I know exactly who you are.

Maestro – 2/5 

I didn't care about Leonard Bernstein going in and this movie didn't raise my temperature on this notion. He's not that interesting except for how long his Wikipedia is. He did a lot? I wouldn't know from the movie, which is stuck on a not particularly compelling relationship. Famous man a jerk, more at 11. Bradley Cooper is capital-A Acting, he's an Act-or, he is acting, my dear boy, and he may or may not be a good mimic, how the fuck would I know, but even if he got him perfect, it still comes across as corny. He's playing the truth when he's supposed to be playing along with the music. It's got to all fit together. He's not conducting an orchestra; he's solo-ing. It's a movie built for acting awards. Look at him, look at how he lights up a room. But he does look good. We are in a golden age of on-screen old-age makeup. 

Sing along with the common people.

Saltburn – 3.5/5

With Saltburn, I think I get Emerald Fennell's whole thing. She makes movies that almost feel like "hey, all right, this fits in with my communist sensibilities" until she 180s it. It feels like a stab in the back. "Were you not comrade?" In Promising Young Woman, it's oh cool, a woman getting revenge on shitty men, until it's oh god, is this the logical result of that train of thought?, does shitty men include every variable of shittiness?, I'm not sure I can follow the rails all the way to its end. And here, in Saltburn, it's oh cool, the rich eat you up, and then oh god. We want it to be this tale about the rich sucking. about how you can't be friends with someone who controls the faucet, who determines if you get access to water or electricity. Instead we get a story about how the lower classes don't want to eat the rich: they want to become them. She's not wrong. We eat them. They eat us. And on and on, the snake eating its own tail. We'll glady take the scraps from their table, trickle down economics, but bitter about it as though we, with their money, would pretend to do something different with it. She's not wrong—it's just that her movies feel like they could be more satisfying to the current cultural climate, only she'd rather upend it. She makes movies that make you mad because they're not what you want them to be. We want the perfect victim, or the perfect enemy, and she—correctly, but disappointedly—says hey, not so fast. But between the lines, between the sensationalist images thrown around to grab attention, I can't tell—honestly—whether she does it on purpose. She's deceptive. She's contrarian. We keep looking for a leftist in a centrist's body of work. 

The form

is forgiving.

Wowie zowie.

Super Mario Bros. Wonder — 3.5/5

[Played in 2-player mode] I think I have a mounting frustration with these games because they introduce ideas and then just... go onto the next idea. There's no sense of ever-escalation. You don't get better, you just get on with it. But, that said—it's full of ideas!! So many levels felt like they could be their own game (and thus the disappointment that they weren't furthered). But, then, friends, when there is legitimately a hard level (like the very last two special levels)—wheeeeee.

I can't tell if we're connecting, or if I'm creating a bad memory for you in real time.

May December – 4/5

It's good. It might be great? That frickin' hot dog scene is such a fun scene, friends. It mostly feels isolated in the movie, this building tension and hilarious payoff that doesn't have an exact parallel in any of the remaining movie. So of course it must be the key to understanding everything else!! I wish more movies had such obvious clues. And it's a movie about searching for clues!! That random sentence, that off-hand glance, that something that tells you something. You're looking for a reason, a rationale, a sign that things can't be all right, with Natalie Portman's eyes as our surrogate. There has to be something wrong here. We desire a reason for people to be the way they are; something deep inside that has gone unannounced. We need something to go off of. I learned a new word for this review—interiority. And, in regards to my take on it—does Gracie have any? She'll never tell us—or rather we'll never believe what she'll tell us, unless it's the worst possible version. Maybe she's deflecting, putting all of her anxiety into things that aren't worthwhile because it's easier to put it into small potatoes than deal with the mounting shit on her doorstep. There's this thing that happened—but she's worried about her pies. Everyone was talking about her and will do so again—but do we have enough food to feed everyone? It only becomes real if you sit and think about it—so don't sit still. Alternately, is she so devoted to the relationship because sticking together is the only thing that doesn't paint her as a monster? It's only wrong if it isn't true. "The heart wants what the heart wants" only works if the heart keeps wanting the same thing, forever. Is she a master molder, in total control of her feelings and of those around her—or—is she putting her feelings to the side so as not to have to face them—or—finally—are we putting all of our feelings onto her? Slow zoom in, obvious musical cue, and—maybe there's nothing going on in there at all. 

And that's just Gracie. Joe and Elizabeth are their own objects to be dissected. So, yeah, I think it might be great. It's fun to think about. 

It's only wrong

if it isn't true.

They will not have forgotten how to treat strangers.

Paddington — 3/5

It's cute, sticky sweet, not much of anything. The miracle of this movie, which I like, is that it set the stage for the next one, which I love. I look at movies like this sometimes and think "well, I'd never have greenlit a sequel" and then am very glad that I'm not the one in charge.

When the sun comes up, I'm down.

Scott Pilgrim Takes Off — 1.5/5

The first episode reads like late-stage live-action Disney: exactly the same, except twice as slow. Everything you love, only worse. It's a beat-for-beat remake that has lost every beat of musicality from the movie. But, at least, by the end of the first episode, it chooses to go somewhere different, and so it kept me curious enough to see what happens next, to see if it eventually catches its rhythm. It doesn't. 

There are questions beyond me.

There are answers beyond me, too. 

It's only going to get worse now.

Reptile – 3/5

A pretty generic cop movie except for a few key participants who were making the most of it. Benicio's carries the quiet energy of his performance from Sicario, and the sound guys were having fun creating tension where there wasn't any. It's the first performance from Benicio where I felt like, behind his Michael Madsen eyes, he could realistically play decency. Where it most succeeds is feeling like 'this is what it feels like to turn against your friends,' and it falls apart because, as these movies always do, they settle for gunfights.

Hedgelords.

Dumb Money — 3/5

I feel like this movie is successful in spite of itself. By the end, you feel the spirit of Keith Gill as a folk hero, by brain and balls just doing something interesting until suddenly it becomes doing his best—ultimately doing it for the people, doing it because it's the closest he'll ever get to saying something aloud and having people listen. I think it's the only kind of revolution that could realistically happen these days, driven by a "fuck it, why not"—and driven by "making money" as our banner to fight beneath—that somehow morphs into a genuine desire to beat them at their game. In getting there, I think the movie doesn't really explain the GameStop saga very well, nor truly tap into frustrations of the working class dumb moneys who partook. So in that I feel like it's made for people who already had a decent idea of what was happening. "You got mad then, now get mad again." And that ladders up to the movie not having the power that it could. Half of me expected a Big Short-esque 'explain it to me like I'm five' approach, and I walk away thinking it should have still cribbed from that movie. Fuck it, why not. Explain it. Help us understand what the fuck was going on here. Instead, it feels like an advertising case study, cribbing from news reports and social media to paint a portrait of the time and "the big powerful idea at the center and, hey, look at all these KPIs." You get the energy of it, but you don't totally feel the weight of it. The splash becomes ripples becomes the seemingly calm sea as all those awful, deserved feelings boil below. And it's not the first time. By the end, as with "The Big Short," the energy of anger just dissipates because we've got nowhere to direct it.

It's not art

if it's not the artist.

Being good

means making decisions that hurt you. 

You are not serious people.

Succession S3/S4 — 3.5/5

Uhhhh, shit, I barely remember. I think it started to feel like a series of flip-flops, are they going this side or that side, who's going to screw over who. Soap opera drama to just... spread the show out. Tom Wambsgans continued to be the only consistent character, and instilled with increasing pathos. He, too, is a villain, but a villain who can be hurt—and return it. Matthew Macfadyen really was a wonderful actor. And he's British??? Omg. Kieran Culkin rose out of the pack to be his own particular star, clearly troubled, clearly incompetent. And I enjoyed the final episode if only because it solidifies the thesis of the siblings' relationship: the only way they know how to show their affection is by hurting each other—and the ultimate act of love is to deprive them all of power. 

I hate you.

The Super Mario Bros. Movie — 2/5

It's crushing the amount of talent that goes into a movie as mediocre as this. It's a Funko Pop model of a movie. It's a highlight reel of 'that thing that you're vaguely aware of from having been exposed to Mario games for the past umpteen years'. Blocks and mushrooms and stars and pipes and toads. But it's most fun when it touches on things we haven't seen in Mario before: an extended family! A plumbing business in peril! Big brothers looking after little brothers! A Bowser in love! Mushroom Kingdom invading New York City! Listing them out here I'm like okay, that's a decent amount of fun to be had. But it's too busy hitting all the bullet points to linger anywhere new. Whenever a joke lands (I particularly enjoy Seth Rogen's Donkey Kong's context-less 'I hate you'), it just makes me wish everything around it could pick up that same energy. It made almost as much money as Barbie, and is the exact opposite. "Give them what they want: nothing to complain about." Mario is simple. Barbie is complex. Here are your two paths, children—both hold equal weight. Please make the right choie. 

Kick off your Sunday shoes.

Blue Beetle — 3.5/5

Music and typography and blue and pink stylistic choices give it a superficial air of the 80s, but—also—there's something inherently 80s inside of it. 'The 80s', in movie terms, is I think not so much a decade as it is a style. Not rooted in nostalgia but pointing towards the types of choices that were made in that decade. 'The Cutting Edge', 1992, is an 80s movie. 'Thor: Ragnarok', 2017, is an 80s movie. This movie is an 80s movie. A return to an optimism that was replaced by the 90s' cynicism and irony and subjugating expectations in the pursuit of clever. It's not lightness in the face of heaviness (Joss Whedon, 'The 90s'), but lightness that sells the heaviness when it comes. It's a surprising amount of emotional weight over plot weight. Early Marvel movies carried that well. Though I decried the lack of a good villain at the time, those early Marvel movies (Iron Man 1, Captain America 1—both 80s movies) still work because it's all about the weight our heroes carry, and the choices they may or may not make. They created a world that you want to return to, but also you never needed to return to: what you already have here is fine. The larger world was assumed. The superhero had a cool costume. The characters were likeable. I had fun in a movie theater. 

—

Sidenote: Die Hard was the first 90s movie. In these next two pages, I will—

We're looking for someone

to take the blame.

Can you be Good

 and be Happy at the same time?

Ladies and gentlemen,

the horrifying creepers.

"We create beautiful and lasting things, build vast civilizations."

"Gorgeous evasions," he said. "Great escapes."

— Don DeLillo, White Noise

Do you wanna go somewhere else?

