Last (x) movies you saw (II)

Eighth Grade I've said a little about in EIGHTH GRADE (2018, written & directed by Bo Burnham, starring Elsie Fisher) , but its most remarkable achievement is the way the audience get situated right with Kayla, both through Elsie Fisher's heart-open performance and the script. Everything feels as traumatic and monumental as stresses and anxieties do at that age, there's absolutely no adult tone present framing it as "one day she'll realise how minor all this was" or "oof, remember how that used to feel"." We're totally present in the milieu, despite so many elements deliberately excluding adult perspectives.

Blindspotting has a little first-film-iness to the script, but is totally carried by the onscreen charisma and chemistry of the writers. If civilisation lasts another ten years, it'll be interesting to see how much the tech-bro-gentrification themes feel like a period piece vs a valuable snapshot of a tipping point. Right now I imagine it'd be largely baffling to non-city-dwelling audiences.

xp wait, WHAT?

Yeah wow, I actually have that blu ray, maybe I’ll watch it tonight

Secret of the Blue Room (Neumann, 1933)
*Lost Horizon (Capra, 1937)
#A Kiss in the Dark (surviving reels) (Tuttle, 1925)
#Too Many Kisses (Sloane, 1925) (personal festival highlight)
#Your Technocracy and Mine (Benchley, 1933)
#The Mad Game (Cummings, 1933)
#We Faw Down (McCarey, 1928)
#The House That Shadows Built (unidentified Paramount drudges, 1931)
#On the Brink (Porter & Weber, 1911)
#Romola (King, 1924)
*#The Cocoanuts (Florey & Santley, 1929)
#Mamba (Rogell, 1930)
#The Circus of Life (Julian, 1917)
#The Stolen Ranch (Wyler, 1926)
#Princess Lady Bug (Barker, 1930)
#The Storm (Wyler, 1930)
*#Brats (Parrott, 1930)
#Bulldog Drummond Strikes Back (Del Ruth, 1934)
#A Daughter of the Law (Cunard, 1921)
#The Night of Love (Fitzmaurice, 1927)
#Television Highlights (Schwarzwald, 1936)
#School for Swing (Schwarzwald, 1937)
#It's Great To Be Alive (Werker, 1932)
*#The Coming of Sunbeam (Guy, 1913)
#Twenty Dollars a Week (Weight, 1924)
#Ed Sullivan's Headliners (Schwarzwald, 1934)
#Her First Mate (Wyler, 1933)
#Call of the Cumberlands (Lloyd, 1916)
#The Rescue (Brenon, 1929)

#Capitolfest 16, or J.Lu Yet Again Is Reminded that Not All Silent and Pre-Code Films Are Classics.

celebrating the new thread with some all timers (uk folks nuts in may is back on the iplayer!)

Late Autumn (Ozu, 1960) 9/10
Diary of a Country Priest (Bresson, 1951) 10/10
Pickpocket (Bresson, 1959) 9/10
* Nuts in May (Leigh, 1976) 8/10
* Love and Friendship (Stillman, 2016) 7/10
Hereditary (Aster, 2018) 5/10
Ordet (Dreyer, 1955) 10/10

I don't log short films like j.lu does, but I saw about 8 Sadie Benning videos (made in Pixelvision) that I last watched about 25 years ago; most of those would be 8-10/10.

Three Faces West (1940, Vorhaus) 6/10
*My Beautiful Laundrette (1985, Frears) 8/10
Flat Is Beautiful (1998, S Benning) (50min) 5/10
Swallow (1995, Subrin) (28min) 7/10
The Lovers of Montparnasse (1958, Becker) 9/10
The Young Savages (1961, Frankenheimer) 5/10
Another Girl, Another Planet (1992, Almereyda) (56min) 6/10
Wake of the Red Witch (1948, Ludwig) 7/10
A Girl’s Folly (1917, M Tourneur) 7/10
Gavagai (2016, Tregenza) 4/10
Les Amis (1971, Blain) 5/10

I'd suggest you watch more Davies as prep than Frears, but don't want to prescribe any other TV while yr still not moving forward on Twin Peaks

Davies? this guy?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Howard_Davies

Russell T. Davies, the writer of A Very British Scandal. Roughly every second of his works deals with different facets of men-attracted-to-men negotiating a homosociality within heteronormative culture - Very British Scandal is the first that is a period piece, rather than directly contemporary.

Cucumber, his previous main project (eight episodes, twinned with another series called Banana, and a docoseries called Tofu, all named for the hardness of erections), was the best thing he's done ime.

Laundrette's focus on gay stuff is at most 33%.

I just figured Frears was on yr slate because you'd said you were planning to watch Brit Scandal; to me he's a director who is efficient in service of a script's tone and agenda, rather than having an authorial throughline or preoccupations that can be tracked through his work.

if you watch the Laundrette Criterion supplements, he denies being an auteur while his producer insists that he is. Frears does say he considers his string from The Hit thru The Grifters to be a reaction to Thatcherism.

I'm not actually likely to watch that scandal show anytime soon... always drowning in things to watch.

Frears otm! The Grifters as the end of Thatcher reactions, vs the good first step into a bad period of Americana, is interesting, would be curious to rewatch with that in mind.

