Jun 16, 2026 • Watched

Loving Vincent

A one-of-a-kind hand-painted film released before generative AI could kill it, this masterpiece of animation is only hindered by its narrative. While novel in how it incorporates Van Gogh's scenes into settings and characters, it jumps through hoops that makes the getting-there fairly convoluted with detours & irrelevant details. As an international experiment from first-timers, though, it's a big success -- one I'll be referencing for the rest of my life. I hope to see it in a theater one day.

Jun 11, 2026 • Watched

Backrooms

It's fine. I like the set design, the sound design (I liked that light bulb hum), and the acting is solid. It has some genuinely unnerving moments and inspired choices, but it ends up a bit of a nothing burger for the dramatic dominoes it lines up. It gets tedious at times, too, which would be ok if it hadn't hit the ground running. Adaptation-wise, for liminal entrapment from undercooked properties, I much prefer Exit 8, and for doppelganger horror, there's far more to glean from Annihilation.

Jun 5, 2026 • Watched

Obsession

"What is this, a monkey's paw fable for gen-x incels?" I thought after the first act of Obsession, yet another victory for YouTuber low-budget indie horror at the box office in 2026. I wasn't wrong, but I underestimated just how much was in the tank to explosively escalate those beats via plot twists, acting choices, and special effects. It's the kind of film that proves the folly of judging a film on a one-sentence summary. It's in the execution, the work of many tiny parts to elevate it all.

Jun 2, 2026 • Watched

Bugonia

This rating may change if I watch a second time, since this really demands a second viewing given how many clues it drops along the way to its highly anticipated ending. I love how Lanthimos has the range to be defiantly bold and nuanced moderation in the same breath. The acting is incredible across the board. The score is its own layer of commentary. Ultimately, though, I feel its sci-fi elements overshadow its social discourse, thereby deadening its power despite what its finale would suggest.

Jun 2, 2026 • Watched

Everything Everywhere All at Once

I don't disagree that this is an overstuffed, overplotted cacophony of lol random humor and multiverse sci-fi that happened at what was arguably the height of public interest in the multiverse. It has its cake & eats it too, then has another & eats it too, then has another...and that's what makes it profound. When it doesn't make sense, it's metacommentary. When it stacks another layer of drama on top of another layer of comedy, it's maximalist. Existentialism has never been so awe-inspiring.

May 25, 2026 • Watched

Super Mario Bros.

For a so-bad-it's-good cult movie, this is one of the greats in my book. It's full of big budget (for the 90s) spectacle and insane creative decisions, the result of too many cooks in the kitchen that's on an airborne plane without wings. Not as tedious as Manos, not as trope-filled as Waterworld, decently paced, full of practical & digital effects, and a time capsule of post-TMNT studio trash. Despite trying to make some serious sense of Mario lore, it's barely recognizable as that IP. Bonkers.

May 24, 2026 • Watched

Whistle

May 23, 2026 • Watched

Undertone

This was a fun scary film. It reminded me a lot of sinister but with an even simpler setting. GOOD SHIT.

May 22, 2026 • Watched

Against All Odds

May 19, 2026 • Watched

Out of the Past

May 19, 2026 • Watched

Idiots and Angels

I like the concept & animation, but it's hardly enough to sustain a feature-length film. Even as someone who loves visual storytelling without dialogue and is on board with Bill Plympton's signature sense of humor and characterization, I found this pretty weak. The plot's thin, the people are stereotypes, and despite a 5-man animation team that's 60% women, it plays into sexist tropes from start to finish. Unfortunately, this belongs back in the 1980s when machismo satire got by without nuance.

May 19, 2026 • Watched

Ichi the Killer

I saw the unedited version of this with spilling guts & jugular sprays a-plenty, and it lives up to its grisly reputation. I suppose the extreme juxtaposition between the over-the-top violence and one character's underdeveloped, pathetic nature is a unique one, but I don't get much from it other than humor. Every person is despicable here. There's not even an antihero to connect with. It's better as a genre film then, and I winced while watching it, for sure. It's fine as pulpy grindhouse fare.

May 19, 2026 • Watched

The Plague Dogs

Quaint as this animation is, I'd like to see it on a big screen. It has a kind of pastoral quality to it despite its depressing premise. Out of the frying pan, into the fire. A couple of plot points require some suspension of disbelief, but otherwise, this holds a scarring, bleak reality within its fantasy-folk style. It's a little dry and long at points; it could probably have been a short film. For a naturalist animal fable about human progress and human evils, it's dour in the right ways.

May 11, 2026 • Watched

Project Hail Mary

If the charisma of this movie was in Nolan's Interstellar, we could have really had something. Gosling is great, of course, and the creative leads have extensive work in comedy and genre fiction. It's an ideal pairing for a studio hit, but personally, I found the compromises made in the science, plot, tone, dialogue, etc. detracted from the gravitas its source material seems to have had. Intellectually stimulating at times, eye-rolling popcorn fare at others. It's good, though. Worth the watch.

May 11, 2026 • Watched

The Last House on the Left

Is it sacrilege to say this movie kinda sucks? I don't care how much the soundtrack is purported to be an intentional tonal clash, it sucks at even that, especially since nothing else in the production is aware there's supposed to be one. Also a case where it's not method acting if the creep is legitimately a creep and the victim is legitimately a victim. Supposedly the shock factor -- very tame by today's metric -- was meant as a Reefer Madness style word of warning, but it's just exploitation.