of it. All things considered, this is probably one of the best cryptid films, despite my reservations of using the term so broadly.

[For more about trolls, Ármann Jakobsson is a scholar of medieval Icelandic literature and has some of the best work on trolls in these texts. A great resource for more information is The Troll Inside You: Paranormal Activity in the Medieval North (2017).]

Watched on Saturday May 17, 2025.

1970s British punks meet conformist extraterrestrials. It is a broadly interesting exploration of counterculture, conformity, and being subsumed by the hegemony that they were intended to deconstruct. Music is also used in an interesting way to communicate these contrasts, which — along with the low-budget extraterrestrial set design — did a decent job. That said, I was not the biggest fan of this; I wish it was a bit thornier, its lead actresses were somewhat wasted, and I did not quite get into it. It is apparent that a short story has a lot of filler to stretch out to a feature-length runtime. It took a long time for the film to work for me, and even then it did not quite get too great. Maybe if I were more invested in the relevant time and subculture, I would have enjoyed it more.

Sam Dalmas (Tony Musante), a traveling American writer struggling with writer's block, stumbles on an attempted murder, stumbling into a serial killing spree. Will he, his partner (Suzy Kendall), and the police solve the case before they become the next targets? There are some striking sequences here. While the score is somewhat eccentric, I enjoy the use of experimental jazz during action scenes to build on the chaos. My biggest issue is the inaccurate information around the gray crowned crane. This is quite an impressive debut feature.

Martha McKay (Anna Kendrick) has a messy break-up but runs into a funny, handsome man (Sam Rockwell). The catch? He is also a hitman with baddies of all stripes on his tail.
Hijinks ensue.
This is not a particularly good romantic comedy nor is it a particularly good crime/action dark comedy. Despite an attempt at being original, Mr. Right falls into the same pitfalls as both genres, despite lamp-shading some of the more egregious plot choices. The plot also meanders quite a lot, and even now I am not quite sure what the story really was. (I am reminded of the last film I saw, Rope, a work that is 14 minutes shorter but far tighter and deeper than this.) The dialogue leaves much to be desired and the soundtrack has aged poorly for me. Where this film is successful is Rockwell's skill as an actor, having chemistry with Kendrick and many opportunities to play into his ability as a dancer. (Kendrick otherwise does leave much to be desired in this performance.) I hope this finds its audience, but this was not for me.

I enjoy how Connor O'Malley captures the zeitgeist around internet culture, isolation through the internet, and the desire for connection in an increasingly atomized society.

Students Philip Shaw (John Dall) and Brandon Morgan (Farley Granger) decide to engage in what they see as the ultimate philosophical experiment based on postulation by their old teacher, Rupert Cadell's (Jimmy Stewart): to impose their will over life by murdering one of their comrades in a "perfect crime." Based on the play based on the murder of Bobby Franks by Leopold and Loeb. This is a favorite of someone I knew when I was in college, and so it has long sat in my watchlist. It seemed fitting to make this the thousandth film marked as "watched." I will note that Shaw, Morgan, and Cadell's idea that the small class of so-called "intellectually superior" in society should be allowed to eliminate their so-called "intellectual inferiors" through lethal violence has not been a hypothetical in American history. As the film demonstrates, this kind of "war of all against all" does not lead to a peaceful society but where every public space — even a dinner party — becomes tainted with the possibility of carnage. Rope opens with the murder, using the suspense to explore the reactions to violence, the rifts it creates, and whether the killers will be caught rather than on the act itself. I almost wish the trailer scene of David Kentley (Dick Hogan) was included as an epilogue to convey the senselessness and tragedy of a young individual's life being snuffed out without even knowing him. One way the film has benefited from more recent perspectives is unpacking the film's homoerotic subtext. The film has a fascinating one-take effect, skillfully broken up during reel changes, though one of my favorite effects is the cyclorama in the background of the expansive "window". This one-take effect creates a dynamism, increasing suspense and allowing they eye to drift around the set like the audience watching a stage play, allowing the time to condense as the background subtilely communicates the age of time, from afternoon to evening, to night. This was incredibly solid; beautiful, tightly-written, and well-performed. I am thankful for the recommendation.

History professor Adam Bell (Jake Gyllenhaal) discovers an exact doppelgänger in actor Anthony Claire (Jake Gyllenhaal), developing an obsession that consumes the two men in existential paranoia. The fear is not necessarily having a twin but seeing someone else so physically identical that it suggests the possibility of a different life and insignificance of a replaceable existence. As the film continues, the two try to push to find how similar to each other they are, ultimately attempting to swap identities to replace each other in their romantic relationships. One of my favorite aspects of this is discovering the seemingly confident Anthony being just as awkward and insecure as Adam, albeit better at masking it. The film is shot with a yellow color grading, combined with an emphasis on visual elements and score over dialogue reminding me of the tinted films from the Silent Era. This also contributes to the uneasy atmosphere used to build suspense and put the viewer on edge to try to figure out what is going on. In this way, the film conceals much of what it is trying to say. Are there two people or is it one individual grappling with aspects of their subconscious? How identical are they really? What is the deal with the symbol of spiders? The film poses questions that challenge the viewer to analyze them. This film was fascinating, and I will be thinking about it for a while.

16. THE TOWER.— Misery, distress, indigence, adversity, calamity, disgrace, deception, ruin. It is a card in particular of unforeseen catastrophe. Reversed: Negligence, absence, distribution, carelessness, distraction, apathy, nullity, vanity.
— The Pictoral Key to the Tarot (1910) by A.E. Waite

Rookie cop Nick Styles (Denzel Washington) stops hitman Earl Talbott Blake (John Lithgow). The former rises through the ranks, becoming a prominent district attorney and family man. The latter is thrown to the cell, left to obsess over his new goal: to destroy the life of the man who captured him. This is a brutal, nasty little action thriller. One aspect that makes it so grimy is the strategy of using Styles's impulses to do right against him, framing him in the most venal ways imaginable. Ricochet has some interesting DePalma inspirations, seen interestingly in Lithgow as a villain; while De Palma's films depict Lithgow's antagonist as a deceptively average character who blends in, his Blake performance is a superhuman, dripping with cheese. (This is not an insult; indeed, that is a major aspect of this film's charm.) There is probably something to be said about the film's depiction of news media and incarceration, but I am not sure what. The news media comes up quite a lot in Ricochet as Styles is noticed due to a sensational arrest caught on film, his charisma (captured by an incredible Denzel Washington) captures the camera, but that is used against him in Blake's cat-and-mouse game. Additionally, while some reviews describe Blake as languishing in prison, I would argue the opposite; the antagonist flourishes in prison, becoming stronger (exemplified in a cell block gladiatorial match between Lithgow & Jesse Ventura, probably the film's highlight action scene), becoming radicalized and experienced in the torture methods he would use against Styles, and finding fellow inmates willing to cooperate with him in his scheme. Indeed, this engine of radicalization in the film overpowers what the film depicts as liberal bleeding-hearts who are feckless at stopping the threat. The cast is surprisingly solid for a film that might be described as a direct to video Face-Off. This is a messy, excessive, and diabolical work, but by the end, its action sensibilities come together in an entertaining way.

Wealthy socialite Irene Bullock (Carole Lombard) takes in a man (William Powell) living in a Hooverville near the dump, hires him as a butler, and the two fall for each other: but is he what he seems? It took a while for me to get onto My Man Godfrey's level of humor, but once it worked, I was hooked. Much of the film's quality is carried by the actors' comedic chops, especially Carole Lombard (born in Fort Wayne — 260 HIVE RISE UP!) The film plays with class dynamics and stereotypes in a fun way. Very neat.

In the not-too-distant future, a nationwide power outage strands a family in the rural Northwest. Into the Forest presents a feminine perspective on the post-apocalyptic genre, focusing on the ties between its protagonists and poking at the masculine rugged individualist themes often present in the subgenre. (Indeed, there is a section of the film emphasizing the dangers of men believing the collapse of civilization would justify individual domination over the environment and others.) The film is buoyed by its strong lead performances by Elliot Paige and Evan Rachel Wood, carrying the film's meditations on sisterhood. There are some well-shot moments as well, but these are isolated moments rather than strong visual language on the whole. The story meanders quite a lot and struggles to find a strong narrative. There are some moments that reminded me of the expression to "kill your darlings;" that these moments were clearly a highlight to the filmmakers but ultimately did not serve the story effectively. (Also the film was weirdly pro-life, not just explicitly but that element comes out of nowhere.) In some ways, I almost wish modern dance was a bigger component of the film; I thought it was unique and pretty solid. I am a bit disappointed because Into The Forest has been a longtime resident of my watchlist but this was ultimately a bit dull overall.

