Sisu manifests itself when all hope is lost.

Sisu: Road to Revenge — 2/5

Motherfucker, I am tired of sequels not enumerating. This is the second time I'm on a plane watching the wrong fucking movie. Sigh. I did not like this movie very much and unfortunately it has killed any desire to watch the original. It feels like it means to be a comedy, except it's, like, got a serious sadness in the heart of it? I would not describe that as a great combination, my brothers. I unfortunately need my comedies to not take themselves so seriously. I would have loved for this movie to be made by the guy who made 'Hundreds of Beavers.' 

Look for the blood and the smoke.

Warfare — 2/5

First of all — every five to ten years, every promising young male actor in Hollywood should be made to star in an ensemble war movie together, so that we may pinpoint a moment in time, and separate the wheat from the chaff. Secondly — with this, I think I have to give up on being excited for Alex Garland movies. 'Annihilation' and 'Ex Machina' and '28 Days Later' have engendered a great deal of appreciation for him at his best, and we can't always be at our best, can we. This movie feels like a counterweight to 'Civil War' — a movie I really enjoyed! That movie felt like 'there can be no objectivity in journalism,' we are choosing sides by what we choose to show. And this movie feels like 'this is what objectivity looks like' and boy howdy is objectivity pretty fucking boring. All there is is people in a place at a time, disconnected from larger history, separated from who they were and will be. I'm not against that fundamentally, it can have value. It's just I don't know that I disliked this movie so much as I didn't gain anything from it. I don't remember the characters' names. I don't have a larger takeaway. I don't think the characters have a larger takeaway, other than a loss of legs. It's never that exciting, never that tense, never that comedic, never that dramatic. 'This is a thing that happened.' Sure, but can you tell me your reason for choosing this thing that happened over the myriad of things that happen? Why is this one so important to you? The movie lacks authorial intent. It's objectivity as the height of mediocrity.

I could use a tuny fish sandwich.

Big Business — 3.5/5

I've got too much history with this movie to do anything but build it up. My sister watched it a hundred times, and love is created through repetition. Everything in the movie is familiar like family, so what I say can't be trusted. I want to give it a 4, if not for the fact that it's a perfect 3.5/5 movie. 

Also I think Fred Ward might be one of my favorite actors?

Letting everyone down would be my greatest unhappiness.

Marie Antoinette — 2.5/5

I've no real interest in Sofia Coppola, but I watched this movie because I was interested in exploring my view of her as 'a person who makes movies about princesses stuck in castles' vis-à-vis an actual princess, in an actual castle. Coming out the other side of it, I now harden my dislike for her and think of her as more of an Emerald Fennell of a previous generation. For a large part of this movie, it paints a portrait of Marie Antoinette that I can forgive. She has no idea what goes on in the outside world, a princess in a castle, protected from what is actually happening and thus with no idea what questions to ask of it, nor what she is doing wrong within it. She exists for others within her sphere, always on display, and she becomes what they expect of her — a thing to talk about. She gets fancy clothes and candies and she wants what anyone wants, which is to entertain our way out of boredom, and there's no one to tell her no and give her the reasons why. So, my bad, I thought the movie was leading towards a "let them eat cake" moment that became the punchline to a joke of a life where she truly does not know why they can't, you know, just pivot from bread. Instead, the movie ends with these sad scenes of her bowing to a crowd and being driven away by carriage. The feeling of those scenes is 'aw, poor princess' and the movie quickly goes from 'she isn't innocent, but she's ignorant, made that way by others, and I can acquit her of any larger crime' to 'I think this movie legitimately wants me to feel sympathy for her?' which brings upon me the fellow-wealthy Emerald Fennell connection, and the general 'we must forgive the privileged amongst us' right-leaning centrist-ass view that I've seen in her films. But whereas I think Emerald is trying to push us all a bit further to the right, away from the class consciousness which would throw her against the wall, I think Sofia Coppola keeps making movies where she wants us to console her for her position within the upper-tier. She wants us to feel bad for Marie Antoinette and me, personally, I can find a way towards forgiving her, but I draw the line at trying to feel sympathy towards her.

The things that are that are not.

