Patrick R

I saw Certain Women last night and was blown away by it. Rarely is such gentle subtlety paired with such absolute emotional clarity. And it's so gorgeous!

I think it's in theaters now in America and I'm anxious to see it. Dark, even mean-spirited humor is definitely Martin McDonagh's thing, and moralistically giving awful people their comeuppance is definitely not. A lot of his stuff (that I've seen, I'm pretty unfamiliar with his theatrical work) is very much about the ways people are nasty to each other and I'd be shocked if he put all that discriminatory humor in the film without at least trying to make a point about it. That said there's something to be said about trying to have your cake and eat it too and some of the jokes in In Bruges (especially the dwarf/fat American stuff) rubbed me the wrong way. Above is my post about his Oscar-winning 2004 short Six Shooter earlier in this thread and I think it's a pretty good indication of his bleak worldview.

Cattet & Forzani are dope. I love that they're married because their movies are so unbelievably fetishistic it feels like they're letting people into their sex life or something and it makes their films, which are very off-puttingly "artsy" and cold, feel more personal and human in a weird way.

Killing of a Sacred Deer is my favorite film of the year so far. Of the Yorgos Lanthimos films I've seen (Dogtooth, The Lobster and this) this one has the best context for his unique brand of stilted nightmarish black humor, essentially taking a Cape Fear/Hand That Rocks the Cradle sort of genre exercise and spinning it off into absolute absurdity to explore how shitty men are at emotional labor. If you haven't seen Dogtooth or The Lobster you should be prepared for some pretty intense and dark material (also it just opens with footage of an actual open heart surgery) but if you're familiar with Lanthimos's thing there is nothing here that is as shocking or transgressive as those other two films.

Lady Bird is an awesome movie, a very good extension of films writer/director Greta Gerwig co-wrote with Noah Baumbach like Mistress America and Frances Ha. It's a bit more standard and less overtly comedic than those movies but it has a lot of the same charm and Saoirse Ronan does very well capturing the off-kilter effervescent charm of Gerwig's performances in those films. Better than Edge of Seventeen even, which means we are in a new golden age of teen movies.

I just saw this. It's basically Blade Runner: The Force Awakens. There were not nearly enough nipples.

Rachel Bloom is a great example because even if Crazy Ex-Girlfriend isn't a sketch show, it is very much a direct extension of her web work. Donald Glover is weird because he made his name on Derrick comedy then disappeared to work behind the scenes as a writer for 30 Rock then made his name again as an actor on Community than disappeared from comedic acting to make his name as a rapper who then used THAT success to go back and create and act in Atlanta and win a Golden Globe. If careers are skill trees, he's somehow filled in every possible point.

"Yaphet Kotto Christmas Sweater" is the same cadence as "Tinker Tailor Solider Spy" and arguably even more satisfying to speak aloud.

I think most sketch groups/performers that end up on TV still get there via the stage these days, whether through stand-up acts or as performers at the UCB or Second City. Jay Pharaoh is the only SNL person I can think of who had an online following (via his impressions of Denzel Washington and Will Smith) before ending up there.

I did the Chris Remo thing with student government in 8th grade. It was on a smaller scale, it was only for my 8th grade history class but I still defeated someone who was actually interested in being in student government by doing outrageous bodybuilding poses and declaring "a new fresh perspective to bring down the old regime" and then never once attended. The high school in media thing I never understand is the trope of a group of complete assholes "ruling the school" and being super popular despite being nasty and treating everyone like shit all the time. At my high school the popular people were the friendliest most out-going people who did the most extra-curricular activities. Also "ruling the school" was not an actual thing and I don't know what that would even entail.

Tragedy Girls is a very very funny Heathers/Scream sort of black horror-comedy. It's entirely possible the self-absorbed social media-obsessed characters will put some people off, but I found both leads to be hysterical and the pacing of the film was perfect. My biggest fear going in was that it'd be another tired lecture about millenials and the narcissism of social media (the trailer definitely leans on this angle too hard), but luckily that's only the premise that allows the plot to happen, not the basis for most it's comedy. There's a really good mix of sincere character work and absurd cynical violence and if you are a fan of Jennifer's Body or Scream, this would be one to check out.

I'm listening to old episodes of the Bombcast and Dan talks about how the show Making a Murderer made him realize the justice system is messed up when previously he "just figured everything worked out the way it should" and all I could think of is that Making a Murderer is a show about a white person being chewed up by the system.