No Hard Feelings – 2.5/5

In three months time, I will question if I ever actually watched this generically-titled anonymous movie starring Jennifer Lawrence. Did I just watch the trailer? Did I see the poster somewhere? Am I thinking of some other movie altogether? I only just watched it and it has already mostly disappeared. I will watch it again out of pure forgetfulness. I need a name for these types of movies. Things you keep turning on because you forgot you ever turned it on. There's value in them; they grow dear because of how many times you accidentally rewatch them for the first time. All of those movies star Jennifer Aniston. Anyways. Jennifer Lawrence is a good comedic actress. Andrew Barth Feldman is a good comedic actor. There is good chemistry there. Unfortunately, the director has no sense of timing nor how to surround them with interesting actors or how to make the most of any given moment. (Come to think of it, he committed the same crimes in 'Good Boys.') The two leads force the movie into likeability by pure strength of character and willingness to engage.  

l look like the lady that pulls kids out of class when their parents get into car accidents.

You Are So Not Invited To My Bar Mitzvah — 3/5

This was cute. It also looks cheaply made. But it fits the charm of the movie; light and fun and inconsequential. Adam Sandler's daughters are already defined characters. For all their exaggeration, they feel like genuine teenagers. As Bill Cosby and Tom Hanks fade from view as America's Dad, I think Adam Sandler now has an honest shot at the top. A more realistic view of the father figure. Loud and angry and sweet and lovable. Not so much moralistic, but having strong morals. He doesn't necessarily tell you where he stands, but you know where he stands. He just wants an easy life. 

And thank you for bringing us back from the other side! Having seen things we can't unsee. And knowing things we can't unknow.

Renfield — 4/5

I wish I'd reviewed this closer to when I watched this because boy, did this tickle me, and boy have I largely forgotten exactly why. All I can remember is that there's this one moment where the joke is just played in how Awkwafina turns and her shoes squeak, and boy, that got me. It's full of little moments like that. Tiny jokes. As I've forgotten everything else, I'll instead leave you with 1, Nicholas Hoult is low-key becoming one of my favorite actors and 2, the more Nicolas Cage is in on the joke, the less fun it is. No additional context will be given for either points. 

The ugly, untalented gays.

Bottoms — 4/5

Something in this feels new. I can't put my finger on it exactly. It's absurd but doesn't really look or feel or play itself as purely absurdist, like say a Not Another Teen Movie. The first 15 minutes of the movie, I had trouble catching its rhythm because it plays like a relatively straightforward teen comedy, but it kept slipping in things that felt out of place. A character that was too caricatured, say. It feels normal until its suddenly very much not normal. And back and forth, and back and forth. And I really love it for that? Specifically—how much it forgoes logic for a good joke. "Does this make sense?" "Fuck it, it's funny." It builds emotional connection and then fucks it all to hell. It's the love child of She's All That and Blazing Saddles. I feel like the unwritten rules say you have to pick a path, and I love this movie for at any given moment choosing to be whatever the fuck it wanted to be.

Men will no longer commute. They will communicate.

Blackberry — 2.5/5

I enjoyed it until I read that a lot of was fictionalized for the sake of an interesting story. Truth was sacrificed to be interesting–ish. If it was a better lie, I wouldn't have minded as much, but it's just a typical tale of hubris and gains and losing your way as you walk down the long path paved towards more money. Entertainingly told, but I dunno. The truth of it bugs me. 

Why does she feel like she has to choose?

Magic Mike's Last Dance — 1.5/5

The first ten minutes and I'm like yes, fuck yes, it's back, this stupid wonderful thing that I somehow love. And then it squanders every bit of goodwill that first ten minutes builds. For as much as these movies have been built for (and I can only guess here) the female gaze—sexy guys with sexy abs having sex via the feminine quality of dancing—the movies' most attractive parts have always been the friendships. Magic Mike's magical magnetic quality was always his ability not to make women fall in love with him, but to attract a group of likeminded people into his world—specifically, bringing men into his world. My friends—it's always been about da boyz. And here, da boyz have been stripped back to pure dance machines, names barely registered, no personality to speak of—not even dance styles altogether distinct from one another. They are, finally, just pieces of meat; a parody of the world that's been built in the past two movies. Instead, it's all built around the male-female relationship, which have always been part of the Magic Mike universe, but never the center. Just the asteroids coming in and out of his life. Here, it's built up like it's the sun, all passion, all fire—but the heat never reaches you. The two never really connect except in that first scene. Everything else that happens just looks distant and cold from all the way out here. 

Oh my god, we're a team.

The Marvels — 3/5

It's low-stakes high-stakes. Big cosmic stage, light comedy. Planets in peril and we're making JOKES?? Yes!! And all the better for it. As she showed in Ms. Marvel, Iman Vellani (and her family) is a fucking delight (and I hope she takes advantage of the next ten years to star in every high-school comedy about an international girl in love with the popular white guy). She carries comedy and drama well—which I can't say as much about with her co-stars. The emotional connection between Teyonah Parris and Brie Larson never connects, and we never really feel the weight that Captain Marvel carries for her past mis-deeds, nor quite the extent of the glorious purpose of her villain. And I am in full 'forgive that' mode because someone cut twenty to forty minutes out of that storyline to make a breezy, fun, 105-minute movie that drops you in the action and just says 'fuck it' from then on out. Planets where everyone sings! Cats that eat people in order to save them! Stealing our sun! It's a superhero movie. It's having fun, and the people inside seem to be having fun. Quelle tragédie. I think this will get looked back on years from now as low-key one of the best Marvel movies in terms of pure rewatchability. 

Aesthetic

criminals.

Glorious purpose

Loki Season 2 — 4/5

The current Marvel discourse has been interesting to watch. "A few relative failures and the whole thing's doomed." My friends, it has always had bad parts. There have always been mediocre parts. My preferred Marvel Universe ethos was laid out at the entrance, at the end of the first Iron Man. "Hey, what if we introduce the Avengers?"—ie, let's say something aloud and see if someone can make something out of it later. It was throwing out threads. Here's a character, here's a line, here's a motivation. Let's see what happens. And the beauty of these movies has been when all of those threads seem to so intentionally collide in moments like Captain America finally saying "Avengers Assemble" in Endgame. And bros? My dudes? My ride-or-dies? Number one movie-going experience I've ever been a part of. There's a type of storytelling experience that is only achievable through longform storytelling. It's the feeling of things coming together; threads crossing over and under and through the years to lead to moments that feel like magic. It's the feeling of being rewarded. In exchange—sometimes those moments go nowhere. Sometimes it's just a loose thread, a false story to follow. I think the lie of the Marvel Universe is how much of it is planned versus how much they've just flown by the seat of their pants and hoped someone could make sense of it. And of course the more they get it "wrong," the more pressure there is to step in and make that plan more solid—less random, less chaotic; less open. Fortunately, Loki was finished before that conversation stepped up it's PR campaign because wow, what a fucking ending to a character. Loki gets his throne he no longer wanted; only through understanding the burden of the crown can one wear it. Loki ascends from the God of Lies to the God of Stories, not weaving them like Anansi but holding each creation up as worthy of being told. Each tangent, each breach, each variation leaves room for being worthwhile. He is Atlas of the libary, carrying our stories on his shoulders, cataloguing all of the books on the shelves without passing judgement on their contents. He is the firmament that all can stand on, free to move. From villain to anti-hero to Marvel's greatest hero—the series' final episode is the end result of all these tangents, these random lines and images, coming together to make something that we never saw coming, that all fits with what we've seen; the throne he thought he deserved; the only person he could love enough to become a hero for ended up being himself (in a way). As Marvel is busy learning another lesson about best-laid plans, here is the antithesis to that: as Sylvia and Loki both understand, the more calculated the Sacred Timeline—the more calculated the Marvel Universe becomes—the less we want it. The show had a decent amount of flaws in getting here, particularly in not making things clear when they could have been more easily explained, but the emotional resonance it earns in that final episode, the threads it weaved and tied together—again, there is a type of storytelling experience that is only achievable through longform storytelling, and here it is again. As long as the possibility of that exists, I'll keep signing on for more.

I think of the good, decent, peace-loving people I have known by the thousands, and I wonder.

How many of them are so afflicted with the wasting disease of normalcy that, even as they declare for the peace, their hands reach out with an instinctive spasm … in the direction of their comforts, their home, their security, their income, their future, their plans—that five-year plan of studies, that ten-year plan of professional status, that twenty-year plan of family growth and unity, that fifty-year plan of decent life and honorable natural demise. “Of course, let us have the peace,” we cry, “but at the same time let us have normalcy, let us lose nothing, let our lives stand intact, let us know neither prison nor ill repute nor disruption of ties.” And because we must encompass this and protect that, and because at all costs—at all costs—our hopes must march on schedule, and because it is unheard of that in the name of peace a sword should fall, disjoining that fine and cunning web that our lives have woven, because it is unheard of that good men should suffer injustice or families be sundered or good repute be lost—because of this we cry peace and cry peace, and there is no peace. There is no peace because there are no peacemakers. There are no makers of peace because the making of peace is at least as costly as the making of war—at least as exigent, at least as disruptive, at least as liable to bring disgrace and prison and death in its wake.

— Father Daniel Berrigan, “No Bars to Manhood”

In Breughel's Icarus, for instance:

how everything turns away Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry, But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green Water, and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky, Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

— W. H. Auden in Musee des Beaux Arts

For us, there is only the trying.

The rest is not our business.

— T.S. Eliot

Are you poor now?

Our Flag Means Death S2 — 4/5

The first half of this was great, it was acting like a show with nothing to lose, and it didn't care if a S3 order came in. They're in love, and isn't it great, and isn't that the end. But it doesn't end there! And then it's just them coming together and leaving and coming together and leaving. But while that gets tiresome, the surrounding characters find ways to remain interesting—almost each of them in love in different ways, all presented without judgement or comment. It's easy to be in love when no one around you particularly gives a shit. No outside weight added on it, so it can just float, light as a balloon. Stede and Ed carry the burden of 'reputation,' and so are overly concerned with what everyone thinks. But Stede to others, and from all around him, they have that same non-judgemental sweetness that Reservation Dogs has—so given his participation in both, this might just be the quality which Taika Waititi brings to a project. No one is weird when you've found each other. Special mark to Izzy Hands who was just a remarkable actor, and the subtle main character throughout this season. And special mark for, with every new character added, another departs. Keep it tight, boyos. 

The ones who stayed.