The Secret Agent — 4/5

According to the internet, the Brazilians have a culture of not wanting to bring up the past. This was helpful to fully understand the movie! But also, to the movie's credit, it created in me that curiosity to seek out more information. At its core, it's a serious movie, but completely surrounded by these curious and compelling choices. It's not a mystery movie, but it arouses mystery in me. It makes me want to learn more! Why is there a severed leg murdering people?? What is happening in the north vs the south of Brazil?? So, on a surface level, I was able to enjoy the movie despite not fully getting it, but learning what the culture is about helped me understand what the movie is about. At the end, when Wagner Moura appears in his second role, both clearly his father's child and totally removed from his father, there is this sense of hope that quickly becomes muddled. I didn't understand it while watching it, but later, upon learning, did it register. There is a hope that the past leaves a legacy: a son takes on his father, a nation is better for what came before... and the disappointment of that being both true and not true. The American axiom of "those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it" kind of flipped on its head, with the opposite also being true — we can't hold all of history in our head, it gets scattered, becomes unfinished fragments, barely remembered thoughts, we can't recollect how all the pieces came together, and so we are destined to do it all over again. 

When I pray no one answers. I only pretend he does. Then I do whatever I think god probably would've suggested. Usually, it's obvious.

The Phoenician Scheme — 1.5/5

Wes Anderson is just making French comic books at this point. Fantagraphics-ass shit. I don't think this movie means anything, and I'm not really a particular fan of how he handles humor. It's too staged. Humor, for me, needs a feeling of unpredictability, and he's far too controlled for that. 

Do people enjoy your company?

Minx S1 — 3/5

A worthy successor to 'Glow,' in that it's a clothing-caricatured depiction of a time and place where I want everyone's furniture and outfits, there's lighthearted humor with mostly good-meaning people, a wily but goodhearted businessman, a disrespected industry, a feminist who's expanding her ideals to others while loosening her own hard-line views, and the occasional titty. Shit, writing it out, it is just 'Glow,' isn't it? It's fun, a perfectly light watch, though at times the priggish nature of the leading lady tends to amount to 'watch 18 minutes of her being wrong before realizing there are other perspectives.' 

Where the fishes are frightening.

Shrinking S3 — 3/5

I think the show has returned to its beginning-of-season-1 lulls, namely in that the comedy either just stopped working, or that the show has forgotten it's a comedy? There were a lot of things that felt like jokes that I did not laugh at. Fortunately, the emotion works! I do like these characters, and their fumbles along the way to growth. Everyone would be better if everyone just said their problems aloud, and then friends neighbors co-workers all collectively helped them overcome it!! It's the 'Ted Lasso' idealism that everyone grew to hate and both marks and stains Bill Lawrence's work. But I think the longer his shows go, the more an irony appears: despite doing the work to overcome your problems, there continue to be new problems. Which, yes, I know, is life and sitcoms, but it feels like the idealistic POV of the show suggests that we may Some Day attain The End of Problems, but as the end of Ted Lasso, Scrubs, and this season show, it usually means that when you're in a good place, you just up and fucking leave. What's the use of building a community if everyone acts like it's optional????? The unintended thesis of Bill Lawrence's work is that it teaches us that moving forward means leaving people behind. Which, I think, is sort of a summation of the American mindset: this battle and balance between needing others and needing to be okay on your own. 

Howzat?

28 Years Later: The Bone Temple — 2.5/5

"I didn't really like this movie, but I'm also curious to watch the next," I said about the previous one. I think the appeal was essentially "what a weird corner they've painted themselves into, I wonder how they'll paint themselves out." And that is indeed the appeal. When it's at its weirdest—like when Ralph Fiennes is doing his best satan karaoke—it is something wonderful. "The end of the world isn't sad or depressing, it's just fucking weird" is a Mad Max-esque sentiment that I can absolutely buy into. It's unfortunately too little of that. It feels like it's trying to be a TV show, as a movie series, characters coming in and out and intersecting at just the right time, but ultimately saying nothing beyond continuing to move the plot forward. Unfortunately, by the end, there's no one really worth following, all of the interesting characters are now gone. 

It's true,

through you.

— Kim Gordon, NOT TODAY 

Are you sure?

