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Interesting as an experiment. Make a movie that’s constrained to the length and sequencing of an album. Not exactly a music video, but not exactly a musical either. I think the strength of the album outweighs the visuals and especially story, but if you have substances on hand flip this on and you’ll be absolutely mesmerized. It’s a gimmick picture, but the commitment makes it mostly work.

Speak a little Spanish for em Ben.

This review may contain spoilers.

You already know my Catholic roommate had to throw this on.

Technically proficient, wonderfully performed, and refreshingly mature, but if you're making a movie like this procedural intrigue can only take you so far. The interpersonal element is lacking, as the character revelations available are interesting enough but aren't exactly built toward. I would've traded some scandal for some more emotional weight. The same applies to the inclusion of terrorist action here, which seemed like an overcorrection to fears that people would be bored if this really was just people talking to each other.

If you've got a bisexual girlfriend run don't walk to this picture there is much to be learned and I'm not talking about painterly cinematography.

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Roy Scheider is so awesome in this movie. The way they save him actually performing a number for the very end, wonderful. I normally have a low tolerance for self-indulgence but damn this really earns it. Energy level just through the roof and visually stunning in both high and low creative s. Ultimately a film about how you are marked for death once too many women fall in love with you.

Most emotionally authentic visual capture of The Beach Boys in that is it equal parts confusing, farcical, and tragic. I feel like the essence of every member is on display here intentionally or otherwise. Carl is effortlessly cool, Dennis is ranking women, Al is minding his business out on the farm, Brian is dragged around terrified or in bed, and Mike is a peacocking jackass. And what’s a Beach Boys production without failed attempts at humor? Thank you Lorne Michaels for this artifact, and if a boxset of this era is really happening later this year I hope to see the That Same Song gospel cut get a proper release.

This movie is such a strange confluence of some of my favorite shit ever. Special effects filmmaking that reads like American tokusatsu. Weird The Godfather connections with Mario Puzo and Marlon Brando. Goofy bullshit not straining to be taken seriously nor wink-winking. Gene Hackman and Ned Beatty sharing screentime. It's like my own personal Super Smash Brothers for 70s movies. Alas though, when one eats ice cream for dinner, they're bound to get a stomachache. This is a very middling sit overall, with bonkers pacing that tends to linger on the boring bits and rush through the best stuff. It's almost frustrating because you can practically see the fully functional version of this film as you're watching, but it just doesn't really come together like it should. Must have been bad-fucking-ass for seven-year-olds in 1978 though, I hope they enjoyed it!

Want to say something funny but I found this genuinely depressing. I felt myself calcifying.

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Didn't realized Night Is Short Walk On Girl was derived from anything until recently, though this is far from a prequel in any sense but emotionally. I prefer the film, but was really captured by the use of repetition and speedreading narration here. It's a touch quirky to a fault, namely all the time spent on the love doll, but I see why it's held in high regard. Everybody wants to go back and try again. I wonder if the Daniels saw this before Everything Everywhere All At Once? I was going crazy wondering if Don Hertzfeldt had seen this before It's Such a Beautiful Day considering the similar use of live-action visuals and appreciation-of-what-ya've-got thematics in both finales. Considering the close releases it's probably a coincidence, but man, imagine seeing someone else beat you so close to the punch I'd be pissed.

I recognize that this is good and there were many parts I enjoyed but Wes Anderson, at least to me, is a director of diminishing returns. I don't mean in his output chronologically, but just in that once you've seen a few of his films in any order you'll start get that "okay, I get it" feeling watching the rest. This has made me realize that my favorites from him are simply the ones I saw first. If I had seen Rushmore here before Grand Budapest Hotel and Moonrise Kingdom who knows maybe it'd top my list. But as is, this falls into the unmemorable middle with the rest.

