It doesn't feel that you know that.

Sorry, Baby — 3/5

The humor in this movie works. Eva Victor has a millennial idiosyncrasy that is fun to watch. Unfortunately, that humor only really kicks in about 40m in, after a long trudge through some sad shit.  Shit, I feel like I had an epiphany about A24's weaponization of cinematography?? Uhhhh maybe — they care more about the framing than communicating the feeling. They care more about looking good than feeling good. A few pinpoint-able directors with strong POVs aside, they know how to arm their teams with the aesthetics of how to make something good, but not how to make it fun—or at least something you want to watch over and over again. They have taste, but still need a someone to bring soul into it. 

I can do anything I want to, baby. I ain't lost.

Pretty Woman (re-watch) — 3/5

Not a great movie, or really a complete one, but it's easy to see why it was a hit and why Julia Roberts became a star. She's got a "smile that lights up the room." There's a scene with a piece of jewelry about halfway through the movie that feels like improv, causing her to laugh, and if you hadn't fallen in love with her before then, this would have been where the final snare was tripped. She has an inherent quality and, in the movie, she's also playing into what I will define as a then-new type of idealized partner for men: the easy woman. Easy because sex, yes, certainly, but more largely easy in the simplicity of interactions between man and woman. Easy sex, easy conversation, easygoing, adaptable, fits in even when she doesn't belong, gently funny, casually beautiful, unfussy, coming and going at behest of the person paying her money. I think women looked at Julia Roberts and said 'I want to be her' (smile, laugh, lack of anxiety) and I think men looked at her character and said 'I want my partner to be her' (the woman who isn't difficult). She's essentially a less redneck (but still kind of redneck) version of Dolly Parton coupled with this shitty post-'Wall Street' 80s feeling of "I want it all," money and now the woman who will work around my needs. On the other hand, I was always curious to understand why Richard Gere never became a bigger star, and oh, oops, it's easy to see why, no need to have stayed curious. He's handsome, and not much more. He might have made a good Patrick Bateman, though I think he would have played it without irony. But they both fit each other's characters in being morally amoral people. And so what's really interesting about the movie is that she, as a character, isn't someone who regrets her prostitute life. Sure, she doesn't want to be made to feel like a prostitute and, like anyone, wants a happy fairytale ending for herself, but she shows no shame in doing what she does. Can you imagine what John Wayne would have said about this movie? This movie feels like one of those markers in time where you can draw a straight line through Breakfast at Tiffany's "...is she a call girl?" to the more explicit but via art film aesthetics of Midnight Cowboy to the lighthearted mass media representation in this movie, on upwards to Margo's Got Money Trouble and the open-ended "I'm going to show my vagina to men on the internet and we're going to be cool about it." You open the door, and you will find it just leads to another set of doors, in an unending war of escalation. We are about ten to fifteen years away from hardcore penetration in a Best Picture nominee, mark my words. But anyway, the movie. Uhh it tries to invent a villain at the finale in order to figure out how to end a movie that was largely lacking plot and so it ends up feeling rushed and incomplete. But it's an interesting one, mainly because of the overall sense of acceptance in which the character is handled. Hector Elizondo in particular stands out as someone who has this stiff kindness to him, both quick to judge and quick to adjust, perhaps a feeling of lower class solidarity within that; looking out for each other as they become what they need to become in order to navigate upwards.

I'm your court-appointed theatrical agent.

The Running Man [1987] (re-watch) — 4/5

In a scant 100 minutes, this movie reveals 18 identifiable, memorable characters. Here, let me list them:

• Ben Richards (Arnold Schwarzenegger)
• Yaphet Kotto
• Nerdy third guy
• Maria Conchita Alonso
• Damon Killian
• Security guard guy
• Subzero
• Buzzsaw
• Dynamo
• Fireball (who I've only now realized is Jim Brown!)
• Captain Freedom
• that character actor (Kurt Fuller!)
• that guy who was the Principal in Buffy
• that nerdy audience member who can't choose
• that old lady rooting for Ben Richards
• Mick Fleetwood
• Dweezil Zappa 
• The gamblers in the slums (collectively)

A mixture of big stars, stunt-casting, iconic supervillain names, character actors, and idiosyncratic bit players fill every frame of this movie. Each of them bring some element of bigness into every small scene, each surrounding two people who just exude largeness. Early on, Richard Dawson looks at images of Arnold running away from prison and correctly predicts that this man's gonna get ratings. They both have presence, they take up all the space in a room, they control its energy just by stepping through the door. They both look like they could destroy you.

