6u532b

Always need to see Wes Anderson movies at least twice. Better the second time.

Saw this at a hype screening and quickly recognized that my inability to perceive Pedro Pascal as a desirable romantic lead is not a widely-held affliction.

Celine Song remains a master of sidewalk longing as Kuritzkes finds novelty in time-fragmented love triads. Casting, undecided: maybe genius, maybe awful?
Wanted to like this much more than I did.

A family's like a loaded grenade: you point it in the wrong direction, someone's going to get killed.

Didn't think there was anything new under the sun when it came to music documentaries. Then I saw Alex Ross Perry's PAVEMENTS.

I can't believe this exists, largely because much of it doesn't. I choked with laughter and welled up with emotion so much. A perfect tribute to a band I don't even care that much about.

one of the great closing scenes in cinema, or, maybe the cure for the male loneliness epidemic is sharing a sandwich

Josh O'Connor, surprisingly convincing as a Colorado Cowboy

Indy deserved better material and co-stars.

"extraordinary"

... I really identify with the way that Agnes talks to babies and finds solace in the gentle charms of Lucas Hedges. Should also be noted that Cat Acting is also superb.

Quite the swerve

extremely long, incredibly stupid, impossibly enjoyable

perfect days, the next generation

the road to hell is paved with sketchy resales

Personal and prophetic, a radical reimagination of Black history as an encyclopedic mixtape whose fusion of narrative styles makes for an invigorating journey once you surrender to the flows of its inventive rhythms. 

Impeccable editing and music supervision do a lot of heavy lifting; looking forward to diving into the
detailed tracklist with all the collaborator credits.

Tenenbaums but make it French shut-ins during Paris '68

Profiling the remarkable courage of librarians, this sobering documentary positions school libraries (and districts) as the frontlines of a terrifyingly stupid and frighteningly effective theocratic fascist takeover orchestrated by a cabal of some of the most idiotic and self-righteous people imaginable.

best pre-SIFF I've SIFF'ed so far

I think you should see

Watched on Sunday May 11, 2025.

Watched on Sunday May 11, 2025.

Watched on Sunday May 11, 2025.

Feels so scary getting old

Flo Pugh's face at the beginning and end of this almost exactly charts the emotional journey of enduring another Marvel movie.

thesunbreak.com/2025/04/30/thunderbolts/

tbh, the guy's kind of vindicated by the second half. 

(I get what they're doing but I'm not sure why.)

Field of Dreams, in reverse

thesunbreak.com/2025/05/01/eephus/

Two MBJs vs the bone-chilling terror of an Irish Folk revival trio playing an unannounced set in your parking lot.

thesunbreak.com/2025/04/17/sinners/

Warfare, what is it good for?

thesunbreak.com/2025/04/11/warfare/

99% visible

thesunbreak.com/2025/04/03/secret-mall-apartment/

Gives up on a promising concept too quickly and goes Fully Dumb, then Dumber.

simply no better steward of ninety minutes of your time and moviegoing money than Steven Soderbergh. Guy is on a tremendous genre-hopping run, all hits no misses. Saw this in a half full theater in the middle of the afternoon, buzzed chatter from satisfied viewers all around the exits.

Perplexing that Netflix buries a new Errol Morris documentary about the Manson murders deep within their service. It's pretty good, a hypnotic conspiracy into itself, not entirely convinced of its claims, but too intrigued to pull at the strings too hard, leat the whole thing come unraveled.

Dying is fine

Watched on Saturday March 1, 2025.

Even in lesser Sorrentino (which this is, alas), there's still nothing quite like taking two hours of Paulo's haunted fantastical realism to contemplate the unspeakable tragedy of spending one's entire life not being an impossibly beautiful Italian (or maybe even knowing one).