"Hey, subtlety's not one of our strong points!"

Immediately after serving his sentence, master thief Eddie "Hudson Hawk" Hawkins (Bruce Willis) is recruited by numerous super-villains, all trying to get their hands on a macguffin. The film resembles an adaptation of a comic book, albeit one that never existed, considering the outrageous schemes, hammy personalities, and massive stunts. The film tries to juggle Willis's early comedic casting with with his post-Die Hard action hero. There is probably a decent essay for an enterprising undergrad on the way Hudson Hawk depicts Italian culture in both Italy and the Italian diaspora in the United States. One of the most interesting elements of the film is that Hawkins is the only character not involved in some conspiracy; even the love interest character Anna Baragli (Andie MacDowell) is an agent of the Vatican. This plays into Hawkins's character as a "man out of time" confronting new threats. (Albeit, this is a thread I wish was explored more thoroughly.) In some ways, Hudson Hawk is a film out of time, utilizing slapstick and homaging the Road to ... films of the '40s and '50s, the pulpy superhero film, and violence and coarse language of action films at the time. In some ways, what this film is going for would work better now than when it was released. This combination does not always work, and at times the humor fell a bit flat and sophomoric at times. While the tones clashed a bit — I can think of examples that hit some of the same themes but better — there were some solid moments here.

— "Okay, interesting. So [Heracles] thinks he has control. But let's all , Sophocles wrote the oracle so that it was unconditional, meaning Heracles never had any choice, right? So does that make it more tragic or less tragic than if he has a choice?"
...
— "I think it's more tragic because if it's all just inevitable, then that means that the characters had no hope. They never had hope because they're all just, like, hopeless. They're all like pawns in this horrible, hopeless machine."

Grief and history of trauma consume a family.This was interesting to see today of all days. Hereditary does an excellent job at utilizing horror in its domestic drama to discuss the thorniness of of how people process grief. My grandmother ed away a couple years ago due to contracting COVID while at a rehabilitation center after my family started caring for her, but the impact never hit consciously until a year later. It was as though she was somewhere else or hidden, or that the employees at the center (a place with many older people or already have health issues) had done something awful and mindless to her, but it took a while to click that someone whom I cared deeply about was truly gone. I think the different ways grief and past trauma are processed (or not processed) can lead to actions that are not rational. Toni Collette as the mother Annie does an excellent job at convincingly depicting that. While some of the lines — that "face on your face!" — or unusual facial expressions might seem odd on paper, the performance convincingly renders the kinds of irrationality of grief. From the half-hour to hour mark, there is an particularly incredible ratcheting of tension, not only well-written but also beautifully performed, leaving the viewer waiting for the unsaid tensions to bubble to the surgace. The specters of the past, somnambulism, nightmares, and constantly being reminded of a deceased relative that are depicted through horror add emotion to the domestic drama. The relationship between Annie and her mother was strained at best and abusive at worst, leading to concerns about how the generational trauma may have been ed on. There is an implication that this would be genetic and explicit ties to mental disorders (not the best choice dramaturgically, in my opinion), which I saw as ways the characters tried to process their own past and feelings of guilt. Indeed, Annie's emotional neglect of her son seems to reproduce these flawed family dynamics. (This mother-son conflict makes me wonder what writer-director Ari Aster's relationship with his own mother.) While the film presents a bleak and hopeless story, there is added resonance for characters who would be disposable monster chow in any other horror film. in some respects, I would recommend it for a religious studies course as a story that relies on the ways people confront suffering. For most of Hereditary, I adored the ways grief and the family tragedy were depicted.

Then the final half-hour takes a supernatural twist.

If not for the ending, this probably would have been a 4-star rating. While all of the details add up, I found that turn to cheapen the dramatic and emotional elements. It is not enough to have a complicated relationship with an estranged family member, now there has to be a cult involved. It is not enough to have issues with mental health from an abusive upbringing, it was because they were possessed by a demon. As the supernatural horror elements ramp up, the elements that were subtextual are made thuddingly literal and the dramatic but sincere elements go over the top into goofiness. There are probably folks who enjoy this sort of thing ("The story is about trauma but the monster is very real and is chasing you,") but for me, it is something I resent. It is as though the movie is calling me an idiot for suspending my disbelief to buy into a story with fantasy and metaphor. All the same, Hereditary was a rather interesting film.

[EDIT: An aspect of the story I enjoy but forgot to include originally is that Annie is not only any artist but one who builds miniatures, exercising control over these reconstructions of domestic life.]

Woe be unto him who opens one of the seven gateways to Hell, because through that gateway, evil will invade the world.

A NYC transplant to Louisiana gets to work restoring an old hotel she inherited: unfortunately, it sits right on top of a portal to Hades. Hijinks ensue.
The Beyond does not have much of a plot — going into motifs and tangents rather than a tight narrative — but what makes it so engaging is how well the work captures a mood. Even in moments when it did not make much logical sense — I thought What‽ That is not how spiders feed! to myself while watching one scene — the work artfully creates an atmosphere of dread. The wide angles, cuts, and fades between characters in conversation are solid features of this film. What I wonder the most is about post-War Italian art; I am not an expert, but the aftershocks of Mussolini and the later Years of Lead would probably have some effect on the issues artists would grapple. The Beyond also has a major focus on eyes, either through the camera lingering on actors' faces, blindness, injuries to the eyes, and the mysterious painting. The eye both captures and processes sights but is also vulnerable flesh, confronted by incomprehensible hellish sights. Ultimately, its heroes are blinded by the gloomy expanse of the underworld, the eyes clouding over white like the sterile light and fog. I found this to be a solid horror film.

The search for a baku leads to conflicts in an idealist's (Lake Bell) sanctuary for mythical beings*. The hand-drawn animation is itself a massive achievement, even though the style did not always work for me. (Personally, some moments were impressive, but others struck me as a bit juvenile and rudimentary.) Ultimately, the plot uses the conflicts between humanity and mythological creatures to explore paternalism in charitable work, with the founder of the titular Cryptozoo as a "white savior" competing against parties willing to exploit the creatures. The idea is interesting, but does not quite gel for me, getting more scattered as the film continues. It is rather violent and psychedelic, probably not the best for a family setting. While divisive and certainly not for everyone, Cryptozoo is an interesting work and achievement which I hope it finds its audience.

*The film keeps using the term "cryptid," but I do not think that is accurate. The key aspect of cyrptids is that they are theoretically plausible: they are real creatures, just hidden from zoologists. Out-of-place big cats, undescribed deep-sea creatures, or an unknown ape species. Dragons, unicorns, and baku are from mythology, but their supernatural and narrative characteristics prevent them from being cryptids.

"Behold, I show you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed."
— 1 Corinthians 15:51-52 KJV

I spent the whole film waiting for chili spaghetti: 0 stars.

Skyline depicts an invasion of brain-stealing extraterrestrials in Los Angeles as a group of friends try to survive. While there seems to be an attempt to draw upon Cloverfield (2008), I am actually reminded more of low-budget Christian movies about the Apocalypse, down to people being "raptured" and the ill-defined power of the extraterrestrials' blue light.* This is not to mention the spotty, weightless CGI and numerous lens flares that made this film difficult to watch at times. The group of friends mat to party the night before and the invasion seems to be divine punishment for immature frivolity as the characters grow into mature, self-sacrificing individuals. Unfortunately, this kind of ground-level perspective requires creating dynamic characters that the audience can latch onto. Unfortunately, the character work here is incredibly bland, and by the end it was difficult to care what happened to them. (I found Donald Faison and David Zayas to be wasted here.) Skyline's aliens also never seem to have a consistent set of rules. There always seems to be something new popping out or the protagonist Jarrod (Eric Balfour) seems to be affected by almost being taken in some unspecified way. Strong characters and developing consistent rules are good techniques for this kind of sci-fi/horror/action film, and Skyline's greatest weakness is fumbling that. It was not offensively bad enough to be completely unenjoyable, but neither was it original enough to be fun. That said, I have heard the sequels go in a different direction, so I look forward to watching them.

"I hate LA."

