Last (x) movies you saw (II)

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

a documentary that makes itself, really.

this undermines the work they do in visuals and research and in editing the story though — I felt v impressed by how manipulative it was without cheats in the first half-hour, and how well the makers shift to mostly-archival telling thereafter.

i've seen much worse evaluations of 3IS

Apostasy (Dan Kokotajlo, 2017) - fairly ho hum drama around Jehovah's witnesses.
The Heiresses (Marcelo Martinessi, 2017) - this is going to be top 2/3 for the year. Loved the use of (de-)focus to mirror the main character's state of mind (which could've been too on the nose), the script really nails the intricacies of class mobility across a more Latin American milieu, and then the final encounter between Chela and the much younger Angy -- all that hidden passion and desire across age and class -- really was a terrific driver for the last 1/3 of the film.

Missed a trick by not taglining this thread "Oh yes... There will be blood"

https://resizing.flixster.com/2vtSOfiWCmXUQ8Brs-b4y5qFYIY=/206x305/v1.bTsxMTE3NzU3OTtqOzE3ODU5OzEyMDA7ODAwOzEyMDA

Electric Bloodaloo

Kagemusha (1980)
RoboCop (2014)
The Endless (2017)
Deadpool 2 (2018)
*The Social Network (2010)
Super Troopers 2 (2018)
A Ciambra (2017)
Frenzy (1972)
Call Me By Your Name (2017)
*The Cabin In The Woods (2012)
A Futile and Stupid Gesture (2018)
*Nightcrawler (2014)
First Reformed (2017)
*Drugstore Cowboy (1989)
Super 8 (2011)
30 Days of Night (2007)
One Sings, The Other Doesnt (1977)

Re-watched Miami Vice tonight (the director’s cut). It’s kind of maddening how 90% of the shots are fantastically beautiful, and then the other 10% look like they were shot on somebody’s flip phone.

I've gotta get on that, watched Heat a few weeks ago for the first time and loved it. Haven't seen Collateral since it opened in 2004 but remember loving it, too.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall, good movie

The Heiresses (Marcelo Martinessi, 2017) - this is going to be top 2/3 for the year. Loved the use of (de-)focus to mirror the main character's state of mind (which could've been too on the nose), the script really nails the intricacies of class mobility across a more Latin American milieu, and then the final encounter between Chela and the much younger Angy -- all that hidden passion and desire across age and class -- really was a terrific driver for the last 1/3 of the film.

― xyzzzz__, 23. august 2018 15:15 (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, for one reason or another Latin American cinema works a lot with de-focus these days, I find. Sergio Armstrong, most famous for shooting most films of Pablo Larrain, is masterful at it. Apart from Larrains films he does it greatly in From Afar and The Desert Bride. It's one of the most innovative little things happening in World Cinema at the moment, but I'll admit I have no idea what to make of it.

August 1st to 16th:

* The Brothers Bloom (Johnson 2008) 📺
Teen Titans GO! To The Movies (Michail, Horvath, Jelenic 2018)
True Confession (Ruggles, Binyon 1937) 📽️
* Sneakers (Robinson 1992) 📺
The Spy Who Dumped Me (Fogel, Iverson 2018)
Nothing Sacred [Kino restoration] (Wellman, Hecht, Schulberg, Lardner Jr., Parker, Howard, Hart, Kaufman, Carson 1937)
BlacKkKLansman (Lee, Wachtel, Rabinowitz, Willmott 2018)
Madonna: Truth Or Dare (Keshishian 1991)
To Be Or Not To Be (Lubitsch, Mayer 1942) 📽️

Re-watched Miami Vice tonight (the director’s cut). It’s kind of maddening how 90% of the shots are fantastically beautiful, and then the other 10% look like they were shot on somebody’s flip phone.

― grawlix (unperson), Friday, August 24, 2018 8:01 PM (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I've gotta get on that, watched Heat a few weeks ago for the first time and loved it. Haven't seen Collateral since it opened in 2004 but remember loving it, too.

