There's a beautiful irony in a movie about people making a film no one will ever see having fewer than 350 watches on Letterboxd. It's a reminder that art can be made for ourselves and each other and still be something special—because it's about the effort in the action, not the quality of the result. The end-of-the-world setup feels almost arbitrary in a way that was clearly inspired by the abruptness of the pandemic, and it's interesting to see the variety of ways people choose to spend their final few weeks alive—oscillating between the impulse to do absolutely nothing and the desire to accomplish everything they've ever wanted. I was eager to see how the film would handle its big ending, and the choice was both surprising and genuinely touching.

Beyond its tribute to the lo-fi charm of homemade movies, The Last Movie Ever Made has some really effective relationship arcs. The ensemble is a ragtag group of people we become quite fond of by the end, and there's a lovely earnestness in the way each of them turned out to need this project.

“Would be nice to save at least one universe.”

Such a well-deserved cinematography Oscar nomination for Caleb Deschanel—nearly every aerial sequence had me gasping in awe. How tragic that movies will never look like this again.

Fly Away Home is a tender, heartfelt family film about a teenage girl processing the death of her mother by “mothering” a family of orphaned geese. Despite being formulaic in the usual ways—especially in the more plot-heavy third act—the father-daughter bond strikes a special chord thanks to the understated chemistry between Jeff Daniels and Anna Paquin. The film could have incorporated more coming-of-age texture along the way, but there’s something refreshing in the simplicity of sticking to its central event and resisting extraneous embellishment. It’s rare for a family film to feel this mature and contemplative, and its environmentalist undercurrent still resonates today.

Equal parts spellbinding, divine, and perplexing, David Lowery's Mother Mary inhabits a suspended spiritual space between artistic inspiration, creative collaboration, and supernatural connection. The film operates almost entirely in metaphor and visual symbolism—which will likely distance some viewers expecting clearer genre footing. However, we are anchored by the specificity of the film’s central relationship and the two mesmerizing lead performances that pull us into something emotionally accessible, if still ontologically ambiguous.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ The metaphysical link between Mary's arena and Sam's studio is breathtaking, the poetry of the language often immaculate, and certain widescreen compositions unforgettable. The pop songs (Charli XCX, Jack Antonoff, and FKA twigs) are properly convincing, and Daniel Hart's score climaxes with a triumphant statement of symphonic power.

I won't pretend I have a fully formed interpretation of what Lowery is saying here, but his vision has burrowed its way inside me and will no doubt continue to take shape over time. Much like my relationship to his A Ghost Story, I expect future visits to feel even more transcendent.

It’s a smart setup: a protagonist desperate for a best friend paired against a foil whose behavior hints at an escalating ulterior motive. The roommate drama is at its best when it flirts with something more malicious and opportunistic. When the third act starts prioritizing external plot conflicts over the far more interesting character study, the film loses some of its grip, but Chloe East brings a compelling inscrutability to the role that keeps you guessing her intentions nearly the whole way through. Roommates may lack the personal touch of Chandler Levack’s other work, but the screenplay is sharply funny, and the frame narrative is delightfully unnecessary in the best way. 

“Have none of you seen Erin Brockovich?”

Once again, Chandler Levack is preaching to the choir with her choice of protagonists. Here we all are, writing our little Letterboxd reviews and attempting to critically engage with this music critic thrown into Montreal's arts scene, suddenly desperate for a sense of belonging, personal value, and new experiences that push her outside of her comfort zone—checking off each on a literal list of to-dos.

Anyone else relate? Just me?

Not unlike Levack's central subject in I Like Movies (nice to see you again, Isaiah Lehtinen), Grace is self-absorbed, impulsive, and often plain unlikable; she’s difficult to watch, yet impossible to look away from. This leads to some uncomfortable moments of failure and plenty of awkward humor, which seems to be Levack's signature pocket of filmmaking. The few sex sequences are directed with particular storytelling specificity: not standard movie-hot, but staged to be awkward and uncomfortable, with the interiority of two people on different pages. Grace’s entanglements with partners, roommates, and family lead to this broader journey of self-discovery, and while some narrative threads are abandoned in the final few scenes, the semi-autobiographical nature of the story supports life's authentic aversion to clean resolution.

We're intended to see parts of ourselves in Grace's passions and problems—art, at its best, collapsing the distance between maker and receiver. Levack seems to be saying: this was me, this is her, maybe this was you too? That exchange creates a tension between wanting Grace to succeed and wanting her to fall flat on her face so she'll get back up and learn from her mistakes. 

Watching it all unfold almost feels like trying to take care of your younger self.

We need more sports thrillers that focus on the business side of the games! Draft Day has a jumble of tones and overtly archetypal characters, but the fictional bravado of its premise is soundly constructed, and the focus on the draft prospect's character—rather than their skill or reputation—is a compelling subversion of expectations. The magic trick of the ending is both thrilling and ridiculous. This is not a great movie by any measure, but it's a breezy guilty pleasure favorite for its niche. 

Happy draft week!

Came for the shadows of summer sun cast through breezy trees. Stayed for the unexpected, distinctly cinematic third-act collision of memory and perspective. That said, Blue Heron feels slightly too insular and memoiristic to connect with viewers. Specific atmospheric details land with real resonance, but the narrative is held at such arm’s length that the observational style never quite adds up to something with sustained dramatic charge or thematic staying power.

World Premiere at Philadelphia Film Society

Gemma’s lowkey smooth flirting game, 
Bobby’s oatmeal cookie monologue,
Shayna keeping everyone on script, 
Mikey making sure the thing got made,
Ben catching the sunrise in that 4:3 framing,   
Drew skateboarding into the distance,
Matt’s character lost to the cutting room floor :(,
and Aaron’s singular ability to bring people together for a great party.

These Are My Friends. And I’m very lucky to know them and get to make things with them.

With the release of the new Pizza Movie, I figured it was a good time to finally check out the other pizza movie I’ve had on my list for a few years. 

Northwood Pie is a microbudget hangout film that moves at a breezy pace and offers plenty of laughs alongside some genuine coming-of-age introspection. I think it hits especially well for people my age—those of us who graduated college around the time it came out. It nails that hometown malaise and the tension between wanting to get out and not knowing exactly where to go.

Across the Universe anticipates the wave of jukebox musicals that would come to dominate 21st-century musical theatre—that narrative format where story is constructed around pre-existing songs. This inverse approach is never going to be a foolproof method of storytelling; such musicals will always invite heightened scrutiny from audience members who already have a personal relationship with the music. Yet there are a number of standout sequences where Julie Taymor’s visual experimentation and dramaturgical contextualization cohere into something quite profound and expressionistic.

Highlights include: the bowling alley "I've Just Seen a Face," the businessmen choreography in "Come Together," the anti-war nightmare of "I Want You (She's So Heavy)," the psychedelic "I Am the Walrus," the phantasmagoria of "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite," the a cappella "Because" oner lying in the field, and the seductive "Happiness Is a Warm Gun."

Taymor is able to incorporate many of her theatrical sensibilities—her time spent studying cultural performance styles around the world and her relationship with Bread and Puppet Theater. She presents a political point of view that reveals the timeless cycles of revolutionary struggle; the Columbia University protest sequence certainly feels fresh.

Even if the film occasionally stumbles in reconciling its wide-ranging cultural ambition with its narrative construction from the songs of The Beatles, Across the Universe is a spellbinding arthouse musical worth its cult status.

Watched on Saturday April 11, 2026.

A truly day-ruining experience—especially given that the buzz around this film (and A24’s usual marketing schtick) is so devoted to hyping up its central “secret.” This concerns me, because I think framing the conflict as a lure—as, ahem, “the drama” between our pair of attractive movie stars—could be genuinely harmful for viewers who don’t realize what they’re walking into. Of course, I could have sought out a content warning, but it’s extremely rare that I struggle with something like this. By my own logic, I should probably name it outright, but I won’t. What I will say is: if you’ve ever needed a content warning, please don’t “go in blind” just because the internet tells you to. Take care of yourself. I hope that saying even this much will help someone.

As for the film itself: I understand that evasion is the entire point—the refusal to address the thing directly. But the screenplay also refuses to investigate the questions it raises in any meaningful way. There’s a genuinely fascinating moral throughline buried in here, about discovering something disturbing about your partner and how that warps your psychology around them, and about the compelling distinction between the dark thoughts we all have and what we actually choose to act on. But the shock exists almost entirely as a plot device, engineered to implode a marital engagement and feed the film’s titular appetite for gossip and sensationalism. It doesn’t actually care about this issue, and so the result is empty provocation at best, deeply nihilistic and borderline irresponsible filmmaking at worst.

I’m just not able to laugh with this. Even granting the film its often effective stylistic register—slightly expressionist, superficial dark comedy—the mixture is too potent, and too close to home, for both my conscience as a human being living through this particular moment in American history and my sensibility as an artist trying to invoke a better world through storytelling. Perhaps I’m not the open-minded viewer the film demands, but I’ve only got the one mind to work with.

Watched as intended (ahem), and you know what? Pizza Movie has a lot more going for it than I was expecting.

Even if some of the jokes don’t land, the ensemble performances are all dialing it up—buying Jack Martin stock immediately—and the direction is committed to the point of real creativity at times. The screenplay stoops to some questionable lows, but the sincere friendship, college adventure, and meta-modernist touches elevate the batshit, messy plot into one of the better throwbacks to 2000s stoner comedies we’ve had.

I want to use this rewatch review to share a story about the undeniable heart of Project Hail Mary: James Ortiz.

Just over ten years ago, James gave me an opportunity to spend a day assisting him in his puppet-building studio. I cold-emailed him after seeing his play, The Woodsman, which reimagined the origin of Oz's Tin Man through ensemble-driven physical storytelling, original folk music, breath, and most unforgettably, puppetry. I had first stumbled upon this style of storytelling at the Edinburgh Fringe but had never found it back home. So discovering this piece in New York City, while I was studying to be a theatre director just a 35-minute train ride away, was a transformative encounter that has forever influenced the way I tell stories.

