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This happens to me occasionally, especially when material is explicitly metaphorical: I get a little lost trying to connect all the dots and I fail to let the movie work its magic on me. I’ve come around on other films like this, so hoping a rewatch unlocks things.

For now, my impression is of a film with big ideas, impressive scale, bold strokes and good performances, that is also weighed down by exposition (all these reunions and relationships) and a kind of tiresome literalness in its depiction of myth, in particular of the vampire myth. I was even a little bit disappointed that they used the word “vampire” to describe these creatures. It seems a superficial criticism, but it gets at my general frustration with the movie adopting so many Rules of Vampirism when it was free to invent something more in the spirit and tradition of the world it was evoking. (Something it appears to be doing early in the film when it introduces and then mysteriously but then again maybe very intentionally abandons its Choctaw characters).

The film has a great root concept: what if blues man Charlie Patton met a vampire at the crossroads instead of The Devil (or, rather, that there is no devil, just Evil in the form of a vampire)? But the movie’s attempt - and granted a welcome ambitious one - to fit so many pieces together based on that idea, turned the movie into a thesis masquerading as an entertainment. One that, I it, is often successful at the entertainment part.

Which returns me to my original point, that I missed the big picture in an attempt to catch and keep hold of its many moving parts.

The trajectory of this comedy may be familiar, but the characters and their circumstances have a refreshing specificity. But that's honestly just gravy when you've got Keke Palmer in the lead. We should get a movie a year built around Palmer's unique comic gifts, which are a rare alchemy of precision and unpredictability. "Controlled zaniness." Really solid ing cast, too, including a strong debut from Sza, who gives a real performance and is a great foil for Palmer. Many laughs! Strong recommend.

If a movie is working, it's hard to credit the people behind or in front of the camera or (more likely) some combination of the two. But sometimes you get a movie that isn't working, or not quite working, and then someone shows up and they're not just good, they're so good that they reorient the movie, creating a reality for the movie to exist in that does work. And such is the case with Oscar-winner Youn Yuh-jung ("Minari") in THE WEDDING BANQUET. Before Youn shows up, you get a film that's irably serious about its characters if less funny or briskly paced than you might have expected or wanted. Director Andrew Ahn can't quite pull off the romantic comedy magic that the best of the genre does, which is both grounded and also cranked just a few manic notches past reality. Ahn decided to lean more in the realistic direction, but without creating a believably complex reality for his characters to exist in (while also making the occasional scripted joke). Fine, not the end of the world, good effort, and the actors - particularly Lily Gladstone and Kelly Marie-Tran - are so good, that it doesn't really matter. But then Youn shows up and suddenly it's a real movie. She makes the funny stuff work and she makes the emotional stuff work, often with just a glance. She also makes everyone she shares a scene with better, again often just by looking at them.

Good movie! Sweet.

We’ve watched this so many times now as a family that it has become an interactive experience, booing and hissing at Miller’s Nadine, and begging Garland to drop Astaire for Peter “Fella with an Umbrella” Lawford.

Smack in the middle of all the great Berlin tunes and top notch dancing is a dialog scene between Garland and Lawford - several minutes long without a single edit - that’s just a wonderful acting showcase for the both of them. Both characters sincere and heartsick. Him wanting her; her knowing she loves the wrong man. Beautiful stuff. 

Happy Easter.

Another B+ exercise use in cerebral cool from Soderbergh, but this one gets elevated a couple notches thanks to gritty ing performances from, in particular, Marisa Abela, Tom Burke, and the cleverly cast Pierce Brosnan. Blanchett so severe she makes an impression more as an idea than a human character. Fassbender gripping without being particularly interesting. 

But it’s an exceedingly fleet 90 minutes. I left wondering if it was conceived as the pilot for a series and then retrofitted for a star-driven theatrical release. Fun to think of this crew having to return to work together.

Is this the Nichols movie that feels most like a play? At least since Virginia Woolf? That’s mostly a compliment because it’s such a great platform for a talent like Lane, but also Williams, Hackman, Baranski, and Wiest. It’s rare to see detailed comic business and see it so well executed—and well shot, often in long takes (by Emmanuel Lubezki of all people). Nichols occasionally downshifts the tone into dramatic realism with mixed success. The actors are capable, but the movie loses some momentum. A related problem is that the movie is just too long, with a lot of scenes in the first half that feel redundant, if still often funny. (One of the pleasures of the movie is seeing Elaine May’s jokes so expertly delivered.)

Three stars for the violin defying all odds and not getting steamrollered.

Before it's too late, go see this in a theater filled with kids. The kids will not be kids at all but teenagers well-versed in TikTok. They will turn the screening into an experience akin to a midnight screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Truly one of the most incredible moviegoing experiences I've had. Kids yelling lines along with characters on screen. Applause. Cheering. Not just a couple of kids. Dozens. On opening night.

Does this sound annoying? It was not.

These kids will tell you that the movie is terrible. That their antics are intended as mockery. But the joke's on them: the movie can take it. The movie is made in a spirit of such cartoonish fourth-wall-eviscerating excess that rock show energy - sincere or not - is entirely appropriate. Jack Black is the movie's muse, its emcee, its main attraction.

