Yep, still the good shit
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Dune: Part Two 2024
One of those films where I know that if I sit there and waste hours trying think of a problem, it’s probably good. It does occasionally—as with the first film—bother me when its hyper-bombastic Zimmer-sauce drowns a scene.
But honestly I don’t give enough of a shit to give a shit.
Denis had to wholly invent a bunch of
hugely elaborate battle scenes and goddamn they rule. Herbert might have a single line like: “The Harkkonen grow weary of fighting… -
The Others 2001
I have heard otherwise reasonable (I think) people shit on this film and I don’t understand how you shit on this film. Relatively straightforward and engaging story (“I figured out the twist ten minutes into the movie haha I am very smart give me a cookie” is the calling card of movie dummies.) The film never hides how the characters feel; that’s what matters. And when they learn things that are painful to learn about, that’s what matters. Not plot…
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Sound of Metal 2019
Edit: Figured out why I love sign language so much. It’s dance. It’s dance as a literal means of communication. It’s a lifeline, a language wholly derived from intuitive movement then made formal. It’s incredible.
Ruben, a metal drummer, loses 80 percent of his hearing due to cochlear destruction.
That’s all we need to know to get inside his mind and his terror. Logistically and chronologically, absolutely nothing else matters.
I acknowledge that I’m off my meds and feeling much…
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Adoption 1975
I really like “Adoption.” It feels heavy at first because its imagery of factory workers sanding wood without any kind of mask on set off my default COVID fist waves and such. It is about a village of folks that struggle to connect, that wish they had something like family, traditional or not. It’s a bit sad, but there’s a deep vein of kindness and gentility underlying its loneliness. Life is a very long series of victories and failures and I like that “Adoption” doesn’t promise rainbows at the end.
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After Yang 2021
Mostly I’ve lost my passion for beautiful wealthy dipshit tea obsessives. As alway, Hailey Lu Richardson saves this soulless, weary, anemic, half-whispered question: do androids modeled on Asian humans like tea? Does anyone like tea?
(The answer is who gives a shit)
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The Power of the Dog 2021
I wonder sometimes if stories of love are also stories of hate just played on different chords
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Saltburn 2023
Edit: I read a bunch of reviews on this ass of a website and I also really do struggle a bit with its tonal shifts and “moo-hoo-hoo-ha-ha-ha” villain laugh of an ending, though that would be fine if the rest of the film leaned into that pulpy camp goodness. Fennell, an amusingly rich person herself, has a chronic malady where she allows her characters to gradually reveal their eccentricities (that’s an extremely generous word) but then has to smash half…
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Leave the World Behind 2023
Sam Esmail’s filmmaking chops are still catching up to his ambitions, but he’s pushing himself to nail it. Keep giving him money, AAA casts and talented crews and he may pull off some amazing work. At the moment he’s still mimicking his favorites, an exercise that I think he needs, in order to get where I hope he gets. He did his best Fincher emulation with “Mr. Robot,” a refreshingly weird spin on 70s paranoia thrillers with “Homecoming,” and here…
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Barbie 2023
I expected to mostly like it but I didn’t expect it to pull a tear during one of the on-the-nose soliloquies—and I certainly didn’t expect to cheer at Gosling working some stage magic. Choreography and songs against bare sets, not a prop in sight, in a nether world that imagination has yet to seed. The man can move and hot damn can he sing. (No I have not and will not see that jazz movie.) (I even cried at the…
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Blackhat 2015
Every Mannism is present, but “Blackhat” barely holds together. The plot is the same as every other action movie: a leading character or two, motivated by a need for vengeance, the fantasy of a quiet life with their latest love interest, or a fuckton of money, bollocks a search for a macguffin or two and now they’re doomed. The legendary last score. Mann’s not above this trope: see “Collateral,” a truly great movie, just a few doors down from here.…