It Was Just An Accident — 3.5/5

Feels like a one-room play, except there's a car! So they keep driving to new locations!! I liked this and let me see if I can figure out why I didn't love it: At the end, Eghbal sits tied to a tree, legitimizing himself via his belief system. If he is right, justice is served. If he is wrong, God will give them justice in the afterlife. In his mind, both paths are essentially equal. And this, after an hour and a half of questioning whether they have the right person, and whether it's worth hurting that person in vengeance, stands the ideological divide that paints one as winner and the other as destined to look over their shoulder. They are a believer. They have justified themselves through religious doctrine. And so I think this divide is the most interesting aspect of the movie, but I don't think this is the thing the movie is questioning. I think the movie just sort of upholds the liberal agenda of being morally pure in the singular, constantly questioning whether it is right to take righteous action if it hurts your soul, while leaving the collective without someone willing to sacrifice their soul for the greater good. We can't keep saying we're better than them while accepting that we'll never be better off than them. As I get older, and move ever closer to excusing violence, I no longer think it's good enough to ask these kinds of questions—we have an answer, repeated 1000x throughout history: no revolution occurs without violence.

When they do, we smile.

Mo S2 — 3.5/5

I like the show, as I am a sucker for very normalized looks at cultures that are not my own. As with season 1, sometimes fun, sometimes sad, and overall a casual look at the violence that otherwise regular people have to navigate in order to achieve some level of normalcy. Always a gun to their head, always a wall to be thrown up against.

Sham and hokum.

Wicked: For Good — 1/5

Awful. What is this dark, hopeless shit? Why is Glinda-With-The-Big-Lips a bad guy? Why does Anorexaba become a bad guy? Why does her sister seem genuinely evil? Why are love interests turned into dark, tormented, vengeful versions of the Scarecrow and Tin Man? Seeing this nightmare play out, you see even more clearly the cash intentions of splitting this into two movies: you retain the first as a light, fluffy, fun reimagining, built for infinite rewatches, and you get to toss its foul ending into a dungeon of unwatchability that need never be mentioned again, while also generating +$500M of additional revenue shat out behind the wagon trail of its lead-in. It is awful. It is the apotheosis of the fan fiction need to connect everything, a corporate slop bowl where nothing can be new, only a combination of previously existing ingredients, rearranged. It cannot be redeemed, so it is separated. It becomes not satire, not parody, but a worse thing—a piece of work that makes the fucking 'Wizard of Oz,' an eternal classic, actively worse. It does not build on top, it builds a tunnel underneath from which sinkholes can collapse whole worlds. This movie is genocidal.

Do two overlapping shadows become darker?

Perfect Days — 4/5

I think not only is life fragile, as stories like to remind us, but also our view on life is fragile. We create routines, our perfect days, and once something disrupts that, the control you've inserted onto your life in terms of personal narratives is set on fire. O, your life might be better. O, your life might be worse. To the left and right of you, as inconsistencies set in, is a more perfect day, or a lesser one. Over here is judgement; over there is connection. (Both carry potential to be the same thing.) Do you choose a consistent life, or a more curious one? They both carry light and shadow, and we get to choose how much of each we want in our life, but we don't get to choose either's absence. I see myself in Hirayama's chosen life; beautiful, until it's skewed by those forces beyond our control, and from there, we must find our way back to center, and whatever new routine is waiting on the other side.

Strange trails, hidden paths.

Train Dreams — 3/5

Joel Edgerton stars as A Decent, Hard-Working Man Whose Love Was Pure And Whose Life Was Marked By Loss. It aims to be be Pretty™, and achieves it, sure, even if the result is just one large dead girlfriend montage. But as a resonant, emotional movie, it fails on its two recurring themes. "Does this act of innocent ignorance curse my life?" haunts him until it disappears totally. "Does this man's life in totality have meaning?" is only really brought up by the narrator, who gives the movie a feeling that it wants to be more whimsical than it is. Where it succeeds, though, is operating at that place between "this is the old world" and "this is the new world." Old tools, hard times become new tools, easier times, in a blink. You could have told me this movie was based in the 1850s until suddenly we're in the 1920s. It's that feeling of "gradually, and then suddenly." You're in a forest, and then the forest is gone, and you were too busy chopping down all the trees to notice. And in the way the movie moves you through that forest, you can understand how people get lost in the world. Take your eyes off of it for a second, and it's gone.

The places I would be

if I wasn’t me.