Also? The movie is much closer in spirit to The Lego Movie than people are giving it credit for, in its themes and its execution. In fact, I think I liked this better because it doesn't even bother with that film's tired (if still often amusing) hero's journey. This movie keeps it simple: making stuff is fun, being creative is fun. Especially when you're doing it together. And even if you're no good at it. And the aesthetic exploits the source material in creative ways.

Mileage will vary on the comedy, which is very hit and miss. But more hit than miss the further it goes along.

Unusual movie. In its '70s way, ok with being about nothing in particular until it very much wants to be about something. An over-reliance on acting school improv, but Pacino and especially Hackman mostly put it over. Hackman's gift is the rarest of all: he has no interest in being liked. He never ingratiates. His Max could be an affable charmer with a hot temper, but Hackman keeps him prickly and mean. His charisma, which he retains, comes from a confidence that's both verbal and physical. Pacino is in class clown mode, which works like our solar system works, with Hackman's sun creating enough gravitational force to keep Pacino's Lion in orbit.

I'd say the movie is mostly a worthy curiosity of its era with the exception of one scene of such startling and surprising power that it knocks the film off its axis for its remaining 15-20 minutes. Is there a Single-Scene Hall of Fame. Penelope Allen needs to be in it.

I was working, headphones on, Challengers soundtrack chugging away, when I heard the unmistakable bark of Alec Baldwin coming from the basement: “Go and do likewise, gents.”

My 16-year old was watching Glengarry. His way of taking part in last night’s opening of the new Broadway revival.

I raced downstairs in time to catch Ed Harris lay into Spacey’s Williamson about this Mickey Mouse sales conference.

I haven’t sat down and watched this thing in at least 20 years, but I knew every line. In college, I had a cassette tape - an audio cassette tape - with a recording of the entire film. I listened to it often. If you were a 90s theater kid (non-musical variety), Mamet was god and this was the gospel.

The acting is peerless, the dialogue acidly hilarious and electric. But this may have been the first time I really appreciated how good this thing looks. The rain, the neon, the intimacy curdling into claustrophobia. The first half an uneasy, rain-soaked nightmare that transforms into a sun-squinting hangover post-intermission.

For closers only.

Only on the 50th viewing do you come to the conclusion that Kelly’s Don Lockwood is a kind of a dick who is riddled with insecurities and, worse, Kelly doesn’t appear to realize it. His worst sin: post-Dancing Cavalier premiere, forcing poor Kathy to sing for Lina without explaining the plan. His least worst sin: being a cringey cheeseball in his courting of Reynolds’ Kathy. To Don’s credit, he can dance like Gene Kelly, which makes up for a world of sins. Kathy still should have shacked up with Cosmo instead.

The film remains the greatest entertainment of all time.

A lot of choices needed to be made about how to adapt the original and every single one of them was wrong. This isn’t about casting - Zegler fine -  this is about doing a gut rehab on a fairy tale and forgetting to keep the fairy tale. Or fine, throw out the fairy tale, it’s a weird one anyway, then commit to making a musical. Or a Princess Bride style adventure. But they don’t do either of those things. There are a couple of not great songs in a musical style inserted into a story at war with itself: on the one hand, hitting all the highlights from the original (one-trick-pony mirror; the dress, however impractically floofy for picking apples in the woods; the crone with the apple even when said crone is a powerful queen with a standing army and a magical bird; the kiss, which instead of romantic comes off as borderline creepy and deeply weird); and on the other, a tonally inept attempt at something like realism, or at least seriousness, which just undermines all the magic of the original. And not a single good performance which I blame entirely on the movie not knowing what it’s trying to be minute to minute. Oh oh my lord the dwarves. Nightmarish. A true catastrophe.

The older I get, the dumber Tarantino movies seem. Which is fine and even exhilarating when the material is pulp, exploitation, or grindhouse, but in the context of real-world horror, the shallowness of Tarantino’s worldview is exposed. Something like this is not helped with the age of time and the increased volatility and divisiveness of political rhetoric not to mention living in an era when my own country inches toward nationalist autocracy. Extermination of my enemies is not a fantasy fulfilled; it is only sick-making proof that the cycle of who gets rounded up and burned alive will never end. Which I guess means that Tarantino’s worldview isn’t shallow, it’s just a reflection of the world as it is and not what we’d like it to be.

Effective in making me appreciate the deftness, ingenuity, and attention to detail in the staging of comic business in the first two films. This one has the direct nod to Buster Keaton, but Paul King appears to be a real student of Buster’s deadpan genius. The latest King-less installment is well-meaning and sweet, but it lacks a guiding spirit, feeling more the product of machine than man. The cast mostly puts it over through, in particular first ballot voice actor hall of famer Ben Whishaw’s Paddington. His work in a lesser movie like this makes you appreciate him even more. Always a treat seeing pros like Colman and Banderas ham it up, too.

The America in a crucible religion v capitalism stuff is always fascinating to revisit because the contemporary context of that battle is always changing. And PTA never makes Daniel and Eli empty symbols, they’re both full of contradictions and psychological perversions that are unique to them. I also love the mirroring brothers, sons, and orphans, which takes on a metaphysical quality with the uncanny resemblance of Dano’s Eli and Paul; the mysterious appearance of Henry Plainview and the dreamlike evocation of a distant life in Wisconsin; and the way PTA elides time, so that the orphaned baby becomes, just seconds later, Daniel’s son, HW. (And the sincere affection that Daniel shows the boy is the most significant complication in the portrait of Daniel as maniacally focused not just on profit and the accumulation of wealth but on there being a winner - him - and a loser - someone, anyone else.)

