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Watched this for the umpteenth time on my new OLED. Fan-fucking-tastic. Bumping this up a bit.

And I could have a bit of Wick is Pain. Sometimes, armchair critics get caught up in their righteous opinions, not realizing that real art is being created by a hard-working crew of talented people. Who are we to nitpick on the small stuff?

Sumptuous set design and kinetic action sequences make John Wick one of the more dependable modern action franchises.

The only reason I watched this was because of Armstrong. Succession is one of the best-written TV shows I've ever seen.

This was, ... fuck. I have no idea what this was. A very annoying movie at the least. Why in God's green earth, in these insane times, would any of us want to watch the richest sociopaths in the world hang out in an upscale ski chalet?

And that ending! I think Armstrong needs a yearlong sabbatical. That was lazy writing. It was like he didn't know how to end it, and then thinks, "Hey, Steven Carroll is in it! We can make it like a bad episode of The Office."

Normally I turn this shite off. But like the daily news, I couldn't look away.

Warfare is 90 minutes of pure, bottled intensity. The dialogue is sparse, filled mainly with radio chatter and the nervous rhythms of military comms. The cast, some familiar faces, some not, all bring their A-game, radiating both grim resolve and trained competence as things inevitably go FUBAR.

With Alex Garland behind the camera, you expect tight, gorgeous photography and sound design that mesmerizes and commandeers your eardrums. But what truly sets this film apart is co-director Ray Mendoza, a former Navy SEAL whose firsthand experience in the 2006 Battle of Ramadi forms the film’s backbone. Warfare sweats authenticity from every pore. The last few minutes before the credits feature real photos of the soldiers portrayed, along with behind-the-scenes footage, serving as a poignant reminder that this movie was as grueling to make as it is to watch.

I left the theater half-deaf, shellshocked, my already shitty hearing even more muted by an hour of deafening action. After my first watch, I was at four stars, but I knew I’d have to see it again.

The following week, I watched it with my youngest son (22). He was blown away, and so was I. Again. Four and a half stars, goddamn it. Then my oldest came over, eager to see it, and I just couldn’t say no. The result? Five fucking stars, baby. Warfare is now in my top three war movies of all time, right up there with Apocalypse Now and Saving Private Ryan.

But there’s a sadness here, too. The competence and courage of these soldiers, defending themselves in a brutal siege, are undeniable. And yet, all I could think of was Pete Hegseth, gutting the military’s professionalism for some grievance-driven, anti-woke, frat house vendetta. There were no Signal chat scandals when these guys were fighting for their lives.

So, while Rome burns and the Centurions leave their posts to party, I’ll just whisper “Show of Force” and replay those movie clips over, again and again.

I expected this to suck, and I'm glad it didn't. It falls into the 'good but not great' tier among the 35 MCU movies released so far.

Anthony Mackie is solid (as always) as Sam Wilson, carrying the weight of the shield with quiet conviction. But Marvel screwed the pooch on making Wilson an honest to god Captain America: they never properly developed his arc. They tried to work through some of that in Falcon and the Winter Soldier, but it didn't stick. Hell, Hawkeye has 10x more backstory than Sam does. He deserves a proper origin film, not a streaming series.

Harrison Ford was so much funner than I expected. He's not as smarmy as William Hurt's Thunderbolt Ross, and he adds the emotional depth that only a veteran actor like Ford can deliver. He shows up and hulks out, literally. His Ross is a paranoid, emotionally unhinged leader of the free world, and somehow avoids becoming a Trumpish stereotype. The film gives him real pathos: he's not drunk on power, he's a broken man trying to wipe out the past and win back a haggard-looking Liv Tyler as Betty. You feel the tragedy even when it's wrapped in red CGI.

Speaking of which, we finally get a proper Hulk clap shockwave! And Red Hulk's design? His neck-to-shoulder muscles are nearly as tall as his head. Peak Marvel absurdity, and it actually works.

There's even a "sun's gettin' real low" moment that tries to echo Natasha's lullaby. Clever idea, but comical in execution.

Most of all, this film avoids the worst Phase 5 habits. It doesn't drown in cameos, it's political without being preachy, and it tries to tell a story, not just set up the next crossover. That alone puts it ahead of the pack.

I had low expectations for Guy Ritchie's sellout to a big streamer. I read enough to know it was National Treasure meets Raiders of the Lost Ark, but unfortunately, this has Ritchie trying to replicate his dialogue-heavy magic, only ending up with laughable scenes littered with fake cobwebs.

The basic structure is there: siblings hunting Raiders of the Lost Ark-like myths across continents, decoding clues in famous art, all to groaning big-budget effect. The Da Vinci Code worked because it sold you on the archaic mythology of the Catholic Church. It was historical, but it also made you want to believe ... at least for this jaded ex-Catholic. This? It has no dramatic heft. It's not original, so it needed a gimmick. Instead, we get a meme-worthy fake legend with a laughable origin story. It's just vibes with a pretty finale, exactly how you feel after binging on junk food. Full but unsatisfied.

Visually, it's all over the place. They're supposedly globe-trotting, but half of it looks like it's on soundstages. Those "ancient" pyramid tunnels? Like someone read a Preston & Child adventure, then raided Spirit Halloween and slapped fake cobwebs on a Disney World ride. The big library was a fucking joke.

John Krasinski's fine, I guess. Even after The Quiet Place, I never thought of him as an action hero. He's too squeaky clean. Here, he looks like his hair team had a nice travel budget, and spent way too much time sculpting his eyebrows.

Natalie Portman plays it straight and gives us nothing more. Eliza González, who is so uncomfortably beautiful it hurts the brain to assess her performance. She deserves better than the "Guardian-of-the-Whatever" bullshit. She's got real talent buried under that beauty, but someone needs to get her agent and land her a gritty, Monster-like role. Angelina Jolie and Charlize Theron showed smoking hot actresses how to break the mold and make misogynistic Hollywood executives take notice of their acting talent.