* This is a bit tangential, but I need help identifying a film I thought was similar to this which I saw years ago. It is a low-budget, Evangelical Christian apocalypse film where a group of friends are traveling (I want to say in south or east Asia?) and the Biblical apocalypse from the Book of Revelation. (Ex: water turning to blood, fire coming down from the sky, the rapture, etc.) There is a twist where the protagonist's friend turns out to be the Antichrist, delivering a monologue about secular society. (To paraphrase one line, "How could you be so stupid to believe people came from monkeys?") The protagonist repents and prays to Christ, after which the plot was revealed to be just a dream. He gets out of bed and washes his face, but the twist ending is that the water in the sink turns to blood. It is quite odd, but I hope some folks here on Letterboxd can recognize this, know the title, & let me know in the comments.

* Interviewer: "You mean you think you literally had the same experience as Doc Holliday?
* Val Kilmer: "Oh, sure. It's not like I believed that I shot somebody, but I absolutely know what it feels like to pull the trigger and take someone's life."
— excerpt from a 2005 Esquire interview with Val Kilmer

Holy Motors depicts a day in the life of an actor (Denis Lavant) traveling from vignette to vignette. The work uses these surreal scenes to metatextually explore themes around the nature of film and acting. How can actions on film have weight when they are all make-believe? What does that mean for lives today — our actions filmed for social media, surveillance, or both — as lives increasingly become performances on camera? The scenes depicting tragic situations or violence play off as darkly comedic because both the film and viewer know that they are not really real. The limousine in which the actor travels is another force of technology isolating him from reality. It took me a while to warm up to the film and there are many scenes that were laborious for me to continue watching. What kept me going was Lavant's incredible skill at the physical acting, which captivated me from the very beginning. (I enjoyed quite the musical interludes.) Not exactly for me, but rather interesting nonetheless.

"Dear ducks, My name is Mallard P. Quack. I am not a duck. Stay away. Translation: quack, quack, honk, quack, quack, honk."

Newlyweds Paul (Harry Treadway) and Bea (Rose Leslie) arrive at an isolated cabin in the woods, where their different personalities and past cause friction. The friction between them creates a spark, burning away excesses to reveal a horrible truth. The film is at its most interesting as it uses these little differences that pile up, ultimately manifesting in violent and horrifying ways. Honeymoon shows its characters' conflicting expectations of each other, desires to have or not have children, and backgrounds as the wellspring for drawing out more abstract suspense. The film uses this to generate unease, but it never quite builds to dread; it has some twists, but they are never quite smart enough to stick the landing. Leslie and Treadway have solid chemistry. The movie is primarily from Paul's perspective, but as his character behaves in increasingly erratic violent ways — what I found to be the most horrifying parts of the film — I wish the film would shift that perspective outside of him. Honestly, this could be adapted into a really solid stage play.

Josef K (Anthony Perkins) is awoken by police at his door arresting him for no apparent reason, thrusting him into an absurd situation. The film is an adaptation to Franz Kafka's unfinished novel; despite Orson Welles's & Kafka's incredibly different personalities and consequent deviations from the book as it was published, the film does a solid job at adapting the kafkaesque. Perkins's portrayal is not necessarily the ivity of someone who did nothing, but the indignity of someone who may have done something but believes that the action was justified. This probably lends the work well to analysis with the context of Kafka's life in interwar Czechoslovakia and Welles's experiences regarding the House Un-American Activities Committee. One element that works well for this film is its disconcerting cinematography, not only the use of Dutch angles but what I found striking — its oppressive landscapes. Its protagonist is often either in sprawling expanses that threaten to devour the insect-like character or claustrophobic chambers. I have fond memories of reading Kafka's "Before the Law" for a course on parables and the fascinating discussion in its wake; I enjoyed how this film was able to capture that energy in such a fascinating way.

The Dark Crystal has shattered and the world thrust into centuries of disarray; now it is up to Jen — the last of the Gelflings — to repair the crystal and fulfill his destiny. The story is fairly standard epic fantasy, but the primary focus is as a showcase of puppets and set design. Not only are the sets dazzling, but the puppet and animatronic technology are pushed to the limit, allowing the viewer to forget the puppeteers hard at work behind the scenes. The character design draws upon small animals and characterize them based on stereotypes about them. The antagonistic Skeksis that live off of consuming other creatures have vulturine designs, while their hulking Garthim soldiers resemble scarabs, and the wise Mystics have a hunched posture resembling turtles' carapaces. Perhaps the characters. most adversely affected by this are the Gelflings; while they have the most humanoid design to capture the interest of a human audience, it is that design that draws attention to the limits of emoting through puppetry. The most prominent fantasy theme is the conflict between nature/agrarian lifestyles vs industrialization. The Skekis are some of the only characters that use metallic elements in their costumes, have contraptions to drain vitality, and they use the Dark Crystal's power to power their environmentally destructive empire. (I almost wish that the Skeksis and Mystics as two sides of the same coin was explored a bit more in the film. A comic book I enjoy is James Harren's ultraman/kaiju comic book Ultramega, where one of my favorite elements is the way the series pokes at the interdependence between the titular ultramegas and the kaiju, so that might be my personal preferences talking.) There is something hauntological, seeing the high-water mark of the technology behind puppetry on film. Overall, this is a rock-solid fantasy film.

Police officer Daniel Carter (Aaron Poole) rushes a young man inexplicably covered in blood to a rural hospital, only to do descend into a world of indescribable madness and horror. The it is fitting that the film primarily takes place in a hospital, pushing against the bounds of death. In a Lovecraftian manner, scientific attempts to push on the boundaries of human understanding, to find meaning in mortality, run into forces beyond morality or comprehension. Where it differs thematically is in the absurdist ways the characters find meaning in their struggles against the meaninglessness, both in the ways it creates problems and in their attempts to resolve them in the story. The use of practical effects is impressive here, providing a graininess and viscerality to the work. That said, the use of shaky, handheld camerawork became a bit disorienting and clichéd as the film went on. Additionally, the clear nostalgia for 1980s was effective in the electronic score and effects, but less so in the screenplay. Manny elements have clear inspiration from other films in the period, but their use here seems a bit clumsy and confused. For example, there seems to be a desire for conflict between independent, square-jawed, male heroes tinged with a trace of misogyny, but in some of John Carpenter's works that seem to have inspired The Void, this is interrogated as these tendencies feeding into paranoia and machismo, actively making the problem worse. While this was not bad to watch and is better than other works that have tried to emulate that retro style, I wish the writing was on that same level.

A family and community are struck with the difficulties of a culture trying to survive both through holding on to tradition and also being open to questioning posed by a changing setting. This is communicated through the character Paikea Apirana (Keisha Castle-Hughes), a girl trying to find her way in the world with fortitude and forgiveness, with both a love for tradition while also spending her life reminded of the ways the traditions reject her. Whale Rider has sat on my watchlist for years, and I am glad I finally got around to seeing it. Something I enjoy about the film is the way it presents a story around a precocious child in a way that avoids the cloying quality often seen in these kinds of films for strong emotions communicated through the subtleties of expression. The nuances of both culture and life as a child are not sugarcoated but still presented effectively. Some viewers may be put off by the film being a bit slow paced, but that lingering does not bother me. The film is beautifully shot. Whale Rider is very solid & I highly recommend it.

The plot shifts from RoboCop by way of The Heart of a Dog but for kids to a surprisingly thoughtful reflection on parenthood. The film is action-packed and its humor is quite clever. Pete Davidson had a pretty impressive vocal performance. The film has a frenetic pace, with vibrant, packed visuals and packing a joke a minute. If I have any quibbles with this film, it is that I wish it took time to have some slower, reflective moments. That said, this is a pretty solid film for children and is able to engage attention across its brief runtime.

"The race is the symbol of everything we hold dear — our American way of life! Sure, it's violent, but that's the way we love it! Violent, violent, violent! And that's why we love you!"

