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I'm confident in calling this one of the best V/H/S installments overall (though I haven't yet seen V/H/S: Beyond to determine its place). It's not exactly a difficult bar to clear, given the haphazard nature of anthology films and the incredible subjectivity of the horror genre, but there isn't a total dud to be found here across the five segments.

There's Something Wrong with the Letterboxd s (because this is definitely better than the 2.2 star average would suggest)

Relentless and pervasive "film school" vibes radiating off this. Hol up, you mean to tell me two young filmmakers who met in film school made a low-budget horror film in the woods of Southern California? Say it ain't so.

The attempt to off the film-within-the-film as a piece of lost media from the 1970s is laughable at best. It hits every mark: obvious digital cinematography, bad lighting, bad sound, obvious filters to emulate grain or scratches (but no cigarette burns), low-effort costuming—it's all there. The Satanic through-line is really goofy; if one spends about five minutes reading about actual horror films from the 1970s, the cultural rise of Satanism from the late-1960s through the mid-1990s, or, idk, world history, you'll see how fucking off-the-mark these filmmakers are.

The supposedly-cursed fictional film presented within Antrum is framed as being from Soviet-controlled Budapest, Hungary, around the same time they gave us the utterly demonic Rubik's Cube. As such, the film inexplicably opens with modern, Western-style titles, but the cast and/or crew names are in Cyrillic. But only the names of the cast or crew—their role or job title is presented in English. Why? Additionally, the end credits claim that the English dialogue was dubbed in over the "original" language, even though all of the characters' lines are performed in English. It just doesn't make a lot of sense to me to commit to making a film like this, but put such a low amount of effort into aesthetic choices that do actually matter.

Not to out myself as a hack, but this was maybe a half-measure higher quality than the kinds of "horror films" I was making and screening in high school. Delusional ambitions paired with no budget, bad actors, the woods, a digital camcorder, and a silly, overwrought narrative that can't even be fully realized. Ugh.

Sure, it's contrived and ugly and it makes very little sense relative to its predecessor and it's full of horrible fake American accents and it's a movie about the orcs that live in the Mines of Moria with worse make-up, BUT consider this: the first one isn't very good either.

Minus half a star for some of the laziest sound editing I've ever heard in my life. Using straight-up unfiltered, unprocessed animal noises from a stock library as SFX vocalizations for the cave creatures like I'm not gonna be able to hear the same walrus/camel/bear effects that have comprised, like, every creature in movies since the 1960s. Come on now.

It's fine enough as an introduction to retro game collecting for someone completely unaware, but, aside from there being way too much stock footage in use and not nearly enough variety of interviewees, it offers little novelty for anyone remotely aware of the subject or anyone who isn't particularly interested in the NES, SNES, or SEGA Genesis libraries.

I'm tired of retro gaming being relegated to cartridges and bleepy-bloopy pixels. I appreciate that there was some inclusion of PlayStation 2 collectors, but there wasn't much discussion about what the world of retro games collecting looks like outside of the 1980s and early 1990s. The Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 are retro now! I wanna see who's been driving up the price of the Splatterhouse remake and X-Men Origins: Wolverine - Uncaged Edition.

Should have been a YouTube video/10

The world is a lesser place without this guy.

Very quietly moving. There's a tremendous atmosphere and tone established from the start that I find very compelling.

More like "Boring Same World" idk man I fell asleep

Tiresome and derivative.

Watched on Saturday May 31, 2025.

Terrible

??? Wha

The '40s pastiche is so damn good when Soderbergh handles things; it's so embarrassing that it took David Fincher so long to do his own 1940s throwback with Mank and it looks and sounds worse than this film.

George Clooney and Tobey Maguire were made to be in '40s motion pictures; it just makes too damn much sense. Maguire, especially, is going sicko mode for his role. To a lesser extent, I'd say the same about Cate Blanchett, but I dunno, she doesn't shine here the same way she did in The Aviator, for example.

Thomas Newman's score feels authentic to the period, though inarguably more bombastic and with more range, simply due to modern audio quality.

It's a really fun, random bit of Soderbergh's varied filmography. Soderbergh tha god.

Unbalanced and a bit unfocused. Probably could have used another script revision before declaring it "good to go", because there's some blisteringly unfunny stuff here. But it kept winning me back, so I stuck around and found that the final 1/3rd of the film was easily the strongest, funniest, and most consistently-paced part of the entire project.

Sometimes the ironically-detached white neolib condescension can be a bit overbearing, but Holofcenter always manages to rein things in before they get truly egregious. It's a fine line, though, between it presenting as self-parody and just becoming actual rich white lady whining.

Still, a lot that ends up working well here and that I like! Just wish it was a bit more tightly focused and consistent. And funny. Needs better jokes.

Yeah.....not much you can really do in that scenario. Cute kid.

Quietly hiding some real gut-punch performances and more relatable moments than I was expecting. Overflowing with charm and heart, expectedly quite funny, and unexpectedly taps into moments of real, harrowing darkness. The Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross score is okay, though kinda feels like the leftover scraps from Reznor's The Social Network score, but it's the soundtrack that's really damn good. The 1990s simulacra is probably the most effective I've seen yet from a film, with a real eye for detail and full commitment to authenticity which also means this film earns the coveted "Correct Amount of Slurs Award for Narrative Excellence" from the mike hotdog Accredited School for Winning at Movies. Sadly, there's not much winning the slur award can do for how fucking terrible some of the sound design is—bizarrely low-bitrate stock sound effects for punches being the main offender, but there's some very echo-heavy ADR as well.

Means well, wears its influences on its sleeve, and technically roughshod. It's a strong 3.5, leaning to a 4 because some of it just hit right.

Some truly sublime modern-day Americana.

If a film like Spring Breakers is, in part, a feverish, hallucinatory nightmare about the suffusion of lust and greed in the stickier, sweatier parts of the American South, then Red Rocket is of the same mold—splashy, garish, imbued with the ecstatic numbing agents of pop music and internet pornography, the only identifiable guiding principle originating from ancient Shaolin masters: Cash Rules Everything Around Me.

But, while as lurid or rife with larger-than-life characters as Korine's neon St. Petersburg, Florida hellscape, Sean Baker's vision of the Texas Gulf Coast is distinctly more tender, more empathetic, and more rooted in an authentic here-and-now reality, further driving home the intense unreality within which washed-up adult film star Mikey comports himself. This country is full of walking, talking black holes like him—nefariously self-obsessed, void of conscience, they are hustlers borne of a culture rooted in slip 'n' fall schemes. Mikey only knows how to do a few things: manipulate, fuck, sell weed, and yap. But he's the goddamn Pelé of manipulating, fucking, dealing, AND wheeling—or, at least, that's what he'll tell you, which is all that matters. Anyone with the means to do so will not put up with Mikey's shit, thus he preys on those with literally nothing left to give (his estranged wife), the impoverished and elderly (his mother-in-law), the pliable youth (the almost-18-year-old girl he sees as his meal ticket and entry back into the porn industry), and anyone else susceptible to his special brand of self-aggrandizing chatter.