Reservation Dogs S3 (but also the whole thing) — 4.5/5

And so ends the slow crawl from comedy to drama, and the path its drawn is beautiful and sweet and something I think, combined with things like Ted Lasso and Our Flag Means Death and The Bear, starts to approach again the new religion, the old religion, one called "all we have is each other." Believe in me as I in you and together we shall rise. If the first two seasons of Reservation Dogs were about escaping the bonds of where you're from, this final season 180s it—they searched for a larger world if only to say goodbye to it. "How beautiful to never search for who you are. Everything you need is here, in the millenniums of certainty." The trust in the aunties and uncles and shitasses and the ancestors, the spirits, that every step was a step forward, and in all the chaos of the universe, the random assortment of atoms traversing eternities, in life and death, they found each other, here, in this place, at this time. They came together. And then the hard part becomes staying together. Though some do leave, and maybe later even more will, I think this show ultimately does something which I'm not sure I've seen before—it celebrates the ones who stayed. The ones who make up the home you return to. The constants. Their small lives, infinite in size. The ones who believe in you, who collectively do their part to fill the god-sized hole inside you. The people in this show touches something in me. I will miss them now that they're gone, and I hope they come this way again. 

Children

are distant things.

Resentment is drinking poison

and expecting someone else to die.

— Geri Halliwell

How beautiful to never search for who you are. Everything you need is here.

In the millenniums of certainty.

— Bucky, Reservation Dogs, Season 3, Episode 5

I'm an idiot.

Shazam: Fury of the Gods — 2.5/5

I think it's better than the first one! Here is why: the movie's biggest problem is still Zachary Levi. Specifically, how he and his kid alter-ego are not actually anything alike. Captain Marvel is an 8-year old kid who wants friends and verbalizes it excessively, and Billy Batson is a moody too-cool-for-school teenager who wants friends but keeps it to himself (like any self-respecting teenager should). Everytime it switches between them, there's a huge shift in tone. What the movie gets right this time is essentially sidelining Billy to focus on Freddie—who, in another world, is a much better Billy Batson! But actually I'm thankful he's not because this means that Freddie can interact with Captain Marvel in ways that Billy never could. It feels like a kid interacting with that kid with superpowers. And so it's fun! And there's a stable tone throughout this thing. And I pretty much forget all the bits and pieces outside of that. Not sure if the other superhero family members actually did much? Except to serve a story about family that was mostly about two members of the family? Anyway, more fun was had. Huzzah. 

I just feel like you're pretending.

Honor Society — 2/5

I went into this hoping for two things — a clear successor to the easy likeability of 'Easy A,' and the ascendance of Angourie Rice, who I am fond of because 'The Nice Guys' continues to be one of my most rewatched modern movies, and I wish her to succeed outside of it. She does okay! The movie has a rhythm, it moves steadily forward, it has charms—but my god, is it so fucking grey. It's dreary. It's made in the few minutes between deluges of rain on either side of the scene. It makes any lightness sopping wet. And then a weird fucking sociopathic twist and a weird fucking creepy teacher thing. Somewhere in here is a brightly-colored movie, and a decent story about how the road to heaven may be paved with bad intentions, but it's lost in this fucking downpour.

Everyone’s gotten really good

at the same thing.

— Lorde

The truth wants to come out, and then there's a fear that it's going to destroy something.

Couples Therapy, S3 (but also S1 and S2) — 5/5

This may somehow end up being my favorite show of all time. If you don't know the premise, it's simple—couples go to a therapist to talk about their problems. The cameras are hidden; the therapy is taken seriously. Orna Guralnik looks at each of them, actively listening, and searching for what they're actually saying within the words they're actually using. She's a master molder, guiding the conversation, pushing them further, bringing them back. Making sure the other person is listening as well. And then the show wisely shows her own private sessions as she looks for advice from others as to how to meet these people. Wise, because it shows that this is a job that extends beyond her sessions. She can only help them if she can herself grow into what they need. I admire her. In some ways I aspire to be like her. Sometimes I, as the viewer, want her to jump up and shake these people and say "Don't you realize what you're doing?? Don't you understand what you are??" And to occasionally see her speak up and create clear boundaries is marvelous in its effectiveness, and its right-ness, though of course she can't just jump out of her chair to slap them across the face. So many of these people seem like they'd be so much happier if they just left each other, but that is not something she can say. Each episode is an entire movie, each of these couples' lives an entire universe, split into four 7-minute segments. I couldn't binge the show because each episode feels special, both because of the heaviness in each episode but also selfishly I wanted to drag it out as long as possible. Every entrance into these peoples' lives is something learned, something gained, something worth talking about. And when they succeed, you succeed with them. And when they fail, it's heartbreaking, but you also understand it needs to happen. Sometimes therapy is just building up the courage to say goodbye. Orna in that way is like an angel, guiding them to a set of doors and asking them which they want to open. She will take you as far as she can, but the final choice is yours. And in her way, in her responsiveness, she shows me a way to be, and still how much further there is to go.

And you will not know, until many years later—

or never at all. 

I have a specific definition of alive,

which is I want to feel like I am being changed.

— Jenny Odell

I'll be out your atmosphere.

They Cloned Tyrone — 4/5

What a lovely timelessness they've created. It's got a stuck-in-time-ness of those small towns that had a heyday and then industry left and what got left behind simply stopped moving. John Boyega plays it serious, straight out of the '90s, accompanied by Jamie Foxx's 70's-era pimp and Teyonah Parris' ho talking about blockchain. It's a composite town, a composite time, and it works marvelously; it all works as a purposeful aesthetic to the plot. It's a place built on the idea of what those places are, all these times still living together in a prism; a cage. It's an idea of a place you've likely never been. It's all green and grimy and filled with people who don't realize they're already dead. From that setting springs a super-fun plotline and a wonderful meshing of tones that doesn't quite come together at the end. It builds mystery and intrigue and a momentum that unfortunately gets dead-stopped by exposition. And not very clear exposition? I got confused. I'm not sure whether I needed this world to wrap itself into a neat little bow, or to just embrace the fun of it all and go with it, but it doesn't quite do either. But whatever—everything else is in this place is worth visiting again.

Think of only what is.

The Little Mermaid (2022) — 2.5/5

It's unfortunate that the movie wasn't better received because, while it's not great, it might also be the best of these live-action Disney things? (This of course excludes Cinderella which was genuinely good but somehow feels distant from all the ones between this and that?) It does the thing that those do which is to make a primarily beat-for-beat remake but make it 10x slower, but this one unlike those feels most like a cartoon. Halle isn't a great actress, but she's a great caricature. She's naive and innocent and bubbles. Melissa McCarthy and Awkwafina are already live-action cartoons and they're just left to do their thing—which is great. Let them do their thing. When you hire Maurice Chevalier, you are hiring him to be Maurice Chevalier. There are times this movie felt like the Disney live-action movies from the '60s, in their innocence and charm and slapdashery. But it's this fucking art direction house style of these live action monstrosities which bring it down. Every time it tries to feel real, it feels less authentic to the world. Straight up, serious question, why the fuck isn't a newt playing a flute nor a bass playing de brass? The visuals too often aim for beauty instead of fun. I do not care that you've brought the bottom of the ocean floor to life with photo-realism and many gigabytes of data and Intel processing power. I just want to watch the fluke as the duke of soul (yeah). It's not great, for all of the above reasons (and please god make these movies less than 2 hours long) but there's something in here that makes it better. And that includes continuing to cement Lin Manuel-Miranda as the heir apparent to Howard Ashman — 'The Scuttlebutt' is kind of a bop — though that also deserves criticism as his two other tracks are definitely not-a-bop. Not sure if that's as much a criticism of him as much as a lack of editing in a desire to sell the idea of EVEN MORE SONGS (ONLY $19.99). It would have been better if it had been smaller. Too bad it didn't do as well as all those others. A good lesson might have been learned. Then again, the lower expectations only help it. 

¯\ _(ツ)_/¯ 

My energy level

doesn't match this role.

— someone in a meeting

All I wanted was a measly sandwich.

Big Top Pee Wee – 1/5

This is bad, and surprising in just how much so. Pee Wee's not just a bad kid, but a bad person. It goes for drama without a deft hand to find the humor in it. It's got a big top circus full of people and still feels small. What kind of kid was I to find something good here? Maybe it was just on a lot. Maybe it was my first exposure to circus freaks, and that idea seemed wild. Maybe I was a dumb fucking kid.

The hard work

of living. 

To burn out brightly,

to smash against the stone, to drown beneath the waves... but to go unnoticed?

Violence

at a distance.

Half-white,

half-what?

— my dad, upon hearing I was seeing a mixed girl

Permanently and cosmically... alone.

Knock at the Cabin – 2.5/5

I like the idea behind this a lot! However, may I present to you: the delivery. It's based on a book but feels more like it's based on a short story. It's not that it has no weight, it's more that it doesn't know how to carry that weight. The spiritually-tinged horror—the cosmic horror—that it hints are wonderful, and frightening, and it both plays that hand too softly and not hard enough. The entire world relies on your decision? Great. I love it. Make me feel it. But it doesn't, so it relies on the fairly bland couple at the center to sell it—but not enough is done to sell them to us. One is angry. The other is nice. The thin characterizations cannot carry the weight. Why not explore The Nice One's spiritual background more? It needs to be explored. It's almost as if the movie is afraid of being a religious movie. It had a chance to get across the Fear of God, but it shies away. The thing that ends up standing out here, the person who can carry the weight, is Dave Bautista. He's actually a great match for M. Night's at-times stilted dialogue. That isn't meant to be insulting! His bulk hides a childlike naivete; a hopefulness amidst the Terrible Thing He Is Asking. He's a Believer. I wish the movie could have made me a believer as well.

You stupid, horrible bully.

Matilda (Live Musical) – 3.5/5

Matilda (Original Movie) – 3/5

Matilda (Netflix Version of Musical) — 2/5

Wow!! What a fun way to experience art!!! It's exciting to see so many versions of a thing, if only to see clearly the individual decisions that make that thing work and which then make another thing not work, though the things are fundamentally the same. Each actress that plays Matilda holds the world on their shoulder, turning it cutesy or heroic or a little bit sociopathic. And within all the various cover versions, you can see there is something great here. The cheapness of the original Matilda matches the chaos energy of the original Willy Wonka. The pure kinetic energy of the live musical's songs and humor and stage design along with thematic changes that push it towards something with meaning. And the uh I actually have nothing good to say about the Netflix version except it so thoroughly frustrated me that it could not see what it had in hand and so I spent a lot of time thinking about the movie and rewatching scenes and having this conversation with myself? Fuck it's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory sleek premium joyless garbage. I so desperately want to grab all three versions and mush them into something that more closely resembles the original Willy Wonka. Eliminate the teacher. Embrace the chaos of childhood and those little fucking sociopaths. Free itself from its source material to become something new; something better. 