"It is also in such decentralized contexts when alternative means of capital acquisition would be pursued by disenfranchised elites and when competitive games might be employed to meet that end. In our opinion, ballcourts were built by nobles for use by elites to acquire wealth and sometimes territory, though games were also played in connection with major ceremonials and by the populace at large. Axayacatl's contest with the king of Xochimilco makes considerable sense when viewed in this light. So does the politicization of such other games as tournaments in feudal Europe Jewell 1977), circus races in the later Roman Empire (Auguet 1972), and the Olympiad of the modern era (Harris and Park, 1983)."
— Excerpt from Santley, Robert M.; Berman, Michael J.; Alexander, Rami T. (1991). "The Politicization of the Mesoamerican Ballgame and Its Implications for the Interpretation of the Distribution of Ballcourts in Central Mexico". In Vernon Scarborough; David R. Wilcox (eds.). The Mesoamerican Ballgame. Tucson: University of Arizona Press

In the distant future year of 2000, the dystopian government organizes Wacky Races-style Cannonball Run to cull the population. The story follows the masked driver Frankenstein (David Carradine), the most decorated racer in history, but not everything goes to plan...
I am struck by the ways that the story uses this hyper-violence, normalizing it in the setting by referring to the victims gruesomely run down and killed as "scores," reducing human lives to infinitesimal points for the scoreboard. There is something to be said for this film as a product to American exposure to violence through the Vietnam War, both in the colonial conflict, the public seeing the war from their homes through mass-media, and waves of violence and political assassinations in the previous years. What struck me now is seeing this in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. The desire to forget and keep profits up has led to the culture where the pretense of care has started to roll away as the bodies pile like cordwood as sacrifices to mammon. As leaders have become more direct in indifference to — or even a desire to inflict — suffering, the online agoræ are so censored that it is difficult to communicate that severity, reduced to neutered euphemisms like "unalived." In this film, despite the explosions and fake blood, the violence is cartoonish, combining vehicular slapstick with an acerbic satire of celebrity culture. While this is a bit spotty and some later films hit on similar ideas more effectively, Death Race 2000 was a major predecessor to these broad dystopian satires. (Funnily enough, the end of the film struck me as surprisingly reminiscent of the P.D. James novel The Children of Men.)

When settlers on the Saginaw Trail — or as people there would call it today, "Dixie Highway" — start getting killed, inexplicably melodious gunslinger Gene Autry (Gene Autry) and his Hamilton Rangers root out a conspiracy by French fur traders. I wanted to watch this because my parents & family are from the general vicinity. The geography is not particularly similar; though you likely would have seen some oak savannas on moraine hills (some of which are presently ski hills), the Jackson Interlobate moraine region has prominent oak-hickory forest, numerous kettle lakes, and prairie fens lacking in Saginaw Trail's Californian filming location. This lack of attention to detail in favor of generalist tropes is characteristic of this Western. It is fairly lackluster, with little to write home about. Perhaps one of the most interesting aspects of this film is the thematic conflict between Anglo settlers and Canadien traders, albeit less that it is historically accurate or even narratively compelling but as an artifact of assumptions that would open the work to interesting analysis on the ways French-Anglo & Metis relations on the frontier have been depicted. I am reminded of Anne F. Hyde's book Born of Lakes and Plains: Mixed Descent People and the Making of the American West (2023) that I started reading, frankly a far better work than this. (ittedly, I still need to complete it — I had to return it to the library.) The insidious nature of the antagonists Jules (Eugene Borden) and Phillipe Brissac (Henry Blair) in this film is not only their scheme to drive out settlers, monopolize fur trade, and profit, but also a dual loyalty to Montreal over Uncle Sam. The fight choreography is slow and clunky. That said, the climactic sword-fight is not something you see in many Westerns. Overall, this was a middling work and probably not the best penultimate film for Autry.

"I'm like a prisoner captured by your eyes
I've been taken and I've been hypnotized."
— "Prisoner (Love theme from, 'The Eyes of Laura Mars')" by Barbra Streisand

A woman (Maya Deren) arrives home and falls into a nightmare of recursion. Meshes of the Afternoon is dripping with striking images and psychoanalytic symbolism. The mirrored surfaces — not only through the mirrors, multiple selves, or the striking mirrored glasses, but even in the reflective metal of the key and knife — present inter-subjectivity of a woman existing in the world. The camera first sees the woman's shadow, then pieces of her, before finally revealing her face. The camera's eye projects themselves onto the generalized silhouette, then breaks the individual into component parts, before seeing them as a full, individual character. This is visualized through the substrate of domestic life and the visual language of post-war film noir reflected in on itself to the point of where it becomes surreal. All of these themes are brought to life through Deren's stunning choreography. This work — less than 14 minutes long but so rich for interpretation that it is arguably one of the most influential avant-garde films made — was created by two people on a $250 budget in their own home. While anyone sufficiently motivated could do this, the thought and intentionality behind the camera makes this a masterpiece.

A man's (Thomas Mann) recurring troubled dream uncovers memories of past lives and past loves. I was not a huge fan of the director's Nandor Fodor and the Talking Mongoose but did not dislike it; here, I found this needlessly confused and sappy. It did not even make much sense when John Malkovich's antagonist explained what was going on at the end. To compare it with another experimental and existential work, Accidental Luxuriance of the Translucent Watery Rebus effectively uses its writing and production design to provoke answers, but Chariot seems so desparate for this kind of interpretation and deconstruction that the story is not only vague but worse: boring. The attempts at dark comedy were not particularly funny and the existential themes around life and mortality are not particularly profound. That said, it was neat seeing Malkovich as the eccentric and soft-spoken psychotherapist.

An occult detective coincidentally named John Constantine (Keanu Reeves) is wound up in a conspiracy to end the world. I am not familiar enough with the comic to gauge the film's quality as an adaptation. It is interesting to see a what was considered a middling comic book film from 20 years ago manage to be more visually interesting than today's superhero films, despite the intervening technological advancements. What struck me — even more than the ways the film depicted the supernatural — were the shots with lens flares to simulate droplets on the lens. The visual trick was such a charming way to play with the diegesis and engage the audience as a part of this world. It is interesting to see the extent the Christian-inspired worldview, practices, and beliefs on demonology are synonymized with Roman Catholicism; perhaps this ways this film engages with those ideas might make for an interesting essay for a religious studies student. (If I were to give a further suggestion, how do the ideas around demons & demonic in Constantine compare with those found in other traditions?) The script is a bit threadbare. Tilda Swinton's angel Gabriel and Djimon Hounsou's neutral Midnite are interesting, but appear a bit briefly in the film while Rachel Weisz — despite playing a deuteragonist on paper — does not have that much to do. The film draws upon film noir a bit as the detectives uncover a supernatural conspiracy, and in some respects, I wish the work leaned into that aspect a bit more. One aspect that ages Constantine the most for me are not the effects but this 2000's edginess. I am reminded of Spawn in some respects; while that is a product of the '90s touching on similar ideas, Constantine updates the soundtrack and poses a more nihilistic perspective. To be fair, my biggest problem is the way the sound was mixed: the dialogue was quiet and difficult to make out versus the sound effects. While I think some people would really enjoy this, it was a bit mixed for me.

In the not too distant future, former Special Forces agent Joshua (John David Washington) reluctantly takes on a final mission: to find and destroy the south Asian AI's prophesied final weapon. A weapon that turns out to be a child (Madeleine Yuna Voyles). I enjoyed that the film looked quite good and the CG exemplary for a film now, doubly so on a budget a fraction of some recent blockbusters. If there is anything to take away from this, it is that it is possible to tell original stories and create stunning visuals when time and energy are invested into creative people. Ken Watanabe and Allison Janney's performances are both solid for this film. That said, there is an enormous gap between the effects' quality and the writing's quality. The script is unoriginal at best and incredibly irresponsible at worst. The Creator riffs on the post-Vietnam War trend of "sad soldier" films; rather explicitly through the American conflict in southeast Asia; this is done in a rather superficial manner and does not add anything new, refusing to engage with the thematic complexities of the war. Note that my primary critique is with the film as a war movie more than sci-fi; the film clearly prioritizes the former over the latter, not being particularly interested in how an artificial intelligence would act in the world or view itself. There is also some tonal inconsistency: there is a moment where a monkey detonates a bomb or a trashcan-shaped suicide bomber robot sats, "It is an honor to serve.." before running into a fortified position followed by the aftermath of the third My Lai massacre of this film. I wish the screenplay served the work better than it did. In some ways, it would serve the work better if it leaned into communicating a mood or vibe rather than being so exposition-heavy. While The Creator is an original story with stunning effects, none of the narrative elements are particularly original.

"Sitte ge, sīgewīf, sīgað tō eorðan,
næfre ge wilde tō wuda fleogan,
beō* ge swā gemindige, mīnes gōdes,
swā bið manna gehwilc, metes and ēðeles."

