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Watched on Wednesday June 11, 2025.

Watched on Tuesday June 10, 2025.

Meandering. Gets points for being a fun time capsule of the town I’ve called home forever.

Something is clearly missing here. None of the action set pieces here got me nearly as excited or as invested as, for example, the train sequence in Dead Reckoning. Then if you move backwards and start comparing to movies like Fallout, this new film seems really lacking. It is as long and bloated as you would expect, but it’s the uneasy mixture of complicated explanatory exposition and corny, simplistic dialogue that really baffled me. Also, I really felt that Dead Reckoning developed a good solid villain in Esai Morales’ Gabriel. It is truly disappointing that Final Reckoning turns him into nearly a giggling, mustache-twirling jokester which plummets his threat level to about a zero.

What else can I say? The last five minutes of the film are Treacle Central trying to wrap up everything in an emotional little bow. The best thing about the movie is the craft of the action scenes, and one taking place underwater is far and away the highlight of this film and truly thrilling. Also, not to be a bitch, but Cruise’s hairstyle looks goofy as hell in this and with a few years distance, I predict it will become a cultural punchline along the lines of Courteney Cox’s bangs in Scream 3.

P.S. So glad I don’t have to hear the “podkova” or “Sevastopol” ever again.

Watched on Friday June 6, 2025.

Watched on Thursday June 5, 2025.

Disappointing. The first segment is quite good, but eventually the movie just becomes endless Nick Offerman narration to the point where it almost feels like he’s just reading pages of King’s story. Which does not feel like good adaptation. The constant sound of Offerman’s voice was really distracting and annoying after a while. Also, the boardwalk dance sequence goes on forever.

Gets better every time.

One of the major sticking points for my hero Gene Siskel, when it came to horror movies, was the overuse and overreliance on children in peril. This was likely in part because he was a father, but I also him saying that it was an easy shortcut by a screenwriter to make the audience sympathize or care because, well, how could you not feel for a child? No movie has made me understand this point of view quite like Bring Her Back. It is a tense, stressful horror film with excellent performances. It was very effective at making me feel upset, furious, and anxious. I have to credit the film for its skill and ability. But I also have to acknowledge the extreme unease and discomfort of a horror film centered about the constant pain and misery of children… disabled and orphaned children to boot. A complicated reaction, to be sure, but ultimately I’ll go with 3 stars because I can’t deny that it achieves most of its goals. I also felt like the conclusion was pretty underwhelming, and once you get a handle on where the story is going (fairly early, in my case), it’s not going to do much to surprise you.

Watched on Sunday June 1, 2025.

Watched on Saturday May 31, 2025.

Watched on Friday May 30, 2025.

Matt Dillon’s performance is one of the worst I’ve seen in a thriller of his ilk. He’s never charming enough and never pulls off a convincing liar. He always looks like a little boy who’s been caught in a fib by his mother. Sean Young fares slightly better, but she also lacks a certain charisma. Plot is full of holes and coincidences to boot. Not good!

Watched on Thursday May 29, 2025.

Watched on Wednesday May 28, 2025.

Far and away Wes Anderson’s most underrated film. Hilarious, moving, and full of great characters and performances. Also includes a terrific extended action set piece that proves that Wes can do a lot more than the precious little movie dollhouses he obsesses over these days. Love the chemistry between Bill Murray and Anjelica Huston in this, which is even more impressive when you find out what a huge asshole he was to her behind the scenes. I wish Bill Murray didn’t fucking suck so much as a person, but what’re ya gonna do.

Watched on Tuesday May 27, 2025.

Watched on Tuesday May 27, 2025.

Watched on Monday May 26, 2025.

Watched on Sunday May 25, 2025.

Watched on Wednesday May 21, 2025.

The comic line readings from Theresa Russell are… a choice. The corniness just makes you wanna cringe into a ball at times.

