6u532b

pretty decent as far as these things go. uninspired washed-out visuals, of course, but comrade Zegler does what she can and her vocals are fabulous, Burnap is cute and Ms Evil Zionista, while not a thespian, does kinda serve (unfortunately!)

but, jesus fucking christ, being a Disney Imagineer used to mean something; used to mean creating instantly charming, indelibly lovable characters. everyone involved in deg these dwarfs should hang themselves. just ugly, unpleasant things to look at. and they're supposed to be the whimsical comic relief! for shame!!!

this children's movie being set exclusively across a series of opium dens and harem boudoirs

Lily James the effervescent puss

Kenny put those kids to WORK

sort of the ideal remake. the early aughts, popcorn version of this story but still a damn good take. having realized I'd never actually seen much of Denzel's work, I've been making my way through his filmography and this performance is the most nuanced and vulnerable I've seen so far (outside of Malcolm X), worthy of NYT's designation of him as the greatest actor of the 21st century, with him not just playing some variation of a hardass. Liev is incredible here, Meryl good but feels a bit like drag. great updating of the original's Cold War panic into a very prescient commentary on corporate war profiteering, featuring some CoD-style visuals and a shady base which somewhat incredibly now resembles Epstein's island lol. I loooove an unapologetically paranoid work!

you're gonna LOVE tomorrow 😀

not as homoerotic as I wanted but I'm glad the Academy has it on their YouTube page. the shot of the baby on the shore reminded me of that racially ambiguous telecaster on 30 Rock: "I love their creepy little hands and the way they crawl fast, like a rat monster."

exquisite. as with all Almodóvars, both an act, and an exploration, of radical empathy

love how nasty these girls are, wish the ending matched. wanna see it on stage! interviewed Leslye Headland a bit ago about her (snubbed!) great other entry into her Seven Sins cycle (this is gluttony), Cult of Love (pride) for the Cut.

Watched on Friday May 2, 2025.

part of me was like waittt this is lowkey the closest thing we've had to a Woman's Picture in decades.... another part of me was baffled that it expected me to so many plot and character details from the first one as if I didn't see it drunk, seven years and one whole pandemic ago... yet another part of me was like GAG! and then I was kinda bored

Watched on Wednesday April 16, 2025.

Watched on Sunday April 27, 2025.

lllllllllmfao I was not prepared for this to be straight guy cocomelon. truly just a Ru maxi challenge I could not take seriously for one second due to the nonstop parade of famous men menning about. here's cillian murphy BEING INTENSE about a BOMB. here's matt damon BEING INTENSE about a BOMB. here's EINSTEIN. here's florence pugh's TITS. laughable!

craft-wise...? also disappointing. the sense of scale pissed me off: a two-hander scene would show one character in an over-the-shoulder shot from slightly above, and then the reverse character would be shot in close-up from sideways-below. everyone's in a Dr. Seuss universe.

kind of an incredibly shitty Best Picture win, for those to whom that means anything!

Jodie Foster's friggin teaaaaaaaaaaa

yeahhhh I appreciate an attempt at stylizing a musical beyond its typical form – truly – but this just does not work. close-ups, borderline a cappella arrangements... these characters and lyrics don't hold up! I don't really care about Fantine's downfall in this, having met her so intimately 5mins before, etc. we need to see them as an Easter parade, lit and staged for Iconic effect, for these grand themes to resonate. the forced Tumblr rule of thirds gets funny, though.

the rebellion (cited here as the Revolution bc we're stupid) doesn't ever feel real in this.. it all happens so quickly, and ends with a wet womp. thus "Bring Him Home" and "Empty Chairs" have no stakes or significance. plus the street set on which it takes place looks dumb as hell.

and wow, post-Cabaret, it feels liberating to have Redmayne's wool pulled from my eyes. man has always sucked. thankfully Tveit is in almost all his scenes to counteract.

her Michelle Pfeiffer tea

the photography like holy fuck

Watched on Tuesday March 25, 2025.

Watched on Wednesday February 19, 2025.

donna MCKECHNIE ❤️

“Because I am a woman and I am in the prime of my life, sex of course must enter into any role that I play.”

literally one of the best musical comedies of the past 25 years and Laura Bell Bundy gave a superhuman performance

Reagan felt that slap a lil TOO hard...

shot and lit to the gods

interiors design + photography STUNNING

Jake, Michelle, Michael Arden, public transportation exploding... a movie for today !

4k restoration introduced by LitHub's Olivia Rutigliano

Tuesday Weld is next-level incredible, let's get that out of the way, and Perry is great at lacing ennui into a film's DNA, as he did in the much better Last Summer. haven't read the book but Joan Didion you are not above presenting a shred of straight-forward characterization or plot for us to hold onto! Ahhh, Malaiseeeeee: The Movie: The Musical: The Series. so smaaaawwwrt and cyyyynnnnicaal and then the hardest actual jab it can manage is just like "LA has freeways leading nowhere 😳." idk I hate Los Angeles lmfao you did this to yourself

Watched on Sunday March 9, 2025.

why was baby moses so slutty..