I also struggled with Arian Moayed. He killed it in Succession, but the dude decided to cosplay as an Interpol agent with his Sherlock Holmes-ish overcoats. Whenever he spoke, I immediately checked my phone. But holy shit, does he come alive in that Ritchie-stylized shootout. Slow-mo, tons of energy, and a score that finally slapped. I actually sat up and said "OK, now we're cooking."

Then the final act happens and it all goes to shit again. Suddenly we're in Egypt, the kid's Rain Man-ing every puzzle while Domhnall Gleeson does the laziest villain turn since... well, since the last streaming movie villain. A fake "action movie" battle with a score that goes all "dingy dangy dongy" like someone gave the composer's toddler a xylophone.

The Fountain scene finale looks great... the visuals and sound design were genuinely cool, but I'd already checked out by then.

It's not terrible; it's just frustratingly formulaic. There's a better movie buried in here, probably the one Ritchie pitched before countless Apple TV streaming execs screaming, "We have soundstage space next week!"

Still, I didn't hate watching it. There were a few genuinely cool moments, even if they felt borrowed from better films. And hey, at least I got to chase it with an actual tequila on the rocks while Krasinski tripped out over the Fountain of Youth juju.

About halfway through, I was about to bail on Last Breath. I was bored out of my mind. I mean, look at that background image? Even the three actors looked bored.

I love Finn Cole...he was a standout on the excellent Peaky Blinders series. Woody Harrelson and Simu Liu seemed to be phoning it in. The effects were competent, but it was clear that director Alex Parkinson’s patient realism as a documentarian didn’t translate perfectly to a feature film.

And I needed Cthulhu-like creatures to harass Chris Lemons, the poor kid who needs rescuing. But alas, that was already done, fabulously, by Underwater.

But then Lemons ran out of air, 300 feet below sea level. Minutes went by with no air. Tens of minutes went by with no air. I said to myself, “The movie's only half over...he has to survive.” I knew nothing of the true story. But the fact that they were still trying to rescue him dug the hook in deeper.

I’ve already spoiled a bunch of it, but I did that for a reason. If the first 45 minutes are slow for you, the last 45 minutes are not. When the requisite homemade videos of the survivors started playing, I had a shit-eating grin plastered across my face.

I didn’t think it would get to me, but it did.

This is less a review of Psycho than a journal entry.

I think something was going on in my subconscious when I chose this movie. It definitely wasn't a conscious decision.

I needed a movie to clear my mind, and Pschyo happened to be on the Top Movies list on Apple TV.

I'm not a fan of old-timey cinema, especially black-and-white films. The first 15 years of my life were restricted to a shitty black-and-white TV. My parents didn't like TV or movies and didn't upgrade our B&W clunker to color until 1982. That's 15 years of black-and-white TV, goddamn it! Good thing blood still looks good in B&W.

But this wasn't boring at all. It was fascinating. A young woman slowly unravels as she throws her life into chaos after stealing $40K to elope with her boyfriend. The taut storytelling, clever camera work, and fantastic performances, especially by Anthony Perkins and Janet Leigh, kept me engaged.

That shower scene continues to hold up after 65 years. This time, all I could think of was Leigh hanging over the tub while Norman slowly cleaned up the blood. I heard she couldn't take a shower for years after filming that.

Anthony Perkins was incredible. His flappy, lanky body and rubber face, which can contort itself into [a literal mask, reminded me of Jim Carrey. I had to pause and zoom in on Norman's face to make sure he didn't have makeup to make his mouth look that large.

I should watch 2001: A Space Odyssey again. It is also beautifully shot and groundbreaking, but my God, it bores the hell out of me.

It's been forever since I posted a review here. A month? Did anybody miss me?

[the loud silence of crickets...]

I posted my last review a month ago as I've been buried in client work. The good news? Being busy means more business and income, so I finally got to buy my first 4K OLED TV. I've been celebrating with Tim, David, Andy, and a few others on Yo_Roboto's epic Sinners thread. Where's MAGE when you need him? I crave his approval.

Before putting this on, I rewatched the first act of Tim Burton's Batman. Burton created something magical in 1989, gothic, stylized, and absolutely revolutionary for its time. But while Burton proved comic book movies could be art, Nolan did something different: he made one that would reshape the entire industry. Sure, he had modern filmmaking tech at his disposal, but he deliberately grounded everything in gritty realism. Both films nail that iconic cape glide, but when Bale soars through Hong Kong's skyline? Fucking majestic—and somehow feels like it could actually happen.

Nolan only needed one movie, Batman Begins, to nail the formula for one of the best comic book movies of all time, with one of my favorite scores of all time. Zimmer and Newton Howard created something that elevates every scene. The combination of acting, story, score, sets, action, street chases, and practical and digital effects? Flawless.

And the camerawork! That scene where Joker crashes Wayne's gala, telling his face-scar story while the camera spins around him, with Ledger just owning every frame... that's art. I'd hang selected clips from The Dark Knight next to the Mona Lisa or in the Smithsonian. This is CBM meets James Bond. Fuck Tesla. Lamborghini and Ferrari have the lock on cool cars.

In my book, the mid-act finale was the film's real climax. Starting with one of the best Batmobile/Batcycle car chases in the history of Batman movies, then moving to the Joker's huge double-cross, creating so much dramatic heft that you realize comic book movies need to have stakes. That's why Infinity War and Endgame were the best movies the MCU has done. There were both stakes and consequences.