Looking back at our email exchange, I have to laugh at my naiveté and confidence: "I have plenty of experience in props, scenery, lighting, etc." To be clear, I am not, nor have I ever been, a visual artist—and while my real desire was to observe rehearsals for the upcoming transfer of The Woodsman, I would jump at whatever opportunity this person gave me.

I remember being very tentative, unsure of my ability to fulfill the basic puppet-maintenance tasks he assigned me. I remember his kindness and his patience, but I also remember wondering if I'd disappointed him—if my talent hadn't met the level of passion that had gotten me into that room in the first place.

But these were stories I told myself, explanations for why things never went further. I never figured out how to turn that one day into something more. Yet looking back, I see how fortunate I was to simply become an audience member again. To have held those puppets in my hands, felt them come alive, and then been sent back out into the world to create that magic myself. Maybe he knew that was all I needed.

It's been a while since I've reached out to James, and despite a few near misses where our professional paths might have crossed again, I haven't had the chance to make a different impression—to meet him as a peer and not just an admirer. But I'm looking forward to it. 

Seeing his solo title card on the big screen, stumbling upon his press for the movie, and hearing the childlike joy in his voice every time he asks Ryan Gosling’s Grace to do a puppet show for him—it's quite special. Just not quite as special as sitting in Theater B at 59E59 and experiencing The Woodsman the first time all those years ago, realizing I was never going to be the same artist who walked in.

"Imagine, if you will..."

Thanks for everything, James 👎

Based on a play (with a very different, very long name I am practicing committing to memory), Forbidden Fruits is an aesthetically popping pastiche of cliquey teen horror comedies. The cinematic adaptation finds some fun visual opportunities to capture that liminal, out-of-time atmosphere so unique to suburban malls, as well as the consumerist culture that can infiltrate and shape our social lives.

The screenplay, however, never quite transcends its origins as a contemporary ensemble play in both language and structure. This kind of heightened dialogue with its spoken symbolism through archetypal characters is typically more accessible with the suspension of disbelief afforded to the metaphorical realm of theatre. The film has a little too much plot to feel like a workplace hangout movie, but not a clear enough sense of where it’s heading until it arrives. To its detriment, the most significant piece of relationship context is held back as a third-act twist rather than allowed to actively drive the story and generate stakes from the start. That said, adapting what I’d guess were direct-address monologues into changing room confessionals is a clever way to justify keeping that text, even if those moments feel the most “new play.”

Whatever brought this to the screen, hopefully it signals a growing pipeline for indie plays to become indie films (see: Is God Is). My peers are making so much work that would CRUSH at this production scale, and the people going to the movies want original stories!!

I was preparing for the diminishing returns that might come with a sequel to such an original slasher setup, but Ready or Not 2... manages to repeat its central gimmick while simultaneously expanding the world and homing in on a core relationship. The filmmakers clearly knew they needed to shake up the format—trading the marital cold-feet metaphor for a satirical battle royale of power and familial loyalty.

The premise shouldn't hold up the more you explain its rules and legitimize its lore, but somehow the whole thing stays together in its ridiculousness; it's just culty enough that the absurdity feels plausible. Some performances are more attuned to the ensemble's tone than others, and the time it takes for sincere character scenes can undermine the tension, but Samara Weaving really is one of our great scream queens, and several of the cat-and-mouse sequences are wonderfully constructed.

I'm not sure the concept warrants another entry, but honestly, it's surprised me once already and is turning out to be among my favorite horror-comedy franchises. Hell ya!

Is a vanity project still a vanity project if it knows it's a vanity project?

The Premiere might have worked better as short-form episodic content—its narrative pivots and its protagonist's narcissism suit that format, even if the film insists its own significance demands feature-length treatment. Beyond a character study that goes nowhere and some genuine local texture from the Hamptons arts scene, there isn't much here. However, some of the more meta mockumentary twists land, and a late subplot starts to evoke the “ Scream” films this initially parodies, whether intentionally or not. 

Fans of musicals and horror might still find something in here, but I’m not sure who else this was made for. That said, seeing a theater and community I've been part of captured onscreen was fun.

For some reason, I’m still holding onto this naive belief that a movie musical can have its own kind of greatness. 

Revisiting In the Heights, in particular, is a welcome reminder of why Jon M. Chu was once handed the keys to Hollywood’s biggest movie musicals. His song sequences crackle with electric choreography, precise editing, symbolic shot compositions, and imaginative magic-realist flourishes—most of it in service of uplifting Lin-Manuel Miranda’s original material. The transitions between the grounded book scenes and the heightened musical world can feel jarring or unmotivated, but Chu is wise to keep returning to what anchors this story: the quiet strength of people and place, a celebration of culture, community, and its dreamers.

In the Heights holds up as a turning point in the history of musicals—a clear descendant of Rent and the lineage that expanded which stories, and which musical genres, belonged on a Broadway stage. The screen adaptation isn’t perfect, but Chu still manages to tap into something quite rare: those magical moments where song and cinema come together, and my stubborn faith in movie musicals feels justified all over again.

As a biopic of one of reality television’s founding fathers, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind lives dangerously at the intersection of reality and fiction. Clooney clearly struggles to balance the film’s many tones and genre styles, and the cinematography is (perhaps fittingly) quite ugly, but Kaufman’s screenplay offers a bizarrely compelling psychological study of its central character. Was Barris’ secret double life real? Or was it just another one of his tawdry inventions?

Who cares? That’s showbiz.

The Fifth Element sits right in that special moment in time when some blockbusters still had that cult 80s camp and madcap mix of genres, but the technology had advanced to the point where practical effects were at their most impressive and we weren’t yet relying on CGI to do everything. Some things in here feel dated, but others feel ahead of their time—or rather, speak to the consistent speculative dystopianism that runs through our country and were, in many ways, even predictive of it. Milla Jovovich is the film’s standout, in a performance that I can all but guarantee was dismissed as laughable at the time but deserves to be looked back on fondly.

Project Hail Mary is a remarkably faithful adaptation, translating its source material through the conventions of one medium into another without losing what makes it work. Where Andy Weir's novel delivers a first-person problem-solving adventure of scientific revelation, Lord and Miller's film streamlines the STEM in service of the story's more heroic undercurrents: personal sacrifice, cosmic collaboration, and shared triumph. 

While the structural pacing problems carry over from page to screen, the film's transitional approach makes the flashbacks feel more essential to ground us to the stakes, even if those moments lack the novel's framing device of Grace gradually rediscovering his memories. The middle drags slightly in both mediums, but the film manages to consolidate the sequences that feel repetitive on the page. The final few plot turns feel slightly rushed in the film, however, as the story's climactic moral dilemma lacks the existential turmoil such a life-and-death decision might demand. That said, the filmmakers preserve the relative optimism and lightheartedness in Weir’s writing, keeping what could have been a far bleaker end-of-the-world scenario from descending into true despair. 

Ryan Gosling wonderfully embodies Grace's affable disposition, middle-school teacher humor, and denial of the call. As Rocky's puppeteer and voice actor (to anyone claiming Rocky is CGI: do your homework), James Ortiz makes the character feel like far more than the hero's sidekick. Rocky is given real plot stakes and genuine character flaws, and even if the relationship has less room to breathe and evolve than it does on the page, the pair’s connection fully earns the emotional beats of the final act. The film adds some unnecessary reassurance in its Earth-bound coda, but it nails the last few lines of the book: my favorite moment in both versions, and a perfect final button to this intergalactic statement of hope for the future of the universe. If only we work together. 

Humans, take note.

“Now this is crucial, the expression she has here.”
“What is she thinking?

“Exactly.”

Arco features remarkable sci-fi worldbuilding for what is also, at its heart, a family film built on familiar story beats about two lost souls forming a connection across time and space. The art style carries the feel of graphic novels, rendered with care. As is often the case with French animation, some of the emotionality feels slightly pedestrian compared to the overt sentimentality audiences might expect elsewhere. But a particularly poignant twist at the very end reframes this restraint entirely, reminding us that practicality is a necessary companion to emotion in order to move forward.

Bad news for those of you who also skip the podcast ads so you can stick to the main show: undertone completely undermines its novelty by constantly pulling us away from its creepypasta audio adventure so the protagonist can tend to a dying parent and do random chores around the house. The central gimmick is deliciously cinematic—using noise-canceling headphones as a diegetic device to immerse us in the audio experience* is worth every bit of hype—but the time spent away from the podcasting station feels like a writer/director struggling to stretch a sharp short film concept into a viable feature-length narrative one.

Tuason doesn’t seem to trust the setup enough to let it breathe, instead padding the runtime with a plethora of eye-roll-inducing clichés that have come to define contemporary “elevated horror”: menacing elderly figures, demonic drawings, vague religious symbolism, and a protagonist whose skepticism outlasts any believability. It almost feels like a film auditioning for an A24 acquisition rather than following its own design principle to its full potential.

The dialogue is particularly rough, leaning on the podcast format as cover for clunky exposition and an uninteresting protagonist, while her offscreen scene partner plays less like another real person than a talking plot guide. With respect to these actors, they largely struggle to make the podcast-isms feel natural or sensical in how it’s produced.

That said, the final five minutes deliver a truly heart-pounding practical effects sequence, the sound mix finally unleashed and the roving camera stalking around every corner of the house with real dread. The last gesture is the perfect meta-cinematic choice for the experience. It’s just a shame it also tosses viewers into fresh narrative ambiguity right before releasing them back into the world.

*Seeing this in Dolby was technically impressive, but I suspect I would have been more forgiving of the writing (and far more terrified) had I watched it alone in my bedroom, in the dark, with noise-cancelling headphones. If you’re curious about this one, I’d recommend creating that experience for yourself.

“Hey, you better hold on to something.”