No, no thank you.

The Blackening – 2/5

It's possible that Jermaine Fowler is my least-favorite working actor. What a corny motherfucker. The rest of the movie is a good idea that can't figure out what kind of comedy it wants to be. Slapstick "Scary Movie" or black slasher trope "Scream." It's closest to succeeding at the latter except for all those dips into the former. Welp, too late to save it now. Try again with a sequel, there's a good movie in here somewhere.

It's a pavilion-type structure.

Cocaine Bear – 2/5

A lot of yelling. Grisly violence that I think is trying to be funny, but is only violent. Keri Russell walks away from this unscathed, and Alden Ehrenreich proves yet again that he's a great comedic actor. And I'll also give props to Aaron Holliday for being, I don't know — a character? Everything else is too many things. 

Boys, where have you been?

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem — 3.5/5

It's fun!! It played fast and loose with the turtles and how we know them, and so created something both familiar and new. It screams along, moving too fast to let you question the relatively small shifts in reality. Splinter's more a dad than a teacher. They're actual teenagers. Mutants everywhere! There's a casual cool, an immediate chemistry present within its parts. It rolls on vibes and a Tony Hawk Pro Skater soundtrack. The core of the turtles is in that fucking theme song, and everything else is water. And now, to approach this children's movie through a critical lens: I couldn't help but to feel a tinge of disappointment throughout? And that disappointment isn't that it's bad, it's that it had all the ingredients to be better. Its emotional climaxes don't feel as emotionally climactic. It's got a clear 'about me' but also just... handles it with a hand-wave? Its casual cool borders on lazy. As it is, it's a perfect movie to watch in the background and get sucked in for bits and pieces at a time. And ultimately, that 'good enough' may very well be what makes it great. Infinitely rewatchable because it's got just enough to make you sit, but not enough to make you sit and think. We'll see? And, another note—Doritos, BTS, Attack on Titan. Those jokes on one hand made the movie accessible and easily relatable and, on the other, made it seem like a giant commercial. Which I know it is; the Ninja Turtle cinematic universe continues at Wal-Mart, in comics and cartoons and action figures and bedsheets. But the way it's handled, it feels harbinger to a new thing: advertising and movies collapsing into one. It's all just one cinematic universe called content. 

Had thirty years to figure it out

but picked the last 6 months.

— Brendan Joyce, Autobiography

Never to return to the shape they were.

Still – 4/5

Well-crafted! The footage from his career plays well with carefully crafted, vague recreations that bleed into each other, forming a connective tissue that allows the movie to use his works to tell his life story. And it does a great job of telling that story through the lens of a single idea (the inability to be still). It's really well done, and you feel his pain, and you feel his strength. You see him cohere into form and then you see him dissolve, becoming a puddle struggling to regain form. But there, in the reflection, still him. 

Electricity

that thinks it's human.

The fire next time.

Oppenheimer – 3/5

Real life has too many characters!! I wanted to see a people grapple with what they are making / what they have made, men playing god and realizing the almighty burden of holding the world in the palm of your hand. Instead, I get a series of people who give me a faint note of recognition, and then shuffle off to the side. A lot of background characters with no background to ground them, to add to the overall meaning. A race to be first will always beat a race to be right. And the movie is Nolan's typical racing — all propulsive momentum, a V2 rocket heading somewhere. But man, of all the targets to hit, why aim it at Strauss? The bitter social drama doesn't match up to the scientific drama, or the moral drama, or the political drama. Why are the women there, and what do they mean to him or the story? Who gives a shit about his renewed security clearance? It's distracting. It's real life, and I want cinema. And when Nolan hits on that point, as His works tend to do, the booming sound of the IMAX speakers and the visuals of rolling fire work together to create something beautiful, and frightening, and approaching numinous. I'd like to sit with that! But the movie moves too fast to let us sit with any thought too long. As is typical in Nolan's work, his worlds of gods have no room for men.

I'm trying to start from a place of positivity.

The Bear, Season 2 – 3.5/5

The Bear has, surprisingly, become a great companion piece to 'Ted Lasso'. Both being, in essence, what it means to be a manager. Building a vision, corraling collaborators; finding faith in work. And season 2 throughout threatens to wholesale become 'Ted Lasso'. Good people! Giving everyone a chance! Everyone has a place in our future, no one is expendable. 'Forks' is a masterclass episode that shows how every job is worthy of respect, that there is something beautiful and worthwhile in being in the service industry, as to love is to serve. (Shit, it gave me a renewed faith in my own job.) The high-tension anxiety of Season 1 largely dissipates in the slow build of building a new place for everyone to belong. But eventually, that workplace anxiety returns in a great final episode that shows the other side of that, and upends the 'Ted Lasso'-esque build—doing something well may well mean at the expense of all else. It may mean yelling and screaming and hurting the people you love (which is hurting yourself). Ted Lasso was a great man and manager without having to compromise himself, but even he ultimately wasn't up for the cost of greatness. So here is a far less perfect version of him on the other side, striving for something without the emotional skills to manage it. 

The stars at night are big and bright...

Pee Wee's Big Adventure – 3.5/5

It's weird, because I giggled a lot, but also I find it... exhausting? Part of it is Pee Wee who is both hilarious and kind of a difficult person—a child who I would hate to babysit?—and the other part I think is just a lack of momentum from a first-time director still finding his footing? I dunno. I love Pee Wee — or rather I love the idea of Pee Wee. He's funny just by looking at things in that way he can look at things, by how quickly he can turn things off and on. He doesn't have to be funny; he is funny. And I enjoy that he doesn't live in a cartoon as with his show; he stands out exactly as odd as he should, gleefully and willfully weird in a not-quite-as-weird world. His persona has a magical quality of fitting in anywhere, making everything he touches a little stranger rather than everything else making him feel more out of place. There's a contrast here that isn't in the show. But, on the other hand, the show was only 22 minutes, which might be just the right amount of him at any one go. Also, I'm being hypercritical of a thing that made me giggle a lot. Fuck the shit out of me.

To be honest, when I found out the patriarchy wasn't just about horses, I lost interest.

Barbie - 3.5/5

This movie is difficult for me to place my finger on. It's wiggly. “I’m doing the thing and subverting the thing,” as Greta Gerwig says, and I am stuck somewhere around there. Figuring out if she succeeded, I guess? It's a movie that's very aware that it's making A Barbie Movie. It's full of expectations and the feeling that, in order to exist in this world we live in, it must uphold those expectations while also subverting those expectations while also very obviously subverting those expectations. It must be light and pink and deep and red and bleeding from her vagina. It must be beautiful, and against beauty. It wants its cake, and to eat it, too—but to still stay skinny, duh. It has to make it okay for everyone to like Barbie. It must walk the center line. Listen, it's a hard task, and walking the middle aisle, hovering in the air between two powerful magnets pulling its arms in each direction. Its desire to live within contradictions break its easy painted-on smile. It has become sentient; aware. Though it's not so much self-aware as constantly aware of itself — much as women are constantly aware of being a woman!! In the end, it's a movie that befits the toy – designed to be analyzed, poked at, prodded; hair to be combed, body to be dressed, legs to be split, views to be contorted as the viewer sees fit to shape it through their own ideological lens. How much can it hold between its rigid plastic fingers? Must it carry the full weight of feminism and femininininity? As subjects and objects, all are inextricably linked to... not controversy, but opinions. It's a movie made to be discussed on the internet. It's an Instagram explainer of feminism, designed to be Instagram explainer-ed. It's a product about a product with us as the long-tail product. It's very possibly the most defining movie of our time. And any issues I have with it are not that it had something to say, but that the message wasn't perfect. I'll sum that criticism up as "female power fantasies are still fantasies of power," and go no further. ALSO BECAUSE I CAN'T HELP IT I'LL JUST SAY THAT SOMETIMES THE EDITING CHOICES FELT A LITTLE LESS IMPACTFUL THAN I THINK THEY COULD HAVE BEEN? But all that to say, the movie befits the toy. Barbie The Movie and Barbie the Character are magical mirrors for those who gaze into it, reflecting back themselves. 

Do you feel responsible?

Secret Invasion — 1/5

This is bad! I can't wait to see what happens next!!

Consciousness

causes collapse.

Same time, same channel.

Glitch: The Rise & Fall of HQ Trivia — 2/5

Half a documentary, only one real voice and one side that they keep returning to as they do a fairly horizontal, uninteresting recountment. Don't worry, friends, the office manager has something to say! And the app glitches?? Wow! And someone dies! And then there's this sudden emotional breakdown around that that the movie just kind of... fails to follow through with? There was your story, friends, and you let it go. As such, we're left with "HQ was big, and then it wasn't, and some behind-the-scenes drama acted in aid of both those things." Could have just as easily done a 20 minute read of that oral history on [online media outlet]. 

The key is to act like a happy family.

Succession Season 2 — 3.5/5

It's more of the same thing that you enjoy! Only this time, Tom is just the absolute best. What a tough role, and what an acting job to bring it to life! And what a cliffhanger! Yay! And yes, you do feel sympathy for these rich fucks who've been raised by this wicked man. Of course a monster will have raised monsters, too! And the little tiny steps away from that they roam are monumental in their proportionate size, and the way he corrals them back in, calling the cattle home, seemingly small in their evil. He only likes them when they're broken, with he as the glue holding the pieces together. But as the song goes — it's the ones who've cracked that the light shines through. 

With the rich and mighty, always a little patience.

Succession Season 1 — 3.5/5

It's this unusual mishmash of tones — obviously comedic slamming against definitely-not-comedic. It at times seems like it's aiming for that Armando Iannucci style of serious actors behaving very unseriously, but the weight of the actors stands too tall above the comedy. Sometimes. And then at other times, not. It's weird. But it works! It's a family that only knows how to show love by strategically hurting each other. It's lost jobs and deaths and a downwardly spiraling economy as the weapons and wasteful by-product of the petty problems of the rich and powerful. Kendall flip flops between good and bad, never knowing how to find the middle. Roman uses the exact same dialogue as his father, only without the power to make it meaningful. Shiv wants the power but doesn't have the balls to reach for it in case she fails. And Tom (who is great) is just her cuckold, too afraid of losing power to state his desires out loud. And Greg's just kind of a funny character skating on a proximity to power, a tool waiting to be used. At least so far. And despite them all being variations of giant shits, I am unfortunately invested in who comes out on top. 

Chaotic neutral.

