What better way to prep for Richard Linklater's new film this summer, a French-language ode to the devoutly worshipped cinema of Godard that is itself being heralded out of Cannes, than by re-watching his hackneyed pee-wee baseball comedy remake that most people would agree is his career nadir.

20 years later and I'm a little softer on this one, but it still doesn't meet the minimum requirements for a good movie. Having finally seen the og Matthau "Bad News Bears" in the interim did not help this remake's case, because now I recognize how borrowed all its decent moves are, and how watered-down some of its choices compared to the earlier version (the edges on these little bastards are a bit more rounded). Linklater's also openly cashing in on his then-recent "School of Rock" success by returning to the same well with weaker results.

Yes it was the era of Billy Bob Thornton as the comical rude sourpuss ("Bad Santa", "Mr. Woodcock", "School for Scoundrels") and he's got sleazy charisma without even trying much (half the movie's close-ups of him are limited by the sunglasses he's wearing), but you need someone who can elevate the mundane been-there-done-that material with their own extra energy (like Jack Black) or someone who's an absolute granite slab of grouchy gravitas to hard juxtapose against the kiddie milieu (like Walter Matthau).

Some parts have been updated and modernized from the '70s source to a degree (mostly in dialogue, not in story where the older movie could've used some adjustments) but watching this 20 years later it feels dated in its own way, as a last desperate vestige of the ragtag sports team comedies that resurged in the '90s, like it barely matters that it's a remake, it's already a rip-off of "The Mighty Ducks", "Cool Runnings", "Little Giants", "The Big Green", "Ladybugs", and that whole wave. Notably that Will Ferrell-coaching-kids-soccer flick "Kicking and Screaming" came out this same year in '05, an even worse formula-regurgitation that I definitely won't be re-watching any time soon, as though marking 2005 as the official time-of-death for these underdog little league affairs. Their extinction was past due.

But of course there's an easygoing way about anything Linklater does, so there's nothing bothersome about sitting through his pleasant yet under-inspired "BNB" remake. It's a reminder of the director's affection for baseball, it's got John Fogerty's "Centerfield" cued up (a song that should be one of the main national anthems for this sport), Thornton smacking kids with the ball during the initial training sessions is still good for some laughs as is the sight of him ed out face down on the pitcher's mound, as is his way of sneaking booze into public (not by filling a water bottle with beer like you've seen before, but by filling a beer can with harder alcohol), as is him emptying out a cooler full of dead rodents so he can fill it with gatorade bottles for the kids after the game, as is the little feral blonde kid Tanner (also the funniest part of the 1976 movie), and there's just something timelessly cool and old-school about everyone constantly addressing Billy Bob Thornton by his last name "Buttermaker" (it somehow sounds good in any emotional inflection you say it with).

Just wish they'd put more effort into refining the old script (Greg Kinnear as the antagonist winner coach could've used more definition, they don't sell Buttermaker's changes of heart as well as the original movie did despite using the exact same scenes for it so they should've written different scenes of it altogether, and this being the somewhat kinda more enlightened 21st century instead of the wild wild west of the 1970s it's not as easy to forgive the physical and emotional abuse Buttermaker inflicts on these kids toward the end. An actual apology would've been a nice start.

And finally, considering Linklater's gift for soundtrack curation ("Dazed and Confused", just for starters), it seems particularly off-game for him to close the movie with a Simple Plan pop/punk track and then a "Bad Reputation" cover over the end credits by Senses Fail. These songs aren't bad but they're not Linklater-level cool in even the tiniest way. RL really played ball for the studio on this one, for all 9 innings (of filmmaking production).

*note Linklater has been prescient about casting future stars in their youngest days but maybe that's only when he makes teenager films like "Dazed" and "Everybody Wants Some!!". There weren't many famous break-outs from "School of Rock" and none here either unless you count wheelchair kid Troy Gentile who went on to play the wacky older brother on that "Goldbergs" show like 10 seasons.

On a very sad note, the girl who plays Buttermaker's daughter, Sammi Kane Kraft, who's practically second-billed in of cast importance, and was 13 when she filmed this, ended up dying only 7 years later at age 20 in a car crash :\

*part of The Anniverseries - 20 years and 11 Linklater films later (not counting the two he has coming out later this year or the third that's aiming for release sometime around 2040), this is still the least impressive one on his record, but in keeping with the ethos of the man from whom McConaughey's "all right all right all right" was borne, it is indeed an all right viewing experience.

*upgraded from 2 to 2.5 stars

*originally written in 2005 after renting the movie on video*

Tries to spit on the sports/underdog formula but remains faithful to it through and through, and even ends up conforming to yet another convention, that of the mean-spirited yet ultimately toothless movie that tries to spit on the genre formula. The only laugh I got was when Thornton pitches for the kids early on to test their batting skills, and keeps throwing it at their faces and bodies instead. Oh, and some of the verbal insults the kids sling at each other.

And though I was rooting for them by the finale (the entire team is of course made up of self-esteem-lacking losers, so in-between their cursing and jerkish behavior Richard Linklater devotes as much energy as possible to contriving sympathy points), I didn't really like the movie in any way. I mean, the blueprints for success are there: a bunch of asshole kids and Billy Bob Thornton reprising his "Bad Santa" routine. But the comedy just never flies. It's endlessly predictable and tame (i.e. gay prison jokes, kids drinking beer, the other coach who's insidiously worse than Billy Bob so that we can like BB more easily by comparison), although, as "Bad Santa" itself proved by being so lackluster and forced, even going the extra mile into truly cruel, R-rated territory isn't the only thing necessary to transform such a formula-hating formula into something worthwhile.

Oh, and damn you, Linklater. You had a nearly spotless record with me until now ("Newton Boys" wasn't a home run but better than this on-base walk of a movie, at least). I'd like to see more of your bittersweet philosophical wanking and hang-out naturalism, less of your mainstream assembly line family comedy, if you don't mind.

I'm not a hater, I'm a (movie-)adventure seeker. I don't know if it helped/cursed that I grew up in the '80s and '90s with Indiana Jones and Star Wars and the rise of commercialized blockbuster entertainment or if I'm just still too much of a little boy at heart, but I've been hoping all my life for some other movie to come along and be anywhere as good on the fun adventure scale as an Indy. And many suitors came-a-calling; none were remotely qualified (would "The Mask of Zorro" count? Not exactly but its awesomeness is always worth reiterating). May sound like heresy to call "Uncharted" one of the closest/most enjoyable attempts since we've all long since forgotten it ever happened, but it was pretty good imo (also kinda randomly the last movie I ever saw with my mom in theaters before she died a couple years later but let's not go down that road). I love the idea of someone with style, a sense of humor and caper credentials like Guy Ritchie taking on a globe-trotting expedition heist with a cast like this. Let's see what you got.

For a while it's nominally charming too. John Krasinski grows on you (at first he's got this faux-nice guy apologetic smugness that's somewhat outmoded all these years after "The Office" ended but he cuts a handsome figure on screen and his perpetually light con artist-esque bemusement could be fancied as a welcome variation away from the more brow-furrowed determination of his noble archaeologist peers Harrison Ford and Nic "National Treasure" Cage). At one point I thinking "well it's delivering a lot more excitement in its first half than this weekend's other team adventure saga, "The Final Reckoning"! (not that anything in this comes close to the bi-plane stunt show) At least there are chases and set pieces and an infotainment zest for the macguffins at hand (hey you might learn some history facts along the way).

But then things don't ramp up the way they should, Krasinki's means of escaping each and every scrape are extremely hacky (he would've been caught and/or shot dead on the spot every single time), the themes are tired and self-fellating (life's about the destination not the journey! Break out of your boring responsible adult routine and go on risky criminal adventures! oh shut up), and I'm sad to say this about any movie that climaxes at one of the great pyramids yet they don't have anything cool to do inside there. This movie cost a lot ($180m by some sources) so I expected some kind of final all-out bonanza. Instead they play it fairly small, and rip off "The Last Crusade" so hard that it broke my goodwill. It's the exact same goddamn finale, only lamer coming 36 years later! Discovering the fountain of youth deserves something infinitely more cinematic and thoughtful than this derivative predictable pre-school-level dogshit ending. At least this answered my lingering question as to why this is the first Guy Ritchie movie in many many years (and he has been cranking them out non-stop for a while now) to not get a theatrical release. Because it just wasn't good enough for one. (actually probably because it was an Apple production and those trillionaire fucks have no interest in box office profit).

Also that disappointing heel turn came out of nowhere. Try seeding it next time, the way a talented screenwriter might. And Laz Alonso, sorry but this couldn't be more of a typecast-as-Mother's Milk-from-"The Boys" thankless role for you given the circumstances. There should have been a "(tm)" pin on his lapel the whole time.

Choice of end-credits song got a chuckle out of me, though.

Oh well, it was better than "Jake Speed". And "Lara Croft Tomb Raider". And "Sahara". And "The Da Vinci Code". And "Race for the Yankee Zephyr". Probably the Richard Chamberlain-as-Allan Quatermain escapades too but it's been a while so maybe I'll give those another chance before trashing them for sure.

"I was dreamin' that you were nibblin' on my nipple, Twiggy." - Mark Wahlberg to Topher Grace. Oh the fun this movie has.

There are hundreds of poster options for this movie in the Letterboxd carousel and not a single one features its main stars Topher Grace or Michelle Dockery. The gravitational power of Mark Wahlberg in this world cannot be overstated.

Hate to sound like a broken record complaining that we've seen everything that new movies have to offer before, but here's another one that's not going to stand the test of time, or even please most people in the here and now, against all the other plane thrillers that preceded it - the heroes who don't know how to land a plane without a pilot, getting coached from someone below; the psycho on the plane that they have to fight off; exposition-dumping the protagonists' backstories as a bonding mechanism. It's recycled junk and doesn't even have a stadium-size cast like the classic '90s examples ("Con Air", "Executive Decision").

But there is something efficient, vigorous and economical about this economy-class flight that made it juuuuuuust likable enough to land on the 3-star runway for me. Wahlberg completely relishes being the villain again (has there been any other occasion since "Fear" in '96? I know he's been many assholes, but not full-on wrong-side-of-the-law scoundrels), which suits him better than playing heroes (must..suppress..art-imitating-life joke..). He may not burn with as much menace as Ray Liotta in "Turbulence" but he seems to be having more fun. Topher Grace isn't hitting bullseyes all the time as the nattering comic relief but he is pretty adept at this kind of deadpan incredulity; at least he's got an aroma of personality even it isn't fully unleashed. And Michelle Dockery goes American and salutably stalwart even if this certainly seems to be material that's beneath her.

The problem hampering "Flight Risk" isn't that it's a total B-movie - by all means! - but that it doesn't do enough while it lasts. Wahlberg gets backgrounded and silenced for long stretches of the film even though he's the main course (not a single poster with Dockery or Grace's face anywhere on it!) and the story's already coming in for a climactic landing before much crazy cabin chaos can occur. It's a thin one.

Bound to be most ed as a Mel Gibson t, I think - the previous movie he directed before this was nominated for Best Picture and that was long after his semi-cancellation and exile from Hollywood stardom, so it's not like he fell from grace after "Hacksaw Ridge". You'd think it would've re-opened doors for him. So how did he end up making *this* little cheesy scrapper? Thing is, this is 100% Mel's wheelhouse: grinning, well-made but unpolished violent action with a quick elevator pitch and that's comfortable being pulp. Not pretentious historical dramas like he's been making most of his directorial career. He should have been doing greasy "Lethal Weapon"-orbiting sadistic rib-ticklers like this all along, though maybe with a little more gas in the tank than a "Flight Risk".

*I had to award extra credit to the movie for never cutting away to a mission control room or other subplots. Once they board the plane, we're exclusively in there with them till the end. Respect.

"How to Train Your Ochi"

When this movie takes place outside, it's beautiful looking. The yellow-green nature palette of the forestry, rivers and mountains glows like otherworldly gardens of heaven. And little Ochi, what a cutie pie. Part Mogwai, part capuchin monkey, done with old-school puppeteering. Get these plush dolls into toy stores immediately oh wait toy stores don't exist anymore. Fuckin' society.

If only the movie part of this movie - y'know, where it has to revolve around a story conflict with characters and all that - wasn't dull as dirt. They barely even tried to tell a story here and these players (the little girl, her dad, her brother, someone who seems to maybe be their estranged mom) barely even count as avatars of common types because they say and do so very little. Little girl just walks this found creature back to its creature parents in the woods, while her family chases behind her, and then everyone loves each other and it's over. Was there even dialogue? I can hardly and I just watched this movie a couple hours ago. It's more of an ambient experience overall, which is respectable to an extent, like sure end your movie as though it were an overture of classical music, but who the hell cares about this generic journey they all went on?

There are slight tinges of Wes Anderson-ian deadpan, Robert Eggers-ly "Northman" folklore, and the vaguely eerie rural fantasy aura of A24's "Lamb". But I mean c'mon. This is one of those contemporary movies that seems to be made strictly for people who have never seen a movie before. Never seen a movie before? Maybe you'll love this! For best results, try showing it to a 3-year-old. It's a lazy new wave of reminding you of cool/evocative older stuff from past movies without even bothering to try as hard as those old movies did, let alone sur or modernize or re-customize their tactics in any way.

Did something happen to this Texan-noir comedy caper romance action western while it was on its way to release? Rushed production, heavy cuts, lost footage, the editor was on heroin? Because while it's understandable that Robert Benton would want to cash in a blank check to produce a fun studio screwball picture set in his home state, something that feels like it would've starred Hepburn & Grant 40 years earlier, it seems odd that someone of Benton's caliber at this time (less than 10 years after he won both Director and Screenplay Oscars for "Kramer vs. Kramer" and directly after his second Director nomination for "Places in the Heart") would hand in such a short, rudimentary, undeveloped yarn that just stinks of mainstream Hollywood laziness, aside from a couple semi-witty lines here and there and a spirited cast. A few more drafts of that script and this could've been an indelible star vehicle crowd-pleaser instead of the forgotten nothing that it remains lo these decades later.

