Watching
My last 10 watched from Letterboxd.
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Deep Cover
I don't think anyone involved in this movie has ever done or seen improv before.
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Shutter Island
This movie is fucking wild. Even with a vague recollection of the ending when I saw this in the theater 15 years ago(!) it fucked me up all over again. Great production design and cinematography. Could have been a little shorter, but wow. Better than I remembered.
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Lone Star
Really interesting Western that starts like a murder mystery but unravels the complicated relationships in a small, Texas border town. Even though it's almost 30 years old it felt very modern, but like the setup for a TV series. Loved Chris Cooper and Elizabeth Peña (who I had a huge crush on as a kid). Young Matthew McConaughey has a few minutes of screen time as Cooper's dad in flashbacks, but his presence looms large over the whole film.
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Materialists
Thirty minutes into this, my wife leaned over to me and whispered, "this movie is terrible." She wasn't entirely wrong. Dakota Johnson is so one-note, she comes across as terribly insincere in a job that requires a fair amount of empathy. But even in her romantic relationships, she gives off the same monotone vibe. Very Madame Web energy. Pedro is Pedro but largely wasted in a limited role. Chris Evans is fine but it's hard to sell him as a struggling actor. The movie also seems extremely cynical about marriage and relationships in general. A stark contrast with Past Lives, which had a lot more emotional weight than this follow-up from Celine Song.
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On the Waterfront
Not sure what to say about this other than it's a good-looking picture and Brando is kind of overrated.
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Drinking Buddies
Good hangs from the master of horny white millennial Chicago hipster mumblecore, Joe Swanberg. Love the cast and the sexual tension throughout gave me PTSD from my 20s. Feels like a prototype for Swanberg's show, Easy, which ran for three seasons and shared a lot of similar characters, locales and themes. I found the end to be pretty unsatisfying though.
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The 39 Steps
A fun, tight (86 mins!) thriller. I was impressed with what Hitchcock was able to pull off considering this film is 90 years old, not that I've seen much from that era to compare it to. Surprisingly horny for what I assumed was a heavily censored era.
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25th Hour
Spent the first 2/3s thinking "this is not as good as I remember," but then that final sequence with Brian Cox just gutted me. It's so different watching this as a 27-year-old, roughly the same age as Monty, and then again at 50, closer to his dad's age. The early digital holds up better than Bamboozled, though the few night scenes are grainy as hell, but it works. Completely forgot PSH is in this and his uncomfortable attraction to young Anna Paquin. "what are you trying to be, R Kelly?" Way ahead of its time. Really captures America's post-9/11 love affair with NYC and even name drops Trump. How times have changed.
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The Surfer
Really digging late-stage unhinged Cage. Perfectly cast here as a bougie white guy brought low by a tribe of surfers. Maybe the best privledge spiral since Dan Ackroyd in Trading Places. Love the saturated color palette and the dream-like quality of everything. Julian McMahon delivers a great balance of charm and menace. Loved him since Nip/Tuck and wish he was in more stuff. I didn't even recognize him in the trailer. Auzzies are a fun bunch.
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Evil Does Not Exist
Gorgeously shot but considerably more ponderous than Drive My Car. I was fully on board until the last act, which was a real head-scratcher. It turns out the real evil was the capitalism we made along the way.