Mom's thoughts: "It wasn't as good as the other ones."
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John Wick: Chapter 4 2023
R.I.P. Lance Reddick
A good death only comes after a good life.
Action cinema nirvana.
I feel so lazy every time I have to resort to falling back on the old "it's so difficult to capture how great this is and do it justice", and yet, sometimes a movie simply awes you to such an extent that you have to acknowledge the reality that words truly do fail.
This is a franchise which has basically come to define the past…
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Paint 2023
A few chuckles here and there, but overall just kind of felt like a bland imitation of aughts "xD random" quirky indie comedy humor, and not as good as any of the best of that ilk. Wasn't one that I was otherwise planning to see, and the film itself didn't convince me my initial trepidations were ill-founded. Also not funny enough to compensate for its lack of pacing.
Mom's thoughts: "Not as bad as I thought it would be, but it was still really stupid."
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The Aviator 2004
Nothing's clean, Howard. But we do our best, right?
If there's one area Scorsese has consistently excelled in his career, it's in the takedown of classic male archetypes, through the process of simply depicting them as they are. Where films like Raging Bull show the downfalls of violent, toxic masculinity, and The Wolf of Wall Street depicts capitalistic ideology and excess, The Aviator offers a glimpse into perhaps the most pervasive and heavily mythologized of male archetypes: the tortured genius.…
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Return to Seoul 2022
A good movie, and a strong performance from Ji-min Park, although with somewhat meandering pacing and at least a couple too many time-jumps, the movie often feels as much in search of itself as its protagonist. Good, but ought to have been great, and left me wanting a little bit more to really push it past that threshold.
The ending inexplicably resulted in about half the theater breaking into a crescendo of laughter.
Mom's thoughts: "It started out really good, in my opinion, but then it was kind of all over the place."
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Shazam! Fury of the Gods 2023
i too would turn into a bumbling lovestruck fool if i saw rachel zegler
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Scream VI 2023
Not every movie needs a post-credit scene.
Very funny to give the line about "people with Letterboxd accounts instead of personalities" to the character whose entire personality is being a walking Letterboxd account. The call is coming from inside the house, dude. (ilu mindy)
Despite the talk about the rules of ongoing franchises and the continued stuff about legacy, the metacommentary here doesn't feel as interesting or as integrated as previous entries, which can be a little disappointing. You sense…
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RRR 2022
Got to see this in theaters again. It still fucks incredibly hard. Pure blockbuster joy.
Was originally planning to write a piece about the film's politics whenever I watched it again, but don't really feel like doing that now. Maybe next time! (I have learned slightly more than I knew the first time I saw it)
The Academy is gonna look real stupid if Naatu Naatu doesn't win best song.
Mom's thoughts: This was like her 6th or 7th time…
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Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba -To the Swordsmith Village- 2023
So this was... odd. I was assuming it'd be like Mugen Train, where they do a whole story arc in cinematic form. But instead, it's just three episodes stapled together (complete with the end credits of each, so it's kind of only a "movie" on a technicality).
And, uh, two of those episodes are the end of the Entertainment District Arc. (Which I just finished a couple days ago)
So it kinda just feels like a glorified sneak preview of…
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Creed III 2023
Michael B. Jordan gets in the director's chair, and his first order of business is establishing Adonis as a weeb from birth. Respect.
And boy, does this cap the trilogy off on a high note. Pulls out all the stops to deliver the most emotionally potent entry in the franchise (including the Rockys - even if it didn't have much competition outside the original on that front).
And it succeeds at this in large part by offering the most personal…