As of now, X is the best movie of 2022.
It's a fantastic homage to 70s sex & violence-ploitation b-pics, avoiding any sort of meta crap and just hitting its beats perfectly.
On top of that, it provides a fascinating analysis and conversation on what sex means to both our popular culture and personal identities. It's an enthralling conflict of young vs. old age, puritanism vs. sexual liberalism, the confined yet secure familial home vs. dangerous yet alluring independence.
Oh, and…
Prologue: I saw a pre-screening of this with some friends from the Alternate Ending community at a dine-in brew pub theater in Madison, Wisconsin, for which I drove 140 minutes to attend. The experience was easily 5/5.
And in honor of this new super-long Batman movie, I'll now write a lengthy review of it.
So, to the length: The Batman is longer than my drive from Chicago to Madison, and *only* 100 minutes shorter than the…
This is possibly my favorite live action musical. This or Singin' in the Rain. Which is funny, because they couldn't be more opposite in tone.
Cabaret is near flawlessly executed in every single aspect. Liza Minnelli and Joel Grey are pitch-freaking perfect; both so endlessly fascinating to watch, and certainly deserved their Oscar wins (yes, even Joel Grey over Al Pacino).
While set in the real world, the actual cabaret is designed to be some ethereal, alien space that is…
Clearly, I'm in the minority here. But as soon as I saw the trailer, I had a strong suspicion this wasn't going to be for me.
Look, I'm a fan of Paul Thomas Anderson: There Will Be Blood is a Mount Olympus all-timer, Phantom Thread is excellent, and I strongly like The Master, Magnolia, and Boogie Nights. But Licorice Pizza is not in these tiers.
Here's what it does very well - PTA's crew have assembled a solid looking and…
If handled well, a complex movie that tests the viewer’s ability to perceive what they’re actually watching is extremely gratifying. Recent films like Titane, The Handmaiden, and Volver, and classics like Vertigo and L’Avventura are examples that wonderfully bend genre and tone, subverting viewers’ expectations more than once.
Paul Verhoeven’s filmography is a seminar in not just subversive, but transgressive cinema.
So, in his latest film, Benedetta, Verhoeven clearly proclaims the thesis that sexual and spiritual…
