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Huge decrease in quality with this one. Not sure how the budget here is 40million and Final Destination 3 sat on 25million when the cg throughout here looks like shit and lots of brutality is off screen. Like just compare the rollercoaster opening to the race car green screen opening. And in of “off screen”, if the guy gets his innards sucked uo in the pool, why not show some of that IN the pool instead of just the expulsion? If you’re gonna rip off Chuck Palahniuk‘s short story, don’t half ass it. I think it was a short story, my memory of something I read 15+ years ago might be shoddy. The highlight of this entire movie was the opening credits. Not a good sign. The racist guy was one thing… sitting on the shot of the security guard with a noose around his neck was a 🤔 choice. The best kills here get so complicated I’d start dazing off. During 3 I realized how important LIQUIDS are to the chain of events with the deaths. Death loves to get wet. Also, why is there always a fight between dudes during the opening sequences post-premonition? That kicks multiple dudes out? Weird pattern, detail to keep going. Hoping 5 is a little better…

Just like the sequel, the opening sequence here (rollercoaster) is better than the entire first movie. Fun & ridiculous, we’re laughing at the kills not gripping our seats in fear. Or maybe you are. I wasn’t. I’m afraid of nothing*. Mary Elizabeth Winstead is a great lead, better than 1 or 2 in that regard. Earlier on her sister is mean to her and I get that teens are insensitive but throughout the series it’s too much around all the death. I feel like young people aren’t that heartless. The weightlifting scene is art. Frame that sequence. The weird Frankie Cheeks guy needed to die quicker. What a quack. Jumpscare at the high school teen topless nudity. There are two mentions of Abraham Lincoln AND Osama Bin Laden. We get a 9/11 photo. Yeah, this movie rocks. If the producers had a balls they’d make a Final Destination 1.5 about 9/11. Cowards. The photos as premonitions of death is a cool device. The final shot of MEW is awesome. That’s how you do it!

*haha imagine

That opening sequence is better than the entire first movie. Hollllly shit!

& the ridiculousness doesn’t stop there, this movie rocks. Dialogue like this scratches every itch I’ve ever had: “But one night, you know, I'm in Paris and I'm just tripping on acid and sipping lattes and such.” Sipping on lattes and such.

This felt like some CW typa early 00s tv show but then I realized it’s just Canadian. They got their own vibe. & I respect it.

The ending… absolutely diabolical.

Tony Todd is so much more off the wall here than one. Loved his scene!

So much about this movie doesn’t work as a sequel to Tremors. The best part is that theyre subterranean and they force the people to play a hot lava monster game. You stand on dirt and you die. Then this shit happens. One of the guys isn’t familiar with Rock Paper Scissors (roshambo)? Please die. They’re making money off of each graboid they kill but how are they even keeping track. It doesn’t feel like there’s any gravity to a single moment here. Even the scientist is like “wow theyre as old as one celled organisms” do you realize how ridiculous you sound? I was gonna watch all of these movies but I’m done here.

They cut all the romantic scenes so all of a sudden she’s calling him baby. It’s bizarre. Not as much as her naming being “Clear”. Imagine seeing a newborn baby and being like, “Yep, that’s our little Clear.” Clear. I bet it pissed Death off. If you’re reading this, Death, you should’ve killed her (absent!) parents for her dumbass name. It’s as if they never even saw her. Clear. (This is my movie review, thank you.)

Rewatched at Braindead. Sometimes a second watch can increase my likeage, sometimes decrease it, but here it stayed exactly the same. I’m out of ideas, I need a big lick stat

I haven’t seen the trailers for Eddington but is this like Eddington?

The Gen X’ers get their Black Bag, the millennials get The Code (surveillance between lovers)

Been playing a bunch of Blue Prince and the final act here reminded me of that… there are clues everywhere :)

Haven't seen any other movie by this director and the use of screens here at first made me want to vomit. I hated this movie. That is, until I loved it :)

Some of the most beautiful, majestic shots of nature, of sunsets. I need to disappear somewhere on the mountain (ideally with no demons present.) Thought King Hu was doing wuxia but this is something different. Might need to revisit with that in mind from the jump. (They hit the drums like how Tom Cruise waves now. Whats up with that

DLC in the SCU (Shakespeare cinematic universe)

Oldman & Roth are incredible in this. Two of the greatest, lightning fast with no regard to anybody other than the sacred text (da script)

Took me a while to realize that other guy was from Game Of Thrones

Once I watch Hamlet I’ll probably have a greater appreciation of this movie

I must've watched this one a dozen times pre-2000 with my dad. He loved this one. Pardon my French. Roshambo. Lots of fun and playfulness. Love that the intention of the graboids is so clear, they're hungry! They wanna eat. So many monsters in these movies kill but who knows why. Funny how much the doom-prepper characters are stock now but in 1990 probably felt more unique. Loved whenever they did that low Sam Raimi pov thing for the graboids. Honor said this is the American version of Dune, yeah, that checks out. Like the more recent Nope we see how they immediately are trying to make money from the monsters. Wonder if this was a big influence on Jordan Peele? Even has a similar desert setting. Next SYDAT will on this baddie.

Cool designs. The monsters, the costumes, the weapons. But the movie kinda lost me in the fluidity of ideas. Things looked cool until they moved. Things didn't move well. Maybe it all works better in the storyboards. The final alien monster design is fucking awesome. I don't get how those seeded underlings were so ineffective! They didn't do shit. I'll have to watch more movies by Keita Amemiya, I love the weirdness of it all. & those pastel electricians outfits... yeah.

35mm at New Beverly

Whoever wrote that plot synopsis on letterboxd should be shot! Story invited me to see this movie and its high average rating compelled me. Movie doesn't take place in 1600, it takes place in many times. Tilda Swinton is so god damn good, no surprise there. Billy Zane sexy as hell. What happened to all that hair. Lots of laughs. Smart. Ahead of its time. Loved the song at the end (sung by Jimmy Somerville of Bronski Beat!) Always love it when a director scores their own movie. Thank you, Story!

Fits into that neo-noir subgenre of late 80s, early 90s southwest set guy rolls into town vibes (alongside Kill Me Again, After Dark, My Sweet, and Red Rock West.) Maybe it's more of an erotic thriller subgenre... Not sure if any of these ones are good. Virginia Madsen was especially good here. Good even.

I get the comparisons with Wake In Fright and The Swimmer (two goated movies!) but this probably won’t even be a top 50 movie of the year. Nicolas Cage, like the comparisoned protagonists, goes through a mental downward spiral. He’s confused and as an audience we are uncertain what is delusion and reality (alongside him.) There’s a stylized nature to it that seems to taper towards the end (not sure if that was intentional or it just plateaued midpoint.) I swear the colors weren’t as vibrant later on but maybe it’s because the weather changed over time (everything is shot outside.) It all feels subjective to the point where post-movie Honor & I had completely different interpretations of what happened throughout. It wouldn’t be the first time I misunderstood a movie… but if she was right… the movie might’ve been bad? (She had a more literal interpretation of events.) There’s a subplot or character arc with the antagonist (contemporary masculinity exploration) that didn’t seem to align with Nic Cage’s journey… of which it does feel now but doesn’t add anything to the redundant conversations. The rat was the highlight but not much else stands out. As a Cage fanatic it’s worth it to hang with the goat for an entire movie.

My second favorite Spike Lee t behind Malcolm X? Loved this coming-of-age tale. Semi-autobiographical so as a result, it feels so lived in. So many little moments that felt like they weren't just existing on the screen (going downstairs because she thinks her parents are fighting but really...) Delroy Lindo & Alfre Woodard were fucking fantastic. Ruth E. Carter is goated. Need to rewatch this one asap. (When the two huffers are upside down on the dolly??? Spike Lee... you brilliant man...)

Pairs well with Mo' Better Blues & He Got Game... not sure if there's the consistent artist-navigating throughline with all of his nineties movies... Trying to stay true to one's self while keeping food on the table. Easily one of the best directors of the decade. 9 movies! Very few goats have that type of output.

This was my third time watching Hero? and as a result I was able to follow the story more than ever... what it's saying about the unification of China is... weird. Maybe I'm interpreting it incorrectly. Regardless, this is one of the best looking movies I've ever seen with all the best faces. Christopher Doyle went the fuck OFF here. I'm bummed that I missed this at the Academy Museum in 35mm on the big screen.

Denzel Washington is top notch in everything, so me emphasizing how (extra) good he in this is saying something! Maybe his best performance? Loved everybody here, it was fun watching Spike Lee's regulars come in for their cameos as monologues (John Turturro & Roger Guenveur Smith.) Ray Allen goes for more of a guarded performance, but it fits well with his age and what he's going through mentally. Loved the scene between him and his sister while sitting on the bed. Went into this one just knowing it was about basketball, didn't realize it would have such a "high concept" premise. Pairs well with Mo' Better Blues, the exploitation of Black Americans through art (jazz) and sports (basketball.) Have no idea what was going on with the Milla Jovovich stuff... I get that Jesus himself helped the concubines so it fits thematically on some wave length but felt excessive otherwise. That being said, I do appreciate how Spike Lee can be tangential and follow characters, scenes, that aren't important in the outline but fill out the world we get to experience.

