The Ballard of Buster Scruggs

There are some interesting themes and visuals in The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, and of course a lot of great actors, but overall, it's just not my thing.

The Coen Brothers are hit or miss with me, and The Ballard of Buster Scruggs falls squarely in the category of "meh."

Bram Stoker’s Dracula

Gary Oldman and Anthony Hopkins are great, and Dracula's character design is cool, but the movie is still way too cheesy.

I liked Bram Stoker’s Dracula slightly more the first time I saw it. Gary Oldman and Anthony Hopkins are still good, and the costumes are cool. But the rest is a little weird. It's way too cheesy and over the top.

Johnny Mnemonic

I'm too much of a William Gibson fan to not like Johnny Mnemonic, even if most of the acting is horrific. There are so many cool ideas, costumes, and characters, you just have to look past the line delivery.

I loved William Gibson's books in high school, although I don't actually remember them anymore. This was the second time I've seen Johnny Mnemonic. I did remember the book the first time I saw it, 11 years ago. I gave it a 3/5 then. I don't think I recognized how terrible *all* the acting was. I knew Keanu was bad, but this time I saw that everyone else was, too.

I still like the atmosphere and idea of it, the characters, and the costumes. They should do a remake with good actors. Keanu and Henry are atrocious. Everyone else is just flat. And some of the CG is really cheesy.

It definitely works a lot better if you've read the book. I still think all the stuff about implants and enhancements is cool, and the idea of the low-tech underground counterculture, and the whole "ghost in the machine" digital consciousness concept.

Wind

Wind is a sailboat-racing movie from 1992. The interpersonal stuff in it doesn't really work, and some of the sailing parts go on for a bit too long, but I guess it fits the bill if all you're looking for is a movie about boating.

I hadn't ever heard of Wind. I don't remember seeing any of the actors in anything else. It's kind of a weird movie. It's mostly about sailing, so I guess it's a good movie if you're into that.

Matthew Modine had a weird vibe going on. He was super charismatic, but also kind of creepy.

The Proposition

The Proposition is one of my favorite movies. Nick Cave's soundtrack is bewitching, and the landscapes are beautiful. All of the actors are great, and there’s so much depth to the characters. Everything about it is meticulous and nuanced. I’d dial back how graphic some of the violence is, but other than that, it's brilliant.

This is at least the third time I've seen The Proposition. I saw it when it came out, and it's one of my favorites. Apparently I don't even have a rating for the previous times I've seen it. I absolutely love it, though. It's great right from the beginning, when you've got everybody there -- Ray Winstone, Guy Pearce, and Mikey. And they start right away cutting to the landscapes, and Charlie on his horse. The visuals are so great the entire time -- the scenery, the composition, everything. It makes you feel like you're really there.

Pacific Rim: Uprising

Pacific Rim was great, but you can stop there. The writing and acting in Uprising are horrible, and it isn't worth your time.

When I saw Pacific Rim, I liked it so much that I wished I had seen it in theaters. But I heard that the sequel wasn't that great, so I wasn't planning to see it. I wound up watching it anyway, except for about 15 minutes in the middle. I don't think I missed anything. In contrast to Gladiator, at least there were women in it. I appreciated that the cadets were split about 50/50. Cailee Spaeny is a terrible actress, though. All of the characters were horribly written. They were like caricatures.

I liked getting to hear John Boyega's British accent. The opening 30 seconds with him as a party boy were the best part of the movie. I want to see a movie about that character. I didn't *like* Charlie Day's character, but there's something about it that was interesting to watch.

Gladiator

I have a history of not liking Ridley Scott movies, and there's nothing in Gladiator for me. The time period reminded me of Titus (the Anthony Hopkins movie, not the comedian). I’d recommend watching that instead.

Gladiator came out the same year as Snatch. I guess I'm on an old movie kick. Like Snatch, I saw Gladiator back then, but I had completely forgotten all of it, and for some reason, I never saw the ending of Gladiator. It's widely regarded as a good movie, I guess. One of the people I was watching it with kept saying "this is such a good movie" during it, but I didn't share that sentiment. I think I'm pretty safe in saying I just don't like Ridley Scott's movies.

The opening fight scene reminded me of Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones. I guess Gladiator came out first, so it should be the other way around. It's not a very feminist movie. There's not really anything for women to identify with or like.

