say what you will about both serial killers and our old frenemies the reds, but they sure know how to get down to the business. just really ditch the humanity and get into the terrifying meat of being alive and dead. the superposition of murderous intent, one could say. functions in an odd way as a prequel to Chernobyl; without the obstruction of a state obsessed with presenting a flawless facade of functionality, it could likely have all been solved…
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Holocaust 2000 1977
welp I have to say The Nuclear Omen sounded cool on paper but it turns out Kirk Douglas ass (Dougl-ass?) and abortions and helicopter chopper chop-chop don’t actually add up to much, but the Morricone score is a fucking banger. that man had a gift the likes of which we’re yet to see again. maybe we’ll all be petting deer to bombastic strings in the great beyond.
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If Footmen Tire You, What Will Horses Do? 1971
MIRACULOUS PURE DERANGEMENT.
watching this movie is like stepping into the comments section of an authoritarian evangelical meme group in late 2015. everyone who isn’t Christian is an evil communist who wants television to be the new god. communism, also, has killed a billion people, and is worse than fascism because at least the fascists were efficient and industrial with their mass murder, because that’s better…somehow. there’s five different persecution complexes running rampant in circles around each other while a…
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No One Will Save You 2023
not to become another hooting chimp in the jungle about it but I was quite enjoying the lovely fucked grayboys getting freaky with it but then all the subtlety happened. listen. it’s a fine movie. perfectly cromulent. and I’m out here throwing down hands for elevated horror because despite babies being loud whiny pieces of shit you still don’t throw them out with the bathwater. but then this comes along. man, where is the line. I normally think grays and…
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Mad Love 1985
fuck me folks this one just had the foot on the gas all the way down, just spinning askew camera angles and histrionic meltdown shrieks and bizarre escalation. everyone’s just hollering and fighting and shooting and telling each other way too much shit. it’s gorgeous and manic. everyone is wiggling chaotically or dancing in masks or scream laughing or shooting something or zipping around. real zip. lotta zip. got a real live wire here. it’s like a new cocaine.
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The Preacher's Wife 1996
I don’t quite know how to parse Denzel doing a Tom Hanks thing, but it’s kind of amazing to watch. sure, it’s a Penny Marshall film, so it’s as schmaltzy and predictable as they come, but “charming angel Denzel trying to put the knees back into evening prayer” still gets one out way over the, uh, plate? base? he’s cooking with gas, is what I’m saying. I can’t get mad at Courtney B. Vance hamming it up a little bit, that’s what the man loves to do, and we love him for it.
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Talk to Me 2022
the Australian term for a hojo is apparently a “wristie” which haunted me this whole movie. other than that, kinda on the short end of the “elevated” horror schtick but at no point unbearable or incompetent.
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Bigger Than Life 1956
God was wrong.
you don’t think a 67-year-old picture about going sicko mode on pill popping can encompass the total destruction of the mythological nuclear family? you don’t think this dismaying, disintegrating normalcy coming apart from every bellowing tyrannical seam can hold weight, can score? what’s the matter, no guts? no grit? can’t watch a man shoveling away the ground beneath his feet with every word that comes out of his mouth? can’t hang with the pharmaceutical wild side? can’t…
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Ordet 1955
like a lot of whimsical brash fuckwits without a spiritual side I tend to think of faith as more mechanism than activity. human history and the inconsistencies of life go in; a blend of meaningful catechisms and justifications and answers come out. the strife and meaninglessness and suffering passage of human history comes with an ambiguous but refined answer. material in, product out. all the mayhem and schisms and vile justifications of faith were just the toxic runoff, the grotesque…
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Cruel Gun Story 1964
this is probably one of the coolest looking movies I’ve ever seen. everyone is a noir cliche dialed up to eleven, all cigarettes and angles and smoking guns and long glares through permanent sunglasses and it’s perfect. absolutely enchanting noir-ness. I think you need that in life. what’s life without the acknowledgement of knockout gams, moral relativism, and solitary smokes in the dark hours? life free or die polluted. or just die.
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Shutter Island 2010
kinda split on the fact it really doesn’t work as a mystery or thriller (if you haven’t figured out what’s obviously going on a third of the way in, maybe I have a bridge made of crayons to sell you) but goddamn it’s got some wild performances and killer mis-en-scene.
There's no moral order as pure as this storm. There's no moral order at all. There's just this — can my violence conquer yours?
now I know it wouldn’t fix…