6u532b

cecelia condit winding up to tell her story at the party where somebody had the idea to go around telling outrageous real life personal stories

makes me think of the end of summer when the teachers return to school before the students get there

and i’m always hoping one of the icebreakers will be two truths and a lie or something like that

so i can tell everyone (because we have high teacher turnover so I always have a brand new built in audience) my story about writing a fan letter to shannon and now we’re married

or about the dalai lama caressing my teenage mustache

or about you know

it’s a good sign when an outta left field move is for your movie to suddenly burst into song but the song sounds like a demo by the Roches

i don’t wanna judge anybody for how they work through their trauma but making a movie exactly like this is maybe the only way to work through your trauma

a movie that is just Too Much

not like how a movie can be Too Much

but like how a person can be Too Much

like how shannon says I sometimes have to come over and hug her to get her to stop dancing because it’s Too Much and i can’t handle it

possibly in michigan thrives in the unholy, uncanny valley between a naggingly brilliant adult and an alarmingly precocious child

that’s not where shannon lives

the comparisons are breaking down because this movie isn’t like anything else

and shannon isn’t like anything else

whatcha reading the parent trap?

but the mall in possibly in michigan

is possibly not in michigan

possibly it’s in LA

because it reminds me of the mall in body double

whatchoo doing today I’m gonna watch every cecelia condit movie

but first

and this feels weirdly appropriate

i’m going to see the john wick spinoff with my mother in law in the theater

choreography of bodies sitting and standing and moving around a room while the most powerful one decides whether or not to pay a child’s ransom

the sleepover of ryan trecartin movies

the powerpoint emphasis effect/moveable text/object motion path of ryan trecartin movies

about that

right before watching this i’d been having my usual saturday night sleepover on discord with jonathan and caroline in the middle of which meesh pulled half of shannon’s sewing fabrics off the shelf

party’s over

through no fault of shannon’s who only came in to help pick up the fabrics and put them back on the shelf i was reminded of the feeling from a childhood ago when somebody’s parent would come in and holler at you when you were too loud too late

or the time when the young adult author john green before he was famous yelled at me and my brother and my brother’s girlfriend in the backseat of a car coming home from a concert late at night because we were being sleepover loud back there

about that

a 5th grader at my school for his final project this year made a powerpoint with so many emphasis effects/moveable texts/object motion paths that the teachers and s watching the presentation were collectively transported 20 years back to the feeling of opening a specially busy myspace page

they made him do it over

and item falls is somehow as good or better than center jenny even though it’s half as long and i wanted to spend 4 x the amount of time inside

very boring and i didn’t like the look or feel of anything but i did like seeing anime characters play woodwinds in the school band

and hearing the band do their warmups reminded me of walking through the corridors of the basement rehearsal space at my college

with everyone practicing their instruments in their own not very sound proofed rooms

where i was the only music major who wasn’t classically trained

and they made me take piano lessons with a local woman who mostly taught schoolchildren

and they had me play the little pieces i learned at piano recitals alongside these children

and it was really my time to shine at one of these recitals i when the other kids kept flubbing the notes

they couldn’t handle the pressure

they were nine years old and they couldn’t hack it

i was more than twice their size and i played my piece perfectly

really special dear to me movie that is very close to my heart with the best bugs since the bugs that crawl out of the masks in halloween iii season of the witch

maybe you saw those too

I dunno

I watched it alone

the most beautiful paintings and houseboats you'll ever see in aquatic suburbia

i wrote that and read that

sounds like a bad ad for something

not this movie

but i stand by it

because although i noticed all the other cool things about this movie

about every agnes varda movie

i got a little carried away by how much i liked the paintings and houseboats

and briefly became a real estate agent

and not a very good one

pardon non pardon

talking to the cow in a sweet high voice

spiritually earning the milk you’re stealing

displaying biscuits on a stone slab on a blanket on the muddy ground in town

pulling coins out of your pocket and moving them around the palm of your hand with one finger and picking up the ones you need with two fingers

looking like an oil painting in the house of the people who rescued you from a bad fall

as i was heading into the bedroom to watch my movie shannon said “don’t do anything i wouldn’t do”

an old joke

but i was in fact going into the bedroom to do something shannon wouldn’t do

which was to watch a revenge thriller on my little tv

which i bring into the bed with me

in the bedroom i added a new (what’s the opposite of a) wrinkle to my movie routine

which was that I’d made a pot of coffee to put in my thermos to take to the pool

but it started to rain on my way to the pool

so i brought my thermos into the bedroom with me

and the new anti-wrinkle was I placed my coffee cup directly onto the framed portrait of a young man meesh thinks is his grandma that the tv stands on when i sit up in bed watching movies

and pouring the coffee from the thermos into my coffee cup was exciting because the coffee as it was being poured ed right in front of the movie and into my cup

and the steam from my cup rose up in front of the movie

in this way my coffee entered the world of the movie

another thing i get to do when i watch movies in the bedroom

something which is thrilling but not vengeful

is that none of the wall outlets are within reach of my tv cord

so i plug my tv into a little bedside lamp shannon has that for some reason has an outlet in it

but the cord won’t reach the bedside table where the lamp sits either

so i carefully take the lamp and lay it down on its side next to the tv

and i plug my tv into shannon’s side-lying lamp

and this beautiful act of tenderness enters the world of my revenge thriller

ryan trecartin said “when I was young and my baby sitters came over and turned on music videos, I was inspired by that”

how you watch junior war is you first watch a 2.5 hour biopic of che guevara (part 1) and then go straight into junior war but before that even

before che

you talk to your friends you’re in a movie club with

and your chat is called The Lover, the Hater, and the Realm Walker

and it was called that because early on it was decided that one of you was the lover, one of you was the hater, and one of you was the realm walker

but in the course of this conversation it’s decided that you’re ALL the lover

and it’s a proud, spiritual she’s all that moment for all of you

what a rush!