This is a man deep into a decades-long series of downward spirals and bad mistakes; he's a human hurricane with a 9-inch-cock (soft) and he's eroding the foundation of every relationship he's ever had and ever starts. This is not a man who simply burns a bridge: he'll burn a bridge, rebuild it, burn it again, and he'll do his damnedest to make you feel bad about it too. This is the former Mikey Sabre's America, and here, he is a faultless man, whose grievances stem from other peoples' failures. It's actually your fault that you got used up and discarded like a Capri Sun. Bitch.

Also notable here is Baker's painterly use of Super 16mm film, which lends the film a fuzzy, soft-edged patina that elevates the film to an ethereal plane, and the handheld camera work is no less than exhilarating—especially when the edit allows for dynamic tilts and zooms when least expected.

Frankly, I get huge Werner Herzog vibes from this and, in retrospect, Baker's other work I've seen.

Everybody gangsta until a Green Man starts asexually reproducing in their front garden 🙄

Superb. What a score, what beautiful photography, what outfits and glasses! Another casual Soderbergh home-run and a welcome sophisticated cousin to his other "just fuckin' around" spy flicks: Haywire and The Good German. When a director nails a good Koepp script??? Mmhmm, that's the shit I do like! Cash money, and so forth.

Marisa Abela.......respectfully.....hello

Yeah, this sure is a feature film. No one would ever guess unprompted that it was directed by the Gibster, mostly because it's toothless and unengaging and has some really stupid writing.

As much fun as it is to see America's favorite pious, yet humble "rise 'n' grind" icon Mark Wahlberg pretend to be a psychotic, bald mob hitman, the man is simply not a character actor and I don't think he's got it in him to be one. Marky Mark does not have the required sauce.

Michelle Dockery and Topher Grace are...in this. It's not like they've got much to work with; their characters don't even amount to full outlines. Mel probably condensed it down to three bullet points each. Topher is left to "do his thing"—mild sarcasm, wry vamping, and/or panicking. Whatever, he's fine. I can believe him as a mob-d ant who literally lives in his Mom's basement, though he doesn't look like a "Winston" to me.

Michelle Dockery's character, whose name I actually cannot , is U.S. Marshal Serious Lady with Tragic Backstory. She constantly fucks up and seems terrible at her job, but at least she's tenacious? Neither Winston nor U.S. Marshal Serious Lady with Tragic Backstory appear to have functional peripheral vision, or really any sort of animal instinct that gives one the willies as a crouched, bald Mark Wahlberg shuffles up the small plane to either do a rape or a moidah.

Stupid fucking movie in almost every way that you wouldn't want it to be. What're we doin' here, Mel?

My first Samuel Fuller picture and it's a doozy! What economical story-telling! There's a full television miniseries' worth of character development, action, and drama stuffed into the 80-minute run-time, and, while I'm sure a languorous, minutely-detailed variant of this narrative would appeal to many, the fast-clip "highlight reel-only" pacing of Fuller's film comes across as an unsurprising result of his pre-film careers as a crime reporter in NYC and as a pulp novelist. You hit the right notes, you hit 'em hard, and you don't worry about the extraneous crap, or something like that.

Thus, "Forty Guns" is an all-killer, no-filler Western; hard-nosed, cynical, and often unexpectedly forward-thinking—even if it cannot shake the vestiges of some 1950s Hollywoodisms, namely Jidge Carroll's singing cowboy (although his sound is pleasantly akin to Marty Robbins, of whom I am a very big fan), and an allegedly studio-mandated happy ending. But, golly, does so much of the film just work! It's not until further reflection that some of the narrative "looseness" becomes apparent, but, at that point, Sam Fuller's already won.

Barbara Stanwyck at 49 looked better than basically anyone in history has under 30. Or over 30. Goddamn, woman!

Switzerland as Purgatory for a beleaguered, but eternally hopeful Italian itinerant worker. There's a dry wit and a rueful tone that counter-balances bawdier, more outlandish elements and moments throughout. Spectacularly unique post-war vibes and anxieties being dealt with here that clueless Yankees like myself rarely, if ever, get a chance to explore on a deeper level.

Most importantly, it asks: can't a fella just take a quick leak in public, for the love of God?!

Didn't have the emotional wherewithal to finish this film, which was mostly dreadfully unfunny. A bizarrely stacked cast can neither hide the first-time directorial idiosyncrasies, nor are they able to do anything effectively with the clunky tone that's equally reverent of Gen X nostalgia, jarringly crass, and impossibly saccharine when one most expects it.

Also, you can't be ing off Atlanta as the Pacific Northwest—it just doesn't work. I know they shot in Atlanta for tax reasons, to which I say: grow up.

Watched on Tuesday May 27, 2025.

Leo Bloom: a baddie on the spectrum

Oh, the ennui!

Leave it to Robert Zemeckis to make an extraordinarily poorly-paced and weirdly-structured two and a half hour long movie that serves as the ultimate "both sides"-ism argument in the eternal push-and-pull between observable scientific phenomena and religious faith. Underpinning everything is an awful saccharine score from Alan Silvestri, way too much digitally-altered CNN footage, and two very miscast leads (ultimately, this turns out to be a lesser sin compared to John Hurt's performance, which seems to be for a very different kind of film).

Reddit-ass movie for weepy Neil DeGrass Tyson adherents. The more I reflect on it, the more I actively dislike it. Zemeckis: the ultimate gimmick filmmaker.

God, they really don't make movies the same way anymore (entertaining)

It's not a bad movie, per se, but it is kind of a hollow and ungainly interpretation of Jon Krakauer's superior written of the 1996 Mount Everest disaster, "Into Thin Air". It never succeeds in finding, and I'm so sorry for this, the right footing between being a man-vs.-nature melodrama and a sobering real-life of one of Earth's most perilous locales. There's also a sizably star-studded cast that feels largely wasted on the underdeveloped characters and strangely-paced narrative. Inexplicably, Sam Worthington and Jason Clarke are great here. But big names aside, there's not much of a reason to watch this.

Mass hysteria and moral panics are foundational aspects of the human experience. Our primate brains are wired to indulge selfishness, to never it fault, to double-down when pushed on a question. Our primate brains are also very, very bad at keeping track of memories; save for an anomalous few, most of us are stuck with vague recollections of people, places, and events that only splinter, distort, and meld with the advance of time. That's why it doesn't take a whole lot, ultimately, for something like the Satanic Panic of the 1980s, McCarthyism and the Lavender Scare of the 1940s and 1950s, the anti-Catholic panic in America during mid-19th century, or today's panics about QAnon or LGBT "grooming" or what have you, to occur and spread like a wildfire, causing untold damage on a broad scale.

We will, in one form or another, always be facing this kind of nonsense. What I appreciate about this documentary is that, instead of serving as a Wikipedia-page-in-motion about the entirety of the Satanic Panic, it focuses in on the story behind the at-the-time wildly popular book "Michelle Re", which introduced the world to Michelle Smith, her psychiatrist Lawrence Pazder, and the term "Satanic ritual abuse", which was allegedly what Michelle underwent as a child. Naturally, everything to do with the Satanic Panic would all get immensely out-of-hand for over a decade before rational voices began to prevail, but perhaps nothing seems more fascinating and salacious than Michelle and Lawrence's collaboration, which also snowballed into an exceptionally boundary-breaking, unprofessional intimate relationship and eventual marriage.

