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Super disturbing ... probably sits just behind Oldboy in of the most stomach-turning and unsettling "mainstream" movies I've seen. Hard to give it a heart for that reason, I'm too impressionable to separate the content from the execution. I suppose that means it's effective, though.

Carla was the prom queen.

I staved off my very low tolerance for spooky times by obnoxiously broadcasting what I thought was happening the whole time

I would die for Akiko, but would I live for Akiko?

This review may contain spoilers.

Thank God Snoop survived, I wasn't ready for the most likable character to get killed off

I feel like I should apologize to someone for watching this

Should I log a movie if I slept through the whole second act and most of the third?

The story didn't feel like much of anything, to be honest, but I don't think I can in good conscience give less than 3.5 stars to a movie that features a) Tom Cruise hanging off of a biplane for like 20 minutes and b) Simon Pegg.

Watched on Monday May 19, 2025.

This review may contain spoilers.

And I have a lot of puddings, and in six to eight weeks it can be redeemed. So if you could just give me that much time, I think I can get enough mileage to go with you wherever you go if you have to travel for your work. Because I don't ever want to be anywhere without you. So could you just let me redeem the mileage?

Top tier standing-in-the-rain-(or-apartment) scene.

lupita nyong'o vs the world

That helicopter sequence was sick.

This one is very good. I like the McQuarrie era; Ferguson especially takes it to the next level.

I don't know why, but this one didn't grab me as much as the others.

J. J. Abrams took the franchise a step forward with this one. The direction feels so sharp and confident. Philip Seymour Hoffman is scary af too.

I know it's not one of the more well-reviewed entries in the franchise, but it has so much panache! It believes in itself so much! Slow motion! Hair waving! Jumping while shooting guns like Danny Butterman directed it! Flamenco guitars! Electric guitars! Choirs! Explosions! So! Many! Masks!

I get so mad when he messages "Job@Job 3:14".

Now *that's* how you use voiceover.

Some big names acting in this one but the ing cast killed it especially.

It was okay. I don't think it did anything interesting with the "AI girlfriend" trope, but there also wasn't anything distinctly horror-y to set it apart. Ended up feeling a little bland to me. Not bad, just meh.

Gosh darn it! Shoot!

I'm not sure if it's fair to describe any movie as a plane movie, but if plane movies do exist, this isn't one. The pace is snappy and the characters work, but I never felt truly immersed, and that's probably the plane's fault. That and I watched the last season of The Sopranos too recently to feel much empathy for the "I'm not like the other criminals" main character.

Pretty frickin good time. Coogler took his sweet time paying off that trailer shot of Michel B. Jordan's bulging biceps firing a machine gun though.

About 90% of this was good, old-fashioned, well-acted, sharply-written, stylishly-directed drama. Then the big reveal hit, and all my suspension of disbelief shattered into pieces.

It's almost impossibly difficult for me to feel any sort of optimism about globally institutionalized religion. I say this as an aspiring disciple of Jesus myself: I look around at organized religion and see perverted power and greed that only scales along with the level of organization.

Maybe that's just entropy. I don't know. People need to come together, but they also tear each other apart. Why is that? Why can't we believe that the places we mutually inhabit are holy ground, that God dwells with us?

It truly is a narrow way. Conclave, with all its contrived difficulties, still managed to make it look too easy.

Watched on Sunday April 20, 2025.

Watched on Sunday April 6, 2025.

Up there with Stand By Me as one of the most observant and conscious portrayals of American boyhood I've seen.

This felt sort of impotently didactic to me. What are we trying to say here? That treating people as expendable is bad? That classism is bad? That chainsaw murdering is bad? But dressing the situations up cartoonishly so it's all couched in dark humor? Is it meant to convince, to illuminate, to entertain, or to justify existing emotions? Make it make sense.

That said, Robert Pattinson is great. Loved the music. Production design and visual effects were standout, especially the creepers. Steven Yeun always brings this unmistakable aura to his performances that I love.

Maybe I just don't get Bong Joon Ho. I've never finished one of his films and felt like it connected with me.

