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Asteroid City was my favorite film the year of its release and the first Anderson is I’d really liked in a decade, so this one was always going to come in disadvantaged. altogether (comparatively) slighter — I don’t really care for critiques that he is all surface level but this one did feel a touch more pavlova within the overall filmography. the little episodes are cute, but this whole thing is anchored by three wonderful performances in Del Toro, Threapleton, and Cera, who bounce off each other with wry ease. found its approach to politics more salient and cynical than whatever the hell was going on in The French Dispatch. how fun to watch something and smile at the same time. PETROUCHKA MENTIONED!!!

Barbra Streisand voice “Billy Joel Glass Houses”

Watched on Tuesday June 3, 2025.

soooooo sad omg

aspirational coats; imagine locking eyes with the love of your life while Frederick Wiseman reads a poem? platonic ideal of movie to see at 2pm with all old people who ask each other what the hell is going on with the title of One Battle After Another when they show that trailer right before

probably exactly as good as the last installment, though I slightly prefer this one because Cruise's face looks normal again and I like the submarine that makes you gay. in general I've come to learn I prefer when these movies are about Ethan Hunt's unrelenting death drive as opposed to his savior complex – obv, mostly, this series is asking porque no los dos – but I can only see those painted nukes so many times before they lose all meaning. not enough Shea Whigham but I'm always saying this.

Watched on Tuesday May 27, 2025.

I quite like Maclean's Slow West, which I think is just stylish and idiosyncratic enough to justify its quirks. this suffers quite noticeably from budget constraints and while he's still capable of producing some fun images, there's no there there with this one. the structure is particularly egregious: Act 2, Act 1, Act 3. no momentum, little sauce.

Clare review: open.substack.com/pub/franmagazine/p/stitch-theory?r=b2f&utm_medium=ios

Fran blog: www.vulture.com/article/there-is-no-captain-gantu-in-the-live-action-lilo-and-stitch.html

made me yearn for the halcyon days of Tedros Tedros

MORE HERE !!

I more or less love her music but found this crazy boring, DNF a little over halfway thru. part of why I’ve felt so resistant to brat is because I don’t find the lore of Charli as an artist especially compelling — I really just like the tunes (which is why I prefer Crash… sorry). what ought to feel intimate and methodical comes off indulgent and tedious

This review may contain spoilers.

I find comparisons to I Think You Should Leave pretty surface level — they just share the same guy. This is tonally much meaner and better for it. Is this “a movie”? Maybe! Also…. Maybe not!!! On the right day I think this could really move me… “lol” I find the sweaty nature of the structure (scenes function like sketch) at its worst early on before the whole affair devolves into something that felt borderline European (derogatory/endorsement). Ending so good it left me feeling more generous than I might otherwise be. The bar shouldn’t be so low, but I’m so glad this is getting a theatrical release so you too can experience a whole room ripple with nervous laughter when Conner O’Malley shows up in the third act. Tim is just really funny. You can’t fight it!!!

1:40-4:00pm 🥲

revisited Leigh's most romantic for Devised & Directed. listen listen!

will there be a better movie released this year? I really don’t know, man!!!

youtu.be/QzcvRDWgRIE?si=02daRPW1RtWhrTL0

dead-eyed Joe Wright intro where he says he wanted to make a "gritty" P&P – I understand what he means by that and I think he more or less accomplished that, though I would have used the word "textured." there are a lot of textures here! and ribbons! Donald Sutherland and Brenda Blethyn kind of unbeatable together. obv you go to this thing for the flirting and Knightley's bangs and brown dresses, but I just love how those two especially sink into their scenes.

Watched on Monday April 21, 2025.

didn't realize this was based off, like, THIS era of Stephen King. liked that first act but I am completely allergic to this tone.

that this movie is in conflict with itself is perhaps its greatest selling point: the marketing campaign (matching tattoos, the sweetie boys, "real Iraq War veteran Ray Mendoza," aka all the stuff that got this movie made at this budget) vs. what Garland seems to be trying to do with it. some of this comes down to whether you think a piece of art can transcend the intent of its creation - imo, it has to! the real-time structure allows the film to negate backstory, objective, cause. we don't have any real sense of what these guys are doing and neither do they. does it matter? we see the results, which are plain-stated and awful and clear. that these guys are SEALs, "the best of the best," and are mostly only capable of making a lot of noise and ruining their own lives feels blatantly political. sure, this is "troop respecting," but that respect basically goes so far as the troops are (mostly!) useful when one or more of them is gravely wounded, but not especially "effective" or "skilled" at much beyond literally escaping a bad situation of their own making. I find it bizarre that anyone struggles to find a central POV in here (and Civil War, for that matter): the argument is there, even if it's not as baldly written as a tweet - though it's close! the film almost threatens to undo itself in its final two minute pre-credit sequence where you see "the real guys," but I think even that is nuanced and dark and stupid enough to make a case against what the US military did and still does - guys who we've ostensibly grown to like because they were injured and scared whose IRL counterparts' faces are blocked out in part so they can continue to kill on taxpayers' dime.

no slouch in the cast whatsoever, the six or seven main guys all especially good - Gandolfini so sweet, Cosmo Jarvis in first half, Joseph Quinn in second, but Melton showing up in a literal halo of light lingers in the mind's eye & Will Poulter is always one of the most interesting guys to just watch move thru a space.