("Settle down, victory-women, sink to earth,
Never be wild and fly to the woods.
Be as mindful of my welfare
as is each man, of border and home.")
— second half of the Old English metrical charm "For a Swarm of Bees"

There is a part in The Citadel of the Autarch — the fourth book in my favorite book series, Gene Wolfe's The Book of the New Sun — where the protagonist Severian is in a war camp, and is a spectator of a storytelling competition: one story is a deceptively simple story of revenge and action, the other a fable using figurative language to hint at larger values, and the third rather straightforward but marred by complicated language. While it poses interesting ideas on the nature of fiction, it is also something of an author's metatextual ission: the story the reader has read thus far is all three.
The Croatian animated film Accidental Luxuriance of the Translucent Watery Rebus reminded me of those ages. I stumbled upon it today and had no expectations going in. The animation is a kaleidoscopic collage of newspaper cuttings and designs, while much of the dialogue is cribbed from old science fiction novels. On one level, the plot is a film noir, an investigation of a pair of subversive characters' escape from the urban life, but at the same time, it is a search for meaning more broadly, not only by all of the characters and even the audience. Like many noir stories, the story refuses to provide closure to the latter point. The piece almost dares the viewer to draw some meaning, the frequent use of beehives and apples as symbols, for example. The film is ultimately an experimental interrogation on the nature of story. The unsettling score and animation are used to effectively estrange the viewer but also draw them in through their inventiveness. It took me a while to get a hang of this film's style and it is certainly not for everyone, but I quite enjoyed Accidental Luxuriance of the Translucent Watery Rebus and find it to be a solid directorial debut feature film.

*Much like the "bee/be" homophone in Modern English, the Old English "beō" is used both to refer to the insect and "be [imperative singular]."

"I want my car back."

Australian drifter Eric's (Guy Pierve) mission of vengeance on the trio who stole his car takes a more existential route meditating on the meaning of revenge when he picks up the injured Rey (Robert Pattinson). Despite being technically a post-apocalyptic film, The Rover is less a dystopian future like Mad Max 2 and more the neo-western of the original Mad Max. Indeed, the centrality of cars in the film is the only thing holding the plot back from being a typical western. The outback's desolate landscape is used to convey the desolation of social institutions, as ethics and morality are defined through capacity for violence. While I was not a fan of The Rover at first, it gradually started to come together by the end. Pierce — truly a Guy I like to see — gives a solid performance as well as Pattinson. While the darkness and desolation of the setting is conveyed through the color grading, it is a bit too murky at times. Overall, this was pretty good.

The bonkers plot of Alienoid comes to a thrilling conclusion in Alienoid: Return to the Future. There are many elements I quite enjoy. The film has an interesting balance between sorcery and science-fiction; the extraterrestrial technology provides some power in the historical setting, the magic can stand on its own apart from it. The cast and score are quite solid. Much of this film's strengths and weaknesses are the same as those in the first film; while the plot can be wild and — much like Soylent Green — the taste varies from person to person, it was the exact kind of inventiveness I enjoy. This film is less of a sequel per se and more accurately a third act, wrapping up loose ends as the plot builds to its climax. In some ways, this is both Return to the Future's strength and its greatest weakness. On one hand, the story takes opportunities to play with elements set up in its predecessor. Now that the audience has a grasp of this sandbox, there is freedom to play with elements previously set up in interesting ways. Some characters have expanded roles in this film, for example. There are some more twists and turns; some are rather obvious, but at least one managed to surprise me. On the other hand, Return to the Future stretches a third act into a two-hour film, gradually ramping upward; consequently, the work is quite bloated, particularly compared to its predecessor. This aspect could have been better if the film functioned more like a typical sequel, building off of the first's themes in new directions, expanding the world through the human characters or the lore behind the aliens, or even just introducing some new magical spells or action techniques. While it carries on the first part's unique blend of martial arts historical fantasy and tokusatsu sci-fi, this continues on the same track rather than expanding it. I recall the director of a world music ensemble I participated in college saying that it is necessary to add variation building off the initial theme because continuing to play the same motif would make the audience fall asleep. While I adore the bonkers plot and humorous tone, it would have been nice if Return to the Future brought in some more new elements. Viewers' opinions may vary, but overall, I had a good time.

A pair of disillusioned knights errant (Nicolas Cage & Ron Perlman) are reluctantly assigned to transport a witch (Claire Foy) believed to be the source of a deadly plague to a distant monastery. This was certainly... a film. I am not even going to mention historical accuracy, as the film is more of a dark fantasy/action movie than any attempt at historical verisimilitude. There are some baffling accent choices on display, prominently Nick Cage's attempt at RP and Stephen Graham's attempt at NYC. Claire Foy is probably the best actor in this movie. One of the most interesting elements is the attempt to create ambiguity around the witch character — is there really something supernatural afoot or is it mundane prejudice? — but it is not handled well. There is a twist with her character, but in some ways, the twist cheapens the stakes earlier in the story. Were it not for Season of the Witch being released in 2011, it would be a surprisingly apt addition to my "Turn of the Millennium supernatural thrillers where an irreligious protagonist gets drawn into a spiritual war between Christian powers and principalities that have red & black movie posters with close-ups of faces on them" list. The knights start the film with a pessimistic perspective on Christian religion, but over the story, they have to take the religion seriously to tackle demonic threats. The film falls to some modern action film foibles, such as an teal and orange color that leans more into the former for muddy, dark color throughout than the latter. While it can be fun as a dark fantasy, I found it to be a bit dull and a waste of the solid cast's talent.

For a movie about an attempt to adapt Frank Herbert's novel Dune, there sure are a lot of folks saying that they have never read Dune.

Much of my enjoyment of this documentary on the titular cancelled production came less from what those behind it — much less the poorly-aged talking heads praising it — had to say about it and more what was implied off to the side. The talking heads elatedly describe the genius behind what would have been both the first and last film to have a trillion dollar budget. Even though many of these figures want to use Star Wars as an example of the project's potential, much of its success lie less with some singular genius on the part of George Lucas and more with the crew's ability to refine the ideas into a legible work. An element in the documentary that struck me was Alejandro Jodorowsky being rejected by the masters of various production elements at the time. Douglas Trumbull rejected the offer to to provide effects while Salvador Dali posed cartoonishly extravagant benefits in exchange for taking part in the project. Instead, many of the artists who were associated with the project were just cutting their teeth and were recommended later. What I see in this is Jodorowsky reaching the peak of claims to creative power, an auteur apotheosis. The project had a trinity; Alejandro as the Father, his Son Brontis forced to endure harsh physical training to become the messiah, and the film as a Holy Spirit bestowing enlightenment on its viewers as a hallucinogenic Pentecost. (The ending as described — Paul Atreides's spirit possessing all of the people present, then the planet, and finally the universe — poses the "death" of the film causing it to possess and enlighten the viewers and the world as a whole.) Jodorowsky's loose adaptation of the novel does not seem intended to be a film, but the creation of a new world, a world limitless as his own imagination and unbound by budgets, technology, or even the laws of physics. (Not to say that the ideas are bad in and of themselves; I ire the creativity on display but am skeptical of whether it would have panned out.) For this ego inflated to cosmic proportions, the auteur initially wanted the best of the best, but those people also had enormous egos and uncompromising creative visions. To me, the reason these leading figures who were pursued initially turned Jodorowsky down and led him to adopt emerging creatives is that he ultimately did not want collaborators — he wanted disciples.
However, these heights of aspiration by a director are only part of the reason this cancelled project has had such a long afterlife. The collaborations by the artists and the ideas generated have gone on to be incredibly influential to the science-fiction genre as a whole, not just in films, but also comics and literature. That said, I find some of the connections made at the end of the film somewhat spurious. I think that if this film was made, it would have flopped so hard it would be as though an asteroid struck the industry, this project may arguably be the "greatest film never made" due to this mystique it has garnered over the years.

I also found the animations quite impressive. Personally, I wish Jodorowsky's Dune did more to shed light on the details behind the project. At times, it felt akin to the SNL sketch of Chris Farley interviewing Paul McCartney.

I do not talk about this very much on here, but I have long been ionate about studying animals. (What can I say? There are few opportunities where this would come up naturally.) As a young child, reading facts about animals was the only thing I cared about. Some of my favorite memories from that time are going to the library to ravenously devour book after book on zoology. Nature documentaries occupy a special place in my heart, a genre that I will almost always enjoy. My family would say that I have a habit of identifying animals in nature documentaries and describe interesting facts about them before the narrators did. What nature documentary would be more representative than Planet Earth? David Attenborough's measured speech and dulcet tones transport the viewer across the planet into the array of lives in the natural world. The camerawork is stunning, especially considering the effort to capture scenes from inaccessible environments. The cinematography stitches these events into dynamic vignettes with their own narrative ebb and flow. Even the worlds of insects are expanded to a mythic scale in vibrant color. Planet Earth has helped open people's eyes to the unity and diversity of animal life in places they may never see. If I had to show one work to an extraterrestrial intelligence, it would probably be this one, a dazzling work about humanity's fellow travelers on this pale blue dot. Every nature documentary since has tried to recapture the lightning in a bottle on display here, but Planet Earth is truly the greatest of all time.