Because Lawrence is long-since deceased, and Michelle has no interest in speaking about her experience, nobody is quite sure what to think or how to feel. To the film's credit, we are given a variety of differing perspectives about both parties' individual personalities and actions, as well as their unusual dynamics together. It's evident that neither party was necessarily 100% right or 100% wrong in what they did, but more so that both of them were deeply lost in their own unique ways and culpable for some amount of what occurred. At the end of the day, I felt the worst for Lawrence's ex-wife and abandoned daughter, and I got an impression that a more sinister through-line may have existed in Lawrence's actions.

A very goopy movie, really swinging for the fences with this one. Gallons of red-colored muck splashing every which way. I found myself laughing a lot at gags that feel designed by a version of Sam Raimi that requires a lot of medication, but doesn't take any. Visually and tonally, it's the grotesque, mutated baby of "Evil Dead 2" and "Re-Animator"—with an unmistakable H.P. Lovecraft influence. A lot of the shot composition is straight out of the pages of splashy pulp comic book. Like much of his work, this film is Peter Jackson's love letter to the films that excited him as a youth, molded his tastes and interests, and inspired his filmmaking career. And Jackson treated this like he was never gonna get another chance to make a film again. He went for every possible thing his budget allowed for. A splendid bevvy of practical effects in every form: minatures, models, make-up, puppets, forced perspective shots with men in costumes, stop-motion animation, by God it's a beautiful, horrible sight to behold.

Pure Kiwi excellence.

Under the shadows of Allied bombers, a little German boy named Dieter Dengler once decided, in a moment of revelatory exhilaration, that he needed to fly, and so he did. From beneath the ashes and rubble of a bombed-out, post-WWII Europe, Dengler forged his path to becoming a pilot. Before long, Dieter was a pilot for the United States Navy. When the world tried to strip him of his ability to command the skies, he wrestled it back with steely Teutonic resolve, time and time again.

Werner Herzog's 1997 documentary "Little Dieter Needs to Fly" (the title comes from Dengler recounting his first encounter with an American P-51 Mustang as a child and the inception of what was to be his true calling) is one of several films by the director that are, in some way, a thoughtful, multi-faceted portrait of a man. Dieter Dengler, though, is neither of the same breed as the rabid molester, raving lunatic, & frequent early-Herzog collaborator: German thespian Klaus Kinski, nor is he fully of deceased grizzly bear activist Timothy Treadwell's stock—though it is interesting to note similarities between Dengler and Treadwell, such as a shared feeling of being bound-by-duty, a sense of justice channelled by trauma, and the early arrival of a life-long ion or calling. I get the impression that when Herzog got to know Dengler, beyond the trappings of a middle-aged European man, he understood that the furnace of Dieter's inner-life was fueled solely by his love of flight. With a genuine tenderness, Herzog facilitates this examination of Dieter Dengler, who himself travels to various locales to reenact moments from his own past with shocking composure and good humor.

Herzog, himself a German man of about the same age, clearly ires Dieter and shares a feeling of kinship with him owed to their similar experiences growing up in post-war with single mothers (Dengler's father was killed during the war on the Eastern Front and Herzog's father abandoned the family early in his life). Herzog appears to be very taken with Dengler's seemingly endless well of determination, as this is really what defines so much of Dengler's worldview and colors his, frankly, fucking insane and seemingly-implausible life experiences. Dieter's childhood growing up hardscrabble appears to have perfectly trained the man to withstand an exceptionally high degree of physical discomfort, including literal Viet Cong "bamboo under the fingernails"-style torture, extended starvation, being hit and kicked innumerable times, being hung upside down in a well shaft, and the extreme conditions of jungle survival and injuries obtained therein. Naturally, an older Dengler himself recounts all of these instances to the audience in this documentary with a twinkle in his eye and a slightly unsettling, exceptionally German enthusiasm. Having borne witness to starving civilians scraping out the insides of trash cans with spoons as a child, it is readily apparent that Dengler was, for at least his lifetime, the final boss of Post Traumstic Stress Disorder. And he didn't just have PTSD: this man was PTSD. In this film, there are sections where he's back in Laos, where he was a prisoner-of-war in the mid-1960s, and Herzog is having him escorted through the jungle by a cadre of baffled Laotian dudes in football jerseys (side-note: would love to hang out with those dudes, drink a fuck-ton of Singha or Chang, go nutso on the BBQ and som tam, fuck around with the football, etc.) wielding Chinese Kalashnikov knock-offs, and Dengler's got his fucking hands bound. He's just big chillin', though, don't worry. I've stopped breathing two full minutes ago in anticipation of Herzog capturing a Vietnam vet meltdown, meanwhile Dengler's just joking with all the little elderly guys, saying shit like "it's just a movie, don't worry" in his strong German accent whenever someone shows any hesitation, and demonstrating how to free oneself from handcuffs or start a jungle fire with a jovial enthusiasm that you'd expect more from your "eccentric" uncle who wants to show you his model train set-up.

The man casually describes enduring unimaginable circumstances and never shies away from acknowledging the extreme difficulty, but remains impossibly composed all the same. If I crashed my plane and I ended up as a POW in Laos for an extended period of time, I would never be in a second plane crash, because the good Lord Himself could attest to the fact that I would never again step foot on any type of aeroplane, gyrocopter, dirigible, zeppelin, hot air balloon, or hypothetical spaceship. Sky Captain Dieter Dengler, survivor of his first plane crash (caused by losing a wing to anti-aircraft weapon damage), survivor of his subsequent capture, imprisonment, and escape, opted to pursue a career as a test pilot after an early retirement from the United States Navy. Because Dengler was incapable of doing anything "the easy way", he would go on to crash a plane FOUR more times as a test pilot and walk away each time, unscathed. He flew commercial planes for a period as well, before retiring. Of course, he would never stop flying, and so he continued to fly recreationally, allegedly taking part in air shows purely for the love of the game, like a 78-year-old VP of Operations at a mid-level supermarket corporation who simply cannot and will not retire.

Herzog's 1997 film ends sometime in that post-employment period of Dengler's life; a pretty upbeat and cheerful ending for the film, where Dengler finds himself surrounded by airplanes as far as the eye can see in this little dreamlike moment. I appreciate that they captured that moment, and that it's preserved on film—because the actual ending to Dieter's story is slightly less happy.

In 2001, Dieter Dengler was sixty-two years old, living next to a German restaurant he had once owned, just a handful of miles north of San Francisco. Early in the year, Dieter would be diagnosed with ALS (commonly known as Lou Gherig's disease), a terminal neurodegenerative disorder that immediately disqualified Dengler from piloting an aircraft ever again; inevitably, the disorder would have erased Dengler's ability to speak about flying and tell his stories, prevented him from eating (something that comes up a few times in the film is how the horrible eating conditions and starvation caused Dengler to love eating and making food, but also causes him to hoard it), and wiped out all his memories and knowledge of flight, airplanes, of his life experiences, and his family, all before his brain forgot how to breathe. Death did not want Dieter Dengler in 1965 or any subsequent year when he surely reasonably should have died. Death was here for Dieter when he wasn't expecting it.

In his typically defiant, unusually principled way, Dieter Dengler, confined to a wheelchair, wheeled himself from his home, down a highway, and into the driveway of a fire station on the morning of February 07, 2001. He killed himself with a single shot, and, thus, Dieter Dengler flew no more.

My only real gripe with this movie is that Herzog recorded his voice-over on what sounds like two tin cans on a wire.