They made this movie for dads and their dork sons. I’m the dork son, even named William. My lizard brain activated every time it was said here. Similarly, the inclusion of Rundgren’s It Wouldn’t Have Made Any Difference and The Beach Boys’ deep cut Feel Flows should alone have been enough for this film to completely envelop me in its charms, but it’s just so corny. Some great moments, especially the laughs, but it’s all just a little too nice. It tries to pull the curtain back some on the fantasy here and there, but can’t help but fall back into it by film’s end. Worth repeating though: baller soundtrack, probably went hard on CD.

This story’s capture of my childhood imagination seems to have foretold much of my taste into adulthood. Loved this book and was convinced this could actually happen to me. Outside of the hilariously dated editing and soundtrack I was pleasantly surprised how well the movie held up. It’s a solid little layered story drunk on setup-payoff fundamentals with a novel central concept built around every boy’s dream: digging holes. It’s like Cool Hand Luke without the homoeroticism and Christ imagery, but not completely without edge, opening with a kid attempting suicide by rattlesnake. Damn!

Something I definitely didn’t realize as a kid was how stacked this cast was. Weaver, Nelson, and Voight are just eating this up as the Texas shitkicker Doronbo Gang, and LaBeouf puts on a pretty impressive child performance.

Venture into the William S. Burroughs cinematic universe with this thrilling prequel to the acclaimed Naked Lunch. Watch our hero bumble around drunkly through the bustling Mexico City of the 1950s, then travel junk sick into the exotic locals of South America in search of a root with the power to change the world as we know it…

It’s funny that this is the second Burroughs adaptation to have easter eggs in it. Dude, Annexia!! As someone really fascinated with Burroughs it’s hard not to like this movie, especially with Daniel Craig giving an outstanding performance as the man at maybe his least-dignified. If you’re familiar with the material it’s just plumb-entertaining to see him on screen, but I think his darkness is underplayed. Burroughs’s longing in Queer is one for love, yes, but accomplished through means of submission and ownership. That theme isn’t completely absent here yeah, and I’m not saying adaptations need to include everything from the source material, but the lack of the slave driver routine felt like a major omission to me. The film overall feels like an observation of Burroughs, the placing of feelings onto his story, when it could have been much more revealing from the full perspective of his warped imagination. More of a character study. Maybe I’m just asking for a Cronenberg rerun but that didn’t stop this movie from including the William Tell routine. I’m curious how that played for people unfamiliar?

On an aesthetic level the use of CGI for any reason never worked for me, again likely the effect of walking in Cronenberg’s footprints. Nothing about Burroughs is digital, I’d have rather they scaled back or done something more stylistic. I also thought the era-inappropriate needle drops were corny at worst gimmicky at best. Let the past be alien. Set design was nice though.

I imagine myself in the woods, a Soviet child, playing Stalker with my friends. I’m later tucked into bed. Later still: cancer.

Felt my brain start to smooth over. Boomers had slop too! Found this exhausting, and the lads are so baked they can hardly muster a performance. There’s nothing to latch onto beyond a love for The Beatles which I’ve got yeah but not like this. Really it’s just a collection of half-baked setpieces with a few good gags and some innovative but now very plain music videos. Sorry!

They made Epic Movie for the Greatest Generation.

This review may contain spoilers.

I'm just gonna throw another comment on the pile about the rat because what the fuck was that.

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I choose to believe that what Myrtle was suffering from was in fact supernatural.

I hate how tempted I am to give this four stars. It looks stunning, it moves at a quick clip, it’s filled with baffling shit, and it’s beyond sleazy as hell. The uncut masculinity of our man Duke is wonderfully absurd. Him fucking with that same unflinching face of killer’s determination while the receiving woman doubles over herself in pleasure had me rolling. He’s not even moving! This whole thing is wildly misogynistic but so obviously so you just have to laugh. 

