"Evil character learns to be a better person through their regard for exactly one other" + techbro mockery to taste + you can't fight if you're not cute = exactly the kind of shit I like. I guess a lot of Letterboxd just doesn't have taste!
Watched (most of) this on TV in a break between football games, which in addition to the actual movie and the repetitive, poorly timed commercials consisted of pinpointing the kind of obnoxious pedant Professor Higgins is, hearing about how one of my sister's more terrible ex-boyfriends related to him a lot, "that sounds really gay" (normal edition), "this is the part where they're really mean", and "that sounds really gay" (woman-hating edition).
We all agreed that Eliza should have wound up with Freddy, but I also think she could've killed it as the period-accurate version of those social grifters you occasionally hear about who get rich people to pay for all their shit. Alas for morals!
This review may contain spoilers.
The flying got me again, goddammit.
This review may contain spoilers.
Okay, first up is the not-good. Some people might even call these points bad, but my brain is blitzed from watching this as the back half of a double feature so I'm feeling generous.
- The story felt rushed this time, both in pacing and amount of detail they just kind of skimmed over at best. I can see where it would have worked better as a single movie and must have worked better as a single stage show, but as a standalone movie it's not very standalone. Which is ultimately fine! I have space in my heart for limited series and long movies! But the weakness is felt nevertheless.
- The CGI when they showed a digitally de-aged Jeff Goldblum was roooough in that first moment. Which actually seems odd to me, given he's one of those actors where they have a lot of material from his younger days to work with. Did they not shell out for the Marvel special? Come on, Universal, it wasn't that long a shot, you could've afforded it.
Now for the good stuff:
- 😭 Glinda and Elphaba both had what the other wanted! They both got what they wanted in the end! Apparently Elphaba surviving through trickery was also in the original musical, which I have to say I prefer over the book just going with her dying, but the Grimmerie opening for Glinda, which is apparently new, feels like a better way to balance her story against Elphaba's than "she's a girlboss now, it's fine".
- No Good Deed was phenomenal and I'm not surprised they plastered it all over the trailers.
- How extremely relatable Glinda and Elphaba both were in their respective naiveties. "If I can just tell the right people the truth", "if i can just get them to cooperate", but sometimes none of that works! The Wizard was right to be cynical! But Elphaba and Glinda were right to keep trying, too.
- Just... *waves hands*. It made me happy and it made me cry because emotions. It was wonderful.
The nice thing about rewatching enjoyable movies infrequently is all the fun stuff you only remember as it's happening, so you get a balance between the delight of watching it for the first time and the comfort of knowing where all the best parts are. I know people have their objections, but as far as I'm concerned there's not a single thing wrong with this goofy-ass movie. I even love the damn coffee mug, and I hate coffee culture as a rule!
I wish the political stuff weren't still so relevant, but that's not the movie's fault so I'm not factoring it in.
I think one of the main things about this is, if you're already familiar with Guillermo del Toro and Frankenstein, you know exactly what you're getting even if you don't know the specifics. It's reassuring, in a grisly and at times depressing way!
I am gnawing on the windowsill over this! I read all sorts of folklore as a kid, so I was already primed for fairies based on the summary alone, but then the real lore started popping up and I was hooked. I'm still training my attention span back up so the beginning seemed to drag a little, but that fucking goat guy showing up in the mirror had me watching the background the rest of the movie so it mostly balanced out in the end.
The implication that the price of the potion is on a wealth-based sliding scale proves that this is an eternal youth solution for the people (as long as the people are sufficiently desperate to remain young forever).
I apologize to the team for thinking we would've moved past Fortnite by now. Clearly I underestimated the power of capitalism.
This review may contain spoilers.
Trading all those other traditional vampire weaknesses in for them literally exploding under sunlight or a properly-aimed stake was super fun, all cops are bastards, and the five minutes Matthew Goode was on screen for were a thousand times more interesting than the three episodes of A Discovery of Witches I made it through.
Superman is a dweeb (affectionate) and I treasure the fact that pop culture has progressed to a point where you can just say "pocket universe" in a summer blockbuster and people will go with it.
This review may contain spoilers.
HOMICIDAL BESTIES YES
I appreciate how they fast forwarded through a bunch of stuff we've already seen twice before, and also how Lancer's fight was hype as fuck.
This is why you never give your sentient machines a taste for human blood before they've had at least one full semester of philosophy.
Honestly this movie isn't trying to be anything other than it is, and I respect that.
This review may contain spoilers.