("gay stuff" is only 7% of AVBS at most, except for how the closet is the driver for every bad action across the fifteen years or so it covers. fascinatingly handled, re. it being a period piece, is how no "character" in it identifies as gay, it's not even an option to consider: those who come out to each other instead compare to what point their bedroom preference is for which gender, how much marriage is a thing they genuinely value vs are having to take on for optics, etc.)

Mississippi (2015), streaming on Netflix - 36/42

*Mississippi Grind

xp I’m not sure what I think of A Very English Scandal. It had a breezy quality, but it was in a very different key than I was expecting.

I loved how lizard-like Hugh Grant was, though. Was he wearing contacts? because there was something very creepy about his black irises

OK, I had no idea Frears directed A Very English Scandal (u have to spell things out, sic) -- because why would I? I haven't seen anything of his since Dirty Pretty Things in 2002. Then he started doing all that Peter Morgan royal shite.

Dream Tower (7.0)
Our Nixon (7.5)
20th Century Women (9.0)
Eighth Grade (6.5)
Demon Seed (5.5)
Quadrophenia (7.5)
McQueen (6.0)
Ocean’s Eight (4.0)
BlacKkKlansman (7.0)
A Stranger Among Us (6.5)

The last one is a late Lumet I saw at the time and completely forgot about. Relatively low key for him. Explicitly quotes from Hud when Melanie Griffith says "I already put in time with one cold-hearted bastard, I'm not looking to find another one." Good one for that last-line-should-have-been-the-title thread: Ask Your Rabbi.

Mission Impossible (Christopher McQuarrie, 2018) - yup, that's how badly my year is going.

It was fun etc.

I forgot to note earlier how amused I was that it was j.lu who pitched for an Electric Boogaloo subtitle on the new thread.

/The Counselor/ (Ridley Scott/Cormac McCarthy, 2013). I saw this in a theater and didn't like it much, but recently learned that the Blu-Ray included a director's cut that was 20 minutes longer. I bought it on eBay for $5 and miraculously, the long version is a really good movie! Recommended.

last batch for a while

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (David Lynch, 1992) - 10/10
Heat (Michael Mann, 1995) - 9/10
Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday (Jacques Tati, 1953) - 8/10
This Happy Breed (David Lean, 1944) - 8/10
Ordinary People (Robert Redford, 1980) - 7/10
Fantastic Planet (René Laloux, 1973) - 3/10

China Gate (Fuller)
The Search (Zinnemann)
From Here to Eternity (Zinnemann)
A Man for All Seasons (Zinnemann)
The Longest Day (Annakin, Marton & Wicki)
The Army of Crime (Guédiguian)
La Vie en Rose (Dahan)
Grace of Monaco (Dahan)
Cop (A. Refn)
Once a Cop... (A. Refn)
R (Noer & Lindholm)
Key House Mirror (Noer)*
A Hijacking (Lindholm)*
A War (Lindholm)*
A Second Chance (Bier)
Summer With Monika (Bergman)
Sawdust and Tinsel (Bergman)
Smiles of a Summer Night (Bergman)
The Virgin Spring (Bergman)
Morvern Callar (Ramsay)
We Need to Talk About Kevin (Ramsay)
Katalin Varga (Strickland)
For Those in Peril (Wright)*
Hyena (Johnson)
Ex Machina (Garland)
Beast (Pearce)
Under the Skin (Glazer)
Her (Jonze)
Lucy (Besson)
Ghost in the Shell (Sanders)

All 3.5/5:
True Stories (1986)
Blackkklansman
Won’t You Be My Neighbor?
The Lost City of Z

Mission Impossible Fallout (McQuarrie, 2018) 8/10
the Happy Prince (Everett, 2018) 7/10
Yellow Submarine ( Dunning, 1968) 8/10
Unseeworld U.S.A (Fuller, 1960) 7/10
The Last Emperor (Bertolucci, 1987) 6/10
Paddington 2 (King, 2017) 9/10
Hostiles (Cooper, 2017) 7/10

Um, Underworld U.S.A. that should be.

Gone With the Wind (1939) 7.5/10
Iron Man (2008) 7/10
Tangerine (2015) 8/10

bunch of airplane streaming on the way to and from berlin, the only one i'd seen before is philadelphia story:

all about eve (mankiewicz, 1951) 10/10
paddington 2 (king, 2017) 8/10
rocky (avildsen, 1976) 8/10
the philadelphia story (cukor, 1940) 9/10
happy death day (landon, 2017) 6/10
inside out (docter, 2015) 8/10

honestly happy death day was surprisingly enjoyable for what it was

the gospel of the bear film has reached the troposphere

lol

The Raid: Redemption (Evans, 2011) 6
Mission: Impossible Fallout (McQuarrie, 2018) 7
Disney Christopher Robin (Marc Forster, 2018) 4
Marwencol (Jeff Malmberg, 2010) 8
Icarus (Bryan Fogel, 2017) 8

read that marwencol has been adapted & now will have steve carell in it

https://www.meta-sphere.com/wp-content/uploads/welcome-to-marwen_tete-600x220.jpg

yeah I watched it because i saw the trailer for the zemeckis movie. The trailer makes it out to be an "inspirational" true story but it's not really, not exactly.