Snatch

Guy Ritchie might be my favorite director. I love his style, and it really shines here, more than in any other movie of his that I've seen. Snatch has a ton of good actors, all playing great characters. Each one contributes something, even if they’re only in a few scenes. It's consistently funny throughout, there's always something new and unexpected happening, and the way it all comes together is great.

I'm pretty sure I must have seen Snatch at some point. But I was only 14 when it came out, and I didn't remember it at all. I knew where the diamond ended up because I read a reference to it somewhere, but other than that and the fact that Brad Pitt played a gypsy, I didn't know anything about it.

I like Guy Ritchie's movies a lot, with the exception of Lock, Stock. Maybe I should watch it again. Or maybe not. Snatch seemed a lot like Rocknrolla and Layer Cake (not a Guy Ritchie movie), only a million times better. I don't know what the point of making Rocknrolla even was since he had already done Snatch. Lock, Stock would probably be similar enough that I wouldn't get anything out of it.
 
Snatch had me hooked right from the beginning. I love Jason Statham, although by the time I watched the second movie that I saw him in (The Bank Job, which incidentally, I didn't like him in), I had completely forgotten that he was in Snatch. To be fair, that was eight years later, which is a long time to remember an actor you've never seen in anything else.
 
But his character was great in Snatch. Although I didn't get why he needed to reference "zee Germans" three times. I loved his sidekick, too. I felt like I knew him from somewhere, but I don't think I really did, even though I've seen a few things that he's been in. I also felt like I had just seen the diamond guy and Brick Top as bad guys in similar movies, but apparently I hadn't.

A Quiet Place

The concept of A Quiet Place is great, and I'd love to see it executed without the characters constantly making maddeningly thoughtless choices.

I have a lot of problems with A Quiet Place. First, the fact that the family didn't really seem to understand the importance of staying quiet.

Ready Player One

Ready Player One is a really simple movie, and there are a lot of things about it that don't make sense, but it was still fun to watch.

I haven't read Ready Player One. A lot of people hated the movie, but it seemed like something to see, anyway.

Doctor Strange

Doctor Strange looks good and the magic stuff is fun to see, but it’s still a pretty unremarkable movie, and Dr. Strange himself is a jerk.

I didn't know anything about Doctor Strange before I saw this movie, other than his scenes in Thor: Ragnarok. They really set him up in the beginning of the movie as a complete jackass.

The Beaches of Agnes

Beaches of Anges really gives you a feel for who Agnes Varda is. I loved listening to the way she narrates this documentary about her life, and seeing all the fanciful, whimsical images she comes up with.

Beaches of Agnes is basically about Agnes Varda remembering some stuff that happened to her around beaches. I just like Agnes Varda. It's interesting to see the things that she comes up with. They're so fanciful and whimsical. The mirrors at the beach at the beginning are so cool.

The Usual Suspects

The Usual Suspects was alright. It was interesting seeing how things played out, and I liked the ending, even if it was a little confusing.

The Usual Suspects came out 20 years ago, but somehow I never saw it. Now it's weird because of Kevin Spacey. It makes you look at things in a different light. His character comes off as pretty weird/creepy, and it turns out that he actually is creepy.

They wore really oversized suits in the 90s. The musical cues were super oldschool and distracting. They really liked doing shots of two characters in profile. Benicio del Toro was practically unrecognizable. I liked Stephen Baldwin's performance, for some reason. I don't think I've ever actually seen him in anything.

What We Do in the Shadows

I liked Flight of the Conchords, but What We Do in the Shadows is profoundly not my thing.

I liked Flight of the Conchords, but I didn't have any interest in seeing What We Do in the Shadows. The version I watched wound up having the opening text in a language that was similar to German, so I missed out on a bit of context there, but looking it up now, I see that it wasn't critically important.

I'm starting to think that Taika's sense of humor just isn't my thing. There's something off about it. It's sort of flat, and cringey, and not funny.

X-Men: The Last Stand

X-Men: The Last Stand is a pointless abomination that deserved to be retconned. The ending is quite possibly the greatest failure in logic ever to exist.

X-Men: The Last Stand is easily the worst X-Men movie I've ever seen. Maybe it's because Bryan Singer wasn't involved. I can definitely see why they retconned it.

The entire thing was just terrible. Wolverine's hair looked ridiculous for most of the movie, and Storm's wig was super distracting. Kelsey Grammer was a weird Beast. Nick Hoult is much better. I still don't like Halle Berry as Storm. I do still like Rebecca as Mystique, though. Knowing her backstory gave the character more depth than it probably had for people watching the movie when it first came out. And I still liked Ian, too. Magneto's entire team was more interesting than the X-Men. I don't really see them as villains.

