brief inventory of films we've seen so far this year using AMC Stubs A-List which we pay for but would accept for free in exchange for promotion to tens of people via this newsletter just saying
In a world of unending pinpricks and over and again a malodorous haze of the soul and body it is a meaningful respite to enter, when possible, into the cold dark of a theater to sit quietly in a sticky plush chair and gaze merrily up at and into the silver scenes unfurling while, also, between six and eight people stare at their phone the whole time and do not turn the sound off. I am grateful to the AMC membership program for allowing me to see a lot of really bad movies at a price point which makes their badness less of an affront and in fact mostly just funny. Some of the movies are good. AMC’s endless cutting apart and reassembling of the godforsaken Nicole Kidman pre-film advertisement to ever diminishing returns is less good and in fact physically painfully bad. Anyway here is all the movies I saw during Q1 & Q2.
Poor Things : “I have adventured it and found nothing but sugar and violence.” !!!!!!!!!!! Me in college. I love this dumb guy deep shit so much. This surgery seems like a better option everyday, fucking and reading whatever you please really are the two best ways to turn yourself into a person, and bad men should get turned into goats!
The Iron Claw : It would be an honor to go back in time and push that monstrous father into a swimming pool with a still running industrial air conditioner duct-taped to his chest. Did not find this to be especially successful at anything but making me cry, at which it was extremely, like, damp neck, snot chokes, what are we doing to our beautiful queens successful.
American Fiction : A 2023 film based on a 2001 novel and it shoes. Incoherent and toothless politics buttressed between hurried familial non sequiturs. Altogether, a deeply medium rendering of a very clever, compelling premise. That said I have only respect in my heart for toxic gay plastic surgeon Sterling K. Brown.
The Beekeeper : This was the first time I ever had the pleasure of consuming the cinema stylings of Jason Statham and to be honest it left me breathless. Incandescently, relentlessly stupid. I could spend whole years of my life in a anesthetized delirium state watch the titular Beekeeper murder people with shuddering ease and a wholly flat affect. Though I am of course against the death penalty I can come around, I think, to the idea that using the computer to scam old people out of all their money should be punishable by death. And in this film it is!!!!! Eat shit, u cunts!!!!!!!!!!!!
Lisa Frankenstein : As a learned and sexy Diablo Cody head (i.e. I have loved all of her movies except Juno which I detest) I was really excited for this one and I did not disappoint. Weird, silly, featuring the lead actress from my beloved one season flop Netflix series THE SOCIETY, the Sprouse twin barely speaks, tanning beds have reanimating power. Delightful.
Madame Web : This movie is so bad it made me feel like I’d suffered a traumatic brain injury but I kinda like that.
Les Misérables (2012) - Dolby Cinema Exclusive : I love my girlfriend so much it almost makes my teeth hurt and is the best part of being alive all the time. I like when the boys are having a fun time plotting out their little schemes. Too bad about how that all ended up going, though.
Drive-Away Dolls : A lot less good than I hoped it would be and still think it could have been BUT a brief and pleasant enough little romp that did manage the magic trick of making me feel like I had a tiny crush on Foghorn Leghorn-voiced soft butch Margaret Qualley even though her performance—charming! good, even.—never once fully transcended the suspension of disbelief murdering fact of her just not being able to give “pussy eater”.
Dune: Part Two : Was all pumped up for this but have not given a second thought to anything about it since watching but for the worm fucker popcorn bucket.
Love Lies Bleeding : Gross, hot, weirder than I thought it was going to be which is such a joy and relief in the determinedly still waters of the film landscape at present. I love dykes and I love being a dyke and I love monsters and I love being a monster. How lucky we are.
Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire : At one point Dan Stevens descends from a helicopter to yank a tooth out of King Kong’s mouth and—quite inexplicably—it is supposed to be kind of sexy and impressive though in fact what it made me feel was as if I’d been locked in a walk-in freezer long enough to hear my brain cells one by one crack and fall away in pieces. This is unfortunately the best the movie ever gets.
Monkey Man : This only medium worked for me on the whole but I am a human being made from flesh and blood; when Dev Patel is punching a bag of rice with his shirt off so everyone from the hijra community who’ve allowed him to stay with them at their temple starts gathering around to gigglingly ogle him I feel a deep contentment and peace.
Civil War : Civil War is a film every bit as stupid as, for example, The Beekeeper, but lacking any awareness of that fact and, actually, masquerading as something high-minded and politically strident. I kept letting myself get fooled by the film’s own self-seriousness into thinking something interesting might happen and—with the exception of the single, harrowing Jesse Plemons scene—being rewarded for my gullibility with only another braindead mortification. I’m always happy to see Kirsten Dunst (and really like the itsy little girl from Priscilla) but this just sucks.
Challengers : Sexy funny stylish horny silly thrilling glossy messy stupid smart gleaming throbbing sweaty thorny tender, god, I love you, Luca, you beautiful bitch. This movie rips. If Megan won’t dress up as Art & Patrick with me for Halloween I don’t know what I’ll do.
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga : Succeeds where most prequels fail in sweeping me up so far into Furiosa’s story that, despite knowing perfectly well all that comes after the events of this film, I found myself sad and disappointed when she didn’t get to run off with her boyfriend.
I Saw the TV Glow : Striking in both theme and form, this left me feeling deeply impacted even if at times one does start to get a bit like, Okay. Yes, okay, I get it. I really do get it. On the other hand a quick scroll of Letterboxd makes it abundantly clear that many do not, in fact, get it so maybe I should stop trying to be so cool all the time. If you were ever a strange little teenaged animal with a heavy heart and fear flowing freely all the time plus a chemical addiction to dissociating to pretaped episodes of your favorite TV show this will cut deep.
The Bikeriders : Respectfully, writer-director Jeff Nichols is a huge virgin for this one. This movie is about guys who love riding motorcycles together so much that they let this destroy their lives yet never once can you work yourself up to catching the barest whiff of the stink of the juice of the possibility that they’d really and truly slurp each others dicks down. It’s asinine. Jodie Comer innocent, albeit given little to do. That’s really how that woman sounded!!!!!