🥹 weirdos!!! 🥹

walking into this blind was a very emotionally unsafe thing for me to do ! lol !! Latin America really is just one big place.

Watched on Sunday March 2, 2025.

Watched on Sunday March 2, 2025.

Watched on Saturday March 1, 2025.

now what values is this teaching the children 🤨

Watched on Saturday March 1, 2025.

Watched on Friday February 28, 2025.

"What unforgiving instruments we are."

my heart!!

works soo well as a Western. the men doing what they want, what they feel they need to do, wives be damned. a daughter asking for closeness and the outdoors calling. bursts of charged violence, lament, self-reliance..

nerve-racking and infuriating

Timmy ate this in kind of an insane way...

Watched on Monday February 24, 2025.

kinda corny and Serious performance from Hanks, as can be expected but, category fraud aside, it's Denzel's movie to walk away with. hearing him say all kind of "faggot" variations is a treat. Steenburgen great too!

Antonio Banderas emerging via Fitzcarraldo reference

perfect blend of form and content. Pharrell's life is not really that interesting, but his aesthetic is perfectly nerdy-earnest for this treatment, which also turns docs' typically groan-inducing celeb cameos into highlights bc omg the bricks are so cute!!!!!!! they should revive Behind the Music as a Lego series lol

Watched on Friday February 21, 2025.

maybe I approached the wrong way but I was so on board before the hypnotic drive of its trancelike visuals dropped out and I became soooo uninterested, even if the urban myths angle was compelling

insane that Disney made this

I suppose this is a story you could pay a nickel to kill 68mins at the cinema with in 1932....

• It Is Not the Homosexual Who Is Perverse, But the Society in Which He Lives
• Sauvage
• Matthias & Maxime
• Paris 05:59 / Théo & Hugo
• Free Fall
• The Blonde One
• Hard Paint
• Getting Go: The Go Doc Project
• Don't Ever Wipe Tears Without Gloves
• Zero Patience

...plus 216 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• I'm Still Here
• The Brutalist
• Queer
• The Room Next Door
• Challengers
• No Other Land
• Anora
• The Apprentice
• Nosferatu
• Piece By Piece

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

1. Savage Messiah
2. Star 80
3. Amadeus
4. The Fall
5. Society of the Snow
6. Bona
7. Queer
8. Massacre at Central High
9. Red-Headed Woman
10. How to Have Sex

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

juror on NewFest 2023

• A Place of Our Own
• All the Colours of the World Are Between Black and White
• All the Fires
• Carnal Sins
• Chuck Chuck Baby
• Clashing Differences
• Golden Delicious
• Housekeeping for Beginners
• Lie with Me
• The Lost Boys

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

• Best in Show
• The Doom Generation
• Kicking and Screaming
• Waiting for Guffman
• The Daytrippers
• Basquiat
• A Mighty Wind
• Party Girl
• Clockwatchers
• Frisk

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

• Red Rocket
• A Hero
• Bergman Island
• Benedetta
• The Worst Person in the World
• Annette
• The Power of the Dog
• The Velvet Underground
• Spencer
• In the Heights

...plus 5 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

My picks for film of the year since 1930, updated regularly as I watch more movies and broaden each year's pool.

• The Blood of a Poet
• M
• Island of Lost Souls
• Gold Diggers of 1933
• Twentieth Century
• Top Hat
• Show Boat
• Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
• The Lady Vanishes
• Gone with the Wind

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

• I May Destroy You
• Circle Jerk
• Young Hunter
• Undine
• Education
• Mangrove
• Dick Johnson Is Dead
• Ask Any Buddy
• Palm Springs
• Lovers Rock

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

I'm feeling spooky in the actual month of October this year, as opposed to my usual tradition of craving horror movies directly after Halloween ends. Mainly focusing on Criterion's '70s Horror collection but I'll diversify.

(Starting Sept. 27 because I can't not count John Waters' Art Movie Hell at NYFF '58)

• Climax
• Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom
• Blood Feast
• It's Alive
• Theatre of Blood
• Dead of Night
• A Bay of Blood
• Inferno
• The Wicker Man
• Young Hunter

...plus 21 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• The Yacht Isabel Arrived This Afternoon
• Reverón
• Araya
• End of the Party
• When I Want to Cry, I Don't
• The Burning of Judas
• The Smoking Fish
• The Company Forgives a Moment of Madness
• Simplicio
• La propia gente

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

why not

everything since I began ~social distancing~
(13 March 2020 - 18 July 2020)

• End of the Century
• Scream, Queen! My Nightmare on Elm Street
• To All the Boys I've Loved Before
• Always Be My Maybe
• The Story of Temple Drake
• The Sword in the Stone
• From Here to Eternity
• Anything Goes
• Kamikaze 1989
• Diamantino

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

Best films I've ever seen, in alphabetical order.