Faces Places

Faces Places is an enchanting French documentary about the beauty of life and everyday people. It's not exactly thrilling, but it's worth seeing.

I've seen 13 documentaries, and Faces Places is only the third that's gotten at least 3/5. So you could practically call it a 5, relatively speaking. I like the idea of it. Agnes and JR are such an unlikely couple. I like the way the narrative is laid out, starting with how they met each other first through their art. I liked the narration of them reminiscing about their travels.

It was cool getting to see different people and places in France. The pictures looked neat on the buildings and things, too. Kind of reminded me of Banksy's work. The score was great. It turns out Agnes was very involved in making it. She also did the editing. So in a lot of ways, it was really her movie. 

X-Men 2

Nothing really astounding happens in X-Men 2, but I haven't seen an X-Men movie yet that I didn't like (except maybe The Wolverine), and I enjoyed it.

It's been like two weeks since I watched X-Men 2, so this definitely isn't the optimal time to be writing my thoughts. I saw the first X-Men movie when it came out. I guess this one just didn't grab my interest, because I hadn't seen it. I think I like watching pretty much anything X-Men related. Hugh Jackman looks so young here compared to in Logan. He's like a little baby. I didn't really like Halle Berry's Storm. I like it better when they go a more African direction with Storm. Rogue's Lousianan accent was cool.

I loved the interaction between Xavier and Magneto. I think watching First Class and Future Past before this one added some depth to their relationship, and also to Mystique's character. I still think Rebecca is a million times better as Mystique than Jennifer.

If I came in expecting it to be some epic Blockbuster movie, I would probably be disappointed. But a lot of cool stuff happened. And it's perfectly enjoyable as just another episode of the overall X-Men story.

Dark City

Dark City is super weird and unique, but in a way that still holds together and makes sense. You don't hear much about it, but it feels like a classic that everyone should see.

I had a hard time finding the theatrical release of Dark City. I own the DVD, but for some reason I only know where the case is, and not the disc. You can only torrent the director's cut. The library catalog lists only the theatrical release, but when you get it, it turns out to be the director's cut.

I thought it would be easy to rent it from YouTube, but it took me an hour to get it to work on my Apple TV, only to find out that that's the director's cut, too. So I rented the theatrical version from iTunes, and spent another hour getting *that* to play. And then realized after I saw the movie that I should have kept the library version so I could a. see the differences in the director's cut and b. hear the commentary. But I don't have it in me to request it again and wait another six months for it to come in.

You don't hear a lot about Dark City. I really only knew about it because I had a friend that liked it. The movie is super weird. I feel like everybody should see it just to have the experience.

Thor: Ragnarok

Thor: Ragnarok isn't as great as the trailer makes it out to be. The humor is different, but it felt too much like it was from a gag reel instead of an actual movie. Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song" is basically the best part of the movie.

I haven't seen either of the first two Thor movies, and I don't really feel like I need to. The trailer for Ragnarok looked cool, probably mostly because they used Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song." That song pretty much made the entire movie, too. At least it's apropos, since it's about Vikings. It's also crazy that it came out *50* years ago.

The movie had a weird sense of humor. You could say it's because the director is from New Zealand, but the writers were American. A lot of the jokes seemed like they were from the gag reel, even the opening one with Thor twisting on the chains. And they kind of overdid it when they kept going with that joke.

American Made

American Made is about a selfish guy who doesn't have the sense to quit when he's ahead. The camerawork is atrocious, and as with so many other movies, the point of making or watching it escapes me.

American Made is so forgettable that by the next day, I had completely forgotten that I had even seen it, if that tells you anything. I'm not a fan of Tom Cruise. I can't even think of a movie I've seen him in other than Rain Man, and I had to watch that for a class in college. American Made didn't interest me based on the trailer, or, it turns out, the movie, either.

It's understandable how Seal got roped into everything, but he should have gotten out of it a lot sooner. He was just being greedy. He didn't even have a use for all of that money. He should have taken it and moved his family to another country where the government and the Contras wouldn't find them.

My Neighbor Totoro

My Neighbor Totoro is super simple. It's pleasant enough to watch, but I wouldn't exactly call it a must-see.