But the majestic thing about this movie is the way it feels out of time. There is nothing familiar about the way PTA films this time period or this part of the country. It’s the casting, particularly of the extras, all specific, interesting, unfamiliar faces . It’s Greenwood’s unnerving score. It’s the long, uncut takes capturing work being done, mishaps taking place, life being lived. It is, in fact, the movie equivalent of a great work of fiction from this period. The film is of course based on Sinclair Lewis’s “Oil!”, but PTA seems to have figured out a visual style and approach to the narrative that makes his film feel novelistic in a way that few other films do. In fact the only one I can think of is Barry Lyndon. And of course every PTA film that followed this one.

Michael raises his voice exactly once in the movie and it’s at Kay. The more I think about it, the less sense I can make of it. Is it a deliberate tactic, meant to establish new boundaries, or is it truly an emotional response? At this point, Michael’s soul is long gone, everything is calculation. So why the yelling? And why respond to a question about Carlo’s death as “asking about my business”? If Carlo’s death is “your business,” doesn’t that mean you did in fact have him killed? Kay? Are you following me here? You really should have bailed the first time you heard about the offer he can’t refuse thing, but at this point you’re being willfully naive. And no self-respecting New Hampshire girl should let that happen.

Is the Duck of Death scene with English Bob in the jail cell Hackman’s finest, in a career filled with countless great scenes and moments?

I choked up a little bit not so much at Kate and Leo (who are perfect and beautiful), but at Cameron’s sincere celebration of story and art and memory as humanity’s most prized jewels. And also at “a woman’s heart is a deep ocean of secrets” which like so much of the script makes me blush with its brazen cheesiness, but as embodied by Gloria Stuart becomes something sublime. 

And what a marvel of scale.

Paddington the movie is Chaplin, but Paddington the Bear is Keaton? Does that track?

For a movie about the magic of connection, its very best moments capture the terror of making yourself vulnerable enough to make that connection possible. What a picture.

I cannot think of another actor who has more raw, uncut life force radiating from their every pore as Haley Lu Richardson. As personal as this film likely was for Kogonada to make, Richardson makes the film personal for her, for her character, and for us. Really moving stuff. Also a visual treat especially on the big screen. Cho also excellent, showing off Clooney-esque charisma.

And oh how we all felt so smart getting the brutalism joke.

I should love Nichols more. His whole project is irable. Keeping his focus on real people with real concerns and wedding them to fantastic but still grounded scenarios. On this revisit, Take Shelter had me thinking a lot about Close Encounters, with a dad’s obsession putting him on a collision course with his family’s well-being. There is much good here. Great performances from Shannon and Chastain (who has possibly never been better), and great care taken with the details of the family’s precarious financial situation (in many ways it’s a post-‘07 financial crash fever dream). But what’s missing from Nichols for me is any coloring outside the lines. With all the care Nichols takes with this family and their marriage and their work, there is not enough chaos of the every day here to keep me distracted from the inevitably narrative march we’re on. I think that’s why Bikeriders was a revelation for me and is the only Nichols I’ve loved. In that, he lets character take precedent over narrative, which gives a breathing room his others lack. But still. Take Shelter still very good.

I will only say that if this is where you started with Ray and it didn’t happen to work for you, don’t give up. Ray’s debut has moments stunning beauty and heartbreak, but has never provided me with the transcendent power of something like his Big City.

Never shows the limitations of its budget or its technological gambit, in fact creates the illusion that movie making is the easiest thing in the word. A film of great beauty, screwball energy and authentic feeling that never ignores the peril the characters daily lives are filled with.

From the beginning, Rian Johnson challenged himself with assignments that required a puzzle-master’s ingenuity and wit and a deft control of tone. Also a gift for working with actors to get textured performances, revealing potent strains of vulnerability beneath their hard boiled exteriors.

I can’t tell if Corbet is equating the experience of the struggling artist with the immigrant experience, or just letting them reflect on each other; and I don’t know if one or the other makes it a richer, more intriguing film*. What I do know is that even if the what it’s about is still something I’m wrestling with, the how it’s about it is unimpeachable and often thrilling. If the Tóth family is meant at least in part to be symbolic (artist, intellectual, immigrant, outsider), the performances are so richly and specifically written and performed that their symbolic significance becomes secondary. (Put Brody’s Tóth in the Lydia Tár Hall of Fame for Fictional Characters Who Are Actually Real). That along with the exquisite cinematography, editing, score, production and costume design, makes for a special, if challenging, time at the movies.

*even if I’m incorrect about Corbet directly equating the life of the artist and the life of the immigrant, does it make me a little uneasy, even queasy, that it might be part of his project, especially the life of an immigrant who survived a Nazi concentration camp? This is what I’m still struggling with. The founding of Israel offered not just the promise of a homeland for Jewish people, but also of an Eden for an artist like Tóth, who would in theory no longer be at the mercy of fickle (and much worse) patrons like Van Buren.

And is the hypocrisy of the Christian church handled with as much finesse as everything else? Not sure. I will happily rewatch to find out.