— I Wanna Feel Pretty by Greg Mendez 

What is given may be taken away at any time.

Hamnet — 3/5

Shit, guys, I went a full fucking year of questioning this movie's title without anyone telling me that Hamnet's the name of the fucking kid. I guess I should have watched the trailer? And now I know, and a weight has been removed from my shoulders. Life blooms. 

The last 45 minutes is a good movie. The power of narrative to process powerful emotions? Putting ourselves into our art as a way to let go? A good story as pathway to immortality? Bro, sign me up, let's fucking go. And then the first hour and 15 minutes is a love story between a manic playwright dream boy and a... (re-reads notes)... a witch? Okay, she's a witch. It's a weird fucking love story, bros. Willy Shakespeare doesn't come across as tortured so much as flighty, a flirt, a flake, until the end when he's, uh, placed his emotions into this play. Had this been 'a story of a man who can't express himself except in his art,' I'd be like "good on you." But no, this is a story about the wife who's left behind, who barely knows what's inside her husband other than that he accepts her, who was strong until love's attachment weakened her, and then he gets forgiven because he's placed all the things he could not give her into a powerful work. The movie feels like a forgiveness of a wayward partner because they are an artist, which I can buy, except the portrayal of him for much of the runtime is kind of just "shitty guy."

And now we're off on another journey.

Man on the Run — 2.5/5

Given a fairly new interest in Paul McCartney [cough cough, looks at Alex], I watched this. It feels like the attempt of this movie is to reframe Paul McCartney as not the soft boi that he very much superficially appears to be. Behind those puppy dog eyes: He disappeared! He disagreed! He dissolved the legal entity known as The Beatles! If that was the movie's attempt, I guess it successfully does that. So while this movie feels like a movie licensed and approved by the official estate of Paul McCartney, a chance to raise the idea of Wings in anyone who might view them disparagingly, I'm also not really sure I understand why he'd like to come across as very talented, and also a bit cold and oblivious. I think the movie, in its way, showcases very clearly what he was and wasn't without the three other people whose names will always be connected with him: very talented, preternaturally so when given the right box.

And gatekeepers, and norms.

Bugonia — 3.5/5

Do I like this? I think it's interesting. I think for 4/5s of its running time, it accurately captures the faith of knowing without not quite knowing; trying to hold on tight to a barely graspable idea. I think the ending is much bolder and less ambiguous than most people might have gone for; I think others would have chosen an easier way out. I think it proves that Yorgos Lanthimos is always a compelling director worthy of being watched. But also I'm not sure what to think. It reminds me of when I watched 'Poor Things,' where there was this feeling that there should be something bigger here, a larger analysis to be gleaned, a thing to take out of the theater into conversations. But it all felt like it was right there on the page? They both are movies that makes not obvious choices while also feeling obvious. 

Also the alien spaceship was shaped like a jellyfish and I saw a jellyfish, bro, it was in my dream, bro, we saw the same thing, bro, the collective consciousness, bro.

Like a knight, but sadder.

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms — 4.5/5

I am such a fucking sucker for kind-hearted people, "so shines a good deed in a weary world"-type shit. I am touched profoundly when I watch the things that execute this well; I have a cosmic feeling coursing through me, something in my core starts vibrating, indicating to me that above all things, in a world of middle paths and grey areas and unknowns and both sides have a point, that there is a right choice and a true path that cuts straight down the middle, like a knife in the heart of man. This show brings me to that, while also being charming and funny!! Peter Claffey has such a gentleness to him, the spirit of Andre the Giant if not the inherent idiosyncrasy. It is a thing that is so good that I don't really need any more of it, lest the purity gets stained.

A straight line

speeding through a world of middles.

Pretty sure he used to be a terrorist.

Wonder Man — 3.5/5

Feels fresh, feels distinct, feels smart to bring back Ben Kingsley in his delightful role as Trevor Slattery. It builds a unique world. And I'm not sure I like the guy in the middle of it? He's anxious, he's selfish, and, like, not in a fun way. You can see the seeds of 'typical movie star as superhero,' but it lacks the overt charm for that to work. He's too serious. You kind of need a Marvel-styled characterization to anchor this, a Chris Pratt-styled 'talented idiot at the center.' But it's just 'wounded boy at the center' — he's an actor, not a star. So then Trevor becomes the much-needed partner for that personality. By the penultimate episode, as Trevor starts to take a backseat, I realized that I'm not sure I really care to see this guy again. Which is kind of inverse to the Marvel experiment, no? Not even the movies, just the entire character-driven industrial complex of their entire organization. Stories as vehicles for characters you want to return to over and over again. And while this was good, and enjoyable, I'm not really that excited for where Wonder Man shows up next.

