Category: Culture

Barbarella, 1968 - ★★★½
June 3, 2025
The thesis statement for this movie is well-expressed by the first scene: Jane Fonda strips down and enters a dangerous situation. Rinse and repeat a few times and you’ve got the whole thing.Despite my flippancy it works. The sets and design are lush and dense. At one point early on there are rabbits hanging out […]
Fucktoys, 2025 - ★★ (contains spoilers)
June 2, 2025
This review may contain spoilers. The aesthetic is pretty perfect: grindhouse camp, shot on 16 millimeter with all the pinks and purples you could ask for. The world of Trashtown, played by a decrepit Louisiana, is evocative and instinctually correct. The myth is what’s missing. You can trace the Fool’s Journey here, almost too literally; […]
Millennium Mambo, 2001 - ★★★★½
June 1, 2025
This struck me as a kind of dark twin to In The Mood for Love, in which Vicky (Shu Qi) is only finding pale imitations of love. The moody use of color, the impressionistic smear of time across the frames of film — it felt familiar. So, too, the use of history as a frame […]
Dirigible, 1931 - ★★★
June 1, 2025
Cool chunk of history; the aerial footage is pretty great, especially the scene of the plane docking with the dirigible in flight. Watch carefully and you can see the camera set up at the rear of the plane. The Navy was all in on this one.Since it’s Capra, even early Capra, it’s also got some […]
28 Weeks Later, 2007 - ★★★
June 1, 2025
Competent, although following up on a strong apocalypse movie is hard. And this one really sacrifices the whole “we don’t know what’s left besides us” vibe from the original. Also, Jeremy Renner is kinda flat. I kept imagining him swapping roles with the reliable Harold Perrineau and that felt better in my imagination. Anyhow I’m caught up […]