🚨 MY FELLOW NOAH CENTINEO FANS🚨: IF U ARE THINKING ABOUT SEEING THIS MOVIE FOR NOAH - DO NOT BOTHER. HE HAS 3-4 LINES. just go back to watching his Netflix (?) show that none of us are watching anyway. twelve minutes into Joseph Quinn's 25-minute long scream I started to go vasovagal syncope mode and had to drink lime Fanta for 30 seconds straight and then stare at the floor for three minutes. this is not worth it for Noah. 💔

Watched on Sunday April 13, 2025.

let's some guys

gotta be a top 5 Meryl…. maybe even top 3. loses me a bit in the third act — Willis is funny but best kept to the side — but all the setpieces are playful & inspired which go a long way. laughter is something that can be so yay, to say nothing of Isabella Rossellini body teas

annoyed by pacing here – obv an inherent silly concept but found it bumping up against itself ten times over, hitting same beats multiple times, with little sense of play in space and universe, and otherwise weirdly inert, knocking the wind out of itself every 15 min with a flashback or unnecessary contextualization. I do like that "digidrop" is not the off-brand replacement for "iOS AirDrop" but something that exists adjacent to as a separate app (Snapchat??) that allows you to send stuff to strangers in your area. Fahy looks gorg obv and I'm willing to be sold on Sklenar if the price is right. nice to see the Mindy Project's Ed Weeks - memba him? never has any "set in Chicago" enterprise ever been less set in Chicago – worse than Happy Endings (<3). wish I liked this more but maybe The Amateur will surprise me yet this Schlock April.

somehow, Henry Kissinger returned

wasn't really feeling this, which is annoying to me and me alone because I was primed to enjoy and just felt like it was too all over the place, laden with backstory and uninterested in being the type of genre exercise it purports to be. there's a Marvelification that sets in in the back half down to the type of swooping Avengers shot where we see all our heroes before they go into battle that left a sour taste. just a messy movie – but not an uninteresting one, and the rare flick where a post-credits scene actually won me back a little. Miles Caton, though – what a great debut! and love Ruth E. Carter's costume design, always, the tailoring on the Michael Bs + Hailee's champagne colored dress is sooo good and glam

talked to director Liz Garbus about making this + her excellent new doc on the Gilgo Beach Murders

movies used to have Mary Lynn Rajskub in them

EVEN GOOD BOYS BLEED

thought about Phil's argument that Marvel films serve as a mirror of that past year’s Democratic "values" – I think that's similarly the appeal of the live-action remakes to me, which are more representation of marketing department averages and median results than they are singular artistic abilities. that's how you wind up with an adaptation of a Brothers Grimm fairy tale where the prince is now just a guy (?) named Jonathan (??) who is doing DSA (??? yes, that DSA) in the woods. I'll it here to a personal fascination with Gal Gadot's limited, if not negative, abilities: she cannot act, sing, dance, or even confidently stand and smile. she delivers every line with her face like 😏 as though she was slaying and serving, and she is doing neither... but that anti-slay and serve almost becomes something bizarre and camp, but can't quite get over the line there either. it's a beguiling thing to behold. so much here begets the question: how could anyone think it's a good idea? but individual choices did not guide this, corporate ones did. all that said, if I am laughing more than I am pissed off, then I call it a net positive, and I was laughing a lot. I was rocking with Dopey, randomly, even though people are accurately saying he looks like Alfred E. Neuman but I rock w Alfred E. Neuman too. there is one person who won't come out of this debacle embarrassed and that's Zegler, who I think gives the film an undeserved but genuinely great performance here.

Watched on Monday March 17, 2025.

I love watching stuff befall a guy

Watched on Tuesday March 11, 2025.

Watched on Sunday March 9, 2025.

Really depressed me

Myrna Loy’s eyebrows doing God’s work

it’s so fun to say “Mank……………. It’s Orson Welles” — not a lot of people discussing this

Don't ask

This review may contain spoilers.

he brings the Industrial Revolution to Peru… that’s how you know he really is British at heart

Watched on Monday February 17, 2025.

