Film diary

Gene Tierney carefully assembling the perfect outfit for throwing herself down the stairs to force a miscarriage is just about as good as movies get.

If Robo Vampire has a script, it reads like something a 6-year-old wrote, which makes it a compelling argument for child labor. Somehow this is my first exposure to the hopping vampires of jiangshi folklore, and only the second Godfrey Ho movie I’ve seen. It won’t be the last.

The premise is a bit too clever for its own good, and its foundational recontextualization of horror cliches sees fit to bask in said cliches for far longer than is tolerable, especially considering its satirical scares are blander than much of their source material. Cabin in the Woods is at its best during its early peeks behind the curtain, before Bradley Whitford and Richard Jenkins’ charming rapport is displaced by a too-thorough accounting of the… See more →

This movie is so goddamned good, I’m not even mad that it neglects to incorporate Van Halen’s “On Fire.”

Gentle but not slight. Didn’t know how much I needed that right now. Extra points for the quick hit of what is probably the best bookbinding porn ever to grace a major motion picture.

How I became so attached to the songs in this movie when it came out the same year I fell in love with thrash metal is anybody’s guess, but “Part of Your World” and “Poor Unfortunate Souls” are the bedrock of my karaoke game. Decades later, no other aspect of The Little Mermaid does much for me, although Scuttle is pretty delightful and Ursula is the shit. Can’t believe I only just learned that she… See more →

Quite possibly the best-looking Disney film.

Modern fandom is little more than ravenous consumerism, and more than any other Star Wars movie, The Rise of Skywalker’s blockbuster maximalism is calibrated with this in mind. When I rewatched The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi the night before, it felt mostly like homework, and trying to summon anything else to say about The Rise of Skywalker feels about the same. Anyway, I’m done. Thanks for the memories, Star Wars, if not… See more →

I’ve never shared the average cinephile’s effusive fascination with Scorsese’s brand of pathologically dishonest men, but I’ll give said men credit for consistency: their demands for much more than they’ve earned are always reflected in how much time the audience is made to spend with them.