The monstrous baddies Golgo goes up against here are incredible, including a castle freak named Big Snake who in simple motion alone is repulsive (but don’t worry it gets worse!), a trio of stereotypical Vietnam vets who’ve realized the deadly potential of their amputations, and Vega from Street Fighter split into two guys. Even a little girl packs heat here; the America of Golgo 13 is aptly cruel and dangerous.

It’s an experience that is deeply problematic but so gorgeously presented and shocking I’d recommend anyone watch it. It’s so damn well drawn and has some real creative style which for some will be considered wasted on the boilerplate exploitation plot. For me though seeing this genre overdose expressed so painstakingly only added to the shock value, and the constantly impressive shot composition elevates it above its nastier peers. And suddenly just to flex: horrible CGI. Japan was on some other shit in this era, truly. The final kill alone makes the whole thing worth it, but my one nagging critique is that the climax feels rushed. Dezaki I’m sorry I shit talked Cobra you are a titan for getting this made.

Was looking for goofy bounty hunter bullshit with aliens in space and mostly got power of love sister wife queens fantasy insanity. So many women die in this movie it’s honestly shocking, but they all go out heroes. Lady musta been pumping her android (?) fist from the ship console. Cobra is truly just along for the ride here. This is not his story at all and he’s no Lupin, he can’t steal it! Damn I got jokes!!

Anyway, this movie’s draftsmanship and the character designs it’s expressed through are excellent in their unashamed pulp, the animation isn’t anything stunning for the era though. It’s got some style, but it’s stilted. The way a few bursts of action from Cobra are awkwardly sprinkled into some of the queen exposition scenes reminded me of when an escort NPC is telling you shit in a video game then has to pause while ya fight some enemies.

English dub makes the musical segment pretty horrific but an otherwise enjoyable rewatch. The opening is a beautiful love letter to getting hammered no matter the language and makes me miss my college drinking days every time.

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This thing will surprise you with its sudden bursts of scale. You think it’s a small cast production making outstanding use of scrap-heap props and desolate locations, which it is, but then boom giant water pumping factory with so many extras and suddenly: major studio release. Kinda dumb thing to be impressed with in a movie with many much more impressive things, but I was struck. Kin-dza-dza is an anti-escapist adventure film that manages to be equal parts imaginative and mature. Stanislav Lyubshin goes from straight-faced realist to squatting and playing violin in a cage with three other dudes. It’s a treat. I want to chill with them.

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This movie, at least to me, has clearly aged into being more interesting than it was upon release. All the guerilla street filming, all the types of balding guys, all the seventies NYC grime. Total time capsule. Beside these aesthetic and historical treats though there wasn't much outside of restrained b-movie camp. The goofiness of Tony Lo Bianco's tearful, simultaneous goodbye to his wife and girlfriend and the whole him actually being the alien antichrist (?) twist really drove that home in the final act. This gets praise for melding genres but frankly I don't think it does it very well. A big swing is still a big swing though even if it misses.

Maaaaaaan Perkins I want to like you but this left me feeling so hollow. At least Longlegs pissed me off. This is a nice looking movie, but given the subject matter should it be? Instead of nicely color corrected shots and fully-controlled CGI kills shouldn’t this be a bit ugly and messy? Even the otherwise wonderful monkey prop gets a clean CGI sheen on its face sometimes. And oh yeah the script was bad. Comedy is subjective sure but this would have benefited from everything but the gore being mostly dry. As is the absurdity of the kills is weakened by the absurdity surrounding them. If there’s one thing about Perkins I fully appreciate though it’s that he makes what I’d wish were median horror movies instead of Blumhouse content churning. Not great, or even above average, or even just average: median. No disrespect to Theo James though he was good, great voice.

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It annoyed me far more than it should have when the cat or capybara were steering the boat. Flow is so committed to having its animal characters just be animals, leading to a very lowkey film overall, but throws it out for this one completely unnecessary thing. The secretary bird clearly has some other shit going on, just let it drive the boat good god.