One of the most emotionally and stylistically cold movies in recent memory, After the Hunt features a clunker of a screenplay—pseudo-intellectual in tone and pointedly enigmatic in narrative—that neither its strong ensemble of (mostly miscast) actors nor Luca Guadagnino in misguided ticking-clock thriller mode can save.

The Voice of Hind Rajab is an utterly devastating reconstruction of this event, using archival media that becomes far more powerful through its cinematic coexistence with the narrative form. This approach allows the humanity beneath the tragedy to fully resonate while intermittently distancing us as a reminder that what we are experiencing happened nearly verbatim. Leading with its power to illuminate, the film walks viewers step by step through the rescue attempt, making obvious how Israel prevents humanitarian aid from reaching civilians. Even setting the broader context aside, witnessing this one specific example proves what is obviously happening on a much larger scale. Hopefully, films like this can help move us toward a better future.

Hoppers isn’t particularly groundbreaking, but it succeeds at something perhaps even more important: it genuinely feels like old-school Pixar. That spirit shines through in its high-concept premise, sharp comedic instincts, endearing ensemble of characters, and the emotional maturity that drives its protagonist’s dreams. Most importantly, this is a story that only works because it’s told through animation. Rather than aiming for strict photorealism, Hoppers embraces a slightly expressionistic visual style that better suits its increasingly outlandish narrative. Its most poignant moments, however, encourage the quiet and stillness of the natural world.

While some of the screenplay’s overarching thematic values feel slightly murky, the central conservationist conflict remains meaningful and timely. On the most basic level, it’s encouraging to see a young climate activist at the center of a family film. Watching her wrestle with whether she can truly make a difference in her community is something everyone—young and old—can relate to. And isn’t that Pixar at its best?

Father Mother Sister Brother is another Jarmusch anthology that taps into a particular kind of everyday humanity—strained relationships, careful observation, and quiet comforts. This time, he uses reuniting family units to express a great deal about the specific dynamics of their kinship while doing deceptively little narratively. Each part of the triptych introduces characters with rich inner lives, much of which remains unspoken, while subtle symbolic repetitions further bind the sections together. The first two segments establish a trio consisting of one parent and two children. So when the third opens with two children and no parent, the absence carries a subtle but unmistakable weight. That said, certain choices leave the film feeling slightly too constructed to fully evoke a grounded reality.

“I’m sorry to break the news, but nobody sings in real life.”

“Well maybe they should.”

It’s rare for me to go into a film adaptation of a stage musical without already knowing the show. Based on my understanding of the changes, I found the frame narrative of two men serving a prison sentence to be the far more emotionally effective half of the story, even without whatever songs were cut. Much of that impact comes from everything Tonatiuh brings to the film—“She’s a Woman” was the only song I knew well going in, and it emerges as the highlight of the film’s emotional journey. Sure, the present-day reality could have felt a bit harsher, and the musical fantasy world could have been shot with more bravado and glitz, but the central notion of escapism as a means of transformation still resonates in Bill Condon’s love letter to movie musicals. It feels disjointed in some ways, yet it still moved me in the moments it intended to.

There’s a far more complicated issue at the center of this deceitful premise than Hikari seems fully equipped to handle or interested in confronting. As endearing as Brendan Fraser’s performance is, and as affecting as the connections his character forms with his wholesome ensemble of clients are, Rental Family remains a jumble of tones, politely packaged as a feel-good humanist story that never quite reckons with its questionable morals or performative authenticity. 

As much as I wanted to be swept up in its undeniable charm, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I, too, was somehow being duped.

The best part of my Sunday matinee was walking out of the theater and overhearing a group of younger guys trying to figure out how the film’s central magic trick was accomplished. In an era when 0s and 1s can do just about anything we tell them to, Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie feels gloriously original—lo-fi, inventive, and unmistakably human-made. Even without prior familiarity with these characters, the premise’s self-reflexive cleverness delivers both genuine delight and unexpected catharsis. I’m glad it’s achieving cult status so quickly, and I’m looking forward to watching it again with friends and cracking open whatever Orbitz substitute we can come up with.

But seriously, how did they do that? 
Then again, I’m not sure I even want to know.

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised by how much Heart Eyes plays as a rom-com trying to coexist with a slasher. Josh Rubin has fun throwing us between the two genre tones, but the concept isn’t really clever enough to compensate for the thin plot, and the two likable actors at the center aren’t given enough to work with. It’s a fine effort, but not particularly memorable for its story or its kills.

This film quiets my mind, warms my heart, and fills my soul. I’ll cherish it forever.

“I don’t know how to do her hair right.”

My god.

After a somewhat peculiar first act, it’s remarkable how swiftly Little Amélie transforms from angry demon baby to enlightened philosopher toddler. What emerges is a gorgeously impressionistic and tender animated film—one that celebrates found family across cultural lines while gently tracing a child’s psychological evolution from solipsism to empathy. Its runtime may be brief, but Little Amélie or the Character of Rain still manages to leave a delicate, lasting impression about an expanding sense of the world.

We’re so used to seeing period design presented with such extravagance that it’s always refreshing when Kelly Reichardt invites us to simply inhabit the particular atmosphere of another time. Her quiet, anti-heist film may feel slightly sparse on narrative propulsion, but Josh O’Connor’s focused, interior performance—set against a loose, jazzy score—keeps us quietly absorbed.

Unexpectedly one of the darkest comedies in recent memory, Friendship is a singular character study worthy of both empathy and condemnation. It packages a number of contemporary social and gender constructs into an often outlandish satire of self-destruction and obsession, blending the sketch-comedy sensibility of Tim Robinson with the allegorical genre thrills associated with A24. That said, the screenplay is somewhat overstuffed and occasionally off-putting. 

Still, for every New Yorker article about the “male loneliness epidemic,” there’s something more psychologically revealing beneath the film’s uncomfortable surface: a drug-trip hallucination where the fantasy isn’t excess or chaos, but simply ordering a sandwich and getting exactly what you asked for. 

If only it were that easy…

Watched on Saturday February 21, 2026.

How to Make a Killing has a wickedly entertaining dark-comedy setup that feels refreshingly less concerned with plot mechanics than with the moral questions driving its premise. A clever framing device plays with audience expectations, and the (perhaps unreliable) narration lends the film’s more outrageous turns the air of a story embellished to suit the protagonist’s goals. Glen Powell’s sly charisma is smartly deployed, while Margaret Qualley makes for a perfect femme fatale. Even if the third act feels a little contrived, this is exactly the kind of smart, mid-budget adult drama film fans want to see in theaters, and another incisive economic thriller from John Patton Ford.

Extremely visceral filmmaking, given even greater narrative significance by being a true story, The Lost Bus runs a bit long and loses some of its survivalist momentum and procedural specificity due to its imposed internal character stakes. Still, it’s a harrowing natural disaster thriller that shows humanity at its most vulnerable, executed with the propulsive tension Paul Greengrass brings a singular verisimilitude to. This probably would have been a hit on just about any other streaming service.

Arguably the first horror movie I ever saw (as required by my high school film class), and I think I’ll always be a little genuinely afraid of it.

“Then we’re doomed.”

Emerald Fennell does a magnificent job of making the love between Margot Robbie’s Catherine and Jacob Elordi’s Heathcliff feel not only certain but eternally inevitable. Even as darker shades of moral ambiguity emerge over the third act, “Wuthering Heights” never loses its grip on its overly impassioned romantic tragedy. 

Without familiarity with the novel, it can be difficult to determine what has been thematically abandoned versus what reflects Fennell’s own proclivities and disinterests. However, what may strike some as meticulously constructed yet shallow provocation nonetheless functions as compelling style—at least until one begins to interrogate the dramaturgical reason behind a majority of the choices she makes.

Though it may be her most straightforward and surprisingly restrained film to date, it often feels like it offers a step forward in the visual (and musical) world her collaborators are able to construct. Jacqueline Durran’s costumes pop against Linus Sandgren’s foggy photography, while Anthony Willis’s score fully earns the film’s grand emotional gestures.

The blueprint.

“I’m not a fan.”

Alex Russel demonstrates strong directorial command in his psychological drama Lurker, grounding the film in a compelling exploration of celebrity obsession and social status. While the narrative treads familiar territory for recent indie cinema, a third-act turn reframes the central dynamics and pushes the story into deeper moral complexity. The camcorder footage adds an effective lo-fi, metatextual layer, while the original music—integral to the narrative of a pop artist’s ascent—is cohesive and convincing.

Even if Die My Love is narratively unmoored, Lynne Ramsay’s striking visual expressiveness keeps the film aesthetically compelling. It certainly helps to have two actors willing to go all in. In fact, the film’s greatest strength lies in the strangeness of their behavior, the tumultuous magnetism of their relationship, and the way Ramsay captures both with an unflinching intensity.

Send Help fits squarely within the contemporary wave of socioeconomic thrillers, but Sam Raimi injects a singular verve, masterfully balancing the tonal friction between horror schlock and character-driven sincerity. While the pacing occasionally stutters, the plot reliably escalates whenever the premise threatens to run out of steam. Even if overly foreshadowed, the turns always feel in service of deepening theme and symbolic detail. Throughout, Rachel McAdams and Dylan O’Brien remain fully locked into the power-play struggle over survivalist dependency.

“Isn’t that art?”

I was completely caught off guard by what this story is actually about, but sometimes great inspiration comes from unexpected places. Secret Mall Apartment uses its buzzy title and rebellious true story to spotlight issues like gentrification and urban development, while offering a portrait of an artist and his collective. Some detours feel unnecessary—the recreations go against the spirit of the original work—but it’s still a surprisingly moving experience and a perfect use of cinema to immortalize these artistic projects significant for their impermanence.