Smart move getting Basinger and Bridges with their southern charms (think of this as the happier daydream version of Altman's "Fool for Love" from around the same time), Rip Torn as the villain who's just sighing with impatience the whole time instead of stomping on his hat Yosemite Sam-style, and Glenne Headley as the blithely happy third wheel love interest, but all in all as comedy and mistaken-identity capers and good stories go, this is slim pickens. Nice catchy country love theme by Sweethearts of the Rodeo, at least ("Since I Found You").

*Also you can't convince me that someone didn't accidentally tell poster artist Drew Struzan that this movie's male lead was going to be Patrick Swayze.

"This endless blacktop is my sweet eternity." - great line

Despite the mighty director at the helm (Bigelow, not co-credited Monty Montgomery, and albeit in her debut so we can cut her some slack), despite having the immortal Willem Dafoe in his first starring role aptly as a menacing biker, despite all the rockabilly mystique they're trying to pump in through the tailpipes, this is one agonizingly dull and stylistically paltry waste of (thankfully less than 90 minutes of) time, with not a single character, situation or sense of mood worth paying attention to.

It'll remind you of so many things - "The Wild One" of course, "Wild at Heart", "The Bikeriders", Jarmusch, Lynch, '70s-era film malaise but with a bit more of a music video sensibility, that whole Tarantino-chasing early '90s Showtime miniseries anthology "Rebel Highway" - and make you yearn to be in the company of any of those things instead of this aimlessly nasty, artless, ineffectual swill. Maybe it would've been better in black-and-white, though. Or if someone were to re-score it to the "Chain Gang of Love" LP by The Raveonettes. Or if Bigelow could have taken another crack at the premise in the late '90s.

*Dafoe in 1981 looked a lot like Burn Gorman

If you liked the other three "Fear Street"s that came out a few summers ago, you'll probably like this generic crap too (no offense; hey good for you, you're enjoying life more than me). It's made the same way.

On the one hand, basic ABC storytelling, AI-generated character types, stale dialogue, complete lack of suspense, perfunctory kills, mediocre acting, somehow both unpleasant and banal at the same time, practically begging you to second-screen it because nobody's heart or enthusiasm is in this.

On the other hand: R.L. Stine books were basically all those things too, in literary form, so this is a pretty faithful adaptation. The difference is a generation of us were 12 when we read those books and it was the '90s before all these teen slasher whodunit mechanics had become not just codified (as it began in the '80s) but satirized, trampled through overuse, revived, satirized again, overexposed again, and dessicated into a husk of a husk of itself. So there's still a legit nostalgia factor and innocence to the R.L. Stine library, but not so much these slack-jawed made-way-too-long-after-the-fad-had-curdled movie adaptations. Slashers and '80s retro-style can still bear fruit even in 2025, but "Prom Queen" is dismayingly blank.

If you put it on during a marathon with 50 other slashers old and new then yeah it would fit right in and get the job done and its uninspired checklist execution of moldy conventions would probably lend it some archetypal appeal, like watching the epitome of a middle-of-the-road genre picture - if you told me there was some competent yet utterly perfunctory mid-'80s studio slasher movie that I hadn't seen yet, I would make it an immediate priority, so I get it - but on its own this is a phony depressing disgrace.

Among its other offenses:
- late '90s/early 2000s teen star Chris Klein is back! And an even worse actor than he used to be, which is saying something.

- beware of cheap fake scares that feel like direct adaptations of all those chapter-ending cliffhangers R.L. Stine used 50 times per book.

- wtf happened to Kathleen Waterston. She went from A-list collaborators like Ridley Scott, PT Anderson, Danny Boyle and Soderbergh a decade ago to vamping it up in this Z-grade dreck?

- it's been said before but we'll keep trying to get the word out: filling your teen movie almost entirely with (and stacking your lone kind-hearted final-girl protagonist against) monstrously cruel and sadistic high-school characters is not a good time for the viewer, it never was, it only ever worked once and that was the original "Carrie". Please stop.

- the spotify list full of '80s songs you've heard too many times is a neo-slasher movie cliche by now (this movie is a 1988-set period piece btw) and they don't bother digging for any deep cuts here, but at least the songs themselves set some temporary moods now and then: Billy Idol, Rick Astley, Roxette, Tiffany, Duran Duran, Eurythmics, Laura Branigan (which induces a dance-off between two enemy girls, a dance-off that is unintentionally boring because neither of them is any good or amusingly bad enough at dancing to make this scene worth including).

The closest I can get to saying something nice: the synthwave track "Vengeance" by Power Glove that opens and closes the movie is pretty rad, and there's a brief moment inside a movie theater where everyone's watching "Phantasm II". References.

I don't buy that it takes an extra long time to make a good "Final Destination" movie (part 5 is one of the better entries and its production schedule was the briefest of them all) but I will happily wait till 2039 if it ensures a part 7 as excellent as "Bloodlines", which may end up ranking #1 in the whole series once recency bias wears off.

1. They refresh the tired story formula that had been repeated 5 times in a row (now it's a specific family saga that spans generations, which also gives all the characters an organic reason to stay near each other for once, and the opening catastrophe is actually a flashback/dream sequence that the person envisioning it wasn't even present for!).

2. The way said opening disaster is conceived and shot and edited and soundtracked and even color-graded in post-production, it pops beautifully off the screen like its own glistening doom-laden acrophobia-juicing work of art short film, running comparable to the franchise's best openings (parts 2 and 5?).

3. Many playful variations on our overfamiliarity with the signature "FD" moves, like having a character who has spent literally decades fortifying themselves against accidental death, another who points out that cancer in old age is their particular death curse (surprised it took the franchise 6 movies to make that joke), and a tangled and extremely painful-looking death trap sequence that a person actually survives (and doesn't even die an ironic twist death afterward..well not immediately afterward).

4. Instead of the John Denver runner or one grim song siren per movie, this one makes a game out of needle dropping a whole roster of big pop classics that each lyrically foretell of imminent fatality. The selections themselves run a bit hacky but seems long past time to make "FD" a jukebox musical on top of everything else.

5. There's still/always going to be a problem with not-entirely-convincing CGI (to be blunt it looked like shit most of the time in parts 2-5) but I totally forgive that here for the sheer volume and variety of horrifying demises they're trying to animate, plus at least a couple of the kills are hauntingly visualized slasher-movie all-timers (one where we watch in full as a face gets popped by a garbage truck compacter, and another where someone gets bent in an unholy way inside an MRI machine).

6. Either to coincide with Tony Todd's real-life terminal illness or just by morbidly perfect timing (his final words were intentionally bittersweet, but not sure about the rest of his usage in the script), the series finally gives Bludworth more to do than just warn a new batch of strangers, in a clever act of full-circled storytelling and a truly moving farewell moment for an actor's entire career that few have ever had the chance to perform for themselves in this business.

7. in a way the grim endings to all these movies make them feel totally pointless (why so much scrambling and worrying about how/whether they'll survive when it always culminates in a nasty punchline) and the manner in which "Bloodlines" smash cuts to end credits is especially half-assed, but more than ever the themes and developmental qualities of this chapter help mitigate that abstract frustration with the overriding reminder that fuck it, everyone dies sooner or later, that's the point, that's the "Final Destination" motto, that's the horror genre in a nutshell, these movies are destined to remain evergreen in their literalized existential dread.

Trailers I Saw
1. I Know What You Did Last Bloodlines: Freddie Prinze Jr. looks like he finally gained some gravitas, at least![/trying really hard to find anything positive to say about this movie so far]
2. The Phoenician Scheme: the climax of Stravinsky's "The Firebird" really helps sell the latter half of this trailer. I know that music cue thanks to seeing "Fantasia 2000" 26 years ago.
3. Predator Bloodlines: not really seeing the good-idea hook in this one yet. Is lady-predator a new thing? Is that something to be enticed by?
4. Megan 2.0 Bloodlines: Though I guess lady-Chucky was a hit so why not.
5. The Long Walk: great premise, good cast, solid director, not even trying to hide that it's a more compact "Hunger Games" (whether or not the source material predates the work of Suzanne Collins) but I am all for adapting more glory-days Stephen King like this.
6. Weapons: judiciously composed to maximize intrigue/disturbance and minimize our comprehension of anything going on, well done.
7. The Conjuring Bloodlines: COME SEE WHY THIS WAS THEIR LAST JOB........the trailer wants to mislead you to the conclusion that it's because all the ghost demons including old faves The Nun and Annabelle finally manage to kill Vera Farmiga's character but the real answer is probably they ran out of money faking the ghost shit and had to get jobs at the local mattress discount emporium.

More like an "M:I"-styled yearbook memorial video for the franchise than anything definitive or final thereof, this latest, longest, largest episode of The Tom Cruise Adventure Hour, the season finale for the first 29 years of "Mission: Impossible" movies, comes packaged with exciting clip show montages, attempts at re-contextualizing the quite standalone first and third movies as integral cogs in some ages-long narrative arc, hundreds upon thousands of script pages of byzantine exposition, stakes so high and portentous that the movie has to scream them in your face at least two dozen times in different hyperbolic ways, at least half a dozen fake death moments for the main characters, not even the slightest notion at the end that this will be Ethan Hunt's last ride, and am I getting nitpicky here or was there only really one, maybe two major breathtaking action set pieces in all 3 hours of this thing even though jaw-dropping stunt spectaculars are the main reason we all love the franchise at this point?

The biplane chase and the submarine dive, those are the two big ones. The only ones? There are a few other intensely choreographed fist fight segments sure, shoot-outs, an explosion or two, the Cruise Sprint(tm) on three or four occasions, suspenseful spywork crescendos, but none of that stuff would be enough to make the "M:I" experience as unique and essential as it's become over the years, especially from part 4 onward. Sorry to sound greedy, but there's a shocking imbalance here of (excessive) plot to (insufficient) action. Like how "Kill Bill: Volume Two" slowed way down away from the nothing-but-dessert showdowns of Volume One to be mostly talkative and character-driven, only at least there we had Tarantino dialogue, style and inventive storytelling to make it work.

Here it's still an entertaining ride with the enormous budget all visible on screen in gorgeous and elaborately staged location filming all over the globe, irable metric tons of techno-jargon to make every ridiculous situation as believably thought-out as possible, and a cast bench probably thrice as long as the average blockbuster in which unfamiliars like Rolf Saxon (in a bit of continuity that actually pays off) and Lucy Tulugarjuk still somehow rise to the top as possible MVPs (though I think my favorite of the unofficial-IMF team this time is Pom Klementieff, and of the visiting-a-place-along-the-way guest stars Tramell Tillman makes the strongest impression turning his steely-gazed stillness from "Severance" into badassery and comic relief).

They're trying to sell this thing hard, like sweaty hard, and it becomes hilariously overwrought almost immediately, so if you can laugh every time someone exaggerates how important all this nonsense is, it'll keep you from rolling your eyes at that almost offensively overused and desperate trick. I mean cool it's like watching "Fail Safe" and James Bond sport-fuck each other into hysterical blockbuster theatrics, I'll just try to ignore how seriously it's trying to take itself.

Only 2 action scenes even trying to be grand and memorable, though? Is this inadvertent evidence that the whole "Reckoning" inter-plottedness of this and the previous movie was originally conceived of as a singular adventure that should have fit snugly into one motion picture only? If "Dead Reckoning" and "The Final Reckoning" had been a single film edited down to like 160 minutes or so (the average action bonanza these days), then this wouldn't be a problem. The submarine dive and the biplane chase would be amazing ways to close out the final hour of this journey.

And let's not even try to talk out the logic of Ethan Hunt undressing out of his scuba suit and clothes down to his undies thousands of meters below an arctic ocean and somehow floating on up without becoming an instant popsicle and imploding, but don't think you explained your way out of that one, guys. There's absurd, and then there's this shit. Not saying I can't appreciate absurdity, but you're on thin ice here.

Bitch bitch bitch, I know. Look bravo on the victory lap and if you're gonna be predominantly a political thriller drama, at least you did so with the upmost showmanship. Tom Cruise maneuvering across two bi-planes in what I assume was unfaked stunt work was exhilarating to watch, and the underwater part was 2/3rds of the way to being as dazzling as something from the James Cameron catalog. Just, next time tone down the verbosity and the self-mythologizing and just be a fun action movie again. "Ghost Protocol", "Rogue Nation" and "Fallout" are the series highlights for a reason that "The Final Reckoning" doesn't seem to .

Trailers I Saw
1. Ballerina: so the only reason any "John Wick" movie can exist is if a hitman in this world needs to go on a revenge rampage for the death of a loved one? Pretty limited creatively.
2. Fantastic Four: is that a theme song that actually name drops the title? I can go for that.
3. Jurassic World Rebirth: second trailer divulging more footage that I wish I hadn't seen yet. Still looks like a good time to me. More freaky lab hybrid dinos!
4. Superman: refuse to get my hopes up for this after the abhorrent "Man of Steel" had such a promising teaser way back in the day (and after so many bad "Superman" movies in general) but I do feel a bit roused by what they're showing so far.
5. Caught Stealing: Aronofsky does Guy Ritchie? Weird left turn for this filmmaker (didn't realize he had any sense of humor whatsoever, for one thing) but let's do it!
6. yet another Smurfs do-over: D:
7. The Naked Gun: the teaser with him in the kid disguise and then the OJ joke. It's all we need before the movie comes out in a couple months. Don't release any more trailers. Prepared to love this if it's even half as funny as the first two "NG"s.

Watched on Wednesday May 21, 2025.