Twenty years later, Treadwell isn't adversary enough for Herzog, and Herzog is not the right steward for Treadwell's story. To be fair, Herzog appears to realize - to some degree - both these things at some point during the making of his movie. It should have been enough for him to stop making it. One of Herzog's great strengths is that he does not exploit tragedy or the threat of tragedy, and he doesn't do that here. But his interviews feel rushed (maybe all those mosquitoes?) and occasionally semi-staged, and his narration frequently comes off as first draft or half-baked. Treadwell remains a fascinating, if sad, figure, and his footage often extraordinary.

Bergman's God bless you, Rick when she is actually saying I love you, I will love you forever, my heart is breaking, I might actually die right here on this tarmac. Truly one of the great line readings in movie history.

First time on the big screen and, my god, how about the movies, folks. Pretty great.

Pretty sure this is why the word sublime exists.

Happy Valentine's Day to all the beautiful people.

Back in ‘93, I thought it was fine. Thirty years later, it’s an artifact, and a nearly glorious artifact at that. It’s like Hollywood had a secret formula and they what misplaced it? Or maybe I’m just mourning the loss of a one and only like Ephron. Or a one and only like Ephron along with Hanks at the height of these particular powers and Ryan, good lord, a virtuoso with this particular music. Sweet, salty, silly, clever, sincere, and refreshingly adult even with its PG rating and prominent kid performance.

Varda’s got the lightest touch. A movie full of ideas and impressions often mirrored and doubled back on, but always fleetingly, and always pushed aside, pulled under, sent hurtling upriver by the great flood of life in which Varda embeds her tale of death.

You can fight me, but this thing is DOA for the first 40 minutes. Gable is mean without being funny, Colbert is entitled without being funny. There are no laughs. And then at 40 minutes 28 seconds, it’s like a switch gets flipped and this thing is electric, hilarious, romantic, perrrrrrfect for the remainder of its runtime. 

Never mind, don’t fight me, I know I’m right.

The kids books this is based on are dumb/clever, stupid/funny, and so is the movie. Many laughs.

Not my favorite animation aesthetic. Don’t love the pandering, straining for laughs set up and interludes, which felt studio-mandated. But the narrative itself is a sturdy and thoughtful Hamlet-ish prequel, worthy of Jenkins’s involvement. And the songs are solid and well integrated into the story once you or’leap the hurdle of photorealistic animals singing. Which I was eventually able to do. Everything well voiced, too.

A+ titling of a movie with its double and possible even triple meanings women into its three words.  And that cleverness extends to the way Eisenberg handles the material itself. I think he’s on to something that for many of us, real trauma, especially trauma on a massive scale, is a hard thing to adequately process. Objectively inadequate because what possible response to the horrors experienced by so many would even be appropriate. But also subjectively inadequate, which is something we can ignore or swipe through or click past, until we are forced to spend a prolonged period staring into the abyss of that inadequacy. Which is what Eisenberg gives us here. Watching something like Schindler’s List is a horrific, dread-inducing experience. But it can be comforting to have an emotional response. Watching Eisenberg’s David stroll through Poland, the scene of countless horrors to of his own extended family, largely unmoved, is far more relatable. And Culkin’s Benji is both a wonderfully detailed character study and a potent metaphor for the empathy that lies latent or suppressed or repressed within all of us.

I may have been wrong once.

Is the diabolical intricacy the selling point, but also the thing that ends up making it more a curiosity than a deeply unnerving or spiritually destabilizing experience? The more doors, the more reveals, the more religion 101 lectures, the less invested I got, even if the performances always kept me engaged.

Somehow never saw this, but took the opportunity to catch up with it as a sick day watch with my 10-year-old who along with the rest of the family is obsessed with The Outsiders musical. The plot gets raced through, but what a pleasure to hang with all these baby movie stars, who appear to be having a blast.

Like anything that dares to fail spectacularly, frequently surprises with its ability to move. Also sneakily manages to capture, even with its tiny band of players - here radiating with the unnerving true believer vibes of musical theater performers, not Christians - the threatening, fringe energy that Christ’s throngs of followers likely gave contemporaries.

Neeley’s wail is righteous bordering on ridiculous, but his I Only Want to Say in Gethsemene is really something. And Anderson and Elliman are legit terrific. 

But the other MVP - I had to look up who shot it, because it’s magnificent - Douglas Slocombe. No big deal, just went on to shoot Raiders.

R.I.P. Mister Lynch

Seemed the least I could do while laying feverish in bed with flu was watch this nightmare.

I hear what you’re all saying and you’re not wrong, but I kinda dug it anyway?

Everyone seemed to understand the crazy assignment. And while I think the melodrama alone would have sufficed, I appreciated the commitment to the gonzo musical energy.

And I was moved! Just like melodrama is supposed to work on you.

And I am a huge champion of the underutilized and under-appreciated Saldaña, so if this is the crazy ride Oscar voters want to go on, well then God bless them, I’m here for it.

Bootleg Cut. 

Whatever 40 or so minutes Crowe added back into this cut made the movie for me. It’s a film I’ve long tried and failed to love. The Bootleg feels more patient and immersive, with more time lingering on faces, on backstage detritus, on moments after. And that all pays off beautifully as it tracks William’s romance with the lifestyle as it sours into exhaustion and disillusionment. 

And what a contrast with the lonely room occupied by Hoffman’s Lester Bangs. God, those phone calls.

