Letterboxd — Your life in film

...fan of the novel and impressed by many aspects of this production; that said, my star rating will probably decline the more I think about this film. I won't constantly be updating it, so you won't be able to tell; hence the caveat now.

Its stupefying, pulpy excess is best summed up by the fact that the credits include the role "Drug Lab Guard #21."

Absolutely loved this. Super-smart in both conception and execution, the film provides the giddy sense of never knowing where it'll head in the next five minutes--and the assurance that those in the driver's seat know exactly where they're taking you.

Can fully understand it if others don't like this as much as I do; my reasons for liking it tend to be idiosyncratic.

Quite solid for a kids' flick and waaaay better than the insipid trailer would have you expect. Stunning, especially early on, and yet oddly underproduced in some ways--which actually works. And funny. --okay, that's it: now it's time for you to hit "unfollow."

Yep, there are reasons to be leery of this remake. Alexandre Aja's sensibility meshed with William Lustig's? Joe Spinell's compelling homeliness replaced by Elijah Wood's cuteness? To his credit, however, director Franck Khalfoun expertly leverages these apparent contradictions to create an original and striking portrait of, well, the ultimate "creepy guy." And then there's Maniac's impressive commitment to its subjective camerawork: just imagine Robert Montgomery in The Lady in the Lake except every time a woman enters his field of vision he's tempted to attack her savagely. A flawless pic? Nope. But far more successful than anyone could reasonably expect.

...a bit too close to "Noriko's Dinner Table" in terms of basic premise, and lacking the powerful ending it's clearly shooting for, "Alps" is effective largely because of Lanthimos's terrific direction. An acquired taste? Maybe. Guess I've acquired it.

The most satisfying DCAU release in a while -- or maybe I just love how the series happens to handle the Superman mythos, making it not just compelling but newly relevant and often awe-inspiring. As a bonus, Pauley Perrette's raspy voice as Lois Lane nicely recalls Margot Kidder without seeming like an imitation.