― flappy bird, Friday, August 24, 2018 8:26 PM (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

MV is the purest distillation of the Mann aesthetic. I actually recommend the theatrical cut over the director’s cut, though I’m not sure if one is easier to track down over the other. If you’re onboard with his “thing” it’s one of the greatest action films in recent years.

You can rent the theatrical cut on Amazon but the director's cut is the only one available on DVD/Blu-Ray.

Has the director's cut of Blackhat ever been released anywhere? I never saw the first version but the re-edit is supposed to be a substantially better movie, so I'm intrigued.

Apparently MV (theatrical cut, probably) will be free via Amazon Prime starting September 1.

*Out West (Arbuckle, 1918)
Charley on the Farm (Sullivan, 1919)
The Dippy Dentist (Goulding, 1920)
Standing Pat (Montgomery, 1928)
Campus Romeos (Pratt, 1927)
A Broadway Romeo (Blumenstock, 1931)
All the King's Horses (Tuttle, 1935)
*The Black Cat (Ulmer, 1934)
Re-Animator (Gordon, 1985)
Good References (Neill, 1920)

Primary (6.5)
A Bronx Tale (7.0)
Promised Land (7.5)
Shock and Awe (5.5)
Nico, 1988 (6.0)
Nico Icon (7.0)
Singer Presents...Elvis (6.5)
Twister (6.5)
Class Action (7.5)
Sorry to Bother You (6.0)

I was going to leave Sorry to Bother You unrated because a) I drifted a bit early on, and b) as it got weirder and weirder, I just didn't know what to make of it. So take the rating as more of a question mark than any kind of comment on how good it is.

lots of Hong Sang-soo, just hook it to my veins

The Passion of Joan of Arc (Dreyer, 1928) 9/10
Minnie and Moskowitz (Cassavetes, 1971) 7/10
Happy Hour (Hamaguchi, 2015) 9/10
La Collectionneuse (Rohmer, 1967) 6/10
Right Now, Wrong Then (Hong, 2015) 8/10
Three Colours: Blue (Kieślowski, 1993) 7/10
Three Colours: White (Kieślowski, 1994) 7/10
Three Colours: Red (Kieślowski, 1994) 7/10
In Another Country (Hong, 2012) 8/10
On The Beach at Night Alone (Hong, 2017) 8/10
Blackkklansman (Lee, 2018) 7/10
The Aviators Wife (Rohmer, 1981) 9/10
Woman on the Beach (Hong, 2006) 9/10
The Day After (Hong, 2017) 7/10

Crazy Rich Asians: 7.5

*Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (1971, Van Peebles) 8/10
The Seashell and the Clergyman (1928, Dulac) (41m) 8/10
La folie des vaillants (1926, Dulac) (46m) 6/10
La Belle dame sans merci (1920, Dulac) 7/10
Princesse Mandane (1928, Dulac) 6/10
Freaky Friday (1976, Nelson) 7/10
Surrender (1950, Dwan) 5/10
Dutchman (1967, Harvey) (55m) 7/10
Rendezvous in July (1949, Becker) 6/10
Nico, 1988 (2017, Nicchiarelli) 5/10
*The Day the Earth Caught Fire (1961, Guest) 8/10

On the Waterfront (Elia Kazan, 1954) - 10/10
A Colt is My Passport (Takashi Nomura, 1967) - 5/10
Do the Right Thing (Spike Lee, 1989) - 10/10
Starship Troopers (Paul Verhoeven, 1997) - 10/10
Auto Focus (Paul Schrader, 2002) - 7/10
Bamboozled (Spike Lee, 2000) - 10/10
Le Amiche (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1955) - 6/10
Monte Carlo (Ernst Lubitsch, 1930) - 7/10

A Ciambra, a story about a Romani family of low-level criminals in Italy, and a young boy's coming-of-age/becoming-a-scumbag.