and in the midst of this jOiE dE viVre your friend tells you that he had a revelation about his backhand and he’s excited to try it out with your other friend who he shortened movie club to go play tennis with

and you ask him what the revelation is and he says “I just have to make my backhand go up” and then he laughs and says it’s hard to explain

and he tells you he recently googled “can mosquitoes go up”

and right before all this shannon had told you what to do if you see a bee on the ground

because she says if a bee is on the ground it means it’s run out of energy

and what you do is put a little sugar water in a shallow bottle cap and put the cap right by the bee

and that’s how you watch junior war

another perfect ozu music box

les paul doubling the notes

on his solid body electric guitar

bigger and better than other movies in exactly the same way that peggy lee's is that all there is is bigger and better than other songs

movie that came out the year I was born that is dated that I love

erratic bathhouse behavior

can’s “mother sky”

a song you’ve heard 1000 x

stretched somehow even more tautly across the drum of this movie

not as good as center jenny

which isn’t saying much

too much cussin

not enough rachel glaser

but some rachel glaser

and some not cussin

ryan says “yeahhh” a few too many times

starts to drag in the middle

which is impressive for a ryan trecartin movie

but then it picks up again

gets double fast and double better

which is impressive for any movie

but less so for a ryan trecartin movie

all the best parts are music

and the final third is exactly like the scene in sinners

when there’s a tear in the time-space continuum

and the history of black music pours through the hole

but in this what’s pouring through

is every party your band played music at in college

otherwise i can’t tell these movies apart

why is looking down at the earth from space while listening to brian eno just like swimming at apple valley and running around on the catwalk above the stage at bolton theater and looking at pond scum under a microscope at summer science camp and watching Babar at a sleepover in your friend’s basement and being in the ocean hall at the natural history museum and climbing through the network of tubes at cosi and going to the wiggin st fun fair on a friday night and tunneling under the pole vaulting mats at the field house

the men didn’t want to stay on the moon forever

they just wanted to visit the moon

the man who wasn’t allowed to leave the spaceship to go on the moonwalk

because there wasn’t enough room for him in the shuttle that went to the moon

because he wasn’t as popular

said he wanted to go down to the moon so badly he could taste it

he also said he’d been trained to go back to earth alone if it came to it

not being allowed to walk on the moon and having the ability to abandon your shipmates on the moon

what’s more similar?

but he waited for em and they all got back safely

whatcha reading the parent trap?

but one of my composition 112 students–

Tanner

–wrote in his final paper that nobody ever walked on the moon, ever

in my comments i pointed out that his paper didn’t have any citations

Tanner stopped coming to class

marooning himself on the moon

because to this day i like to think of that comp 112 class as a spaceship

and all the papers my students wrote formed like voltron to generate the rocket and propulsion fuel and lunar command modules necessary to get us to the moon

and our journey to the moon was all the intellectually stimulating and wide-ranging conversations we had in class, and the i gave in the margins of their papers, and the corrections they eagerly made before turning them back in

and the moon landing was when they turned in their final paper

and the descent to earth was my teacher evaluations

I don’t think i liked this very much but jude law was a very convincing sex robot

almost too convincing

and i liked how the robot chasers were like light-up Tron versions of the black skulls from mandy

more movies should do this thing where they jump forward 2000 years with more than 30 minutes left til the end

it’s nice to stay a while

but to haley joel osment’s character i just wanna say

big deal!

you’re not special

don’t you know

we all wanna be the real boy?

the only movie that could follow the whole internet

if the whole internet was an act– a tough act to follow

well this movie could follow that

i bet some other ryan trecartin movies could follow that

but I haven’t watched one since 2010

the 15 years in between the first and second time I watched a Ryan trecartin movie was a tough act to follow

but here I am

every scene is good and different

i didn’t know movies could be like this

more forward momentum than most

i didn’t know you could blow up the world trade center in 1983

it’s got the energy you want a punk doc to have but a punk doc doesn’t have

when the women’s army break into cbs I really wanted them to broadcast the red krayola’s “born in flames” because that song which we keep hearing throughout the movie sounds exactly like a guerilla takeover of a tv station

between born in flames and working girls lizzie borden has made a multiverse where men barely

except as a menacing presence in the wings

which is maybe why the studio heads destroyed the multiverse in her next movie

in post

or so i hear

i haven’t seen it

but i’m gonna watch it

i’m gonna watch: love crimes

powerful stuff happening in india in close encounters of the third kind

running and chanting then a seamless nicolas roeg’s Walkabout-style zoom/dissolve from desert into auditorium and a recording of the same chanting playing alongside a sign language chart

and a man who seems by g to be pulling those chants from the tape deck

you want richard dreyfuss and the woman who is not teri garr to find each other again from the moment they get separated

right after comparing moontans

moontans tried to autocorrect to mountains which richard dreyfuss and the woman who is not teri garr would have appreciated

a little too much

you want them to get back together

to get a little tenderness

a little love and understanding

a long hug

don’t get me wrong you want teri garr to get

Same

whatcha reading the parent trap?

the military scientists from E.T. show up and they’re talking to richard dreyfuss and the woman who isn’t teri garr like they’re the kid from E.T.