Newest pick for the sci-fi movie club by a friend. What is Jude Law doing all day at home? Someone needs to get this guy a PS5. He could find joy in life through video games. It's funny to me that the meat of this movie is Ethan Hawke going to work. I'm a little confused by conservatives love this movie so much, it seems like it's anti-racist because it's saying we aren't limited to our genetics? I must be missing something.

The artist navigates love & commerce while trying to maintain a focus on their craft without pandering to audiences. & his friend/manager has a gambling problem. In lesser hands this would be a lesser work, here, Spike Lee makes inspired choices that propel it to greatness. & right when you think the arcs have settled, the fat (not really though) lady sings, we're just getting started. Was happy Edgar picked this for my podcast, I loved it.

I would rather be a ghost, drifting by your side as a condemned soul, than enter heaven without you. Because of your love I will never be a lonely spirit. - 'CTHD'

I watched Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon in a dollar theatre in Aberdeen / It was a rainy matinée, 2001, Sunday, March 18th / And in the parking lot afterward / For a few minutes in the rain / I stood glowing with ideas / Of what I might try to convey with this music - "Microphones in 2020", The Microphones

This movie is Bigger Than. Seeing this at the Academy for its 25 year anniversary was transcendental. I probably cried too much but after the intro, a Q&A with Ang Lee and actor Zhang Ziyi by Academy President Janet Yang, it felt real, like the hidden dragon was revealed. I typed up the whole thing if you'd like to read it below. Enjoy <3

(It's not an exact science... I used a converter of audio to text, then did an edit based off a listen over. Hopefully it reads well and accurately.)

Janet Yang
I could not be more thrilled to be here tonight with these two giants. They have broken not just barriers but expanded our realms of imagination of what is possible in this cinematic universe. Tonight's screening of ‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’, is exemplary of an iconic and everlasting film, one that is emblazoned in our hearts and minds as a singular leap into movie making at its finest, while also being rooted in a distinctly commercial genre. It takes special people to achieve that. Ladies and gentlemen, of course we have the director Ang Lee with us tonight and star Zhang Ziyi and I'm going to start by asking some questions of them.

Ang, I don't mind sharing with the audience that we've known each other since your student days at NYU. Back then in the 1980s, I was searching for a bilingual crew to help a newly arrived friend from mainland China realize his dream of making a documentary about meeting ordinary Americans while driving across the country. Coincidentally, Academy Governor Jean Tsien, who's not with us tonight, but she was the first to the crew and she helped identify you as another crew member.

Our doc ‘East to West’ was made on a shoe string budget, so I don't blame you for not being a great sound man on that movie, but you have certainly made up for it by becoming a great filmmaker. We had an amazing mix of mainland Chinese, Taiwan and Hong Kong crew working together and, intentionally or not, you seem to have continued this cross-cultural pattern throughout your career, transcending national and political boundaries and diving into so many disparate societies and cultures. By the time you made ‘Crouching Tiger’ in 2000, you had not only mined your Taiwanese background, but you explored romantic entanglements in Jane Austen's England with ‘Sense and Sensibility’. Brilliantly observed upper middle class culture in suburban New York in ‘The Ice Storm’, and then took a journey to America's Midwest during the Civil War with ‘Ride With the Devil’, wow. So what exactly inspired you to then direct ‘Crouching Tiger…’?

Ang Lee
You know I'm not that bad of a sound person. Why did I want to make ‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’? Actually, through the entirety of making that movie in China I was asking myself that question. What the hell am I doing here? What was I thinking? Well, it's too late, it's just going gonna be really bad. As you mentioned, I make many types of movies, so you can tell I'm a person with identity issues. My parents came from China from the civil war, so my heritage is very much with the classic Chinese, but that doesn't really exist anymore. I grew up in Taiwan under the influence of American and Japanese and the center is a China I've never been to. And I came to America being a foreigner and I went to China…kind of Taiwanese and then I don't know where I am.

I think the only place I can believe in and rely on which is all my movie was dealing with is my insecurity, like where do I belong? What can I believe? Anything I want to believe is like the I Ching says, “The only thing you can count on that doesn't change is the principle that everything will change on you.” There's nothing to believe in. So I was searching. I guess I was afraid to stay in one place. So ‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’, is a way I look for my imaginary classic China. I think I share that dream with all diaspora with Chinese and even some American crews. It's a movie I try to jam everything I know, I like and conflicting into one movie. That's why it's so difficult. Martial art film is supposed to be crazy, if not trashy, because people fly, anything goes… it's a B movie, basically. And I try to bring the most classic Chinese culture, the most refined behavior and all this that into it. I don't even know how people talk. Nothing makes sense. And I have two movie stars, the biggest Asian movie stars at the time, who speak Cantonese and I have to talk Mandarin. Thankfully she's a Mandarin speaker, so one person, I don't have to worry about language. And I have a crew… making that movie in China was crazy. It feels like handcrafted, a space shadow, like it just have to invent wheels. And I want to see all of China: the desert in Xinjiang, the Beijing, the southern China, the bamboo forest, the blue… the green water, everything, plus a lot of fighting. And I did ‘Sense and Sensibility’, but these women don't do verbal fight, they just kick ass. And then I have a Chow Yun-fat play this restrained gentleman warrior who is like a role model, and then he's like unsettling. That's the hidden dragon. I guess I was seeking for the hidden dragon. Maybe it's a repressed sexuality, maybe I'm a nice guy. Something's repressed there, maybe it's my midlife crisis, I don't know. Maybe it's my childhood fantasy, whatever that is, or maybe the dragon is my imaginary China that we’re all chasing. I said it's very moving, like all parts of China, with Hong Kong, Taiwan, China, and America, we all come to make that movie and pursue our the dragon, the China in our mind which is like disappearing. I think that part was very emotional and somehow I believe there's a movie god that loves us. I think the the power of moviemaking is you make the incredible credible, like unimaginable. Like actually see it. People want to believe it. I think we caught people's innocence, the world's imagination, somehow that just hit at our strive for that imaginary thing, that we don't believe the world but we believe that fantasy world, the essence of as existence, our hidden dragon. I think that's speaking to the world. It's a wonder I witnessed from the making to a whole year of releasing the movie around the world.

You ask me how I make the movie. I know a specific shot that has something to do with her, which is when I read the story at the end of the book, her character Jen Yu… She jumps off the bridge and flies into the cloud. So that image just stuck to me and I couldn't figure out why because I read that part, I want to make the movie. I was thinking how do I make a movie? So at the end people feel like that character, feel like how I feel about leaping and flying away. I guess saying all that I think I want to be free. That's why I make the movie and it's the most difficult movie I've made. It's so painful. I can watch the movie and say how did I do that? I surprised myself. I cannot do that anymore. It's like how much energy? Where did that energy come from? I don't know what drives me. It's just crazy. It's the hidden dragon.

Janet Yang
That's a very poetic answer, because I was going to ask you about martial arts. You once said that “Chinese martial arts are not just martial arts. It's a way of life, it's philosophy, it's how humans relate to nature. I really wanted to project that into the drama and everything in the movie.” You sort of answered that… but how did you do it in that film, and did you have a lot of exposure to martial arts either in real life or through movies?

Ang Lee
The principle of martial art… Chinese just like to like to put our Dao, or Tao, the way of the world we perceive that something above us, as the way, the nature law, that we absolutely be with… unlike a West Western culture where human first… you go, chest up… humanity first, you can win, you can break through anything, you can conquer. In our Eastern culture there's always something bigger than life, something bigger than you are, something's bigger. So it's a different philosophy. So one is going for harmony, the other is taking action. I think I grew up in the East so I have that harmony in me. Even the martial art, they're talking about nurturing yourself. Whether you're drinking the tea, whether you're dealing with each other, anything has to fit the Dao… which is like that, I don't know why, but Chinese just like that. Anything has a Dao, a way with it, and they're all related, even cooking, like what goes. What Chinese medication, medicines, everything has something with that. But I think my real talent is actually Western drama. When I came here I realized I want to stir shit up, that's my talent, create excitement, go bing, bong, bing, whatever doesn't work, and I just escalate that and just make great drama. It clash. So I guess I have both of that in me. So that's like my movie. A lot of clash is possible. Elements shouldn't be there. They attract my attention but then I was really looking for harmony as well. I do believe people have duality. We all made up with different components. We're complex, but usually movie like to have a storyline like unity. Like it goes one way. But life was never like that, a lot more complicated. As an Eastern person, raised in the East, I like to see something's bigger. But as my talent goes, I like Western drama. I just like to blow shit up and see what happens, explore. It's fun. Making movies is fun. Another reason I didn't tell you is I thought about going to China at that time. Making that movie is… it's going to be fun. I might screw up, but it is going to be really fun.

