They're probably the most free.

The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia — 3.5/5

Not trying to amount to much, but the whole thing feels like a lot. I was intrigued by this years ago because Johnny Knoxville's name was attached to it, and I liked the overall world of 'Jackass,' and you see the aesthetics of that world here. Lo-fi videos capturing people who are not usually seen on screen, being themselves, and that self is something that is so totally antagonistic to what you are. There's that pre-Nathan Fielder are we laughing at them or with them feeling to it, but they all carry themselves with zero shame, so they become a thing to admire just as much as a thing that you are glad that you are not. Briefly the movie touches on how coal companies behave, and why the father set the branch of this family tree in its direction. He saw how owners take advantage of the things they own, and fuck it, if you can get away with it, why not take advantage of them right back? There's a fatalism to that community; you'll die sooner than most, and you'll never be able to escape, so why work hard? The movie doesn't make an argument for taking that path, but it's hard to argue: we can have it all if we settle for less.

Your childhood was taken from you.

Stranger Things S5 — 3/5

To its credit, it felt like an event. A bunch of characters we like, at the end of the line. And the problems here are that it's just... fine? It's just fine. As with the last season, they have accumulated too many characters, and they have put them in too many different places, creating this needlessly complex plan just so that each character can have a moment, accompanied by an emotional speech with the worst possible timing. The last hour of the series is one extended ending, which felt more like throwing darts to sum up what this show was actually about, struggling for an emotional connection. In its suburban sprawl, it forgot its core—four best friends being thrust into a world beyond childhood, trying to find their way back to each other. Oh well. Scrutiny aside, it was fun to watch this show, and first season aside, I don't think there's any reason to revisit it. But also, man, the conspiracy theory about the secret final episode would have been a whopper. It ain't always the case, but the fans could have made it better. 

Jesus? What the fuck?

The Black Phone — 3/5

A silly little premise that works out surprisingly well. Buoyed by a spunky sister who doesn't really play into the ending as much as you'd be led to believe. Could have been more. Could have been less.  

The remnants of a once-promising career.

Slow Horses S1 — 3.5/5

This was fun and I enjoyed it. Gary Oldman is an asshole but he's also treated like an asshole, which is the only way I will accept it. Some of the bits got confusing, but as previously established, I'm a dumb-dumb. When I finished the series, I was like sure, I'll watch another season, but now that a week's passed, not sure it's at the top of my to-do list. And so it goes. 

The word is grand.

John Candy: I Like Me — 3/5

If you like John Candy, this is enjoyable enough to watch. You see some of his personal life, and you learn some things you didn't know. It does not have an overarching throughline or manage to sum up his life's story. It's a bunch of people you like talking about a guy you like, so it feels more like friends gathered for a remembrance rather than a dissection. It's a comfortable movie in that way. It's a project whose primary concern is allowing people to mourn.

Ugly-ass Brad Pitt.

Roofman — 2.5/5

This would have made for a great '80s movie, had it been made in the '80s. "Oh, that's the Toys 'R Us movie," says both my sister and mother, separately, which shows this movie had its finger near something interesting. But instead of infusing this movie with a banger soundtrack and the charm of two attractive people getting on, it instead chooses this low-key dramatic awkward downbeat "improvisational realness" quality that I associate with the Duplass Brothers. And that shit is boooooooriiiiiing. And the events play out pretty much as they happened. The trailer promised a fun movie! The end credits, even, they show real news clips and interviews with real people involved, and it suddenly has this 'Bernie' quality which I would have loved to have had interspersed throughout the movie. Between the promise of the movie that appear before and after the movie, the middle is a true story that's stranger than fiction, but which needed an added layer of fiction to find some truth in it. 

The TV People.