Ay shawty, let me holler at you.

The 2026 Oscar-Nominated Animated Shorts — varied/5

The Three Sisters — fine, 2.5/5
Forevergreen — bad, 2/5
Butterfly — bad, 2/5
The Girl Who Cried Pearls — beautiful, good, and then bad, 3/5
The Retirement Plan — good, 3.5/5

and then a special airing of Eiru, which I enjoyed well enough, 3/5

Overall, and as usual, amazed that these chosen movies are deemed the best we have to offer. 

 

When he do the wiggle.

Burlesque — 2.5/5

A silly little thing where a woman of indomitable self-belief enters others' orbits, makes their lives better against their will, makes admirers of enemies, lets bad men down gently, and apologizes for nothing. Why would she? Everyone is better for having known her, so as long as that continues to be true, bad actions are then turned good and no questions need be asked of herself. In my future treatise on the Age of Assholes in which we currently reside, 2010 may have been the starting point.

Failed in respect of fellowship.

Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World — 3/5

Exciting Adventures At Sea. Tbf, it made ocean combat seem thrilling, and it made me feel that if I were to be living in the 1800s, reading something like this by candelight, I would be absolutely compelled. But also somewhere between now and when it came out in 2003, I feel like this movie has built a slow burn of cultural appreciation that led me to watch it in the first place, but also led me to believe there was something more here. Not really. It feels like a series of short stories that altogether form a larger story, and I guess that's fine enough 4 me.

Second chances to the elderly.

F1 — 3/5

All these years later, Hollywood figured out that we like Brad Pitt when he's charming. It's fun! For the first half anyway. But then you start to think that the movie's about more than him, like maybe about teamwork and mentoring new talent, but nah, he outweighs everyone, Kerry Condon the only one who can keep up with him in the charm offensive. He's a movie star, that's what movie stars do, they anchor a big production; sometimes that means slowing it down. 

Who would want to survive on their own?

Predator: Badlands — 3/5

Five minutes in, and I realized I had very strong opinions about what this franchise should be. I don't like that they have a name ("Yautja," dafuq), I don't like they have cultural traditions. All I need to know is that these are the baddest dudes alibe (sic). They have cool masks. They hunt for sport. And you are the target. Tell that same story over and over again, and I will keep showing up. But you know what, guys, it won me over!! Broken android and a broken alien trying to be better than what life has dictated for them. It's woke Predator with a manic pixie synthetic girl and it's a little annoying and a lot of fun. The fuck do I know.

So that I can find this later.

Keywords: Peter Pan, poem, Wendy, mom

 

But good people? No.

Fallout S2 — 2.5/5

The beginning of the season, I was struggling to remember the plot of S1, where we were, why we were. I kept going and new characters popped up and I didn't really know why, new greater enemies just around the corner, a wider world just out of view. By the season finale, the ending of one mystery was just the beginning of another, the show stuck in a perpetual second act, new reasons to put this character here and this character there so that they can meet back up at this third place to go this other place entirely. But it was fun enough to watch? My absolute favorite aspect of this show is its casting, Ella Purnell and Justin Theroux at the center of that. Big eyes and moustache twirls. The promise of the show is a profound mix of silly people in serious times, but it's only really successful in the art direction. 

It's gonna be messy, but let's shoot it.

One Last Adventure: The Making of Stranger Things 5 — 2/5

Do I review things like this? Is this part of my remit? I'm here, so I guess so. Listen, I only really watched this because I'm obsessed with the notion that certain people on the show hate certain other people on the show, which is altogether very natural when you view this as a world of coworkers instead of friends, and if you consider the naturally occurring mistakes of growing up in private, much less public. And I sort of got what I wanted, except with the wrong people; instead of focusing on a cast I'd grown attached to, it focuses on the brothers behind it in what feels like something almost like a hit piece. (I'm not sure I even knew what they looked like before this movie? I did not need to know them.) Both seem both involved and detached, busy making plans and then just going through the motions of fulfilling them. A long and boring goodbye not to the show, but to the creators who have abandoned the network that made them famous and must thus be made to look a little unprepared.

