Films I've Watched

One of my top Scorsese films. I hadn’t rewatched it in a good while, but what stuck me this time around is the way the editing constantly makes you feel unsettled as J-cuts and intercutting keep you from ever really relaxing into a scene.

This one is a bit hard for me to judge. It’s one of those cases where first I saw the parody (The Three Amigos) of the adaptation (The Magnificent Seven) well before I got to the ur-example. And since both of those other films are so great, it’s really hard to get them out of my head when watching this film. Still Kurasawa is one of the greats for a reason. His visual poetry is all the more noticeable for the comparison to those other movies.

An all-time favorite. Twisted, funny, psychological, satirical. Perfect shots and perfect cuts. Brilliant.

A movie so weird it could only have been made in the 80s! A family film filled with grotesque horror and uncomfortable sexual innuendo! Tim Burton before CGI!

In the past, I never liked movies that tugged too much at the heart strings. I suppose I’m going soft as I age, because this one got me good.

I love The Last Kingdom, so I was excited for the epic film to end it all. Unfortunately, the movie feels like they tried to cram a whole season of the show into less than two hours. I could see how the story might work if the events, the relationships, and the emotions had time to breathe, but the plot beats keep coming, one after the other. Too bad. It’s not the worst ending to a beloved series, but it’s not all I hoped it could be.

Sometimes a movie is chock full of all the familiar tropes but it has such a unique flavor and perspective that it feels entirely original. The formula of Road House is the classic western story of a badass who comes into town to clean up the place and runs afoul of the corrupt local powers that be. But it walks this really interesting line between all out camp and meditation on whether one can be masculine and gentle at the same time.

Pain don’t hurt.

A meticulously directed film that escalates from a dry and subtle satire into something surprising and frenetic. Compare to Parasite and The Menu in all the best ways.

Epic, sumptuous, and powerful. There are a number of shots and edits in this film that rank among the greatest of all time.

Not a great movie. Perhaps not even a very good one. But it’s feel-good nostalgia for me.

Jailhouse Rock is perhaps more interesting as a historical artifact than it is enjoyable as a movie. It’s fascinating how unglamorous and even unsympathetic Elvis’ protagonist is allowed to be, especially compared to his more vacuous later filmography. Also intriguing is the ways in which his character’s rise to fame, transition to Hollywood, and ultimate alienation as a result mirror Elvis’ own life. It’s too bad that he wasn’t able to read the film as an omen and extricate himself from that path.

A classic I’d somehow never seen before now, and brilliant all the same. Funny, painful, and heartbreaking. (And also very similar to Cool Hand Luke.)

This film feels like a Neil Gaiman story, all about myth and narrative and heartbreak. The script is a bit uneven and the directing leans into the cartoonish, which is a shame because it might otherwise have been really effective.

This is one of the most fan-servicey films I’ve ever seen, apart from the intolerable Ready Player One. Still, I actually enjoyed it more than most of the other Marvel movies I’ve watched in the last few years. I suppose I have a soft spot for young, always in over his head, always anchored to his moral center Peter Parker.

I don’t go in much for romantic comedies, which I find to be generally formulaic and saccharine, but Nora Ephron’s oeuvre is more charming and genuinely funny than most.

I think I might have enjoyed this more if I could just stop comparing it against Singin’ in the Rain. They have a lot in common: loose plotting interspersed with delightful song-and-dance numbers and an extended, highly abstract ballet sequence toward the end, not to mention Gene Kelly at the center of it all. But, despite the excellent Gershwin score, this one seems like a dress rehearsal for the masterpiece that Singin’ in the Rain turned out to be.

This is one of my all time favorite films. It’s about music and talent and jealousy and vengeance. It’s deftly directed and emotively acted and just perfect.

I admit that I never finished this one. It’s trying to be about something, but whatever that is gets buried under the weight of endless CGI bust-em-ups and whatever spinoff origin stories the studio mandated. The MCU gets staler w.ith each new film.

An overlong movie that falls prey to many of the common pitfalls of the biopic genre, but Baz Lurmann’s signature kineticism and Butler’s portrayal of The King make it a thoroughly enjoyable film.

Subtle and emotional. Brilliantly shot by Roger Deakins and brilliantly acted by Olivia Colman. I can only guess that those who reviewed it so poorly were looking for a more ham-fisted theme than the subtle arc of three wounds mending. Not a perfect script, but thoroughly immersive.

Like most Branagh films, this one is stagey, over the top, and lacking in subtlety of any kind.

This isn’t a full review, but I will dwell on one particular gripe: Rather than letting trusting in the humor of the play itself, one of Shakespeare’s most truly funny characters, Dogberry, is ruined by wacky choices like having him ride an invisible horse, Monty Python style. All it does is distract.

Rather long and meandering, but still one of the best things Senior Spielbergo has done in a long time. It has plenty of his signature schmaltziness, some great character moments, and for once Janusz Kamiński’s cinematography doesn’t look like digitally color-corrected vomit.

Suspenseful, twisted, and a lot of fun at the same time. Not a one-hundred percent perfect script, but the directing, performances, and satirical nightmarishness more than make up for any small flaws.

So much unhinged fun. All kinds of wacky themed gremlins, all running amok… in New York!