Janet Yang
Well, you definitely learned how to combine the best of East and West. I would have to say you. You also found Ms. Zhang Ziyi. She had only done one other film by Zhang Yimou called ‘The Road Home’. What were the qualities in Ziyi that you saw as a performer or as a human being that made you feel like she was the right choice?

Ang Lee
I didn't know. I Guess I got lucky. She was 19. I didn't see her picture. So Zhang Yimou called me. She sent the picture. We used her. She's great. You do martial arts films, she’s a dancer and she's great in my movie. What did I see in her? I said, oh no, I never saw her picture. So then I saw the picture. I saw her… I wasn't sure. And then one day we're like, let's think. If Zhang Yimou used her, there must be something, you see, that I didn't see. So we put her on camera… She was very young, she wasn't like this but we made her up… like after 20 minutes… This is how we do art department, all art departments do one hair, makeup, prop, set design… Everything you see on the screen is done by one person. So Timothy Yip Gam-Tim show me on the monitors. “Look.” We're like, oh, okay. And then she never. She was a dancer, but a dancer and martial artist. No… martial artist is a strength and roundish kind of, and they're stretching, so they're different. She got the flexibility. That was good, but she work... I… I don't know. She felt I was very stern with her but my head was exploding. I don't know… I'm making this movie. It's going crazy, I don't know, and the movie rests on somebody. It took about a month and good for her, she win us over. I think people say we created a movie star but it's not really, even though she was 19. But the movie is successful because of her too… people don't mention that, because I found the movie in her, I found the hidden dragon in her in photography. It takes time with the new. Now we know what she can offer, but back then we didn't know. It's a true discovery. Actually, I like that in successful movie stars where you know this is a process of discovery… even if in the beginning it was painful for her, for me, for the production… I think I yelled at her quite a bit. There's a lot of insecurity and she can tell but that's movie making, you know, make the impossible possible. After months like, oh, thank you, it's a blessing, the movie's blessed. I should keep on going. I think we got something. So it's a wonderful discovery.

Janet Yang
So Ziyi, what was it like for you? You had done this small character oriented drama, working with Zhang Yimou, and suddenly you're working in this picture with larger than life characters. They're so physically demanding. You have a director that's scowling at you a lot and yelling at you, which I'm just learning tonight. What was that experience like for you?

Zhang Ziyi
The transition wasn't easy because in ‘The Road Home’, my first movie, I didn't have to fly on top of those bamboo trees. ‘Crouching Tiger…’ was a unique challenge. When Ang chose me, it was like being pulled into an online game. There was no way out and you know martial art movies, when your body becomes a second language, it opens up richer, creative space, which is brilliant. But really it wasn't easy to get it, so I think I was… I had the same feelings as you, director.

Janet Yang
You wanted to yell at him too?

Zhang Ziyi
Yeah, I had so much pressure I couldn't even dare to look at him. I think that time I just tried to concentrate on my job. I tried to give all my best and hope Ang Lee felt okay and happier a little bit.

Janet Yang
He's laughing now.

Ang Lee
Can I add something? Can I add something?

Janet Yang
Of course.

Ang Lee
Throughout my career Zhang Ziyi has the easiest face to photograph. It's a strange thing. As we say, Camera likes you. Wherever you put it, you can find things.

Zhang Ziyi
But do you like me? *no response* Now I know the answer.

Janet Yang
He’s on the spot now.

Ang Lee
I don't think I've told her before.

Janet Yang
I think he probably likes you. He's grown to like you.

Ang Lee
I'm sure other directors will say the same thing. She’s very easy to photograph, very photogenic.

Zhang Ziyi
He's just shy. He doesn't want to tell me.

Janet Yang
Tell her now, Ang, you love her. Chinese they have a hard time with emotions.

Zhang Ziyi
Typical Chinese.

Janet Yang
It's okay… Okay, I guess we're not going there. Okay, see, now he was saying before that as a dancer, he thinks dancers just stretch a lot, whereas martial artists need a lot more muscle… What was it like for you to make that transition?

Zhang Ziyi
Thank god I had six years training as a professional dancer. I guess if if I didn't have this experience I couldn't even have had the chance to get this film, to get this job and for me as a dancer, it helped me a lot with the physical demands. Those years of training taught me self-discipline, resilience, and the determination to never give up, which helps me overcome all difficulties. so what about your other actors?

Janet Yang
So what about your other actors, Ang? You had Chow Yun-fat, who was much more associated with modern thrillers like ‘Hard Boiled’, ‘The Killer’… Those were not martial arts films per se. Did he have a hard time adapting to the physical challenges? And then, what was that like compared to a veteran martial artist like Michelle Yeoh?

Ang Lee
Again, we don't know. We never see him, Chow Yun-fat, shave his head and have a pig tail. He's the gunsman. Actually I learned he doesn't like guns. The ADS tell him don't flinch, but anyway he looked great. So he's the gunsman and he's never done, never seen martial art, especially for that kind of look, the Qing Dynasty look. But it's not a hard choice. First of all he's a very good actor. You cannot deny he's a top notch actor. And then he's just so goddamn handsome and he's tall and he's from Hong Kong. I bet everybody from Hong Kong sort of knows that genre so well. They tune into that, I think.

And then Michelle, she was known for martial art movies. But she's not a martial artist, she's a dancer like her, a dancer. The principle of dancing and martial arts is quite the opposite. But I cast her because I just believe this actress, people didn't give her a fair shot. I believe she can act and she has that quality, you look at her… it's like you keep imagining all the drama and everything. The heart is raised to her. She has that quality, at least to me, and I just so want her to carry the movie. Now she [Ziyi?] comes to steal the show. But Michelle has to carry the movie because she's the repressed person. But anyway, I just see her, she can do it.

The big problem is not from acting. They're both good actors… the xia, the gentleman warrior, has their way of things. They don't have to be like acrobat, those clowning acrobatic warriors, they don't need that. So the stunt person would do all the fantastic thing. So they just do their attitude thing. So it turns out he's pretty good… his elegance, stature and what he built up in his career, actually to our advantage. You cannot find action star who has that kind of carrying, which is more important in my movie than a regular martial art movie.

This is not a typical martial art movie. This has drama. It's the cultural storytelling, all that and love stories. So for that he's a big plus. Of course he couldn't do the acrobatic stuff, he's not a martial artist, but that part he did just fine. And Yuen Woo-Ping is a great choreographer who will make that work. But I think he carried that dramatic aura which is precious. He’s like a spokesperson. He act like me. You know, they say the leading man is really the better-looking version of the director. That's my man.

Janet Yang
I guess, yeah.

Ang Lee
Their Cantonese is troubling, so I had to work very hard on them. But acting, there are some scenes, especially Michelle’s, she's like it's heart-wrenching and she's the only one who can actually fight that we can count on. She broke her knee ligament the second week of shooting, so the whole time she was not well. She was wearing braces, had to go through surgery which stopped her part for two months. Maybe I shouldn't tell you that it's an illusion...

Janet Yang
Didn’t notice.

Ang Lee
So the biggest advantage becomes her disadvantage. And when she does the crying scene, she's crying her heart out.

Janet Yang
Real tears.

Ang Lee
Real tears. And many thoughts behind the tears too, so it's very touching.

Janet Yang
The film was explosive in the global market. Did you think at all about the film penetrating the Western market with such ferocity? I mean, the Western audiences had not been that familiar with martial arts films. What do you attribute that to, and did you have any idea what would happen?

Ang Lee
Back then I was established. So we do the pre-sale. We came up with about $10 million to make that movie. So we don't have to make a big hit. At that time in Hong Kong, the major Asian market, the martial art movie was already in the downhill. It was like almost at the tail, Chow Yun-fat and Michelle back then to the younger audience they're like mom and dad, so there's no attraction. When I did genre it was not a good time but I did it on my own rhythm anyway. But I thought that's appealing to the Asian audience because I have to work with American crews and also how my career goes. And before that I made three Chinese language film and three English language film. So I'm like really a mix. I had those things in mind, things the Chinese take for granted I have to explain, I have to make everybody understand, at least on set… to my editors. So naturally I just have that global sort of thing in me. But I didn't expect… none of us expect to do any better business. It's also martial arts, it's a bigger budget we have. Maybe we can do twice the box office of ‘Eat Drink Man Woman’. That's what we're dreaming of. If we hit that mark it would be great. Yeah, we did like… I don't know how many times more.

Janet Yang
A lot more.

Ang Lee
I guess to the Asian… it was lukewarm. It's a strange movie for them because they're so used to the genre. This is not exactly that. So they're like… it was okay, okay, but it's kind of lukewarm. It took them like 10 years to realize, oh, that was a great movie. But to the west, the instant hit. I think it hits the fact that it's a movie they've never seen and they're dreaming of. Martial art, at heart, is really dancing, it's musical. I think we lost our innocence for musical for a long time. I think it hit the world's imagination because it was… it hit that innocence of musical. Instead of when you feel something big, you start singing, we start fighting. It's very expressive. I think it just caught the imagination. It wasn't really intentional.

