I guess I will have to spend the rest of my life wondering what it was like to see this sparkling pop artifact among fellow gobsmacked strangers in 1992. Borrows plenty from De Palma, sure, but I tend to think of his movies almost purely in their images—their rapturous construction, their unreliability, the frame’s physical space, etc—where Verhoeven’s film seems more plugged into an American lineage of genre imo. Hitchcock with a Parental Advisory sticker slapped on is too pithy…

If this was seen as Clive Owen’s Bond audition, I’m not surprised he failed to secure the bag! He’s far too cold and antisocial, his gaze too vacant. Sure, Craig’s Bond ended up bringing those sociopathic tendencies to the fore unlike previous Bonds but I don’t think he could’ve pulled off the smaller stuff. Things like Craig adjusting his cuff links after an outrageous parkour move or his playful queer sparring with Javier Bardem. The gonzo juvenilia of Shoot 'Em…

• Tarantino, like PTA with Magnolia, made a young man’s old man film, an elegy to vinyl in the jewel case era. (Fitting that Max compromises with a cassette.) It’s somewhat self-fulfilling that a director making something about the difficulty of aging, of being a walking relic, would immediately retreat into the past — or pastiche — for the rest of his career. Reappraisal has hardened into consensus (on LB, anyway) but the trajectory his career would’ve taken had this…