Watched this absolutely geeked off the white wine and 100mg of THC, which is a pretty ideal way to consume this very goofy, by-the-numbers "group of loser friends in their 20s realize that friendship is valuable" type of comedy. The whole thing is very much propped up with a litany of inside jokes, absurd hyper-specific references (there's a very inspired Soulja Boy through-line), and a handful of familiar and amusing comedic actors. Sometimes a film being made this way is a recipe for disaster, but here it succeeds because the three main leads (also the film's writers) are very, very funny and their actual friendship, dynamics, and inside jokes are genuinely compelling.

Tradítsiya, poslushániya, udovletvoreniye, i takzhe khoroshaya sobaka.

No words for this one yet. I have so many things to write about this that I think it's going to turn into a larger writing project. What a picture this is though, my God.

Positively fucking awful dreck. Unmistakable "first year of film school" vibes radiating from every single moment of this horribly-written-and-directed "action movie", wherein all of the "action" is carelessly choreographed and is so digitally manipulated that these guys should have just made a goddamn animated movie. There are, like, forty named characters in the film and they all suck. I think every single person here might be completely and hopelessly miscast; I know some of these actors aren't terrible, but they've got absolutely naught to work with.

Avoid at all costs. One of the Property Brothers plays a realtor in this.

Watched on Wednesday May 14, 2025.

Watched on Wednesday May 14, 2025.

Miss Liza is an icon, to be sure, but this was exceptionally formless and meandering for a feature about someone who's still alive. It does kind of feel like everyone around her is just waiting for her to die, which is kind of an uncomfortable vibe.

Watched on Monday May 5, 2025.

Quite possibly Brosnan's best Bond film of the '90s (and probably his most '90s film), with the only real competition being "GoldenEye"—which, while largely overrated, is still head-and-shoulders above "The World is Not Enough" and the unforgivable stretch of boring nothingness that extends from its second act through until the climax.

"Tomorrow Never Dies" lacks some of the panache and ferocity found in Martin Campbell's "GoldenEye", but director Roger Spottiswoode's journeyman approach to the material allows for the characters and action sequences to shine. Brosnan has settled comfortably in the role, no longer the brand-new face, and I could even make the argument that this is his strongest portrayal of the character across his four-film tenure. Decisively playing off of Brosnan's cool and collected demeanor, Johnathan Pryce is practically glowing from how much fun he's having as one of the more openly-unstable Bond villains (and, alarmingly, one of the most realistic villains in the series—whose relevance has only increased into the 21st century). Bond's backstory with Teri Hatcher's Paris Carver is compelling and their chemistry is dynamite, though, of course, Michelle Yeoh eventually steals the show as a Chinese agent who has no problem keeping up with Bond. She is, in no small part, responsible for some of the most kinetic, exciting fight choreography and stunt work in any of Brosnan's Bond films.

The ing cast and bit players are rife with a number of actors who would go on to become bigger names in the late '90s and into the 2000s, or, at least, more recognizable ones. Rolf Saxon, perhaps best known as CIA analyst Donloe (the one who takes the fall for a security breach in the first "Mission: Impossible" film and is, funnily enough, returning as the same character in "Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning" later this month), has a small role in the film. There's a blink-and-you'll-miss-it early appearance from a fresh-faced Gerard Butler as a sailor. Future "Downton Abbey" creator and "Godford Park" writer Julian Fellowes plays the Minister of Defence, while Hugh Bonneville, who would later star in "Downton Abbey", has a bit part as a military officer. Of course, I would be remiss not to mention two of the stronger ing parts, Henry Gupta and Dr. Kaufman, played by famous sleight-of-hand magician Ricky Jay and, one of my favorite character actors of all time, the ineffably talented Vincent Schiavelli, respectively.

This was composer David Arnold's first foray into the Bond world and the man made sure he came in swinging, just in case he never got the chance again. It's a perfectly balanced score: equal parts brassy, bombastic, "classic" (with nods to Monty Norman, but mostly John Barry), and modern, with a sleek, Euro-cool techno soundscape that occasionally brings in select elements from k.d. lang's alt-rock end title song. It's certainly a substantial re-adjustment from Éric Serra's eclectic "GoldenEye" score (which, for all its quirkiness, I actually really like), but the more deliberate balance of tone serves to strengthen the rest of the films that Arnold would go on to score. Ironically, the producers ended up doing the exact same thing to David Arnold after a decisive stylistic redirect post-"Quantum of Solace", when they hired Sam Mendes and, subsequently, Thomas Newman to offer his interpretation of the Bond sound—though I really dislike the new direction that they ultimately settled on.

I wouldn't call this an ugly-looking movie, but it isn't one of the more visually exciting Bond films. Where Spottiswoode's journeyman instincts allow for other aspects of the film to shine, his collaboration with cinematographer Robert Elswit (who shot this in-between DPing "Boogie Nights" for Paul Thomas Anderson and "8MM" for Joel Schumacher) feels like the weakest link. Elswit, for better or worse, seems to gravitate towards a staid naturalism—something that better serves a character-driven thriller like "The River Wild" or a contemplative drama like "Waterland", but makes "Tomorrow Never Dies" feel stodgy and flat. In the hands of an auteur like PTA, Elswit's naturalism is driven into a beautifully lush, almost-dreamlike-but-always-real space ("Magnolia", "Punch Drunk Love", "Inherent Vice"); Joel & Ethan Coen used Elswit's photographical instincts to turn "There Will Be Blood" into a film that feels more like a living, breathing gelatin silver print in motion; Tony Gilroy and George Clooney have both collaborated on multiple films with Elswit, with both directors intentionally leaning on Elswit's formal, naturalistic way of composing shots, and his history as a television director, to elevate films like "Nightcrawler", "Good Night and Good Luck", "Michael Clayton", and "Syriana" by lending them an almost-documentary-like quality at times. But, in the hands of a director who may not have as strong a vision, Elswit is left to his own devices and will likely shoot whatever the project may be as safely and competently as possible (see: "Gigli", "Runaway Jury", "Salt", "Skyscraper", et al.)—such is also the case with "Tomorrow Never Dies". It never looks BAD, per se, but it often looks like a television movie from the mid-1990s, captured in all of its uncomfortably beige-brown-and-off-white glory.

While I understand EON's desire to maintain the tradition of hiring journeyman directors (especially after the massive success of "GoldenEye"), this one could have transcended being merely "good" to being truly great in the hands of a filmmaker with a strong, singular vision for how the film should have looked and felt. It's, like, 65% of the way there as-is, and while that does the job, I will always be stuck ruminating on how this one could be even better.

Potentially the single most overrated Bond film in the entire franchise—right up there with the mind-numbingly dull "Skyfall"—although it doesn't hit the same cataclysmic lows as "Thunderball" (an overly-simplistic narrative combined with the interminable underwater sequences) or "You Only Live Twice" (Connery in yellow-face). I'll be honest: I've never really been a big fan of this film, as revered as it is 'supposed to' be. The direction is meandering and unfocused; the performances are all weirdly subdued; Auric Goldfinger, as re-written by the filmmakers, is goofy and not especially threatening and his plan is utterly ridiculous. I've always wanted this film to be better than it is, and it makes me feel like a crazy person that it's so widely beloved. I've never understood the draw!