Janet Yang
It definitely caught on and it actually spawned a lot of other martial arts movies and gave Asia a whole new genre to play with that had been dying. So I think they should all be very grateful. Okay, one final question to both of you. Have you seen the movie recently? If so, what was your reaction to it? Do you understand why it became so iconic?

Zhang Ziyi
The last time I saw the movie was six years ago in Cannes, where the film festival had a special screening. I thinking, how did I manage all of this and I could never repeat it again. And, of course, how lucky I was to be part of this movie. I'm grateful.

Ang Lee
Yeah, I saw it in February, that was the last time. Usually once I've done a movie, the things get out of my system, I don't want to watch them. I couldn't watch them like a movie. It’s just patches, impressions or memories in me. I just don't like to watch them. I was looking for the next movie but lately because I'm 70, I got a lot of retrospective and lifetime achievement kind of thing. People have been showing this movie. And this year is the 25th anniversary.

I get to see them when they print. You know it's hard to see print. So watching it it was… The movie was better than I thought actually. It did pretty good. We should be very proud. Back then I was just happy I did the movie and I survived. You know I could sell it and whatever. Now I look at it I think how did that catch our imagination? Now a movie is so tough, now it's in a very challenging time. It makes me feel nostalgic. That was a great time where everybody in the dark room would feel something bigger than life and we're like child. How wonderful. And I also amazed me, like, like you, like, how did I do that? I cannot do that anymore.

Janet Yang
Oh yes you can.

Ang Lee
How much energy. How much ion, how's that possible? So it I think it's all wonderful. After 20 years, they all come here to see the movie. I'm so touched, thank you.

Janet Yang
And that's exactly the experience we’re giving you tonight. Thank you so much, this was such a thrill for me to moderate. For all of you, please enjoy the screening.

Maybe it's just because I watched all 7 of the Mission: Impossible movies but this is a lackluster action movie. If Disney isn't making action movies, what are they doing with these? They just end up wafting from start to finish like an episode of a television show. & maybe the scent isn't particularly bad, it's not an odor per se, but it's not something you may even smell. An action movie should continuously heighten, if it was a graph, it should be shooting up by the end. By the climax. Look at John Woo movies, look at James Cameron movies. Hell, look at any celebrated movie built on spectacle. Heightening is the bread and butter of how events are paced out. But here with Thunderbolts (and probably most of the Disney movies?) it's more like a "p" turned on its side. We're wading in "p". Early on we see some cool shit in that Vault location. The fight between the four of them was cool! Then... do we ever get anything that stands out? We see Sebastian Stan on a motorcycle doing his best Arnold Schwarzenegger from Terminator 2. We see some heroic shit. But that actual climax is... a group hug? What are we doing here. Give us something big! Not a bunch of shit essentially happening in a dream. This movie loves feelings. I guess that fills out character motivations, character arcs, etc. etc., but we also need more than emotions, we need EVENTS. Things that happen. (Besides lifting up a big piece of concrete... that's like superhero 101 banal bullshit.) But I guess this is setting up the next movie! Like a television show, all is forgiven because it's all setup for something else. Not from me. No apologies will be accepted. Make a cool movie. One that doesn't feel like that FX show Legion mixed with The Boys. We don't need a movie to just feel like a pivot of what we can stream at home. Movies should be pushing the envelope! & simply being better than whatever slop Disney has been churning out shouldn't be reason to applaud. Rejoicing is for celebrating excellence :)

AND MOST IMPORTANTLY: what happened to that fucking guinea pig!!!!!!! Justice for the cute little critter.

Part VII in my M:I rewatch leading up to the final reckoning...

Couple observations why this is a disappointing follow-up to Fallout:

1. There's a lot of vest wearing. Tom Cruise in the little car and Hayley Atwell on the train. I understand that the vest is a crucial component to some "nicer" outfits but it doesn't look cool. Especially without the jacket. Huge wardrobe misstep. It's more something you wear if you're into Shakespeare? than kicking ass. (Or doing big stunts.)
2. From the moment we see Tom Cruise on the motorcycle until he crashes into the train, by my stopwatch, that's 20 minutes. 20 minutes of Tom Cruise trading quips on a bike with Simon Pegg in a car. No. We need Tom Cruise actively doing shit (not just steering a bike and arguing with Pegg.) Other people are doing more thorough things, talking, conniving, killing, on the train. We need Tom Cruise front and center. Which we get once he arrives at the train.

This movie feels much longer (and talkier) than Fallout, that's probably the main issue but let's not ignore the vests and Tom Cruise's lack of meaty screen time.

Part VI in my M:I rewatch leading up to the final reckoning…

On my third watch I'm realizing this is one of the best action movies of the 21st century. As so, I gotta up that rating. A bone cruncher of unrelenting spectacle. The fight scenes are the best, and the most choreographed?, in the series up until now. Up until this point, the only sequel feeling title in the series (to Rogue Nation.) We get the same villain in both. As so! I'm hoping the Final Reckoning will be the Fallout to its Rogue Nation (Dead Reckoning) Deliver the goods, TC, we need them <3

“Low budget movie made about high budget people.” Yep

That composite convo has become a little too real lately (post-truth, feels real, etc.)

They can manipulate gravity but still use fuel to power their thrusters. FINE. Depressing space affair that has movement while staying still (without change of direction) Not sure what was up with the room that is basically a drug but did appreciate the Solaris visual reference. Watched this for sci-fi movie club and it wasn’t exactly a crowd pleaser ha

Part V in my M:I rewatch leading up to the final reckoning…

Movie is good! But there's a playfulness (and excited nature) in Ghost Protocol that is missing here. Jumping from location to location here doesn't feel as fluid either. "Hunt is the living manifestation of destiny" -- nobody but Alec Baldwin can deliver a line like that. Best line of the series so far.

I can't quite place it... there's a band that sampled the "badges? we don't need no stinkin' badges" in one of their songs... I can't quite place it (help me if you're a music head)

Pile The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre on the stack of classics I've finally watched and loved (and happy to call a classic! haha)

Part IV in my M:I rewatch leading up to the final reckoning…

The best Mission: Impossible movie.

Anybody who disagrees will self destruct in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1................ :)

Was gonna call this The Babadookie but it’s not that bad. The whole movie is so small it felt minor to me but maybe it was just personal. Not exactly trauma slop but also not something that stuck with me in any way. Acting was good though. Earnest.

Watched this one out of curiosity… it’s the film Tsui Hark made when him and John Woo began their lover’s quarrel. There’s a lot of overlap between this and Bullet In The Head but also… they’re different enough where you can enjoy without comparing. I think I also enjoyed this more than most as I didn’t watch it quite as a prequel as much as a standalone movie. There’s a lot that doesn’t lineup between this and the other A Better Tomorrow titles but who cares. We get to see Chow Yun-fat command the screen alongside Tony Leung (the other Tony Leung that is…) The two of them with Anita Mui Yim-Fong is worth the price of ission alone. (“Price” being free considering you can only watch this via torrenting?) Another movie acquired in Shout!s recent Golden Princess acquisition. The action sequences here don’t touch Woo’s but there’s a vibe, a moodiness throughout that Hark catches that is super cool. & the ending… hopeless. It was 1989 and the shadow of the handover was already deafening.

Watching this via SD should be a war crime. (or whatever upscaled nonsense is making the rounds.) I’m seeing we’re finally getting this in HD in August via that Shout! acquisition of Golden Princess. I’m gonna have to give it another rewatch then (I’m sure they’ll do a theatrical rollout with the 4Ks?) Released soon after The Killer, when John Woo reached a god-like command of sequencing action. Knowing the backstory here and the butting of heads with Tsui Hark is a depressing affair. Guys, cut it out. You’re both goats. Goats should kiss. Not butt heads. Oh wait…

A staple of the coming-of-age subgenre: death of innocence, childhood. They grew up (because of being dropped in the middle of a warzone.) The recurring motif of the score reminded me of something from Gremlins or something. Couldn’t quite place my finger on it.

I think we all want writer/director Gareth Evans to give us another The Raid or Raid 2. It’s not going to happen. The ship has sailed. While in many ways ‘Havoc’ has overlap it’s missing the physical, the choreographed fighting component that made those movies soar. There is nobody in Hollywood that can do what guys like Iko Uwais or Joe Taslim can do. But they can’t carry a movie in the way that Tom Hardy can. They’re different. ‘Havoc’ is different, but I still think it’s a remarkable action movie that leans into pulp in a way the Raid movies don’t. Those feel more HK heyday influenced, this is more like a comic book that takes place in a fictional city. Like a modern day Streets Of Fire… (Now that I think about it, Hardy and Michael Paré have something similar…) Not to discount Hardy’s physical chops here, he does some cool shit. It’s just not the same caliber. We get more CG here (every cutaway where we follow the PS3 cars is bad.) Yeah, there’s CG blood but the Raid movies used that too. There is some practical when it comes to the wreckage from bullets and weapons, and it’s fucking gnarly. There’s a beatup face in particular that I couldn’t believe. Fucking nasty. Would’ve loved to see this on the big screen. It’s a chaotic film and it feels like a lot got lost on my home screen. Fucking Netflix… Knowing that this was finished years ago (I think?) makes me worry that there were behind the scenes issues with releasing this. Worries me because if they could just churn these out annually at this level of quality I’d watch them all.