I don't know what mass hallucination caused participants in the most recent Sight and Sound poll to land Chantal Akerman in the top spot, but I tip my cap to them.  I'm also grateful to the programmers at SIFF, who handed over their best screen to this  200-minute movie about how awful  it must have been to be alive in the 1970s and forced to each day stuck with only your own thoughts.

Went in blind with a bag of chocolate popcorn and a Coke Zero and my main takeaway was that it is an incredible feat of form that so many -- including the film's ardent irers -- describe this as cinema of the mundane, given how she spends her evenings and earns her money.

(As much as I appreciate the groundbreaking original achievement, for me, Wim Wenders's spiritual successor PERFECT DAYS sures it on every level.)

While I'm pulling for NO OTHER LAND, I will not be remotely surprised (or even mad) when PORCELAIN WAR wins Best Documentary next month.

I really failed this movie, in part because Kanopy didn't have the correct subtitles on by default and I assumed a lot of the French clips without big onscreen text were just part of the vibe. But eventually, like an hour in, I realized that I had completely lost the plot and didn't have the wherewithal to start over.

This review may contain spoilers.

Very prescient to release a movie about an unstable red monster in the White House at the mercy of a freakish tech genius villain in the year 2025. Does anyone when these were even trying to be fun?

thesunbreak.com/2025/02/13/captain-america-brave-new-world/

I cannot believe how well the gimmick of adults playing themselves as children worked, but it was employed sparingly and very effectively enough to add something special. But I am an easy mark for Cooper Raiff's anxious sentimentality.

With PREDATORS, David Osit revisits Chris Hansen's salacious Dateline sting operation and its outsized impact. Revisiting the old production, participating police, and the decoys, he brings uncomfortable empathy and uncommon curiosity to considering the righteous show's lack thereof, its legion of online imitators, and the insatiable appetite for law enforcement as entertainment.

John Magaro is predictably excellent anchoring the slight yet perceptive OMAHA as a single dad with dwindling resources who packs up his young kids on road trip, finding small happy memories along the uncertain eastbound highway. A moving look at tough choices and life's hard turns.

Prevented by rights issues from making his planned serial killer doc, ZODIAC KILLER PROJECT finds filmmaker Charlie Shackleton instead describing the cliche movie he wanted to make while eviscerating genre tropes. Set against a lot of filmed emptiness, he paints a picture with scene-by-scene descriptions and essayistic commentary about the formulaic nature of the format. It's a great gimmick, but at some point I found myself wishing it would ascended beyond it to get at the motivating "why" he was so invested in the first place.

Damnit I was kinda tricked into watching short films. A sweetly specific anthology of wistful stories of learning new skills, painful mastery, running away, or desperately seeking something bigger than yourself. Set on a Northern Michigan lake, they're often a little too cute but I have to it that a twilight euchre scene by a campfire brought a tear to my eye. Very surprising but not to see Joanna Hogg as a producer of this collection of souvenirs.

Everyone was right: Eva Victor's wondrously delicate and wry SORRY, BABY is definitely *the* film of #Sundance. About the ways trauma ripples and the slow ways it heals (and doesn't) through the power of cuddly creatures found along the way, like kittens and Lucas Hedges. Barry Jenkins doesn't miss.

As impressive as the work the high school filmmakers did to expose pollution and corruption in the 1990s, I kind of wish more of this movie had been about what's covered in the closing titles.

A lot of fun ingredients in A24's spin on GLASS ONION meets THE MENU, but it never feels fully baked. Amazingly, the most convincing element is the music John Malkovich performs as the reclusive cult-king pop star, probably because they're written/produced by Nile Rogers and the Game.

TRAIN DREAMS brings gentle poetry of nature to the rough edges of a logging life in the splendor of the Pacific Northwest. Haunted by tragedies, Joel Edgerton makes for a soulful hermit guide in this Malick-esque Denis Johnson adaptation populated by motley array of quiet characters.

Found much about the American update of THE WEDDING BANQUET incredibly confusing, but whenever the "legendary" Youn Yuh-jung is on screen it kinda makes sense, at least emotionally. Joan Chen does her part, too.