Liked this even more on a second viewing. The Dream of Rome stuff works for me and makes everything more richly complicated than a sequel of this kind needs to be. Denzel bringing Iago and Richard III energy to his Macrinus, every line reading and robe-fondling gesture delicious. Tim McInnerny's squirmy, weasly Thraex. My movie couple of 2024: Mescal and Alexander Karim's Ravi. Loved their scenes together. Warm, intimate, sincere. Mescal deserves an Oscar nom. The movie too.

A little surprised to find that I was not really interested in watching another Dracula story. Even Eggers’ famous attention to period detail, which I usually revel in, became ponderous because there was little mystery about where the story was going. Echoes of previous versions - all more fun, if less hilariously depraved - further diminished the effort. And then letting Willem go full Defoe in the last third only further undermined the project. Just as Eggers refused to let any light penetrate his film’s darkness, he should have avoided levity as well. In fact, he should have done Murnau - and Stoker - one better and made something truly new with the material. A new creature, a new mythology, a new erotic obsession. Depp’s Ellen deserved a narrative as original as her extraordinary physical performance.

Happy New Year.

I was expecting to swoon again for the staging, the choreography, the camerawork - and I did - but I was really knocked out by the performances. I guess because no one in the cast has done much of anything since this to match it (or has been unfairly maligned for being a total theater nerd), it was like watching it for the first time. DeBose is extraordinary. Zegler also great in a tough role. Elgort apparently a gross human, but he’s excellent in an even trickier part. Even Faist surprised me as better than I him. I also love the remix quality of the film, with its shuffling of a few key numbers. 

So good at existing alongside the masterful original that it’s a film that belongs out of time.

It’s temping to throw your hands up in the face of something so perfect and credit the whole thing to a miracle that we are all just blessed to have in our lives. But. The difference between the perfection of Die Hard and that of something like, say, Brief Encounter, is that it you can watch this and see how perilously easy it would have been for it to be entirely forgettable. Another director, another star, another DP, a casting director who failed to put the exact right person in even the smallest of parts. And poof, it’s gone.

But McTiernan animates this thing, making every moment, every character, specific, compelling, and fun as hell. De Bont’s cinematography is as thrilling as the action he’s shooting. A clinic. And Willis plays every note like a virtuoso. 

And they make it look easy.

What a picture.

It took a year, but I finally had the experience everyone else had with this one. Simple, special, anchored by three great performances. And I should say “seemingly simple,” because nothing this effective is done without rigorous attention to detail. A film about empathy that takes the prickliest possible path. Laughs that come from character, not punchlines. And the patience to save the very biggest and most satisfying of those laughs for its final minutes. 

I went to check on my 16-year-old before heading to bed. He was 10 minutes into the movie. I sat down to watch a scene or two. “Bedtime,” I told myself, “after this scene.” But the movie does not miss. One great scene after another. As many others figured out last year, a winter break movie for the ages.

I trust in the sincerity of the effort made by Mangold and Chalamet and co., but making the most conventional of biopics about an artist whose impact on popular music was seismically transformative, is, while perhaps inevitable, a source of major cognitive dissonance for me personally. 

Just one scene as full of feeling and complicated emotion as “Girl From the North Country.” That should have been the bare minimum.

Is this like when NBA teams intentionally tank for a shot at a prized lottery pick? Not sure what’s in it for Sony other than a huge tax write off, but this thing appeared to have been intentionally sabotaged. It’s likely that whatever Chandor turned in a couple of years ago was mediocre at best, but the thing that’s currently in theaters doesn’t even bother establishing basic things like character motivation or stakes or a coherent plot—for at least 45 minutes. Confounding. But it made for a jaw-dropping lol time at the movies. The rare and coveted two-star-plus-heart rating. RIP spidey with no spidey verse.

Inspired by Filmspotting #1013: Top 25 of the Last 25 Years.

Only one film per director. Priority to films that I have seen or revisited recently enough (within the last 10-15 years) that it doesn't feel like they need a rewatch.

Not included on this list: THEATER CAMP. Which exists on a plane above list-making.

1. Moonrise Kingdom
2. Phantom Thread
3. The Rider
4. Little Women
5. Before Sunset
6. La La Land
7. Her
8. Interstellar
9. Only Lovers Left Alive
10. Margaret

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

• Radical
• Fairyland
• Birth/Rebirth
• To Live and Die and Live
• Fremont
• Sometimes I Think About Dying
• Fair Play
• Heroic
• The Disappearance of Shere Hite
• Past Lives

...plus 38 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Phantom Thread

   Because it lingers and because it is perfect.

2. Magnolia

   I'm sorry I just love it so.

3. There Will Be Blood

   Should be #1.

4. The Master

   Because it's PSH's Godfather turn.

5. Punch-Drunk Love

   Haven't seen in a long long time. Probably even better than I it.

6. Inherent Vice

   Only seen once and too close to reading the novel.

7. Licorice Pizza
8. Boogie Nights

   Unfair because the first half is deliriously perfect and I just can't handle it when things start to turn south.

9. Hard Eight

   Needs a revisit, not a big priority.

