Violence

is a girl's best friend.

We already committed murder, we might as well rob his ass.

Scary Movie – 1.5/5

I will probably never be able to define the differences between why 'Not Another Teen Movie' is a successful movie to me, and this one is not. There's an energy that connects the jokes? The little jokes between the jokes? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯At the very least, I'm glad that NATM isn't filled with rape jokes. I did like all the gay jokes, though. Hey, there's something for everyone.

The lines of reality are very blurred in our business.

Mr. McMahon — 3.5/5

This often feels like a speed-run of wrestling history, and I motherfucking love a speed-run of wrestling history. Hoo-ha, let's go. But it's built a centerpiece around perhaps the most compelling figure in the whole business. Vince McMahon, the unreality machine. He'll lie and tell you he's lying without specifying which of the things he's said is the lie that he's told. And through a live, televised wrestling program, he's able to make wavy the lines. The more he goes out there and says "this isn't me, it's my character," the more obvious there's a line drawn straight down the center of the both of them, while it becomes harder and harder to point at the lie. Two realities exist on top of him at once. Both things are true, and not true. And you don't have a choice in what you accept, because he controls the whole enterprise; you either believe his version, or you're out. The world's biggest and strongest men and women held captive by the whims of one man. The power!

Thankfully, the wind.

Shogun — 3/5

There is a breed of content that is highly acclaimed, and so when you watch it, you have high expectations, and you watch it and you think it's fine, but there's something about it that makes you want to give it a higher rating. As if the problem is you, you think. I will push against this feeling. I think in the center, there is a streamlined show half in size, half in characters. In a society bound by rules, proper exercise of the rules will break it. "Their grip on power pried apart by just one frail human being. No weapon, no war machine." Love it, wonderful idea. "A Japanese period piece whose central climax revolves around a poetry contest." Yes, give me more. But around this wonderful idea, people we need not know, people we need not be exposed to. They make you think you're watching a larger thing, expansive, many seasons long; which in turn makes the wonderful idea at the center feel smaller. I think I might just be upset that this is a TV show instead of a movie?

We don't mourn the number of people;

we mourn the size of the bombs.

This

used to be a place.

If you enjoy it, come out.

Will & Harper — 4/5

There's a smallness to the movie that serves it well. Despite starring Will Ferrell, it never becomes as outsized as he makes himself out to be. He's still a buffoon, but quieter, reserved; sad. The movie felt like a true road trip: long stretches of not much happening, the threat of danger in an unknown place, and great conversations that can only be sparked on day 7 of an 8-day trip. Only by creating the familiarity of sitting next to someone for long stretches of hours can you then create the true conditions of saying goodbye, and the need to say what needs to be said before then. I don't think I got through the movie truly understanding the connection between Will and Harper in terms of conversation or similar comedic sensibilities, but you felt the love. A man loves his friend and wants to help her in the only way a famous actor knows how: by turning it into a movie. We can only use the tools we have.

Some of us fracture, others simply deform.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice — 2/5

Tim Burton has returned to form, and has forgotten what shape that was. Michael Keaton still has a spark, but he's buried beneath a messy little movie made of too many severed parts. First draft-ass movie. Lazy.