Alex Strangelove (Johnson, 2018) 6/10
The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (Milestone, 1946) 8/10
Vision Quest (Becker, 1985) 5/10
*Mean Girls (Waters, 2004) 6/10
*Heathers (Lehmann, 1989) 9/10
A Man There Was (Sjöström, 1917) 7/10
Heartaches (Shebib, 1981) 6/10
The Story of Temple Drake (Roberts, 1933) 7/10

Nearest and Dearest (Robins, 1972) 4/10
Smiles of a Summer Night (Bergman, 1955) 8/10
The Boys From Fengkuei (Hou, 1983) 8/10
Cabaret (Fosse, 1972) 7/10
The Big Combo (Lewis, 1955) 7/10
The Final Programme (Fuest, 1973) 6/10
The Devil's Rain (Fuest, 1975) 7/10
Rawhide (Hathaway, 1951) 8/10
Further up the Creek (Guest, 1958) 6/10
The Women (Cukor, 1939) 8/10
Ant-Man and the Wasp (Reed, 2018) 6/10

"Paddington In Peru (Wilson, Burton, Foster, Lamont 2024) bailed out about 28 minutes in. absolute zombie Farnaby / King"

I haven't seen the film, but wouldn't it be great if there was a huge plot swerve at the thirty-minute mark. Let's imagine that Paddington's plane crashes into the jungles of Peru, and he reverts to savagery, and there's a scene where he bites a man's face off while high on cocaine. And then he assembles a bunch of other bears into a savage militia, as in Apocalypse Now. The tagline? "Bears Together Strong".

Paddington: The Devil Beast Triumphs. I would pay to watch that.

Paris Blues (6.5)
Cactus Flower (6.0)
Metroland (6.0)
Pete 'n' Tillie (5.0)
Chilly Scenes of Winter (6.5)
Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (7.0)
Bonjour Tristesse (2025 remake--6.0)
There Will Be Blood (8.5)
Malcolm X (10.0)
Capote (8.0)

The Actor (Johnson, 2025) 5/10
The Assessment (Fortuné, 2024) 7/10
Desert of Namibia (Yamanaka, 2024) 7/10
Gazer (2024, Sloan) 6/10
Lost Highway (Lynch, 1997) 8/10
Inland Empire (Lynch, 2006) 10/10
Eraserhead (Lynch, 1977) 10/10
Godzilla vs. Destoroyah (Okawara, 1995) 6/10
Snowpiercer (Bong, 2013) 5/10
Summer of Soul (Questlove, 2021) 7/10
Past Lives (Song, 2023) 8/10
Office Space (Judge, 1999) 5/10
Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story (Haynes, 1988) 7/10
Corridor of Mirrors (Young, 1948) 7/10
Watership Down (Rosen, 1978) 6/10
Laserblast (Raeburn, 1978) - beyond assessment
Cowards Bend the Knee (Maddin, 2003) 6/10
Bloody Mama (Corman, 1970) 8/10

Wild in the Streets, The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai and Teenage Hooker Becomes a Killing Machine were not for me so I bailed. Lasted 20 mins into A Real Pain before deciding that I'd known/been the Benji character too often and didn't need to experience it again.

Let's imagine that Paddington's plane crashes into the jungles of Peru, and he reverts to savagery, and there's a scene where he bites a man's face off while high on cocaine

he and his family had recently boarded a Peruvian riverboat captained by Antonio Banderas and the story was about to create a subtle but heartwarming parallel between Paddington hunting the jungle for his aunt who had had a mental episode and fled the old bear's home she lived in, and Dry Banderas finding his lost ancestral golden heirlooms in uncharted El Dorado or something and I just noped. maybe if they'd gotten Elizabeth Banks in to replace King.

I haven't seen the film, but wouldn't it be great if there was a huge plot swerve at the thirty-minute mark. Let's imagine that Paddington's plane crashes into the jungles of Peru, and he reverts to savagery, and there's a scene where he bites a man's face off while high on cocaine.