When the Joker triggers a cellphone inside someone's stomach (disgustingly underneath a set of massive Frankenstein stitches), it's pure Se7en-style greatness. And the capper was the iconic moment of Joker sticking his head out the cop car window like a dog feeling the wind blow through his hair. The double-cross forcing Batman to save Harvey instead of Rachel was so well executed and genuinely tragic.

The attention to detail is insane. An example is in Dent's hospital scenes, with gauze contouring his ravaged face, where skin and muscle are supposed to be. Nolan didn't need to go that hard, but it made everything disturbingly real. And Heath Ledger's makeup -- that best villain makeup (possibly) in movie history. That's cinema, folks.

Heath Ledger delivered a transformative performance. I hope he knew what he'd created before he died. Aaron Eckhart as Harvey Dent was also brilliant. Eric Roberts nails it as the smug gangster with his designer suit and perfect tan. David Dastmalchian was awesome as a creepy Joker thug - he's such a good genre character actor. Reminded me of Frank Nitti (the gangster Costner throws off the roof in The Untouchables). That huge black convict who acts all menacing but turns out to have a heart of gold under that scarred visage? Green Mile vibes all the way. And Morgan Fucking Freeman? He operates as the moral com in a sea of gray, delivering gems like,

"Let me get this straight. You think that your client... is secretly a vigilante who spends his nights beating criminals to a pulp with his bare hands... and your plan is to blackmail this person? ... Good luck."

Freeman's dry delivery eviscerates the blackmailer's stupidity in 37 words.

Burton's Batman and Richard Donner's Superman showed the world that comic book movies could be art. They helped pave the way for everything that came afterwards. But 2008? That's when shit got real. Between Iron Man kicking off the MCU money machine and The Dark Knight winning Oscars, superhero films went from being Hollywood's side hustle to running the whole damn show. Nolan crafted something that transcends the CBM genre completely—a post-9/11 meditation on chaos, terrorism, and how far we'll compromise our morals for safety. It just happens to star a dude in a cape.

P.S. I'm glad to be back. Now, excuse me while I break in this OLED.

This was shite, and has the dubious achievement of being worse than George A Romero's last two zombie flicks. This gets an extra half star for Mena Survari and Ving Rhames, but otherwise it's unwatchable.

P.S. Why does autocorrect try to change Ving Rhames to Vin Diesel? I like Vin, but I love Ving Rhames. He took one for the team in Pulp Fiction.

P.P.S The movie poster thumbnail is 10 times better than the movie itself.

A competently-made zombie flick that's essentially I Am Legend n Paris (and you know how I feel about shit going down in Paris).

"One hand clapping in silence."

That's essentially what this movie feels like as our Will Smith protagonist slowly loses his shit due to isolation and a horde of zombies outside his apartment. There's barely any human interaction, and we're stuck watching one guy slowly lose his shit in silence. It's Cast Away with the undead, but instead of Wilson, he's got a refrigerated zombie to monologue at. I need a lot of human interaction to replace a lack of action and gore.

When the girl shows up, things finally spark again. It's the only moment the film flirts with actual emotional stakes. And then that ending. Any goodwill I had developed crashed and burned. By the way? Why did nobody in this movie speak French?

Do yourself a favor and watch the far superior Nocturama.

P.S. The Ving Rhames Day of the Dead reboot auto-played after this finished. If I can steal BrokenAverage's style, I can definitely say:

The Day of the Dead reboot is NOT better than The Night Eats the World.

Wild at Heart was the first David Lynch movie that totally hooked me when it was released on VHS a bazillion years ago. I was 23 then and a newly minted college grad in a cheap suit, working at an entry-level "grunt" job at a consulting firm in downtown LA while living in sin with my girlfriend and a bunch of frat buddies. Until then, I thought Lynch was a big weirdo with Eraserhead, Dune, and Blue Velvet, but I've since reassessed those and chalked up my naivety to being an ADHD, impatient dude who liked his genre films to be straightforward crowd-pleasers like Aliens and Hellraiser.

My girlfriend and I were in that "get laid-every-night" phase, and I was smitten by Laura Dern and Nicolas Cage's ionate romance. Cage was awesome as he cosplayed Elvis through most of the film. At the time, Wild at Heart hit all my right buttons.

Recently, I've been deep-diving into most of Lynch's work, and I have yet to have a non-positive assessment of anything I've seen of his. This is no exception, although it didn't hit the heights it did 30 years ago. Yeah, I'm aware I've become a wizened anti-romantic, which is part of it. The part is that because I've been floored by the entire Twin Peaks saga and any other work I've revisited, setting my Lynch bar high.

Another gripe is that when they finally settled down in that RV park of weirdos in the final act, that was a long, slow stretch that took me out of the flick. Or maybe Willem Dafoe's fake, rotten teeth revolted me. There wasn’t anything wrong with it, but given the previous hour of nonstop intensity, it was a bit of a whiplash for me.

Shout out to Isabella Rossellini's five seconds on camera. She should've won Best ing Actor for this, instead of for Conclave. Writing this makes me want to put on my favorite movie of hers, Death Becomes Her.

RIP, David Lynch. I wish I’d given you the appreciation you deserved much earlier in my life.

I had high expectations for James Ashcroft’s follow-up to his brutal debut, Coming Home in the Dark. The Rule of Jenny Pen marks a significant shift in tone and style. Coming Home's stark, linear revenge story is grounded in realism, while Jenny Pen veers more into black comedy and the surreal. While the premise is original and intriguing, albeit reminding me a bit of Doctor Sleep's nursing home scenes. Unfortunately, I struggled with absurdist elements and a huge gap in logic.

It also reminded me a lot of Bubba Ho-Tep. Both films are set in nursing homes and explore the quiet horror of aging and the sudden loss of autonomy. Both dabble in psychological dread and absurdist humor, confronting the same uncomfortable truth: the real monster is what time and society do to our seniors. Bubba-Ho Tep does a better job with that type of humor, given it's got Don "Surreal" Coscarelli at the helm.

