4v291o

Australian GIRLS

Divert
Eliminate 
Infiltrate

I want to get in the magazine publishing business so I too can hire a 24/7 gun-toting henchman/masseuse.

“I love you, Toad Boy.”

This is somehow the second new movie I’ve seen in the past month that prominently featured mushroom-picking, and it is also the second new movie I’ve seen in the past month where someone gets high off of frog juice. 

He was totally underused but it was nice to see Jon Glaser in a motion picture, looking eerily similar to F. Murray Abraham in The Grand Budapest Hotel. I had no idea the preshow clip of The Slipnutz on Conan O’Brien would end up being a dual reference.

“What were they doing?”
“Fucking!”

young people: the only way adults will listen to your wild conspiracy theories is to secure Polaroid evidence of the previously mentioned fucking and also a home invasion has to happen to you.

I would’ve just let them cut me up from the start rather than go through all that.

More of a poliziotteschi than a giallo, although it does contain numerous hallmarks of both. I've seen several mentions of this being not sleazy enough/too boring, but so many giallos are all talking and almost none of them have multiple foot/motorcycle chase scenes with dynamic camera tracking shots in the vein of Point Break. The idea of a guy dressed exactly like the character on the poster, with full motorcycle gear and just a meat cleaver, is so conspicuous that it's hilarious, but the movie makes it work and makes it genuinely chilling. It's also refreshing to see the mutually respectful friendship between the assistant DA and the inspector, a relationship that would turn to romance in almost any other film of this type. The nude papier mache corpse getting autopsied is kind of hilarious though.

What a standout, pulsating score by Stelvio Cipriani, seemingly impossible to find on any streaming service.

Obviously very similar to the acrid Bullet Train, but this doesn't have any characters as insanely obnoxious as Aaron Taylor-Johnson or Brian Tyree Henry's hitmen, so I guess that's a plus, but it also doesn't have anyone as memorable as Hiroyuki Sanada or Zazie Beetz but that's mostly neither here nor there. There's still too much obnoxious bullshit and too many loose ends to feel like this isn't just copy/pasting a lot of trends in action movies lately, and nothing in this hits nearly as hard as the good setpieces of say, The Beekeeper. Still I guess Hartnett's charisma puts this over DOA stuff like Novocaine so it's at best a mixed bag.

Fascinating picture, with Endfield tackling multiple thorny moral dilemmas in an even more radical way than Hell Drivers. It starts off in heavy noir territory, but takes a big left turn in the last 20 minutes, turning into a message movie with a plea for sanity in the face of overwhelming doom. Sometimes noirs will give the audience an out or default to a more fantastical ending for the protagonist, but nobody gets off easy here. So many factors at play in the movie that it will give you whiplash: a polemic against rushed judgment and mob violence, a screed against sensational journalism (almost journalism in general), and casts a suspicious eye on small town/small-minded people while blaming economic downturn for people resorting to criminal acts, even essentially explicitly stating that it's nurture not nature. And to make it even more confusing, the actions of a mob of deranged fascist frat boys will almost have you rooting for the cops (who prove completely ineffective), while a whole town of angry working class people become outraged that a spoiled rich guy was killed. Makes sense in the context of the film even if it makes zero sense on paper.

Features one of the most harrowing scenes in any noir: trying to go to dinner with a hangover while a shitty standup comedian keeps trying to bring you into his act.

In addition to the main guys like Bobcat, you have some real ringers in this like Mark Metcalf acting somehow even more deranged than he was in Animal House (and reprising the angry dad role of that Twisted Sister video he was in), Joe Flaherty playing another kind of hardass dad, complete with a nonsensical wartime speech given to boy scouts, and Joel Murray looking uncannily like Tim Heidecker, and making faces that can only be described as "Decker-esque". Nothing in this really makes sense, like when the injured dog is kicked and then turns up later with a bunch of injured puppies (was it pregnant? who knows?), and that's fine by me. The presence of both Rich Hall and Rich Little led Laird to comment in the intro that it contained "an embarrassment of Riches" which made me laugh and might be the best selling point i can think of.

Can’t believe that in the alien dominated future the US is finally aligned with Russia and China….but we still have to put up with The Lead With Jake Tapper :/

It was nice to see M:I-2’s Brendan Gleeson have a plum curmudgeon role in this, the kind of thing he excels at. And seeing Paxton in anything is always a pleasure; his scenes with the cowardly, bargaining Cruise bring out some near career best stuff in both of them. That ending cut on Cruise smiling is so appropriate.

On the mic while you was kickin' that fast shit/
You reneged, tried again, and got blasted/
Half-mastered-ass style, mad rough task/
When I struck, I had on Timbs and a black mask

What this lacks in a Shaw Brothers level of budget and pageantry or a Jackie Chan level of style and comedy, it more than makes up for in sheer propulsive and semi-constant fighting, plus an affinity for multiple old man wigs. The final battle is an all-timer.

“Maybe the world is just the same stuff over and over.”