baby driver (2017 edgar wright) 6.5/10
mollys game (2017 sorkin) 2/10
suburbicon (2017 clooney) 2/10
the killing of a sacred deer (2017 lanthimos) 6/10
angelo my love (1983 duvall) 3/10
eighth grade (2018 burnham) 8/10
thoroughbreds (2018 cory finley) 4/10

thoroughbreds (2018 cory finley) 4/10

I don't do the out of 10 thing but I'd give this at least a 6. It made me laugh a lot.

lil too try hard idk

*The Naked Spur : 7/10
Vampire's Kiss : 6/10
Dying Of the Light (Paul Schrader Edit): 7/10 -- only 7/10 because Nic Cage is in full on weirdo mode and Schrader's noodling around on Final Cut. The doctor accent is...wow...almost as great as the accent in "Vampire's Kiss"
*The Young One: 7/10 - minor Buñuel for me but still great

Crazy Rich Asians – kind of a riff on Philadelphia Story, but with better-looking people. Lots of film history embedded in it.

What Price Jazz (Baerwitz, 1934)
Felix Gets Broadcasted (Messmer, 1923)
High Flyers (Cline, 1937)
Inflation (Myers, 1933)
Felix in Fairyland (Messmer, 1923)
*Roast-Beef and Movies (Baerwitz, 1934)
*Big City Fantasy (Henabery, 1934)
The Magician (Bergman, 1958)
BlacKkKlansman (Lee, 2018)
Smiles of a Summer Night (Bergman, 1955)

Re-watching Whit Stillman's Barcelona tonight.

I was hoping for good things from Crazy Rich Asians, but found it fairly bland. I may have had the wrong expectations for a mainstream PG rom-com, but I felt like it needed sharper jokes.

kind of a riff on Philadelphia Story, but with better-looking people

!!! I'm sure this cast looks fine, but you are aware that Cary Grant and Kate Hepburn were considered pretty attractive, right?

in theaters July 26 - August 22

Killer’s Kiss (Stanley Kubrick, 1955) - 6/10
Summer Interlude (Ingmar Bergman, 1951) - 9/10
Eighth Grade (Bo Burnham, 2018) - 8/10
Three Identical Strangers (Tim Wardle, 2018) - 6/10
Blindspotting (Carlos López Estrada, 2018) - 7/10
Teen Titans Go! To the Movies (Peter Rida Michail, Aaron Horvath, 2018) - 3/10
BlacKkKlansman (Spike Lee, 2018) - 9/10

! at low rating for Three Identical Strangers

I knew nothing about the backstory before seeing it at SIFF but on a str8 narrative level it’s my favourite doco of the year

it is an incredible story. a documentary that makes itself, really. what bothered me was how much they reused the same footage from the same Donahue, NBC, + other TV appearances. the same lines. it kinda falls apart at the end, and felt padded even at ~95 minutes. that has nothing to do with the actual story being unresolved, i just thought with so much material to go through (and so many years passed over) the reuse of footage was bizarre.

and fwiw I knew not only the backstory but most of the twists before I saw it. I would've rated it higher if I had gone in completely cold, I wish I could've.

yeah fair enough! the repeated lines are very few & read in SUPER different context the second times around, but if you’re not seeing it / that footage cold, those won’t have the same kick

It’s a strange film, I did like it quite a bit, but like many films of that era, I was both taken and repulsed by the sleaziness of the whole thing. It felt slimy!

Inspired by the recent activity on the letterboxd thread, I decided to actually start using my account to rate and review things, starting with a handful I've movies I've (re)watched lately.

The Phantom Carriage (Sjöström, 1921) 8/10
*A Dog's Life (Chaplin, 1918) 9/10
*The Long Goodbye (Altman, 1973) 10/10
*The Lady Vanishes (Hitchcock, 1938) 9/10
*Seven Samurai (Kurosawa, 1953) 8/10
A Complete Unknown (Mangold, 2024) 5/10
All Shall Be Well (Yeung, 2024) 8/10
A Real Pain (Eisenberg, 2024) 8/10

(meant to link to my profile rather than my "Diary," but whatev)

May:

Johnny Dangerously (Heckerling, Colomby, Harris, Kukoff, Steinberg, Proft, Israel 1984) 📺
Ratatouille (Pinkava, Bird, Capobianco 2007)
Cleaner (Campbell, Uttley, Williams, Orton 2025) 📺
The Accountant (O’Connor, Dubuque 2016) 📺
Junk Head [ジャンク・ヘッド] (Hori 2017)
The Surfer (Finnegan, Martin 2025)
The Accountant 2 (O’Connor, Dubuque 2025)
Kingdom of Heaven (director’s cut) (Scott, Monahan 2005)
Spermageddon (Wirkola, Sivertsen, Sundnes, Hoel 2024)
Fucktoys (Sriram 2025) - James Franco’s best performance since Spring Breakers
Paying For It (Lee, Sarazen, Brown, Gamble 2024)
The Glass Web (3-D) (Arnold, Blees, Lee, Ehrlich 1953)
Les Femmes au balcon (Merlant et Sciamma avec Munier, Codreanu, Costa, Belguermi 2024)
She’s The He (McCarthy 2025)
Happyend (Sora 2024)
Good Boy (Leonberg, Cannon 2025)
Scarecrow in a Garden of Cucumbers (Kaplan, Scoppettone 1972)
I Could Never Be Your Woman (Heckerling 2007) 📺
* Going Down (Keenan with MacLaine-Cross, Barry, Woods 1982)