Everything about this film pales in comparison to Connery's first two entries and is the beginning of the end for Connery's tenure as Bond. If he hadn't had the chance to return for the far superior "Diamonds Are Forever" in '71, I don't think his time in the role would be considered as 'untouchable' as it is these days (I also don't agree that Connery was offering the greatest portrayal of the character).

Someday the world will agree me.

I would call this a marginal improvement over the first "Johnny English" misadventure, if only because they've actually managed to fit in some jokes and satirical elements—a few of which are even mildly humorous! Instead of being an objectively bad time, this one is mostly dull and interminable. Rowan Atkinson seems like he's only funny on accident.

I think it's important to allow puppeteers to let loose every once and a while. Gotta make a movie about puppets cumming fountains of silly string and shooting one another to release the pressure from working almost exclusively on children's media. They're odd, but gentle creatures who are totally harmless as long as you keep them from snapping, like postal workers or civil engineers.

Ah. Le temps est un cercle plat.

So preoccupied with Making A Point and Sending a Message that it forgets to be an entertaining movie. Most of the writing is just pretty bland and uninspired, but some of it is really, really obnoxious (most of Kristen Stewart's lines) and dumb as hell (whatever the 'science' is behind the silly plot device technology). The whole movie has an awful visual flatness to it, combined with being consistently overlit, so everything looks fake. The Ariana Grande-produced soundtrack almost feels like parody.

Immediately forgettable film, with incredibly poor direction, a dumb script, and awful editing. There's really not a whole lot I like here—even the costuming and set design is uninspired. I guess Naomi Scott is, like, stunning, but she's stuck playing the "wide-eyed, inexperienced newcomer who is also a hacker" role, which is insanely lame.

Even as a ten-year-old, I knew this was dreadfully unfunny and I hadn't even seen a Bond film yet, or many other spy movies, for that matter. But I had seen the first two "Austin Powers" films, which aren't any less stupid than this film is, but do a considerably better job of being actual parodies. More importantly, they are enjoyable to watch. Most of "Johnny English" is just a very boring, very generic spy movie in a way that the Bond films never have been. It's playing things so literal, in fact, that Tim Pigott-Smith, playing a high-ranking government official here, ended up in "Skyfall" not even a decade later as the high-ranking government official who is leading the charge of pushing Judi Dench's M into disgraced retirement.

Takes itself too seriously to be a parody, the humor is comprised of low-brow physical gags and toilet humor (i.e. Johnny English gets covered in poop), and it doesn't even have the courtesy to offer any impressive stunts or well-choreographed fights. Instead, we get Rowan Atkinson, Natalie Imbruglia, and English Conner O'Malley bumbling around like morons. It may have been a good idea to write one single joke, but they settled on filming Rowan Atkinson dancing or doing karate or singing in the bathroom and called it good.

Only granted one star for the Robbie Williams title song, which isn't even that good, and John Malkovich being the only guy who gets what movie he's in as the ludicrous-looking-and-sounding French villain, Pascal Sauvage.

How the FUCK did two more of these get made?

A magnificently kinetic, exceptionally French film that takes inspiration from the actual 18th century deaths attributed to La Bête du Gévaudan in provincial and absolutely runs wild with it. Absolute cock-rocker of a movie, marred only by some extremely dated CGI that is at least mostly confined to two sequences.

Zack Snyder wishes he understood how to utilize slow-motion and speed-ramping like Christophe Gans and David Wu.

Dawn shawty okay! Lotta boys out here talking about Ms. Hailee Steinfeld and that's fine and all, but the men are preoccupied with Wunmi Mosaku, thank you very much.

Incredible use of genre flourishes to tell a hard-hitting, enthralling story. Lots of lines about eating pussy, which you always love to see. Michael B. Jordan finally delivers his best performance(s). Jack O'Connell is borderline unrecognizable and also terrifying. Phenomenal score; don't even have the right words to express how cool it sounds.

This is the first film my wife and I have seen in a theater since our daughter was born, and it was also the most packed theater we've been in since March 2020, when we saw Bong Joon-Ho's "Parasite" mere days before COVID starting shutting everything down. Kinda nuts to see so many people flock to the theaters for an original film—let alone a genre-bending historical film about the Black experience and the testy dynamics of racial culture in America.

It's nice to be reminded by a new movie, every once and a while, that film is an art form, and not just a way for Israeli guys to pump out 450 direct-to-streaming action movies per year.

Video game-ass movie (non-pejorative). A dingy, grotesque, hyper-unreal vision of a nondescript, modern-day urban America from an external lens, in which every dispute is solved with a hail of gunfire or a severely brutal ass-beating. Everyday citizens are desperate, the cops and politicians are crooked to their core, and the criminals are unhinged psychopaths. It's definitely imbued with a Hong Kong essence; both earnest and wildly over-the-top, with plenty of obvious winks and nods to the likes of John Woo, Tsui Hark, and Ringo Lam (though "Havoc" never hits the kind of extreme highs those directors were able to achieve in their work). There's also some clear influence from Western action directors, such as Paul Verhoeven and Robert Rodriguez.

Should Gareth Evans have let a better writer at least polish his script and his absolutely godawful dialogue? Yeah, probably, but it's also worth pointing out that the story is always more of a means to an end in these kinds of films, with the end being "getting to the damn action that we came here for". Still, not great, but the actors are all doing what they can with simplistic, exposition-laden writing. When Luis Guzman showed up, I threw my arms up and cheered.

Additionally, I have nothing but respect for filmmakers who are unwilling to allow for the risks associated with blank-firing firearms or explosive squibs, BUT I don't think it's too much to ask filmmakers to spend more than the bare minimum amount of time and effort ensuring that the digital squibs and digital muzzle flashes don't look like unwashed farm animal ass. And, unfortunately, this movie has some really fucking ugly, cheap-looking muzzle flashes and digital blood and it really detracted from the experience for me. I can accept a certain level of low-quality compositing, blurry green screen work, etc., but big, cartoon-style muzzle flashes that fill the screen and don't light up the environment just yank me right outta the movie.

I liked this, but if the action sequences hadn't been good, it would have been a big ol' flop.

Foumd footge

To watch:
V/H/S: Beyond

• V/H/S
• V/H/S/94
• V/H/S/85
• V/H/S/2
• V/H/S/99
• V/H/S: Viral

Still need to watch:
- Sex, Lies, and Videotape
- Kafka
- King of the Hill
- The Underneath
- Schizopolis
- Out of Sight
- Full Frontal
- Solaris
- Eros
- The Girlfriend Experience
- Unsane
- Presence

1. Che: Part One
2. Ocean's Eleven
3. Che: Part Two
4. No Sudden Move
5. Erin Brockovich
6. Black Bag
7. The Informant!
8. Bubble
9. Logan Lucky
10. Contagion

...plus 14 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Still need to see:
- The Man Without a Face
- Lethal Weapon 5 (unreleased)
- The Wild Bunch (unreleased)
- The ion of the Christ: Resurrection, Part One (unreleased)
- The ion of the Christ: Resurrection, Part Two (unreleased)

1. The ion of the Christ
2. Apocalypto
3. Hacksaw Ridge
4. Braveheart
5. Flight Risk

To watch:
- Swept Away
- In the Gray
- Wife & Dog
- Road House 2

1. RocknRolla
2. King Arthur: Legend of the Sword
3. Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
4. Sherlock Holmes
5. The Gentlemen
6. Snatch
7. Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre
8. The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
9. Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows
10. Guy Ritchie's The Covenant

...plus 4 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Have not seen:
- Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
- Thor: Love and Thunder
- Thunderbolts*
- The Fantastic Four: First Steps

1. Iron Man 3
2. Captain America: The First Avenger
3. Spider-Man: Homecoming
4. Captain Marvel
5. The Incredible Hulk
6. Ant-Man
7. Iron Man
8. Spider-Man: Far From Home
9. Thor: Ragnarok
10. Doctor Strange

...plus 23 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Sinners

   First 2025 release seen in a theater

2. Den of Thieves 2: Pantera
3. Black Bag
4. Havoc
5. Heart Eyes

   Forgot to log this one - it was average at best. 2.5/5

6. Fountain of Youth
7. You're Cordially Invited

   First new release watch of 2025

8. The Gorge
9. Flight Risk
10. Captain America: Brave New World

...plus 6 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Films produced by A24, ranked.

