weekend watchlist: the unbearable wait for massive success
Plus a subtle dystopia and a subtle nervous breakdown. (First published April 22nd, 2022, on Substack and Patreon.)
Rinko Kikuchi
Pacific Rim: Uprising movie review: robot smash
Enormously likable characters make this feel like a big friendly rambunctious dog that you can’t help but get a kick out of, but it fundamentally misunderstands the appeal of its predecessor movie.
movies by or about women opening US/Can from Fri Mar 23
Teenaged girls dying, teenaged girls fighting monsters…
movies by or about women opening UK/Ire from Fri Mar 23
Girls travel in space and fight monsters; women fight their own demons.
Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter movie review: Minnesota odd-yssey
Weirdly funny and weirdly sad, one woman’s slo-mo nervous breakdown becomes an exercise in pathos that is unforgettably poignant.
47 Ronin review: they’re not having much fun storming the castle
A handsome movie in many ways, but it feels like an unpolished first draft, one that can’t quite decide how fantastical it wants to be.
Pacific Rim review: the world goes to war
A war movie in the grandest tradition, set in a rich new fictional universe that we’re going to be talking about for a long time.
top 10 movies of 2009: the whys and wherefores
If you regularly check my on-the-fly ranking of new theatrical releases as I see them, then my top 10 movies of 2009 are no surprise: I shuffled a few titles around a bit last month, but the films ranked in the top 10 for 2009 haven’t changed much in months. (The 2009 ranking is here; … more…
The Brothers Bloom (review)
A deliciously clever, convention-busting flick with more soul than you’d expect…