Recently retired FBI agent Will Graham (William Petersen) is drawn back in to track down the culprit of a series of strange murders. One interesting aspect is the film as a reflection on filmmaking. The film presents the offenders and the police who pursue them as two sides of the same coin in the crime thriller genre. Graham is something of an actor, drawing upon props (evidence at the crime scene), sets (his need to visit the homes where the murders occurred), and even scripts (notes from the killers) to get into the role playing the serial killers he seeks to capture. Brian Cox does a bang-up job as Dr. Hannibal Lecktor (no relation), and I almost wish he was a bigger part of the plot. The costuming of the character is also quite interesting, presenting him in a white jumpsuit in a white cell, presenting the psychiatrist as a floating head. This is stylistically incredible with the ways even the lighting for Graham vs the serial killer — who first shows up more than halfway through the film — build that atmosphere and define those characters. While quite different from The Silence of the Lambs, another incredible police thriller based on a Thomas Harris novel, I found Manhunter to be a very solid psychological work in its own way.

It is February 25, 1964.
The young boxer Cassius Clay (Eli Goree) has just defeated Sonny Liston for the World Heavyweight title. Browns fullback Jim Brown (Aldis Hodge) is a commentator while Malcom X (Kingsley Ben-Adir) and singer Sam Cooke (Leslie Odom Jr.) watch ringside. The story imagines an encounter between the four real-life friends, and some of the best at what they did at the time, celebrating after the victory on their aspirations for the future of the movement.
One Night in Miami... adapts Kemp Powers's play and the story utilizes these well-known figures as a way to explore the past but also present cultural concerns. While impressions are easy, the writing crafts goes beyond by crafting realistic characters and imbuing foregone conclusions with dramatic weight. Indeed, some moments bear the sting of hindsight considering what the future would hold for some of the characters. Where the film shines is in the moments where the characters are paired off to interact, driving the dialogue through mutual respect but conflicting perspectives from large personalities. The conflict between X and Cooke is a prime example, forming the central conflict of the film; how do these individuals at the top of the world move through society and give back to their communities while in a country that sees their accomplishments but still treats them as second-class citizens? The one-on-one conversations are perhaps the most theatrical elements; not only utilizing the power of conversation to drive the narrative but providing each actor with a moment to shine. The film deserves credit for unleashing these actors' full potential through this story. (Also the late actor Lance Reddick has a small role in the film that I found to be a pleasant surprise.) While the format took a bit to get accustomed to, I thought One Night in Miami... was quite solid.

The Laws of Eternity has this quote which is probably the best summary of a cult mentality:

"The 'freedom' you believe is the freedom that makes people unhappy."

This "film" is utterly bizarre, from the story itself to the ideology it professes. It might be fun to watch with some friends; there are ample opportunities to chuckle when random historical figures show up every few minutes. (Helen Keller? What are you doing here and why are you blond?)

Heavy Metal is an anthology of animated vignettes based on stories distributed by the eponymous magazine. The film sets out to capture an energy and certainly captures it. Some of the best moments are when it leans into the pulpiness and humor. While interesting at times, I do not think enough thought was put into adapting the vignettes or incorporating the rock music, making moments that felt inconsistent and clashed tonally. The style through the animation is strong. It is one of those films that is great if you feel that energy and horrible if you do not. Not bad and I did not dislike the film, but I wish I liked it more than I did.

Still far better than Heavy Metal 2000.

The FBI is embroiled in a conflict with a Russian gang when the latter enlist a mysterious assassin known only by his codename: "The Jackal" (Bruce Willis). But the feds have an ace up their sleeve with former IRA comrade Declan Milqueen (Richard Gere). This is very much a '90s thriller, from its electronic score to the detente between the United States and post-Soviet Russia leading to the Cold War threats giving way to terrorism, down to the suspicions about the IRA. The aspect where this shows up the most is in the way the primary movers and shakers are private actors — either through non-state entities as the Russian mafia or killers-for-hire like Declan & The Jackal — while government entities on what were once two sides of the Iron Curtain are left as flat-footed buffoons. The Jackal has a stacked cast — including a young Jack Black — but it is hard to feel for them when most end up dead by the end of the film. I was impressed by Diane Verona as Russian agent Mj. Valentina Koslova in the movie, but I wish she had more to do. Gere's attempt at an Irish accent filled me with second-hand embarrassment. Even though there is so much packed into The Jackal, from globe-trotting action to immense firepower, there is very little to the story. The film is not particularly subtle, its characters a bit bland, and the plot sluggish and straining against credulity. Its action is serviceable, but not particularly motivated. This is a decent action film, but probably not one I would want to watch again.

"He was turned to steel
In the great magnetic field
When he travelled time
For the future of mankind."
— "Iron Man" 3rd verse, by Black Sabbath

Around ten teens are stuck in the future post-ecological collapse when the government pulls the plug on a secret project. I found this to be a neat environmental dystopia standard of the period. I would probably describe Idaho Transfer as combining the teen dystopia of Michael Grant's Gone series with the pessimistic reflection on civilization's extinction of Cormac McCarthy's The Road. There is no way to solve the collapse of the environment due to hyper-consumption and even if it does limp along, it will descend into auto-cannibalism. The film makes the most of a limited budget, with the Craters of the Moon and Bruneau Dunes' unusual landscapes making a solid backdrop. I wish the film defined some of its characters more, something that would have added color to the story. The way the film handled its time travel for moments with its young, female protagonists, but other than that, I thought it was a solid low-budget speculative film.

Welcome back, Disney direct-to DVD sequels.
This was fine, but was a degraded version of its predecessor. The animation was not quite as good, the characterization did not quite work, and the music had me wistful for Lin Manuel Miranda — truly a feat. The film's meandering, disted quality makes sense considering its start as an animated show. I do not have many feelings about this. It was not bad and rather cute, but I wish folks dd not see children's movies as an excuse for poorer quality work.

Unemployed veteran Ezekiel "Easy" Rawlins (Denzel Washington) takes a job as a private investigator, falling into a web of secrets, murder, and political intrigue around the Los Angeles mayoral race. Based onWalter Mosley's hard-boiled detective novel, every aspect is incredible. The story is rock solid, using the postwar noir as an avenue to deliver a pessimistic dissection of race relations through Los Angeles. While the twist was clear to me early on, the tension came from waiting for the other shoe to drop. The performances are all excellent; Denzel Washington is charismatic as always, but Don Cheadle's performance as the trigger-happy "Mouse" is notable. The film beautifully captures light and shadow. Overall a very solid revisionist film noir and highly recommended.

Proprietor "Sugar" Ray (Richard Pryor) and protégé Quick (Eddie Murphy) try to manage their club while escaping the clutches of the police and the mob. The film is a stylish period piece with a star-studded cast and solid premise, but is held back by an inconsistent tone, sluggish — practically non-existent — plot, and wooden leading performance. The film is never quite funny enough to be a comedy, but there are too many gestures towards jokes for it to work entirely well as a serious gangster film. That said, the film handles matters of race and systemic themes rather well. I am glad that Murphy used his star power to get a film like this made, but Harlem Nights unfortunately never quite worked for me.

"Everybody wants to be rich. If they can't be rich, the next best thing is to feel rich. And if they don't want to feel rich, then they're probably dead."

David Siegel and his family were at the top of the world, at the head of a massive timeshare firm and building one of the largest residential homes in the country.
Then 2008 hit.

The film encapsulates the Bush era in a fascinating way, both through David Siegel as a major Bush donor and er in Florida, but also the slide of housing spinning out into the financial crisis. (In some respects, the focus on finances in the latter half of the film almost detract from the narrative's focus on these individuals.) Much like other people in the period, the promise of cheap money lead to a mindset of growth, leaving them high and dry when they finally enter free fall. Where the film revealed the most was less through the banal interests of David or Jacqueline Siegel but through the people whose livelihoods exist around them. There is a scene where the family realizes a lizard kept as a pet died from neglect, reflecting an earlier statement by David Siegel, "I think everybody is better off for being either my child or my employee." In this paternalist relationship, the nannies in the home and employees at the company are neglected to shoulder the burdens sustaining that lifestyle. Even the relationship with his children is distanced and mediated through monetary transactions. The kinds of lifestyle they aspire to are ones that frequently look backwards, whether the Ancien régime's Baroque architecture through Versailles or Las Vegas in the 1950s through the PH Towers. It is telling that these two edifices are depicted as monuments to the Siegels' wealth and — despite dragging down the finances — the two edifices they are most reluctant to let go. It is this nostalgic view of past luxury through the tackiness of modern consumerism. The French nobility, the casinos, and Gilded Age mansions (the Versailles house is something of a Bush-era descendant of the Vanderbilts' Biltmore Estate) were just as gaudy displays of wealth in the face of inequality in their own periods as these "McMansions" are now. Jacqueline Siegel, as someone who rose to the station through marriage, brings much of the documentary's personality, as someone who is inculcated by wealth but also an intelligent person who re working life. The tensions once the financial crisis hits are less about entering a new social strata as much as they are fears of returning to a lower, past state. In some ways, it is interesting to see the documentary depicting the Siegel family as lurid reality TV fodder, an image they have seemingly embraced as they have clawed back their money in the years after. I thought this was an interesting documentary.