• Atropia
• Bubble & Squeak
• Rabbit Trap
• Ricky
• Twinless
• The Things You Kill
• The Perfect Neighbor
• Jazzy
• The Ballad of Wallis Island
• The Thing with Feathers

...plus 40 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Nomadland
2. No Country for Old Men
3. Everything Everywhere All at Once
4. Parasite
5. Gladiator
6. Oppenheimer
7. Moonlight
8. The Departed
9. Chicago
10. Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)

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

• Janet Planet
• Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
• Civil War
• Rebel Ridge
• The Bikeriders
• Hit Man
• Challengers
• Love Lies Bleeding
• My Old Ass
• I Saw the TV Glow

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

Recommendations based on this Twitter prompt:
x.com/samvanhallgren/status/1809000180215161098

For the casual movie fan of any age (teen/co-worker/parent/grandparent) who maybe stopped paying close attention to movies during the pandemic. Some are overlooked, hidden gems; some are more familiar but maybe still unseen depending on just how casual the casual movie fan is in your life.

• After Yang
• Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood
• Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret.
• Boys State
• The Burial
• Catherine Called Birdy
• CODA
• Don't Make Me Go
• Dream Horse
• Dreamin' Wild

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

1. Lost in Translation
2. Marie Antoinette
3. The Virgin Suicides
4. The Beguiled
5. The Bling Ring
6. Somewhere

1. Moonrise Kingdom
2. Asteroid City
3. The Grand Budapest Hotel
4. The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
5. The Swan
6. The Rat Catcher
7. The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar
8. The Royal Tenenbaums
9. Rushmore
10. Fantastic Mr. Fox

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

• Little Women
• Lady Bird
• Barbie

Ranking before Nolan Oeuvre-view rewatches:

Memento
Interstellar
The Prestige
Inception
The Dark Knight
Batman Begins
Following
Insomnia
Dunkirk
[Had not seen DKR]

1. Interstellar

   Rewatched July 2020

2. Dunkirk

   Rewatched July 2020

3. Oppenheimer
4. Insomnia

   Rewatched April, 2020

5. The Dark Knight Rises
6. Tenet
7. Memento

   Rewatched March 2020

8. The Prestige

   Rewatched June 2020

9. The Dark Knight

   Rewatched May 2020

10. Batman Begins

    Rewatched May 2020

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

• Terrestrial Verses
• Omen
• Robot Dreams
• Fallen Leaves
• Club Zero
• The Settlers

• Extraordinary Stories

1. Reservoir Dogs
2. Kill Bill: Vol. 1
3. Kill Bill: Vol. 2
4. Pulp Fiction
5. Death Proof
6. The Hateful Eight
7. Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood
8. Jackie Brown
9. Inglourious Basterds
10. Django Unchained

1. TÁR
2. The Fabelmans
3. Marcel the Shell with Shoes On
4. White Noise
5. Everything Everywhere All at Once
6. After Yang
7. Elvis
8. The Northman
9. Aftersun
10. Nope

1. Sherlock Jr.
2. Only Angels Have Wings
3. Singin' in the Rain
4. Seven Samurai
5. Le Bonheur
6. 2001: A Space Odyssey
7. Do the Right Thing
8. Princess Mononoke
9. The Rider
10. Portrait of a Lady on Fire

Every decade the Sight and Sound team asks critics to name the greatest films of all time. Here are the results of the 2022 poll – the largest ever, with 1,639 critics, programmers, curators, archivists and academics each submitting their top ten ballot.

Check out Sight and Sound for the complete breakdown, including where films received the same number of votes.

1. Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles
2. Vertigo
3. Citizen Kane
4. Tokyo Story
5. In the Mood for Love
6. 2001: A Space Odyssey
7. Beau Travail
8. Mulholland Drive
9. Man with a Movie Camera
10. Singin' in the Rain

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

• Alien
• An American Werewolf in London
• The Blair Witch Project
• The Blob
• The Cabin in the Woods
• Creature from the Black Lagoon
• Dawn of the Dead
• Dead of Night
• The Descent
• The Exorcist

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

A24 ranked sorta.

1. Lady Bird
2. Eighth Grade
3. C'mon C'mon
4. While We're Young
5. The Florida Project
6. Under the Skin
7. Everything Everywhere All at Once
8. On the Rocks
9. After Yang
10. 20th Century Women

...plus 27 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• Decision to Leave
• Armageddon Time
• Triangle of Sadness
• R.M.N.
• Moonage Daydream
• Close

• Utama
• Fire of Love
• Living
• Nanny
• Good Luck to You, Leo Grande
• Master
• The Territory
• We Met in Virtual Reality
• Speak No Evil
• Descendant

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

• Memento
• Gosford Park
• Ghost World
• Mulholland Drive
• CQ
• Black Hawk Down
• The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
• Wet Hot American Summer
• Joy Ride
• Ali

Last-minute switcheroo putting I'm Thinking of Ending Things ahead of Nomadland. I love both, but there really was no 2020 film that kept my brain more occupied than the Kaufman. Also performance of the year (Buckley) and ensemble of the year.

Yes, I saw these films, they just didn't make my Top 25:
Dick Johnson is Dead, Palm Springs, One Night in Miami, Soul, Invisible Man. Still haven't caught up with The Father, Minari, Tenet and many many others.