So many movies these days just feel kind of bland and stylistically drab. Love him or hate him, Trey Edward Shults is not boring and he has a distinctive cinematic perspective. I was mostly compelled by Hurry Up Tomorrow, his imperfect but captivating new film. As the lead, Abel Tesfaye plays himself (pop sensation The Weeknd), and I was surprised by how effective I found him to be. Schults asks a lot of him. He’s nearly always crying or in emotional turmoil, and much of the time he’s performing directly down the lens Jonathan Demme-style, which is extremely difficult for any actor. Also I think people underrate how tricky it is for someone to play themselves or their public persona on screen. People are being too hard on him (and the film)!

Watched on Saturday May 17, 2025.

Watched on Friday May 16, 2025.

Watched on Thursday May 15, 2025.

I could tell the movie was having an effect on me bc I started eyeing the fast-spinning ceiling fans in my theater and wondering if they were gonna come loose and kill me. Simply put: I checked my mind at the door and just had a fun time at the movies with this one.

Watched on Tuesday May 13, 2025.

Watched on Tuesday May 13, 2025.

Love when you can see the little Altmaneque touches coming through in Rudolph’s direction. Those slow zooms! Anyway, this is a a tight, clever little 90s thriller that features one of Demi Moore’s very best performances… and one of Harvey Keitel’s worst and most over-the-top. Had a good time with this little pressure cooker for a movie.

Watched on Saturday May 10, 2025.

Watched on Thursday May 8, 2025.

Watched on Tuesday May 6, 2025.

Watched on Monday May 5, 2025.

Starts very rough with some awful dialogue and stilted ing performances, but it gets better as it goes along as proceedings ramp up and the tone gets closer and closer to the spirit of Tobe Hooper’s original. In fact, the weird and comedic elements of this movie actually work the best (maybe). A brand-new-to-the-movies Zellweger and McConaughey are actually very convincing and show the spark that ended up propelling them to great future success. Ultimately, the movie is not very scary, but as a kid of the 1990s… what can I say, it scratches a nostalgic itch.

Watched on Saturday May 3, 2025.

Never convinces you it has any purpose other than simply to showcase Nicolas Cage doing what he does best: go crazy on film. Feels like the writer wrote it this way so that Cage wouldn’t even consider the possibility of turning it down for a second. The movie is relatively short but tried my patience with a series of unconvincing decisions by the characters (I really didn’t buy that he would’ve called the cop a second time, for example). It looks great and has an excellent score, and Julian McMahon steals the show as a truly menacing villain… but for me it just falls short of success, even as an exercise in sun-drenched mania.

Watched on Thursday May 1, 2025.

Watched on Wednesday April 30, 2025.

Watched on Tuesday April 29, 2025.

One of the best love stories I’ve ever seen on film. Very happy this Charles Burnett gem is finally seeing the light of day because it’s brilliant and bizarre. Not enough can be said about how incredible Lynn Redgrave and James Earl Jones are in this movie. Just see it. You’ve never seen anything like it.

P.S: When did moviegoing audiences get so stupid? This movie has several heartbreaking and touching low-key scenes, but of course the idiots in my theater laughed the whole way through them… for some reason? I guess because seeing old people in pain is funny? Or because some of the other scenes are funny, so they just thought they were supposed to laugh at every single moment? I digress, but… media literacy found dead in a ditch!

Watched on Saturday April 26, 2025.

Watched on Saturday April 26, 2025.

Watched on Friday April 25, 2025.

Watched on Thursday April 24, 2025.

Watched on Thursday April 24, 2025.

Extremely watchable in the vein of a train wreck, but what the hell is this lol. Crazy theatrical dialogue (shooting for Tennessee Williams but missing badly) mixed with wild tonal swings and scenes that make Licorice Pizza look like child’s play when it comes to inappropriate relationships. Laura Dern is effective though, and she tries her best to fight her way through this mess. Hope you like overbearing horns on your soundtrack!

Watched on Monday April 21, 2025.

Watched on Sunday April 20, 2025.

Watched on Sunday April 20, 2025.

