If you thought YOUR family Christmas gatherings were dysfunctional, just watch The Lion in Winter, or read a sampling of my favorite quotes:

- "I'd hang you from the nipples, but you'd shock the children."
- "A king? Because you put your ass on purple cushions?"
- "Well, what shall we hang... the holly, or each other?"
- "Oh Eleanor, you've brought me my tombstone! You spoil me!"
- "I'm vilifying you for God's sake— pay attention!"

Peter O'Toole and Katharine Hepburn are a pairing made in heaven.

“THE STRANGEST AND MOST SAVAGE MANHUNT IN HISTORY!”

This poster tagline for The Big Clock isn’t an exaggeration. The plot is too wild for me to try to shortly summarize in this review, but the twists and turns of the story are just perfectly bizarre and delightful. A crazy ride, and I loved every second.

3.9/5

One thing I didn’t pay much attention to through all my rewatches in the past 4 years is how this film opens and closes with Theodore’s letters. The first one being an impersonal, distant version of him, a letter disguised as a form of intimacy and connection— but it’s all fake. We grow even more apart in this world despite its crowds of people and vast cityscapes, and the longing for something real is so overwhelming. Theodore embodies this longing so deeply, but, by his last letter, the beautiful words he writes ring true because he’s lived them.

Spike Jonze, please pay for my therapy bills.