I have run screaming from my first Sundance movie and of course it's the one about a millionaire who bribes his favorite musician to come to a remote island to play his old songs with his ex. Somehow this is meant to be sweet and not a complete cringe-inducing horror of the howling fantods variety.

Rather than recreate a day-in-the-life of a New York photographer, Ira Sachs recognizes that watching two dear friends converse is among the most fascinating things you can put on screen, especially when they're portrayed by the likes of Ben Whishaw and Rebecca Hall.

Facile comparison given the production team but IF I HAD LEGS I'D KICK YOU is very much UNCUT GEMS for motherhood. The sky is falling and her kid won't eat. Rose Byrne lives up to the impossibly immense festival hype. What an incredible nightmare from Mary Bronstein!

• Twinless
• Sorry, Baby
• BLKNWS: & Conditions
• Rebuilding
• April
• The Things You Kill
• Remaining Native
• Suburban Fury
• The Librarians
• Four Mothers

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

• Black Bag
• Twinless
• Sinners
• Sorry, Baby
• Peter Hujar's Day
• Mickey 17
• If I Had Legs I’d Kick You
• Train Dreams
• Parthenope
• Together

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

• Twinless
• Peter Hujar's Day
• Sorry, Baby
• If I Had Legs I’d Kick You
• Together
• Train Dreams
• Hal & Harper
• GEN_
• André is an Idiot
• All That’s Left of You

...plus 14 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

in the correct order

• The End
• Nickel Boys
• No Other Land
• The Brutalist
• Anora
• La Chimera
• Challengers
• Babygirl
• Evil Does Not Exist
• Presence

...plus 118 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• Dune: Part Two
• Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
• The Brutalist
• Conclave
• The Substance
• Anora
• The Beast
• Wicked
• Sing Sing
• Challengers

...plus 34 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• Presence
• A Real Pain
• Thelma
• Will & Harper
• I Saw the TV Glow
• Skywalkers: A Love Story
• My Old Ass
• The Mother of All Lies
• Look Into My Eyes
• Dìdi (弟弟)

...plus 14 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Everyone knows I have my favorites. But the rankings can always change.

• Poor Things
• Past Lives
• The Zone of Interest
• Anatomy of a Fall
• Perfect Days
• Asteroid City
• The Taste of Things
• The Killer
• The Boy and the Heron
• ages

...plus 134 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

twenty twenty new

• TÁR
• Aftersun
• EO
• Everything Everywhere All at Once
• Glass Onion
• The Banshees of Inisherin
• All the Beauty and the Bloodshed
• Nope
• The Fabelmans
• Top Gun: Maverick

...plus 101 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• The Brutalist
• April
• The Wild Robot
• The Substance
• Babygirl
• Emilia Pérez
• We Live in Time
• Queer
• Eden
• Nightbitch

...plus 6 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• Anora
• The End
• Nickel Boys
• The Seed of the Sacred Fig
• Maria
• Conclave
• September 5
• Saturday Night
• The Piano Lesson
• Bird

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

• Thelma
• I Saw the TV Glow
• Evil Does Not Exist
• Sing Sing
• The Mother of All Lies
• Bob Trevino Likes It
• The Black Sea
• All We Carry
• Dìdi (弟弟)
• Stress Positions

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

Feature Films nominated for Oscars 2024, including best song (which should not be an Oscars category, but at least this year some of the songs are part of the movie so whatever).