I'm not gonna wait for them to collapse on us.

Coherence — 3.5/5

Inventive, clever, cleverly made. It's easy to dismiss because of its amateur aesthetics, but it's a really smart idea that coasts on the tension of that idea. Stuck in one room but it never feels limited. It ultimately can't carry the weight of its spinning plates, and none of the actors are really strong enough to be the centerpiece that the movie eventually demands of them, but fuck it, it was a good time. I'd love for someone to revisit the idea, feels like it would make for great TV. 

Life is a house of horrors. / I had concerns.

Widow's Bay S1 — 4/5

I'll keep ringing the bell for 'tone' as the bellwether for a thing to be good or bad. Now, I just need to figure out what the fuck goes into making that sound. Seeing Hiro Murai's name at the end of many of these episodes was one clue; he has a consistent touch on things, but the thing I think he has most a finger on is casting and not trying to outwork the actors. Put the right people in a place, and let them do the their thing. Then focus on building that world around them. I said in my Suspiria review — "Tone is words. Mood is visuals. Tone is emotion. Mood is feeling." — and I disliked that movie for only having mood, but here's a show that captures both. Widow's Bay feels like a real place, where a structure is both a home and a haunted house, perpetually on the verge of giving shelter or falling down upon you. Kate O'Flynn, who I particularly love and now have a crush on, does a better version of what Rachel McAdams was trying to do in 'Send Help' which is to feel both empowered and helpless. She is capable of eliciting such genuine sympathy from me. She so acutely embodies a person who has to wake up and face the day, even when the day fucking hates her. A long-running theme of my thoughts (if not my reviews) is that the world is made up of opposites, and we grapple with those opposites to see which wins, which is more powerful, or what third true thing can be found at the apex of them both. The show works because it's built on those opposites. It's comedy, and it's horror. It's life, and it's death. It's doing the right thing, even if it's doing the wrong thing. Acceptance of what you can, and cannot control. Knowing the unknowable. The work of living. In the world they've created, I think we're finally finding an heir to 'Twin Peaks.' 

And do the other things.

Operation Avalanche — 3/5

I'm in a Matt Johnson hole, enamored with 'Nirvanna the Band The Show The Movie', watching the original web series and checking out his earlier movies. I think this movie continues his thread of pure inventiveness. I think there's a theory of making stuff where if you're having fun, the audience will have fun, and that shows, but it also shows how far his tone will take you. The movie wants to at points be a thriller, but resting on his shoulders as the main actor, it can only go so far in that direction (save for a genuinely exciting and apparently improvised car chase scene). It's basically OJ Simpson's "If I Did It" but with the moon landing, and feels about as silly and plausible as that must have felt. 

I recognize myself in you.

Sentimental Value — 4/5

After you have an internal thought, you say it out loud, and then, maybe, for some, you do something with it. Some people don't know how to do that middle part. They skip straight from something happening inside them to needing to explore it in its grandest form. I bet it's frustrating to have them as a parent!!! As executed, the movie feels like a better version of 'Hamnet' and a clearer articulation of someone having an internal life that they can't express but upon the stage. And the kicker being that it still feels like their children aren't quite understanding it — he understands you because he understands himself, and are you not of him? 

Do you feel like something from the past is missing from your future?

