I Saw the TV Glow - 10/10 This movie is going to be so special to so many people, myself included. Schoebrun manages to take their own personal journey as a queer, transgender 90s kid and blow it up into a universal work about finding (and bonding with others over) identity in media, repression of self, and the eventual acceptance of your identity regardless of the time it takes to get there. Just a beautiful, unsettling, heart-wrenching collage of the media an entire generation grew up with and how it feels to fall in love with something you see yourself in. Smith's and Lundy-Paine's line deliveries feel stilted and awkward in a very real way that will make you wonder if it would even be possible for someone to tackle these roles. Durst, O'Malley, and Lindsay Jordan are all inspired casting choices. The surreal visual elements of The Pink Opaque itself throughout the film, in addition to the VHS grain and changes in aspect ratio, feel warm and bizarrely nostalgic, especially compared to how frightening those visuals are outside of the TV show (Dirst pulling Smith's head out of the sparking television set and forcing him to vomit TV static is one of the most visceral pieces of surreal imagery I've ever seen). Everything else about this -- the visual direction, the cinematography, integration of the film's soundtrack, and Alex G's score -- just wraps the film's kaleidoscopic scope into a neat package that is unlike anything else I've ever seen before. I haven't stopped thinking about it since I saw it yesterday morning, and I can't wait to see it again as soon as possible. The Beta Test - 7.5/10 Look, Eyes Wide Shut is my favorite movie and I love Jim Cummings, so it makes sense that I would enjoy a small-scale, screwball comedy-thriller that pretty much casts Cummings as a wannabe Patrick Bateman and inserts him into that Kubrick classic. There is some writing and editing (particularly toward the end of the film) that doesn't quite come together, but Cummings' writing and performance are so funny and devoted that it's easy to forgive. His unique take on different subgenres (as seen in Thunder Road and The Wolf of Snow Hollow) continue to blow them up into something you're never anticipating, like (for example) a cautionary tale about honesty in relationships that doubles as a satire of the filmmaking industry and the ways it's changed (and hasn't changed) since #MeToo. Need more people to seek his films out, because Cummings is electric and each film feels like a new lesson in independent filmmaking.
How is there still 80 minutes left in downsizing?? I feel like I’ve been watching for 2 hours so far.
Watching the Virgin Suicides for the first time. This is good. My first Sofia Coppola (outside of the Bill Murray Christmas)
Ishtar is not as bad as its legend until recently claimed. It's also not the lost masterpiece people are trying to spin it as now.
It came out when I was 7 and I probably wrote it off as a “girl movie” or something stupid in my teens. Been on my list for a while now Lost in Translation? Not sure how I haven’t seen that one yet
It is crazy how far we’ve fallen that this was a “worst movie ever” punchline for 30 years. It’s very funny so far (I understand it apparently falls off) and it looks great! I am at the stage where you could show me any film shot on a real location in the 80s-early 90s and I’ll find something to like. Shit, give me a bad SOV set from that era and I’ll cozy up to it.
I have plenty of blind spots as far as films and directors that are considered must see. I think missing out on Sofia is a bit sad tho bc she's one of the few female directors I can actually name off the top of my head
People consider the film Heaven’s Gate to be the biggest Hollywood disaster ever. Ishtar is typically in the same conversation
Ishtar and Heaven's Gate both seem like the period-specific product of a narrow media landscape, but also an obsession with box office gossip that continues unabated. The proto-version of how every movie's opening week box office is reported alongside its total budget so we can all dream of being executives instead of artists.
Videodrome (1983, David Cronenberg) Mass Media is scary. Powerful and out of our control, since the 1980s it has grown and mutated into even more gigantic and terrifying forms. Tim told me he quit social media, that he doesnt let it affect him. How naive to think anyone can escape its web. It is a defining part of our culture, shaping the world around us in unpredictable and unstoppable ways. Watched before bed slept like a log no nightmares. I removed a spider from my room on a different day. I put it on a piece of paper and took him outside. What do I get for my troubles? Spider nightmares. A giant chasm under my bed full of webs and giant spiders with regular sized spiders crawling out all over my room. I'm not afraid of spiders why do me like this? Three Colors: Red (1994, Krzysztof Kieślowski) Unfortunately it's been too long since I saw white and blue to recall how this connects to them. On its own it starts asking questions about intentions vs results, truth vs privacy and ends on love vs fate and whether the former were ever even worth the trouble. About Dry Grasses (2023, Nuri Bilge Ceylan) What is the truth, how can you tell, and what things are more important? How could something be more important when it might not even be true. You live your life, you have experiences, and you watch movies.
The Color of Money (1986, Martin Scorsese) I am ready for the next Scorsese and 1986 year in film discussion.
The Fall Guy - 4/10 Mostly fun, often funny, but ultimately pretty empty. Obviously the practical effects and stunt work were super fun and impressive, but every character in this film felt like they were in a contest to see who could be the most clever. Each scene lasted one or two jokes too long. When it ended I turned to my wife and said "I wish we rewatched The Nice Guys instead."