"Go up, pace out the walls of Uruk,
Study the foundation terrace and examine the brickwork."
— Epic of Gilgamesh, Tablet 1, lines 18-19 Benjamin Foster translation

In the future year of 2665, Babylon's streets — strangely resembling modern Brussels — are home to a hitman (Nathan Tahmaseb, thoughts voiced by Michell Heyndrickx) trying to find meaning in life when humanity has achieved immortality. The film is a solid independent work, with strong aspirations. The work draws upon the Epic of Gilgamesh and Mesopotamian mythology. One element that I wish the film had are more of the prop and linguistic flourishes to establish its future setting. I am reminded of Time of Roses, where the strange, inflatable plastic furniture and silent discotheque not only present unusual scenarios but also comment on a sanitization of life and avoidance of emotion that are major themes. While this is commonplace in sci-fi films,The Divinity of a City's Mesopotamian inspiration provides ample opportunity to lean into that. While there were some names, I almost wish that inspiration was pursued further to hit at that feeling. That said, The Divinity of a City — despite nothing being quite great — makes the most out of an incredibly small budget to communicate existential ideas. I thought it was solid for a small film like this.

A list of films that have been reviewed by the excellent podcast Movie Oubliette. The list is chronological by episode and the link to each episode is in the notes.

I am not d with the folks behind the podcast but I am merely a fan and wanted to keep track.

• Society

  www.movieoubliette.com/e/society-1555927188/

• Demons

  www.movieoubliette.com/e/demons-1555928021/

• Saturn 3

  www.movieoubliette.com/e/saturn-3/

• Willow

  www.movieoubliette.com/e/willow-1555929187/

• Razorback

  www.movieoubliette.com/e/razorback/

• Amityville II: The Possession

  www.movieoubliette.com/e/amityville-ii-the-possession/

• Pandorum

  www.movieoubliette.com/e/pandorum/

• Capricorn One

  www.movieoubliette.com/e/capricorn-one/

• The Stuff

  www.movieoubliette.com/e/the-stuff-1555930396/

• The Haunting

  www.movieoubliette.com/e/the-haunting/

...plus 179 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

I have tried to get into the habit of exercising more. Usually, I try to turn on a movie, hop on the elliptical trainer (hence the tag "on the [exercise] machine"), and keep stepping until it ends. I have been tagging those reviews with "on the machine," but wanted to make a list to collate some of them chronologically.

• Strawberry Mansion
• Tale of Tales
• Outlander
• Colossal
• Bit
• The Killing of a Sacred Deer
• A Knight's Tale
• The Ninth Gate
• The Devil's Advocate
• But I'm a Cheerleader

...plus 94 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

In April, I saw 21 films. This is a space to spotlight a few that I thought were neat.

• Meshes of the Afternoon
• Devil in a Blue Dress
• The Queen of Versailles
• One Night in Miami...
• Alienoid: Return to the Future
• Manhunter
• Jodorowsky's Dune
• Idaho Transfer
• Accidental Luxuriance of the Translucent Watery Rebus
• The Divinity of a City

I am often struck by the imagination & exploration of the medium seen in silent film. This is a little list of some examples of older, silent films that play with the camera's potential, perceiving and being perceived, in interesting ways.

• The X-Ray Fiend
• The Big Swallow
• The Cameraman's Revenge
• Man with a Movie Camera
• Meshes of the Afternoon

In March, I saw 53 films. This is a space to spotlight a few that I thought were neat.

• Lone Star
• Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
• Burn!
• Eve's Bayou
• Bell, Book and Candle
• The Wild Child
• Across 110th Street
• Fail Safe
• Alienoid
• Notorious

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

In February, I saw 15 films. This is a space to spotlight a few that I thought were neat.

• The Cameraman's Revenge
• Let the Right One In
• Night on the Galactic Railroad
• Déjeuner du Chat
• Cool Hand Luke
• Charade
• My Cousin Vinny
• White Men Can't Jump
• The Man from Hong Kong
• Dead Presidents

...plus 5 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• The Wizard of Oz
• Fantasia
• Meshes of the Afternoon
• Harvey
• Orpheus
• A Midsummer's Night Dream
• An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
• When the Cat Comes
• Céline and Julie Go Boating
• Penda's Fen

• The X-Ray Fiend
• A Trip to the Moon
• Island of Lost Souls
• Them!
• La Jetée
• Planet of the Vampires
• Planet of the Apes
• Soylent Green
• Space Is the Place
• The Stepford Wives

I saw 28 films in January. This is a space to spotlight a few that I thought were neat.

• To Sleep with Anger
• The Wild Robot
• Nimic
• Train to Busan
• Timecrimes
• The White Sun of the Desert
• Rye Lane
• Nightfall
• Shadow of the Hawk
• Space Station 76

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

Cinematic adaptations of Raymond Chandler's works featuring hard-boiled detective Philip Marlowe.

• The Falcon Takes Over
• Time to Kill
• Murder, My Sweet
• The Big Sleep
• Lady in the Lake
• The Brasher Doubloon
• Marlowe
• The Long Goodbye
• Farewell, My Lovely
• The Big Sleep

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

In December, I saw 56 movies. There were so many stand-outs from the month that I did not want to denigrate any with a ranked list, so I wanted to put the ones I particularly enjoyed here.

• Deep Cover
• The Beast
• Koyaanisqatsi
• True Stories
• A Face in the Crowd
• Incendies
• The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension
• The Third Man
• Kes
• Blow Out

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

A list of films for the April 8th, 2024 solar eclipse. (Or other ones; I am not here to judge.)

• Solar Eclipse
• The Eclipse: Courtship of the Sun and Moon
• Eclipse
• Chasing Shadows
• Welcome Space Brothers
• Space Is the Place
• When the Stars Meet the Sea
• The Diplomacy of the Eclipse
• Judy Berlin
• Days of Eclipse

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

R.I.P. Typhoon

• Overdrawn at the Memory Bank
• Primal Force
• Shakma
• Unmasking the Idol
• The Order of the Black Eagle
• The Fly
• Primal Rage
• Ad Astra
• The Rundown
• Jumanji: The Next Level

• A Chorus Line
• Nashville
• Topsy-Turvy
• Opening Night
• Sing

Films I saw on Christmas & Christmas Eve in 2024.
Many of these are surprisingly applicable to the Christmas spirit.

• The Wolf of Snow Hollow
• Anna and the Apocalypse
• The Cutting Edge
• Koyaanisqatsi
• The Package

• Koyaanisqatsi
• True Stories
• Earth Girls Are Easy

"Interesting subset of thrillers and action movies from [post-Cold War & pre-9/11] reflected America's growing paranoia in the '90s by positioning rogue military, defense contractors, and intelligence agents [& government itself] as villains."

Inspired by this tweet thread.
Also check out YourPapa's "Iran-Contra" list.
Also contains some Andrew Davis Conspiracy Thrillers set in Chicago.

• Under Siege 2: Dark Territory

  Suggested by @RobertSkvarla.

• Above the Law

  Suggested by @Meritocrating.

• The Glimmer Man

  Suggested by @CommentCreator.

• Most Wanted

  Suggested by @CommentCreator.

• Broken Arrow

  Suggested by @RobertSkvarla.

• The Rock

  Suggested by @RobertSkvarla.

• In the Line of Fire

  Suggested by @RobertSkvarla.

• Absolute Power

  Suggested by @RobertSkvarla.

• The Package

  Suggested by @excelgoblin.

• Enemy of the State

  Suggested by @RobertSkvarla.

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

Late to post-Cold War conspiracy thrillers set in or around the city of Chicago, Illinois, that are directed by Andrew Davis.