Nimona — 3/5

Good, well done. Big, epic, but also I've mostly forgotten it. It's a healthy byproduct of Spider-Man breaking through the idea that all animation needs to look the same. But also, I think, it's that Cartoon Network style of humor given perhaps its biggest stage. All those Steven Universes and Teen Titans Go! and the like. I don't know how to describe it, but you can see that paradigm shift of humor — "kids can be depressed, too," anxiety, overly-caffeinated, annoying?, jumping on walls. That's not a bad thing, I love Teen Titans Go! To The Movies, just pointing at it as I think we'll see increasingly more of it as those kids become adults and bring their interests to bear. I am here to call out the shifting tides, friends, as if that means anything to you.

How could you know? You're not a woman.

Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles – 4/5

Man, fuck slow cinema. To the movie's discredit, I couldn't watch it but ten minute at a time. But also — those increments felt like meditation. You're not drawn into Jeanne Dielman's world so much as you succumb to it, the numb repetition of the same things over and over again. Wake up, make breakfast, shine shoes, get groceries, have sex with a stranger for money, have dinner with your son, and so on. Days blur together. The sludge of maintaining everyday life, with a touch of slight differences in each day that catch your eye. It's Highlights magazine — what's different between the scenes? Did she check the mail the day before, or is this new? Is that the same strange man as yesterday? What happened to the potatoes? What are the signs and signals of someone who needs help? Jeanne is falling, but we don't know how far, how fully, she doesn't tell us. She never reveals herself, her inner thoughts, her vulnerabilities. We don't know what she's thinking at any point in the movie, so how can we even begin to understand what she does at the end? How can we not know what's right in front of us? It's living in the same space with another person and still being surprised. How?

Guys, just go do whatever. You'll be fine.

Never Get Tired: The Bomb The Music Industry! Story – 3/5

Morality is tiresome. Doing the right thing takes so much out of you. It is the hard work of living, made harder. The good fight is a constant fight. Thank god for the torch lighting the dark, the clear man at the front screaming and shouting and rallying the troops against the oppressive and encroaching darkness. And when the band eventually does get tired, it feels crushing in its inevitability. The wheels don't go flying off, the wagon is just gently unhitched, and the lead horse is set to wander the rest of the way through the wilderness in the dark, still carving a path for whoever wants to follow. "Until we complained, it felt just like a vacation." As long as you don't draw attention to the cost, you don't have to reckon with what you've lost. Steady income, sleep on a sturdy mattress; a stable future. All the things we want at our weakest, but nothing that sets us on fire, that makes us stronger. It's not a great movie, but it has made me a fan of that man for life. Thank god for Jeff Rosenstock.

Because you needed help.

The Flash – 3.5/5

I had fun!! It was a fun movie!! It felt like the stupidity—and the self-seriousness—of Fast & the Furious at its best (stupidest)!! Some of the worst VFX you'll ever see, but it all works towards the tone of the movie. It's easy to forgive. The same lack of fear in being stupid is the same lack of fear in being sincere. There's a bigness in those feelings, and the movie feels big in turn. If this shit came on FX, I would absolutely stop on that channel. 

Do you wanna be right or wanna be happy?

Celeste and Jesse Forever – 2.5/5

Ah, that 10 year span where all our romantic comedies were a little bit indie, and kind of fucking sad. And just kind of small? There's that whole ten years of that Duplass Brothers shit, where everything was aiming for intimacy but just felt inconsequential. ('When Harry Met Sally' feels like a big movie. It's okay to be a big movie.) It gets points for not making an easy enemy of anyone, but the movie's second plot contrivance (new baby) makes an easy answer of its first plot contrivance (staying friends after a break up). 

Bigger than expected.

Smaller than we thought.

I don't like reality. Where I live, I mean.

Pearl — 4/5

Wow, Mia Goth, I didn't know you had it in you. What a performance. And what a unique horror movie! She comes across as so genuinely sweet, so sympathetic, a bird who wants to fly, and with a look, a question, the whole movie—and someone's soon-to-be-departed world—turns. In a genre that feels like it rarely hits on anything new, here it is: understanding the monster, and how easily they hide. And within that—the playful way it tells its story. That smile at the end, wow. Avowed Ti West disliker, I—am glad he found someone to play with. 

She's probably not my sister.

Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga – 2.5/5

I'm not sure I can say Eurovision is ripe for parody since it already feels like a parody that everyone gleefully embraces. It's stupid, and part of the fun is how invested you get in the stupidity. And the movie, I think, gets the sincerity right—Rachel McAdams creates a surprising warmth you want to root for—but man, what a missed opportunity to dial up the stupidity x1000. Sing big dumb songs, have big dumb personalities. It thought it was coasting on the open seas, sails billowing, but it was anchored by that Will Ferrel laziness, scraping the shoreline.

No, he ain't a creature of God's Earth, but he's a creature of somewhere.

Asteroid City – 4/5

I feel this movie is about something interesting. I always find Wes Anderson's framing off-putting — a constant reminder that there's a director making choices behind the scenes, a hand of god, a controlling element. But this movie is very deliberately about the framing — about the control and lack of control in how we choose to frame things. A postcard shows you the most idyllic view of a scene, an unreal collage of colors. A photograph only shows you what the photographer wants you to see, devoid of context. A play and a TV show and a movie all handle framing a story in different ways, bound by the medium and bound by runtime and attention spans and bound by the controlling eye. All the ways an artist tries to control how a story is told – and what they choose to include in the picture. The key thing for me was the thing that was "cut" — Augie giving a reason for burning his hand ("I wanted there to be a reason my heart was beating so fast"). An artist debates within themselves what needs to be text versus context versus what is under the text; what they hand to an audience and what they leave for the audience to figure out for themselves. The play would have been better with the line, cuz it's a good line, but also may have been worse for trying to spell it out. Who knows? The postcard framing style throughout the movie always pans left or right or up or down to show all the other things happening that more fully tell the story of a moment, but which also make stories more complex. And so all the little behind-the-scenes elements add to this, the actors in love or at odds or confused by what's going on all add to what exists within and beyond the postcard / play / TV show / movie frame. All these little asteroids orbiting a thing. And we as viewers try to analyze a movie and say "does this connect?" or "this could have been tighter" but there's a whole cosmos of things happening that make a thing what it is, all with the power and ability and threat to create unplanned mountain ranges or else destroy it entirely. All beyond their control, and all beyond our ability to see them. So, ultimately — the story's framing is about what an artist chooses to show, and how despite their best attempts to control the narrative, they're not completely in charge... and how we can never truly fully understand their intentions without ourselves being them; without ourselves having been there. "You can't wake up if you don't go to sleep."

(People chattering indistinctly)

Yesterday belongs to us, Doctor Jones.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny — 3/5

It was fun! It made me remember these things were supposed to be fun. In my intellectual-ass 20s, I think I grew to expect more from these movies, but they really are just excuses to have fun and fall in love with a new character. They found a character motive to explain grumpy-ass Harrison Ford. Phoebe Waller-Bridge was Phoebe Waller-Bridge and I enjoy her very much and only ask that she continue doing what she does. Mads made for a good villain, calm with motive, composed with purpose. The Object of Great Importance had that air of 'I read about that in a book in middle school' and thus was invested in following the little story they made up about it. But very flawed, yes, oh yes. Go here, do this, now go here and do this other thing. Could have combined some of those, I should think, instead of feeling like some Da Vinci Code-ass shit. Antonio Banderas is in this movie for some reason? Mads just dies. All the villains just die.  The first 15 minutes had me pissing my pants in anger at how stupid things looked, and how unnecessary it all was. But friends, when they were approaching that time warp and the seed of doubt was introduced... I don't think I've had as much fun at the movies since seeing that home video alien appear out of the bushes in 'Signs.' Edge of my seat. Eyes glued. So, fuck the flaws, I enjoyed spending money to see it on a big screen. 

-----

And just in case anybody stumbles upon this site with the power to pay me to repair scripts — let the seeds of doubt about the time warp only be doubt. Land back in WW2 and have Indiana Jones fight to save Hitler's life. C'mon, it'd be fun. 

It would be best for all of us if you would just stop being who you are and doing the things you love.

Weird: The Al Yankovic Story – 2.5/5

I was holding out hope that Weird Al was less involved in this than he was. I have never really loved Weird-Al-as-musician, but I absolutely love Weird-Al-who-makes-video, and I wanted to be able to easily point at some of the jokes and say 'that's Weird Al's voice,' unmistakable, and point to others and say 'that's somebody else fucking it up.' And I do think when it succeeds, it's because it sounds and feels like Weird Al, but when it fails, it's become some College Humor-ass director doesn't know what the fuck they're doing. But the credits roll and I guess Weird Al's fingerprints are all over the place so, fun, he gets to share the blame. Nah, fuck it, I'll still blame the other guy.

It is neither work nor play, purpose nor purposelessness that satisfies us.

It is the dance between.

— Bernie DeKoven

It is not my responsibility

to uphold your reality.

Stand in front of the public, and God, and obliterate yourself.

Tar – 3.5/5

Man, I don't even know if I like this movie as much as I'm interested by it. My main takeaway is take away about an hour of long, drawn-out scenes and you've got a pretty effective dark comedy. I successfully was able to play a shitty iPhone game from 2012 while still managing to feel as though I watched this movie well enough to warrant reviewing it. "Narcissism" is a classification that will always get me interested, if just to learn a little more about what makes them so fucking awful. Thus, my second takeway is this: lying to others starts with lying to yourself. If you reveal your betrayals of others, you would have to then admit to the core betrayal of yourself. And that, simply, cannot stand. Here then is narcississm's countdown, with the tell-tale heart of a ticking metronome. At the end of the countdown lies not the end, but the beginning of a new lie; a new story to tell yourself. And if you don't like the way it sounds, just turn the volume louder.

Each generation better than the last.

Fast X - 2/5

13 returning characters! 5 new characters! One death that seems pretty final! One death that seemed pretty final now back to life! One man disassociated with the franchise, now back with the franchise! Wow!!! If Vin Diesel knows how to do anything, it's bloat. Instead of the fiery car crash ending, we get multiple roads going in different directions. It's a Franchising Opportunity™, baby, sign up now. Meanwhile, we'll continue to get poutier and poutier and the fun will circle the drain. Correct tonality has been the twirling ether of these movies which, when captured, is amazing. It should be serious. It should be stupid. The taking it seriously is the fun of it. And the camp of it all is that Vin Diesel doesn't realize it's dumb. Justin Lin knew it was dumb. Louis Leterrier is just an Alan Smithee for actors who want to have more control over directing. I believe they call this a patsy. But listen, there are redeeming qualities! John Cena was fun (so of course he had to die). Jason Momoa's gay Joker is fun (so of course Vin Diesel has to blame him for the movie's poor performance). If you throw enough shit at the fan, some will stick to the ceiling. The art is knowing the shit that lands on your boot isn't also worth keeping.