Took me out when one of the guy's name was ZED but okay..........

So many of the great comedy minds flourish in short form but just can't stick the landing for the feature length movie. They can't sustain (or don't even try) their style of comedy for 90+ minutes. But here it happens. Friendship is a high achievement in comedy, in cinema. A must see for all the people who say "they aren't making [good?] comedies anymore." Please, you guys gotta go for it. Don't play it safe. Make your Friendship. We need more movies like this.

Was thinking about the Vertigo connection with the two women (sisters) and at one point one of them even says the word "vertigo". All these guys are obsessed with that movie. Makes sense. Good movie.

"Sex question" is probably gonna be line of the year??

Can't wait to rewatch this one again.

Hopefully Cronenberg starts doing the Woody Allen thing and has an actor just as a stand-in as himself going forward. Loved the ruminations, loved the comedy. Movie fucking rocks ass.

Part III in my M:I rewatch leading up to the final reckoning…

Not sure why, but I couldn't stand the way this movie looked. The over saturated, high contrast shit was annoying. Also annoying is the weird vibe, tone of this thing. Kinda felt like Joss Whedon influenced or something? Hate that TC and Ving Rhames are betting heads so hardcore from the jump. TC even says, "I don't respect you." What the hell is this shit. You guys are like brothers. We don't need the comedy derived from insults. Such an easy, boring vehicle for "jokes". "Humpty dumpty sat on the wall" the hell was that. There are some great action sequences but also it just stinks of wahtever brand of fuckery JJ Abrams was up to and it just stinks. It smells bad. I forgot that the villain brings up "affirmative action". There was something refreshing about hearing that instead of DEI. I'm probably being too harsh on this one but it feels way more removed from the franchise than the second one. I love PSH so much and he's the best. The ending ending is super anti-climatic but also so are the deaths of the villains? It just kinda happens. Also... in one a helicopter blade almost pierces TC's throat, and in two a knife almost comes into with his eyeball. The pattern was broken here. Thumbs down.

edit- when PSH threatens TC and his girlfriend, wife... that's intense. & then immediately after Rhames says his name like ten times. Why would he do that!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The writing in this thing........... (thumbs down)

Loved how this movie looked. A snapshot of ~1987 NYC but also a portrayal of the city through the eyes of Hong Kong immigrants. Not sure why the dialogue was all dubbed in? I could never get over how bad it sounded. Wish the movie ended like three minutes earlier, would've been perfect.

Part II in my M:I rewatch leading up to the final reckoning…

I didn't realize until this watch how similar Mission: Impossible and Mission: Impossible II are. (and I believe after the third one, we get more of this formula...) There's always two parts of what must be retrieved by the IMF. In the first movie it's the NOC list with their real names AND the list with the undercover names. Here, with II, they're seeking the virus AND its cure. In both they have to orchestrate the impossible heist to get one half of the parts. The climax in both is the exchange scene of parts for money.

People are too harsh on this one but I get it. A big portion of this movie is TC watching Thandie Newton get in bed with her ex to get information. We see them at the race track. Etc. That's not fun to watch! We want to see TC doing secret agent stuff. Not spying on a woman who is being forced to have consensual sex with a monster. & we don't get to learn that much about her during the whole affair. The beginning of the movie and the end are so strong though...

I love that even though John Travolta and Nicolas Cage worked with John Woo prior, here, Tom Cruise was fully down to get into doing cartwheel kicks and all that flashy shit that made Woo a legend. So what if Ethan Hunt never does that shit again... he must've hit his head somewhere between 2 & 3 and forgot how to kick like that.

TC's hair is incredible here. Like absolutely stunning.

Honor had a theory that I love. This movie ends with TC & Newton together. In the third one we see that TC is now engaged in a long term relationship. So what happened in between? Here we see TC as the fuccboi... & Newton in between must've broken his heart so hardcore he ended his playboy lifestyle on a dime and sought love, marriage. Great theory, Honor (she's my wife btw)

Starting my M:I rewatch leading up to the final reckoning…

When TC is at the safehouse and Emmanuelle Béart shows up… he’s way too trusting of her. Makes me think there’s an iteration of the script where we see them f*ck? The fucking is alluded to multiple times… Hmmm…..

Rob Bottin is goated

I’ll never get over “hasta lasagna, don’t get any on ya”

The heist sequence here is probably still the most iconic thing from the entire franchise. De Palma had it

A lot of experimentation that was maybe more distracting than serving to themes, story, etc. Takes a while to get to get going (reminded me of The Blues Brothers, getting the group together) and once we arrive, it's vampires but not much in that department we haven't seen before. Then it ends and sits there for far too long. Love how excited people are on this one, don't mean to be a Debbie Downer as much as a Michael Middler. Delroy Lindo eating garlic is an all timer. Lots of cool ideas under the surface, not sure if I experienced them on my watch though.

One of those movies that blew my mind on my initial watch years ago (I think pre-2010?) Now… it’s good! It’s a good movie. But since, seeing how people have played with these time loops or Groundhogs Day premises, it’s not as surprising or fresh. Few movies from ~20 years ago are. More recently, director Junta Yamaguchi has taken this timefoolery in more obscene directions with Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes (2020) and River (2023), both of which I recommend if you’re into clever movie making. All these type of movies are smart. I think what makes Timecrimes especially cool is that instead of just relying on that there’s definitely a mood, a darkness, that envelopes the film totally by the end. It’s a special movie that is solid now instead of mind melting.

Gearing up for a potential podcast episode with this one… the first time I watched I was blown away by how good this is for a sequel, a threequel. Couldn’t believe this movie in 2020. A movie that seems to be increasingly in vogue as a good horror film. On this watch I still liked it but it downshift to just plain “good” rather than “excellent”. Plain good is good! Not a bad thing. Now I’m just reminding you what these words mean, what is going on here. George C. Scott seems kinda over it at times? but so is his characters. It’s a remarkable performance. Maybe the best jump scare of all time. Freaky.

35mm at New Beverly

Before the movie started, the row in front of us and behind us was populated by youngins (17-22?) and while I didn't mean to eavesdrop, I did hear the guys behind us engaged in a conversation about Spider-Man 3. The word "symbiote" was said multiple times. At one point they said since it was shot digitally it couldn't be shown at New Beverly. A part of me wanted to interject to provide some helpful information but ultimately decided that might be weird (rude?) so I abstained. There was also this gem: "...Fiona Apple." "Who is that?"

The reason why I even bring that up in such detail is that 20 minutes into the movie, a bunch of them all got up and left. They pulled the ripcord. They knew 188 minutes of this masterpiece was above their threshold. Now, if only Robert Altman was more familiar with the symbiote...

I am so curious about this one... was the exact order of scenes all in the script? Did they discover some of it while shooting? Or was it done (partially at least) in the editing room? Because how it stands is a fine tuned cacophony. I see there's a doc about the making of this but I don't see it available to stream... (put a link in the comments if you're savvy enough)

When things go full on chaos near the end, Tim Robbins yelling into his bullhorn is peak comedy. Doesn't get better than that.

This movie starts off with three bad guys chopping off a wife’s legs and a son’s arms. Dad kills the three baddies. Mom dies, son survives. Cut to maybe 20 years later? The boy now has metal arms. His father raised the children of the three bad guys, taught them the ways of kung fu… so that his son could kill them all in a fight as vengeance. Which he does. This is the first five minutes of the movie. The rest is good too. Some incredible martial arts sequences with weapons and metal limbs. The stuff with the metal rings was especially cool.

When the President turned into the red hulk you know the democrats were like “start filing the impeachment papers 🤓”

Mostly a non-movie. So much of the movie is people talking and there’s little humor or much to cling onto at all. The laughs they go for has like zero jokes? and there’s a “bit” that’s in the middle of a scene that feels so forced that when they go back to regular talking it felt like I imagined it? Everything surrounding the Isaiah Bradley character is bananas. He spent 30 years in prison being tortured by the US govt? The other characters seemed to laugh it off. While I didn’t like how this movie looked at least they were trying something different, the use of colors/lights wasn’t the usual MCU gray spectrum. Score by Laura Karpman was good. The payoff stuff near the end was so fucking stupid. A real “who cares” moment (seems like nobody cared, nobody liked this movie.) I get that it’s Captain America so the military is involved but I prefer my superhero movies to not be so inundated with military crap. Felt more grounded in reality than Civil War (2024)…

I locked myself out and watched some of this on my phone while I waited for honor to come home.