That final title card really is something…

The more upbeat shades of brotherly solidarity are sometimes at odds with the utter brutality of the violence—Francis Lawrence can still shape a devastating death sequence—but that tonal mismatch works well enough under the umbrella of speculative dystopian fiction. The Long Walk shares significant overlap with another 2025 King adaptation, The Running Man, yet this film’s relative straightforwardness makes for a more complete cinematic experience, even if its political allegory feels less potent. Lawrence’s narrative focus and approach—closer to a YA survivalist adventure—feel well suited to the source material’s endurance test. 

It also left me thinking about a stage adaptation.

“There are three great truths in the world. A good meal, a good screw, and a good shit. And that's all.”

Somehow, a single extended conversation—taken from the transcript of a lost audio interview between two artist friends—makes for compelling cinema. Ben Whishaw is in gentle yet precise command of the verbatim text, while the 16mm photography carries us through space and time without interrupting the momentum of the dialogue. The material won’t engage everyone, but Peter Hujar’s Day is undeniably fascinating: a slightly self-reflexive formal experiment and a welcome antidote to the standard biopic structure.

I don’t log filmed theatre, so this is how I track what I’ve seen. (Sorted by release year)

• The Shark Is Broken
• Merrily We Roll Along
• Good Night, and Good Luck
• Next to Normal
• National Theatre Live: The Other Place
• National Theatre Live: The Effect
• Macbeth
• The Prince of Egypt: The Musical
• National Theatre Live: Prima Facie
• Come from Away

...plus 2 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

I don’t log short films, so this is how I track the ones I’ve seen. (Sorted by release year)

*Some of these also fall under TV specials.

• The Girl Who Cried Pearls
• The Singers
• Forevergreen
• All the Empty Rooms
• Snoopy Presents: A Summer Musical
• Awaiting the Lightning Bolt
• West Landing
• Moving Parts
• The Devil Is Busy
• Two People Exchanging Saliva

...plus 291 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

*This list becomes locked at posting

1. One Battle After Another
2. The Life of Chuck
3. Train Dreams
4. Sinners
5. Eephus
6. The Testament of Ann Lee
7. The Plague
8. Marty Supreme
9. Bugonia
10. Avatar: Fire and Ash

1. Up
2. WALL·E
3. Ratatouille
4. Monsters, Inc.
5. Finding Nemo
6. The Incredibles
7. Toy Story
8. Coco
9. Inside Out
10. Soul

...plus 20 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

/ˈˌmajik ˈrēəˌlizəm/

noun

a literary or artistic genre in which realistic narrative and naturalistic technique are combined with surreal elements of dream or fantasy.

(Open to suggestions!)

• 13 Going on 30
• About Time
• The Adventures of Baron Munchausen
• The Age of Adaline
• All of Us Strangers
• Amélie
• Anomalisa
• The Artist
• Atlantics
• Beasts of the Southern Wild

...plus 110 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Always official. Sometimes changes.

1. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
2. Big Fish
3. Boyhood
4. La La Land
5. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

   *This counts as the full trilogy

6. Pan's Labyrinth
7. The Florida Project
8. Before Sunrise
9. Beauty and the Beast
10. Whiplash

...plus 15 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Somehow my 8th Hooptober!

I managed to include a lot of films already on my watchlist this year, and I’m especially excited to revisit The Wizard of Oz for the first time in many years. RIP David Lynch—this one’s for you.

As always, my bonus films are likely to change. 

This year's original list and rules can be found here. Happy Hooptober, y’all!! 👻

6 countries (other than Italy or US):
Germany
UK
USSR
Japan
Canada
Australia
France

9 decades:
30s
40s
60s
70s
80s
90s
00s
10s
20s

5 Zombie Films:
Scooby Doo on Zombie Island
Final Cut
Pontypool
28 Weeks Later
28 Years Later

3 cult or conspiracy horror films:
Jacob’s Ladder
Phantasm
The Empty Man

1 film from a Black director with a Black lead:
Kuso

1 film from a Mexican or Central American director:
Frankenstein

1 Canadian film:
Pontypool

1 Russian or former Russian state film:
Viy

The most popular film from the 1940s that you haven't seen and can access:
Cat People

2 Post Apocalyptic horror films:
28 Weeks Later
28 Years Later

1 Film with dreams or a dream as part of the plot:
Paperhouse

1 The animals are pissed at us film:
Crocodile

1 Silent film:
Vampyr

4 based on Novels:
Frankenstein
Gretel & Hansel
The Haunting
Audition

Any film from THIS list that you haven't seen:
The Haunting

1 Ernesto Gastaldi written film:
My Name is Nobody

1 film from 1932:
Vampyr

I have never made a specific film a part of this before, but WIZARD of OZ ('39):
Wizard of Oz

And 1 Tobe Hooper Film (There must ALWAYS be a Hooper film):
Crocodile

Extra:
Onibaba
The Purge
Boy in the Trees
Super Dark Times
The Monkey
The Blackcoat’s Daughter
If I Had Legs I’d Kick You
Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person
Black Phone 2
Wild at Heart
Bone Lake

• Vampyr
• The Wizard of Oz
• Cat People
• The Haunting
• Onibaba
• Viy
• My Name Is Nobody
• Phantasm
• Paperhouse
• Jacob's Ladder

...plus 21 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Phantom Thread
2. Magnolia
3. One Battle After Another
4. There Will Be Blood
5. Boogie Nights
6. Licorice Pizza
7. The Master
8. Hard Eight
9. Punch-Drunk Love
10. Inherent Vice

Come at me...

1. Guardians of the Galaxy
2. Iron Man
3. Avengers: Infinity War
4. Thor: Ragnarok
5. Avengers: Endgame
6. Captain America: Civil War
7. Spider-Man: Homecoming
8. Black Panther
9. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
10. Captain America: The First Avenger

...plus 23 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Fantastic Mr. Fox
2. The Grand Budapest Hotel
3. Moonrise Kingdom
4. Asteroid City
5. Rushmore
6. Isle of Dogs
7. The French Dispatch of the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun
8. The Darjeeling Limited
9. The Royal Tenenbaums
10. The Phoenician Scheme

...plus 2 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

*This list becomes locked at posting

1. Sing Sing
2. Dune: Part Two
3. Ghostlight
4. Hundreds of Beavers
5. The Substance
6. The Brutalist
7. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
8. Anora
9. Wicked
10. We Live in Time

Strapping in for my 7th Hooptober!

Even though my Hooptober lists will never be as cohesive as my first year—when my rookie status as a horror fan allowed me to fill the list with classics—this year’s lineup feels particularly amorphous as I juggle fulfilling criteria with trying to check off as many watchlist movies as possible.

Still, I’ve managed to find a few themes that offer a little alliteration for my list title. After watching Late Night with the Devil and Ghostwatch earlier this year, I wanted to explore more broadcast-adjacent found footage and ended up leaning into that subgenre even further. Simultaneously, I selected the “Final Destination” movies for my complete franchise watch—an unexpected endeavor prompted by Cinemonster’s criteria. And to cap it off, I’m very excited for a Coralie Fargeat double feature, with The Substance hitting theaters soon.

As always, I'm likely to shift a few movies around throughout the process.

This year's original list and rules can be found here. Happy Hooptober, y’all!! 🎃

6 countries:
USA
Austria
Italy
Japan
Spain
France
India
Canada

8 decades:
1920s
1960s
1970s
1980s
1990s
2000s
2010s
2020s

ALL of the films from a horror franchise with at least 4 entries (if there is a hard reboot, you can choose whichever has 4+ that you prefer):
Final Destination (5) 

1 film by Wes Craven:
Red Eye

1 film caused by/worsened by weather:
Hold Your Breath

1 film starring a Black woman:
Vamp

1 Donald Sutherland film:
Don’t Look Now

3 films from New World Pictures:
Warlock
Vamp
Children of the Corn

2 Indian films:
Bulbbul
Game Over

4 Italian films:
Cemetery Man
Inferno
Deep Red
Demons

2 Horror comedies:
Vamp
Cemetery Man

2 films made primarily or entirely in Texas:
Pathogen
Eggshells

1 film that exists in at least 2 available cuts (you just have to watch one. Bonus if you watch them all.):
Hell House LLC

1 Robert Wiene film:
The Hands of Orlac

1 Michele Soavi film:
Cemetery Man

1 film from 2011:
Final Destination 5

1 film from 1984:
Children of the Corn

And 1 Tobe Hooper Film (There must ALWAYS be a Hooper film):
Eggshells

Bonus:
Uncle Sleazo’s…
WNUF
[Rec]
Noroi: The Curse
The Visit
Milk & Serial
Revenge
The Substance
It’s What’s Inside
Heretic

• The Hands of Orlac
• Eggshells
• Don't Look Now
• Deep Red
• Inferno
• Children of the Corn
• Demons
• Vamp
• Warlock
• Cemetery Man

...plus 21 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Big Fish
2. Edward Scissorhands
3. Batman Returns
4. Corpse Bride
5. Ed Wood
6. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
7. Beetlejuice
8. Pee-wee's Big Adventure
9. Batman
10. Frankenweenie

...plus 10 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Over the past six months I have been rewatching many of my favorite movies from the past decade. I’ve also explored many new movies from the 2010s, by recommendation from friends as well as films that I’ve missed that have had critical or commercial importance. In total, my watchlist consisted of 70 films. I watched each with a notebook in hand, diving deeper into criticism and analysis than I typically would.

The following is a list of my “Top 10 Films of the 2010s.” I want to stress that I am not claiming these as the 10 BEST movies. “Best” is subjective and frankly, doesn’t mean much.

Instead, I believe that these are the 10 films that have ultimately lingered on my mind and in my soul in the most profound way. As I continue throughout life, I can always look back at these films as the ones that shaped me the most significantly in my young adulthood. The ones to always be remembered from the most formative years of my love for cinema.

1. Boyhood

   Some have written this film off as simply being a gimmick or as an abuser of style over substance. But for me, Boyhood is the clear top film of the decade and one of the most astonishing artistic achievements I’ve ever seen. I know this movie won’t appeal to everyone and I won’t try to convince you if you’re set against it, but allow me to share my personal feelings as to why I consider this film to be a miracle.