Why do the writers have to give Anthony Mackie so many lame inspirational speeches and pep talks?

I give it a heart, though, for breaking out of the aesthetic rut Marvel movies have been in. It felt like a Cap movie.

Watched on Saturday March 15, 2025.

I'm a sucker for Wisconsin scenery.

"We're all different ... there's something kind of fantastic about that, isn't there"

"..."

"Not to me. I'd prefer to be an athlete."

There is simply no scruting of what's going on here. Somehow, though, it still moved me. That's the movies, I guess.

I think it's funny that Larry's character development moves in the reverse direction as the time loop progresses.

Watched on Thursday February 13, 2025.

The Mystery Man is one freaky little dude.

This movie makes me feel so much.

I've noticed that I'm more tolerant to long runtimes than many people I talk to. I'm not sure why that is, but this is a great example of a movie that uses its runtime well. Somebody could have taken this same plot and made a 2 hour flick out of it, but there just wouldn't have been as much meat on the bone, so to speak.

I look forward to watching this again to try to understand better the relationships between the characters - especially in the second half, my expectations of the narrative momentum were subverted and I want to sink my teeth into why.

What sticks with me most, though, is the perfect synthesis of the score and the cinematography. There was something so weighty about even the shots of the landscape. Seeing and feeling that in a theater was really special.

I also just want to thank Adrien Brody for being alive and for acting. He's a master.

Much could be and has been said about this movie, but the main thing that stands out to me is how violently it fails to communicate the main theme(s) of the book.

I was excited to watch this after the buzz around it this year. I loved the soundtrack; it's hard to go wrong with Chopin. All the performances were enjoyable, Culkin's especially. I don't think Eisenberg's performance was any less impressive, but like many Eisenberg characters, David was easy to empathize with and hard to love (for me, least).

I very much appreciated the pains that the filmmakers took to show the natural and cultural beauty of Poland. It was very against the stereotype of Eastern Europe as a cold, desolate concrete jungle. At the same time, the expression of pain in the movie, both the pain experienced in the Holocaust and Benji's personal pain, was sensitive and poignant.

I couldn't escape the feeling throughout the movie that there was just a little something missing. I'm not sure what it was. Maybe it was the pacing? Either way, I enjoyed it, but I don't think it'll end up being a classic for me.

Watching this movie, I was struck by descriptions I've read of David Lynch since his ing a couple weeks ago. Essentially, those close to him claimed that he was unwaveringly sincere, both interpersonally and in his filmmaking. I read that some critics interpreted Blue Velvet as satirizing suburban America, but I don't think Lynch was making fun of, for example, the purity of Sandy's dream or the peace of watering your plants in the late afternoon. I think he actually meant to portray those as good and genuine aspects of reality. What Blue Velvet forces you as the viewer to confront is the seething, rampant darkness that co-exists with the innocence, purity, and goodness in the world. It's shocking, but also cathartic somehow. Not a movie I'd watch with ... well, I guess I wouldn't watch it with anyone I know. But I expect that I'll be thinking about it for some time nonetheless.

Watched this with friends, in a beautiful theater, with a live organist, introduced by a university professor who's currently teaching a class on Wes Anderson, surrounded by people who were as ready to be entertained as I was.

It was really nice.

This review may contain spoilers.

So, so much sperm imagery. Oh my gosh. Too much sperm.

This felt like a nightmare had by someone for whom fatherhood held a terrifying fascination. I hope Lynch eventually came to peace with his own experience of it.

This review may contain spoilers.

That Salino reveal was pretty good. They got me with all the ominous shots of the gloved man. They also had me for a while with the FBI agents. Really fun time overall (though some of the scene transitions were incredibly corny).

This review may contain spoilers.

I like the little shots of the bus driver and the kid on the bike throughout the film.

Watched on Monday January 13, 2025.

Officially promoted to one of my 5 stars.

I couldn't stop thinking about Twelve Angry Men. That's not a bad thing, I love Twelve Angry Men. But then I was judging this movie for not being Twelve Angry Men, which it couldn't be, because Twelve Angry Men already exists. I like Twelve Angry Men.