The zany-horny lowbrow cartoon ensemble screwball '80s comedy with the illustrated poster, a cherished artifact for pop culture survivors of a certain age (and mental maladjustment). A movie like this isn't good because it's usually tacky and one-dimensional in all departments but its simple silly pleasures like the semi-star casting, the hang-out concept (shenanigans in a Miami beach hotel!), the shameless titillation, the fact that it opens with soft keyboards and hot sax, will all leave you shaking your head with a smile.

Best to sum it up via role call:
- wiener Peter Scolari gets told by his prissy rich girlfriend Colleen Camp that her father Christopher Lee wants him to go be the manager of one of his hotels

- Lee, who disapproves of Scolari, expects him to screw up which will convince Camp to dump him, but as a perfectly rational contingency plan, he also hires someone to plant explosives in the hotel. If embarrassing Scolari doesn't chase him away, then maybe murdering him will!

- Eddie Deezen (always a talisman that your movie probably sucks) thinks he's an alien from the planet Zorax, and it turns out he is of course (this is the '80s; you have the right, nay the responsibility to add a token alien or monster into your otherwise non-supernatural comedy; see also "Meatballs II")

- Colleen Camp offers prostitute Fran Drescher a job as head bellhop by giving her permission to use all the guests she welcomes in as potential clients. Those were the days? Drescher then recruits a team of other sex worker ladies to fill out the staff (cue: rampant toplessness).

- a pair of bellhops (future "Arrested Development" writer James Vallely and snooty French "Ferris Bueller" maitre'd Jonathan Schmock) also go around getting into mischief flirting with girls. These two are actually introduced in the opening credits as "The Funny Boys", erroneously.

- there's some army-obsessed guy who works there too because there's always an army-obsessed guy in these '80s comedy ensembles

- and finally Cherie Currie of The Runaways and her sister are the lounge band who perform three songs throughout the movie (pop/rock and power ballads), each its own potential radio hit that never was.

Spoiler: it ends with Christopher Lee, Peter Scolari and Colleen Camp hugging on the beach, followed by a scene of Deezen returning to his home planet to share his video-captured memories of earth (aka this movie) with his fellow Zoraxians. I submit that information only as final evidence why I can't be mad at this movie for any of its lazy stupid hacky crimes. Too googly-eyed, idyllically located and soft-hearted.

128 minutes total but a very tightly plotted, precise, pithy and spellbinding political mystery thriller about a guy hired to ghost write a former prime minister's memoirs and getting embroiled in some buried secrets while on assignment with him on an island for the weekend. Somehow it strongly resembles Roman Polanski material without really matching up with any that came before it; maybe most closely "Frantic" or a non-supernatural "The Ninth Gate". Bears much familiar '70s-paranoia and disillusionment (could have easily been made in that era without much modification at all) with more wonderfully curt British conversational wit than you usually get from a Polanski t, and leading up to a perhaps inevitable but brilliantly staged final moment. I had to rewind that last shot a few times just to revel in it even longer.

And what a cast! Ewan McGregor has been known to wilt in these straight-man roles but here he works it into a stylish protagonist that we're keenly rooting for. Pierce Brosnan twisting his famous British charisma into something vaguely sinister and hostile. Olivia Williams never calling attention to herself in projects but always providing them with a backbone of effortless expertise. Kim Cattrall going British! Is that Jim Belushi?! Tom Wilkinson terrifyingly steadfast. Jon Bernthal has been ubiquitous for even longer than I thought....weird coincidence (or is it) that I just happened to see another movie about political treason co-starring Timothy Hutton in the same week ("The Falcon and the Snowman"). Eli Wallach's second-to-last movie ("Wall Street 2" ended up being the swan song later that year).

If film is still a popular thing that people care about and study 50 years from now, I can see "The Ghost Writer" getting confused with Woody Allen's "Cassandra's Dream" from 2007, as both are UK productions, star McGregor (plus a lower-billed Tom Wilkinson) in a dark no-frills thriller with a decidedly muted visual aesthetic and were written/directed by exalted Oscar-winning filmmakers whose heyday was the '70s but at this point were less than a decade away from being more or less canceled for their decades-earlier associations with pedophilia. To any Letterboxd readers of this review in the year 2075 (don't worry I'll stipulate in my will that this shall never be deleted), do take my advice and see "The Ghost Writer" before/instead of "Cassandra's Dream" if you haven't gotten to either yet. Woody Allen made some great movies but that was a pretty average one, whereas "The Ghost Writer" is a late-stage highlight of Polanski's body of work. Good luck out there in the future.

In which Spike Lee cashes in all his basketball fandom (it's a bit surprising he never made a 2nd hoop-related movie at some point) for a well-informed depiction of the college recruitment process for athletic stars (as played by real-life athletic superstar Ray Allen, pretty convincingly), on top of a tough-love father-son tale of incremental redemption.

Lee doesn't do subtlety so the whole thing does feel a bit overcooked and broadly sketched at times while also not representing necessarily the filmmaker's best ideas (the exact incident that landed Denzel in prison is a bet-hedging moral cop-out, I'd say, while a romantic subplot between him and prostitute neighbor Milla Jovovich seems imported from a much cheesier movie and doesn't go anywhere in the end, and the wise/noble father trying to get through to the moody teenage son just feels like a played-out scenario), but as usual Lee's ion saturates effectively in other ways like the textured cinematography and doubly fascinating musical score (half majestic Aaron Copland classical anthems, half Public Enemy songs like the eponymous Buffalo Springfield-sampling one that I enjoying on the radio all the time back in the late '90s), plus the stirring drama and tense dynamics between characters like Rosario Dawson's duplicitous-but-maybe-she-has-her-reasons girlfriend, Jim Brown as a parole officer type keeping an eye on Denzel, Bill Nunn as the ive stepfather who's also getting pushy about securing his cut of Ray Allen's eventual fortune, and Denzel himself in top form, playing all kinds of nakedly felt emotional notes along the way while maintaining an inner broil that never explodes outward, exuding that arresting presence and presentation of his but without the histrionics of, say, "Training Day" (which was also a great performance but going for broke). "He Got Game": a title that applies to Ray Allen's character, Ray Allen in real life, Spike Lee and Denzel Washington. Very useful. And hey look he even found a little spot for his pal John Turturro to show up. Is this and the Adam Sandler movie "Hustle" an ideal double feature as kind of the best-made and most cameo-laden, sports industry-savvy fictional basketball dramas, or am I just conflating them because I saw both pretty recently?

aka "National Lampoon's Summer Vacation" in all but official designation

Of the countless movies with "summer" in the title that Carl Reiner made in the 1980s, this one isn't the best (be true to his "School"), but it's amply amusing, very easy and breezy to sit through, a jolly first-time starring vehicle for John Candy and has less of a bitter aftertaste than the Chevy Chase "Vacation" movies it's openly trying to imitate (in fact I had to go back and check that screenwriter byline to make sure it wasn't John Hughes because he almost single-handedly authored John Candy's entire film career, at least the best most memorable stuff, so it would've made perfect sense). It might help to just consider this movie a Griswald family spin-off, like maybe John Candy's Jack in this (if you can forget that he resembles a Wally World employee) was one of Clark's brothers or cousins and we're seeing how the whole Griswald lineage is cursed to suffer endless misfortune during any given vacation.

Lots of relatable foibles to laugh along with: a car next to you parking too close for you to get out of the driver's side door. Sunburns, beach sand burning your feet, too many neighbors, crowded beaches.

And some things that aren't relatable whatsoever: trying to peel and eat a hard-boiled egg while driving? Jesus. A female neighbor flicking off her top to ask you a total stranger about the quality of her newly enlarged tits? Only in the movies. (Candy's response to "how do they look" is funny though: "similar!")

Times when Candy's the one being a menace to other poor vacationers (there are probably more of these than actual bad luck they're victimized by, when you think about it): after they realize they're in the wrong beach house and pack up to leave while the owners stand there waiting, Candy "accidentally" dumps out a whole bag of dog food on their floor and his daughter says she wet the bed. Later, trying to find a spot on the beach to set down their stuff, he crashes through everyone else's camps, his bare feet stepping into their plates of food, his cooler leaking all kinds of liquid onto sunbather's faces as he es by. He also makes instant enemies of dastardly elite prick Richard Crenna by stabbing a hole through his boat sail and making a scene when Crenna's family cuts ahead in line at the lobster restaurant. Crenna may be a jerk but you started it and only made it worse, Candy. Ah but yer such a lovable lug so we're with ya, big guy!

There's kind of a mangy aesthetic to this movie at times, and I wonder if it has anything to do with a later quote from Candy that they had to film the whole thing in kind of a rush to meet the summer release deadline. Story construction is slapdash too, and Candy's "Stripes" co-star John Larroquette was already enough of a name by 1985 for it to be weird that his role was completely shaved off in editing so he's only here for a cameo as a normal guy helping the wife pay for her tickets at the movie theater (naturally given his lifelong jerk persona, Larroquette's original casting was meant to be as a slimeball trying to seduce Candy's wife, like Phil Hartman in "Jingle All the Way").

Sidebar: I'm required by cinephile law to report on any movie marquee or inside-the-multiplex references to other movies when I see them on screen. Here in the lobby there are wall posters for: "Footloose" ('84), "Airplane II: The Sequel" ('82), "Top Secret" ('84), "Uncommon Valor" ('83), "Dragonslayer" ('81), and the only one that logically might still have been in theaters in summer of 1985, "Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning" (came out in March). I wonder how they chose those titles for the decoration. Aside from Jason, were they ones Carl Reiner was partial toward?

On that note, it's a bummer to think that so many of the main people involved in this movie are dead now: Reiner, Candy, Crenna, Rip Torn as Candy's pirate buddy, producer George Shapiro, DP Ric Waite, editor Bud Molin, familiar bit players Richard Herd, Dick Anthony Williams, Lois Hamilton, Carmine Caridi, Reni Santoni. Sure it came out 40 whole years ago but there are still plenty of '80s movies where most of the crew are alive to this day. This one became bittersweet a little prematurely compared to its contemporaries.

Gag worth mentioning: Rip Torn acting like he's an actual salt-of-the-earth fisherman, sings the sea shanty his mother taught him as a lad and it's the "Love Boat" theme.

I'd happily rate this movie higher if it hadn't forgotten to finish its own assignment but it turns into an underdog sports competition at the end with the boat race to win a bet against Crenna, and ends on that note right after they cross the finish line without any other mention of how their summer vacation concluded or wrapped up, like any final sentiments or a scene of them driving home or anything! A little *too* breezy.

Sorry one last thing on this endless review: I have a soft spot for any city/town/municipality/place that's called [Something] Cove. It just evokes cozy scenic settings. The last movie I watched, "The Treasure", took place in Emerald Cove and now this one is in Citrus Cove. Good work, movies.

*upgraded from 1.5 stars to 3

Stop me if you've heard this one before: in a charming little beachside town (Emerald Cove), a regular kid, his pudgy dork friend and his other wannabe-cool kid friend who makes bad jokes find an old newspaper story about a missing person from long ago, and this leads them on an adventure to find the legend of hidden treasure inside nearby caves where pirates left it; on their trail hoping to rob some money for themselves are 3 low-class ex-cons: 2 bumbling men and a crabby old lady who bosses them around. Yes, they even cast someone who looks and talks like Anne Ramsey. Thorough.

But wait, this movie has its own ingredients too! A lighthouse plays a major part, the town's celebrating their big centennial, we get a "Stand by Me"-esque narrator, one benign character turns out to be a plot twist villain, some Benny Hill slapstick happens, uh how about a food fight as well?

Not high-grade stuff but it was actually shot on film so there's this attractive haze to the camera work especially in establishing shots of ocean waves spraying against cliffs. The symphonic adventure score is nothing to be ashamed of either, and the whole thing feels exactly like the types of YA kid-venture books I used to read hand over fist as a kid in the '90s so I can't begrudge it too much even if its action and comedy are pretty pitiful. Having it all filmed in my proverbial neck of the woods (southern CA - Carlsbad, Oceanside, Encinitas) makes it even harder for me to remain objective. What an overlooked masterpiece!

But really, they were at least kinda trying with the movie. It's not complete bunk as a blatant knock-off. There's even a tag after the end credits. What more do ya want.

Watched on Monday May 12, 2025.

Another one I didn't expect to like much (for anyone reading this out of context from my chain of logged reviews, I'm logging this right after the Adam Sandler movie "Hustle" that took me by some surprise), mainly because frankly I can't stand Jillian Bell most of the time. Nothing personal, she's just not funny (to me) in all the movies and shows she does. Something about that whole primary "Workaholics" cast makes me see red. They are sweating their asses off to be hilarious and it bounces right off on me in most of the work any of them have ever done (Adam DeVine being the most prolific, he's managed to pull it off a couple times along the way, in-between some of the most annoying performances imaginable). But it looks like she has an actual sense of humor and comic vivacity that I can plug into so long as she's not on screen! As the co-writer and director of this movie, she deserves major credit for the plentiful laughs and extended giggling jags it gave me.

A typical raunchy teen-girl comedy about sex and coming of age? Unlikely friendships, trying to turn a nerd into a cool person, a socially awkward lead character, second act fall-outs, a dream love interest they're going about wooing in all the wrong ways, episodic mishaps, training montages, silly fantasy sequences expressing the shy main girl's inner thoughts, a "save the rec center" plot device, tons of club-friendly needle drops set to slo-mo swagger, throwing an out-of-control party while your parents are out of town, profane and graphic sex talk in a movie that's ultimately very sweet, "Risky Business" and "Can't Buy Me Love" and "The To-Do List" (underrated), this movie's loaded with tropes and is kind of perfectly half-'80s teen sex comedy and half-2000s teen sex comedy? Yes but it's got a big zap of observational specificity, bright energy, reassuring positivity, good casting (Sam Morelos is a superb breakout in the lead, this is also SNL star Chloe Fineman's first headliner status in a movie and she earns it), and seems to really enjoy leaning into those tropes anew.