1. Sinners
2. Misericordia
3. The Shrouds
4. The Ballad of Wallis Island
5. Seven Veils
6. Mickey 17
7. The Phoenician Scheme
8. On Becoming a Guinea Fowl
9. Black Bag
10. Friendship

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

1. Grand Canyon
2. Paris Is Burning
3. L.A. Story
4. The Man in the Moon
5. Thelma & Louise
6. Barton Fink
7. The Silence of the Lambs
8. JFK
9. My Own Private Idaho
10. Cape Fear

...plus 9 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. The Brutalist
2. His Three Daughters
3. Challengers
4. Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World
5. No Other Land
6. Kinds of Kindness
7. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
8. All We Imagine as Light
9. Anora
10. Janet Planet

...plus 82 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. ages
2. Poor Things
3. The Boy and the Heron
4. Killers of the Flower Moon
5. Past Lives
6. All of Us Strangers
7. May December
8. Anatomy of a Fall
9. The Holdovers
10. Bottoms

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

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

1. A Ghost Story
2. Lady Bird
3. Call Me by Your Name
4. Dunkirk
5. Blade Runner 2049
6. Get Out
7. The Killing of a Sacred Deer
8. Phantom Thread
9. Good Time
10. Ingrid Goes West

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

• Red Rocket
• The Assistant
• Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy
• West Side Story
• Sound of Metal
• Kajillionaire
• All the Beauty and the Bloodshed
• Time
• Showing Up
• Nope

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

For the first time, I’m keeping a ranked list of all the new releases I see this year

1. All the Beauty and the Bloodshed
2. Saint Omer
3. Nope
4. The Banshees of Inisherin
5. Glass Onion
6. TÁR
7. The Fabelmans
8. After Yang
9. Everything Everywhere All at Once
10. Triangle of Sadness

...plus 72 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• City Lights
• Starman
• Nashville
• Barry Lyndon
• Days of Heaven
• Badlands
• Notorious
• Hoop Dreams
• Aguirre, the Wrath of God
• The Godfather

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

1. Scream
2. Scream 2
3. Scream 4
4. Scream VI
5. Scream
6. Scream 3

The 20 best films of the year!

1. Parasite
2. The Last Black Man in San Francisco
3. Uncut Gems
4. Pain and Glory
5. Little Women
6. Waves
7. Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood
8. Midsommar
9. Knives Out
10. Honeyland

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

1. The Power of the Dog
2. Licorice Pizza
3. Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy
4. Red Rocket
5. West Side Story
6. The Souvenir: Part II
7. The Worst Person in the World
8. Flee
9. Parallel Mothers
10. Shiva Baby

...plus 16 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Just the ones I've seen (probably more)

• Hereditary
• Eighth Grade
• Moonlight
• The Florida Project
• Lady Bird
• 20th Century Women
• Room
• The Spectacular Now
• On the Rocks
• The Farewell

...plus 7 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. The Power of the Dog
2. Licorice Pizza
3. West Side Story
4. Dune
5. Drive My Car
6. Don't Look Up
7. King Richard
8. Nightmare Alley
9. Belfast
10. CODA

A log of films watched now that I have signed up for Criterion Channel

• Chungking Express
• Bacurau
• Vagabond
• Nightmare Alley
• Mikey and Nicky
• A New Leaf

This will take a while, I missed a ton of movies this year...

1. Kajillionaire
2. Time
3. The Assistant
4. Possessor
5. Never Rarely Sometimes Always
6. Sound of Metal
7. Promising Young Woman
8. Nomadland
9. Soul
10. Mank

...plus 18 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Roma
2. The Favourite
3. Sorry to Bother You
4. First Reformed
5. Private Life
6. Burning
7. The Rider
8. Cold War
9. Annihilation
10. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

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

Lists are dope

1. La La Land
2. Moonlight
3. Manchester by the Sea
4. Arrival
5. 20th Century Women
6. Paterson
7. Weiner
8. Jackie
9. The Lobster
10. Don't Think Twice

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