Instant favorite.

Set designers in the '90s really had something special going on. I want to live in Kevin Kline's townhouse.

• Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation
• Mission: Impossible – Fallout
• Mission: Impossible III
• Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning
• Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol
• Mission: Impossible
• Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning
• Mission: Impossible II

I'm so close to completing the list, but The Elephant Man and Wild At Heart aren't on streaming, so I'll publish it now.

1. Twin Peaks: The Return
2. The Straight Story
3. Inland Empire
4. Lost Highway
5. Mulholland Drive
6. Blue Velvet
7. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me
8. Eraserhead
9. Dune
10. The Elephant Man

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

A few things.

First, I don't like counting the same character in different branches of a time travel plot, so I'm not including Tenet, Primer, etc.

Multiverses are boring, so skipping those, too.

I'll give honorable mentions to more surreal stories where you're not entirely sure whether the different "roles" are the same characters or not: Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive, Inland Empire, Black Swan, and Enemy all come to mind.

Further honorable mentions:
- Nocturnal Animals
- Vertigo (deserves a rewatch, it's been a while)
- Hot Fuzz (honestly forget there was a dual role in this, or it would be higher)

• There Will Be Blood

  The first movie I seeing Paul Dano in, and it immediately convinced me he was a genius.

• Twin Peaks: The Return

  ily dale cooper

• The Prestige

  blew my mind when i saw it as an 18 yr old and it still holds up

• The Social Network

  twins were forgettable, but what a movie!

• Annihilation

  more oscar isaacs please

• Mary Poppins

  i was astonished as a child when i learned dick van dyke could be in two places at once

• The Green Knight

  haters gonna hate about this one but i liked it

• The Parent Trap

  not that any of my sibs will see this list, but if they do, this is for you

• Glass Onion

  didn't like this movie, but i did like janelle monae

• Mickey 17

  good job robbie p

I used Matt Card's list as the basis for this one.

A few notes:
- I promise that that I'll watch 2001: A Space Odyssey soon.
- I'm lumping franchises together.
- I ignored many entries on Matt's list that I deemed were not monkey-ish enough to warrant a place in my ranking.

Honorable mentions:
- The Wizard of Oz. I haven't seen it in years and years and years. I'm planning a rewatch, and until then will refrain from ranking it.
- Gladiator II, because I hated it.
- The Lion King. I know one of the main characters is a monkey, but he feels more like a character and less like a monkey, which is a disqualifying attribute for the purposes of this list.

1. WHAT DID JACK DO?

   This is more of the 0th entry; I don't like comparing shorts with full-length movies. I love this one, though, and, now that I think about it, it may have been my first introduction to David Lynch. Anyway, Jack is a very good monkey.

2. Rise of the Planet of the Apes

   It's hard to argue with Matt Reeves' Planet of the Apes trilogy as the definitive primate movies. Andy Serkis is as fabulous as ever, and they're just a rollicking good time.

3. Ad Astra

   This movie was underrated, in my opinion. Brad Pitt? Liv Tyler? Tommy Lee Jones? The late, great Donald Sutherland? And a freaky baboon on a spaceship? Loved it.

4. Tarzan

   It's got it all; loss, childhood, romance, fun, a killer soundtrack that no one ever seems to tire talking about, and, of course, primates.

5. Curious George

   So pure. I love Curious George.

6. Life of Pi

   Did it happen? Or did it not? Does it matter? Either way, Bill Watterson got ripped off.

7. Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio

   Hated the monkey, but del Toro pulled out all the stops for this one and I absolutely loved it.

8. Night at the Museum

   I guess some people hate on Night at the Museum now? At least, some of my friends do. Well, it must be difficult to be a person who hates 2 hours of joy in the form of Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson, that monkey that pees everywhere, Carla Gugino, Mickey Rooney, Dick van Dyke, Rami Malek, and, R.I.P., Robin Williams. This movie is a swell time.