   As you probably know, the designing principle of Boyhood is that it was filmed over 12 years, depicting a series of characters as the actors age naturally with them. Each year lasts approximately 10-12 minutes of the movie. This format allows for a cinematic experience that has otherwise rarely been accomplished (except by some of Linklater’s other films). Over the course of the film, we literally watch a human being grow. Many human beings actually. Just as well as it is called Boyhood, it could also be called Motherhood or Fatherhood or even Familyhood. While we are primarily chronicling Mason’s story from the first grade to his freshman year of college (age 6-18), we are also watching Patricia Arquette’s beautiful portrayal of a stay-at-home mother who finds independence as an inspirational college professor. We also witness Ethan Hawke as a father who ultimately learns to become a good parent, where he was once absent. Still, all of this amounts to something that is bigger than any plot or story. Boyhood is successful at documenting life itself.

   This form of non-narrative structure gives Richard Linklater a completely open canvas to pose every possible existential question that he has on his mind. While returning to the project each year, he would check in with the cast and write each section based on the things they would bring to the table and what felt pressing in their own lives at the time. The conversations would affect the plot and the growth of the characters, and especially inspire the fears and dreams they express throughout the film. I remember one of the cast members talking about how it almost became therapeutic; that they had the freedom to put themselves so fully into the piece.

   Boyhood also exists as a time capsule of the 2000s, and especially what it was like to grow up in that period. We see Gameboys turn into Halo, the High School Musical craze, the 2008 Election, etc., all signifying where we are in time. This specificity really grounds the film and provides a fascinating way of seeing how even the world itself changes year by year. Many of these details are familiar to my own life. I remember having bike races around my block, going to the midnight releases of the new Harry Potter book, and even having to say goodbye to my childhood home. The parallels could go on and on, and there are things in here that all of us have gone through in one way or another.

   The editing is crucial to the success of Boyhood. We are not shown sections broken down by year (characters do not “wake up” with another year gone), nor are we shown any titles indicating each age. Instead, Linklater moves us naturally from one moment to the next, allowing time to unfold like a series of memories or photographs undefined by age. As we go, we see characters enter and leave without celebration, showing how someone could be the most important person in our life at a given moment in time, and be completely gone a year later. But we also come to realize the people who are always there, throughout everything. We don’t “feel” a year older on our birthday, just as we don’t wake up one day and suddenly realize we look more like an adult. And our memories are often not defined by the milestones they represent, but rather our feelings surrounding that event. You don’t necessarily remember your high school graduation, but you remember the car ride home, or maybe the graduation party. We are not shown Mason’s first kiss, losing his virginity, finding his first job, or getting accepted to college. We are shown the moments in between. The colossal significance of the everyday. Because that’s where life is. Our lives are defined by moving from moment to moment to moment to moment. Only forward. It’s constant, and it’s always right now.

   Honestly, there’s a part of me that’s hoping they’ve been secretly off filming the next twelve years. I’d like to know that these people are okay. And I’d like to be reminded that wherever I am in my life, I am also doing okay. Revisiting this movie has become its own set of memories for me. I remember seeing it in theaters for the first time with my childhood best friend, watching it alone my first week of college, and sharing it with family and a girlfriend.

   By condensing 12 years of moments into a singular experience, Boyhood has become its own therapeutic part of my life. A time for reflecting upon my own series of moment to moment to moment to moment.

2. The Florida Project

   When I saw this movie for the first time at the Alamo Drafthouse in Brooklyn, the theatre was playing a pre-show of clips from some old Florida tourism commercials. It felt like a yesteryear in a faraway land of swamps and orange groves. At some point this transitioned into the sun-kissed glow of a motel with fading purple paint. A place that was so physically close to “The Most Magical Place on Earth,” but couldn’t possibly be further away.

   The Florida Project is a naturalistic film about six-year-old Moonee and her mother Halley living at The Magic Castle, a cheap motel just a few miles from Walt Disney World. The title refers to the low-income families stuck living in the motel, as well as the name Walt Disney gave the parks in the early days of planning.

   Moonee spends most of her summer days unsupervised with her fellow motel-resident friends, often engaging in activities that are dangerous, illegal, or morally wrong. Halley is an irresponsible parent, unemployed, and spends too little time figuring out where the week’s rent will come from. Bobby, played by Willem Dafoe, is manager of the motel and often the protector of the children. At first, the “slice-of-life” plot seems to move without a clear sense of direction, but we are ultimately led somewhere extremely purposeful. Upon further consideration of the film, it is easy to recognize that we have been led to this ending all along. It was inevitable. The final sequence is a bold shift in tone, and leaves the audience in an incredibly difficult place. Of all the stunner endings I’ve mentioned on this list, this is the one that left me utterly speechless and gutted the first time I saw it.

   I mention only Willem Dafoe by name because he is one of the only performers in this film that had prior acting experience. Halley, played by Bria Vinaite, was found on Instagram, and Brooklynn Prince (Moonee) was a local girl that Sean Baker found at an open casting call. Valeria Cotto, who plays Moonee’s friend Jancey, was hired after Baker saw her shopping with her mother at a Target. Many of the background actors in the film were actual residents at the Magic Castle. In a way, Sean Baker’s films almost feel like a documentary. It is evident how much care he puts into exploring a community with sincerity, and without exploiting his subjects. While the exact details of this story are fictional, this hotel and the hidden homeless inside are very real. We’ve all seen people like Moonee and Halley.

   The filmmaking keeps us primarily within Moonee’s perspective. Baker shoots her at eye height and keeps the camera low to the ground, often giving her the status in scenes with adults. We see something as fun and games through the eyes of the kids, that is dangerous in the world of the adults (a duality that can be very difficult to watch in some scenes). Baker also brilliantly keeps us aware that we are always in the shadow of Disney without ever explicitly relying on that as plot. Our characters walk by off-brand gift shops and flip off tourists taking off on helicopter tours. In one scene we see a couple who mistakenly booked the Magic Castle thinking they were staying somewhere a few miles down the road. We even see a road sign for “Seven Dwarfs Ln.” If I’m correct, we never hear any actual Disney words in the film, outside of referring to “the parks.”

   All of the movies on this list mean something to me, but The Florida Project perhaps affected my life in the most concrete way. If you didn’t know, I worked at Walt Disney World in the winter of 2018. If it weren’t for this film, I probably would not have applied for the program, and I definitely would not have gone. I won’t explain why, but this film was the push I needed. I watched The Florida Project the night I moved into my apartment and showed it to some of my new friends the night before I left. I even convinced a friend to drive me to The Magic Castle for a visit.

   The Florida Project is about being a kid, the moment when you are forced to no longer be a kid, and the magical kingdoms you make for yourself when your world is anything but. Instead of an animal kingdom, Moonee plays in a nearby cow field. Instead of a haunted mansion, Moonee and her friends explore an abandoned housing project. Instead of robotic birds, Bobby talks to a real flock of birds passing through the parking lot.

   It’s easy to miss, but if you look closely you might understand why I think this is the most magical movie I’ve ever seen.

3. Whiplash

   Whiplash is a rhythmic masterpiece.

   Andrew, played by Miles Teller, is an obsessive drummer who desires to become “one of the greats,” and is extremely determined to not let anything get in his way. This is a perfect example of a story where a character pushes themself past their limit and to an extreme, in order to achieve their goal. Andrew’s behavior moves from simply being unhealthy, to becoming completely self-destructive as he willingly sabotages all of his personal relationships and even dances with death. His obsession eventually leads him to what he was chasing all along. But at what cost? I think Chazelle really captures the “genius” mentality and presents it as a caution tale. Andrew is both triumphant and pathetic in his endeavor, as he sacrifices being “good,” for being “great.”

   J.K. Simmons as Fletcher gives what is perhaps my favorite performance of the decade as one of my all-time favorite movie characters. Fletcher provides a perfect counterpart to Andrew, and is an incredible antagonist. His music coaching method is complex. He is brutal and damaging, often to the point of being violent and abusive, but he also has a certain validity in the points that he makes. Fletcher is trying to inspire “one of the greats.” He attempts to create the next Charlie Parker by referencing a story of a cymbal being thrown at Saxophonist Charlie Parker’s head for playing something poorly. Fletcher claims that if Parker had just been told “good job,” and metaphorically handed a participation trophy, he would have continued on as an average musician just like anyone else. Instead, Parker turns around and gives one of the best Jazz solos of all-time, leading to his rise to greatness. When Andrew asks Fletcher if his harsh methods may instead discourage students, Fletcher replies that the next Charlie Parker would never be discouraged. Whether you are onboard with aspects of this methodology or not, there’s an interesting moral question presented that depends on where one choses to fall on the spectrum of these two arguments.

   I’ve always been drawn to stories about student/teacher relationships, and I’ve never seen that dynamic have more electricity or be explored more fully than in Whiplash. There is a constant push and pull between Andrew and Fletcher, and ultimately every success and every failure becomes shared between them. That back and forth is the driving force of the film and regardless of whether it’s a quiet conversation at a bar or a chair flying through the air, they continue to challenge one another by raising the stakes and demanding the other to meet them there. It becomes a sort of dance and has a musicality that gives the screenplay the same rhythmic essence as the drumming that the story is about.

   The inciting moment of Whiplash comes on the very first shot of the film when Andrew, playing drums late at night in a rehearsal studio, is discovered by Fletcher. His desire to impress Fletcher and get into his top ensemble becomes Andrew’s immediate desire. There is no wasted time in this film as it also ends immediately following the climax. Many films fall short for me when we lose all of the momentum in its final moments, but instead Whiplash ends with a nearly 10-minute long drumming sequence that continues to grow and build tension as it moves. Chazelle doesn’t release that tension until he cuts to black, and we realize that we’ve been holding our breath through the film’s final few moments.