Ignoring this complaint Flow’s a film I more respected than enjoyed, and it’s got an undeniably hypnotic quality in its silence even if it isn’t the greatest looking animated movie. The advantage in having your animals just be animals is that it’s fun to watch animals. Or horrifically stressful when they’re in peril. If that was the major goal, success.

Don’t show people taking selfies in a film from any angle beside the phone camera itself. And only then if you absolutely have to. I just couldn’t get myself to care about these dimensionless people, and the lifestyle porn was eye-rolling. The film's only potential point of interest, the nonlinear structure, is decorative and completely tossed out by the final act. It's a bog standard romcom with an attempt at elevated presentation.

All the overacting is hilarious, but I could have done without the metacommentary thread. It's Kaufman lite in a story that didn't really need it. The overly obvious, parable-esque concept of nothing being able to fix your nasty insides and constant dissatisfaction is enough, no need for the self-aware couching. Regardless though what's good is very good and the chosen avenue doesn't detract, just maybe holds back.

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Was shocked to realize that all the backrooms liminal space creepypasta stuff kids are obsessed with now is cribbed from Kubrick. The sudden view of that fancy room from inside the spacepod is terrifying. This movie doesn’t make any damn sense but who cares it’s a visual masterpiece. First we murder with technology, then we murder technology, then we transcend I guess. Conclusion: We should turn off the internet.

Super stock gasp sound effect kicks off both bar fights. Pretty good movie otherwise.

It’s kinda like Sideways except instead of wine it’s the holocaust.

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I'll just the chorus in saying that last shot daaaaaaaammmmnnnnnn. I know it's different now given real life events but shit man it's still so powerful. Kang-ho is beyond incredible in this. Masterclass in political filmmaking through the genre lens, up there with Robocop.

Politically this film's emphasis on compromise and working within the system is so of its time and annoying, but it's pretty easy to look over if you're a nerd and just appreciate the people and time period being brought to life on screen. Casting department went absolutely crazy on this one. Imagine having to fill all of those seats in the House of Representatives, must have been a blast. Lincoln is obviously about an extremely serious subject matter, but Spielberg's focus on white people politicking over the moral implications and legacy of their decisions makes this way more fun than it really should be. But dammit, it's so fun. I do not understand the boring critique. The extent of the film's depth is honestly all on the back of Day-Lewis. The whole thing is wonderfully performed but his take on Lincoln is surprisingly conflicted and nuanced. Day-Lewis feels like the only performer really asking his historical subject "why?"

Also, gotta throw in that the sets and costumes here are great but I do not like the sheen. In my mind this movie looks glossy. Could have used more grit it was a dirty time!

I couldn’t stop imagining the crew saying “and that’s why you hire Jackie Chan” over and over.

I originally watched this when I was in high school, maybe even middle school, after really getting into Lupin III. As such, I was mostly in it for the genre aesthetics at the time, which have held up amazingly of course. Analogue futurism is at its most lived-in here. It even has an episode oriented around a VHS tape, how ahead of its time in a backward way. Okay sorry: a beta tape. Television, being the bastard child of literature and film, to retain attention must offer its viewers escapism into a world not their own. “Lifestyle porn,” I’ve heard it called. For me, at this age and in this moment, Cowboy Bebop is probably the master of this. Near-aimlessly jumping from foreign city to foreign city across a scarred frontier in a live-on ship with people you mostly like but aren’t really your friends. Being unable to care about much of anything in a world that somehow does even less so. Riding out the end of time, that is until the end actually arrives and all of a sudden it’s too late to grab at what you had. And, it’s gone. Like a dream, the show compares a few times.

I ventured beyond the aesthetics there, but that’s to say that this show is actually meant to be watched as a young adult. Or older adult, I’ll likely find out. I came back to Cowboy Bebop after reading somewhere about its theme of existential boredom. In maybe less dramatic I feel that in my day-to-day, as I’m sure most people do, and went to this series looking for answers on it. There are none, of course, but there are explanations. Cowboy Bebop asserts that one can’t move forward before confronting the past that put them in their present. Some will be doomed, their present simply borrowed time, while others will haul their salvation with them. Carrying that weight, ya know? We all die, most of us long before we wake up from the dream. What’s there to do? Run.