It's broadly plotted (no need to overthink the logic in any of these ridiculous scenarios) but emotionally true at its core. Some jokes are duds but that could be said of any funny movie out there. Plenty more land and overall this is just plain fun and winning. The high-school comedy is alive and well in the 2020s, even if it's trapped in the minor-league release realm (this went straight to Hulu). Well done, Jillian Bell!

I'm sure sports fans have way more informed and intricate takes on this movie set in the actual NBA about an actual team (the 76ers) featuring tons of sports-world cameos and constantly talking shop about the recruiting process and all this stuff that I don't understand because I just watch movies all the time, but as someone who watches movies all the time, I can at least offer my full endorsement of "Hustle" as worthy of ing the all-star team of best basketball-related movies in Hollywood history, even if (or in large part because?) it's determinedly low-key.

I didn't expect to care one whit about its story; looked way too inside-baseball (so to speak) for anyone who doesn't go to games, have all the stats memorized, or even know what city the 76ers play for. But it swiftly and assuredly draws you in like a riveting docudrama (even though it's not based on any true story, which may make it even more impressive). Maybe it's director Jeremiah Zagar's long career as a documentarian that makes this movie both so economically to-the-point and thorough.

Or maybe he's just a person of very fine taste, because everything about "Hustle" comes out smartly curated - dialogue, scene structure, characterization, insight, attitude, personality, inspiration, the way it calibrates Adam Sandler into the finest version of himself (not trying too hard to "do drama" like comic actors often stiffen up for, but actually seeming more relaxed and believable on screen than he's ever been, maybe because the topic at hand is one that he's actually into for once). Avoiding cheesy theatrics (you see a hundred cliched roads along the way that it doesn't go down) except for a big cheerful finale because that's one allowance we can all make in the name of goodwill, it's a movie that knows what it's talking about (praise be, an intelligent-sounding script!) and has the instincts to know how long it should let anything linger. A very good film, the epitome of inside-baseball (so to speak) yet still accessible and rewarding, with an Adam Sandler that has clearly transcended the "funny movie star dipping his toes in serious material" and fully developed a whole separate career as a genuine and essential actor.

Had a good time with this bouncy B-movie but the thought of describing all its tropes just bores me because we've seen so many features just like it in recent years. "Stunt porn" as a fellow Letterboxdian called it. "Over the top action comedy", "cartoony R-rated mayhem violence", I just can't keep saying the same things over and over and my vocabulary isn't big enough anymore to fire off new word combinations! It's Ke Huy Quan's "Love Hurts", Bautista's "The Killer's Game", "Boy Kills World", "Novocaine", "Bullet Train", "Back in Action", "Jackpot!", "Freelance", "Monkey Man", "Kill", "Sisu", "Violent Night", "Red Notice", "The Gray Man", "Nobody", "Gunpowder Milkshake", "Guns Akimbo", "Atomic Blonde", "The Hitman's Bodyguard", Guy Ritchie and Michael Bay and Matthew Vaughn and David Leitch and Joe Carnahan. And "Con Air". And all '90s plane thrillers. Watching this movie is like spending an infinite time loop inside a hall of mirrors with a bad case of deja vu.

Too much shaky cam, too many familiar pieces, forgot to include a final showdown with the main villain, and presumptuously acts like a guaranteed sequel is on the way even though this thing came out with virtually no marketing fanfare or buzz, BUT as I've probably asserted in a dozen other LB reviews of these endlessly multiplying movies I'll always prefer heightened/exaggerated/hyperbolic action over the regular kind (not sure how anyone who grew up in the era of Arnold and Shane Black and Stallone could feel differently)..

..and most importantly this is a downright great Josh Hartnett performance, letting loose like he never fully has before. That bleached hair works better than his brunette bedhead look ever did before, the camera loves him, he's cynical and world-weary and backstory-laden like an action hero you've spent 5 movies with already but also wildly temperamental giving him wacky spasmic reactions to everything instead of just being the broody stone-face tough guy. He was fun to watch in last year's "Trap" but that movie arguably succeeds more by its gimmicky premise than his casting, whereas the opposite is true of "Fight or Flight", in which the gimmicky premise is good for some creative narrative navigation (like no one on the plane knowing who the target is or even that they're all assassins) but succeeds more by his casting.

Trailers I Saw
1. Final Destination Bloodlines: I know this vicious nihilistic movie has been in production for quite a while but makes sense that it didn't come out until Trump was back in office. Part of me believes that it would've never been finished or released if Kamala had won, because society wouldn't have sunk that much further into this cesspool of bloodthirsty schadenfreude and impending doom. We wouldn’t have needed a movie like this.
2. I Know What You Did Last Summer: The Remake: yeah it looks straight up awful, but that didn't stop me from enjoying "I Still Know What You Did Last Summer".
3. The Roses: glad to have a Jay Roach comedy in theaters again, however it turns out.
4. Megan 2.0: front-runner for overplayed trailer of the season.
5. I Don't Understand You: pretty sure they gave away 90% or more of the twists and turns in this trailer. Would've been funnier to discover the script's morbid developments during the actual viewing.

Yet another entertaining straightforward thriller that teaches you a little bit about an occupation out there that we all take for granted (the people who answer 911 calls) with a seasoned instinctive movie star at the wheel. May remind you of "Cellular" from 2004 if anyone re that one - pure David R. Ellis pulp starring Kim Basinger and Chris Evans, also about a victim and a stranger connecting through a phone call and the breathless pursuit to outsmart a kidnapper, that fulfills its modest potential and then fucks off. Things get a bit contrived to keep Halle Berry on the line the whole time but the script makes an effort to justify these unlikely extensions at least. Michael Eklund makes a convincingly unknowable white male serial killer type (might as well be Michael Myers for all we learn about his motives but the revelation that he has a normal family back home makes it more disturbing), I think this was the first film of any consequence that Abigail Breslin made as a grown up and yeah she's pretty good at it, where's she been for the past decade? Also nice to see Michael Imperioli play *a person*, not someone defined entirely by their Italian heritage or crime syndicate connections.

Having Berry's character be so emotionally expressive is an additive to a movie that could've just been about dark thrills, so I don't mean to nitpick but a) that's the biggest coincidence ever that long after she's moved on from taking calls to being an instructor only, the very first time she intervenes on a random call it happens to be about the same uncaptured psycho she dealt with long ago. And b) I know the movie's somewhat intentional about how Berry keeps breaking her own rules of conduct (like telling newcomers not to make promises to callers, then doing so herself) but after she also teaches them never to get emotional during calls we see her break down immediately every single time when she's on these calls herself, like c'mon I know Halle Berry wanted an acting showcase for herself and it's good for drama but within the reality of the movie, this person ain't qualified for the job.

P.S. Impressive lack of any denouement (or mercy) with that ending, damn!

*interesting outlier for WWE Studios. All their other films (and they've produced a lot, more than you'd think) are either about wrestling, star vehicles for specific wrestler personalities, or military/action-based because they're a company founded on raging macho violence of course, but this one about a female 9-1-1 emergency services phone operator trying to remotely outsmart a kidnapper? Doesn't really fit in. Yes there's a wrestler in the cast (David Otunga) but he's like 8th billed.

Drifting back to "Backdraft" after all these years has exposed me (once again) as a sentimental old fool; what once felt turgid and middle-of-the-road in the '90s (when we held movies to a higher standard? the eternal debate, it's complicated) now grips and enthralls me in the 2020s with all its dearly-missed old-fashioned practical special effects (fire: the 2nd ultimate cinematic imagery after water?), embarrassment-of-riches A-list cast (that manages to prop up even a lightweight like Billy Baldwin), infotainment of learning more about a particular career lifestyle and technique, smashing cast chemistry and a steady pacing groove, a bonus mystery component of what this serial arson is all about that actually gives the movie a frightening edge (in those scenes where someone opens a door and a horrific fireball ignites in their face out of nowhere), and all-around sturdy blockbuster populism. What a ride! What took me so long to appreciate it..

Big explosions (did this pave the way for "Blown Away" to get made a couple years later?), gratuitous Hannibal Lecter subplot starring Donald Sutherland (why not just make him part of the firefighting team AND the secret arsonist?), amazing shot compositions by Mikael Salomon even when the movie's merely establishing a quiet two-person conversation (Kurt and De Mornay on the roof in their neighborhood), a cast that like I said is so big it's easy to forget that someone major like De Niro is even in it playing a blue-collar good guy off to the side (the "Copland" corollary), Kurt Russell and Jennifer Jason Leigh 24 years before they were chained together in "The Hateful Eight", William Baldwin's one big shot at stardom (you can't really compare the smaller ambitions of "Sliver", "Fair Game" or "Virus"), Kurt Russell in one of his two best-suited grumpy-yet-undeniably-virtuous law enforcement hero roles (the other being "Tombstone"), one of the final gasps of Jason Gedrick's short-lived movie career. Ron Howard back when his nondescript directorial acumen went to good causes (not sure what the hell happened to him after the '90s that made all his subsequent dozen+ movies and counting so weak). Maybe I can't be objective with all this '90s nostalgia clouding my view, but something about the quality of storytelling, spectacle, charisma and basic intelligence that went into "Backdraft" is telling of how well-crafted mainstream studio films for adults could be back then.

*upgraded from 2 stars to 4

Even if I didn't already think of surfing as one of cinema's great multipurpose devices (thanks, "Point Break"), I'd still be here to champion Lorcan Finnegan's "The Surfer" as a mesmerizing, soul-swallowing existential odyssey. But the beach setting and surf footage certainly help ;) especially the way it all glows off the screen like some restored print of a '70s drive-in picture, doused with extra coloration, vividly surreal lighting choices and set to an ironically unnerving score of languid surf noir. Even without the characters or narrative this movie is a pretty stunning sensory experience. Brilliant toggling between self-consciously hyper close-ups and wider shots capturing both the natural beauty and the stinging pains of this place. Aquatic shimmers across Cage's face when he drifts into reminiscence. Cutaways to bird chirps that sound like they're laughing at him, just to exacerbate his discomfort.

Counts as a Nic Cage freak-out film too, something that the cult of his mega acting will voraciously gobble up, BUT unlike other entries such as "The Wicker Man" or "Mandy" this never reads as a Cage indulgence in search of a movie. "The Surfer" is its own inspired yet unique, sharply defined and thoughtfully mystical thing that just so happens to have found the perfect actor for its lead. And Cage to his great credit infuses it with authenticity, shucking away the garishly artificial notes he can be pretty bad at playing in other wannabe-weirdo roles. He captures the detailed ground-level everyman humanity of this guy who gets lost in a beach parking lot, and then expertly controls the manner in which he inevitably freaks out. It's everything you love about Nicolas Cage, fully refined. Lorcan Finnegan probably shares a lot of credit for that.

Which is surprising because his previous film "Vivarium" which went for a similar panic attack nightmare claustrophobia only within the infinite conformity of suburbia instead of the beach, was an unbearably tedious and unfocused "Twilight Zone"-aping chore. Maybe he just needed to find a better setting for these themes and sensations. "The Surfer" evokes "Wake in Fright" (hapless guy psychologically terrorized out in the wilds of Australia), "Falling Down" (man pushed to insanity by injustice, bullies and an uncaring world) and "Let the Corpses Tan" (borderline abstract story taking place under extremely sun-baked stylistic oppression) but perhaps most of all Burt Lancaster's unofficial classic "The Swimmer" (dreamy hallucinatory masculine breakdown adjacent to bodies of water that the protagonist yearns to be in). This is "The Swimmer" of the 21st century. Maybe a little more loopy and less melodramatic but captures much of that movie's complex power.

And it's open to interpretation in a way that tickles the brain rather than frustrates your sense of reason. Tough needle to thread when it comes to movies that aren't operating strictly within the borders of reality. They can often come off as ponderous and lost up their own asses, but there's a connectivity here between all the puzzle pieces that suggests some possible transcendence of time and space while still telling a linear story that you could take as face value (outlandish though chapters of it are). I prefer this suggestive layering over a surreal movie that just drifts off into nonsense.

And just as a final cheer, this is probably the best I've ever seen of Julian McMahon, who had 15 minutes of American fame in that FX plastic surgery show a long time ago ("Nip/Tuck") and even scored what will soon be known as the RDJ role in those first two lame "Fantastic Four" studio pictures, but since then on my radar at least has only ever shown up again as the bad guy in that pretty cool sharks-in-a-grocery-store movie "Bait 3D". Here he's Scally, the Guru, a leader of the bay boys, a gang of brutally cruel surfers who antagonize Cage when he tries to enter the beach with his son one afternoon. Basically a sinister Big Kahuna, and McMahon plays it with enormous magnetism. If there was a Best Villain category at the Oscars (since they're accepting new ideas lately, it seems), he would be a nomination lock.

Trailers I Saw
1. F1: eh, race tracks. They're no beach as far as movie settings go, but I'm sure Joseph Kosinski will make it a little bit exciting.
2. The Roses: looks quite funny and with a delightful cast, just hope this trailer didn't give too much away (they're pointing guns at each by the end, how much farther can the movie itself go beyond that?)
3. The Unholy Trinity: Samuel L. Jackson in "Hateful Eight" cosplay again vs. Pierce Brosnan in a traditional action western; this seems like a movie that would've been made in 1999. Not complaining.
4. Hurry Up Tomorrow: even if it ends up as some self-serving career boost for The Weeknd more than anything else (not sure if it will, but that's how it was conceived), at least we get more master-level Trey Edward Shults filmatism.

After the epic accomplishment of "Malcolm X" in '92 it's not that Spike Lee set his sights lower, but the string of films that followed - "Crooklyn", "Clockers", "Girl 6", "Get on the Bus" and "He Got Game" up until about "Summer of Sam" and/or "25th Hour" when his scope seemed to widen again - had this journeyman quality, like he just wanted to tell good stories in his own personal way, ones that weren't screaming for attention as prestige awards bait or stylistic novelties. And give or take a "Girl 6", it was a strong, fruitful period of readjustment for him.