   I love that Chazelle doesn’t answer every question he poses and chooses to leave certain character intentions and the reality of the ending up to the viewer’s interpretation. If you read my La La Land piece yesterday, you know that I think Damien Chazelle is a master at endings. What he does in Whiplash is very similar to La La Land, but instead focuses on the actual performance the musician is giving. We stay closer to a realistic perspective, rather than going into any heightened version of artistic expression. We are left to fully witness Andrew’s perfect performance as he becomes the next Charlie Parker.

4. La La Land

   La La Land is as a musical love story told through bright colors, soundstages, and dreamers. It is an homage to the classic movie musicals of yesterday, and pulls most specifically from the work of Jacques Demy and his film “The Umbrellas of Cherbourg.” At age 32, Damien Chazelle became the youngest person to win the Academy Award for Best Director and has emerged as one of my favorite new filmmakers.

   La La Land works to be grounded in reality in a way that the musical theatre form is usually not. The little flaws and imperfections in the film deliberately make these struggling artists more human. For example, there’s a great little moment where Ryan Gosling trips up on a lyric and it causes him and Emma Stone to laugh through the rest of that phrase. Chazelle’s choice to actually use that take in the film gives us a genuine “liveness” that is ultimately closer to the essence of theatre than most other musical movies. Gosling and Stone may not be as polished as dancers or singers as the strongest musical theatre performers, but that would make for an untrue film.

   Mia’s arc showcases many of the day-to-day challenges of being an actress, and an artist at large. In early scenes, we see her as a coffee shop barista, going to parties hoping to meet the person who will give her a big break, and at an audition with dozens of similarly-dressed girls who look exactly like her. We also see her go through major failures and the struggle of almost giving up. One of my favorite scenes is when she goes back to her childhood bedroom and the camera glides across her drama trophies and certificates. We finally see her come to full life in an important audition, where she remembers why she wanted to be a storyteller in the first place.

   Sebastian’s inability to move forward and change is what holds him back. His stubbornness in “trying to save Jazz” is his fatal flaw as a character. Keith, played by John Legend, is crucial in opening Sebastian up to new ideas. By the end of the film he has learned to compromise and recognizes that he has to listen to what his audience wants or there will not be an audience. If he named his Jazz Club, “Chicken on a Stick” like he is insistent upon at the beginning of the film, it probably would have been a failure. It is not only about him.

   I look at La La Land more as a romance with songs than as a traditional musical. There’s a point in the film where the tone flips, the music stops, and the color starts to fade away. This works very well in a movie, but would probably not work on stage. The music comes back at the end in the form of a nearly 10-minute long dream ballet (which contains my second favorite piece of film music in the history of cinema). Sebastian sits down at the piano, plays the main love motif, and finishes playing. Within that is an entire life shown through memories, abstractions, and “what if’s.” It becomes surreal and is the closest thing to what artistic expression means to me, that I’ve ever seen captured.

   I’ve spent hours thinking about the ending of this film. When friends starting seeing it, I spoke with dozens of them about their interpretations, and even made a facebook status at one point asking whether or not the film has a happy ending. Draw your own conclusions from this, but a definitive majority of the under-30 crowd said “Yes, this film has a happy ending,” and a definitive majority of the over-30 crowd said “No, it does not.”

   La La Land came at the perfect time in my life as I was about to leave the comfort of college to enter the struggles of dream-chasing. It challenged everything I had come to believe about myself, my relationships, and my hopes for the future. I saw La La Land five times in theaters and probably close to that many since. It’s a film that has brought me more joy than any other film this decade and has given me a score that I will listen to forever.

   “Here’s to the fools who dream”

5. The Social Network

   The Social Network has appeared at the top of nearly every 2010s list I’ve seen, and if it wasn’t for a stronger personal connection to my remaining four movies, this would be an easy top pick. At the very least, I would argue that this is the most definitive film of the last 10 years. The Social Network depicts the rise of a disturbingly powerful corporation that steamrolls by anyone attempting to hold it back, at the hands of a lone sad dude trying to get back at a girl who dumped him. That corporation is Facebook and the dude is Mark Zuckerberg, a career-best performance from Jesse Eisenberg.

   There are many things to admire about this filmmaking. Aaron Sorkin’s script is sharp and witty, and plays out more like a well-timed thriller than a traditional biopic. Structurally, Sorkin gives us a frame narrative of a deposition hearing. The rhythmic editing between the hearing and the main storyline allows for an incredible intensity that heightens the stakes in a very cinematic way. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross write one of the absolute best film scores of the decade. The ambient, electronic droning combined with a simple piano motif creates a perfect main theme that becomes the emotional spine of the film. Additionally, the film has some of the best uses of spotting (where the score kicks in) that I’ve ever seen.

   The film leaves us with another one of my favorite movie endings. It’s small and simple, but gives a perfect bookend that brings us back to the brilliant opening scene of the film. There is a limitation to the happiness that power can bring, and Mark is forced to reckon with the choices he’s made and the people he’s left behind.

   As the social and political impact of Facebook continues to grow, so do our chances of seeing The Social Network 2.

6. Moonlight

   I remember when Moonlight started screening, and it was immediately called by many as the best film of the decade. This is the first of two times I can recall that happening in the last 10 years and every time I’ve watched the film, my belief in that statement has grown. It is my favorite Academy Award Best Picture of the decade, and remains a film that I think of often when I’m making theatre.

   Moonlight is the story of a gay black man growing up in Miami, told through three separate chapters of his life (titled Little, Chiron, and Black). He is played stunningly well by three different actors, a choice that can often create a disconnect, but works tremendously here. The performances are tied together so well that you see the essence of this character living seamlessly through all three actors. Each has a sense of who he is, where he’s been, and what he may become.

   Cinematically, this remains one of the most poetic pieces of filmmaking I’ve seen. The color palette of deep blues and reds, the flowing sensuality of the camera work, and the reoccurrence of water all exist as visual metaphors within the storytelling. Barry Jenkins captures the body in a way that is uniquely intimate, as his close-ups simultaneously show a character’s strength and the depth of their vulnerability. I’ve never seen someone do that before. His filmmaking is profound in its gentleness.

   Moonlight beautifully captures the isolating feeling of being other, told through a lens of masculinity and tenderness. It is Jenkins’ specificity in the world and people he‘s expressing, that allows us to see clearly into Chiron’s soul. Chiron is different from me in many ways, but he is very similar in others. That we may have that connection is one of art’s greatest gifts.

7. Blue Jay

   Blue Jay will likely be the least-known movie on my list, but it is absolutely a hidden gem that I hope people will seek out. Written by and starring Mark Duplass and Sarah Paulson, the low-budget film was shot in a week and is stunningly photographed in Black and White.

   The story is about Jim and Amanda, two former high-school sweethearts, who meet by chance at a supermarket when returning to their hometown. We spend the film with just the two as they reflect upon their shared history, diverged present, and hopes for the future.

   I love how intimate and personal the film feels due to the modesty of the filmmaking. In an indescribable way, I feel like I wrote this movie. I feel like I’ve been writing this movie in my mind since I was old enough to think about love and stories and memory. It is a strange sensation that is unique to my connection with this film.

   To paraphrase Mark Duplass, “Blue Jay feels like when you go home for the holidays and you’re looking through your room and finding old letters and old pictures and you’re remembering who you thought you were going to be and reckoning with who you are now, and it’s never the same thing. Sometimes that’s good, sometimes that’s bad, but it always makes you feel so deeply.”

   No matter how great our lives might be now, or how traumatic some people might consider their high school experiences, I think there’s a bit of all of us that misses some part of the person we used to be.

   Blue Jay sits in that.

8. Short Term 12

   Short Term 12 is one of the first small, independent films that I ever saw, and I immediately fell in love with it. It features a now all-star cast of relative newbies at the time, including Brie Larson who carries the film in what I believe remains her best performance to date. Director Destin Daniel Cretton is a name you should come to know, as this film is why he was recently chosen to direct the upcoming Marvel film “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.”

   Grace (Larson) is a supervisor at a short term foster care facility for neglected teens struggling with a myriad of challenges. As she navigates a relationship with a new girl, pieces of her own troubled past begin to surface. What could come off as overly sentimental or cliché if done poorly, is instead an honest and nuanced portrayal of the social work system and the kids who fall victim to the stigmas associated with "disadvantaged" youth.

   The movie allows you to feel deeply for each of these kids from the moment you meet them, and their very real performances and an unconventional camera drops you right into their world. There is a particular scene led by first-time actor Lakeith Stanfield (now known for Get Out, Sorry to Bother You, and Knives Out, among others) that remains one of the most truthful moments I’ve ever seen captured by a camera. It’s simple and small, but a piece of storytelling I will never forget.

   Short Term 12 is about people who carry pain, the guards they put up in attempt to protect themselves, and the efforts they take in order to heal. If you need a bit of healing, this film is the best medicine I can offer. The journey may be difficult, but it will leave you with a smile on your face and a heart full of empathy.

9. Her

   Her is one of four screenplays that sits on my desktop. If you haven’t seen the film, you likely know the premise as the one where a guy falls in love with his computer. What it’s actually doing - if you’re willing to buy in - is a deep exploration of love and connection in the age of technologic dominance. A world that seemed close in 2013, but inevitable in 2020.

   Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix) is a greeting card writer. More specifically, he writes love notes for the same couples over the course of their marriages and relationships. We see him formulating the words, poetic and true, for these strangers where he cannot with his ex-wife. He was not emotionally truthful with her; not willing to connect. He begins a relationship with Samantha (his Operating System, voiced incredibly by Scarlett Johansson) that is respected by some, and criticized by other. Characters in the movie represent the audience’s discomfort by his choices. However, at some point we start to buy into this relationship. Perhaps because it makes Theodore happy. We see all of the ingredients of a loving, successful relationship (except for the part where she is an artificial intelligence). But there is a lesson to be learned here, and ultimately we are left with a hopeful ending of protagonist who is ready for something real.