scientists in hazmat suits always remind you of the state dept people who come into your school when your school is being audited because the test scores are too low

but shouldn’t they be auditing the schools whose test scores are too high???

when richard dreyfuss and the woman who isn’t teri garr discover the encampment of scientists on the other side of the mountain you’re reminded of how good football fields and tennis courts look under floodlights

don’t we think the indians deserved to be on the dark side of the moon?

nobody seems bothered that they’re not there

even francois truffaut who when he sees richard dreyfuss and the woman who isn’t teri garr sneaking up the mountain says “zey deserve more zen oui” doesn’t seem bothered that the chanting indians to whom they owe everything are nowhere in sight

the woman who isn’t teri garr is really growing on you

you like the spaceships which are halfway between holograms and model airplanes or drones with red/blue halos around the lights

with the light pollution turned all the way up

but you’re already anticipating your friend jonathan telling you that you should have watched it in 4K or 70 mm

and you’re prepared to respond by asking him if he feels the same way about aliens as he does about ghosts

bc he says “ghosts clearly don’t exist because ghosts never do horny stuff”

but you’re not sure he knows what horny is or isn’t

because you told him a story about two people hugging in a doorway for 10 minutes straight and it never going any further than that

and he wasn’t impressed

and there were other contextual details you’re mum’s the wording out of respect for the hugging parties

but TRUST

those details only make the hug hotter and hornier

at the end of close encounters it’s cool that you can’t see the aliens very well

but then you end up seeing one of the aliens too well for too long

but that’s okay

not every hug can remain just a hug

within the first 5 minutes Moskowitz walks into a diner and orders a hot dog and a coffee and a beer

then he spends 10 minutes causing a ruckus everywhere he goes

a ruckus like you just don’t see in movies

then he buys a gigantic bouquet of flowers for his mom

too big for any of her vases

I’ve never seen people behave like this

20 minutes in and I’m praying for a happy ending

Cassavetes movies are action movies

look at em go!

all of a sudden Mosokwitz is on an airplane

the shock of it

you would never have imagined this guy on an airplane, EVER!

but here he is on an airplane

the surprise of that

is the surprise of every scene in this movie

a great cartoon for light n shadow pervs like me

batman yells “don't wait up!” at Alfred

busted sign over the gotham theme park says GO HAM

this is my only batman and one of my only jokers

goldilocks and the three jokers

too dark, too light, too unhinged, too hinged, too joaquin, too ledger: just right

goldilocks and the three batmen

too hot, too cold, too straight, too gay, too rich (in money), too poor (in spirit): just right

I used to play batman on my gameboy and the music was great and the bullets seemed to just sorta waft towards the bad guys and batman’s jump had a hang gliding quality I ired

and there was a great cutscene at the end of level 1 that was just a shimmering image of joker about to fall into a vat of acid

some of the subterranean levels felt like the subterranean levels in the first mario and the music felt subterranean too like how the music in subterranean mario levels felt subterranean

there certainly is a lot going on

after watching phantasm i’m having some new thoughts about presence (2024) which i watched last night

for a while the ghost wasn’t scary at all and then it was just the right amount of scary

goldilocks and the three ghosts

too fast, too slow, too visible, too invisible, too clamorous, too mute: just right

i either didn’t understand why some of the characters were acting the way they were acting or why some of the actors were acting the way they were acting

trapped between these two possibilities, i embraced it all

everyone’s talking about how stephen soderbergh is doing whatever he wants now

throwing celluloid at the wall and seeing what sticks

i’m looking forward to more m night shyamalan cover songs like this one

pov you're watching presence

pinocchio has the best water bambi has the best fire

you immediately like joe v volcano because you like movies where the day is just getting underway

and someone is heading into the office

you like when movies start with morning traffic and a song that was hot at the time but is no longer hot when you’re watching it years after it came out but is newly hot again bc it’s playing over the morning traffic montage of the movie you’re watching rn

instead of traffic joe v volcano shows people shuffling into work like a horde of zombies but that’s not what you like about it

what you like is how when he takes his own personal lamp out of the metal filing cabinet and sets it up you are reminded of the things you do when you’re settling into your workspace to make yourself feel more at home

and you’re reminded that you quit every job you ever had after only one day when it became clear there was no possibility of making a human nest for yourself in those places even though your parents sent you a plaque with the quote “never never never give up” by the racist imperialist winston churchill after you quit two such jobs in quick succession in the summer of 2010

and you’re realizing that one thing you like about movies (and used to like about tv) is that movies (and tv) create the cozy illusion that a great variety of jobs allow people to be and feel human while they’re on the clock and that even the darker aspects of those jobs are just kinda LOL and an opportunity for the workers to build solidarity through hijinks etc

you like tom hanks hair and you like the sound his shoe makes when its outsole comes loose on his way to work

for about 10 seconds you think one of his coworkers is a muted brunette meg ryan which gives you about 5 seconds to imagine her having a she’s all that moment

which you look forward to

you’re not sure tom hank won’t be having his very own she’s all that moment very soon

and you look forward to that too

but instead he gets a terminal brain cloud diagnosis

and he leaves the doctor’s office out of a door that says “Medical League Building”

and this is exciting because you like that things that aren’t sports or superheroes or women can be in leagues

and he hugs a tall dog and small woman

so you’re off to the races again

“very exciting…as a luggage problem” is the best delivered line of the movie

and the salesman who delivers it is up there in the line delivery hall o fame with the broom salesman from halloweentown when he calls “that luke dude…such a wiener”