1. I'm Thinking of Ending Things
2. Nomadland
3. The Assistant
4. Shirley
5. Da 5 Bloods
6. Never Rarely Sometimes Always
7. David Byrne's American Utopia
8. On the Rocks
9. Lovers Rock
10. Mangrove

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

1. The Shining
2. Nosferatu
3. The Birds
4. Bride of Frankenstein
5. The Witch
6. Rosemary's Baby
7. The Exorcist
8. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
9. Invasion of the Body Snatchers
10. Poltergeist

1. Phantom Thread
2. Margaret
3. The Rider
4. Lady Bird
5. Moonrise Kingdom
6. The Grand Budapest Hotel
7. Before Midnight
8. Carol
9. Only Lovers Left Alive
10. Paterson

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

Really shouldn't post this without revisiting Zissou, which I strongly suspect is much much better than my initial impression back in '04. Love the first five without reservation.

1. Moonrise Kingdom
2. The Grand Budapest Hotel
3. The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
4. Fantastic Mr. Fox
5. Rushmore
6. Bottle Rocket
7. The Darjeeling Limited
8. The Royal Tenenbaums
9. Isle of Dogs

My favorite movie year in a decade or more. In fact I can't really think of a year when so many films so completely fulfilled the promise of their ambitions.

But even in a year as strong as this, The Rider had this in a walk. It's telling that of all the films I've seen this year, The Rider is the only one without a LB diary entry. To write about it would be to break the spell. Part of it is just the technical achievement. The sensitivity of Joshua James Richards' cinematography, letting his camera follow the instincts of the non-professional cast. (I think in particular of a scene between Brady and his mentally disabled sister, Richards' camera following her arm as it fluttered on a bed.) Major credit, too, to Nathan Halpern for his haunting, meditative score. The music acting almost like a healing balm on the film's traumatized subjects. (Halpern's music is used to similarly powerful effect in Minding the Gap.) But Zhao of course gets the credit for pulling off the magic trick of telling this story with sensitivity and deep empathy, but then making it all greater than the sum of its parts and elevating it into the realm of parable and myth through cinema. It's just one of the great movie-going experiences of my life.

The next 10: Happy as Lazzaro, First Man, Spider-Verse, Blaze, Hold the Dark, Black Panther, M:I - Fallout, Lean on Pete, The Old Man and the Gun, Western, You Were Never Really Here

1. The Rider
2. Eighth Grade
3. BlacKkKlansman
4. Leave No Trace
5. If Beale Street Could Talk
6. Private Life
7. The Favourite
8. Minding the Gap
9. First Reformed
10. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

Part of this thread:
twitter.com/RyanDubbbya/status/1065518554013884421

• A Prophet
• The Tree of Life
• Moonrise Kingdom
• Before Midnight
• The Grand Budapest Hotel
• Carol
• La La Land
• Phantom Thread
• The Rider

A list of the films I haven't seen on FilmStruck, which I'll be making a priority before the service goes on 11/29. All of these choices are either out of print on Criterion, not available on iTunes/Amazon etc or hard to find elsewhere. Also I have whittled this down to a manageable level for a month (but may add to it as I go...)

• Blindfolded Eyes
• Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach
• Cruel Story of Youth
• Dersu Uzala
• The Face of Another
• Fall Guy
• Fallen Angels
• Flowing
• Fear of Fear
• Happy Together

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

Wanted to play along with this week's Filmspotting Top 5.
Others I considered, but hard to know just how "overlooked" they are: Redford's "Quiz Show" and "A River Runs Through It," both of which I adored at the time; Sayles's "Secret of Roan Inish"; "Miami Blues." People know how great "Flirting With Disaster" is, right? And "Get Shorty"?

1. Big Night

   Maybe this isn't overlooked enough? So hard to tell. It can share the spot with Tucci's follow-up, the inspired and hilarious love letter to the Marx Brothers and Golden Age comedy in general "The Imposters."

2. Vanya on 42nd Street
3. Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould
4. Amateur

   My first Hartley. Had never seen anything like it.

5. The Butcher Boy

   Haven't seen this in 20 years, but it being astonishing.

1. The Young Girls of Rochefort
2. The Red Shoes
3. To Have and Have Not
4. Le Bonheur
5. Ordet
6. The Battle of Algiers
7. One Sings, the Other Doesn't
8. The Gleaners and I
9. Vagabond
10. Cléo from 5 to 7

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

All 22 movies that I really really liked this year.

Big ones I still want to/haven't seen: The Beguiled, Sacred Deer, Phantom Thread.

1. After the Storm
2. Lady Bird
3. Call Me by Your Name
4. The Florida Project
5. Mudbound
6. A Ghost Story
7. A Quiet ion
8. Landline
9. I, Tonya
10. Wonder Woman

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

Lord knows what I'd have been watching without Filmspotting marathons and movie night with my kids.

Penguins of Madagascar should have been higher.

1. Stop Making Sense
2. The Heartbreak Kid
3. Un Chien Andalou
4. Mikey and Nicky
5. Viridiana
6. Tarzan and His Mate
7. Ishtar
8. The Circus
9. The Hidden Fortress
10. Tarzan the Ape Man

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

My five year old and I make our way through Ty Burr's "Best Old Movies For Families."