Nah. I'm-a do my own thing.

Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse – ??/5

Listen, friend, it was... a lot? And this will be a review I re-visit a couple of years from now, after having watched it again, and having watched the next one immediately after. My love for the first part in this now-trilogy is such that I will give it this boon which I have allowed no other. (Also, the sound was weird at Movie Place and I couldn't hear some of the dialogue.) But, to put forth my initial thoughts: it was a lot! I think it may have been too much! And a thought that sticks with me, is that is this movie, unlike the last movie, now talking to itself? Did it go too insular? The death of Captain Stacy, I'd argue, is not nearly as monumental a moment as the death of Uncle Ben, and it's certainly overshadowed by the loss of his daughter, Gwen. Can this wonderful populist entertainment that reflected on and broke open the cultural perception of Spider-Man with the last movie now just be doing that again, but without the "cultural perception"? There's some matter of relatability that is lost. It went full comic book. (And, friend, I am fully comic book, but even so, I don't think having a collection the size of mine should be a pre-requisite.) They could have just made it about loss being central to who Spider-Man is. And that, I think, is a matter of not editing. Why bother? We'll just make two movies out of it. But listen, man, that first movie? Gangbusters. And so I give this a moment more to sink in, because that is the forgiveness that greatness allows – but only for so long. So there you have it for now.

Good name. Totally fits.

Dumb And Dumber To — 1.5/5

I was just telling someone how I thought this would be an infinitely repeatable franchise and I'm surprised they hadn't done a true sequel, only for them to tell me a sequel had been had, and it made $170M, and I never knew, and it also sucks. Everything's the same but different somehow. Was Lloyd always so mean-spirited? Did the first one look so cheap? Jeff Daniels' goofy face still works, and there's a decent handful of jokes within the Family Guy machine gun cadence of jokes that work here. But way too many that don't, and so many of those as to make me doubt how good the original was. So, more harmful than not. 

And suddenly, we're here.

Beef (Season 1) – 3/5

Can I sum up A24 as people who gave an increasing sense of importance to cinematography and design? Beef looks good. Beef looks great, actually. Looking great makes things seem great. It's easier to like things when they look good. It's harder to like ugly things. 'Looks great' creates the illusion of taste. "Oh, the cinematography is beautiful" is not a reason that something is great, but it is a protection, a ward cast. It's hard to dismiss it easily. The premise here is interesting and, at the very end, it starts to answer that promise of interesting – how our private battles become public, but in becoming public, we have the potential to see ourselves in each other. The end makes me excited for where it might go next (if a next is even promised). But getting there was a lot of down, down, down, and I only want to follow someone so far before I need to see them come up. It's torture-as-comedy, and I can only handle that in a two-hour movie. Five hours is pushing it, boss. 

Forgiveness can look like permission.

Women Talking – 2.5/5

Women, they do be talking. I wanted this to be a more interesting movie!! I wanted some 12 Angry (Wo)Men. Talk, debate, disagree. Fight about it. Make it seem like a harder choice? In the end, that is I think the trouble. The choice seems easy. It is easy, for a modern person, in a modern world. These people are not that. They are people who think they are dying because their glasses fog up. It is easy to clean the fog when you have a name for it. 

Shoot me down, but I won't fall, I am Titanium.

M3GAN — 1.5/5

I was surprised at how cheaply made this was? I dunno, with all the talking, I figured there'd be, I dunno, production value. I think M3GAN is a classic case of a filmmaker(s) discovering something towards the end, and by then it's too late to bring it into the rest. A Tiktok-dancing genocidal doll is genuinely entertaining. I don't like this movie, but I hope they take that 30s clip and figure out how to infuse it into a 1 hour and 42 minute sequel. Make it about the unstoppable desire for capitalistic growth. Make it less horror and more dystopia. Keep it Tiktok. There's gold here, honey. 

Things don't change at all that much.

Nobody's new, we're just grown up.

– Sorry Mom — awesome party, reprise

[It is an] observed fact that every person is like all other people,

like some other people, like no other person.

- anthropologist Clyde Kluckhohn and psychologist Henry Murray, 1940s

Respectfully, I don't recognize you.

Jury Duty - 3.5/5

I'm not sure what I think about this show exactly. It's genial and fun and they found a star in Ronald. He's a genuinely good dude. I smiled throughout. And also, I don't know how to look at this without thinking he was intended to be the butt of the joke. Yes, he carried himself well, and was funny in his own right, but... what if he wasn't? What if his ass was left out to hang? I can't shake the nagging morality of it all. It's the same nagging I get with Nathan Fielder, though that show somehow manages to feel like art (and thus worthwhile?). I dunno what I've convinced myself of. Forgive me.

I don’t have anything

but darkness to lose. 

— Bob Dylan

We are a thought

being explored.

Now you're just making it sad.

Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3 — 4/5

Rewatches of Vol. 2 have slow-burned these characters into being some of my favorite in this universe. And friend, once I love something, I am loyal to it; I see past all flaws. And this is the most flawed of the three. GotG in general has been a miracle in group dynamics, but its expansions and losses have stressed those edges. Though Rocket is the core of the movie, he's missing entirely from the group dynamics, and his absence is notable. Kraglin, Cosmo, Warlock, they are lesser additions that distract from a more focused movie. The franchise can no longer just pair one action figure with any another and it magically works. But, friends, when it works, fireworks. Star-Lord has clear purpose. Mantis' anger, and her surprisingly becoming a linchpin for the team. A new, more interesting version of Gamora, and a nice send-off to it as well. An emotional Rocket backstory. That sense of flying-by-the-seat-of-our-pants fun and chaos that has been present throughout the trilogy. And then they break up! The movie doesn't really lead you towards that, it just kinda happens. The ending acts like it's tying up loose ends when it's just "more stuff that happens." It's less driven by plot mechanics and more driven by those stressed edges of the group dynamics starting to tear, on-camera and off. Real life has imposed its will on a fictional universe. I'd happily keep watching these people, and I hope I do in whatever form it comes next. Maybe in that, GotG has been the thing that mostly captured why people keep reading the same fucking Spider-Man stories once a month across 60 years? If we like something, we just want them to do that thing we like doing. The same story; infinite variations. 

Would just be easier and quicker, I think.

Compliance — 2.5/5

I've had a low simmering fascination with the content of this movie since it was released, given the ridiculous premise made more ridiculous by it having happened for real. And so I finally watched it!! And, honestly, I'm still a little fascinated by it though I can't say I enjoyed it. I think it's a movie not really made for enjoyment. It's psychological torture porn, and it keeps descending further and further, that same one note getting louder and louder. Without really trying, the movie helps you understand why people would allow this to happen. We're too afraid to say no to a person in perceived power. They push on the little swords that dangle over each person's heads that are always so close to being cut. They push on our little shames. It's not our "badness" that haunts us, it's our cowardice to face those shames. The movie's better knowing that everything in here pretty much happened as is. Knowing that pushes it from torture porn into the everyday surrealism of reality. But I wonder if the movie would have been more compelling if it played it more clever. More of the befores, more of the afters, mixed in with the then-present. These are normal people. "We were just following orders." It's more than the banality of evil, it's this humiliation that works beneath that, this fucking lemming behavior that allows us to hurt one rather than be seen as apart from the behemoth of the social collective. You'd rather keep your eyes down rather than raising your hand and having all eyes look on you.

All I'm saying is I'm not ready for any person, place, or thing to try and pull the reins in on me.

Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice — 2/5

I am intrigued by Linda Ronstadt because I generally love her music (and think 'Different Drum' is a top 50 all-time banger) but have no idea who she is or her place in the pantheon. And so, as one might, I think a documentary might help me. And it does, and it does, to some degree. I know what she was, I know her place in things; in the fairly linear and-then-this-happened Wikipedia article of a movie, I understand that she was big time big time, but it brings me no closer to understanding the her beneath that. The movie shows me that she had multiple gifts. Her voice, of course, but greater than that is her taste in things; knowing what good songs are and how to make them great, how to identify talent and bring them together. (She brought the Eagles together; she sang others' songs but they became her songs. She's essentially a Great American Songbook singer for a later age.) Her gift was variety, of being bored of being singular. ("Different Drum" in that way not only birthed her but defined her.) Her gift is that she is something we can prop up on a stage without the politics of a person getting in the way of enjoyment of a person. (Her voice is for everyone. Her opinions are for no one.) Her gift is control of her image, which the documentary gladly cedes to her. (So: great singer, boring subject.)

The problem with finding yourself

is that you've still got another 30 or 40 years to go.

Can't you see what I could be? A possibility.

The Get Down – 2.5/5

It took me 7 years to finish this. The first half had the dazzle of Baz Luhrmann mixed with Hip Hop Family Tree, which is... a fun idea? The birth of a hip hop nation with the spiritual energy of 'Elvis.' It accelerates quickly, it catches fire, but then it just... gets smothered by its length. It sags like a heavy load, and you want it to explode. 

Someday,

a call will come.

It keeps getting better.

It keeps getting worse.

What do we want from each other after we have told our stories?

Do we want to be healed?

— Audre Lorde, There Are No Honest Poems About Dead Women

I want to change, but I'm not particularly open to making those changes.

Shrinking, S1 – 3/5

It takes a minute to catch its footing, and then suddenly, miraculously, everyone gels. There was a Hitman comic by Garth Ennis that started from this premise of demons and telepathy and a superheroic world and gradually it just forgot about those things and focused on a guy who kills bad people and hangs out with his friends. This show, also, starts from this premise of 'therapist trying to shake people out with aggressive therapy' and then it just becomes about people you enjoy hanging out and going through their own shit. It was a good move (though it hasn't completely forgotten its premise, just deprioritized it). The show, though, has the stink of Bill Lawrence. You can hear his playlist, it's a certain sound of sad white men trying desperately to put their sadness aside with a chipper smile and cheery expression. I generally enjoy his work! But, left to run rampant, that playlist quickly starts to sound the same, and the feel-good schmaltz overwhelms. It's a tight wire to walk and, like the latest season of Ted Lasso is proving, he's prone to stumble. 

Just have fun out there.