The Resort S1 — 2/5

...and final season...? It managed to pick up speed halfway through when it threatened to switch the main character to a charming yet bumbling Mexican man, the Memory Detective, but it only allowed him to become co-lead, forcing him to share screentime with the two people we had already been forced to know, dwelling in grief and no longer in love and making bad choices and jfc what a slog those two were, damn. Yada yada, compelling mystery that goes nowhere and doesn't connect to the main narrative yada yada but listen, on the other side of 'something weird is happening in movies,' something weird is happening in TV: shows that feel like comedies, that star comedians, but are actually just dramas (but still want to dip their toes in comedy). I'd say it started around the time of... 'Better Call Saul'? Heavy things that have the feeling of lightness to them. But, you know, it's that artistry thing again, and mastery of tone is that most untouchable of intangibles. 

A woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet.

The Testament of Ann Lee — 3.5/5

What an interesting movie!!! What's fascinating is that it feels like a genuine religious movie. What I mean by that is that the movie doesn't cynically side-eye Ann Lee's testament. It seems to communicate what's visible (what she says is true, if not what is actually true), and communicates the belief of her followers, without casting considerable doubt on any of them. This is her experience, and that of her flock. I could put this side-by-side with 'The Ten Commandments' as a movie that religious people could love (except that her religion is sillier of course). And it's made in an art house style visited by people who have no interest in religion, and then features scenes that would likely offend the more religiously-minded. It seems to be a movie that caters to no one. And it's a weird-ass musical! Brave!! And the ultimate takeaway for me is — sure, why not? Why isn't she the next Jesus Christ? The only difference between this and 'The Passion of the Christ' is the worldwide belief that He is the Savior. It took time for Him to become that, so sure, why not, maybe Her time will come as well. Just need one believer, and it grows from there. 

Perhaps good to pair with 'The Wonder.' 

And I have wept to see the beauty of the world passing

like a dream behind her eyes.

— James Joyce, writing to (or of) Nora

I have the power.

Masters of the Universe (2026) — 1.5/5

Man, something strange is happening in the world of movies and ^I think I've figured it out.^ First, my memories of He-Man are largely in my family telling me that I loved it, meaning it had done enough to mean something, but not enough to linger. And the trailer looked fun* and a couple people said it was fun and I am telling you all of this so that I can convince you that I went in with the best of intentions. I did not harbor thoughts of what this movie should be, I did not pay $40 for a good time out though secretly desire a reason to thrash and flail. I was only confronted by what it is. And, like 'Project Hail Mary', within five minutes I was assaulted by a tone that I could not overcome. I think there's a section of the internet that refers to this as 'Marvel-ization' of tone, but I don't think that's it at all. I think we're in a new era of tone, which I will call Barbie-ficiation. Marvel's tone I attribute to 'Cheers,' and I attribute it to 'Cheers' because Amy Poehler said if you want to learn how to write sitcoms, watch 'Cheers' and so I watched the first season of 'Cheers', and the secret to 'Cheers' was 'say something serious, and then undercut it with a joke.' (And I'm sure what existed in 'Cheers' existed before then, but that's as far as I can take it.) I think Marvel does that well, and whether that tone simply shaped my upbringing and understanding of humor within storytelling (it premiered in '82 and I was born in '83!), I cannot say, but I think 'Barbie' starts to do something differently. Marvel, at its best, are serious movies with comedy. Barbie is a comedy, with a serious, large, deeply philosophical underpinning. Marvel cuts the tension with a joke. Barbie cuts the comedy with tension. (I can't trace the origins of that, but if I had to guess, I'd wager it's a characteristic shared with the 2010s era of Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network animated shows, which I also saw in 'Nimona', which preceded Barbie to a premiere by one month.) We're dancing, we're having a good time, and "do you guys ever think about dying?" (Trace that to 'Project Hail Mary' and "I put the 'not' in 'astronaut'" while people look at him gravely. Ryan Gosling's playing a deeply unserious character constantly being given reason to take it seriously. He's a comedian in a sober world.) This movie feels cut of similar cloth. Nicholas Galitzine plays a buff buffoon in a world where his mom and dad have been kidnapped and likely tortured, and an evil skeleton has turned his world into a hellscape. With those tangible plot details, it's more of a comedy than I would have expected! With underpinnings of a larger, deeper philosophical point to be made about power and who wields it. Gerwig did not make a perfect movie, but she largely pulled off an ambitious attempt, but her ultimate success was that she unleashed something new into the world. She said of 'Barbie' — “I’m doing the thing and subverting the thing," which is essentially the same here. It's taking the world seriously, while also saying the world is silly, and what comes out of that is comedy comedy comedy violent murder of innocents comedy comedy comedy deep thought comedy comedy comedy violent murder of enemies comedy comedy comedy very adult humor that parents will need to explain to their children** comedy comedy comedy. It's "the thing," and an acknowledgement that the thing is also being watched by a people who have a relationship with another version of the thing. I think the new version of the "four quadrant film" is essentially this precipice where "we must engage new audiences without alienating old audiences." And brother, that precipice is built on fear and it kind of sucks. This movie kind of sucks. 