If it helps to short-hand what kind of movie "Clockers" was, Scorsese was originally signed on to direct it before his preference for "Casino" led him away (still has a producer credit), so yeah, cops 'n' criminals thriller in Brooklyn neighborhoods, in this case young Mekhi Phifer (first movie role) struggling with his conscience about dealing drugs for local kingpin Delroy Lindo (in his 3rd of 4 career Spike Lee collabs, the last one he starred in for 15 years before "Da 5 Bloods"), while Harvey Keitel, John Turturro and Keith David are the fuzz trying to get Phifer to hand over his boss. A street crime drama, an urban tragedy and even a murder mystery whodunit all along, it burns with that Spike Lee energy and aggression but actually has a somber, morose undercurrent (evidenced most openly by Terence Blanchard's score) like he's already matured into a reflective state of mind about these kinds of stories and characters. Gives the movie more dimension and resonance.

On a personal note I really like the saturated look in the lighting choices and colors and lensing - the whole movie has this juicy mid-'90s visual richness that you just want to rub your face against, if that makes any sense.

And the cast is straight-through aces, none of them playing outside their normal types really but reminding us how indispensable each of them have been. (there's also Tom Byrd, Mike Starr, Paul Calderon, Regina Taylor, Michael Imperioli and Isaiah Washington who before getting mostly canceled a decade later due to homophobic behavior on the "Grey's Anatomy" set was giving a real Sterling K. Brown-type quiet emotional strength in this).

It's high-time to catch up on Delroy Lindo's work - his stardom flourished in the mid-'90s but then after the century turn he kinda lost his way ("The Core", "Sahara", stuff you've never heard of, arguably bottoming out in the "Point Break" remake) until incidentally coming back to work for Spike Lee again in 2020 to grand effect, after which he had a special part in "The Harder They Fall" and then just this spring cemented his legend status with "Sinners". "Clockers" is another memorable one of his, and came barely a year after doing a way different type of character in another Lee t ("Crooklyn", where he's the loving father).

*nice end-credits ballad: "Love Me Still" by Chaka Khan and Bruce Hornsby

*part of The Anniverseries - 30 years old now and while not a boldly original work, it was made with a level of grace that has aged well

The missing "Omen" sequel between "Damien" and "The Final Conflict", a wild, careening "Antichrist Goes to High School" that includes a gratuitously A+ soundtrack (Ramones, Sex Pistols, Talking Heads, Boomtown Rats, B-52s, Patti Smith, Rezillos), island party horror, killer dodgeball, and more heavily queer-coded scenes than "Freddy's Revenge". I was strapping in for concentrated midnight-movie camp after the opening scene with that fantastic Lucifer make-up, foggy sets, looming mansion, a whole mystically lit aura and fever-dream pace, but while the movie continues to throw fireballs now and then up through the ending, it does sag after a while with duller characters and protracted drama. Still, provides more of a sugar high for horror fans than the average go-ahead-and-nap-through-the-whole-brooding-thing religious-macabre picture.

*finally posted 6/9/2025

Just realized I never posted this. Had it on Privacy lock in my lists for the past 7 years or so. I missed out on probably 2 whole likes in all that time! Tragic.

*Uncommonly triumphant spring release schedule this year

*Man, I never realized how common it was for a movie poster to feature the main character posing dramatically in the center.

Favorite Movie of 2017: Lady Bird, saw twice in theaters, once with my wife Elizabeth, once with my mom after it was nominated for Best Picture (she always liked to catch up to all the nominees before the big show).

Top 10 (have only re-watched a couple of these movies in all the years since 2017 so this list is subject to change)
1. Greta Gerwig's coming-of-age directing debut
2. James Mangold's blistering meditation on mortality (via superheroes)
3. Hugh and DK Welchman's innovative animated rumination on the life of an artist
4. Shinichiro Ueda's meta zombie movie about making a zombie movie
5. Guillermo del Toro's revisionist Creature from the Black Lagoon
6. Tyler McIntyre's pitch-black buddy comedy high school slasher
7. Andy Muschietti's widescreen first parter of the Stephen King clown horror epic
8. Aaron Sorkin's directing debut
9. Taika Waititi's ecstatic superhero sci-fi action comedy
10. Noah Baumbach's version of The Royal Tenenbaums

2017 Movies I Like More Than the Average Person
- Loving Vincent
- Tragedy Girls
- Molly's Game
- Dean
- Kingsman 2: The Golden Circle
- Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets
- Wilson
- The Lego Ninjago Movie
- The Little Hours
- Lost in London
- Guy Ritchie's King Arthur

2017 Movies I Like Less Than the Average Person
- The Florida Project
- You Were Never Really Here
- The Killing of a Sacred Deer
- Call Me by Your Name

2017 Movies I Haven't Seen
- Wonder
- Gifted
- Pitch Perfect 3
- Marrowbone
- The Square
- Thelma
- Disobedience
- Bright
- Power Rangers
- Super Dark Times
- Fifty Shades Darker
- Veronica
- Daddy's Home 2
- A Dog's Purpose
- Hostiles
- Beach Rats
- The Circle
- American Assassin
- Stronger
- The Dark Tower
- Captain Underpants
- The Rider
- A Fantastic Woman
- Everything, Everything (YA adaptation)
- Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond
- Girls Trip
- Lucky (Harry Dean Stanton)
- Mudbound
- All the Money in the World
- Icarus
- The Foreigner
- Shot Called
- Ferdinand
- The Snowman
- The Upside
- Cargo
- The Glass Castle
- Going in Style remake
- Papillon remake
- Mary Shelley
- Ghost Stories
- Flower
- Professor Marston and the Wonder Woman
- Lean on Pete
- Suburbicon
- The Wife
- Flatliners remake
- The Only Boy Living in New York
- XXX: Return of Xander Cage
- Hagazusa
- Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul
- Roman J. Israel, Esq.
- Fist Fight
- Home Again
- Smurfs: The Lost Village
- The Book of Henry
- The Mountain Between Us
- A Prayer Before Dawn
- Beast
- In the Fade
- Rings
- The Zookeeper's Wife
- Blade of the Immortal
- Breathe
- Kodachrome
- Goodbye Christopher Robin
- War Machine
- The Current War
- Wonderstruck
- Godless
- CHiPs the Movie
- XX
- Victoria & Abdul
- I Kill Giants
- Please Stand by
- The Children Act
- Sandy Wexler
- Gemini
- Landline
- Father Figures (Owen Wilson)
- The Polka King
- Before We Vanish
- Sleepless
- Megan Leavey
- Patti Cake$
- The Layover
- Thank You for Your Service
- Goon 2
- Surf's Up 2: WaveMania
- The Ballad of Lefty Brown
- The Star (animated)
- Aftermath (Arnold)
- Killing Gunther (Arnold)
- Izzy Gets the Fuck Across Town
- Once Upon a Time in Venice (Bruce Willis)
- The Man from Earth 2: Holocene

2017 Movies I Haven't Seen But Definitely Want to
- November
- On Chesil Beach
- Win it All (Jake Johnson)
- Before I Wall
- Night is Short, Walk on Girl
- The VelociPastor
- Person to Person
- Our Souls at Night
- The Leisure Seeker
- Three Christs
- Infinity Baby
- King Cohen
- Perfect Strangers
- Breakable You
- Tehran Taboo
- The Tribes of Palos Verdes

1. Lady Bird
2. Logan
3. Loving Vincent
4. One Cut of the Dead
5. The Shape of Water
6. Tragedy Girls
7. It
8. Molly's Game
9. Thor: Ragnarok
10. The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected)

...plus 160 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

*first posted 2022

Favorite Movie of 1985: Back to the Future. I know, it's everyone's favorite movie, how original. I'm of the genesis pool for that cliche.

Top 10:
1. Robert Zemeckis time travel comedy
2. John Hughes teen conversation drama
3. Jonathan Lynn murder mystery comedy
4. Richard Donner children's adventure
5. William Friedkin's helL.A. neo-noir
6. Tim Burton's road trip fantasy comedy
7. Juzo Itami food comedy
8. George A. Romero's post-apocalyptic zombie drama
9. Savage Steve Holland's surreal teen comedy
10. Martha Coolidge's college caper

1985 Best Picture Winner: #70 Out of Africa
Of the 5 Best Picture Nominees, Which Deserved the Win: all fairly classy choices (Africa, Prizzi's Honor, Witness, Kiss of the Spider Woman, The Color Purple), none a great film, but The Color Purple came closest
1985 Highest Grossing Film: #1 Back to the Future ($210m)
Number of Movies I Saw in Theaters That Year: nope, this is it. Too close to my birth 5 years earlier. I may have seen a Disney animation re-release or two during this time but that's about it.
How many movies I would give at least a ing recommendation rating of 3 stars to: 86
Is my #1 film a true A+ Hall of Famer: it IS my #1 film. 1985 is where my favorite movie came from!

Other Fun Facts:
- Tim Curry watch: Clue, his 2nd most iconic performance after Frank N. Furter. Also Legend, he was doing stage work, a TV film Ligmalion: A Musical for the '80s and probably the closest he ever came to an all-out star vehicle tailored to himself, another TV movie called Blue Money. One of Curry's most memorable working years.
- starting a franchise: Back to the Future, The Return of the Living Dead, Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, Police Story, House, Re-Animator, The Care Bears Movie, Ghoulies
- death of a franchise: Day of the Dead (for a while), Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (for a while), Ewoks: The Battle for Endor, The Jewel of the Nile, The Adventures of Hercules (Lou Ferrigno), Porky's 3
- not really a franchise but they got to have to a sequel: Fright Night, Teen Wolf, Fletch, Cocoon, Demons
- movies that became TV shows later: Back to the Future, Teen Wolf, Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, The Care Bears Movie, Weird Science
- movies that were re-made later: Day of the Dead, Fright Night
- Disney Animation Canon watch: The Black Cauldron, the unquestioned nadir of their history
- Arnold watch: Commando and Red Sonja
- the state of movie spoofs: Rustlers' Rhapsody
- Stephen King adaptations: Cat's Eye and Silver Bullet
- Woody Allen annual watch: The Purple Rose of Cairo
- movies from 1985 that I watched repeatedly: Back to the Future, Clue, The Goonies, Commando, The Breakfast Club, Rocky IV, Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, Ladyhawke, Teen Wolf, D.A.R.Y.L.

1985 Movies I Like More Than the Average Person:
- Day of the Dead (A-)
- Fandango (B+)
- Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (B+)
- Volunteers (B)
- Red Sonja (C+)
- Police Academy 2 (C+)

1985 Movies I Like Less Than the Average Person:
- Silverado (C+)
- Pale Rider (C)
- Demons (C)

Notable 1985 Movies I Haven't Seen:
- Come and See
- Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters
- Rambo: First Blood Part 2
- My Beautiful Laundrette
- Desert Hearts
- Shoah
- Vampire Hunter D
- My Life as a Dog
- Smooth Talk
- Year of the Dragon
- Night on the Galactic Railroad
- Death Wish 3
- Insignificance
- The Last Dragon
- American Ninja
- The Protector
- Invasion U.S.A.
- Code of Silence
- Missing in Action 2
- Malibu Express
- A Chorus Line
- Vagabond (Agnes Varda)
- Angel's Egg (anime)
- Taipei Story (Edward Yang)
- The Time to Live and the Time to Die (Hou Hsiao-hsien)
- A Zed & Two Noughts (Peter Greenaway)
- The Official Story (Luis Puenzo)
- Tokyo-Ga
- When Father Was Away on Business (Emir Kusturica)
- Trouble in Mind
- Guinea Pig 2
- King Solomon's Mines
- The Peanut Butter Solution
- Mr. Vampire
- Agnes of God
- White Nights
- Krush Groove
- Stick (Burt Reynolds)
- The Holcroft Covenant
- The Trip to Bountiful
- Pray for Death
- Plenty (Meryl)
- The Shooting Party
- Four Sisters (Obayashi)
- Porky's 3: Revenge

Seen But Don't Enough to Rate, So I'll Have to Re-Watch it Sometime
- The Legend of Billie Jean
- Murphy's Romance

Not Notable But Ones I Still Kinda Want to See:
- The Park is Mine (Tommy Lee Jones)
- Radioactive Dreams
- Sweet Dreams
- Creature (William Malone)
- Revolution (Pacino)
- The Coca-Cola Kid
- The Mean Season
- Thou Shalt Not Kill...Except
- Hard Rock Zombies
- Seven Minutes in Heaven
- Turk 182!
- That Was Then...This is Now
- Target (Hackman & Dillon)
- Too Scared to Scream
- Creator (Peter O'Toole)
- That's Dancing!
- Compromising Positions
- Turtle Diary
- Bad Medicine (Guttenberg)
- Stitches
- Maxie (Glenn Close/Mandy Patinkin ghost comedy)
- Starcrossed
- Treasure of the Amazon
- The Boys Next Door
- Basic Training
- American Drive-in
- Movers & Shakers
- Arthur the King
- Paradise Motel
- Doin' Time
- The Slugger's Wife
- Surviving (Molly Ringwald, Zach Galligan)
- Hot Resort
- Hold Up
- Always...But Not Forever
- Echo Park
- Feel the Motion
- Fortress

1. Back to the Future
2. The Breakfast Club
3. Clue
4. The Goonies
5. To Live and Die in L.A.
6. Pee-wee's Big Adventure
7. Tampopo
8. Day of the Dead
9. Better Off Dead...
10. Real Genius

...plus 126 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

It's August 2015 - I'm probably still on the ground floor of this whole "ranking a director's filmography" list idea, so get ready for a revolution!

