Films I've Watched

Isolation, paranoia, and some of the best creature effects ever put on film. This may be John Carpenter’s magnum opus.

A movie that’s so iconic that the uneven script and rushed ending almost don’t matter. Subversive, funny, poignant, and just generally awesome. And the alleyway fight between Roddy Piper and Keith David is possibly the greatest thing in the history of the world.

One of my personal feel-good classic comedies. Delightful in every way.

Definitely a fun and generally effective return to the world of Inside Out, and the idea of the rise of Anxiety as a controlling force in early puberty is apt as all getout. But it lacks the focus and much of the emotional punch of the first film,

A great voice cast, memorable character designs, and a willingness not to shy away from the dark and disturbing make this a really unique and enjoyable take on the classic tale. My only real critique is that it’s not very successful as a musical; the songs are forgettable and the staging of the numbers is rather uninspired.

A lively comedy of errors with some nice tap dancing numbers and some surprisingly risque pre-code elements. The direction and numbers aren’t nearly as sophisticated as Hollywood musicals would become in just a few short years, but you have to walk before you can run.

Driven by the charisma of the band, the distinctive absurdist mid-century British wit, and the timeless songs of The Beatles, this film what this film doesn’t have in plot, it makes up in charm.

Silly though the show always was, I’ve long felt a connection to Monk, this OCD germophobe who still manages to be brilliant and driven and gets the job done when the chips are down. Rooting for him always felt a little like rooting for my own ability to cope with those same challenges.

That made it pretty sad to me to see that in this return to the screen the character is at an all time low and thinking of ending it all. The mystery is classic Monk fair, but seeing him in a less desperate place would have made this a more joyful reprise.

This movie is fun to watch, with a nice twisty plot and charismatic leads. But the script is somewhat underrated and the ending unsatisfying. Not one of Linklater’s best, but worth watching anyhow.

As fun, bloody, violent action films go, this one stands out for its simple self-aware (but not self-referential) joyfulness. Like a Paul Verhoven film, but with less overt satire. The protagonists have only very minor arcs as characters, the stakes are blessedly non-world-threatening, and it’s just a hell of a lot of fun to watch Dredd fight his way through a hundred or so bad guys while never batting an eye (behind that helmet he never takes off for the entire film).

A movie that has long held an influential place in my psyche, the sheer visual imagination of Metropolis is enough to regard it as a masterwork. The layers of symbology and phantasmagorical richness make it watchable time and again.

Not as good as their first movie, but the humor is still there and I laughed a lot. Watching it was kind of like seeing an old friend—a very stupid, silly old friend.

There’s a lot of great dialogue and some really funny banter in this film. The setup is poignant, especially given that it was made during the depths of the Great Depression. I only wish the satirical theme hadn’t gotten a little lost in the last act.

Bizarre, unique, strangely funny, Kinds of Kindness is exactly the sort of film I expect to see from Yorgos Lanthimos. Which is to say, I have no idea what to expect at all. Not quite the masterwork that Poor Things was, this anthology of three off kilter tales takes you places you never expect to go and is anchored by the same few players knocking it out of the park in each one.

Not Judge’s greatest film, but certainly iconic. Oft criticized as cynical and judgemental, it’s still alarmingly apt in its satire of the worst elements of American culture.

In many ways a standard example of 50s B movies, but elevated by sound design, cinematic composition, directorial flair, and a post Hiroshima nuclear subtext. There are moments that are lyrical and even haunting in this monster-smashes-city flick.

The special effects are mostly quite impressive, with fantastic matte shots and effective use of miniatures. Except for when the miniatures are adorably obvious.

Not as well crafted and dazzlingly epic as Leone’s later films, but still damn iconic and masterful.

George Miller just keeps making Mad Max movies better and better. This is very different than the previous film, epic in a completely opposite way, less action but more intensity. Wonderfully operatic. It’ll take me a while to process all the sensory input, but it’s one I know I’ll watch again soon.

Not as much a comedy as the trailer suggests, but a timely concept. Still the core of the film is less in the exploration of the concept and more in the fairly bare bones character study. Where it really fails is when it attempts to get meta textual at the end — it’s funny but not at all at home with the established tone.

It’s fascinating to see Hitchcock’s remakes of his own early films. There’s so much that’s similar, down to a few very specific shots. But his growth and maturity in his art are very apparent on the screen, especially in the ways he achieves cinematic tension and the climactic concert in the Albert Hall is a masterclass.

An exercise in subtle cinematic tension and a play-like little bottle drama. Not one of Hitchcock’s masterworks, but very well done.

The oscar-bait script is an incredibly by-the-numbers take on this fascinating story. But the direction is competent and the use of color is pretty good. And it’s one of Alexandre Desplat’s more memorable scores.

Just such a well told story with perfect directing choices. From Pacino’s performance to the lack of score to the use of diegetic sound design in its place, every element lands with maximum effect. Wonderful characterization and wonderful pacing.

The new Dune films are incredibly well done. The directing, acting, effects, production design, cinematography, and score are all artful and impressive. The world is textured, intriguing, and layered. But—and I say this not having read the book—there is something lacking in the personal element. Everything is just so epic, mythic even, that I find myself wanting something intimate and human to counterbalance all that spectacle and grand drama.

Now that I’ve seen both films, I’ll finally read the novel, and I bet I might find some of that missing element in those pages.