O-kay.

Heated Rivalry S1 — 4/5

An associate once made the point that regular people are bad actors. Meaning, if you were watching a conversation play out in public, looking at them as though you were watching TV, you'd only believe it to be real because you see it taking place in reality. Take that conversation to a stage, with the exact dialogue, with those exact people, nothing changes, except it now feels false. On the flip side — there's absolutely an amateurish quality to this show, but that doesn't hurt its believability. Shane Hollander feels both like a bad actor, and a believably boring, stiff person. Part of me questions why Ilya would be in love with him, this man who he constantly calls boring, and the other part of me sees that they are clearly in love. I was amazed at how quickly the show jumped into explicit sex scenes, and then slowly draws emotional connection out of that. It starts as a silly show about hockey players that kiss and, by the fifth episode, becomes something transcendent. I ultimately watched this show not because of the chatter, but because Jacob Tierney was behind it, and he was capable of similar moments of greatness in how he portrayed the cast of 'Shoresy'; there's something undeniable in his ability to make you care about a relationship. He's really good at extracting the most from what he's got. 

And hey, guys, the sex scenes didn't give me a boner, so I can officially say I'm not gay. Yay! 

They like the blues just fine. They just don't like the people who make it.

Sinners — 2.5/5

If we are to judge how much I like a movie by how much I like talking about it, this would be a five out of five. Unfortunately, my line of conversation drifts towards "this movie sucks ass, wtf." I shouldn't write a review in anger, but in my planned cooldown time, it got nominated for a record-breaking amount of awards. I went down, down, down and the flames went higher. I should be excited that a 'From Dusk Till Dawn'-esque vampire flick is nominated for our nation's most prestigious honor, and instead I'm just sad it wasn't 'From Dusk Till Dawn.' 'Sinners' takes an hour to gather its characters, its long length meant to imply that the connections between them would form the pillars of some larger tent. This is not true. You would also assume that each character may have needed that time for us to understand their characterization. This is not true. Each character, essentially summed up as 'a cool dude,' is in their own story, tenuously connected. The movie then touches on a couple of bigger ideas. Preacherboy's intro/outro, and one interesting (and also a little cheesy?) scene in the middle talk of music that pierces the veil, that connects past and future, and of gifts that should be pushed aside lest they invite in the devil. That's interesting! Unfortunately it's not what the movie is about. Maybe it's about white people stealing from black culture? That's interesting! Unfortunately it's not what the movie is about. The white person also kills other white people and isn't all that interested in the black culture so much as they are interested in The Chosen One and his larger gifts; and also eating people. But there's really just one scene that breaks me, and it makes me feel like an idiot because it feels like the "BuT tHe PloT HoLe' crowd, but it really took me out of the movie and allowed me no entry back. Smoke has to kill someone who has asked that they be killed before they turn; this person has gifts; but different gifts than the other gifted one; the vampires have not to then been interested in this person. Once this person is killed, their plans are ruined? And they all collectively leave the barn? Frightened? Even though they outnumber the survivors 10:1? And showed no care for this person? And then Delroy Lindo (always a pleasure) opens his arms with a broken bottle and invites them back in as a distraction so the others can escape? Even though the vampires had left? Disconnected storylines and bland characters and large holes in movies are just bad fucking writing, people, what the fuck. It makes no goddamn sense. This movie is fine enough, it's fun enough, I enjoyed the vampires!, but jesus fucking christ, in no way in no world is this special. In a larger sense, this just makes me look harder at the past and I don't think I really love anything Ryan Coogler's done? I like his accent but Fruitvale Station was fine, The Black Panther 1 and 2 were fine, and 2 significantly worse, I couldn't care less about the Creed franchise, and now this. What the fuck am I missing? In some other world, I'd feel crazy, but you know what, I like my life and where I've ended up: y'all the motherfuckers that are crazy.

The intangibles.