1. Poor Things

   BEST PICTURE, DIRECTING, ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE, ACTOR IN A ING ROLE, WRITING (ADAPTED SCREENPLAY), FILM EDITING, CINEMATOGRAPHY, COSTUME DESIGN, MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING, MUSIC (ORIGINAL SCORE), PRODUCTION DESIGN

2. Past Lives

   BEST PICTURE, WRITING (ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY)

3. The Zone of Interest

   BEST PICTURE, DIRECTING, WRITING (ADAPTED SCREENPLAY), SOUND, INTERNATIONAL FEATURE FILM

4. Anatomy of a Fall

   BEST PICTURE, DIRECTING, ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE, WRITING (ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY), FILM EDITING

5. Perfect Days

   INTERNATIONAL FEATURE FILM

6. The Boy and the Heron

   ANIMATED FEATURE FILM

7. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

   ANIMATED FEATURE FILM

8. Barbie

   BEST PICTURE, ACTOR IN A ING ROLE, ACTRESS IN A ING ROLE, WRITING (ADAPTED SCREENPLAY), COSTUME DESIGN, MUSIC (ORIGINAL SONG), MUSIC (ORIGINAL SONG), PRODUCTION DESIGN

9. Oppenheimer

   BEST PICTURE, DIRECTING, ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE, ACTOR IN A ING ROLE, ACTRESS IN A ING ROLE, WRITING (ADAPTED SCREENPLAY), FILM EDITING, CINEMATOGRAPHY, COSTUME DESIGN, MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING, MUSIC (ORIGINAL SCORE), PRODUCTION DESIGN, SOUND

10. May December

    WRITING (ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY)

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

A long list of films to watch

• 20 Days in Mariupol
• Afire
• All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt
• All of Us Strangers
• American Fiction
• American Symphony
• Anatomy of a Fall
• Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret.
• Asteroid City
• Barbie

...plus 62 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Toronto

• The Boy and the Heron
• Dream Scenario
• Hit Man
• The Beast
• Dumb Money
• The Pigeon Tunnel
• Evil Does Not Exist
• Monster
• Dicks: The Musical
• The Holdovers

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

• Anatomy of a Fall

  
  

• The Zone of Interest
• Poor Things
• The Taste of Things
• Perfect Days
• All of Us Strangers
• El Conde
• Saltburn
• NYAD
• Rustin

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

• Chile '76
• Pianoforte
• Dreamin' Wild
• I Like Movies
• The Quiet Migration
• Egghead & Twinkie
• Punderneath It All
• A Disturbance in the Force: How the Star Wars Holiday Special Happened
• ANU
• The Eight Mountains

• TÁR
• Aftersun
• EO
• The Banshees of Inisherin
• All the Beauty and the Bloodshed
• The Fabelmans
• Triangle of Sadness
• Glass Onion
• Marcel the Shell with Shoes On
• All That Breathes

...plus 18 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• TÁR

Films only nominated for Original Song excluded.

• TÁR
• Aftersun
• EO
• Everything Everywhere All at Once
• The Banshees of Inisherin
• The Fabelmans
• All the Beauty and the Bloodshed
• Women Talking
• Glass Onion
• Triangle of Sadness

...plus 27 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• Past Lives
• You Hurt My Feelings
• ages
• Rotting in the Sun
• Fair Play
• Eileen
• Cat Person
• Stephen Curry: Underrated
• Flora and Son
• Theater Camp

...plus 14 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Glass Onion
2. The Banshees of Inisherin
3. The Fabelmans
4. EO
5. Triangle of Sadness
6. All the Beauty and the Bloodshed
7. The Eternal Daughter
8. Bros
9. Sidney
10. Moonage Daydream

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

• TÁR
• Aftersun
• Women Talking
• The Wonder
• Bones and All
• One Fine Morning
• Lady Chatterley's Lover
• Armageddon Time
• Broker
• Close

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

• Marcel the Shell with Shoes On
• Wildhood
• Buffalo Soldiers Fighting On Two Fronts
• Talking About the Weather
• Flux Gourmet
• So Damn Easy Going
• Ahed's Knee
• Know Your Place

• Stay the Night
• Under the Influence
• I Love My Dad
• Fire of Love

twenty twenty fun

• Pig
• C'mon C'mon
• Licorice Pizza
• Flee
• The Souvenir: Part II
• The Hand of God
• Drive My Car
• The Green Knight
• The Worst Person in the World
• Titane