That blend of horror and absurdity comes together big time with John Lithgow’s Dave Crealy, a seemingly harmless resident who exerts tyrannical control over others through his baby doll puppet, Jenny Pen. This is the most fun Lithgow has had in a film in a long while. He’s clearly relishing the role, and it's a pleasure to watch.

Geoffrey Rush reminded me why he’s such a great actor, bringing vulnerability and flashes of his character's former authority from his past life as a judge. Once a formidable legal mind, he's now sidelined by a stroke, trapped in a body that no longer obeys him. Rush conveys frustration with both subtle and powerful expressions.

Overall, I had fun, but was frustrated by the pacing and the absurdity of the Jenny Pen doll. That, and the fact that Rush's character was the only one who stood up to Lithgow. I can't believe all 30–40 seniors were that feeble. Still, kudos to Ashcroft for flexing his wings as a filmmaker.

“This. Is. SPARTA!”

A killer punchline, said moments before Leonidas delivers a slow-mo kick to the sternum, hurtling the Persian envoy into a pit.

Even the most committed Zack Snyder skeptics must it: the dude has style. You might not like his style, but he’s got it in spades. With 300, Zack is at his most distilled: oiled-up beefcakes, hyper-stylized carnage, and operatic testosterone cranked to eleven.

The concept is dumb brilliance: a glorified protein shake of Greek myth, comic-book masculinity, and slow-mo ballet violence. In lesser hands, this would be laughable. But Zaddy leans so hard into the pageantry that it circles back into glorious. Based upon j a lot of the review and I’ve read, not everyone is in on the joke. 

Back then, Snyder’s slow-mo still felt fresh—every spear toss and shield clash a masterstroke of choreographic bravado. Unlike Rebel Moon's sluggish, ridiculous slo-mo action, the pacing here snaps. The fights breathe. There’s a rhythm to the chaos. It's dumb, but it's elevated dumb.

I lost myself at times gazing into the tectonic plate lines of Gerard Butler's abs. His pecs cast shadows. His naked back and tush—rippling in the midnight moonlight—deserves to be framed. The man didn’t so much act as vibrate with barely-contained menace in every scene.

Lena Headey, regal as always, walks in like she owns the movie l. She gives “Queen” with every glare, every syllable. It’s easy to see the Cersei Lannister blueprint forming. And a shoutout to Dominic West, who slimes his way through every scene with just enough ham to be delicious. Another shout-out goes to Michael Fassbender’s manic Spartan—gym or CGI, the guy was shredded.

My enjoyment faltered a bit with the 4K transfer. It looked like a waxy, grainy mess. I this being jaw-dropping in 2007. Now? The pixelation from those hyper-sharpened filters is a big distraction. This might be one of those rare cases where 4K doesn’t do a movie justice.

Still, 300 endures because it knows exactly what it is. It’s not history. It’s not subtle. It’s a shirtless fever dream of defiance, sacrifice, and abs you could slice bread on.

And yeah… this IS Sparta, albeit a stylized comic book recreation, and I had a blast.

I'm pissed. I spent an hour writing a review of this in a Chrome browser tab, and after five paragraphs of what was likely my best review of all time on Letterboxd, I clicked back to the review tab, and accidentally hit "X. " It closed my tab without a prompt, and I lost everything.

Since I ed five years ago, I have done 99.99999 percent of my 1000+ reviews on my PC. It always had a fail-safe of "If you close this tab, you will lose blah blah blah." It didn't do it this time.

But I had a blast with this movie, and I have much more to say. My boys are coming over to watch this Sunday night, and I will be better able to repeat my once-in-a-lifetime masterpiece on Monday.

Meanwhile, Letterboxd, fix this epic bug!

"You wanted to tussle. We tussled."

Out of Sight is peak Steven Soderbergh. Elmore Leonard’s writing style meshes perfectly with Soderbergh’s filmmaking sensibilities, especially around casting and directing an excellent cast. Everything just clicked for me: outstanding ensemble performances, fantastic dialogue, an energetic ‘70s funk-jazz mashup score, a perfect balance between comedy and the dark side of crime, and brilliant, witty writing.

Not to mention two drop-dead gorgeous leads in George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez. Were they hit with the luckiest DNA on the planet, or what? Thirty years later, they’re still stunning—like they’ve barely aged. People would drop a fortune to pay for that DNA if they could choose traits for their future babies.

Usually, I find that kind of beauty distracting in movies, but not here. It actually made the experience more immersive. I mean, if two of the most beautiful people on the planet are going to fall hard and risk their careers—or their freedom—for each other, it helps if their chemistry is just as believable as their looks.

But maybe it’s not just their looks. They’re also utterly charming. As the Oxford Dictionary puts it, “charming” means polite, friendly, and likable—and they’re all that, effortlessly.

Every side character is memorable and distinct. I’d honestly love spinoffs for Don Cheadle, Ving Rhames, Catherine Keener, Viola Davis, and Steve Zahn’s characters (look, Yo—no typos!).

I really need to get off my ass and start reading Elmore Leonard. The guy wrote 40 books, and I haven’t cracked a single one. But in the meantime, I’m happy soaking in the uniquely cool style of Steven Soderbergh.

I had low expectations going into this odd mashup of Project X, World's End, and Stephen King's Trucks, but it was a lot better than I expected. Rachel Zelweger (Zelger ... gotcha, Yo_Roboto!) slummed it by doing this movie, but she was charming and less annoying than her political persona. I'm a big fan of needle drops in movies, and this didn't disappoint. I was 10 years older than the annoying teens featured here when Y2K actually happened, but this was a late 90s time capsule with a fantastic soundtrack and a healthy dose of Limp Bizkit and Fred Durst, a band I very much enjoyed back in the day. And while it leans more into comedy than horror, I loved that it embraced its R-rating.