Traitors episode

watched this bizarre horny adaptation of one of the world's great novels for Joe Reid's Demi, Myself, and I pod. the heart is because I LAUGHED and should not be taken as any indication of quality. listen listen!

it is kinda crazy how good this is – abandoning the lamer aspects of what defined this series into something humanist, gentle, and kind-hearted. rare movie about how "getting the guy" does not stave off the slow march of time. yay! my thoughts in Vulture about how they should make at least three more!!!

I like that they're just doing a nice version of Broadcast News basically

licensed music budget go crazy

they don't really prepare you for how high up the tree Nicole goes

movie about the blind leading the halt (endorsement). Honestly seems like a better use of time/money than cognitive behavioral therapy but what do I know……

I just think he’s neat…

Chris Geere?????????????????

Watched on Sunday February 2, 2025.

Ok

the one streaming service worth paying for

• Amanda
• Bacurau
• I Am Not a Witch
• Things to Come
• Certain Women

  rewatch

• Ain't Them Bodies Saints
• A Running Jump
• Margaret
• Wuthering Heights
• Another Year

...plus 132 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• Nuts in May
• 3 Women
• The Souvenir
• The Souvenir: Part II

read more here

• The Awful Truth
• Jaws
• Abigail's Party
• Reds
• The Green Ray
• The Exorcist III
• Deep Cover
• Barcelona
• The Daytrippers
• Mission: Impossible

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

• Saltburn
• Showing Up
• Ambulance
• The Last Duel
• The Card Counter
• Zola
• The Lighthouse
• The Favourite
• At Eternity's Gate
• The Killing of a Sacred Deer

...plus 28 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

I moved out of Chicago

• My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3
• The Princess Switch
• The Matrix
• Sleepless in Seattle
• When Harry Met Sally...
• Days of Heaven
• Some Like It Hot

what it says on the box

• A Room with a View
• Maurice
• Damage

• Design for Living
• The Rules of the Game
• Daisies
• The Color of Pomegranates
• The Spirit of the Beehive
• Phantom of the Paradise
• Mahler
• Garlic Is as Good as Ten Mothers
• A Zed & Two Noughts
• Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters

...plus 11 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

my "good for eddie marsan" list is in regards to character actor eddie marsan showing up for, like, no more than twenty minutes of a movie. any more than that and that's a proper role, xo

• The Contractor
• Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw
• Filth
• The Gentlemen
• Vice
• Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows
• War Horse
• Sherlock Holmes
• V for Vendetta
• Atomic Blonde

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

• Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!
• Cast Away
• In the Loop
• Jackass 3D
• Kimi

• Marry Me
• Bright Star

being brave :( ongoing

for sake of clarity I will say that my brave era list does not correspond to "scary movies in general" but movies that are scary that I also was either afraid to watch and/or felt fear while watching. thx

• The Strangers
• The Brood
• Halloween
• Deep Red
• The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
• Black Christmas

• Point Break
• The Last of the Mohicans

speaks for itself I think

• A Room with a View
• The Dark Knight Rises

Caroline and I host a podcast about Jude Law called Law School. here is everything we have discussed on said podcast called Law School about the actor Jude Law. links to eps in the notes section!

1. The Talented Mr. Ripley

   first ep, don't get mad. we get better: soundcloud.com/lawschoolpodcast/01-the-talented-mr-ripley

2. Alfie

   terrible movie soundcloud.com/lawschoolpodcast/alfie

3. Captain Marvel

   Jude spends 90% of the movie on the phone, enjoy soundcloud.com/lawschoolpodcast/captain-marvel

4. Sherlock Holmes

   Caroline: "Guy Ritchie's idea of being smart means you can kick someone's ass." soundcloud.com/lawschoolpodcast/sherlock-holmes

5. Gattaca

   great flick soundcloud.com/lawschoolpodcast/gattaca

6. A.I. Artificial Intelligence

   crazy movie! takes place in New Jersey. Gigolo Joe is an all-time Jude performance soundcloud.com/lawschoolpodcast/ai-1

7. Road to Perdition

   classic "weird guy" performance soundcloud.com/lawschoolpodcast/road-to-perdition-mix

8. Spy

   incredible Jude soundcloud.com/lawschoolpodcast/spy

9. Dom Hemingway

   movie no good but Jude is giving it his all and we love to see Richard E. Grant. at one point in the episode, Karen asked "what year did 9/11 happen"??? soundcloud.com/lawschoolpodcast/dom-hemingway

• Mission: Impossible – Fallout
• A Star Is Born

here's everything I watched on Filmstruck. what a good website!

• Cameraperson
• Clouds of Sils Maria
• Weekend
• Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
• White Material
• Fish Tank
• Hunger
• Y Tu Mamá También
• In the Mood for Love
• Magnolia

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