John Wick 4 – 3/5

Trim out an hour and a half of excess plot and unnecessary side characters, and you've got the core of John Wick 1 – plotless and purposeful. Arc de Triomphe, Top-Down View, and the Stairway is one long "survive the night" in order to get to the final boss (and somehow try to retrofit the Killa sequence in there because it's so much fun). That's all we need. Every new sequel wants to add something, new layers of mythology. We don't want more gods and demons, we want to see people get shot in the face from new angles. The John Wick series has been an exercise in execution. How best to give us what we want in increasingly new ways? The problem is that it fell in love with its world, with its characters. It wants to build skyward, when I prefer it to hint at a larger world to the left and right while John Wick barrels his way through the middle. 

Life is short, though I keep this from my children.

Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine

in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,

a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways

I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least

fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative

estimate, though I keep this from my children.

For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.

For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,

sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world

is at least half terrible, and for every kind

stranger, there is one who would break you,

though I keep this from my children. I am trying

to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,

walking you through a real shithole, chirps on

about good bones: This place could be beautiful,

right? You could make this place beautiful.

— Maggie Smith, Good Bones

Now goddess, child of Zeus, tell the old story for our modern times.

Find the beginning.

– Emily Wilson's translation of The Odyssey

And then one day, one magic day, he passed my way.

Moulin Rouge, the Broadway musical — 3.5/5

What spectacle! Stage design and art direction that I've personally never seen before on Broadway. It succeeds in taking what Baz Luhrmann does on camera – everything is ever-shifting, plot moving forward at lightning speed with sound as its jet engine propulsion – and applies it to the stage. It's here, it's there, it's everywhere. Where it succeeds is its bigness. Larger than life, Barnum & Bailey's three ring circus. The songs are too often distractions, relying on familiarity and an easy cleverness, but when the music hits, its because it rises to that bigness, taking these modern day love songs and letting them loose to be these elaborate operatic constructions, free from the reins of radio, allowed to be as big as they are. It's fun. It's exhausting. I only wish the show had the courage to slow down and let us catch our breath. The plot, as thin as it is, could have used a moment to center itself before rushing us on to the next spectacle.

Also, I saw Jojo live, wheeee, you couldn't have fucking snuck a little "Too Little Too Late" in here?? I don't think you even tried.

How often the pillars of our wisdom have crumbled into dust!

Chariot of the Gods? (book) – 3.5/5

You realize how people fall into its ancient aliens rabbit hole. It's fun to fall in, there's a rush, air pulsing past you as you freefall, gravity and speed pulling your skin upwards and away from your body. How else could this be possible but this? How do we not know why it exists? Doesn't this look like that? It's not fun to just have had someone in history make something; people being people, artists being artists. It had to be made for a reason beyond us, a message from the past to the future to the past. Imagination, on its own, isn't enough, it has to be an offering to something greater than us. If not God, then some other unknowable thing. And the fun is in that never-knowing; it'll never be proven concretely yes or no. The past is lost to us, and the fun is puzzle-piecing our way through it, forming a foggy outline that, when you squint, seems to make a shape. It's an oasis in the desert. And only we are smart enough, brave enough, fortunate enough to see it. And what gives them faith is that everything that's been built thus far, the sum collective knowledge, all that has been seen before has changed, been modified, has crumbled to dust. So why not build something more interesting? 

Do you want to come to my birthday party?

Peanut Butter Falcon – 3/5

There should be a name for these kinds of movies. These sweet little nothings. 

For evil lies not in God’s picture

but in crooked eyes.

— JRR Tolkien, Mythopoeia

We make still

by the law in which we’re made.

– JRR Tolkein, Mythopoeia

I want a smaller thing in mind

Like a good dinner

I'm tired of these big things happening

They happen to me all the time

– Joanne Kyger

If you'll follow me

I'll show you why

Even I fear the monstrosity

Which I've created

– Carl Burgos, writing Phineas Horton on creating the original Human Torch, Marvel Comics #1

We can make a good thing bad.

Daisy Jones and the Six – 4/5

My friends, I was compelled to keep watching. The chemistry, the magnetism, the flame... the burning. Sam Claflin and Riley Keough are simply great to watch together. There is hate and love in equal measure, attraction and repulsion. Maybe it's just where I'm at in my life, seeing things through new lens, or perhaps I've simply not seen enough, but it seems like there's been a spat of entertainment in the past couple of years that upend old ideas. In this one, the notion of loving someone not because they have that Phoenix Flame that can destroy an entire planet, its civilization, its history, but because that love is quieter, smaller, not always perceptible. It's a love that doesn't give you anxiety, that doesn't make you question your choices, or hate yourself. It's a light on the darkness, not a sinking into the depths. The show does a great shift in personality right there at the end which doesn't contradict what came before. Daisy is mean, selfish, narcisstic, and so is Billy, but at least he wants to be better. But then when Billy wants to give into the darkness, to give into his worst excesses, to stop hating himself for wanting something other, Daisy reveals that love, for her, for him, is because it's a way towards wholeness. He wants to be broken, but she wants to be better. The show surrounds itself with side characters who are charming but don't always amount to integral, and the framing device more often than not surrounds everything that works with this patina of amateur. But the show smartly realizes that Billy and Daisy are where the heat is, and all is tangential to them. There is love there, it's hard to deny that Billy is denying something true and spiritual and eternal; but love can't work if it breaks everything around you. 

That's why I'm leaving the room.

Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Amongst Thieves – 3/5

It's fine. It's charming, it's light, it's inconsequential. It's an episode of Xena Warrior Princess with a bigger budget and bigger names. I ain't mad at that. But what gets my gizzard is that it feels like it's trying to be exactly what Guardians of the Galaxy was. I think we've moved from Whedon-esque being the descriptor for this sort of stuff and shifted to Gunn-esque. Whedon focused on decent people with a sarcastic streak,  losers playing at being jocks. Gunn focuses on scumbag losers who hide their tortured past with a charming eccentricity. Whedon wanted to show everyone how clever he was. Gunn would rather make a joke. I think I prefer it? Especially because he underlines his jokes with a touch of sadness. And so, here, you've got what makes his movies work, blatantly stepping in his footprints, but you don't have the other part of Gunn which is, you know, some artistry to connect everything together. Everyone states their motives clearly. There's no surprise to it. It's saving grace is that it doesn't try to trick you into thinking it's more than it is. There's a laziness to it, which makes it the ideal Saturday afternoon special. Does TBS still play the same movies over and over on the weekends? In 15 years, this could grow into a classic because of the repetition. It's better than whatever else is on. You can play on your phone and look up at the good parts. It's a sunny day and you'd rather stay inside dissolving into nothingness. 

You just walk in like you belong.

Andor, S1 – 4/5

Who knew the most interesting part of a galactic rebellion would be the seeds planted at the start of it? All the hope sprinkled around, different weights placed on different people; all important, all disposable. Andor's the name of the main character but it more feels like the name of a world, a promised land that all of these people are working towards that they may not end up seeing, and not all of them necessarily believing it will come to pass. Like 'Last of Us' which teaches us that love and hate are two sides, yes, but of the same coin, so too does this one teach us that serving good has the power to make you a bad person. Can you save the world and retain your core? How many sacrifices can you rationalize? What's the higher moral value? There's a reason the Hebrew people wandered for 40 years and not even Moses himself got to arrive in the promised land. A whole generation of hate and resentment and hard choices had to die out so that a new land could start out clean. 'Star Wars' makes rebellion look easy. 'Andor' makes it look hard.

You haven't seen the world.

The Last Of Us, S1 – 3.5/5

I think the show is largely okay. Serious People in Serious Times. But the last episode makes it worthwhile, and makes it worth revisiting each of the other episodes through a new lens – what love does to each of us, end-times or no. This is the show that makes me realize that the world's worst isn't just ruled by fear or greed or prejudice, but just as equally love. Love makes us do strange fucking shit. It does all of those good things, it creates life, it creates community, it pulls you out of yourself, but it also makes us vengeful, it makes us traitors, it isolates us, it makes us value one life over the whole. Love is just as dangerous a word as hate. It's a nuclear bomb, and in the wrong hands... 

The trouble with transcendence,

is that you're still stuck here, on earth.

Terrible, terrible joy.

Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio — 2.5/5

I watched this a week ago and I can already barely recall it. I've got to finally just pull the plug on Guillermo del Toro. He is full of imagination, and putting it on paper only flattens the joy out of it. It is, at least, an interesting take on Pinocchio (though I ultimately didn't particularly enjoy the watching) — the difficulty of children, the difficulty of being a parent, the difficulty of losing a child and placing expectations on another. All the difficulty, all the anxiety, all the vexation of a young boy; all the things that you went through so many years ago only to have to go through it yet again, this time with them, beneath a new lens of "parent." I don't know what the movie had planned for me, but it only reinforces my decision to not have children. 

The world is always ending

for someone. 

- Mark Russell, Superman: Space Age #3

I love you, and you don't pay me.

My Own Private Idaho – 3/5

The Shakespeare riff is weird and unnecessary, and only works when it feels like it's being made a joke of – riff-raffs wanting to sound high-falutin' because they wish to seem above their means, but also above being above their means. (Which means Keanu might be the best part of that part? I've never attached this specific word to him, but he's surreal, and his best movies position him in a place where the world warps around him.) The rest is on River Phoenix's shoulders and man, what an actor, what a loss. He's one of those beautiful ones who weren't afraid to be ugly. One comes around every 15 years or so, and each one helps to serve as a pin in particular moment in time. They are epoch, come to life. The movie is fine. But River Phoenix is monument to time and place.

Every day the same,

with infinite variation.

Like you're sinking.

Aftersun – 4/5

What a beautiful, subtle, powerful thing. There are people that love can't save. They live outside of the taped evidence. The videos only capture a few frames, easy ways to portion off memory and compartment someone as a certain thing at a certain time. It's a gift, to have them remembered this way, only living inside that frame, smiling at the camera, for eternity. It's also a loss of everything astride. "They fuck you up, your mum and dad [...] But they were fucked up in their turn." You will never know your parents, and they will never know their children. Not truly. 

Labor to keep alive in your breast

that little spark of celestial fire called conscience.

— George Washington, The Rules of Civility and Decent Behaviour in Company and Conversation, though likely stolen from a previous text

I said I had no family. I didn't say I had an empty apartment.

The Apartment – 3.5/5

I want to say that The Apartment does something new for its time, but I've got no fucking idea what was happening at the time. I want to say it's an inversion of the casual romantic comedy endemic to the era: sputtering lover caught in the cross-fire, an unexpected third corner in a love triangle — caught up in a lark, buffoonery, antics — and then upsetting the formula with the very real consequences of such a casual thing as love. Almost like taking 'The Sweet Smell of Success' and saying 'I'll turn it into a comedy.' (I'd like to say that though I don't remember that movie as much as I remember liking it, and liking the darkness inside it.) There's a darkness here, too, and that's what makes it commendable. It feels like it may have been something new for its time. It feels like commentary. But maybe the timeframe doesn't matter – it still feels like something new. The commentary still works. It's just too bad they pair up at the end. No real consequences, which makes it too much like all those other inconsequential things of the era. A crowd-pleasing choice, not a brave one.