Better Call Saul (S1-S6 -- 7.5)
Every Little Thing (7.5)
Pavements (6.5)
The Phoenician Scheme (2.0)
Handmaid’s Tale (S6 – 5.0)
The Grand Budapest Hotel (5.0)
Materialists (6.5)
The Clubhouse: A Year with the Red Sox (6.5)
Babygirl (6.0)
The Hart of London (--)

The last is a semi-famous experimental film by Jack Chambers from 1970; saw it in London (Ontario), where he was from, in 16mm tonight. I didn't get much out of it--first half I could hardly make out what I was seeing, second half had some slaughterhouse footage I couldn't watch. A rating would be beside the point.

(On YouTube if you're interested; one of the greatest films ever made, according to Stan Brakhage.)

Clueless (Heckerling 1995) 📺
Friendship (DeYoung 2024/2025)
The Final Reckoning (McQuarrie, Mapother, Jendersen 2025)
† Real Genius (Coolidge, Israel, Proft, Torokvei 1985)
* Supervixens (Meyer, Ebert 1975) 💿
* Ghost Protocol (Bird, Appelbaum, Nemec, McQuarrie, Lindelhof 2011) 📺
Three Examples Of Myself As Queen (Biller 1994) 26min 💿
The Phoenician Scheme (Anderson, Coppola 2025)
28 Years Later (Boyle, Garland 2025)
Surf II (theatrical cut) (Badat, studio interference 1984) 💿
Ballerina (Wiseman, Stahelski, Hatten 2025)

June ^

At the flicks:
Caught by the Tides (Zhangke, 2024) 7/10
Bring Her Back (Philippou/Philippou, 2025) 7/10
Tangerine (Baker, 2015) 7/10

Elsewhere:
I Was Born, But… (Ozu, 1932) 9/10
The Lady Eve (Sturges, 1941) 9/10
Crazy Mama (Demme, 1975) 6/10
A City of Sadness (Hou, 1989) 7/10
Wake in Fright (Kotcheff, 1971) 9/10
A Brighter Summer Day (Yang, 1991) 7/10
Holy Motors (Carax, 2012) 6/10
Red Road (Arnold, 2006) 6/10
Escape From L.A. (Carpenter, 1996) 6/10
The Insect Woman (Imamura, 1963) 9/10
Dementia 13 (Coppola, 1963) 5/10
Hell Drivers (Endfield, 1957) 7/10
Fast Company (Cronenberg, 1978) 5/10
Millennium Actress (Kon, 2001) 7/10
Motorcycle Gang (Cahn, 1957) 6/10
Faces (Cassavetes, 1968) 7/10
Chikamatsu Monogatari//The Crucified Lovers (Mizoguchi, 1954) 9/10
Rock 'n' Roll High School (Arkush, 1979) 6/10
Unfaithfully Yours (Sturges, 1948) 10/10
Platform (Zhangke, 2000) 7/10
McCabe & Mrs. Miller (Altman, 1971) 7/10
Rock All Night (Corman, 1957) 7/10
The Saga of the Viking Women and Their Voyage to the Waters of the Great Sea Serpent (Corman, 1958) 5/10
Teenage Doll (Corman, 1957) 6/10
Teenage Caveman (Corman, 1958) 5/10
Attack of the Crab Monsters (Corman, 1957) 7/10

Shorter films:
Twice a Man (Markopoulos, 1963) 6/10
Rose Hobart (Cornell, 1936) 7/10
Tale of Tales (Norstein, 1979) 7/10
Wavelength (Snow, 1967) 7/10

that's a ton of great movies

this month I watched:
*Spaceballs - 6/10
Kpop Demon Hunters - 7/10

Candyman - completely ruined by Peacock's commercials. I'm mostly immune to commercials (especially during horror movies, my early exposure to the genre was on basic cable!) but these were 90-120 second breaks every 15 minutes, will have to pirate and revisit

Sorry, Baby -- one of the year's best. A comedy about the aftermath of a sexual assault.

28 Days Later (Boyle, 2002)*
28 Years Later (Boyle, 2025)
Shaun of the Dead (Wright, 2004)*
Pavements (Perry, 2025)
Sly Lives! (Thompson, 2025)
The Gleaners and I (Varda, 2000)**
28 Weeks Later (Fresnadillo, 2007)
Fish Tank (Arnold, 2009)**
Roman Holiday (Wyler, 1953)
Wicker Park (McGuigan, 2004)
Summer Hours (Assayas, 2008)
Superman (Gunn, 2025)
Ratatouille (Bird, 2007)**
Toni Erdmann (Ade, 2016)**

*Rewatch
**Filling in my gaps on the NYT best of the 21st century list

Freaky Tales : GREAT fun!