meg ryan takes a big swing with her first character in this and you weren't so sure

but then when you saw the second character she plays you suddenly liked them both

and you liked seeing her wear her hair very differently in the same scene

but they weren’t onscreen at the same time because it’s 1990

tom hanks looks so busted when he’s a castaway in this movie, there’s no way he ever gets this busted in castaway

but then why does meg ryan, a castaway in a coma, look so pristine when she wakes up

joe tells meg ryan that everyone he worked with at his old job was despicable but you didn’t think Dede was despicable and you don’t think the movie wants you to think Dede was despicable

also the movie wants you to think joe is still searching for an identity more than halfway through the movie but when he’s dancing on his luggage raft it’s not the kind of dancing someone who doesn’t have a strong sense of self would do

it’s the kind of dancing tom hanks would (and does) do

you didn’t really like the ending but in the middle you mowed the lawn and bumped your lawnmower into the rosebush and dozens of rose petals rained down on your mower and until all the petals fell off your mower your mower looked so beautiful festooned with rose petals under the morning sun and you were so proud and looking around to see if any neighbors saw you and you felt less guilty about the fact that you haven’t once mowed the lawn after dark which would be your mower’s other time to shine because it has little green eyebrows that light up in the dark

my friends jonathan and caroline hang out together while they’re each working on their own thing and they call it body doubling and I thought they made this term up but I guess they didn’t make it up because I just saw it somewhere else

when they kept saying body doubling it made me want them to body double and watch the movie body double but now that I know they didn’t make up the concept of body doubling it’s not as urgent that they watch body double but I still want them to watch body double

I want them to watch it s👀n

they recently body doubled to watch a double feature of schindler’s list and rap world

a hilarious double feature

what’s more similar?

but I body singly submit that my own double feature of mask (1985) and rap world was both more hilarious and more just right

mask is achingly sincere, sometimes overly sentimental, always perfect

it’s got a top tier cher, maybe a top 2 cher alongside moonstruck cher

and a top 1 cher hair, maybe because this cher hair reminds me even more of shannon

and really good cher smiles/teeth (Shannon again)

a very sweet sam elliot and motorcycle gang with the threat of violence replaced by unconditional love and tenderness towards rocky dennis

laura dern as a blind horse girl

and rap world

which reminded me of the feeling of listening to ween's pure guava for the first time

so i got to body double with my 11 y-o self

11 y-o me or 41 y-o me what’s more similar?

very expansive sense of humor

dora dear floating down the winding staircase

a fragrant university

a three-way-punch

a green-faced villain

driven to drink by the dover boys

there's a song by the dovers (more dover boys)

"what am I going to do"

from 1965

on youtube in 2025

I was playing it over the stereo at the bagel/coffee shop where I worked in 2010-11

and a guy walked in off the street and listened to a little of it and was like "let's see here, lemme get the lay of the land, lemme set the scene, garage rock teenybopper doesn't get the girl, drops out of high school, cuts a record, gets shipped off to 'Nam, never heard from again, is that pretty much the gist?"

same guy came in another time and had a few dozen donuts with him and he said "you know what we call donuts? TEAMSTER PILLS!"

I beg of movies more hide n seek please!

more cartoons where the characters move and look like this

so silly it's serious

I've never laughed so hard at something so beautiful

in elementary school gym class with Ms. Ettlinger

who was smaller than some of her students

we played capture the flag

that game and the stuff we all did under the rainbow chute

still with me in dreams

capture the flag made us go crazy with excitement

there was so much strategizing!

you could’ve diagrammed the plays

but you're coaching yourselves out there

cap the flag doesn't have the cultural imprimatur of a basketball or a soccer or a football

nobody's watching

everybody's playing

you're 10 years old

it's like imagining in your mind the route you'll take to get candy on halloween

short attention span speed chess with your own body on the board

and i've seen 5th grade boys SOB because gym class was cancelled

and I understood

because capture the flag

quentin dupieux saw the talking can of vegetables in wet hot american summer in 2001 and to date has made 14 feature films in the spirit of that can

ten minutes into the movie tom cruise and thandie newton are having to evade detection by squishing down together into a tiny bathtub

they’re in missionary position

and even though they’re hiding under threat of death they take turns topping/bottoming

5 minutes later they’re K-I-S-S-I-N-G

this makes it hard for tom cruise later when he is forced to use thandie newton as a thirst trap for the purpose of extracting top secret information from her jilted ex-boyfriend about a biological weapon called Chimera

i liked seeing william mapother (tom cruise’s cousin) being one of many bland bad guys in the background behind the main villain, doing bad guy background work, because i got to think about how his badness would later be brilliantly foregrounded in Lost and In the Bedroom

talkin’ about practice! badness edition

whenever i see tom cruise i look to see if i can find his eyes wide shut character anywhere in there and i cannot

he saved every last ounce of vulnerability for that role (and i guess vanilla sky but in vanilla sky he's so pathetic it hurts to watch and in eyes wide shut he's the perfect amount of pathetic)

a cool crossover would have been for thandie newton to pull off her face and reveal herself to be nicole kidman

and for the slightest hint of vulnerability to flicker across tom cruise’s face

but then for tom cruise to pull off his face to reveal that he’s

keith urban

Ozu as always doing his dioramic thing

but in this one there’s a traveling troupe of actors

diorama in diorama

and more drama than usual

lots of offstage onscreen slaps

actors peeking at the audience between acts

every bottle of sake sits in its own hot water bath

they pour sake into little bowls and then return the bottle to the hot water bath

in this movie the sake bottles look like how milk bottles looked when milk was delivered to the house

but they’re opaque

but they’re the color of milk

in other movies they’re more like jugs

i can’t decide which i like better but it doesn’t matter because i like both very much

does sake taste like rice pudding

don’t answer that!