Still to see:
- A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III
- Ginger & Rosa
- Under the Skin
- Obvious Child
- Life After Beth
- Laggies
- Revenge of the Green Dragons
- The Captive
- Son of a Gun
- Cut Bank
- Barely Lethal
- Amy
- Mojave
-
- Krisha
- The Adderall Diaries
- Equals
- Into the Forest
- Morris from America
- The Sea of Trees
- American Honey
- Oasis: Supersonic
- The Monster
- Tres Against Us
- The Lovers
- The Exception
- Menashe
- Woodshock
- The Ballad of Lefty Brown
- The Vanishing of Sidney Hall
- The Last Movie Star
- Lean on Pete
- Backstabbing for Beginners
- How to Talk to Girls at Parties
- Woman Walks Ahead
- Never Goin' Back
- A Prayer Before Dawn
- Slice
- The Children Act
- Outlaws
- The Hole in the Ground
- Climax
- Gloria Bell
- Native Son
- Under the Silver Lake
- The Souvenir
- The Last Black Man in San Francisco
- Midsommar
- The Farewell
- Skin
- Share
- The Death of Dick Long
- Low Tide
- The Lighthouse
- The Elephant Queen
- The Kill Team
- Waves
- In Fabric
- Boys State
- On the Rocks
- Saint Maud
- Minari
- False Positive
- Val
- The Souvenir Part II
- C'mon C'mon
- The Humans
- The Tragedy of Macbeth
- The Sky Is Everywhere
- After Yang
- Elizabeth: A Portrait in Parts
- Marcel the Shell with Shoes On
- Funny Pages
- Instinct
- God's Creatures
- Stars at Noon
- Aftersun
- Causeway
- The Inspection
- White Noise
- The Eternal Daughter
- The Whale
- When You Finish Saving the World
- Close
- Sharper
- Showing Up
- Beau Is Afraid
- You Hurt My Feelings
- Earth Mama
- The Deepest Breath
- Stephen Curry: Underrated
- Medusa Deluxe
- All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt
- The Iron Claw
- Occupied City
- My Mercury
- Open Wide
- Jerry Lee Lewis: Trouble in Mind
- Problemista
- Love Lies Bleeding
- Steve! (Martin): A Documentary in 2 Pieces
- Civil War
- I Saw the TV Glow
- The Sixth
- Tuesday
- Janet Planet
- MaXXXine
- Sing Sing
- The Front Room
- Look into My Eyes
- A Different Man
- The Last of the Sea Women
- We Live in Time
- Heretic
- Queer
- The Brutalist
- Babygirl
- Parthenope
- On Becoming a Guinea Fowl
- Opus
- Death of a Unicorn
- Warfare
- The Legend of Ochi
- Friendship
- Bring Her Back
- Materialists
- Sorry, Baby
- Eddington
- Highest 2 Lowest
- The Smashing Machine
- Marty Supreme
- André Is an Idiot
- Architecton
- Eternity
- If I Had Legs I'd Kick You
- Mother Mary
- Pillion
- Altar
- Famous
- Huntington
- Onslaught
- Primetime
- The Death of Robin Hood
- The Drama
- The Entertainment System Is Down
- The Moment
- Wizards!

1. The Florida Project
2. Uncut Gems
3. Spring Breakers
4. Red Rocket
5. Past Lives
6. 20th Century Women
7. The Zone of Interest
8. First Reformed
9. Green Room
10. Moonlight

...plus 45 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

10 favorite Shakespeare film adaptations - some huge blind-spots here for me

• Macbeth
• Coriolanus
• Romeo + Juliet
• The Taming of the Shrew
• West Side Story
• 10 Things I Hate About You
• The Lion King
• Macbeth
• Romeo Must Die
• The King

1. Star Wars
2. The Empire Strikes Back
3. Return of the Jedi
4. Star Wars: The Last Jedi
5. Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith
6. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
7. Solo: A Star Wars Story
8. Star Wars: The Force Awakens
9. Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace
10. Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones

...plus 2 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Still need to watch:
- Paradise Alley

1. Rocky II
2. Rocky Balboa
3. Rocky III
4. Rambo
5. Staying Alive
6. Rocky IV
7. The Expendables

Still need to see:
- Grand Theft Auto
- Cotton Candy
- Skyward
- The Time Crystal
- Cocoon
- Gung Ho
- Willow
- Parenthood
- Backdraft
- The Paper
- EdTV
- The Dilemma
- Angels & Demons
- Inferno
- Hillbilly Elegy

1. Frost/Nixon
2. Rush
3. Cinderella Man
4. Night Shift
5. Apollo 13
6. Thirteen Lives
7. How the Grinch Stole Christmas
8. In the Heart of the Sea
9. Far and Away
10. A Beautiful Mind

...plus 5 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

To watch:
- The Young Dragons
- The Dragon Tamers
- Princess Chang Ping
- The Hand of Death
- Money Crazy
- Follow the Star
- Hello, Late Homecomers
- Last Hurrah for Chivalry
- From Riches to Rags
- Laughing Times
- To Hell with the Devil
- Plain Jane to the Rescue
- Heroes Shed No Tears
- Run Tiger, Run
- The Time You Need a Friend
- A Better Tomorrow
- A Better Tomorrow II
- Just Heroes
- Bullet in the Head
- Once a Thief
- Red Cliff
- Red Cliff II
- Reign of Assassins
- The Crossing
- The Crossing 2
- Manhunt

1. Hard Boiled
2. Mission: Impossible II
3. The Killer
4. Windtalkers
5. Face/Off
6. Broken Arrow
7. Paycheck
8. Silent Night
9. The Killer

Still need to see:
- Thelma the Unicorn
- A Minecraft Movie

1. Gentlemen Broncos
2. Napoleon Dynamite
3. Don Verdean
4. Nacho Libre
5. Masterminds

What can I say? I just love peril and destruction. Still have to see so many of these kinds of movies though.