A taught corporate thriller that would be nothing without Steven Soderbergh's camerawork and homage to Alfred Hitchcock and the performance of Zoë Kravitz. I also got the urban thriller vibes from David Fincher's The Game.

I'm still trying to figure out why the film opens with its CEO on a Zoom call wearing pajama bottoms and a suit and tie, all from what looks like a storage closet somewhere, when they have corporate offices everywhere, but I was very entertained.

I wouldn't give this the time of day for a rewatch except for Val Kilmer's performance. I'm not a fan of slapstic comedy and I"m still burned out on Nazi stuff after watching too many Hogan's Heros reruns as a kid. The ZAZ formula (David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker) always takes you to the extremes of hilarity and dumber than dumb. I hate musicals, and their attempt to combine parodies of World War 2 and Elvis movies while keeping it contemporary just didn't work for me. Kilmer as Elvis in True Romance is all I need.

But when ZAZ strikes a funny bone, it's a full-body experience. When Val consoles his manager in a Nazi prison cell by whipping a massive box imprinted with "Anal Intruder" slapped over it, it was a pure LMAOGASM. And ZAZ milked that bit for at least five minutes.

Val Kilmer also had great comedic timing -- I enjoying Real Genius, even if my memory is hazy given it was decades ago.

RIP Val.

I've become a big fan of Christopher Abbott and Barry Keoghan's genre work. If you think of the memorable and twisted horror, thriller, and weird drama flicks of the last five to eight years, they've been in many of them.

And they're fantastic in this feature debut from Christopher Andrews about an escalating feud between two ranching families. It's a wicked blend of bleak and hopeful, and it doesn't fully embrace either of those by the end.

This is a good one to go in blind and appreciate the scenery and performances, while puzzling as to why they didn't provide subtitles for the unintelligible Connemara Irish dialect. If you were puzzled by Brad Pitt in Snatch, look out for these conversations. Subtitles required.

Yeah, this pretty much sucked, but it's not as bad as I thought. The funniest thing happened within minutes of the title sequence, as the camera pauses for effect on ... drum roll ... DARK UNIVERSE!!!!! I laughed my ass for a long time at that inadvertent comedic bit.

Russell Crowe was my highlight. With his hilarious accent, I would love to see him do a Mr. Hyde spinoff. All joking aside, I liked the idea of "Dark Universe."

P.S. This is one of those movies that I'd wonder if MAGE gave it one of his puzzling glowing reviews on a shitty movie. Does anybody what his take on this was? I'm thinking he liked it.

This was fantastic. I've always had a puzzling relationship with Steven Soderbergh's films. I don't think I've watched one bad film from him, but my appreciation only ranges between 3 and 4 stars for his work. But I'm not heading to a theater or dropping $20-$30 to watch it once it hits digital.

But that may change. I loved Presence. It was fascinating and gripping. It felt different. It was technically brilliant (the first-person POV long takes from the ghost's perspective. And it was one hour and 24 freaking minutes!

The performances are excellent. I don't always agree with Soderbergh's talky bits, but I was engrossed in the dialogue. I thought the husband, whom I've never seen before, was excellent, as was the daughter.

Which of his flicks are your favorite? I need to schedule a rewatch (I've seen most of the movies), as the only movie I really liking was Contagion. Again, all decent movies, but nothing that grabbed me like this did. I've recently learned that I may have matured enough to appreciate Soderbergh's work properly.

Now this was something. I went in blind, having been spurred on by a post on X by David James.

The movie starts as we separately follow a wide variety of Paris teens travelling to random places. There is little to no context, and that goes on FOREVER. I didn't clock it, but I wanna say maybe 30-40 minutes before you know what they're cooking up. Eventually, they start doing some very bad shit, and then hole up in a mall as if there was a zombie apocalypse outside.

This is where the movie started to get its hooks in me. It's like a Bizarro World version of Dawn of the Dead (kudos to oliviacuervo for planting that idea in my mind). It's almost the filmmakers watched Dawn of the Dead, got the idea for this movie, and built around it. That's where the characters develop and act like Peter, Flyboy (Stephen), Trooper (Roger), and Fran, making the mall their playground, settling in for the long haul.

But they're essentially kids, albeit majorly fucked up kids, and given they just did some very bad shit, I had zero empathy for them. The finale is chilling, but very satisfying.

I was going to rate this a half-star lower, but the final act is pure awesomeness. And I bet on a rewatch, I won't have to wonder why I've been following these stupid kids for so long without any context.
Four stars! Repo Jack says, check it out.

This movie is fucked up and weird, and I loved it. It's a modernized spiritual sequel to 8MM, but it is completely its own thing, with the only connective tissue being that snuff films are involved.

I recently watched Zodiac, and while it's a great film, it didn't grab me like Se7en and Memories of Murder. Several people commented that Zodiac is better appreciated as a tale of obsession rather than a serial killer procedural. To those friends who enjoy tales of obsession, this movie could be for you.

Ostensibly, it's about Kelly-Ann, a young model who's also a hacker and a true crime fanatic. She gets sucked into the trial of a man that is accused of hosting a "Red Room" on the dark web, where he abuses, tortures, and kills young girls for paying clients via video recordings. Kelly-Ann meets another young girl obsessed with the trial, and is convinced that the man on trial is innocent. These two are very obsessed.

I found the filmmakers approach to obsession obsessiveness fascinating, as various things cause, or don't cause, a change in perspective for the viewer and our two stans.