   The film has one of my favorite scores of the decade (an area of film that means a great deal to me, and a major player many of the films on this list).
   

   Her is about sadness,
   depression,
   feeling alone,
   but feeling.
   It’s about love,
   connection,
   and learning to connect.

   “Now we know how.”

10. Inception

    If I had to guess, Inception is probably the movie that made me fall in love with movies. At least in a way that I started really paying attention to. I would have been 14 years old when the movie came out and defined the summer of 2010, the perfect age for what we call a “Christopher Nolan Mindf*ck” to be my favorite thing at the time. But the truth is, 10 years later and Inception still holds up as an incredible piece of filmmaking that goes far deeper into the psychology of its ideas than most other action blockbusters. The score remains one of the most well-known of the decade, and the final shot is a masterpiece in its own right.

    This is what Nolan does, at its best. The scope of the plot is immense. If you imagine the arc of a story looking like a mountain, Inception looks like a music staff. “Dreams within dreams,” equal layers of plotting frames that go deeper and deeper. It’s so complex and ambitious that as a 14-year old, I couldn’t help but be inspired that someone came up with this story. I remember thinking of the filmmaking as a puzzle. Nolan would only give us certain pieces upfront; the border and couple of sections where the colors seem to match. Then by using non-linear storytelling, he can reveal information about the past when it makes the most narrative sense and packs the strongest emotional punch.

    Even despite the plot being so massive and the thematic ideas carrying such immense weight, Inception can ultimately be whittled down to something very personal: a father doing everything he can to be with his children. The movie is as bombastic or as intimate as you want it to be.

    Nobody achieves that balancing act quite like Nolan.

My 5th Hooptober!

I'm hitting some cult classics that I've been eagerly awaiting, as well as some theatre/circus/cinema set horror flicks that I have very high personal hopes for. As always, I'm likely to switch some things around as we gets closer.

Happy spoopy movie season!!

This year's original list and rules can be found here.

6 countries:
Germany
USA
UK
Canada
Italy
Spain
Australia
Argentina

8 decades:
20s
50s
70s
80s
90s
2000s
2010s
2020s

2 insect centered films:
Phenomena
Mimic

1 horror film set in space or the future (relative to when it was released):
Sunshine

2 animated films:
Spine of Night
Wendell & Wild

1 bloodthirsty old person/people film:
Relic

2 1970s regional US films:
The Last House on the Left
Let’s Scare Jessica to Death

The worst horror sequel from the 1990s that you haven't seen and can access:
Candyman: Day of the Dead

1 German Silent:
Faust

5 Films from David Cronenberg, Ti West, Bill Rebane, Charles B. Pierce, William Grefe and/or Joy N. Houck Jr.:
Pearl
The Innkeepers
Videodrome
Existenz
The Brood

2 Christopher Lee films:
The Wicker Man
Gremlins 2

1 film with a musician or band in it:
Phantom of the Paradise

1 Stephen King adaptation that is not the first go around:
Carrie (2013)

1 Lon Chaney film:
The Unknown

And 1 Tobe Hooper Film (There must ALWAYS be a Hooper film):
Lifeforce

Bonus:
The Last Circus

Extra:
Carrie (1976)
Stage Fright
Stage Fright
Stage Fright
Theatre of Blood
Puppet Master
Hocus Pocus
Hocus Pocus 2
The Last Matinee
Santa Sangre

• Faust
• The Unknown
• Stage Fright
• Let's Scare Jessica to Death
• The Last House on the Left
• The Wicker Man
• Theatre of Blood
• Phantom of the Paradise
• Carrie
• The Brood

...plus 22 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

*This list becomes locked at posting

1. The Taste of Things
2. Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret.
3. The Holdovers
4. Barbie
5. Poor Things
6. Asteroid City
7. Therapy Dogs
8. Oppenheimer
9. Anatomy of a Fall
10. Godzilla Minus One

Eat your hearts out, fanboys.

Can’t change 14 year-old Peter’s opinions.

1. Inception
2. The Prestige
3. Interstellar
4. The Dark Knight
5. Oppenheimer
6. Memento
7. Batman Begins
8. Dunkirk
9. The Dark Knight Rises
10. Insomnia

...plus 2 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Lost in Translation
2. Marie Antoinette
3. The Virgin Suicides
4. Priscilla
5. The Bling Ring
6. On the Rocks
7. Somewhere
8. A Very Murray Christmas
9. The Beguiled

Hooptober is one of my favorite things about Letterboxd, and I'm thrilled to be participating for my 6th year in row!

As always, I began by choosing movies with as much category crossover as possible. Then I use my extra slots to hit some current releases, big blindspots, and movies that fit into whatever theme that emerges. As the title implies, this year I'm hitting multiple 'Dracula' adaptations, films about the Devil, and movies set around high school (shoutout to Criterion Channel!)

Happy Spoopy Season 🕸️👻🎃

This year's original list and rules can be found here.

6 countries:
USA
UK
Italy
Germany
France
Japan

8 decades:
20s
50s
60s
70s
80s
90s
2000s
2010s
2020s

2 post apocalyptic or natural disaster related films:
Crawl
10 Cloverfield Lane

1 film with Robert Englund:
The Mangler

1 something is underground film:
The Descent

3 Satan/Devil centered films:
The Devil’s Carnival
The Devils
The Babysitter

1 Amicus film:
Tales from the Crypt

The worst Dracula film (by Letterboxd rating) that you haven't seen and can access:
Dracula 3000

1 LGBTQ+ connected film:
Knife+Heart

5 Films from De Palma, Wes Craven, Ken Russell, Hitchcock and/or Moorehead & Benson:
Altered States
The Devils
Resolution
Something in the Dirt
Synchronic

2 Peter Cushing films:
Tales from the Crypt
The Hound of Baskerville

1 film based on a work of or invoking the name Bram Stoker:
Nosferatu

1 film based on a Clive Barker story:
Hellraiser

1 film that was released the year that you turned 10:
The Descent

1 Mario Bava film:
Blood and Black Lace

1 film with an 'x' in the title:
Extraordinary Tales

And 1 Tobe Hooper Film (There must ALWAYS be a Hooper film):
The Mangler

Extra:
Bram Stoker’s Dracula
Nosferatu the Vampyre
The Last Voyage of the Demeter
The Craft
Ginger Snaps
I Know What You Did Last Summer
The Faculty
Heathers
Assassination Nation
Seance
Totally Killer
Five Nights at Freddy’s

• Nosferatu
• The Hound of the Baskervilles
• Blood and Black Lace
• The Devils
• Tales from the Crypt
• Nosferatu the Vampyre
• Altered States
• Hellraiser
• Heathers
• Bram Stoker's Dracula

...plus 21 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• Everything Everywhere All at Once
• Marcel the Shell with Shoes On

I don’t log comedy specials, so this is how I track the ones I’ve seen. (Sorted by release year)

• Sheng Wang: Sweet and Juicy
• Jerrod Carmichael: Rothaniel
• Bo Burnham: The Inside Outtakes
• Bo Burnham: Inside
• Taylor Tomlinson: Quarter-Life Crisis
• Eric Andre: Legalize Everything
• My Favorite Shapes by Julio Torres
• John Mulaney & The Sack Lunch Bunch
• James Acaster: Repertoire
• Hannah Gadsby: Nanette

...plus 7 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

List of films for which I've written a published review or feature with links to each in the notes.

• Soul

  Feature - The Film Magazine

• Giving Voice

  Review - Film Cred

• The Father

  Review - The Film Magazine

• Dating & New York

  Review - Film Cred

• Roaring 20's

  Review - Film Cred

• The Novice

  Review - Film Cred

• Nine Days

  Review - Film Cred

• Dear Evan Hansen

  Review - Film Cred

• Everybody's Talking About Jamie

  Review - Film Cred

• Red Rocket

  Review - Film Cred

...plus 12 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

*This list becomes locked at posting

1. Everything Everywhere All at Once
2. Marcel the Shell with Shoes On
3. Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio
4. RRR
5. The Fabelmans
6. Aftersun
7. TÁR
8. Top Gun: Maverick
9. Cha Cha Real Smooth
10. The Banshees of Inisherin

*This list becomes locked at posting

1. Nine Days
2. Mass
3. The Worst Person in the World
4. Drive My Car
5. West Side Story
6. The Mitchells vs. the Machines
7. Pig
8. The Tragedy of Macbeth
9. C'mon C'mon
10. Dune

...plus 1 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

The second year of my Hooptober-inspired watch challenge for romance movies in February. Anyone is welcome to join in, just comment below and I'll link to your list!

Participants: 
Aaron Bartuska

Rules:

- I will do 28 first-time watches that fall under the romance genre over the month of February.
- I will pull from throughout history, over multiple countries, and within many different sub-genres.
- I will rate and write a review for each film!

• The Cranes Are Flying
• Hiroshima Mon Amour
• Evening Primrose
• The Magic Flute
• Pennies from Heaven
• A Room with a View
• Maurice
• Say Anything...
• Howards End
• The Piano

...plus 18 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

I wanted to try making a "Hooptober-esque" watch challenge for romance movies in February. The rules are very simple this year, but if it goes well, maybe I will do this again and add some criteria.

Let me know if anyone might be interested in joining me next year!

Rules:

- I will watch 28 movies that fall under the romance genre. I'm pulling from throughout film history, and from many different styles and sub-genres.

- At least 75% of these movies will be new for me. This idea is mostly an excuse to hit a lot from my watchlist, but I also have a few I want to revisit.

- I will rate and write a review for each film!

• Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans
• The Cameraman
• Bringing Up Baby
• The Philadelphia Story
• Brief Encounter
• A Place in the Sun
• Black Orpheus
• Harold and Maude
• Scenes from a Marriage
• Desert Hearts

...plus 18 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Back again for my fourth round of good ol' Hooptober! I'm pleased to say that I'm finally attempting some films I've always been too chicken to watch (looking at you, James Wan) as well as a number of films that have been on my watchlist since I started doing this challenge! As always, I'm very likely to switch some things around as it gets closer. 

