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klimov wrote:It's a decent politically-edged thriller of the kind the French were making in their dozens in the nineties, nothing more, nothing less.

"it", the stephen king thing?

parasite.

Birds of Prey - Better than Joker.

Both were awful.

joker was fantastic.

The Invitation - second time seeing this. really cool film. i like it quite a bit.

It Comes At Night - solid A24 vibe. bleak. wish it would have gone a little further, but was enjoyable.

Bad Education - well-acted docu-drama about a crazy slice of history, the most money ever embezzled in the education system. got everything mostly right.

Dragged Across Concrete - the only zahler film i hadn't seen. as with the other two, fucking great. this guy is a fantastic storyteller. anxious to see where the rest of his career goes. love his films.

Upload - this amazon show was pretty great. hell of a cliffhanger ending. hope they get picked up for s2, and produced it quickly.

The Lodge - for people who thought hereditary and melancholia were too light-hearted. fuck this movie. it's a very dark and bleak look at trauma. but holy shit. seriously, fuck this movie. there are zero redeeming characters or qualities about anyone in this film. it's very well made and acted. as a craft, it's great. but holy shit.

TC wrote:The Lodge - for people who thought hereditary and melancholia were too light-hearted. fuck this movie. it's a very dark and bleak look at trauma. but holy shit. seriously, fuck this movie. there are zero redeeming characters or qualities about anyone in this film. it's very well made and acted. as a craft, it's great. but holy shit.

Well this got me intrigued... I've been hearing about The Lodge for a while and the opinions have been varied, to say the least. Interesting, nonetheless.

Uncut Gems - i heard this was "action packed" all the way through. that's inaccurate. it's nerve-wracking, mostly because adam sandler is the most annoying character ever. he's full of terrible decisions and mostly yells the entire film. it was fine. bogosian was terrific. but i don't get all the hype. i guess because sandler plays way against type, which is refreshing for him i'm sure.

The Vast Of Night - didn't know what to expect, just saw people talking about it and i liked the blurb, so i put it on. i quite enjoyed most of it, was actually really good. was able to build suspense successfully. the construct of the thing was a bit heavy-handed, and the last 20% of the film was ultimately very frustrating, but still 3.5/5 for me.

Afterlife - ricky gervais show. it certainly has funny moments and all, but the overall tone of this show is very depressing. the second season more than the first. lots of tears to go along with the laughs. surprisingly touching show.

Tales From The Loop - amazon show. i still have two episodes left in this show, but it reminds me of afterlife in that the overall tone is depressing. i guess that's the thing now? while there is a through-line or two with the episodes, it's more like a twilight zone type show where the episodes are stand-alone but each have at least one major sci-fi element. while it's a good show, it started off much stronger than the last couple episodes, but will report back on the final two in S1.

update: tales from the loop is absolutely sad if not depressing in tone throughout. jesus.

Dark - stayed away from this series for a couple years due to the marketing basically saying "hey, it's like stranger things!" it's not AT ALL like stranger things. it's fucking fantastic sci-fi. i finished the first couple seasons over the weekend and loved them. just kept getting better. i do have a couple complaints/questions about things that seemed to change as it went along, but looking very much forward to the S3 / conclusion which drops friday. if you haven't watched it, DO SO.

TC wrote:Dark - stayed away from this series for a couple years due to the marketing basically saying "hey, it's like stranger things!" it's not AT ALL like stranger things. it's fucking fantastic sci-fi. i finished the first couple seasons over the weekend and loved them. just kept getting better. i do have a couple complaints/questions about things that seemed to change as it went along, but looking very much forward to the S3 / conclusion which drops friday. if you haven't watched it, DO SO.

saturday, not friday. but drop it did. it really reminds me of Legion, in that it had three very complicated seasons, and i didn't see how they could possibly wrap them up neatly or stick the landing, but they actually did in both instances. i get the feeling with s3 they kind of wrote themselves into something they had to find a way out of, but it still worked. i could be wrong, maybe they had the entire thing planned out from the beginning, i don't know. regardless, after some (very) complex, mind-bending episodes, it did find a landing that worked, for me anyway. still plenty of holes, but given

they have made sure we know that the two worlds - jonas' and martha's - are aberrations and shouldn't have existed, pretty much any hole can be written off as happening because they were part of a world that shouldn't have existed.

highly recommend it.

Big Little Lies - avoided this for a while due to so much other shit being on and kind of hating reese witherspoon, but just finished S1 and boy was this really fucking good. quite enjoyed it. looking forward to seeing where this goes in S2.

TC wrote:Big Little Lies - avoided this for a while due to so much other shit being on and kind of hating reese witherspoon, but just finished S1 and boy was this really fucking good. quite enjoyed it. looking forward to seeing where this goes in S2.

S2 was good. satisfying. but fuck i want more. hope they can do S3.

Succession - blew through S1 over the weekend. started slow but i did get into it pretty well. watched the first episode of S2 last night too just to see where it was going after that ending of S1. looks good so far. if you want some great high-dollar billionaire power drama, start with Billions, but this looks to be a good second.

TC wrote:Succession - blew through S1 over the weekend. started slow but i did get into it pretty well. watched the first episode of S2 last night too just to see where it was going after that ending of S1. looks good so far. if you want some great high-dollar billionaire power drama, start with Billions, but this looks to be a good second.

second season was great. holy fuck that ending. some very clever foreshadowing in that episode too. can't wait for S3. probably going to re-watch S1 now that i've seen where this goes just to see how they built the characters again. recommended show.

The Hunger - wife hadn't seen this, and i love this flick. it's more like and argento film, minus the bright brick red blood, than anything else. very experimental feeling. completely baffling that tony scott went from this directly to top gun. like someone saw this and said, "that guy should direct a giant budget, blockbuster, tentpole film."