...plus 119 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

All the feature films nominees (excluding best song)

• Licorice Pizza

  Picture, Director, Screenplay

• The Power of the Dog

  Picture, Director, Lead (Cumberbatch), ing (Plemmons, Smit-Mhee, Dunst), Screenplay, Score, Sound, Editing, Production

• Flee

  Animated, International, Documentary

• The Hand of God

  International

• Drive My Car

  Picture, Director, Screenplay, International

• Dune

  Picture, Screenplay, Cinematography, Costume, Score, Sound, Editing, Makeup/Hairstyling, Production, Visual

• Spider-Man: No Way Home

  Visual

• The Worst Person in the World

  Screenplay, International

• Parallel Mothers

  Acting (Cruz), Score

• Luca

  Animated

...plus 27 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Virtually festing

1. Cha Cha Real Smooth
2. After Yang
3. Navalny
4. Meet Me in the Bathroom
5. jeen-yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy
6. Nanny
7. All That Breathes
8. Living
9. Emily the Criminal
10. When You Finish Saving the World

...plus 8 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• Flee
• On the Count of Three
• All Light, Everywhere
• Searchers
• Life in a Day 2020
• ing
• Hive
• Judas and the Black Messiah
• The World to Come
• CODA

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

went to canada to see some movies

1. Dune
2. The Worst Person in the World
3. The Humans
4. Julia
5. The Eyes of Tammy Faye
6. The Forgiven
7. Last Night in Soho
8. I'm Your Man
9. Arthur Rambo
10. Silent Night

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

1. C'mon C'mon
2. The Hand of God
3. Bergman Island
4. The French Dispatch
5. The Rescue
6. The Power of the Dog
7. The Card Counter
8. Spencer
9. Petite Maman
10. The Lost Daughter

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

• Zola
• In the Heights
• Summer of Soul (...Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)
• All Light, Everywhere
• Our Own
• Quo Vadis, Aida?
• Together Together
• Censor
• Werewolves Within
• Luca

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

couch by couch west

• Lily Topples The World
• The Fallout
• Stop and Go
• Language Lessons
• Here Before
• Reality Winner
• Not Going Quietly
• Demi Lovato: Dancing with the Devil
• Alien on Stage
• WeWork: or The Making and Breaking of a $47 Billion Unicorn

A year

1. Nomadland
2. First Cow
3. Never Rarely Sometimes Always
4. Matthias & Maxime
5. Shithouse
6. Palm Springs
7. Minari
8. The Nest
9. Kajillionaire
10. Lovers Rock

...plus 85 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Virtual reality

• Captains of Za'atari
• There Is No Evil
• Writing with Fire
• Wyrm
• Little Girl
• Who We Are: A Chronicle of Racism in America
• Summer of 85
• The Earth Is Blue as an Orange
• The Return: Life After ISIS
• Under the Open Sky

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

All feature films nominated for all awards for 2021 Oscars (shorts and song-only nominees omitted)

• Judas and the Black Messiah

  Picture
  ing Actor
  ing Actor 
  Original Screenplay 
  Cinematography 
  Song

• Mank

  Picture 
  Actor
  ing Actress 
  Director 
  Cinematography 
  Production Design 
  Costume 
  Sound
  Makeup & Hair
  Music

• Minari

  Picture 
  Actor
  ing Actress 
  Director 
  Original Screenplay 
  Music

• Nomadland

  Picture 
  Actress
  Director 
  Adapted Screenplay 
  Cinematography 
  Editing

• Promising Young Woman

  Picture
  Actress
  Director 
  Original Screenplay 
  Editing

• Sound of Metal

  Picture 
  Actor 
  ing Actor 
  Original Screenplay 
  Editing 
  Sound

• The Father

  Picture 
  Actor 
  ing Actress 
  Adapted Screenplay 
  Editing
  Production Design