I've been wanting to see My Neighbor Totoro for a long time, and I finally did it. Out of the five or so Miyazaki movies I've seen, it's definitely the simplest. Totoro himself is kind of creepy. He roars a lot, and his teeth are disturbing. The scene with him standing in the rain with the leaf on his head, holding an umbrella, is pretty iconic, though. The cat bus was creepy, too. And Mei was really weird-looking. That was hard to get past. I liked how there was a musical cue for everything that happened, though, like even a butterfly flying around.

Atomic Blonde

Atomic Blonde is probably the best movie I'll see all year, which is unfortunate since it's only February. It's directed by the same guy who did John Wick, and it has a similar feel. It's really a love letter to Charlize, Berlin, and a slick modern/future version of the '80s. The action is solid, there are some inspired song choices, and the cinematography is striking. I recommend seeing it on the big screen if you can.

I'm not a huge fan of Charlize Theron, but I don't think I've ever seen James McAvoy in a movie that I didn't like. And the action for Atomic Blonde looked like it would be cool. It turns out that it was directed by the same guy who did John Wick. I can see that.

The first 20 minutes of the movie are definitely the best. The first three songs that they play are great, the action is nice, it looks good overall, and the characters are interesting.

Blade Runner 2049

The entire atmosphere of Blade Runner 2049 isn't my thing, a lot of the musical cues are totally off, and there are some really annoying scenes where you know exactly what's going to happen.

I didn't like the original Blade Runner, but it's been about a decade since I've seen it, so I don't remember why. I did give it a 3/5, so I guess I didn't hate it.

Blade Runner 2049 was okay. It was kind of long and boring. I wasn't really interested in it. I had a problem with the first half, because with most AI movies, there's a moral dilemma. But with this one it was so cut and dry. The replicants are humans, so we don't have the right to kill them, end of story.

Dawson City: Frozen Time

Dawson City is about the history of the town, and how the last remaining copies of hundreds of film reels wound up being preserved. It sounds cool, but the way they presented it is actually pretty boring.

Dawson City is a documentary about old film reels. In the early 1900s, silent movies were recorded on explosive film. And this town in Canada was the end of the distribution line, so most of the reels stayed there and never went anywhere else. In the '70s, they wound up having about 300 reels that were the only surviving copies of those movies. So that's pretty cool.

The movie lays out the history of the town, ever since it was started, and the gold rush, all the way up to the '70s. There's also some footage of the films they found, and newsreel footage. The weird thing is there's no narration. Maybe they did that in homage to the fact that all of the movies they found were silent movies. There was some music in the documentary, but it was really terrible, and I was dying to hear someone say something.

I didn't like having to read all the information, and it was super boring. The most interesting part of the whole thing was after it was over and one of the special features talked about the people who found and restored the films, and showed where they're stored now.

They had to have the military transport them through part of Canada, because no one else would touch them. And when they brought the American ones to the United States, they took them to a building that had just burned down because of all the film that was in it. I was surprised they took them there. They obviously didn't have very good storage practices.

The actual old film footage turned out to not be very interesting. It was kind of cool learning things about the town, like the fact that the business district burnt down every year for the first nine years after they built it.

11 Minutes

11 Minutes isn't exactly fun to watch. It does succeed in creating a feeling of tension, but I'm not sure that really pays off.

11 minutes is a Polish movie. The concept is that you see the same 11 minutes from the perspective of several different people. It opens with sort of "found footage" of cell phone and security cameras. I was kind of concerned that it was going to stay that way, but luckily it switches to regular camerawork fairly quickly.

It's a weird movie. It's super confusing trying to figure out what's going on all the time. The score is frequently abrasive and unnerving. There's some kind of black spot in the sky that's never explained. And there's always just a general feeling of tension.

I wonder what the movie is trying to say, exactly. I wish there were a commentary for it. It would probably be interesting to go back and watch it again, being able to understand more about it. It does get some "interesting" points just for being set in Warsaw. I always like to see things in different countries.

Robin Hood

Robin Hood takes its place in a long line of movies where I'm not really sure what the point of making or watching it was.

I hadn't ever heard of this version of Robin Hood. I'm kind of ambivalent about Russell Crowe, but he is good at playing this sort of character. The characters were the strongest part of the movie. They were all pretty likeable and interesting. The movie did seem to go on forever. But I was watching the director's cut. Although I think most of the scenes that were added actually were beneficial to the movie.