• Across the Universe
• Ali: Fear Eats the Soul
• All About Eve
• All That Heaven Allows
• Annihilation
• Apocalypse Now
• Autumn Sonata
• Belle de Jour
• Black Swan
• Blow-Up

...plus 57 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• In Cold Blood
• Eve's Bayou
• The Innocent
• Bacurau
• A Separation
• Murder by Contract
• Johnny Guitar
• When They See Us
• Pandora's Box
• The Matrix

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

1. Mad Max: Fury Road
2. Carol
3. Brooklyn
4. 45 Years
5. Mistress America
6. A Bigger Splash
7. Tangerine
8. The Lobster
9. Macbeth
10. The Big Short

*The Greatest - Lana Del Rey plays softly in the distance*

• Annihilation
• Black Panther
• Black Swan
• BPM (Beats per Minute)
• Burning
• Dunkirk
• The Favourite
• 45 Years
• The Handmaiden
• Her

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

• Parasite
• Pain and Glory
• End of the Century
• Bacurau
• Uncut Gems
• Marriage Story
• Knives Out
• Little Women
• Hustlers
• Bad Education

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

• Gone with the Wind
• All About Lily Chou-Chou
• City of God
• The Official Story
• Burning
• Parasite
• The Conformist
• Hiroshima Mon Amour
• BPM (Beats per Minute)
• Andrei Rublev

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

1. There Will Be Blood
2. The Leopard
3. Annihilation
4. Roma
5. The Favourite
6. I Am Not a Witch
7. Paddington 2
8. Museo
9. Sorry to Bother You
10. Vox Lux

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

Films listed on my Weimar Cinema course's syllabus.

• The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
• Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler
• The Student of Prague
• Nosferatu
• The Joyless Street
• Pandora's Box
• The Blue Angel
• Metropolis
• Berlin: Symphony of a Great City
• M

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

Films listed on my Film Theory course's syllabus.

• Still Life
• L'Argent
• Homework
• Psycho
• Rosetta
• Bush Mama
• From the Other Side
• Serious Games 1–4
• Holy Motors

Films listed on my Analysis of Film Language course's syllabus.

• The Conformist
• Napoleon
• The Rules of the Game
• Touch of Evil
• Three Colours: Red
• Children of Men
• Cabaret
• The Conversation
• Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
• Knife in the Water

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

1. Phantom Thread
2. Dunkirk
3. Good Time
4. Lady Bird
5. Call Me by Your Name
6. Paddington 2
7. Get Out
8. The Killing of a Sacred Deer
9. BPM (Beats per Minute)
10. Baby Driver

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

Films listed on my Cinema History course's syllabus.

• Hiroshima Mon Amour
• The Pawnbroker
• Shadows
• The Conformist
• Seven Beauties
• The Unbearable Lightness of Being
• The Conversation
• The Godfather
• Blow-Up
• A Woman Under the Influence

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

Films listed on my Film Theory course's syllabus.

• Vertigo
• La Jetée
• Singin' in the Rain
• Modern Times
• The Idle Class
• Sherlock Jr.
• Battleship Potemkin
• High Noon
• M
• The Testament of Dr. Mabuse

...plus 42 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Y Tu Mamá También
2. Donnie Darko
3. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me
4. The Handmaiden
5. Vertigo
6. McCabe & Mrs. Miller
7. Stalker
8. Autumn Sonata
9. The Devils
10. 20th Century Women

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

1. Annihilation
2. The Favourite
3. Sorry to Bother You
4. Roma
5. Vox Lux
6. Suspiria
7. Burning
8. A Star Is Born
9. Black Panther
10. Shoplifters

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

Films listed on my Latin American Film course's syllabus.

• Killing Cabos
• The Liberator
• Memories of Underdevelopment
• Roma
• The Official Story
• Amores Perros
• My Family
• Ixcanul
• City of God
• Wild Tales

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

Films listed on my Film Analysis course's syllabus.

• Juno
• This Film Is Not Yet Rated
• The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
• Donnie Darko
• Ballet Mécanique
• Anemic Cinema
• Mothlight
• Jollies
• F for Fake
• Stories We Tell

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

Films listed on my American Film and Culture course's syllabus.

• Shadow of a Doubt
• It's a Wonderful Life
• The Crowd
• Gold Diggers of 1933
• His Girl Friday
• The Best Years of Our Lives
• The Naked City
• Kiss Me Deadly
• The Searchers
• Duel in the Sun

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

1. Moonlight
2. The Handmaiden
3. 20th Century Women
4. Julieta
5. Personal Shopper
6. Paterson
7. American Honey
8. The Edge of Seventeen
9. Nocturnal Animals
10. Arrival

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

1. The Marriage of Maria Braun
2. Belle de Jour
3. 2001: A Space Odyssey
4. Ali: Fear Eats the Soul
5. Hannah and Her Sisters
6. Volver
7. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
8. Peeping Tom
9. Winter Light
10. Masculin Féminin

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

1. Nashville
2. The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover
3. Cries and Whispers
4. Brooklyn
5. Welcome to the Dollhouse
6. Magnolia
7. Blow-Up
8. Edge of Seventeen
9. Mad Max: Fury Road
10. Stranger by the Lake

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