Happy spoopy movie season!! 

This year's original list and rules here

6 countries:
An American Werewolf in London (UK)
Kwaidan (Japan)
The Day of the Beast (Spain)
The Wailing (South Korea)
Scanners (Canada)
Koko-Di Koko-Da (Denmark)

8 decades:
1930s
1950s
1960s
1970s
1980s
1990s
2000s
2010s
2020s

2 folk horror:
Blair Witch Project
Kwaidan

4 films from 1981:
The Funhouse
An American Werewolf in London
Friday the 13th Part 2
Scanners

2 films from your birth year:
Tales from the Hood
The Day of the Beast

2 haunted house films:
Forgotten
The Conjuring

The worst Part 2 that you haven't seen and can access:
Hobgoblins 2

1 film set in the woods:
Blair Witch Project

1 Kaiju or Kong film:
King Kong

2 Hammer films:
Let Me In
The Mummy

3 films with a person of color as director or lead:
Candyman (1992)
Tales from the Hood
Candyman (2021)

3 Asian horror films:
Kwaidon
The Wailing
Forgotten

1 Tobe Hooper Films (There must ALWAYS be a Hooper film):
The Funhouse

Extra:
Friday the 13th
A Nightmare on Elm Street
Insidious
Saw
Malignant
Trick ‘r Treat
Carnival of Souls
Frankenweenie
Mom and Dad
Mandy
Color Out of Space
Scare Me
Willy's Wonderland

• King Kong
• The Mummy
• Carnival of Souls
• Kwaidan
• Friday the 13th
• Friday the 13th Part 2
• An American Werewolf in London
• The Funhouse
• Scanners
• A Nightmare on Elm Street

...plus 21 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

*This list becomes locked at posting

1. Nomadland
2. Wolfwalkers
3. The Father
4. Never Rarely Sometimes Always
5. Dick Johnson Is Dead
6. Shithouse
7. Promising Young Woman
8. Soul
9. One Night in Miami...
10. Sound of Metal

Yup. It's my third year doing this thing. Apparently I like horror movies now. Still too scared to watch The Conjuring, but maybe next year...

This year's original list and rules:
Hooptober Se7en: We Have Such Masked Socially Distanced Indoor Sights to Show You

6 countries:
The Innocents (UK)
The Lodge (Canada)
Train to Busan (South Korea)
Cronos (Mexico)
Diabolique (France)
House (Japan)

6 decades:
1950s
1960s
1970s
1980s
1990s
2000s
2010s
2020s

7 2nd films of franchises:
Scream 2
Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2
Bride of Re-Animator
Evil Dead 2
Jaws 2
Halloween II
Creep 2

4 body horror films:
Eraserhead
Starry Eyes
Cronos
Bride of Re-Animator

2 films from this year:
The Turning
Host
Antebellum

3 disease based films:
Twelve Monkeys
The Falling
It Comes at Night 

The highest rated horror film from the 50s that you can access:
Diabolique

1 film that is set entirely inside one location:
Evil Dead

1 Invisible Person film:
Mad Monster Party?

1 Non Dracula Hammer Film:
The Lodge

2 films with a black director or predominantly black cast or lead:
Eve’s Bayou
Antebellum

Extra (Subject to change!):
Sinister
Oculus
The Others
The House of the Devil
Spring 
The Endless
The Wolf of Snow Hollow

• Diabolique
• The Innocents
• Mad Monster Party?
• Eraserhead
• House
• Jaws 2
• Halloween II
• The Evil Dead
• The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2
• Evil Dead II

...plus 21 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

I am new to the horror genre and I’m probably going to hate myself for attempting this. But let's see how it goes...smh

10 'Anniversary Films' (Release years end in an 8, excluding 2018):
Let the Right One In (2008)
Rosemary’s Baby (1968)
The Vanishing (1988)
Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Dawn of the Dead (1978)
Dracula (1958)
Dead Ringers (1988)
Halloween (1978)
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)
The Fly (1958)

6 countries:
Let the Right One In (Sweden)
What We Do in the Shadows (New Zealand)
28 Days Later (UK)
Funny Games (Austria)
Suspira (Italy)
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Germany)

6 decades:
Dracula (1958)
Psycho (1960)
Suspira (1977)
The Vanishing (1988)
Funny Games (1997)
Funny Games Remake (2007)

6 films from before 1970:
Psycho (1960)
Rosemary’s Baby (1968)
Wait Until Dark (1967)
Dracula (1958)
The Curse of Frankenstein (1957)
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)

6 films from the following: Romero, Cronenberg, Clive Barker, Terence Fisher, Sergio Martino, Bill Lustig (mix-and-match, or all one):
Night of the Living Dead (Romero)
Dawn of the Dead (Romero)
The Fly (Cronenberg)
Dead Ringers (Cronenberg)
Dracula (Fisher)
The Curse of Frankenstein (Fisher)

2 flying things that kill you films:
The Birds
The Fly

1 silent film as a tribute to A Quiet Place:
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

1 aquatic menace film as a tribute to Meg:
Creature from the Black Lagoon

2 women directed films:
A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night
The Invitation

1 inanimate object comes alive film:
Rubber

1 film with Barbara Crampton in it:
Re-Animator

And 2 Tobe Hooper Films (There must ALWAYS be a Hooper film):
Poltergeist
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Extra:
Alien
The Cabin in the Woods
The Thing

• Let the Right One In
• Rosemary's Baby
• The Vanishing
• Night of the Living Dead
• Dawn of the Dead
• Dracula
• Dead Ringers
• Halloween
• What We Do in the Shadows
• 28 Days Later

...plus 21 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

The shortlist of the best movies I've seen, haven't seen, and have been told to see, of the 2010s! I will revisit each movie on this list throughout 2019 before creating my final list at the top of 2020.

Comment recommendations and I may add them to my watchlist!

• The Social Network

  Me

• Exit Through the Gift Shop
• Inception

  Me

• Black Swan

  Me

• Incendies

  Letterboxd

• Jiro Dreams of Sushi
• A Separation

  Letterboxd

• The Artist

  Maddi

• Melancholia
• The Tree of Life

  Critic's Poll Top 15, Me

...plus 63 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

A niche collection for all your marathon curating needs...

• Teen Spirit
• Vox Lux
• Wild Rose
• Her Smell
• A Star Is Born
• Hearts Beat Loud

*This list becomes locked at posting

1. Portrait of a Lady on Fire
2. Parasite
3. 1917
4. Marriage Story
5. Jojo Rabbit
6. Honey Boy
7. Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood
8. Little Women
9. Uncut Gems
10. Booksmart

...plus 1 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

*This list becomes locked at posting

1. The Florida Project
2. Phantom Thread
3. Call Me by Your Name
4. Lady Bird
5. Brigsby Bear
6. Get Out
7. Coco
8. Blade Runner 2049
9. I, Tonya
10. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

*This list becomes locked at posting

1. Roma
2. Eighth Grade
3. Won't You Be My Neighbor?
4. Minding the Gap
5. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
6. Free Solo
7. The Favourite
8. Tully
9. A Star Is Born
10. If Beale Street Could Talk

I'm excited to be back for my second Hooptober! A year ago I did not consider myself a horror enthusiast, but I'd consider that changed as this past year I would get excited every time I found a potential "Hooptober" movie. This year has a some classics, but a lot of newer movies as well.

I always try to include a wide range of subgenres, and also left myself a few classic goodies to look forward to next year :)

This year's original list and rules:
Hooptober 6/6/6: A Number and Ms. Dee

6 countries:
Tigers Are Not Afraid (Mexican)
The Host (South Korea)
Antichrist (Denmark)
The Lure (Poland)
Possession (Germany)
The Orphanage (Spain)

6 decades:
1920s
1930s
1950s
1960s
1970s
1980s
1990s
2000s
2010s

6 films from before 1966:
The Phantom of the Opera (1925)
Dracula (1931)
Frankenstein (1931)
The Invisible Man (1933)
The Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
The Night of the Hunter (1955)
Little Shop of Horrors (1960)

6 films whose year ends in '6':
Scream (1996)
The Host (2006)
Eaten Alive! (1976)
The Frighteners (1996)
Hush (2016)
Don’t Breathe (2016)

6 films featuring work from the following: John Carl Buechler, Jack Pierce, Rob Bottin, Screaming Mad George, Lon Chaney and Carlo Rambaldi:
Dracula (Pierce)
Frankenstein (Pierce)
The Bride of Frankenstein (Pierce)
The Invisible Man (Pierce)
The Phantom of the Opera (Chaney)
Possession (Rombaldi)

The 6th film of a franchise:
Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers

1 Reptile Rampage film as tribute to Crawl:
Eaten Alive

2 women directed films:
Tigers Are Not Afraid
The Lure

The lowest rated film from the 80s that you can access:
Hobgoblins

1 film where the men and women of the church are having a bad day:
Antichrist

1 Larry Cohen or Dick Miller film:
Little Shop of Horrors

1 Classic Universal:
Dracula

1 film with Dee Wallace in it:
The Frighteners

1 film with a black director or predominantly black cast. (NO JORDAN PEELE):
Blacula

1 film from a Mexican director to honor 2 great films from Gigi Saul Guerrero & Issa López. (NO GDT, but it can be GSG or Issa):
Tigers Are Not Afraid

And 1 Tobe Hooper Films (There must ALWAYS be a Hooper film):
Eaten Alive

Extra (Subject to change!):
Zombieland
Little Monsters
Young Frankenstein
ParaNorman
Signs
The Lighthouse
Creep
Ready or Not

• The Phantom of the Opera
• Dracula
• Frankenstein
• The Invisible Man
• Bride of Frankenstein
• The Night of the Hunter
• The Little Shop of Horrors
• Blacula
• Young Frankenstein
• Eaten Alive

...plus 21 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.