It's French Canadian, and the court proceedings were also pleasantly unfamiliar to me. Everybody was decked out in fancy royal dress (but no wigs) in the coldest, sterile courtroom I've ever seen. They don't show any of the brutality, but the filmmakers don't exactly spare you either: you're a ive observer experiencing the horror through the audio and unreadable reflection in their eyes. The acting is fantastic, as the true horror is in their facial reactions.

And the finale is fantastic, even if I didn't complete understand it all.

"ChatGPT,

Please explain the ending of Red Rooms.

Love,
Your Number One Fan

P.S. You were supposed to message me last night? What gives?"

The most unerotic erotic space movie of all time. 

Highlife is a relatively low-budget A24 erotic sci-fi jaunt on a claustrophobic junkheap of a spaceship. Death row inmates are used as fertility lab rats as a hilariously horny Juliet Binoche is apparently doing weird experiments on them (something to do with sperm and fertilization. The movie isn't clear on what she's actually doing other than collecting and implanting sperm and riding a stationary bike with the biggest phallus I've ever seen.

Robert Pattinson, Binoche, and Mia Goth were all fantastic, as always. This was probably the first movie in which Goth let her freak fly, and it was awesome.

I say it was low-budget, but it was made for 8 million euros. It looks like most of that budget went into the cool-looking black hole (very similar to Interstellar's) as it apparently can provide alternative energy to humanity. A character is "spaghettified" which was honestly very satisfying, mostly because that was what SHOULD have happened to Cooper in Interstellar.

I won't spoil the ending, but it left me unsatisfied. Whether that is the movie's purpose or just a poorly handled finale, it still left me not wanting more.

I love most of David Fincher's films, but I didn't love this when it was released in 2007. Looking back on that, take after a recent rewatch, my issues were less about the film and more about the state of my mind when I watched it. This is an excellent procedural, which foreshadowed a few of his masterpieces that would immediately follow, including The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and Gone Girl.

Back in 2007, I was living with my family in Shanghai, China, and my career and marriage were blowing up, all of which was made worse by a full-blown mid-life crisis that had me spending way too much time in bars (or was it the other way around?). My attention span was for shit (it still is, but age and drinking less has slowed me down immensely).

I originally thought this was a bloated, meandering, lifeless mess. On this rewatch, it was none of that, although it did still feel long. The larger canvas of locations and time periods kept it from being as cohesive as I would've liked, but I'll chalk those issues up again to personality quirks and not the movie's fault.

In my recent review of Memories of Murder, I said it put Zodiac to shame, but I caveated that I needed to rewatch it. I wasn't lying when I said that, but that was because I thought my issues were with the movie itself. The movie's fine, it's me who needed to grow up.

Anywho, the ensemble cast was fantastic. I wonder if this helped RDJ get the Iron Man gig, or if he already had that locked up. Jake Gyllenhaal is perfectly cast as a socially inept but obsessive "reporter." I also loved John Carroll Lynch as Arthur Leigh Allen, the possible killer. The cinematography was fantastic, and the 4K version popped on my screen.

The last act felt tacked on to me. You spend most of the story with RDJ and the cops, and then they exit stage left, and it's all about Gyllenhaal's character's obsession, which would've been more compelling if they gave that more time in the previous two acts.

But I'm glad I revisited this and corrected the record. Mr. Fincher, please make more procedurals.

Wow. First watch for me, and I'm utterly speechless. Memories of Murder is a movie that I've put on more times than I can count, but I have always turned it off early due to boredom and struggling to jive with the Abbott and Costello buffoonery of the local cops. But I stuck with it this time, and what a payoff it was. This s Silence of the Lambs and Seven as my favorite serial killer procedurals of all time.

I was first introduced to Boon Joon Ho with The Host, a low-to-highbrow sci-fi horror thriller that captured his signature themes and style perfectly. A creature flick that punched way above its weight class. Then Parasite gobsmacked me in 2019, and became one of my favorite movies of the last 10 years. I decided I needed more Boon Ho in my life, but I felt Okja was a letdown. Maybe I need to revisit that as well.

This puts David Fincher's Zodiac to shame, although, to be fair, I need to rewatch it now.

[Edit: my memory and appreciation of Zodiac were very off. I rewatched it last night and it is fantastic, although I enjoyed Memories more.]

I think I've found the one positive thing about getting older -- we tend to slow down and appreciate the intricacies of life more. I now understand how we grow to appreciate history, nature, and fine things more as we age. I'm so much more patient in my watches, appreciating the nuanced artistry of a master at his craft.

Or, it could be that I drink a lot less than I used to.

There is so much to say about this movie: the two perfect bookends that begin and end the movie; the evolution and de-evolution of the movie's two main protagonists; the cinematography; the use of different filters/styles to represent the mood or significance of different sets and scenes; the juxtaposition of humor and bleakness, and so much more.

This deserves a proper rewatch. I started this skeptical and ended it wowed. Mr. Ho, I salute you.

P.S. Justice for Kwang-Ho!

PSA: Avoid the shitty HD version on Tubi. It's worth it to splurge for 4K.

Alexander Aja must've loved It Comes At Night so much that he sought a similar script, even if that meant slowing down his typical pace by a tenth of what it normally is. The first two acts are frustratingly vague and slow. But he mostly redeems himself by sticking to his horror roots with the movie's conclusion. If he went the route many indy horror movies usually go (looking at you, The Damned), I would hate this to death (sorry for being vague, but it would be a big spoiler to reveal more on that).

But that redemption can't fix the fact that this is mostly a lackluster affair, something I will probably never watch or think about again after today.

The moral of the story of It Comes at Night is that humans are doomed. Most mainstream movies tout the selfless nature of heroes willing to sacrifice themselves for the greater good. Not this movie. And it fits perfectly in the A24 period of peak bleak horror in the late 2010s. My takeaway on this rewatch is that the film gets it right—half our country elected the most selfish and tribal individual in human history.