• The Trial of the Chicago 7

  Picture 
  ing Actress 
  Original Screenplay 
  Cinematography 
  Editing 
  Song

• Ma Rainey's Black Bottom

  Actor 
  Actress 
  Production Design 
  Costume 
  Makeup & Hair

• The United States vs. Billie Holiday

  Actress

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

watch the video

1. Time
2. Minari
3. World of Tomorrow Episode Three: The Absent Destinations of David Prime
4. Never Rarely Sometimes Always
5. I'm Thinking of Ending Things
6. Bacurau
7. Nomadland
8. David Byrne's American Utopia
9. Bad Education
10. Swallow

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

• First Cow
• Minari
• Nomadland
• Soul
• Bacurau
• Sound of Metal
• Lovers Rock
• Never Rarely Sometimes Always
• Shithouse
• Palm Springs

...plus 32 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Virtual Reality

• Nomadland
• On the Rocks
• Lovers Rock
• The Human Voice
• Notturno
• Gunda
• David Byrne's American Utopia
• MLK/FBI
• Undine
• The Salt of Tears

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

keeping track of 2019

1. Marriage Story
2. Parasite
3. The Farewell
4. Portrait of a Lady on Fire
5. The Souvenir
6. Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood
7. Little Women
8. Pain and Glory
9. Gloria Bell
10. 1917

...plus 106 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• Parasite
• Marriage Story
• Little Women
• Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood
• The Irishman
• Jojo Rabbit
• Ford v Ferrari
• Joker
• Hustlers
• Uncut Gems

• Advocate
• American Factory
• The Apollo
• Apollo 11
• Aquarela
• The Biggest Little Farm
• The Cave
• The Edge of Democracy
• For Sama
• The Great Hack

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

draft list for favorites of the decade

1. Phantom Thread
2. Melancholia
3. The Social Network
4. Lady Bird
5. Mad Max: Fury Road
6. s Ha
7. Roma
8. Force Majeure
9. Parasite
10. Marriage Story

...plus 39 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. The Future
2. Melancholia
3. Somewhere
4. Beginners
5. Weekend
6. The Tree of Life
7. Moneyball
8. True Grit
9. Life in a Day
10. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2

...plus 55 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

top films of 2010

1. The Social Network
2. Somewhere
3. I Am Love
4. Black Swan
5. Inception
6. 127 Hours
7. True Grit
8. Farewell
9. Greenberg
10. Exit Through the Gift Shop

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

• Honey Boy
• Synonyms
• Frankie
• Jojo Rabbit
• Atlantics
• Les Misérables
• Marriage Story

Telluride 46 (2019)

1. Marriage Story
2. Portrait of a Lady on Fire
3. Parasite
4. Pain and Glory
5. A Hidden Life
6. Waves
7. Uncut Gems
8. Varda by Agnès
9. The Two Popes
10. The Climb

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

Seattle International Film Festival 2019

1. The Farewell
2. A Faithful Man
3. Sword of Trust
4. Sauvage
5. Running with Beto
6. Lynch: A History
7. The Art of Self-Defense
8. Them That Follow
9. Monos
10. Banana Split

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

• Late Night
• Big Time Adolescence
• The Report
• Mike Wallace Is Here
• Little Monsters
• This Is Not Berlin
• Brittany Runs a Marathon
• Blinded by the Light
• The Mustang
• The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind

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

best we’ve got so far

1. Roma
2. The Rider
3. Free Solo
4. If Beale Street Could Talk
5. Paddington 2
6. The Favourite
7. Shoplifters
8. Cold War
9. Eighth Grade
10. Leave No Trace

...plus 100 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• Free Solo
• Cold War
• Sorry Angel
• Everybody Knows
• Happy as Lazzaro
• Birds of age
• Ben Is Back
• Matangi / Maya / M.I.A.
• What They Had
• Game Night