Letterboxd — Your life in film

The spiritualism, ghost and haunting craze of the turn of the century is too often interpreted through the generic period-piece lens of fading nobility. But this largely urban social phenomenon did not reflect the death rattle of the landed aristocracy so much as the birth pangs of the middle classes, newly lonely in their private family households.

Loss of a single family member or relation became devastating as emotional and social scarcity spread, grief became a more defining psychic experience…

The very definition of a movie that’s Not For Me, so don’t listen to me on this. My brain has a hard time with fantasy stuff. Dune-heads seem to like this movie, and I’m happy for them.

I’m sorry to say that Denis Villeneuve very consistently creates worlds that I don’t enjoy spending time in. This one is nearly three hours of looking at desaturated desert landscapes and cavernous interiors that look like the biggest and most expensive Apple Store ever built.…

Alright, the time is now. After months of arguing with different people on this, it is time for me to finally articulate on Letterboxd why I have such massive disdain for this movie.

Anyone looking at my profile can see that I idolize the first Blade Runner, so a lot of people have asked me to clarify whether I hate this as a science-fi movie or as a Blade Runner sequel. The answer is: I think it fails on both…

Well-imagined with costume and productive design major standouts. That is something very lively about Wakanda, even though I wish the film showed more interest in the details of the society as a whole instead of focusing in the power struggles of the elite. Coogler is particular successful in turning something that was mostly white liberal guilt trip (the powerful super technological African paradise country from the comic origins) into a mythic origin idea that does have resonance (I think K…

68/100

Counterfactual thought exercises are tough. Tried very hard this time to imagine how I might respond to this were it not a sequel to a near-masterpiece (some of you will likely object to that qualifier), adhering to Hollywood's the-same-but-more dictum (actually codified in the title!). Trouble is, since no xenomorphs show up for a good long while, virtually all of the film's early power resides in Ripley's post-traumatic dread, which is entirely predicated on one's knowledge of what happened…

One of the myriad ways Hollywood's industrial production methods produce subpar cinema is by creating and marketing films as the creative output of a single artist: the director.

This has led to critics celebrating visually creative but directorially inert filmmakers as “auteurs.” Under a different system, these artists could make much better movies by maintaining creative control of the look, premise and design while someone else directs the actors, paces the film and places the camera. This list for me…

The storytelling here: unfortunate. To me, finally having checked out The Matrix sequels-but not The Animatrix; more on that later-that fact can finally be confirmed by myself. No wonder at least part of the fanbase felt disappointed by both after the huge (and unexpected) impact that the original had back in '99, a bold story that had a unique style and was presented in a relatively clear fashion and did not have laughable elements such as 100 clones of Agent…

The world in which this movie is funny is not this one. I get why Sacha Baron Cohen does this character and what he's trying to do with it. For someone that seems determined to hold a mirror up to the uglier parts of American society, though, Cohen really doesn't understand America or why things have gotten the way they are here now.

Back in 2006, it was a road trip through the South and its gaggles of dumbass neoconfederate…

The popular idea that comedy needs to “punch up” is too simplistic. It’s not always easy to figure out who has real power – the small army of cis male comics who think transphobia is the height of free thought are rather confused about it – or how to use humor to criticize Karens roaming Wal-Mart screaming at anyone with a mask on or empty female Instagram influencers without buying into sexist attitudes. (Look at how badly jokes about Britney…