Add a mysterious killer virus that gives you boils and fucks up your eyes, and we've got an extra-wicked brew of tribalism. We don't know what else the virus does because it isn't interested in being a typical viral zombie movie. It's what desperate humans will do to others to protect their families at any cost. We think Lord of the Flies can only happen to kids. But when desperate and left to our own devices, adults can be just as bad.

The claustrophobic setting, outstanding performances, and intense score make this a cut above the other Walking Dead ripoffs. Joel Edgerton is fantastic. He's a gruff, no-nonsense father of an awkward teen and a meek wife who makes a few stupid decisions along the way, inadvertently risking his entire family.

This is the movie that introduced me to Christopher Abbott, and it's clear why he has become a go-to actor for horror. He seamlessly switches from vulnerable to menacing.

I had a few nitpicky issues that annoyed me, including an overreliance on jump-scare dreams and a slow middle act. But overall, this is an intense and fascinating adaption of a tired trope.

P.S. Edgerton has the coolest sniper shotgun I've ever seen.

The premise is simple: What happens if a Jesus-like baby girl washes up on the shores of a small island fishing village, miraculously healing people and attracting fish when they are in her presence? How would those denizens act if they never had to worry about getting hurt or hungover?

This has Stephen King all over it. It's a Needful Things and Storm of the Century mashup with a Firestarter twist. It even has a Mrs. Carmody!

It's surprisingly gripping and well-acted, and ...

SEMI-SPOILER

... a fine modernization of the tale of the Golden Goose.

P.S. The ending was fantastic. Very satisfying.

This show is insanely gripping. I liked Costner's Horizon a lot, but Peter Berg's American Primeval runs circles around it in of a tale of intense survival on the plains. It makes Netflix's tier subscription price more palatable.

Taylor Kitsch deserves a career resurgence. He's been in some stinkers (I give you John Carter of Mars, an overstuffed romp, as Exhibit A), but he's never been the problem. This may be one of his best roles. But all the acting from a stacked cast of genre veterans was all top-notch. And in between the usual Western nastiness, we've got the political intrigue of the US military, early Mormons, and Native Americans (did Bringham Young really have twenty wives?!?!). This may be Peter Berg's best endeavor.

This isn't a fun watch. It's brutal at times, but it's utterly engrossing—how I felt while watching it felt real and lived in. I don't know if that's what life was really like back then, but I'm sure it was harder to survive than it is today—unless you are an immigrant, young woman, person of color, or any marginalized group that isn't white male and Christian in today's America. Happy 250th fucking birthday, America.

Woof. If fans of the Russo brothers are thinking that their return to Marvel with Robert Downey Jr. in Avengers: Doomsday is going to reinvigorate the MCU, they should be very worried. I haven't seen all of their movies post-Endgame, but I've seen and read enough to know they've been struggling mightily.

If this were a limited series, it would've been much more interesting, given it's a bit of a riff on the new Fallout series. Apparently, they departed drastically from the source material, and the plot (if you can call it that) meanders so much that I was utterly unengaged. The animatronic robots look great ... you can see the $300M+ obscene price tag in unique, loving details. And an overpriced stacked cast that phones in all of their performances.

I honestly didn't want to write squat about this movie. I actively use ChatGPT for work and have started paying for , so I that I'd see if it could handle humor or satire, maybe come up with a one-liner to rival Yo_Roboto's Damsel. But apparently, Skynet doesn't have a sense of humor.

Creepy cute daughter: "That's not why we travel at night. We can't bear the daylight. It hurts us."
Smitten dude: "I see."

That dude didn't run for the hills because he was too busy fighting the Boor War in 1901 to keep up with the latest horror literature. Jaco Bouwer doesn't reach the heights of his previous film, Gaia, but he delivers an effective low-budget one-room thriller based on a play of the same name.

He also has an eye for visuals. He must have been influenced by Oz Perkins' Gretel and Hansel, but I got serious vibes of that with some of the imagery. I hope he breaks out internationally.

Yeah, this is fine. Not good, not bad, just fine. Isn't that the definition of the word? Somewhere between good and bad?

Russell Crowe is always fun, especially when you realize he gives give two shits about affecting a real Russian accent. It's the same accent he uses in The Pope's Exorcist and Thor: Love and Thunder.

I'm looking forward to ATJ in 28 Years Later, although I think the women won't be as happy as he'll be shirtless less.

Bumping this up to four stars. I don't have much more to say that isn't covered in my original review, but this is how you do eco-horror. I dug the Ken Russell extended drug sequence.

This is a much better movie than its lame-ass Shudder title implies. While you could easily dismiss this as a riff on Mean Girls with some body horror thrown in, there's a deeper story of the experience that Asian immigrant teens experience when trying to fit into Western society that makes it a cut above the typical horror flick.

The movie begins with a fantastic drone shot of an insanely dense Chinese apartment complex, where we are introduced to a local Chinese father and daughter who caps off with a shocker. The photography, sound design, and score are fantastic in this.

You're then transported a few years later to the suburbs of a random New Zealand city where the fish out of water story begins in earnest. Mandarin Chinese is still being spoken while you are introduced to some of the New Zealand characters, with a line from a character that summarizes the underlying theme of the movie perfectly.

It keeps going like this, with everything feeling just a little off-kilter to familiar scenes we've seen in other movies, sucking you in bit by bit. But things go off the rails when they introduce a gimmick that requires you to suspend a ton of disbelief. If you thought The Substance was absurd, that gimmick quickly wears thin and turns the rest of the movie into a typical horror flick. I'll give you a hint on what the gimmick is: Mission Impossible.

But Sasha Rainbow (is she the bastard stepchild of Elon Musk or Frank Zappa?) in her feature debut is someone to keep an eye on.