You haven't seen the film, but were you at the London CBB show where Paul F Tompkins as Werner Herzog pitched this exact scenario?

Blink Twice (Kravitz 2024)
La Tete d'un Homme (Duvivier 1933)
Querelle (Fassbinder 1982)
Presence (Soderbergh 2024)
Shockproof (Sirk 1949)
Key Largo (Huston 1948)
Anora (Baker 2024)
Black Bag (Soderbergh 2025)
The Accountant (O'Connor 2016)
Forever a Woman (aka The Eternal Breasts) (Tanaka 1955)
The Good German (Soderbergh 2006)
*Full Metal Jacket (Kubrick 1987)
The Big Clock (Farrow 1948)
Captain America: Brave New World (Onah 2025)
Fast Company (Cronenberg 1979)
Rolling Stones Rock & Roll Circus (Lindsay-Hogg 1968/1996)
Kimi (Soderberg 2022)
Companion (Hancock 2025)
The Shrouds (Cronenberg 2024)
Thunderbolts* (Schreier 2025)
Sinners (Coogler 2025)
Cheaper Than Cheep (A. Zappa 1974/2025)

May:

Perfect Blue (Kon, 1997) 8/10
A Cock and Bull Story (Winterbottom, 2005) 7/10
Nickel Boys (Ross, 2024) 7/10
The Spy Who Came in from The Cold (Ritt, 1965) 8/10
Rockers (Bafaloukos, 1978) 6/10
Torment (Chabrol, 1994) 8/10
Caligula: The Ultimate Cut (Brass, 2023) 5/10
The Man in the Iron Mask (Whale, 1939) 6/10
Head-On (Akin, 2004) 8/10
*Get Shorty (Sonnenfeld, 1995) 7/10
The Working Class Goes to Heaven (Petri, 1971) 6/10

He ran all the way (1951)
Showgirls (1995) 7/10 i guess? what an amazing mess.
Fountain of Youth (Guy Ritchie, 2025) 3/10, mostly terrible, an algorithm mashup of indiana jones and the da vinci code.

March, April, and May

A Complete Unknown (James Mangold, 2024)
Godzilla Minus One (Takashi Yamazaki, 2023)
The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry (Robert Siodmak, 1945)
Tuesday (Daina Oniunas-Pusic, 2023)
In a Silent Way (Gwenaël Brees, 2020)
Fuck Cinema (Wenguang Wu, 2005)
Ash Is Purest White (Jia Zhang-ke, 2018)
Duelle (Jacques Rivette, 1976)
The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (Preston Sturges, 1943)
Öndög (Quan'an Wang, 2019)
Thanos and Despina (Nikos Papatakis, 1967)
The Wicked City (Tai-Kit Mak, 1992)
Krylya (Larisa Shepitko, 1966)
Strange Voyage (Fernando Fernán Gómez, 1964)
No Other Land (Yuval Abraham, Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Rachel Szor, 2024)
The Garage (Eldar Ryazanov, 1980)
On Company Business (Allan Francovich, 1980)
The 51st State (Ronny Yu, 2001)
Bumming in Beijing: The Last Dreamers (Wenguang Wu, 1990)
*Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii (Adrian Maben, 1972)
Leonor Will Never Die (Martika Ramirez Escobar, 2022)
*The Conversation (Francis Ford Coppola, 1974)
You and Me (Larisa Shepitko, 1971)
Chaos: The Manson Murders (Errol Morris, 2025)
The Forty-First (Grigoriy Chukhray, 1956)
In the Dust of the Stars (Gottfried Kolditz, 1976)
Bunker (Jenny Perlin, 2021)
Liberation Day (Ugis Olte, Morten Traavik, 2016)
Take Out (Sean Baker, Shih-Ching Tsou, 2004)
Have You Got It Yet? The Story of Syd Barrett and Pink Floyd (Roddy Bogawa, Storm Thorgerson, 2023)
*Heat (Michael Mann, 1995)