1. Contagion
2. Armageddon
3. The Crazies
4. Greenland
5. Godzilla Minus One
6. Sully
7. Apollo 13
8. 2012
9. Dante's Peak
10. The Poseidon Adventure

...plus 26 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Still need to watch:
- Bad Taste
- Meet the Feebles
- Heavenly Creatures
- Forgotten Silver
- The Frighteners

1. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
2. King Kong
3. The Beatles: Get Back
4. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
5. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
6. They Shall Not Grow Old
7. Braindead
8. The Lovely Bones
9. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
10. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

...plus 1 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Still need to watch:
- A Life Less Ordinary
- 28 Years Later

1. Trainspotting
2. Steve Jobs
3. Shallow Grave
4. 127 Hours
5. 28 Days Later
6. T2 Trainspotting
7. Trance
8. Yesterday
9. Slumdog Millionaire
10. Millions

...plus 2 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• 12 Angry Men
• 1900
• 1917
• 2001: A Space Odyssey
• 42
• Above the Law
• The Age of Innocence

  Criterion Collection

• Alien
• The Alien Anthology Archives
• Alien Resurrection

...plus 331 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Re-assessed and ready for The Final Reckoning

1. Mission: Impossible
2. Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation
3. Mission: Impossible II
4. Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning
5. Mission: Impossible – Fallout
6. Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol
7. Mission: Impossible III

Still need to see:
- The Sex Thief
- Eskimo Nell
- Three for All
- Frankie and Johnnie
- Criminal Law
- Defenseless
- Cast a Deadly Spell
- Beyond Borders
- The Protege
- Memory

1. The Mask of Zorro
2. Casino Royale
3. Vertical Limit
4. The Foreigner
5. GoldenEye
6. Edge of Darkness
7. No Escape
8. Green Lantern
9. The Legend of Zorro

Still need to watch:
- Death Becomes Her
- Flight
- The Walk
- The Witches

1. Who Framed Roger Rabbit
2. Beowulf
3. Back to the Future
4. Cast Away
5. Romancing the Stone
6. Allied
7. Back to the Future Part II
8. Back to the Future Part III
9. Here

...plus 6 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Movies releasing in 2025 that I'd like to see eventually

• Freaky Tales
• Hell of a Summer
• Magazine Dreams
• Brave the Dark
• Love Me
• The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie
• My Dead Friend Zoe
• On Becoming a Guinea Fowl
• The Damned
• Shelby Oaks

...plus 122 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

10 favorite movies about guys being fellas, pals, and comrades.

• Lethal Weapon

  Sergeant Martin Riggs (Vice), LAPD, & Sergeant Roger Murtagh (Homicide), LAPD.

• Cool Hand Luke

  "Cool Hand" Luke Jackson, Clarence "Dragline" Slidell, "Society Red", "Koko", "Loudmouth Steve", "Rabbitt", "Blind Dick", "Tattoo", "Babalugats", "Gambler", "Tramp", "Alibi", and "Fixer".

• Star Trek III: The Search for Spock

  Captain James T. Kirk and First Officer Spock

• Casablanca

  Rick Blaine and Captain Louis Renault

• Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

  Robert LeRoy "Butch Cassidy" Parker and Harry Longabaugh, the "Sundance Kid".

• The Frisco Kid

  Rabbi Avram Belinski and Tommy Lillard

• A Hard Day's Night

  The lads

• Point Break

  FBI Agent Johnny Utah and Bodhi "Bodhisattva"

• Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure

  Bill S. Preston, Esq. & Ted "Theodore" Logan

• 3 Men and a Baby

  Peter Mitchell, Michael Kellam, and Jack Holden (and a baby!)

To see:
- Signs of Life
- The Flying Doctors of East Africa
- Even Dwarfs Started Small
- Handicapped Future
- Land of Silence and Darkness
- Fata Morgana
- Aguirre, the Wrath of God
- The Enigma of Kaspar Ha
- The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner
- Heart of Glass
- How Much Wood Would a Woodchuck Chuck
- Stroszek
- Nosferatu the Vampyre
- Woyzeck
- Huie's Sermon
- God's Angry Man
- Fitzcarraldo
- Ballad of the Little Soldier
- Where the Green Ants Dream
- The Dark Glow of the Mountains
- Cobra Verde
- Herdsmen of the Sun
- Echoes from a Sombre Empire
- Scream of Stone
- Jag Mandir
- Lessons of Darkness
- Bells from the Deep
- The Transformation of the World into Music
- Gesualdo: Death for Five Voices
- Wings of Hope
- My Best Fiend
- Invincible
- Wheel of Time
- The White Diamond
- The Wild Blue Yonder
- Encounters at the End of the World
- Cave of Forgotten Dreams
- Queen of the Desert
- Into the Inferno
- Salt and Fire
- Meeting Gorbachev
- Family Romance, LLC
- Nomad: In the Footsteps of Bruce Chatwin
- Fireball: Visitors from Darker Worlds
- The Fire Within:
Requiem for Katia and Maurice Krafft
- Theatre of Thought

1. Grizzly Man
2. Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call – New Orleans
3. Little Dieter Needs to Fly
4. Into the Abyss
5. Happy People: A Year in the Taiga
6. My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done
7. Rescue Dawn
8. Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World

Count 'em up; that's four whole Ks!

• Alien

  Ultimate Collector's Edition

• American Gangster
• Apollo 13
• Barbie
• The Batman
• Beverly Hills Cop
• The Big Lebowski
• Blade Runner 2049
• Bram Stoker's Dracula
• Bride of Frankenstein

...plus 63 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• Alexander Nevsky
• Alien
• Army of Darkness
• Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery
• Batman
• Batman Returns
• Batman & Robin
• Black Rain
• Bringing Out the Dead
• Brother

...plus 114 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

James Bond, ranked. I revisit these every few years for a total series reassessment.

1. Quantum of Solace

   The most underrated Bond film as of 2025 and my personal favorite.

2. Casino Royale

   Legitimately better than many of the EON-produced films.

3. On Her Majesty's Secret Service

   Lazenby underrated

4. Casino Royale

   The Bond film that got me into James Bond

5. Tomorrow Never Dies

   Great side characters & action sequences. Johnathan Pryce might be having the most fun out of anyone here.

6. Dr. No

   Might actually have more yellow-face than in "You Only Live Twice", but Connery is in peak form here. Struggles w/ a boring third act.

7. Goldfinger

   Meandering and tedious film, weirdly dull and ugly-looking, as overrated, or more overrated, than "Skyfall"

8. You Only Live Twice

   Squandered source material, boring for the first two-thirds, AND it's racist; ends up being re-done better twice-over in the Moore era.

9. Skyfall

   Boring, moronic writing, tired performance from Craig, bad action, horrible digital compositing, dreadful music.

To see:
- Fruitvale Station
- Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

1. Sinners
2. Creed
3. Black Panther

It was a weird year.

1. A Real Pain
2. Better Man
3. Conclave
4. Gladiator II
5. Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F
6. Longlegs
7. Rebel Ridge
8. Road House
9. Beatles '64
10. The Beekeeper

...plus 53 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Gaze upon the plains of despair

• High Rollers
• Batman Ninja vs. Yakuza League
• The Alto Knights
• McVeigh
• Popeye the Slayer Man
• Baby Invasion
• A Working Man
• Screamboat
• A Minecraft Movie
• G20

...plus 42 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Still need to see:
- Footsteps
- Merantau
- The Raid 2

1. The Raid
2. Havoc
3. Apostle
4. V/H/S/2

Still need to watch:
- Heavy
- Kate & Leopold
- A Complete Unknown

1. Cop Land
2. Ford v Ferrari
3. 3:10 to Yuma
4. Walk the Line
5. Logan
6. Girl, Interrupted
7. The Wolverine
8. Identity
9. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
10. Knight and Day

Ten favorite sci-fi and/or fantasy films released during or before 1980.