Then again, I can see the parts of the movie that succeed — well, it's just one thing: Skeletor. (Moviemakers, fiends, you've driven me to tell my audience that the best part of a movie is Jared Leto.) He is both evil and funny. He's not the thing but also the other thing; he is both simultaneously, and that's a tonality that 'Barbie' was largely able to hold onto (the credit of which I think belongs to Margot Robbie who, through good acting, gravitas, is able to keep the movie centered). He-Man, in contrast, looks the part, but has no central core to him. He is either Adam, a man capable of nothing, or He-Man, the man who can do anything. They are not the same, and I can see an intent of this movie in them becoming one, but that doesn't happen. He is just the thing but also subverting the thing, within a dualistic character. 

To that, it is entirely possible that my theorizing here is just a response to a lack of artistry (or my preferred artistry). It's okay for me to not like a movie that others like, I repeat into the mirror. But there's something about this, and "Project Hail Mary," and (to a lesser extent) "Barbie," where I almost feel bad for not liking it as much as I'm supposed to which makes me want to understand why. (These reviews say as much about me as the movie, wow, what a surprise.) I'm thrashing and flailing to put my finger on something intangible. And listen, if you know anything about me, you know I love to discuss philosophical ideas, intercut with jokes, so I would love for this to work out. But I think 'Barbie', for me, and like 'John Wick'***, becomes this miracle of tonality which feels easy to replicate, but incredibly difficult to pull off. But it's a new idea and I expect to see a lot more of it coming around the bend. 

*Watching the trailer again in preparation for this review, I think it largely does not come across as a comedy. It comes across as a fun world that takes itself seriously, with moments of humor, but with a sincerity running through it, but the movie itself feels like a reverse of that tonality.

**Another mark for my conservative streak. Did he need to say 'asses' so many times when 'butt' would have been just as funny? Does he need to say 'goddamn'? Does he need to make jokes about fisting and giving head? I don't even fucking have children and my response to those things is 'sorry for the conversation on the ride home' and also 'it's lazy messageboard humor' and, sir, I was a lazy messageboard humorist, and there's nothing that I hate more than my own kind. 

***...and shit maybe even 'Speed' before it? And 'The Matrix' after that? And 'Die Hard' before both? I think any movie that becomes shorthand for an executive to say '...make it more like [x]' showcases that people can sense there's a new idea here, but they can't quite figure out what it is, so they grasp at the easy descriptors, forming something similar and worse. But, you know, one, artistry, and the ability to actually pull this off and, two, no, it's just the one actually. 

But you always spoke in a whisper,

and I wasn't good at listening.

— Modest Mouse, Third Side of the Moon 

Am I the shade

or the shadow?

— Modest Mouse, Third Side of the Moon 

Some people are not good at things.

Project Hail Mary — 2.5/5
The Martian (re-watch) — 4.5/5 

I rewatched 'The Martian' last year — a banger of a movie. Holds up on repeat. I never got around to writing down my thoughts, but I had some! And then here comes this movie to create a parallel. So let's try to work this out.