(The big clock out more like it…)

After rewatching Seconds, I decided to catch up on some Frankenheimers. & it was a wholly positive experience! Loved The Train. This one is cool because it was written by Rod Serling which is funny because Seconds had a feel of a Twilight Zone episode. Everybody is so good here and it just soars as a political thriller. Need to watch more Frankenheimer…..

Neo-realism by way of punks in Colombia. Title card at the end shows how real it got :(

I watched this because the Coens used this a point of influence for Miller’s Crossing. (You can probably guess what 1990 movie I’m doing next for my podcast haha.) Yeah, there are fedoras here. The influence is covered (by a hat, on da head.) & like Miller’s Crossing, I had trouble following the plot (because of all the damn names!) Who cares. The b&w looks good and nobody does it cooler than Melville. w/ Jean-Paul Belmondo?! Cool on cool. Not a crime. But also a movie about crime. That's a crime.

If you’re bad with names, movies like this are especially hard to follow. Especially when everybody talks this fast. But that’s okay, this is my third time watching and it’s like a neo-noir set in 1929 gangster times as a riff on Yojimbo. What a mixture those Coens brew up. When it was released the LA Times said the film was a “near-masterpiece”, & the NY Times said it was “weightless” and “without much point at all.” Nobody knows what the hell they’re talking about. Me included. But if I talk fast enough and reference enough people……..

Lots of referencing. Referencing Shakespeare. Referencing the past. Referencing other people in other places. Referencing philosophy. Referencing via anecdotes. It's a movie... just show us please :)

Liked the setting, the b&w look of it all. Neo-noir without a mystery really. The ending makes the whole thing feel frivolous. I do like the idea of a post-fascist society where everything is so fucking dull and boring. Not sure if that was the point though.

First Place (11 votes)
-GoodFellas

Second Place (6 votes)
-Wild At Heart

Third Place (5 votes)
-Home Alone

Fourth Place (4 votes)
-Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
-Tremors

Fifth Place (3 votes)
-Misery
-Paris Is Burning
-Gremlins 2: The New Batch
-Edward Scissorhands
-The Exorcist III
-Close-Up

Sixth Place (2 votes)
-Total Recall
-Boiling Point
-La Femme Nikita

(Read Notes to see who voted for what)

1. GoodFellas

   11

   Zed C., Jordan C., Honor N., Mike B., Meagan K., Jess S., Jessica R., Kora P., Jeremy B., Paris R., Edgar M.

2. Wild at Heart

   6

   Zed C., Jordan C., Honor N., Mario E., Kora P., Paris R.

3. Home Alone

   5

   Jordan C., Ross F., Meagan K., Jessica R., Edgar M.

4. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

   4

   Honor N., Ross F., Meagan K., Jess S.

5. Tremors

   4

   Honor N., Mike B., Ross F., Jeremy B.

6. Misery

   3

   Jordan C., Honor N., Ross F.

7. Paris Is Burning

   3

   Zed C., Jordan C., Jess S.

8. Gremlins 2: The New Batch

   3

   Mike B., Jess S., Jessica R.

9. Edward Scissorhands

   3

   Meagan K., Jessica R., Jeremy B.

10. The Exorcist III

    3

    Mario E., Jeremy B., Paris R.

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

Movies I’ve seen at the New Beverly. (In order that I saw them there)

• The Bad News Bears
• The Matrix
• Dangerous Encounters of the First Kind
• School on Fire
• The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
• There's a Girl in My Soup
• Badlands
• Psycho
• Torso
• The Strange Vice of Mrs Wardh

...plus 49 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

I've watched 100+ movies released in 1990 so it felt time to publish the official 'Top 25 of 1990'.

& since I'm sure we like music as well, here are my album picks: (alphabetical)

Anti-Cimex - Absolut Country of Sweden
Bastard - Wind Of Pain
The Bats - The Law Of Things
The Breeders - Pod
Caifanes - Caifanes Vol. 2
Cocteau Twins - Heaven Or Las Vegas
Codeine - Frigid Stars LP
Dead Can Dance - Aion
Depeche Mode - Violator
Enigma - MCMXC a.D.
Entombed - Left Hand Path
Fugazi - Repeater
Héroes del Silencio - Senderos de traición
Judas Priest - Painkiller
The La's - The La's
Loop - A Gilded Eternity
Morbid Saint - Spectrum Of Death
Obituary - Cause Of Death
Pet Shop Boys - Behaviour
Pixies - Bossanova
The Popguns - Eugenie
Ride - Nowhere
Rorschach - Remain Sedate
The Someloves - Something Or Other
The Sundays - Reading, Writing and Arithmetic
Teenage Fanclub - A Catholic Education
Trouble - Trouble
Turning Point - It's Always Darkest Before Dawn

1. Close-Up
2. Wild at Heart
3. Total Recall
4. GoodFellas
5. Paris Is Burning
6. Edward Scissorhands
7. Days of Being Wild
8. American Dream
9. Misery
10. The Company of Strangers

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

The inspiration for my name was taken from the 1974 movie Zardoz. (I was born some ten years after its release.) Last night I saw Friendship which has a character named Zed. So today I got thinking. What other movies have a Zed in them?

I have omitted anything Mighty Morphin Power Rangers related because the villain there is Zedd, not Zed. (Also, we don’t need sequels listed here with the same Zed.) 

I’m hoping we can get a more iconic Zed character than the one from Pulp Fiction. I’ve been hearing “Zed’s dead,” for nearly 30 years now when I first meet someone. I would like to publicly request an apology from Quentin Tarantino for what he has submitted into the zeitgeist.

• Zardoz
• Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment
• Pulp Fiction
• Men in Black
• Z-O-M-B-I-E-S
• Friendship

Here's a list of every movie made by directors after they made an MCU film

• Clash of the Titans
• Cowboys & Aliens
• Much Ado About Nothing
• Now You See Me
• Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit
• Chef
• Not Safe for Work
• Cinderella
• Terminator Genisys
• Grimsby

...plus 24 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Keeping track of the 4K blu-rays I own. All were purchased during 50% off sales :)

• 8½
• After Hours
• Blow Out
• Blue Velvet
• Citizen Kane
• Dazed and Confused
• Godzilla
• Gummo
• Happiness
• Le Cercle Rouge

...plus 24 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

After watching 101 movies released last year, I give you: The Official Top 25 Movies Of 2024. You know the drill. These are the best. THE BEST. 25. 2024. The end.

1. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
2. Dune: Part Two
3. Challengers
4. Nosferatu
5. Nickel Boys
6. Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat
7. A Different Man
8. Hard Truths
9. Anora
10. Sing Sing

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

These are my favorite movies released in the 1980's. I'll update this when I want to.

If it's not here then there are 100 better movies already listed. End of story.

LAST UPDATED: 1/15/25

1. Aliens
2. RoboCop
3. The Thing
4. The Fly
5. Raging Bull
6. Videodrome
7. The Shining
8. They Live
9. Blue Velvet
10. Ran

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

Work in progress..

These are the movies that have been covered by the podcast, 'So You Did A Thing'. The "established" list of eighties movies (determined by box office, awards, nostalgia) sucks. People say this decade sucks but they're wrong. I'm the right one.

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/so-you-did-a-thing/id1573664575

• Babylon
• Aliens
• The Witches of Eastwick
• The Color of Money
• The Lost Boys
• RoboCop
• The Return of the Living Dead
• Batman
• Manhunter
• Style Wars

...plus 41 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

My favorite first time watches in 2024. All 4.5 star ratings. (All not released in 2024.)

• 35 Shots of Rum
• Auto Focus
• Drowning by Numbers
• The Duellists
• Extreme Prejudice
• Good Riddance
• The Immigrant
• A Little Romance
• Matewan
• A Matter of Life and Death

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

I watched 134 '80s movies in 2023. Here are my 40 favorite first time watches. Hoping to watch even more in 2024 :)

• The 8 Diagram Pole Fighter
• Altered States
• Au Revoir les Enfants
• A Better Tomorrow II
• The Big Heat
• Blood Beat
• Castle in the Sky
• Christine
• Cobra
• Day of the Dead

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

Every movie I've seen at the Vista since its late 2023 reopening.

• Thanksgiving
• Napoleon
• The Zone of Interest
• Dr. Syn, Alias the Scarecrow
• The Wild Bunch
• Kiss the Girls and Make Them Die
• Dune: Part Two
• The First Omen
• Civil War
• Lawrence of Arabia

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

www.youtube.com/watch?v=flUnrdGvxHI

Watch and enjoy. Don't try to log it though, letterboxd doesn't respect music.

• The Tragedy of Macbeth
• The Lion King
• Strange Brew
• Hamlet
• Hamlet
• Hamlet

Hey. I noticed that I've logged 3,500+ movies now so I thought it'd be fun to make a list of my 250 favorite films. (The top 7%.) These are those films. I love these films and you will too. I guarantee it.

I'll update every time it's my birthday :) How about that.

(I made this on 8/30/21. I don't want to update it... instead maybe in a year or so I'll make a new one. It's kind of like a snapshot, a mixtape, or whatever makes this seem less lame.)