My elementary school art teacher had the old Wallace and Gromit shorts on a VHS and she’d regularly give em a spin on the classroom’s ceiling-mounted tube tv while we drew on fridge magnets or whatever. Nothing was more exciting during those days than snow, so maybe that’s why I indulged in some nostalgia with this one. It was cute, nothing spectacular in the writing-department but nice on the eyes and charming in its hyper-Britishness. Biggest takeaway was just being reminded of how well the whole absent-minded professor hyper-competent mute cartooning dynamic works. How much of comedy is just “two guys”?

If this is mostly a formal exercise, a director getting a much-desired if unnecessary project out of their system, I’m very curious to see what Eggy here does next. All his obvious talents shine, but I feel they’re missing their potential in adaptation. This slow-paced “elevated horror” (do people still say that?) style is well applied to the material, especially its historical character and beautifully costumed characters, but the storytelling which starts off-kilter and nightmarish descends into a feeling of “and then” with the Count’s arrival in the big city.

I lay this problem at the feet of adaptation because Eggers’s original additions to and pulled-at thematic threads from this story are great. I feel nervous calling this film feminist, but its agency-driven take on the storied, problematic anxieties regarding female sexuality was an excellent wrinkle. It’s wonderfully incorporated too, feeling like a reexamination of the source material, especially its climax, instead of a rewriting of it. If it must be a story as told as Dracula, this is the way to do it. I guess my problem though is that it isn’t just that, the old beats still hang off this new Nosferatu like a hangnail you can’t cut for fear of it growing back angrier.

Now to quickly praise. Willem Dafoe is God as usual. Nicholas Hoult looks absolutely perfect as Hutter but performance-wise is one-hundred-percent outshined by Lily-Rose Depp, who’s receiving accolades for very good reason. Skarsgård disappears, the voice especially is great. McBurney backlit and just spitting everywhere was my favorite image of the film. Orlok’s castle is so right my girlfriend was wondering if they used any of the same locations as the original, which is a great example of how this is obviously reverent to the 1922 film but isn’t a pastiche festival.

I really like this idea of comic actors just riffing on the medieval monastery setting but when this isn’t funny it is eye-rolling. I’ll get right to it: Why is this actually so horny? Like not sex comedy horny, just no jokes horny for multiple dragging sequences. I’m no prude but these moments, and the completely unearned emotional ending, are total dead air. Filler? Like is the joke just haha they’re nuns? Anyway, Nick Offerman completely steals the movie. There are some laughs to be had.

Well performed and has some great moments, mostly thanks to Dano and his chemistry with the real studio musicians they brought in for this, but it feels a bit pedestrian. Brian Wilson is such a strange character and his life is so exceptional and horrific and over the top that I think this film got a bit self-conscious about potentially overdoing it. Some will appreciate that decision, and it is respectably restrained especially compared to your average music biopic, but I dunno I would have preferred this louder. Keep the two key moments structure but turn them up some. It’s a good movie I guess I’m just saying it didn’t fully land for me.

Do you think the boating sequences were designed just for the puppeteers to flex? Lotta puppet legs in this one too, they were clearly in their bag as performers. Otherwise, kinda boring due to the lack of your usual muppet anarchism in favor of holiday sentimentally. Cutesy!

I think Die Hard’s biggest accomplishment is that it has crazy, stupid stuff happen but never once do you find yourself nitpicking the actions of the hero or the villain. There is zero “why would they do that?” here. It’s very satisfying, psychologically.

Impractical Jokers gone wrong.