Poltergeist — 3.5/5

This is my first time watching! Though I'd seen maybe the whole movie in bits and pieces across time. I'm in the camp that says that Spielberg was heavily involved in this, and it might be the most Spielbergian thing he's had a direct hand in? (Maybe 'E.T.', I'd need to rewatch it.) What his movies have is a greater sense of cinematography than people first think of, but I think the cultural feeling of Spielberg is much more downstream. There's a very '80s use of color in this and movies of its ilk that feel beautiful, but less overtly considered. Less film-ic. You know, more in tune to the choices of a middle-class suburban family. Lots of browns and yellows with pops of red which were iconic and symptomatic of the kitchens and clothings, but also just the look of the film coloring processing of the time. This movie's style is closer to 'The Goonies' than 'Jaws.' (So, in this thesis, "Spielbergian" is directly tied to our concept of what the '80s looked and felt like, and perhaps why that Spielbergian feeling went away once we left the decade. His feeling is twisty-tied around a decade's aestheticization.) It's also the most overt horror movie this secret horror director has made. Unfortunately, the movie's visual effects allow it to go only so far. The parts that work, work remarkably; I think Spielberg's success as a horror director is being to tap into very normal, and very real residential fears. (What's that in the water? Is that guy following me? Why doesn't my wife understand me? What's that noise downstairs?) Stairs stacked in the kitchen? Killer. Anything having to do with flickering light? Homina homina. Things floating around a bedroom? Ehhhhh. Mostly everything that involves more complex visual effects leans closer to 'Ghostbusters' than 'Close Encounters,' which pushes this closer to a comedy than a horror film. And tone-wise, I love that balance as the actors play it. With JoBeth Williams, you get that wonder and terror all rolled into one. She's great! Her smile and laugh is wonderful, both on the verge of tears. She is both frightened for her child and amazed at what is happening. Heather O'Rourke carries the same ability. (Craig T. Nelson, on the other hand, is an actor I simply do not understand, a comedian who looks like he's running for senate as a Republican candidate. A man who makes you smile even as he tries to take away your abortion access.) But where it works in tone, it stops working in mood. The effects feel too fabricated, too much like a too-friendly horror movie where no one can really get hurt. I think it could have worked if they just left most of that stuff in people's reactions. We may need to see it to believe it, but we don't need to see it to be frightened of it. 

If a thing is always, if a thing is everywhere, that thing is believed by everyone.

Suspiria (1977) — 2.5/5 (rewatch)

I didn't get the appeal of this movie when I originally watched it, and I don't love it on my second watch, but I understand it better. An epiphany for me in the past year or two has been the notion of 'tone' in movies, and on the other side of that is 'mood.' Tone is words. Mood is visuals. Tone is emotion. Mood is feeling. I like tone movies, perhaps because I both desire and need things to be said aloud (because I'm a dumb-dumb). I like when the accompanying music has lyrics. They all work together to create a rhythm which my body falls into. I don't love mood films, as they seem very intent on things not being said aloud but inferred; a feeling created for you to identify (if you can). Movies for art directors, movies for people who want to admire the choices that were made. "Challenging, but worthwhile." "Great cinematography" as a marker for a movie's value. Given the choice to stare at a painting for an hour and a half, or read a story, I'll choose the words. This movie is very pretty to look at; it's got great mood. If you like to live in paintings, here you go.

I know. I'm lost. I'm damned.

Vampyr — 2/5

It's no -sferatu, ha ha ha. (The crowd roars, demands more.) Really fun visual effects for its time and the occasional beautiful sequence. "A dream-like quality." (The crowd storms the stage.) A scant one hour and 15 minutes and feels every second of it. (The crowd tears me apart; I am no more.)

Making enough money to keep body and soul together.

StageFright (aka Deliria aka Aquarius aka Bloody Bird aka Sound Stage Massacre) — 2/5

The first two minutes are a banger, and leads you to believe you're in for an MTV New Wave sex-killer 'West Side Story.' The illusion is quickly dispelled. 

Life's too short to be pussy.

London — 2.5/5

What a masculine movie. It has a lot of boys crying and releasing their deep-seated fears, but with such a laddish quality. The boys had too many drinks and are getting emotional. Worries about dick size and impotence and the proper fucking of women. I don't want to pass those off as silly because they are serious male concerns, but writing it down and saying it aloud, it feels so weak, doesn't it? Which is of course the dilemma. How does a man reveal himself without destroying what makes him a man? It's an interesting aspect of the movie! It's sub-Quentin Tarantino / Christopher McQuarrie by way of one-room play, but it's aiming for something deeper.

Also, I hate Chris Evans' hair in this movie. I think he's had trouble as a successful actor because he hasn't really figured out his role. At times he is the intelligent jock, the charming douchebag who can have a deeper conversation. He would perhaps have been equally good in any of Glen Powell's roles. But his Captain America role, which he excels at, really puts a blocker in trying to place a a consistent theme throughout his career. 

Someone... something, rules in his place.