9. Raiders of the Lost Ark

   I didn't grow up on Indiana Jones, but I recently watched most of them and had a good time. Lots of good monkey appearances, too.

10. Nope

    Very scary monkey. Not a fan at all of that monkey. Though I guess it wasn't really the monkey's fault.

1. Star Wars
2. Return of the Jedi
3. The Empire Strikes Back
4. Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith
5. Star Wars: The Force Awakens
6. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
7. Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones
8. Solo: A Star Wars Story
9. Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace
10. Star Wars: The Last Jedi

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

1. John Wick
2. John Wick: Chapter 4
3. John Wick: Chapter 2
4. John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum
5. Ballerina

1. Hot Fuzz
2. Shaun of the Dead
3. The World's End
4. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
5. Baby Driver
6. Last Night in Soho
7. A Fistful of Fingers

1. Captain America: The Winter Soldier
2. Captain America: Civil War
3. Avengers: Endgame
4. Avengers: Infinity War
5. Black Panther
6. The Avengers
7. WandaVision
8. Spider-Man: No Way Home
9. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
10. Spider-Man: Homecoming

...plus 35 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Inspired by Tim.

Also, I finally understand why list entries can have their own descriptions.

• Tarzan

  It could be argued that better movies came out this year, but dang it, I like this one.

  Honorable mentions: The Matrix, Toy Story 2.

• Gladiator

  Honorable mentions: Memento, Cast Away

• Monsters, Inc.

  Fellowship of the Ring is obviously the real choice, but I wanted to put something else down.

  Honorable mention: A Beautiful Mind

• Treasure Planet

  Again, The Two Towers is the real choice here. Treasure Planet absolutely rocks, though.

• Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World

  One last time, Return of the King, obviously. However, Master and Commander would have won Best Picture literally any other year.

  Honorable mentions: Finding Nemo, Lost In Translation

• Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

  Choosing between this and Napoleon Dynamite was tough.

  Also, Mean Girls and 13 Going On 30 came out the same year? What a time to be alive.

  Honorable mentions: Napoleon Dynamite, Collateral, Finding Neverland

• Pride & Prejudice

  I have not seen that many movies from 2005. That fact, however, does not at all diminish my love for Pride & Prejudice.

  Honorable mention: Batman Begins

• The Departed

  Honorable mentions: The Prestige, Casino Royale, Nacho Libre

• There Will Be Blood

  No Country for Old Men? Ratatouille? Hot Fuzz? The Darjeeling Limited? Juno. C'mon now.

  Shout out to 3:10 To Yuma for basically landing me my then girlfriend, now wife.

• In Bruges

  I just really enjoyed this movie.

  Obvious honorable mentions: The Dark Knight, Iron Man

...plus 16 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

it's been a while since I've seen a lot of these ...

• Sense and Sensibility
• Pride & Prejudice
• Clueless
• Emma
• Pride and Prejudice
• Persuasion
• Sense and Sensibility
• Emma
• Persuasion
• Emma.

1. Interstellar
2. Memento
3. The Dark Knight
4. Dunkirk
5. Tenet
6. The Prestige
7. Inception
8. Oppenheimer
9. Insomnia
10. Batman Begins

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

• The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
• The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
• The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
• Fantastic Mr. Fox
• Arrival
• Interstellar
• You've Got Mail
• Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
• Good Will Hunting
• Gladiator

...plus 7 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. The Matrix
2. The Matrix Revolutions
3. The Matrix Reloaded
4. The Matrix Resurrections

1. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
2. Raiders of the Lost Ark
3. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
4. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
5. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

1. Logan
2. Deadpool
3. X-Men: Days of Future Past
4. X-Men: First Class
5. X-Men
6. Deadpool 2
7. X-Men: The Last Stand
8. X2
9. The Wolverine
10. X-Men Origins: Wolverine

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

1. Fantastic Mr. Fox
2. The Darjeeling Limited
3. Moonrise Kingdom
4. The Grand Budapest Hotel
5. Asteroid City
6. Isle of Dogs
7. The Royal Tenenbaums
8. The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar
9. The French Dispatch
10. Bottle Rocket

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