This entire movie exists just to get to Culkin playing Mousetrap with Pesci and Stern. That segment is obviously great slapstick but the rest is snorseville I'm sorry. I didn't grow up with this one and am not in touch with my inner child at all, so if the carrying factor is nostalgia or wish fulfilment it's wasted on me.

Shlock alert shlock alert, and unsurprisingly I was entertained haha lol do you understand? The big CGI set pieces didn't do much at all for me, but once motherfuckers got hand to hand the fight choreography was appropriately brutal. There's some dogshit beating in this here film, especially from Paul Mescal who is definitely not sauceless as some here are saying. I'd lay that title on Pedro Pascal if anyone, he's pretty dry in what is otherwise a big performance movie. We all knew Denzel Washington was gonna be the real sauce though. He completely steals this, it's ridiculous how commanding he is with little gestures and facial expressions alone. He's so good I was rooting for him and his scheming over the neoliberal-ass reform narrative.

Watched under the influence and couldn’t stop laughing about how this story doesn’t necessitate its characters be fish at all.

Michael Keeton is a star but otherwise what’s the point. Biggest problem is that it’s UGLY! My girlfriend called it too HD and that’s exactly right. I’m not asking for film grain or anything but this is so bright and sterile my eyes hurt. Burton is NOT back.

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Totally forgot about the penis cancer line.

Couldn’t stop thinking about The Fly. The musical numbers in this are so pointless, was this trying to capitalize on some sort of trend at the time I’m not aware of? Despite this not being a good movie it is baffling in all the right ways and the production design’s lots of fun, so it gets a recommendation from me. Also gotta it I was getting jealous of how good Jeff Goldblum looks here, wow what a hunk.

This took my girlfriend and I probably five sessions to get through. So beautiful, so long. I get that it’s a pretty ancient folk tale but the thematics are so blunt and obvious I expected more of a takeaway. For me this is definitely a case of pearls before swine.

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Falk is at his absolute peak Falk here doing his Columbo just-keep-talking schtick nonstop for the entire movie. My girlfriend, also a Falk fan, described it wonderfully as “he’s just always gotta be annoying a guy.” He’s great as expected. Unexpectedly great was the whole CIA intervention in Central America farce. It’s crazy to think how commonly understood the destabilizing role of the CIA was after the Kennedy assassination. We used to be a proper country.

Anyway though given how dark a subject matter that is I expected a lot more teeth in this mouth. Haha get it there’s a dentist. Seriously though the ending sucks. Maybe comedy just has to be cynical for it to work for me at this point in my life but Falk not being full of shit and everyone living happily ever after just felt like such a waste of potential.

The most impressive thing about Hundreds of Beavers is its feature length. I couldn't stop thinking about how this was still going. Some people are going to get extremely annoyed by that same thought, but the videogame-like progression structure (or "Leveling Up!" as the gamers would say 😂👾) had my corroded attention span locked all the way in. The bright stars here are the charming digital DIY presentation and the timeless (or more critically: obvious) visual gags but fuck it the narrativizing of a gameplay loop was the standout for me. Filmmakers using the language of television has been suffocated in the crib, it's time to buy stock in the language of gamers.

My father is a railroader who grew up in Cleveland and cried when Obama was elected president. I love him very much. Here are the films he shared with me growing up.

• Cool Hand Luke
• Little Big Man
• All the President's Men
• Platoon
• Angel Heart
• Full Metal Jacket
• Mississippi Burning
• Rain Man
• GoodFellas
• The Last of the Mohicans

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

The current project. Collecting these as an era for the kaiju/tokusatsu genre instead of focusing on Godzilla alone. And let's be real, if you care enough about Shin or Minus One to rank them, you've seen Kamen Rider and Ultraman. Beyond the classic properties and shared marketing, these films share the distinction of going full-throttle on computer over practical effects, a move that I don't see reversing. For better or for worse, welcome to the rebirth.

1. Shin Godzilla
2. Godzilla Minus One
3. Shin Ultraman
4. Shin Kamen Rider