The Wind Will Carry Us (1999) 3.5/5
* Paris, Texas (1984) 5/5
Vermiglio (2024) 3.5/5
The Italian Connection (1972) 4/5
The Girl on a Motorcycle (1968) 2/5
* F For Fake (1973) 4/5
Godzilla vs. Biollante (1989) 3/5
The Bitter Stems (1956) 4/5. From Criterion Channel's Argentine Noir collection. Pulls out many of the genre's stops, including a symbolic dream sequence.
Revolver (1973) 3.5/5
Town Bloody Hall (1979) 3.5/5
Close Your Eyes (2023) 4/5
Angels with Dirty Faces (1958) 4/5
Drylongso (1998) 3.5/5
The Hunt for Red October (1990) 3.5/5
A Moment of Romance (1990) 4/5
Owning Mahowny (2003) 3.5/5
Pink Floyd: Pompei 2025 re-release 4/5
Sinners (2025) 4/5

So, uh, I quite dug Materialists, ineffective framing device and ehh ending and all.

Cinema:
Sister Midnight (Kandhari, 2024) 5/7 - recommended!

Then catching up (on YT) with a bunch of things I'd never got round to seeing before, plus some fun trash:
Spring in a Small Town (Fei Mu, 1948) 6/7
The Phantom Carriage (Sjöström, 1921) 5/7
Lessons of Darkness (Herzog, 1992) 6/7
Big Bad Mama (Carver, 1974) 5/7
The Palm Beach Story (Sturges, 1942) 6/7
Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans (Herog, 2009) 6/7
Attack of the Giant Leeches (Kowalski, 1959) 4/7
Sansho the Bailiff (Mizoguchi, 1954) 6/7
A Field in England (Wheatley, 2013) 4/7
Thief (Mann, 1981) 5/7
Accattone (Pasolini, 1961) (5/7)
Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti (Deren/Ito/Ito, filmed 1947-54) 5/7
The Devil's Eye (Bergman, 1960) 5/7
The Hired Hand (Fonda, 1971) 4/7
It Conquered the World (Corman, 1956) 4/7
Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (Jarmusch, 1999) 5/7
Gilda (Vidor, 1946) 6/7
Close-Up (Kiarostami, 1990) 6/7
La Notte (Antonioni, 1961) 6/7
The Eternal Breasts (Tanaka, 1955) 4/7

June:

*Tár (Field, 2022) 8/10
The Mattei Affair (Rosi, 1972) 9/10
*Naked (Leigh, 1993) 10/10
*Carnal Knowledge (Nichols, 1971) 8/10
The Ipcress File (Furie, 1965) 7/10
*Casino (Scorsese, 1995) 8/10
*Hard Boiled (Woo, 1992) 8/10
Four Nights of A Dreamer (Bresson, 1971) 6/10
The 8 Diagram Pole Fighter (Kar-Leung, 1984) 8/10
Drug War (To, 2012) 7/10
*Au Hasard Balthazar (Bresson, 1966) 8/10
*Broadcast News (Brooks, 1987) 8/10
An Evening with Beverley Luff Linn (Hosking, 2018) 3/10

because of poker face,
Out of the Blue (Hopper, 1980) 7/10

what an amazing song to base a film on, right after the song's release, even if they missed the more notable grunge version. shame that the chaos at the end of the film is just messy.

Out of the Fog (Litvak, 1941) 4/10
Brando-influence John Garfield as a dock racketeer trying to impress a girl named Stella

I'm now tempted to rewatch breathless and out of the past.

Since I am resting and recuperating:

Henry Gamble’s Birthday Party (Cone, 2015) 9/10
Night Moves (Penn, 1975) 7/10
Teen Apocalypse Trilogy* (Araki, 90s) 8/10 overall

As far as the Araki goes, I forgot how good Totally Fucked Up is in comparison with the other two— Doom Generation being the weak link among the three— too much lifting from Lynch and not trusting his own instincts, which TFU and Nowhere prove are pretty good!

Night Moves rocks.

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.)