Unlike many of his horror brethren, Phantasm's Don Coscarelli had a creative resurgence in late middle age, delivering two fantastic horror comedies with Bubba-Ho Tep and John Dies at the End.

I was seriously on the soy sauce in 2012: I'd put this on, get sucked into the mind-bending first act, and then half- out with faint memories of a ridiculous finale.

I was worried I would need the soy sauce to appreciate it like I used to, but that was not the case. It's even better. I love the absurdity of the story, an adaption by Coscarelli of a hilarious book written by David Wong, a writer for Mad Magazine's competitor, Cracked. But I give most of the credit to Coscarelli for his great casting (a fun role for Clancy Brown, and Paul Giamatti seems to be having a ton of fun in his cameo), goofy effects, and cheeky story. The book isn't an easy adaption.

Also, the stoic slacker dude who plays the lead character (fantastic job by Chase Williamson), reminded me a lot of a high school buddy of mine. He looked and acted just like him, except my friend would randomly say, "Bzzzt." No joke. That would've fit right here perfectly.

Why was this released in theaters? This is the dreck you'd find on late-night Cinemax in the 1990s. A perfect opportunity to phone in an ...

AI REVIEW (Gemni)
The "Werewolves" movie flopped due to a combination of factors, including a weak script, poor acting, unconvincing special effects, a general lack of engagement from audiences, production issues, and a disappointing box office performance.

Poor Script and Dialogue:
The movie's script was described as "clunky, forced, and often downright cringeworthy," which significantly impacted the film's overall quality.

Weak Acting:
Many viewers criticized the acting as being weak and unconvincing, further detracting from the film's credibility.

Unconvincing Special Effects and Creature Design:
The practical effects and creature design were deemed "goofy" and "unscary," failing to create the desired sense of horror or excitement.

Distracting Filmmaking Choices:
The film's frequent use of distracting filmmaking choices, such as excessive lens flare and strobing lights, further alienated viewers.

Production Issues:
The film was plagued with production issues, which may have contributed to the overall lack of polish and quality.

Box Office Performance:
The film flopped at the box office, suggesting that it failed to capture the interest of a wide audience.

Lack of Engagement:
Many viewers felt that the movie was not engaging or suspenseful, leading to a lack of interest and a negative viewing experience.

Poorly Implemented Premise:
While the premise had potential, it was poorly implemented, resulting in a weak and uninspired film.

Unscary:
Many viewers felt that the werewolf design and the overall movie was not scary at all.

Predictable:
The movie was described as predictable, with plot holes so big that it was hard to enjoy.

Generative AI is experimental.

I fondly stumbling upon this low-budget gem on a streamer sometime in 2012. It starts as a straightforward story of a friend staging an intervention on his drug addict buddy in a run-down cabin in the hills of bumfuck Southern California. And then weird shit starts happening.

I it being too much of a slow burn for me back then, but the Lost-like discoveries hooked me in. (Getting old is making me more patient. Slow burns that annoyed me before I'm now fine with. I see being a fan of Antique Roadshow in my future.

You won't get a clear explanation of what is going on in Resolution until watching The Endless, the unofficial sequel that is definitely a sequel. In fact, this really should be binged > as a double feature. Like Kill Bill Part One and Part Two. Once you've watched them in order, you can then rewatch them again in any order you want. I posit that the two films are the yin and yang of a time loop. But which came first? The yin or the yang?

Venom: "I'm glad we didn't eat this fine family."

Venom, voiced by Tom Hardy, is the best. He delivers the funniest lines and has the biggest heart.

My biggest surprise from this latest entry was that it pulled my heartstrings. The scene where they hook up with an aging hippie couple and their kids on a UFO/UAP hunt and sing along to David Bowie's Space Oddity gave me a big fat smile.

Like the other Sony Marvel movies, nearly everything else is either deathly bland or grossly incompetent. Without Hardy, this would've been a disaster.

This was a fun trilogy.

Sometimes, it takes getting a new 4K Blu-ray, with all the extras and commentaries, to make you dig into the depths of a movie you love.

There's a neat set of scene featurettes with commentary from a handful of the actors in the movie, including Brad Pritt, providing color on one of my favorite scenes in the movie. An excerpt:

"Hi. I'm Brad Pitt. I got involved because I had early discussions with Tony about playing a much bigger role in the film. And to be honest, I really didn't quite get it. To me, the film is kind of like a young guy's wet dream. You know, he gets the drugs, he gets the girl, he pulls off the heist and off into the sunset. I didn't get it at the time. I took it much too literally, and all I could see was that this guy on this romp gets his dad killed, and then they make no mention of it afterward. And it bothered me. And of course, now, I think it's fantastic. It's actually one of my favorites."

This is one of my favorites, too, and yes, it's a young guy's wet dream. As Metallica sings, So What!

Everything comes together in a ion project between Tony Scott and Quentin Tarantino, and their love for the material and their collaboration show. Tarantino even called Scott his mentor, which is saying something for someone with QT's ego.

Everything comes together in a near-perfect melody of music, acting, story, and pace. Hans Zimmer's riff on the theme from Badlands is bright and airy and beautifully complements the romancing of Patricia Arquette and Christian Slater. I love the chemistry between those two in my favorite performances from each of them. The rest of the stacked cast also delivers fantastic performances and memorable scenes.

The larger-than-life story that starts in Detroit and ends in Los Angeles is fast-paced and gripping. Scott and Tarantino mostly pull off the shift in tone, although I lost some steam once everybody reaches LA.

This is also one of my favorite Blu-ray purchases in of content. In addition to the multiple extras, it has a relatively big booklet of tributes to the movie, crew, and cast. And it all looks and sounds marvelous.

RIP Tony Scott. You were a real auteur.