what i do now if i’m watching a movie during the day is i bring the tv into bed with me

i got my usual nighttime setup with the astral projector and all that but during the day it’s tv in the bed with me

using a large framed portrait of a stranger that we got at a secondhand store as a flat surface for the tv to sit on so it can sit upright on its two little feet (don’t imagine bathtub feet)

and watching floating weeds i got sleepy
and i liked lying down and closing my eyes for a little bit and opening them and seeing floating weeds paused in front of me

the audience peeking at the actors between naps

more alive than but otherwise indistinguishable from orgy of the dead

a great depression dance marathon but nobody’s falling asleep on their feet or going limp in their partner’s arms

in fact nobody’s partnered up at all

everyone

by which i mean every woman

is nude and vivacious and alone in the wilderness

as women in RM movies tend to be

we got a mondo unhinged narrator

never been to san francisco in 1966

but it looks cool in 1966

looks topless

in 1966

first shot of the film is a crossroads sign that says “Twin Peaks”

as is often the case in RM movies, the radios rule

most spiritually authentic depiction of nazis i ever seen

do bring a baby to a swordfight

a movie about two brothers, both doctors

who have a practice together

but in the first minute you are presented with what you assume is the first of two brothers

and you immediately like him

and then you see two men playing ping pong

and they look more like brothers

so you’re thinking okay these are the brothers

and you like them too

but you’re thinking it was really smart for the movie to introduce you to a brother and make you like him but then take him away and never let you see him again

but then all of a sudden he’s back

and you find out for real this time he is one of the brothers

for keeps

and one of the ping pong players who look like brothers but are not brothers is the other brother

and you’ve been watching this movie for 5 minutes

and it’s an occasion to think about why you are drawn to certain men and repelled by others

these men are french

and not real

they are movie men

nevertheless one of them reminds you of your friend Ryan and the other one reminds you of a professor you saw around campus but never took a class from

in doctors still make house calls

even if you’re staying in a hotel the front desk will fetch the french doctor or doctor brothers and send them up to your hotel room

whatcha reading the parent trap?

you liked learning about french doctors and thinking about your relationship to men

but this was not a good movie

on the one hand you didn’t like it when things started to go bad for the brothers

on the other hand you didn’t like it when things suddenly got good again

you just liked the house calls

the most elegant antiwar movie

with the best helmets and the best high socks and the best boots

the best hats worn by the worst generals

I kept thinking "it's so well appointed!" but I don't know what that means

I had to look it up and see what it means and how to use it and I still can't be sure

the French military headquarters is more like a palace and is very well appointed

and the court martial scene is well appointed with

light

one astonishing thing but not the most astonishing thing about meshes is when one person is walking fast and another person is walking slow and the person walking fast cannot and will not catch up with the person walking slow and you can't believe your eyes and you can't believe they're on the same screen or in the same movie but it somehow also feels like the most true thing you've ever seen

my friend @ThixthThenth recently wrote a great movie review riffing on the "you know you're a redneck when" routine

I wanna write a Jeff foxworthy "you know you're watching meshes of the afternoon when" style review but describing what happens in meshes of the afternoon feels like the wrong thing to do

meshes of the afternoon: you know it when you see it

the best thing about this is the MUSIC during the ritual sacrifice/orgy

the ritual sacrifice/orgy is as ritual sacrifices/orgies go Just Okay

but the MUSIC!

far out, haunting, beautiful, engine-revving

Goblin threw in the towel after hearing this soundtrack

I just made that up

it’s funny to return to the eyes wide shut castle to cure what’s ailing ya

but that seems to be what she’s doing

at least at first

and what tom cruise did too

i’m afraid they’re both in over their heads!

I can’t tell if the camerawork that reads as psychedelic in a corny way would have been cool at the time

same for the all-seeing-eye stuff

no longer mysterious in 2025

an emoji now

the alternative title for this movie is They’re Coming To Get You

which reminds me of the “they're coming to get you, Barbara!” from night of the living dead

a scene I saw 1000x as a kid in my friend’s basement

because he had a classic horror movie anthology/sampler vhs hosted by vincent price standing next to a fireplace

which we watched more than any other movie other than hot shots part deux and maybe tremors

and I mostly the scenes from night of the living dead and lon chaney’s wolfman

“oh lon chaney / where you been so long? / sit right down / and let me sing you a song / I seen you on a movie in my room”

you gotta watch the first 45 minutes of exorcist iii in the middle of Ingmar bergman's the magic flute

but that goes without saying

george c scott seems to have a kind of tourettes in E3

a need to sneeze

never satisfied

bless you i’ve loved you since i saw you in Hardcore

whose soundtrack i want to hold but is trapped in the body of the film

and cannot be exorcised

like george c scott’s sneeze in exorcist iii

unbelievable, unbiologible

Beelze, bub!