I think 'The Martian,' more than just being a great adventure movie, well-told, is probably the most emblematic movie of its particular point in time. It's the height of Obamacore, 'The Audacity of Hope,' Reddit-era politics, Buzzfeed-ification of information, and "science wins" signs peppering lawns in the years before the big science-based kerfuffle which confused half of America. It is our Most Millennial Movie. It is almost, perpetually, corny. Hope is corny! Optimism is a little lame. "We are going to science the shit out of this" is said by either the coolest — or most trying — science teacher you've ever met. Fortunately, tonally, the movie always falls on the left side of that binary. And I think it's because, like a great teacher, the movie's primary goal feels like education (and just hiding it within entertainment). The movie shows the science. You feel like you're with people who are figuring it out in real time, and they're bringing you along with them. They explain it as they go. Not that you can now, like, go to Mars and grow potatoes, but you generally understand you can grow potatoes on Mars, and have a general understanding of everything that goes into it, and why they're doing what they're doing. They focus on the what and the why, and there's less interest in the who who does it. Not that Matt Damon's character is a non-entity, it's just he has no larger personality-based story being told within this. He isn't filled with tragic backstory and is now being faced with an extraordinary opportunity to answer something inside him. He's just a smart, generally amiable, occasionally funny guy in a bad situation who only has the hope of science to get him through it. You grow to care about him and in order for the movie to work, you have to care about his survival — but he's not the story. The science is the story. 

On the other side of that — I love Lord and Miller. I love Ryan Gosling. I loved Andy Weir's last movie (see above). I went in preparing to love this and, five minutes in, could not get over whatever fucking tone was happening here: a tone I can only describe as millennial cringe. I could not, for the life of me, overcome this first hurdle and so, a movie that on face value isn't bad, becomes difficult for me to watch. "Soooo I met an alien" is the same type of line as "we're going to science the shit out of this," only it falls on the other side of the binary. It's Jess from 'New Girl' in space (and I say that insultingly while also being a huge fan of 'New Girl,' so figure that out). And I think the problem, with 'The Martian' in mind, is that the movie tries to make more of a story out of Ryan Gosling's character—and in so doing fails both his character and the science story. The science feels like two people talking to themselves. It's beyond our understanding, and so we're just watching people do random things we surmise as "something important." And so the takeaways from those conversations are the cute asides, and given the science isn't really that important to understanding the movie, the cute asides take up the entire weight of the movie. Have you ever seen two good friends hang out and you're overhearing their conversation and you just kind of think they're both pretty annoying and you're glad you aren't friends with them, knowing full well that if you were sitting at that table, you'd be laughing right along with them? That's me and this movie. The relationship is the whole of it, and I just couldn't buy into it. And then there is a reveal that this story is some larger story about what it means to be brave! Okay! I would have liked that to have been the whole movie! That sounds interesting! It would have created an emotional through-line that connected the first and final scenes, but it only appears at the tail-end, because.... because??? Sigh. It's fine to just be a buddy movie that takes place a million miles away. Just be that. Lose the unnecessary earth-bound characters breaking character to sing karaoke. Lose the larger weight it ties itself to. Just be a guy on a ship on a mission. Or maybe next time I watch it—and I can see myself watching this again—I just go in with a different mindset and the light switch will be turned on, I'll be in the mood to hope, and suddenly I'll love it. But honestly, re-reading the quotes for this thing over at IMDB, trying to find a title for this post? Uhhhh I don't think I will, boss. 

UPDATE, 6.26.26
I realize I've already reviewed The Martian. Yeehaw.

Sanka, you dead?

Cool Runnings — 4.5/5 (rewatch)

Man, I love this fucking shit. And I think, in all honesty, why this little comedy works so well, is because everyone gets a moment to be serious. I mean, John Candy barely even plays into the comedy of it all. He's gruff, with no desire to be liked. It's an understanding that it's enough that he's just such an obvious contrast to the boys, that the comedy will play. The whole movie is built around that contrast: Jamaican men against the backdrop of white snow, a hot tropical island at the Winter Olympics, a fun-loving culture vs a Swiss culture of efficiency, and generally how silly everyone looks in their incongruity—but the sinew that holds it together is sincerity. Everyone here has a story, a goal, a dream, even the enemies.