Okay this is as unoriginal as lists get, but I'm throwing my hat in the ring on a bunch of my personal favorites, starting with #1 Mr. Anderson.

"The Royal Tenenbaums" is absolutely his best film, "Moonrise" a close second, "Rushmore" and "Mr. Fox" are truly marvelous as well, "Darjeeling" is underrated, "Grand Budapest" is exquisite itself yet actually a bit OVERrated I think, and my appreciation for "The Life Aquatic" has risen steadily over the years and thanks to some re-watches, to the point where it could possibly overtake "Darjeeling" and "Budapest" at this point but I can't say for sure until I've seen those other ones another couple times. [ed. note - it has]

"Bottle Rocket" is good but simply doesn't compare to all the rest.

*updated March 2022*
*updated June 2025*

1. The Royal Tenenbaums (A+)
2. Moonrise Kingdom (A+)
3. Fantastic Mr. Fox (A)
4. Rushmore (A)
5. Isle of Dogs (A)
6. The French Dispatch (A)
7. The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (A-)
8. The Grand Budapest Hotel (A-)
9. Asteroid City (B+) but will probably rise the ranks over time
10. The Darjeeling Limited (B+)
11. The Phoenician Scheme (B+)
12. Bottle Rocket (B)

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

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

*posted 2020

Does this sum it up?

(sorry that the heading image is of Leo instead of Dafoe himself)

Pixar, Marvel, Wes Anderson, Scorsese, Schrader, Ferrara, Von Trier, quite the spectrum of frequent collaborators. Dafoe can do it all and he seems to be getting even better with age. Another one of my favorite actors.

AS YET UNSEEN DAFOETION PICTURES (too many!)
- Off Limits (1988)
- Triumph of the SPirit (1989)
- Flight of the Intruder (1991)
- Light Sleeper (1992)
- Body of Evidence (1993)
- Faraway, So Close! (1993)
- Tom & Viv (1994)
- The Night and the Moment (1995)
- Victory (1996)
- Basquiat (1996)
- Affliction (1997)
- Lulu on the Bridge (1998)
*not going to see "The Boondock Saints", no thanks
- Animal Factor (2000)
- Pavilion of Women (2001)
- Edges of the Lord (2001)
- The Reckoning (2003)
- The Clearing (2004)
- Jiminy Glick in Lalawood (2004)
- Control (2004)
- Before it Had a Name (2005)
- Ripley Under Ground (2005)
- American Dreamz (2006)
- The Walker (2007)
- Mr. Bean's Holiday (2007)
- Go Go Tales (2007)
- Anamorph (2007)
- Fireflies in the Garden (2008)
- Adam Resurrected (2008)
- The Dust of Time (2008)
- Affaire Farewell (2009)
- My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done? (2009)
- Miral (2010)
- A Woman (2010)
- 4:44 Last Day on Earth (2011)
- The Hunter (2011)
- Tomorrow You're Gone (2012)
- Odd Thomas (2013)
- Out of the Furnace (2013)
- Nymphomaniac (2013)
- A Most Wanted Man (2014)
- Bad Country (2014)
- The Fault in Our Stars (2014)
- Pasolini (2014)
- My Hindu Friend (2015)
- Dog Eat Dog (2016)
- A Family Man (2016)
- Sculpt (2016)
- Mountain (2017)
- Opus Zero (2017)
- At Eternity's Gate (2018)
- Birds of a Feather (2019)
- Tommaso (2019)
- Togo (2019)
- The Last Thing He Wanted (2020)
- Siberia (2020)
- Sportin' Life (2020)
- Dead for a Dollar (2022)
- Finally Dawn (2023)
- Pet Shop Days (2023)
- Gonzo Girl (2023)
- Tropico (2025)
- The Man in My Basement (2025)

1. The Aviator
2. Finding Nemo
3. Fantastic Mr. Fox
4. The Lighthouse
5. To Live and Die in L.A.
6. Spider-Man 2
7. The Grand Budapest Hotel
8. The Northman
9. Wild at Heart
10. The French Dispatch

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

*first posted May 15, 2021*

Who knows why we attach ourselves to certain sub-genres in the pop culture we consume. A lot of different types of movies made deep impressions on me as a kid, so how did the "Jaws" series imprint on me harder than most, leading to this lifelong Quint-like shark movie pursuit? I've traveled through all the portals of horror cinema in my time and yet the only scary thing that still makes my heart stop and pulse quicken when it appears on screen is a great white. And it's not like I was traumatized by one in real life, and those old "Jaws" movies aren't gauntlets of pure terror or anything so how did I get here? How did any of us get here.

Who cares, I love 'em and want more. But the good ones, you see. I'm not an all-purpose fin-flick enthusiast. It's nice that killer sharks enjoyed some kind of cultural renaissance through campy DTV quickies and SyFy Channel drive-in throwback pantomime (not so nice what's happening to sharks in real life by hunters, but let's assume it's possible in theory for evil shark movies AND banning the sport of slaughtering them in our reality to co-exist someday) but there's no joy in watching any of that rotten bait 'n' tackle. Shark movies are welcome to be silly and completely beyond the realm of plausible but how about some respect for the minimum requirements of entertainment, like production values, special effects, tolerable actors, some punch to the script..

Therefore in ranking shark movies let's just forget about all the "Sharknado"s and "The Shark That Ate Cleveland" and "Shark Jesus Vs. Squid Satan" or whatever. Too much clutter, none of it matters. Which means I also have to eliminate the prototypes for those knock-offs, the Joe D'Amato/Rene Cardona Jr./Italian riffs on "Jaws" that dotted the landscape in the '80s and '90s. They have a certain guilty pleasure glow but cannot be measured by the merits of what makes a shark movie effective. They'll be included in the lists below.

The only bottom-feeders I added to this main list are a couple that actually have something to offer, however waywardly ("Blue Demon", "From the Depths"). And "Great White" and "Dark Tide" because, while hopelessly mediocre, they at least seem to have been made on a more professional level than something like "Shark Nazis of the Deep" (take my word for it).

1. JAWS (A) - the apex predator

2. THE SHALLOWS (A) - the incredibly talented rookie nipping at its heels. Seriously, this has the best shark effects of any movie ever made so far, simplifies shark-phobia fiction to its most elemental nature, and has a great lead performance on top of needlessly breathtaking oceanic cinematography

3. DEEP BLUE SEA (A) - the only other good non-"Jaws"-related shark movie that existed for decades, schlocky but in the best way.

4. 47 METERS DOWN: UNCAGED (B+) - an underrated should-be classic. Delivers way harder than the first "47MD" and knows exactly what a shark movie should be on just about every level (except casting, it could've used a couple character actors for more flavor).

5. 12 DAYS OF TERROR (B+) - the rare period piece shark drama, and it works in a straightforward respectable way.

6. OPEN WATER (B) - realistic shark scenario in found footage style, a truly unsettling novelty with an ending that still haunts me.

7. 47 METERS DOWN (B) - shark noir! Shadowy, dreamlike and all about what might be out there beyond your field of vision, tapping into some core ideas about man's fear of the ocean.

8. JAWS 3-D (B) - poorly done in some ways, but a brilliant idea for a shark movie (set in a Sea World with brand new underwater attractions) and I've enjoyed it all the 30 or so times I've seen it in my life, so no apologies or excuses here.

9. THE REEF (B) - another sort-of naturalistic approach that just wants to immerse you in a horrifying what-if where there's no reasonable escape from these creatures out in the middle of their territory. It could happen! Probably?

10. JAWS 2 (B) - gets the job done, still has Scheider, competently made, the only other old-school (like pre-'90s) shark movie made to be taken seriously on a Hollywood studio level.

Garbage That Doesn't Count
- Shark! (1969) (not all that bad, but unworthy of a shark list)
- Mako: The Jaws of Death (1976)
- Tintorera: Killer Shark (1977) (D)
- Cyclone (1978)
- The Last Shark (aka Great White) (1981) (D+)
- Devil Fish (1984)
- Deep Blood (1990) (F)
- Cruel Jaws (1995) (C)
- Shark Attack (1999) (D)
- Shark Attack II (2000) (D-)
- Shark Hunter (2001) (C)
- Shark Attack 3: Megalodon (2002) (D+)
- Megalodon (2002) (D+)
- Dark Waters (2003) (D-)
- Red Water (2003) Lou Diamond Phillips and Kristy Swanson
- Shark Zone (2003)
- Shark Attack in the Mediterranean (2004)
- Spring Break Shark Attack (2005) (C-)
- Hammerhead: SharkMan (2005) (F)
- Raging Sharks (2005)
- Shark Swarm (2008)
- Sharks in Venice (2008) (F)
- Mega-Shark vs. Giant Octopus (2009) (D)
- Malibu Shark Attack (2009)
- Jaws in Japan aka Psycho Shark (2009) (F)
- Dino-Shark (2010)
- Mega-Shark vs. Crocosaurus (2010)
- Sharktopus (2010)
- Sand Sharks (2011)
- Swamp Shark (2011)
- Super Shark (2011)
- Shark Week (2012) (D+)
- Jurassic Shark (2012)
- Jersey Shore Shark Attack (2012)
- Sand Sharks (2012)
- 2-Headed Shark Attack (2012)
- Sharknado (2013) (F)
- Ghost Shark (2013)
- Avalanche Sharks (2014)
- 90210 Shark Attack (2014)
- Mega-Shark vs. Mecha Shark (2014)
- Sharknado 2: The Second One (2014) (D)
- Sharktopus vs. Pteracuda (2014)
- Sharktopus vs. Whalewolf (2015)
- Mega-Shark vs. Kolossus (2015)
- Ghost Shark 2: Urban Jaws (2015)
- Shark Exorcist (2015)
- Shark Killer (2015)
- 3-Headed Shark Attack (2015)
- Raiders of the Lost Shark (2015)
- Sharkansas Women's Prison Massacre (2015)
- Shark Lake (2015) Dolph Lundgren
- Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No! (2015) (F)
- Planet of the Sharks (2016)
- Dam Sharks (2016)
- Ice Shark (2016)
- Ozark Sharks (2016)
- Piranha Sharks (2016)
- Sharkenstein (2016)
- Sharknado 4: The 4th Awakens (2016) (F)
- 5-Headed Shark Attack (2017)
- Empire of the Shark (2017)
- Mississippi River Sharks (2017)
- Sharknado 5: Global Swarming (2017) (C+)
- Trailer Park Shark (2017)
- Toxic Shark (2017)
- House Shark (2017)
- The Last Sharknado: It's About Time (2018) (C+)
- Megalodon (2018)
- Nightmare Shark (2018)
- 6-Headed Shark Attack (2018)
- Surrounded (aka Frenzy) (2018)
- Concrete Shark (2020)
- Ouija Shark (2020)
- Shark Season (2020) (D)
- Sky Sharks (2020)
- Virus Shark (2021)

Movies With Shark Stuff in 'Em
- The Life Aquatic (they're hunting the mythical jaguar shark)
- Blue Water, White Death (documentary about great whites)
- The Shark is Still Working (documentary about the making of Jaws)
- Joe vs. the Volcano (Joe catches a hammerhead during a fishing montage, screams in terror and throws it back)
- Aquaman (people ride great whites like horses)
- The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lava Girl
- Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (skeleton sharks!)
- The Willoughbys (shark attack at the end)
- James and the Giant Peach (attacked by mechanical shark)
- The Waterbabies (one of the villains is a shark)
- Windsurfer (shark attack that traumatizes the main character)
- Kon-Tiki (cameo appearances by sharks during their voyage)
- Finding Nemo (a gang of Australian sharks)
- Shark Tale :\
- The Chipmunk Adventure (shark attack chase sequence during a dive into a shipwreck)
- She Gods of Shark Reef
- The Deep 1977 (shark attack)
- USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage (half historical drama, half mass shark attack)
- Mission of the Shark (1991) (same as USS Indianapolis)
- Soul Surfer (shark attack that traumatizes the main character)
- Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (Ace falls into a vat of water inside a mansion where a shark tries to mutilate him)
- The Beach Bum (a shark kills one of McConaughey's friends)
- Licence to Kill (bad guy has a tiger shark in a tank in his lair, uses it to torture Felix)
- Zombi 2 (shark vs. zombie)
- Undercover Brother (villain is eaten by a shark at the end) (spoilers)
- The Old Man and the Sea 1958 (I think he encounters one at some point)
- Flipper 1995 (Elijah Wood is attacked by a hammerhead! Which Flipper and his dolphin family then gang up on and ram nearly to death with their snouts)
- Batman: The Movie (a shark bites Batman's leg but he blows it up using bat-shark repellent)
- Toy Story ("Hi I'm Woody, howdy howdy howdy")
- Jurassic World (they feed a great white to the Mosasaurus, almost as a middle finger to "Jaws" I guess?)
- Drive-in (part of the movie-within-a-movie "Disaster '76" includes snippets of a woman floating in water with a shark fin circling her)
- It Had to Be You (2015 rom-com) (during a screening of a movie they're composing, we see a scene of a woman fighting off three sharks that are inching their way out of the water onto the beach toward her)
- Unbroken (some soldier guys during the war are stuck on lifeboats out at sea, trying to avoid being shot by enemy planes above and having to shoo away encroaching sharks. No real full view of the sharks, mostly just fins and backsides implying their presence)

I'm sure I've forgotten to include a bunch, but this will be a work in progress.

Some shark things to look forward to:

- The Wreck (basically Uncaged all over again: "a group of old college friends who reunite on a Caribbean scuba diving trip exploring the wreckage of a WWII battleship and find themselves trapped inside the underwater labyrinth of rusted metal surrounded by great white sharks.")