The Masque of the Red Death — 3.5/5

Del Toro wishes he could capture the mood and artistry of this movie. Cheap around the edges, yes, but something beautiful and poetic about it. I'd put it adjacent to 'The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie'? Though less outright crazy, and with more control on the part of the nobles who think their high status can save them if they just wall themselves off from the outside world. I think this movie does a good job of positioning satanism as less 'evil' and more of the 'I'm just a realist' variety, speaking plainly about the truth of the world as though it was the intention of the world rather than the thing to be solved. Using their power to keep things as they are, and to remind people that that's why it is, as though that was the right and total thing. Had he a kinder voice, Price's killing of the villagers who have sought escape from the Red Death might be seen as a mercy. He loses his "decency" by speaking plainly. He's paired well with Jane Asher who has a wonderful softness to her, making her a great guest into this world.

Always the bullet.

Jack Reacher — 3/5

Finally, I watched the correct one. Go me. This movie contains a banger opening scene, and honestly, separately, one of my favorite silly fight scenes of all time, the latter of which is also emblematic of the problem with the rest of the movie. Tom Cruise's Jack Reacher is just Serious Man Smarter Than Everyone Else. And I don't know if I can put the troubles on Tom Cruise as much as how the character and movie is built. Robert Duvall comes in towards the end and gives this movie a spark, partly because of just who he is, and partly because he's someone who can take the big man down a peg. Humor, in this movie, is a shining light of hope, making the movie repeatedly watchable as any good TNT movie is, and which it is often trying to completely smother with seriousness. I think people now associate action and humor as "The Marvel Tone," but it's really just as simple as the template to 'Cheers' and most decent sitcoms: say something serious, and undercut it with a joke. It's a great formula. And it doesn't mean you can't be grave; it just means that when that when that formula goes missing, you take the serious parts more seriously. I think it's why Avengers: Endgame works so well for me? All the jokes from all those movies allowed you to let your guard down, and be hurt by it. Anyway, uhhh this movie needed more humor, ty. Props also to Rosamund Pike who brings some comedy to the role, I didn't expect it from her.

I'm orgasming just fine.

Friendship — 3/5

Stuck somewhere between Tim Robinson in 'Detroiters' and Tim Robinson in 'I Think You Should Leave.' Guess which one of these I'm more a fan of. The first twenty minutes of this movie, I was surprised at how well it was pulling itself off. Tim Robinson was playing what he tends to play, and Paul Rudd was playing a spiritual successor to Brian Fantana, a mixture of A24's seriousness and Adult Swim's who-knows-what, creating a really lovely feeling. (Is Adult Swim just a pipeline to A24? Both have mastered a certain aesthetic, clearly skilled hands behind the wheel, but also the laziness of 'hey, it's not for everyone' which is just an intellectual disguise for 'maybe someone else will pour more meaning into this than we are capable.') But from there, I thought it would take me down a path of 'the awkwardness of ending a friendship', and the hallucinations of what a friendship actually might look like, and instead takes me to the inevitable end result of Tim Robinson's narcissistic manchild who is only a few degrees away from being an actual psychopath. I didn't like that following that journey as much. 

My wife likes me.

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles — 2.5/5 (rewatch)

I've long not liked this movie, though I've felt wrong for it, and I can now in good faith put it behind me. To be fair, the ending is iconic! Five minutes of a great musical sound bed beneath an overwhelming sense of understanding and empathy. That five minutes can live alone, in isolation, for eternity, as a short movie unto itself. I think it's probably best viewed in that isolation! Because the preceding 90 minutes damage it. Both characters in this movie suck. Steve Martin in an obvious way: I don't like grumps, even when their grumpiness is well-founded. But John Candy also in an obvious way, but harder to point fingers at him because he's got a sadness and can turn that dial in his favor. The movie reminds me of the trouble I had with 'A Real Pain.' I'm not that interested in indulging in bad characters who don't have the ability to fundamentally change. This movie ends, that five minutes of emotional goodwill closes, and Neal Page and Del Griffith will return to who they are, rested after a Thanksgiving meal. That said, it feels like there's a longer movie in here. Neal's troubled relationship with his wife appears in hints, but feels like there was a larger story intended there. If I had to imagine what that was, and how that might have made this better: this movie is meant to be less about a man understanding another man's secret sadness, and more understanding how another person's love (a wife in both cases, and potentially Neal to Del and Del to Neal) can save a person and make them worthwhile. A person they don't need to change for, but want to change themselves for. In the movie, Neal's epiphany is about Del. I imagine in the longer movie, his epiphany is about himself. That's the imaginary movie, though. As it exists, I think this is a movie liked by difficult people.