(Chronological order.)

(Updated again 6/22/23)
(7/28/23 250 movies)
(6/10/24 250 movies)

• Battleship Potemkin
• The ion of Joan of Arc
• Man with a Movie Camera
• M
• The Rules of the Game
• The Wizard of Oz
• Citizen Kane
• Casablanca
• The Ox-Bow Incident
• Brief Encounter

...plus 240 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Work in progress. I'll add titles as I see them.

This is more about Nicolas Cage’s performance, and more importantly, the importance of this particular movie in Cage’s repertoire.

Last updated: 5/2/24

1. Adaptation.
2. Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call – New Orleans
3. Wild at Heart
4. Mandy
5. Raising Arizona
6. Moonstruck
7. Vampire's Kiss
8. Face/Off
9. Dream Scenario
10. Snake Eyes

...plus 50 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Non-USAers making USA movies and/or about the USA

(not a comment on quality)

• 12 Years a Slave
• Alice in the Cities
• All That Heaven Allows
• American Beauty
• American Honey
• The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
• Atlantic City
• Baby Driver
• Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call – New Orleans
• Bones and All

...plus 29 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• Argylle
• Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom
• The Marvels
• The Flash
• Transformers: Rise of the Beasts
• Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
• Fast X
• The Little Mermaid
• Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
• Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania

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

I (re)watched Yi Yi a few nights ago. At the Egyptian Theater. Incredible experience. Had me thinking about the best movies of the 21st century. So here are my 100 picks. Enjoy :)

(Scripted, live action)

• American Psycho
• Yi Yi
• Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
• In the Mood for Love
• The Piano Teacher
• Mulholland Drive
• Y Tu Mamá También
• Punch-Drunk Love
• Hero
• Adaptation.

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

After watching 109 movies released last year, I give you: The Official Top 25 Movies Of 2023. There were 43 movies in contention for these coveted spots but I was forced to kill darlings and elevate the creamiest of the crop. 3 of these do a metabreak for an ending, forcing the audience to consider how we contextualize history as film, entertainment. 2 of these have a car being pushed as to not wake a sleeping mother. 1 had me wanting to clean toilets for a living. “Barbenheimer” was a momentous occasion! But anybody still talking about either of those movies needs to watch more creamy movies ❤️

1. Poor Things
2. Killers of the Flower Moon
3. Infinity Pool
4. The Holdovers
5. The Zone of Interest
6. Perfect Days
7. John Wick: Chapter 4
8. The Iron Claw
9. The Beasts
10. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

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

My favorite first time watches in 2023. All 4.5 star ratings. (All not released in 2023.)

• 3 Women
• American Dream
• The Aviator
• Birth
• Blast of Silence
• Christine
• Depeche Mode 101
• The Green Fog
• The Iceman Cometh
• Koyaanisqatsi

...plus 4 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

501 movie watches this year… a handful of which I watched more than once. Here they are in the order that I watched them.

71 were theatrical.

87 were rewatches.

& here's a breakdown by decade:
1890s- 1 (0.2%)
1900s- 1 (0.2%)
1930s- 4 (0.8%)
1940s- 6 (1.2%)
1950s- 17 (3.4%)
1960s- 23 (4.7%)
1970s- 24 (4.9%)
1980s- 134 (27.1%)
1990s- 70 (14.2%)
2000s- 55 (11.1%)
2010s- 23 (4.7%)
2020s- 135 (27.3%)

• Avatar: The Way of Water
• White Noise
• The Breaking Point
• The Day the Earth Stood Still
• Singin' in the Rain
• Puss in Boots: The Last Wish
• Shaolin Soccer
• Crimes of the Future
• M3GAN
• RRR

...plus 482 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

These are my favorite movies released in the 1990's. I'm going to update this fairly frequently per my watching and rewatching of movies.

Anything not on this list isn't there because either I haven't rewatched it in 20+ years or I haven't seen it in the first place. These obvious omissions I'm hoping to view asap!

LAST UPDATED: 9/1/23

1. Terminator 2: Judgment Day
2. The Matrix
3. Clueless
4. Heat
5. Fargo
6. The Big Lebowski
7. American Movie
8. Happiness
9. Close-Up
10. Hoop Dreams

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

Source of the list.

“Decades are fairly arbitrary scaffolding used to size up history. 1979 and 1980 feel a hell of a lot more related than say 1980 and 1983. Looking back over this top-of-the head tour-of-pleasures a few things strike me. For one, my film consumption was steady over this decade (the titles listed were maybe five to ten percent of what I saw at the time), and U.S studios provided the moviegoing public an embarrassment of riches, the full gambit of human experience executed at an exquisite level across all genres without a cape, cowl, or action-figure anywhere in sight. There was no hyper-IP attached to any of these films (more than ninety-percent of which were made from original screenplays). Those riches become less bountiful as the decade progressed. This may be nostalgia on my part, or simply a matter of changing personal tastes (later years contain more foreign titles and independents), but the thing that strikes me most is how going to the movies was never an event, just a part of public life — like eating and breathing and yes, dreaming together. In that regard, those who lived through this era are part of a lost civilization.”

He picked ten movies from every year, starting from 1980. Within each year they’re listed in alphabetic order (as he had them.)

• Altered States
• American Gigolo
• Caddyshack
• Coal Miner's Daughter
• The Elephant Man
• Melvin and Howard
• Ordinary People
• Raging Bull
• The Shining
• The Stunt Man

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

The greatest franchise in film history???

• Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol
• Mission: Impossible
• Mission: Impossible – Fallout
• Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning
• Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation
• Mission: Impossible II
• Mission: Impossible III

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

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

After some recent (re)watches I settled on my favorite threequels of all time. I didn’t include “thematic trilogies” hence no Lady Vengeance (2005). What makes these movies interesting is most don’t just heighten what was already heightened in the sequel, with the threequel many must reinvent the series while still staying true to the original. (Or offer a conclusion…) It’s a difficult task! Most #3 movies aren’t good! But these go hard. & if you’re like me… it can never get too hard 🙄

1. Toy Story 3
2. The Human Condition III: A Soldier's Prayer
3. The Exorcist III
4. Apur Sansar
5. Before Midnight
6. John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum
7. Halloween III: Season of the Witch
8. A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors
9. Pusher III
10. Die Hard With a Vengeance

I was making an effort to watch threequels and in doing so thought it was time to watch Resident Evil : Extinction. But how could I watch that without the two that preceded it? Done. Then why not just watch all six at that point? Done. I didn't begin this effort with the expectations of the third being the best but here we are. Would I recommend watching this entire franchise to anybody? No. There are cool moments and choices but most of these are, by blunt force, undermined by the stupidest of ideas with the dog shit of executions. It's very strange to me how the auteur obsessed movie watchers are like, "Paul W. S. Anderson has developed his own style!" Yes, he does the things you're not supposed to do and continues to do them. Motifs, repetition, however you want to define "style" the fact that if these choices were made in other movies by other directors they would be panned speaks volumes. But is that what defines a good director? You can watch one of their movies and undeniably know it is one of their movies? There's something just as myopic about this as any of the other lenses that people seem to view movies under. ("I watch movies under the ____ lens" is frankly as nincompoop as the shit that falls out the anus of the nincom.) If you like these movies don't let me nincompoop on your parade. Oh yeah. This is my ranking of these movies. Resident Evil: Extinction was my favorite and it's telling that after the movie ended they completely disregarded the entire world that was setup there. The desert world is just done with. I hate to keep using the word "stupid" to describe things revolving around these movies but what else can you use? Forgetful? Memory is a part of intelligence and the lack thereof implies the opposite. Okay. I think I've written enough at this point. Thumbs up to anybody who reads this & an apology from yours truly.

1. Resident Evil: Extinction
2. Resident Evil: Afterlife
3. Resident Evil: Retribution
4. Resident Evil: Apocalypse
5. Resident Evil: The Final Chapter
6. Resident Evil

After one, after two, comes three. I thought looking at all of these in relation to one another as the third could be interesting. Is it interesting? Maybe. Gone is the wow factor of NEW DIRECTOR and at this point there’s (usually?) more ambition, experimentation, craft as they’ve established themselves or at least gone through the motions long enough to have the experience, the skill.

Chronological order.

(I didn’t count movies that some of these co-directed as 1, 2 or 3.)

• The Killing
• Le Bonheur
• El Topo
• Pink Flamingos
• Solaris
• Mean Streets
• Jaws
• Picnic at Hanging Rock
• Star Wars
• Halloween

...plus 60 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

After spending January catching up on movies I missed, I’ve watched 97 movies released last year and here are the top 20 ranked. A great year for spectacle, lots of the top picks were theatrical stunners yet small can also be just as impactful ('Aftersun').