- Alphas (Sam Worthington stars; great whites vs. orcas)

- The Last Breath (something about divers under attack while exploring a shipwreck)

- The Red Triangle (Johannes Roberts!) (sharks feast on a sinking cruise ship) (sounds like the greatest movie ever)

- Renny fucking Harling doing it again! Deep in the Water or something

- The Devil’s Mouth (Jeff Wadlow, Entertainment One)

- Beast of War (Kiah Roache-Turner) (practical creature effects!) (www.joblo.com/beast-of-war-fun/)

- The Ascent (Adam Green)

- The Bay (destination wedding in Thailand, sinking tour boat, tiger sharks)

1. Jaws
2. The Shallows
3. Deep Blue Sea
4. 47 Meters Down: Uncaged
5. Open Water
6. 47 Meters Down
7. Jaws 3-D
8. The Reef
9. Jaws 2
10. 12 Days of Terror

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

Have I ever mentioned that guy Dave who roams the Letterboxd halls? letterboxd.conexionsite.com/paradoxdl/ Cool guy. We collaborate on a number of movie-watching endeavors, one of which we call Movie of the Month (MOTM). For this one, each person selects a movie for the other to watch at the start of each month, something they haven't seen (although that rule isn't absolute - for example, for me "Joe vs. the Volcano", "Always" and a couple others have been second viewings, but my opinion of them was so forgotten after decades that they felt new this time around), something special we want to share from our personal tastes and/or that we think the other person might really enjoy.

We've been doing it for about five years now, including one time in December 2016 when we dedicated a whole 10-title Scavenger Hunt exchange to it. This is a ranked list of the ones Dave has chosen for me month by month from the beginning. It's incomplete, as I can't some of the earliest ones, but I'll correct that eventually. Dave! Help me out. What am I missing here?

For the record, my favorites so far:
- Joe vs. the Volcano (now one of my most cherished movies of all)
- Always (we'll defend you, Spielberg!)
- The Bridges of Madison County (so lovely..)
- Leap of Faith (magical)
- Mississippi Grind
- You Don't Know Jack

Updates:
June 2019: usually we only do one per month but I've been feeling ambitious lately so Dave handed me 4: three Alec Baldwin movies ("The Juror", "Concussion", "Prelude to a Kiss") and a movie he knew I never wanted to see but that he believes in ("Patriots Day").

May 2020: a Gary Sinise twofer with "Of Mice and Men" and "A Midnight Clear"

August 2020: See No Evil, Hear No Evil (rental)
September 2020: High and Low (Criterion)
October 2020: The Man with One Red Shoe (HBO)
November 2020: Snowden (HBOMax)
December 2020: The Paperboy (Tubi)
January 2021: Birdman of Alcatraz (Amazon Prime)
February 2021: The Pledge (HBOMax)
March 2021: The Time Traveler's Wife (DVD)
April 2021: Sneakers (DVD)
May 2021: The Bedroom Window (Amazon Prime)
June 2021: The Reader (IMDBtv)
July 2021: The Thomas Crown Affair 1999 (Starz)
August 2021: happythankyoumoreplease (Prime)
September 2021: Pacific Heights (Starz) and Blue Steel (Tubi)
October 2021: Real Women Have Curves (HBOMax)
November 2021: House of Sand and Fog (Prime)
December 2021: Radio Flyer (HBOMax)
January 2022: Disconnect (Prime)
February 2022: The Mirror Has Two Faces (Netflix)
March 2022: The Proposal (Amazon Prime)
April 2022: Bound (Showtime)
May 2022: The Family Fang (Tubi)
June 2022: Birth (HBOMax)
July 2022: Costner special: Black or White (Starz), Criminal (Vudu)
August 2022: The Waterdance (Tubi)
September 2022: Pulse 1988 (Tubi)
October 2022: Death and the Maiden (Tubi)
November 2022: Hannah Gadsby double feature: Nanette and Douglas (Netflix)
December 2022: Spielberg (the documentary) (HBOMax)
January 2023: I'll See You in My Dreams (HBOMax)
February 2023: Nine Lives (Crackle)
March 2023: When a Man Loves a Woman (Hulu)
April 2023: Mortal Thoughts (Crackle)
May 2023: Affliction (Tubi)
June 2023: Predestination (n/a)
July 2023: Clean and Sober (HBOMax)
August 2023: Shiva Baby (HBOMax)
September 2023: The Voices (Amazon Prime)
October 2023: End of Watch (Amazon rental)
November 2023: our first ever hiatus!
December 2023: Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret (Prime)
January 2024: Your Sister's Sister (Starz)
February 2024: Heaven Knows What (Criterion Channel)
March 2024: Chungking Express (Criterion Channel)
April 2024: Dark Waters
May 2024: God's Own Country (AMC+)
June 2024: Southpaw (Netflix)
July 2024: Space Cowboys (AMC+)
August 2024: Shoot to Kill (YouTube)
September 2024: Hope Floats (Hulu)
October 2024: The Way (Amazon rental)
November 2024: Deterrence (Amazon rental)
December 2024: Mr. Brooks (Paramount+)
January 2025: Adult Beginners (Tubi)
February 2025: The Heavenly Kid (MGM+)
March 2025: Hoosiers (Prime)
May 2025: Hustle (Netflix)
June 2025: Jennifer 8 (n/a)

1. Joe Versus the Volcano
2. In the Bedroom
3. You Don't Know Jack
4. Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret.
5. Always
6. The Bridges of Madison County
7. High and Low
8. American Honey
9. Prelude to a Kiss
10. Leap of Faith

...plus 111 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

*first posted September 2020*

This guy's pretty great. Who cares about his personal life. My personal life isn't exactly a flawless hero's journey either, so what. He's one of the all-time movie stars. I love watching him in movies, and ire the hell out of his ion and commitment.

Planning an in-depth (though not complete; maybe 70%) re-watch of his filmography with fellow LB Tom-boy Dave, starting this month with "The Firm". Haven't seen lots of the stuff he's made for years, decades, sometimes only ever the once long ago, so any updates on my opinions about these, I'll note below as we go along. But for now, here's how I rank them.

The Unseen:
- Lions for Lambs
- Jack Reacher: Never Go Back

Cameos I'm Not Including
- Austin Powers in Goldmember
- Endless Love

1. A Few Good Men (A)
2. Vanilla Sky (A)
3. Magnolia (A)
4. Mission Impossible - Fallout (A)
5. Jerry Maguire (A)
6. Eyes Wide Shut (A)
7. Mission Impossible (A-)
8. Interview with the Vampire (A-)
9. Collateral (A-)
10. Edge of Tomorrow (A-)
11. Mission Impossible - Rogue Nation (A-)
12. Minority Report (A-)
13. Top Gun: Maverick (B+)
14. Far and Away (B+)
15. The Firm (B+)
16. War of the Worlds (B+)
17. Mission Impossible - Ghost Protocol (B+)
18. Knight & Day (B+)
19. Oblivion (B+)
20. Tropic Thunder (B+)
21. American Made (B+)
22. Top Gun (B)
23. The Color of Money (B)
24. Taps (B)
25. Mission Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One (B)
26. Rain Man (B)
27. Risky Business (B)
28. Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning (B)
29. Mission Impossible III (B)
30. Rock of Ages (B)
31. The Last Samurai (B)
32. Valkyrie (B)
33. Mission Impossible II (B)
34. Born on the Fourth of July (B-)
35. Cocktail (B-)
36. Legend (B-)
37. Losin' it (C+)
38. The Outsiders (C)
39. All the Right Moves (C-)
40. Days of Thunder (C-)
41. Jack Reacher (D+)
42. The Mummy (D-)

1. A Few Good Men
2. Vanilla Sky
3. Magnolia
4. Mission: Impossible – Fallout
5. Jerry Maguire
6. Eyes Wide Shut
7. Mission: Impossible
8. Interview with the Vampire
9. Collateral
10. Edge of Tomorrow

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

*posted May 13, 2025

4th annual

2022 Festival
2023 Festival
2024 Festival

I love the myth of summer, far more than the reality of summer (boiling to death in California from global warming every June-September has made us enemies). The freedom of adolescence during it, the carefree hang-outs, the bright cheer, the longer days, warm tranquil nights, the pools and beaches and vacations and just wanting to be outdoors, the refreshing snacks and lighter outfits, the Hollywood blockbusters. Like mainlining Christmas music in December or stockpiling horror flicks in advance of Halloween, May-August is a time to chase that illusion of summery effervescence however you can.

Finally, an excuse to watch brainless popcorn entertainment again! Not that I ever stop. Summertime is right around the corner so I must program for myself a bunch of theme watches for the next few months in order to feel the illusion that I'm experiencing the season the right way, since I probably won't be spending much time at the beach (too sandy), in the ocean (too sharky), camping (too much work) or amusement parking (too many people). But I'll watch other people do those things, sure.

Once again starting a little later this year (end of May instead of its beginning when Hollywood's summer officially opens) because I'm lazy. I doubt I'll check off every movie on this list by Labor Day, since I never do finish them, but it's good to have too many options instead of not enough. Here are some of the guidelines I used to pick this latest batch:

- some summery rewatches ("The Talented Mr. Ripley", "Summer Rental", "The Chipmunk Adventure", "A Goofy Movie")

- every year for this project I move on to the next Dirty Harry movie so now I'm at the end of the line with the part 5 finale, "The Dead Pool". 2026: moving on to "Pink Cadillac"

- I did an "American Pie" rewatch last summer then decided to wait a year before I got to part 2 so here we are. 2026: "American Wedding"

- at least one title that was actually released during a summer movie season once upon a time ("Clean Slate", "The Dead Pool", "The Love Letter", "The Trigger Effect", "Olly Olly Oxen Free", "The Chipmunk Adventure", "Nadine")

- lots with "summer" in the title

- ones that take place during summer

- ones that just feel like summer

- beaches, camp, sports, vacation, parties, surfing, you name it

- probably too many coming-of-age memoir type selections, but those movies are everywhere. Look behind you, there's one right there!

- if a lot of these titles make you think "geez what trash can did he dig these out of?", sorry but I've seen all the bigger summer-themed movies you can think of already. Running out of viable candidates here. Could still be some fun times in this bunch though. I'm not worried. Summer has a way of pleasing you one way or another.

1. Step Into Liquid
2. The Talented Mr. Ripley
3. How I Spent My Summer Vacation
4. Wet and Wild Summer
5. The Dead Pool
6. Gas
7. An American Summer
8. The Rosebud Beach Hotel
9. Hot Resort
10. Surfari

...plus 31 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

*posted 6/3/2025

tmDennis Nedry

A list that will hopefully not continue to grow.

Sprinkling in handfuls of rewatches every month for the past few years and sometimes, I regret it.

- War of the Worlds (original grade back in 2005: A-) (recent rewatch: B+)

- Signs (original grade back in 2002: A) (rewatch: B+)

- Once Upon a Time in Mexico (original grade back in 2003: B+) (rewatch: B-)

- St. Elmo's Fire (original grade from the '90s: B+) (rewatch: B+ just can't bring myself to undervalue its everloving '80s-ness, but yeah it's abhorrent in a lot of ways)

- Weird Science (original grade from the '90s: B) (rewatch: B-/C+)

- The Ref (original grade from the '90s: B+) (rewatch: B)

- Halloween 2018 (original grade: B) (rewatch a year later: B-)

- American Pie 2 (original grade back in 2001: A-) (rewatch: B)

1. War of the Worlds
2. Signs
3. Once Upon a Time in Mexico
4. St. Elmo's Fire
5. Weird Science
6. The Ref
7. Halloween
8. American Pie 2

*posted 8/7/2023

Seems as good a time as any to post this, even though I still haven't seen many of his films. RIP. The documentary about (and prominently guided by) him is riveting. Most of the titles below I've only seen once, so there's a strong chance I'd think more highly of them if and when I revisit. And no, I've never been particularly into "The Exorcist", but I respect how well-made it is.

As Yet Unseen:
Good Times (1967)
The Birthday Party (1968)
The Boys in the Band (1970)
Rampage (1987)
Jailbreakers (1994)
Jade (1995)
The Devil and Father Amorth (2017)

1. To Live and Die in L.A. (A)
2. Sorcerer (A-)
3. 12 Angry Men 1997 (A-)
4. The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial 2023 (A-)
5. The French Connection (B+)
6. The Hunted (B+)
7. Rules of Engagement (B+)
8. The Exorcist (B)
9. Killer Joe (B)
10. Deal of the Century (B)
11. Bug (B-)
12. The Guardian (B-)
13. Blue Chips (C+)
14. Cruising (C+)
15. The Brink's Job (D)

1. To Live and Die in L.A.
2. Sorcerer
3. 12 Angry Men
4. The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial
5. The French Connection
6. The Hunted
7. Rules of Engagement
8. The Exorcist
9. Killer Joe
10. Deal of the Century

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

*posted 1/4/2025

Yes, the anniversary series. Y'know how the media and pop culture sites often rely on 10th, 20th, 25th, 30th anniversaries of movies for feature content? Well I'm going to use that from now on as an additional project shortcut to help me choose what movies to watch. Oh, it's the 40th anniversary this year of "Rustlers' Rhapsody"? What better time to finally see it again!

- I'll stick to decade multiples, not 5-year increments, so I can only choose movies to watch from 2015/2005/1995/85/75/65/so on

- It will be a blend of new watches (movies I've never seen) and re-watches.

- a steady rate of 4-6 titles per month only, give or take depending on how busy life gets.

I am now in year 3 of this project and it's been a rewarding one so far of nostalgic re-watches and crossing unseen titles off my lifetime to-do list. 2025 let's celebrate some historical milestones!