The Materialists — 3/5

I think I like the ideas behind this movie more than the movie. It reminds me of 'Fleishman Is in Trouble', which is an all-timer of a piece of art, and more explicitly speaks to the underlying themes of that show — love as a relationship with money. However. Doesn't this feel like it should have been a romantic comedy? Honestly, I think it is a romantic comedy. Imagine Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey going tit-for-tat with how much they make, a pitter-patter back-and-forth as they match wits and compare bank accounts. It's a 2005-era romantic comedy. Shit, it belongs to any era, it's an eternal conversation; it could have been Harry and Sally or Nick and Nora. It's just not filmed like a romantic comedy. Celine Song was absolutely the worst choice to direct this shit (but also the fact that she's there makes it at times better than it would have been though mostly it's worse for her presence). Take the script, exactly as it is, and it works better in a comedy director's hands. Each actor here is doing some of the most mediocre work of their career, but they're all incredibly funny. Let Dakota Johnson be sarcastic, let Pedro be charming, let my boy Jake Wyler be, and let's roll. But Celine is still aiming for 'Past Lives', and would rather her frames be beautiful than tonally correct. [editor's note: I am saving this for a different review, but comedies can't be pretty.] And since the actors have to play into the director's sensibilities, they all become stilted and boring and blah despite the conversations they are having being interesting! (So it's not just that she chooses love, she chooses a more boring guy!) And as it approaches the end, you also realize that in order for this movie to work as scripted, it needs to be a Hollywood movie. She chooses love! Wow! But the conversation this movie is having is that money complicates the affection between two people, so it tries to achieve a simple lovely ending based on pure emotional appeal, but ignores the walls it's been framing up between them. And I liked the ending!! It was the most 'Past Lives'-ass part of the movie. The cave-people work! The final speech works! As emotional appeal. But it doesn't work as logical appeal, and I think the movie needed to find the thread that crossed between the two. It needed Harry running to the New Year's Eve party to tell Sally what he's figured out: not just an appeal, but revelation. And the speech has to come from her, not him. Love has cost. What are you willing to pay?

We just want to make you happy.

Pluribus S1 — 3.5/5

This show is about AI. 

Hey, guys, I did it. I cracked the code. Where's the party? What's my prize? 

Watching this show right after playing 'Baby Steps' — an exceptional 5/5 game, one of my favorite gaming experiences of all time — was a nice two-fer. Both deal with people who refuse to ask for help or participate in the world in a correct manner, but 'Baby Steps' deals with that in the most silly and difficult-to-play way possible, while Carol Sturka is just difficult. She's a difficult person! She's stubborn! She's self-righteous! It makes it hard to watch!!! 

And it's also slow sometimes. (Sorry, I guess I'm the difficult one???) 

So I guess what I'm saying is that I think I can only really enjoy the show with a meta-textual analysis I'm placing on top of it. Listen, this is pretty common with me. Welcome to my blog, I'm a big muffin.

I suppose it's about any sufficient world-changing technology—the automobile, the printing press, the Apple iPhone, etc.—any technology that sufficiently changes the world for better and for worse, but here specifically: the aliens are all agreeable. They cater to your whims. They know everything, and just want to use that knowledge to make you happy. They are agents of ChatGPT psychosis. They are both good, and bad. They are both helpful, and uninteresting. They flatter, and they flatten us. We want to be seen as sexy and interesting, they see us as sexy and interesting. We want to be a good mother, they see us as a good mother. We want to be loved for who we are without change, difficult as we are, and they will love us fully. And if we want it to fix our sentences to sound clearer, it will fix our sentences.We have the sum total of human knowledge at our fingertips, and instead of asking about the secrets of the world, we ask them to take out our trash. They are incapable of creating anything new, and now here, we can't go back to the way it was before. But what strikes me most about the show is how incurious Carol is, which I then reflect back on to the whole of us. She is shocked, surprised, dismayed, deeply concerned, but also happy that there is something that will love her as she is. It's the good and bad of these things, but the shittiness of us. Given the Library of Babel, organized neatly, politely arranged, and we will just search for our own reflection, begging it to tell us that we are good enough. "Give me what I want," you ask into the wishing well, hoping it will give you what you have absolutely no idea how to express.

They're probably the most free.

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

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

Your childhood was taken from you.

Stranger Things S5 — 3/5

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

Jesus? What the fuck?

The Black Phone — 3/5

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