Tried going to this movie yesterday but had to leave because one person was laughing so loud it drowned out the dialogue and then 20 minutes into the movie, another person walked in with a dog. I was determined to finally see it today. 

Silly at times until it becomes completely devastating; Hideaki Anno never saw an object he thought he couldn’t put a camera inside of. The food in this was the opposite of anime food (disgusting looking). 

This was distributed by GKIDS??

yeah it's kinda fucked up but also kinda who cares

ROCK IS KING!

Timeless

This was as Bjork as you could imagine it being. I have never seen anything like the flute hula hoop, and I’m wondering how long it took to learn to play something like that.

I’ll forever enjoy Bjork’s music because I will never decide to do a deep dive into what her politics are.

While he’s only playing a character here, we all now know Bret Gelman is just actually like that irl.

MADNESS HAVE GONE 

Unrelentingly bleak, with a lead performance by Elisabeth Stepanek that’s extraordinary in its all-encoming darkness. Something akin to A Woman Under The Influence mixed with Possession with a plot and characterizations that follow along similar lines to Breaking The Waves and Nymphomaniac, but more grounded and realistic than that suggests. Stepanek isn’t doing a copy or a pastiche of anything, but it’s her own interpretation of a supposedly real person that’s ultimately chilling and difficult to watch. One of the great movies I’ll probably never want to see again. 

It’s also disturbing how no one in this movie seems to know how to kiss like a real person.

This movie looks great but the middle portion sags a little whenever it’s just Thomas Mitchell quietly inching towards his own demise. Thomas Mitchell’s presence keeps making me think of this as a reverse It’s a Wonderful Life, if Clarence was in fact evil. 

Ray Milland is deliciously slimy though, his eyes bulging out of his head anytime someone almost comes to the realization that he’s the devil…but then they wave it off at the last minute. I love how they keep finding ways through camera trickery to have him suddenly appear in the frame from seemingly out of nowhere, disappearing and reappearing at random. George Macready is also great, in an extremely rare non-villain role. Would’ve been equally interesting to see this movie with their roles switched and perhaps a younger guy in the lead role.

ROMAN HOLIDAY 

Dropping the rating of this a little because, don’t get me wrong I love the return of Kittridge, but plot wise this is actually confusing in a way that people always complain that the other movies are confusing. None of them even come close to being as utterly obtuse as this one is, who has what key when and which one is a fake, etc. Kittridge really milking the Ethan lore with speeches and monologues in a way that would make Alec Baldwin blush; Gabriel screaming “Ethaaaan!” showing his first hint of frustration and weakness. Grace is fine but Ethan’s protective instincts and care for her after only knowing her for 30 minutes in an airport is a little hard to believe. Maybe the entire series’ best car chase in Rome? 

Paris really walks away as the new character you care about the most; however I replayed that one scene three times and Gabriel’s knife clearly falls on the ground yet the next cut it’s somehow in Paris’ gut, not to be a cinemasins guy.

“We're at the airport.”
“Yeah, so?”
“I already seen the airport.”

Still ranks as one of the kings of tactile stunts and special effects, with real car crashes, real explosions, real bus-jumping. Action movies were better when every other one featured some kind of mad bomber.

“How could you dig Big Stoop?”
“Because I'm crazy! This country's crazy! THIS COUNTRY'S CRAZY! I'M CRAZY!”

Almost unrateable, as almost none of the line readings feel anywhere close to natural, like a cross between a bad play and a bizarre novel. Ryan O’Neal seems like he just started acting the year before, as do several other cast , but Wing Ha feels completely natural and at home in this environment. He’s the most convincing character by far and his character might be the most compelling as well (RIP). I’m unable to discuss the plot in any way shape or form, but Mailer has some nuggets of truth scattered about that make this seem like one of the most American movies ever made. Most of it feels like it was written by AI 40 years too early, but Isabella Rossellini screaming about how this country drives you crazy makes more sense than just about any dialogue ever delivered.

THE RAGES OF FEAR

Trucking Drama featuring guys delivering lots of loads, back and forth. A good movie with a good message about killing your boss. 

If you thought you’d never see James Bond play foosball….think again.

Seeing this back-to-back with Top Gun shows this to be superior in nearly every way, with a more nuanced relationship between hero and frenemy (the brilliant Michael Rooker) and a more convincing love story without a lot of the cornball dialogue that hampered the romance in TG. Unlike Maverick, Cruise’s cockiness this time around stems from a deep sense of inferiority, calling himself dumb over and over. But like Maverick, Cole* is haunted by a specter of his father, in TG it’s an actual ghost he can’t live up to, and here it’s a father who failed and abandoned him.

In one of those instances of time being a flat circle, Cary Elwes would go on to star in a Top Gun parody the following year, before being reunited with Tom and once again playing the villain in the last Mission Impossible. Likewise, John C. Reilly would reunite with Tom in Magnolia (did they have any scenes together? I don’t think they did) before starring in a parody of this film in 2006, which mentions Tom Cruise by name. 

*I can’t get over that his name is “Cole Trickle”

Watched on Monday May 5, 2025.

Watched on Saturday May 3, 2025.