1. The Phantom Carriage

   Fantasy

2. King Kong

   Fantasy

3. The Invisible Man

   Sci-Fi

4. Carnival of Souls

   Fantasy

5. Planet of the Apes

   Sci-Fi

6. 2001: A Space Odyssey

   Sci-Fi

7. Eraserhead

   Fantasy

8. Close Encounters of the Third Kind

   Sci-Fi

9. Alien

   Sci-Fi

10. Somewhere in Time

    Fantasy

Ten favorite instances of one performer playing different characters in the same film (trying not to name the really obvious ones, aside from 'Adaptation').

• King Kong

  Andy Serkis as Kong & Lumpy the Cook

• Adaptation.

  Nicolas Cage as Charlie Kaufman & Donald Kaufman

• Nocturnal Animals

  Jake Gyllenhaal as Tony Hastings & Edward Sheffield

• The Devil's Double

  Dominic Cooper as Uday Hussein & Latif Yahia

• Lost Highway

  Patricia Arquette as Renee Madison & Alice Wakefield

• Hail, Caesar!

  Tilda Swinton as Thora Thacker & Thessaly Thacker

• Sisters

  Margot Kidder as Danielle Breton & Dominique Blanchion

• The King's Man

  Tom Hollander as King George V, Kaiser Wilhelm II, & Tsar Nicholas II

• Pan's Labyrinth

  Doug Jones as the Faun & The Pale Man

• Last Days in the Desert

  Ewan McGregor as Jesus & Satan

• Dracula
• Shanghai Express
• The Mummy
• She Done Him Wrong
• King Kong
• The Invisible Man
• The Wizard of Oz
• Casablanca
• Shadow of a Doubt
• The Big Sleep

...plus 251 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Licence to Kill
2. Quantum of Solace
3. Casino Royale
4. Casino Royale
5. The Spy Who Loved Me
6. Thunderball
7. Live and Let Die
8. Octopussy
9. The Living Daylights
10. Tomorrow Never Dies

...plus 16 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Ranking all films produced by the following companies, spearheaded by Avi Lerner, Danny Lerner, Boaz Davidson, and Trevor Short

Nu Metro Entertainment Group (1984 - 1992)
Nu Image, Inc. (1992 -2017)
Millennium Films (1996 - 2017)
Millennium Entertainment, LLC (2010 - 2014)
Millennium Media (2017 - present)

1. Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call – New Orleans
2. 16 Blocks
3. Olympus Has Fallen
4. Trust
5. The Expendables 2
6. Hellboy: The Crooked Man
7. Rambo
8. Brooklyn's Finest
9. Red Lights
10. The Wicker Man

...plus 20 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Wick-Lite. Wick-Offs. Action films released since 2014 that are clearly influenced by, made in the same mold as, or are openly derivative of "John Wick" or the "John Wick" sequels.

• The Equalizer
• Kingsman: The Secret Service
• The ant
• Jack Reacher: Never Go Back
• Atomic Blonde
• Kingsman: The Golden Circle
• The Foreigner
• Hotel Artemis
• The Equalizer 2
• Polar

...plus 21 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• Bad Santa
• Burn After Reading
• The Comedy
• Gummo
• Happiness
• The Informant!
• Observe and Report
• Poor Things
• Rubber
• Sexy Beast

Best films with location titles. Ten films named after a landmark, a neighborhood, a city, a state, a country, even a continent.

• Beverly Hills Cop
• Brokeback Mountain
• Casablanca
• Casino Royale
• The Florida Project
• Kansas City Confidential
• The New World
• Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood
• The Rock
• Vicky Cristina Barcelona

To watch:
- It’s Impossible to Learn to Plow by Reading Books
- Slacker
- SubUrbia
- Waking Life
- Tape
- Fast Food Nation
- A Scanner Darkly
- Me & Orson Welles
- Bernie
- Last Flag Flying
- Where'd You Go, Bernadette
- Hit Man
- Blue Moon
- Nouvelle Vague

1. Everybody Wants Some!!
2. Before Midnight
3. Dazed and Confused
4. School of Rock
5. Before Sunset
6. Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood
7. Before Sunrise
8. The Newton Boys
9. Bad News Bears
10. Boyhood

Still need to watch:
- Killer's Kiss
- Paths of Glory
- Lolita

1. Barry Lyndon
2. Eyes Wide Shut
3. Full Metal Jacket
4. 2001: A Space Odyssey
5. The Shining
6. The Killing
7. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
8. A Clockwork Orange
9. Spartacus

Still need to see:
- The Roost
- Trigger Man
- Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever
- MaXXXIne

• In a Valley of Violence
• The Innkeepers
• The House of the Devil
• The Sacrament
• X
• Pearl

To watch:
- Miller's Crossing (Joel & Ethan Coen)
- The Hudsucker Proxy (Joel & Ethan Coen)
- The Tragedy of Macbeth (Joel Coen)
- Drive Away Dolls (Ethan Coen)
- Honey Don't! (Ethan Coen)

1. Burn After Reading
2. A Serious Man
3. The Man Who Wasn't There
4. Fargo
5. No Country for Old Men
6. O Brother, Where Art Thou?
7. Inside Llewyn Davis
8. Hail, Caesar!
9. The Big Lebowski
10. Blood Simple

...plus 6 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Still need to see:
- The Sight
- In the Lost Lands

1. Monster Hunter
2. Resident Evil
3. Resident Evil: Retribution
4. The Three Musketeers
5. Death Race
6. Resident Evil: The Final Chapter
7. Event Horizon
8. Shopping
9. AVP: Alien vs. Predator
10. Pompeii

...plus 3 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

To watch:
- Following
- The Odyssey

1. Oppenheimer
2. Dunkirk
3. Tenet
4. Interstellar
5. Batman Begins
6. Memento
7. The Prestige
8. Insomnia
9. The Dark Knight
10. Inception

...plus 1 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Sly tha god.

1. Cop Land
2. First Blood
3. Rocky
4. Rocky II
5. Tango & Cash
6. Demolition Man
7. Rocky Balboa
8. Creed
9. The Expendables 2
10. Assassins

...plus 22 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Ferris Bueller's Day Off
2. Home Alone
3. Planes, Trains and Automobiles
4. Mr. Mom
5. The Breakfast Club
6. Flubber
7. National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
8. Weird Science
9. Miracle on 34th Street
10. Home Alone 2: Lost in New York

...plus 9 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Still need to see:
- She's Having a Baby
- Uncle Buck
- Curly Sue

1. Ferris Bueller's Day Off
2. The Breakfast Club
3. Planes, Trains and Automobiles
4. Weird Science
5. Sixteen Candles

Still need to see:
- The Jabberwocky
- Time Bandits
- Brazil
- The Adventures of Baron Munchhausen
- The Fisher King
- Tideland
- The Man Who Killed Don Quixote

1. The Zero Theorem
2. Twelve Monkeys
3. The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
4. Monty Python and the Holy Grail
5. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
6. The Brothers Grimm

Still need to see:
- Monsters
- Jurassic World Rebirth

1. The Creator
2. Godzilla
3. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story