• Code of Silence
• Above the Law
• The Package
• Chain Reaction

• Fallen
• Stigmata

I wanted to make a list of films to set alongside The Twilight Saga to try and play off of the themes around coming of age, romance, and identity along with incorporating a broader array of vampire & horror films.

• Twilight
• The Twilight Saga: New Moon
• The Twilight Saga: Eclipse
• The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1
• The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2
• The Lost Boys
• Ginger Snaps
• The Company of Wolves
• Let the Right One In
• Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person

...plus 14 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• When Harry Met Sally...
• Sleepless in Seattle
• You've Got Mail
• Cousins

I am listing Phase 1 to Phase 3 films as the "Infinity Saga" culminating in Avengers: Endgame, marking peak MCU. My thoughts on why I ordered the films the way I did are in the notes.

• Captain America: The First Avenger

  Starting with this film before Iron Man helps compare two closely tied characters throughout the series & emphasizes the Infinity Saga's themes around heroism & technology, constructing a vision of what heroism means in a modern society.

  BONUS: I think starting with Captain America: The First Avenger and its exploration of technology makes the film-adaptation of The Rocketeer (1991) -- also directed by Joe Johnston -- something of a spiritual prequel in themes & tone.

• Iron Man

  This is the first film released & placed here for thematic contrast with Captain America and a different idea of heroism.

• The Incredible Hulk

  I wanted to set up The Incredible Hulk after Captain America as a parallel.

• Iron Man 2

  This was placed chronologically by release.

• Thor

  This was also placed chronologically by release.

• The Avengers

  This film unites the disparate threads of the Phase 1 films into its climactic conclusion.

• Thor: The Dark World

  I adore Nando v. Movies's "Nandorder" for Phase 2 as expressed in the video "Marvel Phase Two is in the Wrong Order" . I find Phase 2 to be a deconstruction of the assumptions set up in Phase 1. Notably, the new characters introduced in their own films are both anti-heroes. He puts this first as a "palate-cleanser" after the first Avengers.

• Guardians of the Galaxy

  This film not only gets to be a "palate-cleanser" episode but also can help introduce Phase 2 as a section that questions the assumptions set up in Phase 1 through more anti-heroic characters.

• Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

  This film begins almost immediately after the first's conclusion & is mostly disconnected from the events of the rest of the MCU.

• Avengers: Age of Ultron

  Placing Avengers: Age of Ultron early in the phase allows it to show the cracks in the Avengers. Nando v. Movies places the film earlier to show S.H.I.E.L.D. at work & set up Tony Stark responding to his near-death experience in The Avengers by trying to "build a suit of armor around the world." I know there are some little elments thrown out of wack, but I enjoy this order's thematic sense.

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

• Klute
• All the President's Men
• The Parallax View
• Blow Out
• The Firm
• And the Band Played On
• The Pelican Brief
• Erin Brockovich
• Working Girl
• The Devil Wears Prada

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

Inspired by section from S2E21.5 ("Q&A 8") in the video "The Official* KJB Film Club | Kill James Bond Highlight" by the channel Kill James Bond Highlights.

• 12 Angry Men

  Devon

• Cast Away

  Abigail

• Hedwig and the Angry Inch

  Abigail

• Color Out of Space

  Abigail

• Con Air

  Devon (an example of "Golden Era Nic Cage")

• Face/Off

  BONUS: an example of "Golden Era Nic Cage" by Kill James Bond Highlights

• The Rock

  BONUS: An example of "Golden Era Nic Cage" by Kill James Bond Highlights.

• Pig

  Devon (an example of "Late Era Nic Cage")

• The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent

  Devon (an example of "Late Era Nic Cage")

• Adaptation.

  November (an example of "Late Era Nic Cage," Devon had not seen it at the time of recording)

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

I was inspired to do this by Craig Fay's TikTok on the subject, but wanted to try to contextualize these films by building a McClane canon, if you will.

Another list I enjoyed on this subject is Mike Sean's list Welcome to the Party Pal: The Die Hard Scenario.

• The Detective

  Based on the Roderick Thorp novel of the same title published in 1966.

• The Towering Inferno

  The Towering Inferno (1974) inspired a dream which inspired Roderick Thorp's novel Nothing Lasts Forever (1979).

• Die Hard

  Based on the Roderick Thorp novel Nothing Lasts Forever (1979), a sequel to The Detective (1966). The first film in the Die Hard franchise.

• Ricochet

  Features Mary Ellen Trainor returning to play the character Gail Wallens from Die Hard.

• Rainbow Drive

  The film is based on another novel by Roderick Thorp of the same title published in 1986.

  This is not a sequel to Nothing Lasts Forever but I wanted to include it as another adaptation of Thorp's work and another perspective on his novels' tone and themes.

• Die Hard 2

  The second film in the Die Hard franchise and based on the standalone novel 58 Minutes (1987) by Walter Wagner.

  I am tempted to include Telefon (1977) and Twilight's Last Gleaming (1977), but am unsure whether I should. Please let me know in the comments.

• Speed

  The subway crash scene in Speed (1994) was inspired by a scene taken from a script for a Die Hard 3 sequel set on a subway.

  Die Hard on a bus.

• Under Siege

  Die Hard 3 was originally going to be "Die Hard on a ship*", but the script - entitled Troubleshooter - was too similar to Under Siege (1992).

  *I say "ship" and not "boat" because I fear the boat nerds' wrath.

• Speed 2: Cruise Control

  Some aspects from the Die Hard 3 Troubleshooter script were repurposed for Speed 2: Cruise Control (1997).

• Rapid Fire

  The screenplay that was the basis for Die Hard With a Vengeance (1995) was originally written as a sequel to Rapid Fire (1992).

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

• The Snowman
• The Muppet Christmas Carol
• A Christmas Carol
• Hogfather
• Klaus
• Three Wishes for Cinderella
• Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka
• Trading Places
• Tokyo Godfathers
• The Umbrellas of Cherbourg

...plus 63 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• Invasion of the Body Snatchers
• Pleasantville
• Invasion of the Body Snatchers
• Body Snatchers
• Before We Vanish
• The Puppet Masters
• The Hidden
• They Live
• The Faculty
• The Thing from Another World

...plus 8 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

For the absolute essential parts of the canon, refer to the abridged list here.

• Babe
• Gus
• Air Bud
• Big and Hairy
• Napoleon

  Optional.

• Beethoven

  Optional.

• The Adventures of Milo and Otis

  Optional.

• The Incredible Journey

  Optional.

• Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey

  Optional.

• Homeward Bound II: Lost in San Francisco

  Optional.

...plus 35 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

The first list but optional films are removed.

• Babe
• Gus
• Air Bud
• Big and Hairy
• Balto
• Snow Dogs
• Air Bud: Golden Receiver
• The Duke
• Air Bud: World Pup
• MVP: Most Valuable Primate

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

Inspired by this Tumblr post. I thought it sounded like a neat opportunity for a Letterboxd list.

Please offer suggestions for additions in the comments.

• Don't Look Up
• Nope
• Making of The Last of Us

  (Consider this a proxy for The Last of Us and Birdbox series which are not on Letterboxd.)

• A Quiet Place
• A Quiet Place Part II

• Branded to Kill
• Le Samouraï
• Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai
• Man on Fire
• Mission: Impossible II

I wanted to create a list of films arranged to make a rewarding viewing for Zach Snyder's filmography. I it, I am not the biggest Snyder fan, but I have some friends who are really into the director, so I wanted to do something for them. This list is intended as a a viewing order for these films.

1. Excalibur

   This film was obviously not directed by Zach Snyder; however, this film is EXTREMELY influential to Snyder's style and watching it will make the following Zach Snyder films incredibly rewarding.

2. Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole

   I think this owl film for children captures a lot of Zach Snyder's Zach Snyder-ness effectively. While the man has been thinking of an adaptation of Arthurian myth for years now, this is the closest he has gotten to it.

3. 300
4. Dawn of the Dead

   I wanted to put the zombie films after 300 (and out of chronological order) because the previous two films on this list had hordes of faceless enemies so that aspect feeds into these zombie films with hordes of faceless enemies.

5. Army of the Dead
6. Army of Thieves

   While not directed by Zach Snyder, it was produced by him, serves as a prequel to one of his films, and helps put a bow on the zombie film interlude by making it a trilogy.

7. Snow Steam Iron
8. Sucker Punch
9. Watchmen

   I think the Watchmen film sets up Zach Snyder's time with the DCEU pretty well.

10. Man of Steel

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