I may have heard a crime.

Kimi - 3/5

In the spirit of this year being the year I figure out certain directors — Steven Soderbergh's Kimi is a prime example of what I like and what I don't like about the director. His movies have the illusion of being bigger than they are, but they're almost always these small things. He's an Important Director who makes unimportant objects. It feels like he's less concerned with greatness and more interested in teasing the edges of a genre. How much can you play with serious? What's the right balance of tight and loose? Is a crime as rotten if it's charming? He's just here to fuck around and see what happens in the edit. This movie was fine, it was fun, and its use of sound was great — but I think more importantly it opens me up to how to watch Soderbergh movies: a light afternoon watch, a touch of something special, but you're welcome to walk to the kitchen and grab a snack without missing anything substantial. He's just continually recreating the spirit of Smokey and the Bandit. There's plenty of room for movies like that.

Love is not love.

Bros – 3.5/5

Bros has the good and bad present within the church of latter-day Apatow. Way too long, way too reliant on what used to feel like a sentimental underbelly but has become a sentimental überbelly. The good that he's always relied on is in attaching a simple premise on a magnetic personality—and man, is Billy Eichner a magnet; a clear north and south pole that can attract and/or repel. Easy to love, easy to hate. He gets upset with people, he yells at people, he complains about everything. He is difficult. And so seeing him tender and dewy-eyed and affectionate is interesting. It's interesting! And then, to do as the movie promised, to show a sweet and sincere love story between two men while being very upfront and casual about blowjobs and threesomes and foursomes and thrusting and tops and bottoms and casual steroid use and very 'this is normal' while exploring the very as-never-seen-before-on-TV way that gay people have sex... my friends, this film is transgressive!! It really is something new that I have not seen in all my days. There's an easiness to it that sits on top of and upends all of the hard work to get here. From what I can tell, the movie failed on traditional metrics, maybe—probably—because it's not as interesting or as funny as it could be on a storytelling front, but friends and fellow followers of the cinematic arts, this movie is a needle moved further to the right. Praise be.

Happily ever after.

The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A Fuck — 2/5

Adam Curtis by way of Buzzfeed. 13 Stories That Will Make You Go A-Wha-Huh?! Part video essay, part narration of own life, one of which at least is interesting, neither of which come together in any cathartic way. To spoil the lesson: it's not about giving no fucks, it's about understanding the overriding fuck to give, so that all other fucks may fade away. Mark Manson is a poor preacher for a good gospel. 

I believe that when Christ returns, it's gonna be beautiful.

The Whale – 2.5/5

We judge fat people because it distracts us from our own lives? Okay. They have a hole that no amount of food can fill, and they, in turn, satiate our own hunger for the same. But to get there, we pass slowly—trudgingly—through this maudlin one-room stage. It's uninventive. It's poorly acted. It's Brendan Fraser in a fat suit. It's Hallmark optimism in the face of an uncompromising, unapproachable hunger. Give me something more substantial, says the hole in the center of existence. Feed me. Charlie wants to see one right thing in his life, so puts all his weight on an irredeemable piece of shit. But I'm honestly not sure if we're really supposed to see the good in her? I am unclear. I feel like Aronofsky wants me to see through the sweat and the fat and the black stains growing on their back, and I can swim just about halfway, seeing an outline in the mist on the hungry sea — is that a shadow of the behemoth coming up for air, or just another in a long line of delusions? Thin line between that and hope, I guess. Charlie is Ahab, not the whale. 

Ugh, fuck, did I just rationalize my way into realizing what this movie is really about? Fuuuuuuuck.

__

Update, from a day later. I do think that I cracked it with that last little bit. Aronofsky's an interesting filmmaker, and credit is due him that he'd make something more than what's on the surface. And so I'm at a crossroads: I did not enjoy my experience of watching The Whale. But in writing my way towards an evaluation, I've written my way towards a reason to re-evaluate. I don't think I'll watch the movie again any time soon, but I have reason now to, someday, give it another chance through another lens. The father, delusional towards what his daughter is. The daughter, delusional towards her chances in life. The mother, and also the enabler, delusional to their parts to play. And the zealot, delusional towards his prince from on high. All of them little Ahabs chasing their own whale of a tale. 

If given a choice,

make a good one.

You are who you are. The only trick is not getting caught!

But I'm A Cheerleader – 3/5

This movie rides a line few things can ride. It's a mixture of highly intentional choices mixed with an overall feeling of unintentional. Highly art directed, poorly framed. Bad dialogue, well-delivered. Fun, sometimes boring. It's a campy comedy that's capable of emotional catharsis, which I don't even think John Waters has been capable of outside of the musicalized 'Hairspray'. I think it only accidentally fits into the world the movie is making – of a girl stuck between things. Natasha Lyonne, at that age, fits her character more than I would have expected considering the Cultural Item that she has become. It seems as if in any moment, she might break character. But she doesn't. She rides the line. "You are who you are. The only trick is not getting caught!"

The opposite of lost

isn't found.

We've got a squeaker.

Whiplash — 3.5/5

There is a drive, there is an intensity, there is a constant pushing forward that is compelling, arriving at an intentionally frustrating conclusion. It's a car crash, but it leaves you wondering: is it the painful thing that creates an eternally broken person, or the necessary near-death experience that changes someone forever? The answer, as always, as annoyingly, is both. "The brick walls are there to stop the people who don't want something badly enough." And when you can't go over it, bang your head hard enough and you'll just go through it. What I struggle with is why I don't like this movie more than I think I should. It's technically well done, it's philosophically ambiguous, it hits a lot of notes. What am I missing? Maybe it looks too much like it's *not* worth it, and I want some equal assurance that it is. Dunno.

Your mind makes it real.

Smile – 4.5/5

Boy, did I enjoy the shit out of this. Trauma as a villain? Yes, sir. The inability to escape trauma no matter how hard you try, how much you distance yourself, how far you push yourself, cursed forever to pass along your hurt to whomever you come into contact with no matter how hard you try not to? Oof. Hurts to arrive there as a conclusion but boy oh boy does the pain feel good. And to top it off, an enduring image of horror: smiling through the pain. The evil spirits are your own thoughts, buried so deep that only a bullet to the brain can reach it.

Thank you, Spider-Man.

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania — 3.5/5

I enjoyed it!! I enjoyed it the most of all the Ant-Man movies, even. The movie realizes Paul Rudd's Scott Lang's Ant-Man works best as the side character in an ensemble, and so it surrounds him with a team of people to react to. I still don't buy Paul Rudd as an actor who can do anything more than be a joke trying to play itself seriously; he can't carry an emotional weight. But the people around him help to share the burden. Even though it's a team effort, not everyone is given their equal moment to shine, which I would say is the movie's major flaw. Beyond that, I think people are uncomfortable by the constant tone-shifting in the movie, from Jonathan Majors' "serious actor" sensibilities and Kang's high-stakes drama standing next to a giant face with tiny arms, but I found it fun. It allowed the movie to be surprising, leading up to Marvel's most interesting villain yet: anxiety. Did Scott do the right thing? Did he do the wrong thing?
¯\ _(ツ)_/¯ 

None end happily.

Three Thousand Years of Longing – 2/5

A movie about the expansiveness of stories, and we're stuck in a hotel room for at least half of the runtime. It never really gets out of it. There are hints of interesting ideas to be explored, but no chemistry, no elevation. No magic.

If you can't win,

then all that's left is play.

Do you want to crash your car?

I swear it will change your life.

She doesn't take up too much room.

Free Solo – 3/5

It's an amusement park VR ride. You feel the tension of the ride jerking you up and down and around all over, but the actor at the center is just going through the motions. Alex Honnold is calm while the world around him is screaming. The tension is fun, and the movie lucks into an emotional conundrum at the center. She loves him. He loves her. But not as much as it. Their loves are in competition with each other. The world isn't always torn apart by hate, but by loves that don't quite match up. Best of luck to them.

You see, I expected complexity.

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery – 3/5

Better than the first, in that the movie knows not to make its best character a side character. The first was a lovely set of actors who were given no character to play, while its one real personality sat at the edges. Here, Benoit Blanc has been set free to be Foghorn Leghorn and the rest of the movie sings along to his looney tune. He's Roadrunner and Wile E Coyote all at once, painting a false exit on a wall and waiting for others to run into it. But while better, still not great. The mystery is, self-admittedly, dumb, and the suspects still don't rise to the level of Bugs Bunny or Daffy Duck. The whole movie could use a few more stinkers. 

I can't believe you're making this about you.

Bodies Bodies Bodies – 2/5

I'm not sure everyone was aware that they were meant to be making a comedy. An interesting idea in the center; I'd say give it a few years and let someone else take a crack at it. 

Every time you touch the system,

it sticks to you.

— Fiona Apple

We are only temporarily

who we are.

A show about everything.

Fleishman Is In Trouble – 4.5/5

What starts as a show about divorce and when does a divorce actually start? and when does your responsibility to another person end? slowly shifts into a show about the gentle pains and and not-so-gentle pangs of growing old, of expectations upended and accidental awakenings, of your true self being hidden within the myriad of all that you do; a blurry snapshot that you can't quite make out because of the speed in which you're moving. You're holding onto a vibration in the air and you get mad when it slips through your fingers. It always will. There's no good, no bad, just... you know, whatever (waves hand offhandedly into air). It's ups, it's downs, it's a circle that keeps going 'round. It's not that we're just, you know, figuring things out, it's that we are perpetually figuring things out. We gain, but lose something we don't realize until later. We lose, but gain in the same unwitting way. And on and on, forever. Every choice leads to a new path, and there's no guarantee of where it takes you; even the choice to choose to be better can lead to worse. All you can hold onto is this: you chose this. Does that make it hurt any less? Does that absolve the universe of its own responsibilities? What do you do with all that? Where can you put it? What space is big enough to hold the ineffable? In the end, we're all just going through it, and **it** just keeps going. Whatever it is (waves hand offhandedly into air). There's light at the end of the tunnel; it's not our salvation, it's a reminder that it will end. So then: grace, and patience, and gratitude. We're all just as lonely as each other, just not always at the same time. And as air moves aside to let us pass, we ask the same of you.