weekend watchlist: rethinking monsters (of the sea) and munchkins (aka kids)
Plus teenaged gymnasts, confused cops, and more. (First published July 29th, 2022, on Substack and Patreon.)
Anthony Hopkins
my picks for tonight’s 93rd Academy Awards (the Oscars for 2020’s films) (winners indicated)
I correctly guessed 11 out of the 24 23 categories, which is slightly better than last year.
The Father movie review: the quiet horror of Alzheimer’s
A deeply compassionate, deeply unnerving portrait of a man suffering from dementia and losing his grip on reality. The empathy machine of cinema has rarely been put to such uncomfortably intimate use.
OFCS 2020 awards winners announced
And the winners are…
Inheritance movie review: ill fortune
Nothing works in this ludicrous thriller, which fails to compel us with its roster of monstrous characters. Lily Collins is woefully miscast; Patrick Warburton and Simon Pegg are criminally wasted.
my picks for tonight’s 92nd Academy Awards (the Oscars for 2019’s films) (winners indicated)
I correctly guessed 10 out of the 24 categories, which is at least a little better than last year.
Noah review: The Bible Episode IV: A New Hope
A Biblical action disaster fantasy epic that is completely bonkers, endlessly entertaining, and actually religious in that inspiring-and-instructional way.
Thor: The Dark World review: Viking with a chance of wormholes
Think heavy-metal Lord of the Rings. With wormholes. It’s completely mad and kind of awesome.
Hitchcock (trailer)
Fifty years from now, will there be a movie called Hopkins in which a famous actor with a famously stentorious voice plays Hopkins playing Hitchcock, and we are stunned and entertained to discover what a bitch Helen Mirren was on set?
360 (review)
A subtle and striking globehopping ensemble drama of human interactions shaped by sex and love, honesty and deception, allure and retreat.