Doris Wishman is one of the most important sexploitation directors, and she also did a few horror films too. Her stuff is very very weird. A Night to Dismember is a baffling sorta-slasher movie worth watching. And Nude on the Moon is a nudie cutie where astronauts land on the moon and discover a bunch of nude women wearing doodle-boppers on their heads. Roberta Findlay is also important in the exploitation world, both from films she made with husband Michael Findlay and otherwise. Naomi Kawase is a Japanese filmmaker who makes gentle dramas. Her last feature, Sweet Bean, had some buzz in America last year, though it was a little too subdued for my tastes. Věra Chytilová was an avant-garde Czech director who, among other things, directed the seminal feminist film Daisies. I'm not a huge fan of her work, but Sarah Polley is certainly a notable contemporary female filmmaker, who directed Take This Waltz and Stories We Tell. Catherine Hardwicke is out there still doing work. Everyone makes fun of Twilight (and why not, it's a bad movie) but it wasn't terribly directed, just terribly written. Lexi Alexander mostly directs TV these days, but her film Punisher: War Zone falls into that narrow list of "super hero movies that don't feel like the exact same thing as every other super hero movie". The Punisher puts his fist through someone's face in it. It's pretty great.

I've personally not seen many College Humor videos that did much for me but, regardless, I'm not throwing shade at anyone. If American Vandal only aspired to the level of sketch comedy, even good sketch comedy, it wouldn't be nearly as good as it is. The first episode feels like good sketch comedy, a single good premise (high school bullshit in the structure of Making A Murderer) exploited to it's full potential. It's every subsequent episode that further opens up what American Vandal can be, tonally and structurally, that makes it so remarkable.

Claire Denis is probably the best female director around (certainly one of the most interesting directors of the 21st century), though her films are too dense and beguiling for me to just throw on if I'm not in a very specific mood. But Beau Travail...oh man, what a movie! White Material is another one that totally destroyed me. Ava DuVernay is probably the most powerful female director in Hollywood right now. I loved Selma. Wasn't too hot on her previous feature, but am mildly optimistic about her A Wrinkle in Time film she's doing for Disney. Or tied with Patty Jenkins, but I have no personal interest in Wonder Woman. I think In The Cut is Jane Campion's best movie, but everyone just thinks of it as that awkward Meg Ryan erotic thriller and dismisses it. But also I'm just not a fan of hers in general, I suppose. Lillian Schwartz is a very important computer animator who made two of my all-time favorite experimental shorts, Pixillation and UFO's. They are both available to watch on her website (scroll all the way down), though an epilepsy warning is in order as they feature a ton of flashing lights. On the experimental route, my favorite film I saw in 2016 was an experimental documentary by Deborah Stratman called "The Illinois Parables" that did a number on me. It was really powerful if a bit oblique, and made me want to see the rest of their work, which is unfortunately very hard to get a hold of.

The campers wake up to find QR codes hanging from the trees. The build-up of Never Hike Alone is fine (I like the mundane details of his hiking blog, like the sponsored ad read), but I thought when it came time to actually be a horror movie it felt clumsy and when the only real connection to the Friday the 13th movies is a big dumb crowd-pleasing cameo the whole enterprise just feels cynical to me. Now, the group of teenagers who adapted one of the Friday the 13th young adult novels from the 90's almost word for word, those are some F13 fans I can get behind:

I mean, the Blair Witch movie that came out last year had a ton of drone footage and it made 45 million dollars, so...

At the risk of transforming this into the F13 thread (just kidding, I love it), I will repost my review from Letterboxd: "Stretches the definition of "fan-film" not because it's too good/polished*, but because I can't imagine what part of the Friday the 13th films this person is a fan of. The entire appeal of fan-films is seeing amateurs attempting to recreate their favorite films and, as a result of their lack of money and skill, accidentally reveal more about who they are and why they like the series than anything else. This is a completely unrelated thing that happens to take place at Camp Crystal Lake, probably because it made it easier to raise Kickstarter money that way. Also the bro lead of this gets into multiple fist-fights with Jason Voorhees who, instead of just punching his head off like we all know the real Jason would, just retaliates with hoss wrestling moves. Bodyslam Jason only works as a WWe2K create-a-character. Hard pass. *This isn't actually good or polished but it does have drone shots so I get why people on this site have been tricked into thinking this is, like, actually a good movie. Kids love found footage and drone shots."