scenes go on so long it feels like a director’s cut

george c scott reminding me of my grandpa reminding me of my dad pretending to look for a age in the bible

the bulgingest eyes

we need one of these bibles where what jesus said is in red

if you are george c scott in exorcist iii you must tell a priest you’ve seen it’s a wonderful life 37 times

and the priest must reply “very commendable”

and you must ask the priest what his favorite movie is

and he must say “the fly”

acting as possession yadda

who knew BOB/leland has/have a twin

🏔🏔 🏔🏔

merely my favorite possession movie

except for possession if possession is a possession movie

opera is hilarious and beautiful

i was watching the magic flute in the daytime

then it got dark and my astral projector was projecting swirly red lights and swirly blue lights and green pinpoint dots that look like you shot holes in the ceiling with a bb gun and neon green TMNT ooze is about to start dripping down and I got the idea to pause the magic flute and put on exorcist iii

you heard that right

possessed by the birthday gift my mother in law gave me I decided to stop watching the magic flute and put on exorcist iii

but 45 minutes into exorcist iii i got scared and went running right back into the arms of the magic flute

such sweet succor!

suddenly people are singing everything again, operatically

the lovers are clutching each others’ ornately framed portraits in their sleep

the actors are unfurling calligraphic swedish banners

“she heard my flute” and “I will bring her to me with my flute”

incredible brags from the 1790s

oh to be young and in love again!

to be a young flautist! (for the first time)

exorcist iii and the magic flute begin to feel thematically entangled in my scared, tired mind

they’re balled up at midnight

i can’t believe people have ever watched these two movies untwined

i can’t tell who is good and who is bad

whatcha reading, the parent trap?

or the libretto for the magic flute

same diff

one of the sweetest and coolest things in theater is when one character hears another calling to the other from somewhere else on the stage or just off stage

and the actor being called to looks around for a long time and gets to pretend they can’t see where the other person is

this is my favorite kind of suspended disbelief

because it’s a cheap and easy way to expand time and space right there on the stage

and the ridiculousness of pretending to not be able to see someone right in front of you is an expansion of time and space-doubling yeast

stuck in the teachers lounge today during planning

having been kicked out of our rooms because they were being used for state testing

the music teacher and I listened to the librarian

–a total narc who also hates the at our school and so is sorta trapped in a nowhere space in between the teachers and –

–whatcha reading, the parent trap?–

listened to the librarian complain endlessly about the other teachers in the building

re: time and space

telling us the names of all the teachers who she happens to know ask their teammates to clock in for them before they’ve even arrived at school so they don’t get in trouble with the principal

“that’s TIME fraud! time fraud! time FRAUD!”

she said it three times

an incantation

and then she described one of our kindergarten teachers as “finite”

“Ms. ______ is finite. she’s finite”

I’ll think about that forever

the gruntingest, mutteringest, phlegmiest, hackingest, hummingest, snortingest, gaspingest, groaningest, throat-clearingest movie i ever seen

commander Riker nightmare/wet dream

enemy mine’s hot cousin

by satirizing sci-fi movies from the 50s and 60s Barbarella accidentally becomes one of the most beautiful lookin movies of all retro-future time

star trek sets and props and costumes and special fx must be GREEEN with envy!

i’ve never wanted to be on a spaceship more than i’ve wanted to be on barbarella’s spaceship

and this is a major statement coming from a big trekkie whose hand refuses to conform to the live long and prosper salute

unless I use my other hand to hold my ring finger and my middle finger together

which obviously I do

because i’m not a psycho

it makes sense that you could be on barbarella’s spaceship and intuitively know how to navigate it through space

it’s like driving a house or bed

shannon told me that on a recent episode of Picard everyone got to be on the enterprise D again

and picard said he hadn’t realized how much he missed the carpet

but even the enterprise D didn’t have barbarella’s shag carpet or interior design sensibility

the enterprise D is cozy like a certain kind of gift shop can be cozy

but barbarella’s spaceship is a secret room you discover at a sleepover

and you’re forbidden to enter by your friend’s hot mom

the best and worst of Russ Meyer

the space-time stuff RIPS

more fun than ready player one

even without wesley crusher reading the audiobook to me while i do the dishes

less fun than beauty and the beast

better than some episodes of gossip girl xoxo

and worse than others

better than some episodes of american idol

and worse than others

better than some episodes of the masked singer

and worse than others

worse than every instance of carson daly holding his breath and clasping hands with the family of the person performing to the backs of futuristic swivel-chairs on the Voice

can you believe the supervillain is named

Justin

we love jangly Sdenka

bedecked in jewels

sounds good when she moves

more people should be bedecked

Get bedecked! my new commandment

in jewels but not just jewels

in other things

things that sound good

someone is walking

and a beaded curtain is perpetually parting

letting them through

sounds good

and what's this?

the wind is blowing

windchimes get going

Sdenga’s jangles are rivaled only by the vourdalek’s squishy sounds and dolphin clicks

the concept of the vourdalek is SICK

it slaps

a devouring love

my aging cat sat on my lap

as i watched the vourdalek

increasingly she’s having that vourdalek aura

she loves me the most

she bites me the most

she’s there and she’s not there

LOL @ the envoy to the french king slow-boning what he thinks is Sdenka but is not Sdenka at what is “really not the time for it”

but can you believe how honorably the envoy to the French king acquits himself

after behaving so pathetically for so long

what a journey!

more puppets should walk among us

why is “they’re not all blake” so emotionally resonant as a way of telling someone to get back out there

incredible exposition/backstory

“they’re not all blake”

we jam econo

take THAT, “for sale baby shoes never worn”

i like that she’s close with her sister

the way sisters in movies can be

Jen

Aunt Jen

son, your babysitter is your aunt

your aunt jen is

Alternative

whatcha readin, the parent trap?

the greater tension of this movie is not the increasingly terroristic drops she’s getting on her phone

but how strange and distracted those drops are causing her to act on this date!