1. Avatar: The Way of Water
2. RRR
3. Everything Everywhere All at Once
4. Aftersun
5. Nope
6. The Northman
7. Top Gun: Maverick
8. All the Beauty and the Bloodshed
9. Triangle of Sadness
10. Decision to Leave

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

1. Terminator 2: Judgment Day
2. Aliens
3. Avatar: The Way of Water
4. Titanic
5. Avatar
6. The Terminator
7. True Lies
8. The Abyss

365 movies this year… a handful of which I watched more than once.

53 rewatches.

Movies are good imo

• Himiko
• Perfect Blue
• Jane B. by Agnès V.
• Thief
• A Night at the Roxbury
• The Nice Guys
• Under the Blossoming Cherry Trees
• Mustang
• The Last Picture Show
• Sneakers

...plus 354 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Now that October is done (for now…) I thought I’d share my fifty favorite horror movies of all time. To vary the list I set a stipulation of only one movie per director. Here they are in chronological order. (For the sake of simplicity, I defined “horror” by whatever had the genre tag on letterboxd.)

🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃

2022

• Cat People
• Eyes Without a Face
• Psycho
• Kwaidan
• Repulsion
• Kuroneko
• Night of the Living Dead
• Images
• Sisters
• The Wicker Man

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

The Animation Film Award (アニメーション映画賞) is an award given to the best animated feature film at the Mainichi Film Awards. The award was established to reward large scale cinematic animation, enabling the Ōfuji Noburō Award to focus on shorter pieces. This award was first presented in 1989 for Kiki's Delivery Service (魔女の宅急便 Majo no Takkyūbin) by Hayao Miyazaki.

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mainichi_Film_Award_for_Best_Animation_Film

Last updated: 2/15/21

• Kiki's Delivery Service

  Studio Ghibli (Hayao Miyazaki)

• White Wolf

  Group TAC (Tsuneo Maeda)

• Roujin Z

  Tokyo Theaters Co. (Hiroyuki Kitakubo)

• Porco Rosso

  Studio Ghibli (Hayao Miyazaki)

• Patlabor 2: The Movie

  Production I.G (Mamoru Oshii)

• Pom Poko

  Studio Ghibli (Isao Takahata)

• Junkers Come Here

  Triangle Staff (Junichi Sato)

• Black Jack: The Movie

  Tezuka Productions (Satoshi Kuwabara)

• Princess Mononoke

  Studio Ghibli (Hayao Miyazaki)

• Doraemon: Nobita's Great Adventure in the South Seas

  Asatsu (Tsutomu Shibayama)

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

1. Predator
2. Prey
3. Predators
4. Predator 2
5. AVP: Alien vs. Predator
6. The Predator
7. Aliens vs Predator: Requiem

I watched 111 movies released in 2021, here’s the top twenty of those. Some of these are in fact 2021 despite what the ACADEMY has stated. Lots of women fronted movies this year.

1. Drive My Car
2. Licorice Pizza
3. Nomadland
4. Dune
5. Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy
6. A Hero
7. The French Dispatch
8. Benedetta
9. Petite Maman
10. Titane

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

…in chronological order.

Bea At Rehab isn’t on letterboxd yet so it’s absent.

I omitted Can’t Get You Out Of My Head even though it’s on letterboxd because it’s a TV series. It’s one of the best things I saw in 2021 though.

The notes include which movies were rewatches and if I watched a movie more than once this year (which I did more than a few times haha… Dune (2021) the most with three watches in total.)

• The Great Outdoors

  rewatch

• Rushmore

  rewatch

• Bull Durham
• Chef
• Pumpkinhead
• The Boxer's Omen
• 7 Faces of Dr. Lao
• A Touch of Zen
• Soul

  rewatch

• Charade

...plus 489 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Punch-Drunk Love
2. There Will Be Blood
3. Boogie Nights
4. Phantom Thread
5. The Master
6. Licorice Pizza
7. Inherent Vice
8. Magnolia
9. Hard Eight

Movies referenced in Mark Fisher’s Capitalism Realism.

libcom.org/files/Capitalist%20Realism_%20Is%20There%20No%20Alternat%20-%20Mark%20Fisher.pdf

• Children of Men
• V for Vendetta
• The Thing
• Scarface
• The Godfather
• Reservoir Dogs
• GoodFellas
• Pulp Fiction
• WALL·E
• Heat

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

I wrote a longer thing on the vftv Patreon but here’s the free version: I like #1 the most and #27 the least. For some reason Thief was initially a part of this collection but ended up not? I included it anyways because Mann is the man. Some of these movies recreate noir, others do more of a deconstruction / second (third?) wave type of thing… both rock.

“The truth is out there” - Neonoir

1. Chinatown
2. Blow Out
3. Across 110th Street
4. Body Double
5. The Long Goodbye
6. Manhunter
7. Body Heat
8. Thief
9. The Killing of a Chinese Bookie
10. The Hit

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

These are the movies we've group watched on Discord. Wednesday nights are MOVIE NIGHTS!!!

1. The Fast and the Furious
2. The Faculty
3. Reality Bites
4. Hard Boiled
5. Face/Off
6. Black Panthers
7. 2 Fast 2 Furious
8. enger 57
9. Escape from New York
10. Batman Forever

...plus 53 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

I watched all seventeen of the “Japanese Noir Collection” movies on the Criterion Channel. I ranked them all so as to help anybody pick what to watch. Kinda unfair to compare anything to Kurosawa... yet still, Pale Flower is my #1 pick. I liked everything here (to varying degrees) and highly recommend watching all of it in its entirety but get that not everybody has been away from work for a month :)

1. Pale Flower
2. High and Low
3. Stray Dog
4. The Bad Sleep Well
5. Youth of the Beast
6. Cruel Gun Story
7. A Colt Is My port
8. Intimidation
9. Branded to Kill
10. Take Aim at the Police Van

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

I watched fifty seven movies released in 2020, here’s the top ten of those. I wasn’t able to see Nomadland, Minari, or other movies conspicuously missing. Lackluster year for unknown reasons... but I liked these ten a lot!

1. Lovers Rock
2. Never Rarely Sometimes Always
3. Sound of Metal
4. Soul
5. Mangrove
6. Residue
7. Another Round
8. Red, White and Blue
9. The Wild Goose Lake
10. Babyteeth

Hey. I noticed that I've logged 2,000 movies now so I thought it'd be fun to make a list of my 100 favorite films. These are those films. I love these films and you will too. I guarantee it. For we are one. One... hundred films :)

(I made this on 7/25/20. I don't want to update it... instead maybe in a year or so I'll make a new one. It's kind of like a snapshot, a mixtape, or whatever makes this seem less lame.)

(Chronological order.)

• The Wizard of Oz
• Casablanca
• Tokyo Story
• 12 Angry Men
• Vertigo
• The Human Condition I: No Greater Love
• Apur Sansar
• The Human Condition III: A Soldier's Prayer
• Harakiri
• Winter Light

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

Here’s my "Quarantine Playlist". Movies that are confined, claustrophobic, trapped, etc., all of which I highly recommend.

(Alphabetical order.)

• Alien
• The Conversation
• Dogtooth
• Dogville
• Eyes Without a Face
• Get Out
• Groundhog Day
• Lost in Translation
• Misery
• Perfect Blue

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

Here are my favorite films of 2019 in order of likedness.

1. Parasite
2. Uncut Gems
3. 1917
4. The Irishman
5. Portrait of a Lady on Fire
6. The Last Black Man in San Francisco
7. A Hidden Life
8. Long Day's Journey into Night
9. Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood
10. Honeyland

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

From the January-February 2020 issue. I find these lists to be helpful when deciding "what to watch next".

1. Zama
2. Toni Erdmann
3. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
4. Holy Motors
5. No Home Movie
6. The Tree of Life
7. The Master
8. Phantom Thread
9. Moonlight
10. Boyhood

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

Source: www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2019/11/best-movies-2010s-decade.html

1. Mad Max: Fury Road
2. Moonlight
3. Get Out
4. First Reformed
5. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
6. Under the Skin
7. Annihilation
8. The Babadook
9. The Lobster
10. Cameraperson

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

Source: consequenceofsound.net/2019/11/top-100-films-of-the-2010s/full-post/

1. Mad Max: Fury Road
2. The Social Network
3. Moonlight
4. We Need to Talk About Kevin
5. Hereditary
6. The Act of Killing

   tied with The Look Of Silence (2014)

7. Under the Skin
8. Phantom Thread
9. The Handmaiden
10. Inception

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

Source: film.avclub.com/the-100-best-movies-of-the-2010s-1839846306

Note: #15 is occupied with The Act Of Killing (2013) and The Look Of Silence (2015).

1. Mad Max: Fury Road
2. The Master
3. The Social Network
4. A Separation
5. The Tree of Life
6. Moonlight
7. The Florida Project
8. s Ha
9. Phantom Thread
10. Lady Bird

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

Source: filmschoolrejects.com/best-movies-of-the-decade-2010s/

1. Mad Max: Fury Road
2. Get Out
3. Parasite
4. Moonlight
5. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
6. The Social Network
7. The Master
8. What We Do in the Shadows
9. The Lobster
10. Inside Llewyn Davis

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