I am on this benefit album for Hurricane Maria relief. Also notable 90's alt-rock figure Tracy Bonham is on it? Never thought I'd be on an album with Tracy Bonham. Anyway, there's a lot of good music here that is nothing like mine and all proceeds go to charity, so give it a look.

Ha, it wasn't an open-ended question! I wasn't told that my answers would just be reprinted verbatim and if I knew I would have re-worded and embellished some of them. The mother! thing seemed a bit far-fetched, but I don't follow film news so I took them at their word. I haven't seen that fan-film but heard of it recently, from somewhere, so I'll check it out after work. A lot of fan-films these days are a little too polished for my taste. I like fan-films that feel cheap and junky and are the work of kids with too much time on their hands, obsessively inventing new mythologies, like Del From Hell's Friday the 13th Part 3: Jason's Revenge. But I like slasher fan-films any way you slice it, so I'll check it out. Anyway, here are my star ratings as exemplified by slasher movies: ★★★★★ - The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), Halloween (1978), Alice Sweet Alice, Scream ★★★★½ - A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors ★★★★ - My Bloody Valentine (1981), Visiting Hours, Silent Night Deadly Night ★★★½ - Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter, The Funhouse, Happy Birthday To Me, The Burning ★★★ - Neon Maniacs, Final Exam, A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge, Friday the 13th ★★½ - Hatchet, Don't Open 'Til Christmas, Silent Scream ★★ - Halloween (2007), Hell Night, Gruesome Twosome, Graduation Day, Sorority Row ★½ - Hatchet 2, Don't Go In The Woods, Friday the 13th Part V: The New Beginning, Halloween 5 ★ - 31, Unrest, Prom Night (2008), Halloween Resurrection, ½ - Jason X, Jason Goes to Hell, The Clown Murders

I recently was interviewed for an article where every Friday the 13th movie had one defender who claimed it was the best one (I think Part 4 is the best) and I was astonished they found people for Jason X and Jason Goes to Hell.

For a long time on my personal film diary site that I no longer use I went with letter grades, because I had more experience with them in my life. As I started to use Letterboxd I had to pair these letter grades with stars and eventually my mind just switched over to the star system. Rating art is dumb but at this point my brain does it anyway, and the advantages of keeping a Letterboxd film journal outweigh the downsides. ★★★★★ - Unimpeachable greatest film of all time material. Examples: Rear Window, In the Mood For Love, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Meet Me In St. Louis ★★★★½ - I adore this movie, but I have a slight reservation about it. Examples: Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Blade Runner, Blue Velvet, Tangerine ★★★★ - This is a great movie. Examples: King Kong, Touch of Evil, Akira, What Time Is It There? ★★★½ - This is a good movie. I'd give a warm recommendation. Examples: mother!, Edge of Seventeen, Duel, Au Revoir Les Enfants ★★★ - Pretty good. A mild recommendation. Most movies I see end up here. Examples: The Big Sick, Babette's Feast, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, In & Out ★★½ - Mediocre, little of interest. Examples: It (2017), Captain Phillips, Inside Out, The Darjeeling Limited ★★ - This is a bad movie. Examples: Poltergeist 2, Straight Outta Compton, Platoon, Vertigo (I know, I know, I just do not understand what people see in it at all) ★½ - This is a really bad movie. Examples: The Bye Bye Man, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Amistad, A Bug's Life ★ - God, this was awful. Pissed me off. Examples: The Neon Demon, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Jurassic World, Driving Miss Daisy ½ - Mostly interchangable with ★. Just wretched. Examples: Natural Born Killers, Jason X, The Ninth Gate, Quintet Ratings below 2 stars are somewhat rare as I normally just turn off movies I'm watching if I hate them that much.

Knives of the Avenger was a similar disappointment for me, but that was a work for hire thing where he came in mid-production so it makes sense it's uninspired. Not sure if the same is true of Erik the Conqueror. Either way, not Bava's strongest genre, it would seem. Shock was a disappointment for me as it's a cheap reheat of Exorcist/Amityville Horror tropes that were popular at the time. But it does have some fun special effects and a cult following, so maybe you'll be into it.

Oh man, does Ryan Gosling have like, 12 nipples in this movie? That'd be a way better way of distinguishing androids from real people than some cockamamie empathy test.