Through the end of June:

Prince of the City (1981) 4.5/5
*MacGruber (2010) 4/5
* The Straight Story (1999) 5/5. 35mm print
* Vanya on 42nd Street (1994) 5/5
Pavements (2024) 4/5
* Elevator to the Gallows (1958) 4.5/5
The Bloody Lady (1981) 3.5/5
Long Day's Journey Into Night (2018) 4/5
The Boss (1973) 3.5/5
* Eraserhead (1977) 5/5
Friendship (2024) 4/5

The cinematography in The Straight Story is beautiful.

Relatively recently:

Tenet (Nolan, 2020) 2/5
Mickey 17 (Bong, 2025) 2.5/5
Stranger by the Lake (Guiraudie, 2013) 4.5/5
Il Buco (Frammartino, 2021) 4/5
Riddle of Fire (Razooli, 2023) 3.5/5
Misericordia (Guiraudie, 2024) 4/5
Love Lies Bleeding (Glass, 2024) 3.5/5
On Becoming a Guinea Fowl (Nyoni, 2024) 4/5

Wild in the Streets (Shear, 1968) 6/10
Infinity Pool (Cronenberg,2013) 6/10
Pavements (Perry, 2024) 7/10
A Most Violent Year (Chandor, 2013) 7/10
Yi Yi (Wang, 2000) 9/10
Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion (Petri, 1970) 8/10
The Phoenician Scheme (Anderson, 2025) 7/10
Superman (Gunn, 2025) 6/10
*Adaptation.(Jonze, 2002) 7/10
*Sleeper (Allen, 1973) 7/10
*Bad Lieutenant (Ferrara, 1992) 8/10
*Man Bites Dog (Belvaux/Poelvoorde/Bonzel, 1992) 8/10
Eddington (Aster, 2025) 9/10

* Night on Earth (1991) 2.5/5. Maybe the prime example of a movie that should be right up my alley but somehow just kinda irritates me.
* The Naked Gun (1988) 3.5/5
* Fargo (1996) 5/5
The Mysterious Castle in the Carpathians (1981) 3.5/5
Slap the Monster on Page One (1972) 4/5
Happy Gilmore 2 (2025) 1.5/5. Christopher MacDonald clearly waited so long for this and gives it his all, so that's nice.
A Bigger Splash (1973) 3.5/5
Being Two Isn't Easy (1962) 4/5. Kon Ichikawa film about early childhood. One of those gems I'd never have watched if I hadn't stumbled on the beginning on Criterion's 24/7 channel and been taken with it.
* Remember My Name (1978) 4/5
Insomnia (1997) 4/5
Choose Me (1984) 3.5/5
* Lost Highway (1997) 4/5. This movie is so 90s I can almost rewatch it like a music video.
* Ronin (1998) 4/5
Boyfriends and Girlfriends (1987) 4/5
City on Fire (1987) 4/5
92 in the Shade (1975) 4/5. Sometimes all you need is a totally oddball 70s movie with Peter Fonda and Warren Oates as rival boat tour captains.

The Naked Gun 2025 (5/10)
Sorry, Baby (2025, 8/10)
* Let the Sunshine In (2018, 8/10)

July:

* The Final Reckoning (McQuarrie, Mapother, Jendersen 2025)
† This Is Spinal Tap (Reiner, Guest, McKean, Shearer 1984)
† Repo Man (Cox 1984)
* Into the Spidey-Verse (Ramsey, Rothman, Persichetti, Lord 2018)
One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest [2025 Academy resto] (Forman, Hauben, Goldman, Kesey, Wasserman 1975)
Supergunn (Gunn, Morrison, Giffen, DeMatteis, Siegel, Shuster, Lieber, Fraction et al 2025)
Materialists (Song 2025)
* TMNT: Mutant Mayhem (Rowe, Spears, Rogen, Goldberg, Hernandez, Samit, O'Brien, Eastman, Laird 2023)
Sorry, Baby (Victor 2025)

Miracle Mile (de Jarnatt 1988) 💿
Funny Pages (Kline 2022) 3/10 📺
Trigger Happy (Stevens, Moya 2025) 2/10 📺

Homecoming (S1/2 – 7.0)
Parade: Queer Acts of Love & Resistance (6.5)
Smiling Through the Apocalypse: Esquire in the 60s (7.0)
I Love You, Alice B. Toklas (5.0)
Driveways (7.0)
Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid (5.5)
Gods of Tennis (7.0)
The Master (6.0)
10 Things I Hate About You (6.0)
Clueless (8.5)
Sunday Best: The Untold Story of Ed Sullivan (7.0)

I always more or less subscribed to the caricature of Ed Sullivan--captured in a well-circulated clip of the Mamas & Papas trying to save him from himself--but the documentary is an eye-opening look at how committed he was to getting Black artists onto the show, and how vocal he was about racism even before he was on TV (as a sports columnist, for instance). That's the focus of the film, and almost every clip is of a Black performer. Weirdly, they still shoehorn Elvis and the Beatles in there.

Is there a thread for Weapons? Amazing movie.

