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.