and her date seems to be the One

they’re not all blake

and I just worry he’s thinking she’s not interested

and she’s being so rude but he doesn’t know why! [monkey see no evil emoji]

and then we learn he just got back out there himself

anyway this movie is fun for a while

but at its core

it’s missing a certain

m night shyamalan

it does not cheapen the movie or the true story it's based on to say that it's giving Haim living under a military dictatorship in Brazil in 1971

this is hard

but the harder it gets

the sweeter you find the friendship between charlotte gainsbourg and stellan skarsgård

if you can call it that

a friendship

the room they’re in begins to feel like Bert and Ernie’s room

the night they spend together seems too long while it's happening and too short when it's over

like sleepovers when you were a kid

knuckleball of time ing

in volume 1 it didn't seem right for someone as smug as Christian slater to be experiencing delirium

in volume 2 it doesn't seem right for him to be acting so cute while he's showing the child version of charlotte gainsbourg his "soul tree"

but by the end you're thinking cute British Christian slater is the most right

and you’re ready for charlotte gainsbourg to stop telling her endless story

and for stellan skarsgård to stop free associating to safety

away from dark sex

away from sex altogether

and for the two of them to eat breakfast or play a video game or go for a walk

whatcha readin, the parent trap?

but in the end

because this is a lars von trier movie

everything you want to happen

everything you can see so clearly happening

is stolen from you

and as soon as what happens happens

the ending you had in mind feels like a joke

my friend ted and i have a movie wheel we spin

we don’t spin it for no reason

we spin it because it tells us what movie to watch for movie club

ted recently told me the most exciting part of movie club is when we spin the wheel

and i pointed out that he'd never spun the wheel or even been around me when i spin the wheel

I asked him if he meant the most exciting part of movie club was imagining me spin the wheel

and he said

yeah

so I would like us all to close our eyes

take a deep breath

and imagine ted spinning the wheel

a vain and ted-loving exercise

because actually he already did spin the wheel

I made him do it

and the wheel chose la notte

it’s slow and black and white

I wish there was no dialogue

I don’t really wanna watch a marriage deteriorate

I prefer a good, strong, happy marriage

you’re both too hot to break up

we’ve been here before

it’s not Antonioni’s fault I already saw the 8 hour extended cut of Scenes from a Marriage

whatcha reading, the parent trap?

I preferred the aimlessness of the wife alone

walking around watching boys 2 men shoot off rockets

breaking up a fight outside the factory

paying for a ticket to enter into I dunno what

a vague and not cordoned off area

a ruin?

the ruins of their marriage atop an early date spot?

calling her husband to her next to what seems like a jukebox hidden inside a circus car

playing easy listening music

later they go to one of the best sprawling outdoor parties i’ve ever seen

and it's almost enough to save the movie

but not the marriage

I still wish everyone would stop talking

everything looks so good and I'm annoyed by what they're saying

but my biggest gripe with la notte is the same as my gripe with most marcello mastroianni movies

which is that it’s not City of Women

which stars marcello mastroianni and 1000 women and no other men

1. Ran
2. Seven Samurai
3. Throne of Blood
4. High and Low
5. Rashomon

1. The Favourite
2. Kinds of Kindness
3. Poor Things
4. Dogtooth
5. The Lobster
6. The Killing of a Sacred Deer

1. Assault on Precinct 13
2. The Thing
3. They Live
4. Starman
5. Someone's Watching Me!
6. Halloween
7. Big Trouble in Little China
8. Escape from New York
9. The Fog

you had to be there

1. All That Jazz
2. Ran
3. On the Silver Globe
4. The Straight Story
5. The Cloud-Capped Star
6. Rap World
7. The Wages of Fear
8. Seconds
9. The Damned
10. Demon Pond

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

1. Gummo
2. Spring Breakers
3. Julien Donkey-Boy
4. Trash Humpers
5. Mister Lonely
6. Act da Fool
7. Duck Duck
8. Crutchnap
9. Snowballs
10. Baby Invasion

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

1. Vagabond
2. The Gleaners and I
3. Faces Places
4. The Beaches of Agnès
5. Cléo from 5 to 7
6. Uncle Yanco

1. Crimes of the Future
2. Dead Ringers
3. eXistenZ
4. The Fly
5. The Brood
6. Scanners
7. Videodrome
8. The Dead Zone
9. Crash
10. Shivers

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

1. Showing Up
2. Wendy and Lucy
3. First Cow
4. Certain Women
5. Old Joy
6. Meek's Cutoff

what is A24's whole DEAL

1. Midsommar
2. Red Rocket
3. Spring Breakers
4. Under the Skin
5. Uncut Gems
6. Climax
7. Janet Planet
8. First Reformed
9. The Florida Project
10. The Tragedy of Macbeth

...plus 51 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Center Jenny
2. A Family Finds Entertainment
3. Junior War
4. Roamie View: History Enhancement
5. Temp Stop

1. Double Suicide
2. Himiko
3. Demon Pond
4. Under the Blossoming Cherry Trees

• Red Rocket
• The Florida Project
• Tangerine
• Starlet
• Anora

1. The Wizard of Oz
2. The Red Shoes
3. Juliet of the Spirits
4. Black Narcissus
5. Shane
6. A Matter of Life and Death
7. The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
8. The Trouble with Harry
9. Rope
10. Charade

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

Is Avatar: Way of Water a Big Cartoon?