Feel free to start one, there’s plenty of talk on the ok lets all shit our pants to something new: post 2005 horror film thread thread

A good run:

The Phoenician Scheme (2025) 4/5. Wes is kind of on a streak of making excellent, highly elaborate matinee movies.
Breaking News (2004) 4/5
* Sexy Beast (2000) 4/5
* Klute (1971) 4.5/5. Barely remembered this. Fonda is pretty much perfect.
The Plot Against Harry (1971) 4/5. The Safdies have to have seen this at some point.
My Little Loves (1974). Jean Eustache's follow-up to The Mother and The Whore, but really feels quite different. More like a cross between Bresson and Maurice Pialat (who is a "special participant")
Weapons (2025) 3.5/5
All We Imagine As Light (2024) 4/5
Pedicab Driver (1989) 4/5
Eastern Condors (1987) 4/5
The Naked Gun (2025) 4/5

last month or so:

Blithe Spirit (Lean, 1945) 7/10
The Alphabet Murders (Tashlin, 1965) 5/10
*The Naked Gun (ZAZ, 1988) 6/10
*The Naked Gun 2½ (ZAZ, 1991) 5/10
*Spirited Away (Miyazaki, 2001) 9/10
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (2022) 7/10
Weapons (Cregger, 2025) 9/10

I recommended the re-release of Puss In Boots to an exlxor and wld have gone if they were up for it — your rating makes me wish I had rescreened regardless

*The Rules of The Game (Renoir, 1939) 8/10
The Supergrass (Richardson, 1985) 6/10
KPop Demon Hunters (Applebaum/Kang, 2025) 7/10
*Dead Man (Jarmusch, 1995) 7/10
*Cape Fear (Scorsese, 1991) 7/10
Songs from the Second Floor (Andersson, 2000) 8/10
Bring Her Back (Danny and Michael Philippou, 2025) 6/10
Eight Postcards from Utopia (Jude/Ferencz-Flayz, 2024) 8/10
Weapons (Cregger, 2025) 8/10
*Upgrade (Whannell, 2018) 8/10
*48 Hrs (Hill, 1982) 7/10
Beating Hearts (Lellouche, 2024) 7/10
Popeye (Altman, 1980) 5/10
Deadwood: The Movie (Minahan, 2019) 6/10
Passages (Sachs, 2023) 6/10

August:
Cloud (Kurosawa, 2024) 5/10
Maniac (Esper, 1934) 9/10 - can't believe I'd never seen this! Ripping stuff
Sex Madness (Esper, 1938) 6/10 - disappointingly dull later work
Dead Ringers (Cronenberg, 1988) 9/10
Naked Lunch (Cronenberg, 1991) 9/10
Not of This Earth (Corman, 1957) 7/10
Sorority Girl (Corman, 1957) 9/10 - amazing performance from Susan Cabot as the titular sociopath causing havoc on campus, also features Darlene from Roseanne's mom in a supporting role
The Wasp Woman (Corman, 1959) 7/10 - a minor Cabot, needed a better monster as do most Cormans
A Bucket of Blood (Corman, 1959) 9/10 - a rare marquee performance by Dick Miller, the most underrated character actor in movie history
The Little Shop of Horrors (Corman, 1960) 8/10 - somehow this is the Corman film everyone knows even though they knocked it out in little more than 3 days
Creature from the Haunted Sea (Corman, 1961) 4/10 - a pointless unfunny mess, even I can't excuse this one
Confessions of an Opium Eater (Zugsmith, 1962) 10/10
The King of Comedy (Scorsese, 1983) 10/10
Teenagers from Outer Space (Graeff, 1959) 6/10 - doesn't honestly live up to the title
Kanal (Wajda, 1957) 10/10
Threads (Jackson, 1984) 9/10 - docked a point for leaving me in existential despair for about a week, as it did when I saw it on initial broadcast
The Exorcist III (Blatty, 1990) 6/10
Spider Baby (Hill, 1967) 9/10
Pickup on South Street (Fuller, 1953) 7/10
Werewolves on Wheels (Levesque, 1971) 6/10 - not what you'd expect, a strange and mostly unsuccessful mix of exploitation trash and cinéma vérité
Space is the Place (Coney, 1974) 10/10
Profound Desires of the Gods (Imamura, 1968) 9/10
Female Jungle (VeSota, 1955) 7/10 - incompetent in most ways you can name but oddly and surreally fascinating despite or perhaps because of this
Greed (von Stroheim, 1924) 8/10 - this was a 2 hr 10 min cut rather than anything more expansive, not sure I'd be too interested in a 7 hr version tbh
The Arsenal Stadium Mystery (Dickinson, 1939) 7/10 - I guessed the identity of the murderer wrong, fortunately Insp. Slade of the Yard was on hand to ensure the Gunners could conclude their game safely

Shorter films:
White Fawn's Devotion (Deer, 1910) 6/10
The Lead Shoes (Peterson, 1949) 6/10
Italianamerican (Scorsese, 1974) 6/10
American Boy: A Profile of Steven Prince (Scorsese, 1978) 6/10 - both of these Scorsese docs a little self-indulgent if you ask me