Beginning: Sweet and wholesome
Middle: Wake In Fright
Ending: Casino

Makes me wish he'd made more feature length films outside of the US, outside of the Poland parts of Inland Empire and The Elephant Man.

Wow again

Wow

This was kinda light on substance even if its heart is in the right place, but if all of this really happened, then I think the adults who were gender policing children by looking at their underwear should be sent straight to jail.

::Curb Your Enthusiasm theme starts playing::

Impossible not to compare this to Spike Lee’s Malcolm X, especially when this even recreates at least one of the scenes from that movie, and in some ways this will always come up a little short. As mainstream movies go, it’s just fine, but as a biopic, it’s rather exceptional, certainly more lived in and entertaining than Mann’s Ferrari. Ultimately it does feel like a lot of great scenes, somewhat unfocused and searching for an insight into Ali’s character, where Smith is just fine, but I can’t say he necessarily blew me away. Jamie Foxx in particular does a better job and Mykelti Williamson, in his brief role, is perfect as Don King. I think I had a bit of Academy Awards PTSD when Ali slaps Ernie Terrell in the middle of a weigh-in. 

It’s just a shame that the movie stops right before they get to the most memorable and historic moment in all of Muhammad Ali’s life: that’s right, I am of course referring to Billy Crystal’s Ali impression at the Dean Martin Celebrity Roast.

Watched on Wednesday April 30, 2025.

"You didn't grow up in Portland?!?"

Sobering meditation about how the past never really dies and the grotesque reality of modern violence, which at times feels like watching sketchy online forum videos of real deaths. This should put to bed the notion of "unnecessary sex scenes", as the ones here are VERY necessary and present an entire character arc. Maria Bello underrated MVP of the movie.

The Strangers: Quebecois Edition

Final Canadian Exploitation series entry the night after the big Canadian Election, which makes about as much sense to me as this movie did. Martine Beswick once again great at playing a mysterious villain. All deaths completely offscreen and no nudity so my point about Canadian produced (American directed though thanks to Oliver Stone) exploitation being too polite still stands.

The closest movie to this spiritually is The Hunger, being that the beautiful music video look of it is also the one horror outlier of its acclaimed action film director. Weird tension between Ian McKellen and his daughter when he suddenly becomes hot.

#DarkWoke Wins

I was sold on this as a violent revenge thriller, but it sure takes its sweet time getting anywhere close to that. The editing in the first 20 minutes is very hyper kinetic and makes the movie inscrutable in the early part of it, but it finally settles down and becomes something of a straight sexploitation melodrama for awhile. Ultimately, when it finally gets around to something of a revenge story (the guys who have it coming in this REALLY have it coming), I think the Canadians are just too polite for that sort of thing.

No direct *ahem* evidence of it being actually real but the main sex scene in this feels very real and not very simulated.

"To be profitable in this society is to be good at not giving."

"Henry Thoreau once wrote, 'Americans live lives of quiet desperation.' But it's loud. It's LOUD."

Timothy Levitch practically invents Megalopolis in this.

Watched on Saturday April 19, 2025.

“It is the only place I really lived. Her body was the world, the meaning and the purpose of the world.” 

This ponders the effect of grief on a person as if missing an appendage or a limb, which is examined both figuratively and very often, literally. Is there a proper way to grieve? People are already mad at the way Cronenberg seems to reduce the act to missing a body or missing sex, but I think it’s trying to wrestle with the fact that so much of grief is wrapped up in chaste obituaries and religious platitudes but neglects that there’s a physical and a sexual component as well. Need and want are both forever separate and forever intertwined.

The two most grandmotherly things that happen are the first grandmother asking Akerman if she has children and telling her she needs to have children in order to be happy, and the last grandmother insisting that she won't tell any more stories until Akerman eats something, and then when she starts to eat, the grandmother starts peppering her with questions.

Another Colbert screwball comedy but this time you have Lubitsch directing and Wilder and Brackett writing, so it's at least got actual jokes this time around. Not quite in the upper echelon of some of Lubitsch's masterpieces, with the main demerits being that it's not quite screwy enough and Gary Cooper's one-note acting style, which I can only describe as "an adult man acting like a pouty Dead End Kid". Also a severe lack of Edward Everett Horton, who they could've milked about 5 more good jokes out of, but thankfully they gave him the last line.

Shocking how inert this thing is, with barely a laugh and not a lot of chemistry going on between the three leads. It is notable in how often the action is shot outside and on location, with Melvyn Douglas and Claudette Colbert actually showing off how they truly are expert figure skaters. CC even looks like she’s really skiing in some scenes, making her the Tom Cruise of her day. 

Might have been interesting had it been helmed by Ernst Lubitsch, Howard Hawks, Preston Sturges, Mitchell Leisen, Frank Capra or practically anyone else.

DRINK RESPONSIBLY 

Hadn’t seen him in anything since his ing but Tony Todd nearly steals the movie with his one scene. RIP to one of the greats. 

That final gag happens because the kid was wearing a Limp Bizkit shirt.

Watched on Monday April 21, 2025.