1. Hedgehog in the Fog
2. The Snowman
3. Robin Hood
4. My Neighbor Totoro
5. Flow
6. The Tale of The Princess Kaguya
7. Neon Genesis Evangelion: The End of Evangelion
8. Son of the White Mare
9. The Red Turtle
10. The Plague Dogs

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

1. My Neighbor Totoro
2. Kiki's Delivery Service
3. Ponyo
4. Spirited Away
5. Castle in the Sky
6. Howl's Moving Castle
7. Porco Rosso
8. Princess Mononoke
9. The Boy and the Heron
10. The Wind Rises

1. The Tale of The Princess Kaguya
2. Grave of the Fireflies
3. Only Yesterday

1. Inu-Oh
2. Mind Game
3. Night Is Short, Walk On Girl

1. Suzume
2. Your Name.
3. Weathering with You
4. Children Who Chase Lost Voices

1. Lady Vengeance
2. The Handmaiden
3. Decision to Leave
4. Oldboy

1. Parasite
2. The Host
3. Memories of Murder
4. Mickey 17
5. Snowpiercer

1. Let Them All Talk
2. Erin Brockovich
3. Black Bag
4. sex, lies, and videotape
5. Out of Sight
6. Contagion
7. High Flying Bird
8. Che: Part One
9. Behind the Candelabra
10. No Sudden Move

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

• Late Spring
• Good Morning
• Floating Weeds
• Early Summer
• Tokyo Story

1. The Red Shoes
2. Black Narcissus
3. The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
4. A Matter of Life and Death
5. Peeping Tom

1. Suspiria
2. Challengers
3. Call Me by Your Name
4. A Bigger Splash
5. I Am Love
6. Bones and All

1. Working Girls
2. Born in Flames

1. The Power of the Dog
2. Sweetie
3. Top of the Lake
4. In the Cut

• Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!
• Vixen!
• Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens
• Supervixens
• Up!
• Beyond the Valley of the Dolls
• Mondo Topless
• Cherry, Harry & Raquel!
• Common Law Cabin

1. Deep End
2. The Shout
3. EO

1. Forty Shades of Blue
2. Little Men
3. ages
4. Married Life

1. Desperate Living
2. Multiple Maniacs
3. Polyester
4. Cry-Baby
5. Pink Flamingos
6. Hairspray
7. Serial Mom
8. Female Trouble
9. A Dirty Shame

1. The Age of Innocence
2. After Hours
3. GoodFellas
4. The Last Waltz
5. Public Speaking
6. The Departed
7. The Wolf of Wall Street
8. The Irishman

1. First Reformed
2. Hardcore
3. Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters
4. The Comfort of Strangers
5. The Canyons
6. Affliction
7. Cat People
8. American Gigolo

1. The Wonders
2. La Chimera
3. Corpo Celeste
4. Happy as Lazzaro
5. Futura

1. Afire
2. Phoenix
3. Barbara
4. Undine
5. Transit
6. Yella
7. Jerichow

1. Mikey and Nicky
2. A New Leaf
3. Ishtar

1. Climax
2. Vortex
3. Enter the Void
4. Lux Æterna
5. Irreversible

1. The Kingdom
2. Dancer in the Dark
3. The Boss of It All
4. Dogville
5. Manderlay
6. The Kingdom II
7. Nymphomaniac: Vol. I
8. Nymphomaniac: Vol. II
9. The Kingdom: Exodus
10. Breaking the Waves

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

1. Twin Peaks: The Return
2. Twin Peaks
3. Mulholland Drive
4. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me
5. The Straight Story
6. Twin Peaks: The Missing Pieces
7. Wild at Heart
8. Lost Highway
9. The Elephant Man
10. Eraserhead

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

• Topsy-Turvy
• Hard Truths
• Mr. Turner
• Secrets & Lies
• Happy-Go-Lucky
• Nuts in May

1. Eyes Wide Shut
2. Paths of Glory
3. Barry Lyndon
4. The Shining
5. 2001: A Space Odyssey
6. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
7. The Killing
8. A Clockwork Orange
9. Full Metal Jacket

1. Last Summer
2. Fat Girl
3. 36 Fillette
4. A Real Young Girl
5. Parfait amour

1. Rear Window
2. Dial M for Murder
3. Rope
4. The Trouble with Harry
5. The 39 Steps
6. North by Northwest
7. Strangers on a Train
8. Psycho
9. Vertigo
10. The Birds

1. Shoplifters
2. Air Doll
3. After Life
4. Monster

1. Heart of Glass
2. Even Dwarfs Started Small
3. Aguirre, the Wrath of God
4. The Enigma of Kaspar Ha
5. Stroszek
6. The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner
7. Signs of Life
8. Grizzly Man
9. Fata Morgana
10. Bells from the Deep

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

1. Funny Games
2. Funny Games
3. Caché
4. The Piano Teacher
5. The White Ribbon

1. Yannick
2. Mandibles
3. Deerskin
4. Wrong
5. Reality
6. Smoking Causes Coughing
7. Rubber
8. The Second Act
9. Incredible But True
10. Daaaaaalí!

1. Little Women
2. Lady Bird
3. Barbie

1. Jade
2. Sorcerer
3. To Live and Die in L.A.
4. The Exorcist
5. Blue Chips

1. Peggy Sue Got Married
2. One from the Heart
3. Megalopolis
4. The Godfather
5. The Conversation
6. The Godfather Part II
7. Rumble Fish
8. Apocalypse Now

1. Juliet of the Spirits
2. City of Women
3. Amarcord
4. The Clowns
5. La Strada
6. La Dolce Vita