High and Low (Kurosawa, Oguni, Kikushima, Hisaita, McBain 1963)
Eddington (Aster 2025)
Stray Dog (Kurosawa, Kikushima 1949)
The Hidden Fortress (Kurosawa, Kikushima, Oguni, Hashimoto 1958)
Yojimbo (Kurosawa, Kikushima, Oguni, Hashimoto 1961)
Sanjuro (Kurosawa, Kikushima, Oguni, Yamamoto 1962)
The Naked Gun (Shaffer, Gregor, Mand, Bonacci, Taccone 2025)
Nobody 2 (Tjahjanto, Kolstad, Rabin, Odenkirk, Aleem 2025)
* Some Like It Hot (Wilder, Diamond 1959)
Highest 2 Lowest (Lee, Fox, McBain, Oguni, Kikushima, Hisaita, Kurosawa 2025)
* Miller’s Crossing (Coen & Coen 1990) 💿
† Shin Godzilla (Anno, Higuchi 2016)
Honey Don’t! (Coen & Cooke 2025)
* Inside Llewyn Davis (Coen & Coen 2013) 📺
The Toxic Avenger (Herz, Kaufman, Ritter, Terry, Strutin 1984) 📺
Together (Shanks 2025) 1/10
The Toxic Avenger (Blair 2023/25)
* Hail, Caesar! (Coen & Coen 2016) 📀

Addams Family Values (Sonnenfeld 1993)
Close Your Eyes (Erice 2023)
*Dredd (Travis/Garland 2012)
Becoming Led Zeppelin (MacMahon 2025)
The Boy and the Heron (Miyazaki 2023)
Yi Yi (Yang 2000)
Charlie Is My Darling (Whitehead 1966)
The Mother & the Whore (Eustache 1973)
À nos amours (Pialat 1983)
King of Jazz (Anderson 1930)
The Phoenician Scheme (W. Anderson 2025)
Fantastic Four: First Steps (Shakman 2025)
The Magnificent Butcher (Yuen 1979)
The Dreamers (Bertolucci 2003)
*Kill Bill v 1 (Tarantino 2003)
*Kill Bill v 2 (Tarantino 2004)
Devo (Smith 2025)
Highest 2 Lowest (Lee 2025)
Letter to Jane (Godard/Gorin 1972)
Sympathy for the Devil (Godard 1968)
Weapons (Cregger 2025)
One Battle After Another (PT Anderson 2025)
Eddington (Aster 2025)

Eddington and OBAA would make a good double bill. Probably on my own here but I kinda preferred Eddington by a small margin. I liked the messiness!

*Sexy Beast (Glazer, 2000) 8/10
Exorcist II: The Heretic (Boorman, 1977) 5/10
The Menu (Mylod, 2022) 4/10
Don't Let The Riverbeast Get You (Roxburgh, 2012) 8/10
*Se7en (Fincher, 1995) 8/10
Highest 2 Lowest (Lee, 2025) 5/10
*Ed Wood (Burton, 1994) 8/10
*Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (Gilliam, 1998) 7/10
Madame Freedom (Han hyeong-mo, 1957) 7/10
The Hot Rock (Yates, 1972) 7/10
Splitsville (Covino, 2025) 8/10
The Naked Gun (Schaffer, 2025) 5/10
First Love (Miike, 2019) 6/10
One Battle After Another (Anderson, 2025) 9/10

In lieu of anywhere else to mention it, I just wanted to recommend Steve (directed by Tim Mielants, written by Max Porter and based on his book, starring Cillian Murphy), which I've seen twice in as many weeks and is one of my favourite films of the year so far.

Pee-Wee As Himself (2025) 3.5/5
A Master Builder (2013) 2.5/5
Charade (1963) 4/5
* Quiz Show (1994) 3.5/5
* La Bete Humaine (1938) 4/5
Le jour se lève (1939) 4/5
Port of Shadows (1938) 5/5
Eddington (2025) 3/5
On Becoming a Guinea Fowl (2024) 3.5/5
Running on Empty (1988) 4/5
The Magnificent Butcher (1979) 3.5/5
The Hit (1984) 3.5/5
Hokoriku Proxy War (1977) 4/5
* Sign O' the Times (1987) 4.5/5
The Sandpiper (1965) 2/5
* The Big Lebowski (1998) 4.5/5

Saw Urchin last night, Harris Dickinson's first film. Very good, I recommend it. Definitely interested to see what else he does.

It went in directions I wasn't expecting, with otherworldly, eerie interludes amidst the realism. Arguably a little too much so, but I thought it worked, and the realistic bulk of the story was really well done. Made me think of Jonathan Glazer (Under The Skin for example) at points, though not on the same level (for me).

Two months' worth; baseball.

The Ides of March (7.0)
Clueless (8.0)
Honey Don’t (4.0)
Jaws (9.0)
Jay Sebring...Cutting to the Truth (6.0)
Red Riding: 1974 (6.5)
The Social Network (9.0)
Parks and Recreation (in the middle of S5 - 6.5)
Glengarry Glen Ross (6.0)
One Battle After Another, and Another, and Another (and Wait, One More) (6.0)

I really like Parks and Recreation when it's good, but there are just too many whole episodes--one out of every four or five--that fall flat for me.

Out of curiosity what didn't work in OBAO?