(will add to this list as it expands month by month)

- the 2024 edition
-the 2023 edition

JANUARY
1. Go West (1925 - 100 years old!) (Tubi)
2. Red Beard (1965 - 60 years old) (Criterion Channel)
3. Runaway Train (1985 - 40 years old) (MGM+)
4. rewatch Dracula: Dead and Loving it (1995 - 30 years old) (Prime)
5. rewatch The Hateful Eight (2015 - 10 years old) (Netflix)

FEBRUARY
1. The Whole Town's Talking (1935 - 90 years old)
2. rewatch Legend (1985 - 40 years old)
3. rewatch The Black Cauldron (1985 - 40 years old) (Disney+)
4. rewatch Return to Oz (1985 - 40 years old) (Disney+)
5. Smoke (1995 - 30 years old)

MARCH BEST PICTURE NOMINEE THEME MONTH
6. David Copperfield (1935 - 90 years old)
7. rewatch Anchors Aweigh (1945 - 80 years old)
8. Picnic (1955 - 70 years old)
9. A Thousand Clowns (1965 - 60 years old)
10. rewatch Sense and Sensibility (1995 - 30 years old)

APRIL
11. Mask (1985 - 40 years old)
12. rewatch Living in Oblivion (1995 - 30 years old)
13. The Brothers McMullen (1995 - 30 years)
14. rewatch Cursed (2005 - 20 years old)
15. Burnt (2015 - 10 years old)

MAY
16. The Clock (1945 - 80 years old)
17. Planet of the Vampires (1965 - 60 years old)
18. rewatch To Live and Die in L.A. (1985 - 40 years old)
19. Clockers (1995 - 30 years old)
20. rewatch Bad News Bears (2005 - 20 years old)

JUNE
21. Kismet (1955 - 70 years old)
22. Rancho Deluxe (1975 - 50 years old)
23. rewatch National Lampoon's European Vacation (1985 - 40 years old)
24. rewatch Pocahontas (1995 - 30 years old)
25. rewatch Vacation (2015 - 10 years old)

1. Go West
2. Red Beard
3. Runaway Train
4. Dracula: Dead and Loving It
5. The Hateful Eight
6. The Whole Town's Talking
7. Legend
8. The Black Cauldron
9. Return to Oz
10. Smoke

...plus 20 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

*first posted 11/16/2020*

Seeing a good movie again is an almost certainly joyful and enriching activity every time that for most of my adult life I neglected in the search for new first-time viewings instead. This is an effort to counteract that, to stop and smell the cinematic roses once in a while, and also incidentally I guess to determine what holds up and what doesn't. Kind of exactly like that podcast The Rewatchables, or Blank Check with Griffin and David, or thousands more out there.

After completing monthly runs of Tarantino and Coen Bros. re-watches this year, Letterboxd lothario Dave and I were tooling around with whose filmography to start re-watching next. Tom Cruise was locked and loaded and we'd even decided on which of his films to watch and which to leave behind in the past (sorry "Days of Thunder" oh wait no I'm not you sucked), hence it all starting with "The Firm" back in September 2020, but somehow the project continued to morph until it became a far more open and yes potentially infinite series of hopscotch.

The deal is, with each movie one of us (let's say Dave) looks through its cast and crew and selects 10 other movies that someone involved in this movie helped make, and they have to be movies that Dave really and sincerely would like to re-watch. Then the other person (let's say me) has to choose 1 of those 10 to be our next t re-watch, and from there we do the same only reversing roles (I pick the 10, Dave narrows it down to 1). At the top of each month, we each do a round so we have 2 movies to watch for the next 30 days, and then we re-convene to do it again. Here's how it's progressed so far. I'll continue updating this for as long as we commit to the project.

1. The Firm (cinematographer John Seale also worked on...)

OCTOBER 2020
2. City of Angels (star Meg Ryan also worked on...)
3. Joe Versus the Volcano (music editor Kenneth Wannberg also worked on...)

NOVEMBER 2020
4. JFK (star Kevin Costner also worked on...)
5. Dances with Wolves (art director William Ladd Skinner also worked on...)

DECEMBER 2020
6. 12 Monkeys (actor David Morse also worked on...)
7. (cinematographer Don Burgess also worked on...)

JANUARY 2021
8. Source Code (co-star Vera Farmiga also worked on....)
9. Up in the Air (co-star Jason Bateman also worked on...)

FEBRUARY 2021
10. Game Night (co-star Rachel McAdams also worked on...)
11. About Time (production manager Tania Blunden also worked on...)

MARCH 2021
12. Steve Jobs (writer Aaron Sorkin also worked on...)
13. A Few Good Men (co-star J.T. Walsh also worked on...)

APRIL 2021
14. Pleasantville (co-star Marley Shelton also worked on...)
15. Grand Canyon (co-star Kevin Kline also worked on...)

MAY 2021
16. Dave (co-star Kevin Dunn also worked on...)
17. Nixon (co-star Ed Harris also worked on...)

JUNE 2021
18. The Abyss (co-star Chris Elliott also worked on...)
19. Kingpin (co-star Bill Murray also worked on...)

JULY 2021
20. Little Shop of Horrors 1986 (co-star Rick Moranis also worked on...)
21. Parenthood (co-star Dianne Wiest also worked on...)

AUGUST 2021
22. The Birdcage (co-star Tom McGowan also worked on...)
23. Sleepless in Seattle (title designer Randall Balsmeyer also worked on...)

SEPTEMBER 2021
24. The Ice Storm (co-stars Tobey Maguire and Katie Holmes also worked on...)
25. Wonder Boys (producer Scott Rudin also worked on...)

OCTOBER 2021
26. Lady Bird (co-star Laurie Metcalf also worked on...)
27. Scream 2 (director Wes Craven and many other crew also worked on...)

NOVEMBER 2021
28. New Nightmare (co-star Lin Shaye also worked on...)
29. National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon 1 (production designer Jaymes Hinkle also worked on...)

DECEMBER 2021
30. Lethal Weapon (everyone on this also worked on...)
31. Lethal Weapon 2 (and this too...)
32. Lethal Weapon 3 (supervising foley editor Christopher Flick also workes on…)

JANUARY 2022
33. War of the Worlds (co-star Tim Robbins also worked on…)
34. The Player (composer Thomas Newman also worked on...)

FEBRUARY 2022
35. Gung Ho (Michael Keaton also worked on...)
36. Out of Sight (George Clooney also worked on...)

MARCH 2022
37. Fantastic Mr. Fox (Brian Cox also worked on...)
38. Zodiac (James LeGros also worked on...)

APRIL 2022
39. Point Break (actor John Apicella also worked on...)
40. Disney's The Kid (bit player Melissa McCarthy also worked on...)

MAY 2022
40. Charlie's Angels (cameo star Alex Trebek also worked on...)
41. Short Cuts (actor Buck Henry also worked on...)

JUNE 2022
42. To Die for (actor Joaquin Phoenix also worked on...)
43. Signs (producer Frank Marshall also worked on...)

JULY 2022
44. Noises Off! (producer Kathleen Kennedy also worked on...)
45. Arachnophobia (art director Christopher Burian-Mohr also worked on...)

AUGUST 2022
45. Tin Cup (co-star Rex Linn also worked on...)
46. Breakdown (stunt driver Gene Hartline also worked on...)

SEPTEMBER 2022
47. Fearless (co-star Tom Hulce also worked on...)
48. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (co-star Ian Holm also worked on...)

OCTOBER 2022
49. Alien (production designer Leslie Dilley also worked on...)
50. What About Bob? (co-star Julie Hagerty also worked on...)

NOVEMBER 2022
51. Marriage Story (sound designer Christopher Scarabosio also worked on...)
52. Titanic (Kate Winslet also worked on...)

DECEMBER 2022
53. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Tom Wilkenson also worked on...)
54. The Grand Budapest Hotel (producer Scott Rudin also worked on...)

JANUARY 2023
55. The Meyerowitz Stories (Ben Stiller also worked on...)
56. There's Something About Mary (Stiller also worked on...)

FEBRUARY 2023
57. Greenberg (Jennifer Jason Leigh also worked on...)
58. Annihilation (music recorder Rupert Coulson also worked on...)

MARCH 2023
59. The Invisible Man (co-star Nash Edgerton also worked on...)
60. Moulin Rouge! (cinematographer Donald McAlpine also worked on...)

APRIL 2023
61. The Edge (composer Jerry Goldsmith also worked on...)
62. Executive Decision (producer Joel Silver also worked on...)

MAY 2023
63. The Nice Guys (Ryan Gosling also worked on...)
64. Blade Runner 2049 (stuntman Joel Kramer also worked on...)

JUNE 2023
65. Con Air (Mykelti Williamson also worked on...)
66. Primary Colors (Paul Guilfoyle also worked on...)

JULY 2023 (it's Summer-of-1986 month)
67. Howard the Duck (actress Debbie Lee Carrington also worked on...)
68. Invaders from Mars (1986) (Louise Fletcher also worked on...)

AUGUST 2023
69. 2 Days in the Valley
AUGUST 2023 SPECIAL EDITION BONUS: 2 oft-nominated candidates that never picked, that we're finally just going to watch and get them over with:
70. The Long Kiss Goodnight
71. The Talented Mr. Ripley (Cate Blanchett also worked on...)

SEPTEMBER 2023
72. Eyes Wide Shut (Sydney Pollack also worked on...)
73. Presumed Innocent (Jesse Bradford also worked on...)

OCTOBER 2023
74. My Blue Heaven (Carol Kane also worked on...)
75. Joe Versus the Volcano (Tom and Meg also worked on...)

NOVEMBER 2023
76. You've Got Mail (video technician Joseph A. Unsinn also worked on...)

DECEMBER 2023
77. Innerspace (Martin Short also worked on...)
78. Three Amigos!

JANUARY 2024
79. Babylon
80. Sunshine

FEBRUARY 2024
81. Three Fugitives
82. Bad Times at the El Royale

MARCH 2024
83. Begin Again
84. Whiplash

APRIL 2024
85. Clue
86. Men at Work

MAY 2024
87. Mad Max: Fury Road

JUNE 2024
88. Indian Summer
89. Beverly Hills Cop
90. Crimson Tide

JULY 2024
91. The Weather Man
92. St. Elmo's Fire

AUGUST 2024
93. American Pie

SEPTEMBER 2024
94. Beetlejuice

OCTOBER 2024: SEQUELITIS MONTH
95. Back to the Future Part II
96. Hot Shots! Part Deux
97. Die Hard 2: Die Harder

NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2024 SPECIAL HOLIDAY SEASON-THEMED BONANZA
98. The Holdovers
99. Planes, Trains & Automobiles
100. Down and Out in the Beverly Hills
101. The Ref
102. Home for the Holidays
103. Election (to coincide with November's presidential race)

JANUARY 2025
104. Dog Day Afternoon
105. Killers of the Flower Moon
106. Almost Famous

MARCH-APRIL 2025
107. Asteroid City
108. In the Heights
109. The French Connection
110. Babylon again
111. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

MAY 2025 - PAST MAY RELEASES
112. Maverick
113. Die Hard with a Vengeance
114. Aloha
115. Backdraft

JUNE 2025
116. Phenomenon
117. City Slickers
118. The Bridges of Madison County

1. The Firm
2. City of Angels
3. Joe Versus the Volcano
4. JFK
5. Dances with Wolves
6. Twelve Monkeys
8. Source Code
9. Up in the Air
10. Game Night

...plus 108 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Snatch (B+)
2. The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (B+)
3. The Gentlemen (B)
4. Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (B-)
5. King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (B-)
6. The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare (B-)
7. Sherlock Holmes (B-)
8. Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (B-)
9. Fountain of Youth (C+)
10. Aladdin (C-)
11. Rocknrolla (C-)
12. Revolver (D)
13. Swept Away (Z-)

UNSEEN
- Wrath of Man (2021)
- The Covenant (2023)

- In the Grey (2025)
- Wife & Dog (2026)

1. Snatch
2. The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
3. The Gentlemen
4. Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
5. King Arthur: Legend of the Sword
6. The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare
7. Sherlock Holmes
8. Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows
9. Fountain of Youth
10. Aladdin

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

Each month, Letterboxd legend Dave and I take turns shuffling each of our watchlists until we've shaken out 10-20 titles, and then we each choose a film from the other person's list that he then has to watch this month. Just one of a million ways we try to keep it fresh and chip away at these infinite queues of ours....

Special Guest Stars Joe Gola, Stephen, Xplodera, Deanerinoo, and an open invitation to anyone else.

I need more movies to watch in June, please help me gang. From Aubrey Plaza to Saoirse Ronan, James Toback to Ron Shelton, presidential biopics to rap battles, '70s kung fu to Hope & Crosby, surely y'all can steer me in the most interesting and gratifying directions.

1. Black Bear
2. The Big Bang
3. The Boys
4. Cisco Pike
5. TeenAlien
6. Little Vegas
7. The Prisoner of Second Avenue
8. Nobody Walks in L.A.
9. Kronos
10. Gable and Lombard

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

1. On the Rocks (B+)
2. Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie (B+)
3. Come from Away (B+)
4. Finch (B+)
5. Wolfwalkers (B+)
6. Cha Cha Real Smooth (B+)
7. The Gorge (B)
8. The Velvet Underground (B)
9. Spirited (B)
10. The Tragedy of Macbeth (B)
11. Luck (B)
12. The Instigators (B)
13. Flora and Son (B)
14. Swan Song (B)
15. Coda (B)
16. Fingernails (B-)
17. Sharper (B-)
18. Fountain of Youth (C+)
19. Tetris (C+)
20. Emancipation (C+)
21. The Greatest Beer Run Ever (C)
22. Ghosted (C-)
23. Cherry (F)

THE HAVEN'T SEENS
Will Probably See Someday
- Causeway
- Greyhound
- The Sky is Everywhere
- Raymond and Ray

No Interest in Seeing
- Hala
- The Banker
- Palmer
- The Beanie Bubble

1. On the Rocks
2. STILL: A Michael J. Fox Movie
3. Come from Away
4. Finch
5. Wolfwalkers
6. Cha Cha Real Smooth
7. The Gorge
8. The Velvet Underground
9. Spirited
10. The Tragedy of Macbeth

...plus 13 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.