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.  

The remnants of a once-promising career.

Slow Horses S1 — 3.5/5

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

The word is grand.

John Candy: I Like Me — 3/5

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

Ugly-ass Brad Pitt.

Roofman — 2.5/5

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

The TV People.

Poltergeist — 3.5/5

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

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

Suspiria (1977) — 2.5/5 (rewatch)

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

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

Vampyr — 2/5

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

Making enough money to keep body and soul together.

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

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

Life's too short to be pussy.

London — 2.5/5

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

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