Two hours and three minutes; Benicio Del Toro and Chase Infiniti and the other 47 minutes were fine, and Steely Dan and Tom Petty were better than that. I tried to get that across in the joke, which was a way to avoid discussing it.

Saw The Ice Tower yesterday -- remarkably good.

Saw The Ice Tower yesterday -- remarkably good.

― Ned Raggett,

Do tell!

Quoting myself from elsewhere: thought it quite remarkable. I am not overly familiar with Lucile Hadžihalilović's work beyond reputation but I found the sheer sense of focus and atmosphere that was dreamlike when it needed to be, but never boring or dull, compelling work. I get the Mulholland Drive comparisons but this is its own thing. Plus, Marion Cotillard, what more need I add. Clara Pacini's a find, for sure.

September:

Paper Moon (Bogdanovich, Sargent, Brown, Platt 1973)
Weapons (Cregger 2025)
* The Man Who Wasn’t There (Coen & Coen 2001) 💿
Dog Day Afternoon (Lumet, Pierson, Kluge, Moore 1975)
The Phantom Menace (Lucas 1999/2012)
Hot Rod (Shaffer, Brady, Taccone, Samberg, Meyers, Hader, McBride 2007)
† Citizen Kane (Welles, Mankiewicz 1941)
The Departed (Scorsese, Monahan, Mak, Chong 2006)
† Goodfellas (Scorsese, Pileggi 1990) 💿
The Man Who Wasn’t There (with commentary) (Coen & Coen & Thornton 2001)
* The Last Jedi (Johnson 2017)
* Intolerable Cruelty (Coen, Coen, Romano, Ramsey, Stone, Fisher 2003) 💿
† Hamilton (Kail, Miranda, Lacamoire, Chernow 2016)
Attack Of The Clones (Lucas, Hales 2002)
Revenge Of The Sith (Lucas 2005)
* The Ladykillers (Mackendrick, Rose, Holt 1955) 💿
Rogue One (Edwards, Gilroy, Weitz, Whitta, Knoll, McQuarrie, Burns, Arndt 2016)
Spinal Tap II: The End Continues (Reiner, Guest, McKean, Shearer 2025)
Splitsville (Covino, Marvin 2025)
Caught Stealing (Aronofsky, Huston 2025)
* Do The Right Thing (Lee 1989)
* Burn After Reading (Coen & Coen 2008) 💿
Him (Tipping, Bronkie, Akers 2025)
Jackass 3D (Tremaine, Jonze, Knoxville 2010)
* Licorice Pizza (Anderson 2022)
* Toy Story (Lasseter, Whedon, Stanton, Docter, Cohen, Sokolow, Ranft 1995)
One Battle After Another (VistaVision) (Anderson, Pynchon 2025)
Un Chien Andalou (Buñuel, Dali 1929 / 1960) 16min
L'Age d'Or (Buñuel, Dali 1930)
* One Battle After Another (IMAX dual laser) (Anderson, Pynchon 2025)
* True Grit (Coen, Coen, Portis 2010) 💿
* There Will Be Blood (Anderson, Sinclair 2007)

I've come to the ultimate conclusion that an 8-point rating works best for films, but somehow not for records. No idea how that works. Anything 4 or above is at least worth seeing once.

The Cranes Are Flying (8/8)
Mädchen in Uniform (7/8)
The Lady of Musashino (7/8)
Meet John Doe (6/8)
The Sun's Burial (6/8)
Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye (6/8)
Bubba Ho-Tep (6/8)
Memories of Underdevelopment (6/8)
Japanese Girls at the Harbor (6/8)
Cathy Come Home (6/8)
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (6/8)
Scum (6/8)
Made in Britain (6/8)
Culloden (6/8)
Oedipus Rex (6/8)
Love Affair, or the Case of the Missing Switchboard Operator (6/8)
Fox and his Friends (6/8)
Wife, Be Like a Rose (6/8)
The Wind (6/8)
The Text of Light (6/8)
Timecop (6/8)
Radio On (5/8)
The Hourglass Sanatorium (5/8)
Kuhle Wampe (5/8)
Man of Aran (5/8)
Nanook of the North (5/8)
Dillinger (1945) (5/8)
The Reckless Moment (5/8)
Midnight Express (4/8)
On the Beach (4/8)
One Battle After Another (3/8)

1/10 for Him.

the spooky season so far

The Death Kiss (1932) 7/10 but not actually horror
You'll Find Out (1940) 6
The Ghost Ship (produced by Lewton, 1943) 7
The Body Snatcher (produced by Lewton, 1945) 7
The Brighton Strangler (1945) 5
Grip of the Strangler (1958) 6
Magic (the anthony hopkins evil puppet movie, Richard Attenborough, 1978) 8
Piranha (Dante, 1978) 4
I Know what you did last summer (1997) 4
Nope (2022) 7
Heretic (2024) 6
The Monkey (Perkins, 2025) 8

godammit it’s been over a year since the two cinemas in town that still showed film on the reg separately closed,* I’m out of practice and forgot the film emoji on the first Battle, before another

*(one had their lease cancelled after 52 years, one had their ceiling explode — neither was trying to get out of projection.)