1. Singin' in the Rain
2. Sherlock Jr.
3. The Gold Rush
4. Rio Bravo
5. It's a Wonderful Life
6. 2001: A Space Odyssey
7. Stagecoach
8. On the Town
9. City Lights
10. Destry Rides Again

...plus 48 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Is THE BIG SHORT benefitting from being the most recent movie I really really liked? Maybe. TANGERINE is still the movie I'd most want people to see. And in my heart, BALLET 422 really belongs just ahead of BIG SHORT, but I have such a personal affection I have for it, I don't want it to carry the burden of being my pick for "the best film of 2015." Similarly, the Baumbach movies are so "minor" that even though I adored them like little else this year, they, too, don't need "best of the year" expectations adorning them. BIG SHORT and TANGERINE can handle the mantle and deserve it. SHADOWS earns the 5th spot for keeping me in fits of laughter for much of the year. Everything after BALLET, I liked a lot, but with some reservations. Yes, I did see MAD MAX. Loved Charlize and not much else. Deserves a re-watch. [EDIT: re-watch has proved this initial response irrelevant and absurd.] As of this writing, have not seen Force Awakens, Carol, Revanent, or a bazillion other things. [Ed. Seen Carol. See revised list.]

1. Carol
2. Tangerine
3. While We're Young
4. Mistress America
5. What We Do in the Shadows
6. Mad Max: Fury Road
7. The Big Short
8. Ballet 422
9. The Martian
10. The Hateful Eight

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

• High Noon
• The Searchers
• Stagecoach
• My Darling Clementine
• Rio Bravo
• A Fistful of Dollars
• Winchester '73
• The Wild Bunch
• Dawn of the Dead
• The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

...plus 167 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Giving this a shot before Adam and Josh get to it next week on ep #559 mostly because I wanted to see what sort of results I'd get using my own set of criteria. (No idea at this point how AK and JL are going to approach it.). Lots of ways you could do this list, but in an effort to avoid the most usual suspects, I'm avoiding contemporary filmmakers that, arguably, only make very good to great movies - Tarantino, PTA, Wes Anderson; AND Golden Age and/or foreign directors of whose filmographies I've ONLY seen the good ones. My hastily assembled list is also heavily biased towards films I've seen or revisited fairly recently (within the last 10 or so years). With the exception of my #1, the directors could certainly be considered "usual suspects," but their (irable) productivity, curiosity and experimentalism has also resulted in a more uneven filmography than some of their peers.

As for the usual suspects, I'd go: Tarantino [Kill Bill, Death Proof]; PTA [There Will Be Blood, The Master]; Wes Anderson [nostalgia me wants to say Bottle Rocket/Rushmore; but I think Moonrise and Budapest are probably a better bet].

1. When Harry Met Sally...
2. The Princess Bride
3. Boyhood
4. Before Midnight
5. Hannah and Her Sisters
6. The Purple Rose of Cairo
7. The Limey
8. Out of Sight
9. Miller's Crossing
10. Raising Arizona

Of the seven movies from 1988 that I've seen recently enough to say with certainty that I like them and they are good, these are the Top 5. Bull Durham edging out Fish Called Wanda for the fifth spot because baseball just makes me feel the feelings. The only two animated films that I love unequivocally both came out in 1988. Pretty crazy. Can't imagine another year with a single animated film in my Top 10. (Maybe Incredibles in 2004).

Agreed, Midnight Run should be higher.

1. Midnight Run
2. Grave of the Fireflies
3. Die Hard
4. My Neighbor Totoro
5. Bull Durham

The paltry list of 2013 movies that I saw, ranked.

I don't dispute the general consensus that 2013 was a great year for movies (how could I?); but my 2013 experience was dominated more by disappointment than discovery. With the exception of BEFORE MIDNIGHT, INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS, HER and to a degree CAPTAIN PHILLIPS, my pleasures were mostly minor (GIMME THE LOOT, ALL IS LOST, MUCH ADO) or accompanied by significant reservations (PLACE BEYOND THE PINES, TO THE WONDER, THE BUTLER). Soderbergh let me down (clever; but cold). Nichols let me down (a fairy tale without magic). Cuaron let me down (too chatty and slight). David O. Russell let me down for the first time ever (slight, superficial). I remain un-charmed by Edgar Wright and company. I found UPSTREAM COLOR more silly than profound. I quit on S HA after 20 minutes. GATSBY was never going to be my cup of tea, but even those low expectations weren't met. ELYSIUM disappointed everyone. Films like 12 YEARS A SLAVE and THE ACT OF KILLING were impressive and memorable, but as experiences they weren't the kind that I cherish as a movie-goer. Obviously their subject matter has a lot to do with this.

Nothing this year compared to my experience with THE MASTER last year. Or to THE TREE OF LIFE the year before that. Or, for that matter, films I saw for the first time this year like MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS or DESTRY RIDES AGAIN or ON THE TOWN. 2013 gets a shrug from me. Here's to 2014.

1. Before Midnight
2. Captain Phillips
3. Inside Llewyn Davis
4. Gimme the Loot
5. The Place Beyond the Pines
6. 12 Years a Slave
7. All Is Lost
8. Her
9. Enough Said
10. To the Wonder

...plus 17 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Letter from an Unknown Woman
2. The Earrings of Madame de...
3. Le Plaisir
4. La Ronde
5. Lola Montès

• Psycho
• Casablanca
• Blade Runner
• Children of Paradise
• The Conversation
• My Own Private Idaho

• Goon
• The Future