This! Movie!! Like of course it's good, it's Ryan Coogler and Michael B. Jordan nerding out together, what do you expect, but all the extra little touches woven in to make it even more are setting my brain on fire. Like... fuck it, I need bullet points, I'll try to go in rough chronological order of when things first came up.
- Sammie barging into the church and being told to put the guitar down. I genuinely thought he was going to, especially as the movie progressed and we began to understand just how much danger he put himself in by using his power to the fullest, but I should've had more faith. You don't make a whole sequence about the throughline from the tribal music of historical Africa through blues and into rock and hip hop just to say it's fine to put the guitar down. Seeing him again as an old man, not just still playing but owning his own bar to play at, even after everything he'd been through, really got to me.
- The whole Klan subplot. first you've got Hogwood saying they don't exist anymore, and as a knower of history any viewer can immediately catch him out on the lie, but then we get to Bert and Joan and of course they're not just still extant but right down the street. Of course they're opening themselves up to be the first deaths of the movie because they're too fucking racist to listen to the clearly seasoned group of Choctaw vampire hunters over the freaky white dude with gold in his pocket who's literally smoldering in the failing sunlight. And then we find out about the planned ambush and it happens, the last thing anybody needs right now, and that's what kills Smoke after everything he endured, even as he takes every one of those fuckers with him. It's bitter as fuck, honestly, but the fact that he did get to gun the entire pack down with next to no consequence and leave on his own terms was still really satisfying.
- The music just in general. When you make it a core part of the movie it's gotta be good, and that music was good. I had to turn off the soundtrack to write this because I was too into it to get the words out of my head. The whole sequence of Sammie's music reaching through time and the surprise '80s metal stings at a couple of dramatic vampire parts were absolutely perfect.
- The casual multi-culturalism. Like we all know that a similarly set and themed period piece by a white director would at best have a few POC in background roles to show they're Paying Attention, but here we've got the aforementioned Choctaw vampire hunters (I could find a different way to refer to them but I'm stuck in the trochee trap), the Chinese shop owners, and clear lines between Annie's root-working and more general southern black culture, and between Remmick's pre-Christian Irish identity and southern white culture. It was another thing that was extra satisfying, just really good mental texture.
- The relationships. Like yes, definitely the romantic ones, you can tell Mr. Coogler drinks his respect women juice regularly, but just in general. It feels like we're dropping into the middle of people's lives as opposed to one "as you know, old friend" situation after another, which makes it really land when various characters are dying, and when Smoke's there at the end realizing how many people died that night because he and Stack were so sure of their big plan.
- The vampires!!! The choice to primarily rely on established lore with just a little variation for flavor was extremely solid, since it left more room for character stuff and psychological warfare and the false union of assimilation. Like, maybe if you'd just asked nicely and not killed anybody you could've seen your people again, dude! You could've had an even bigger banger of a party! And the fact that Stack and Mary are so fucking chill at the end drives that home most of all--they came to Sammie as family, where Remmick had come as someone so deeply buried in the language of conquest that he no longer remembered there was an alternative.
- Okay this technically falls under multiple earlier points but the whole thing with Sammie and his dad and the twins and their dad, and the revelation at the end that the guitar had been not Charlie Patton's but their dad's. You can find lots out there these days from black writers talking about abuse at home and how often it's been a misguided attempt to prevent worse from happening further down the road. It's obviously in discussion here, with Sammie's and his uncle's music--with art in general--presented as a riskier but ultimately more powerful alternative. It's his uncle's guitar that enables Sammie to use his power, and the guitar which ultimately saves him. It's the embodiment of his connection to his family's art, the thing that connects him to the past and future, the thing that gives him strength. It's what gives him a path to a better life, where Smoke and Stack's embracing violence failed.
- Stack and Mary's '90s outfits. After the '30s stuff that shit was hilarious. Wonderful way to let the pressure out after everything that happened.
I think that's just about everything. I could go into detail on a couple other bits but I've been writing this for more than two hours now and my brain is tired. Movie good! Go see! Give them all your money! The end.
I didn't get the whole Orlando Bloom thing at first because the whole Legolas thing never really worked for me, but then this came out and I Understood. it's still a lot of fun in general, though, I get why Disney decided to milk it for all it was worth.
unless you're helping me plan my fanfic I don't wanna hear it 🤐
1) I can't believe Doric invented Owl Bear From The Top Rope
2) The fact that Hasbro and Paramount didn't immediately greenlight a sequel to this is further evidence of their respective mismanagement. The people (I) need more Xenk Yendar! Give the people (me) more Xenk Yendar!
It was beauty killed the beast...
The exact reason this movie sucks is that it's a perfect blend of 2010s Tumblr social theory and the kind of internet witchcraft that's mostly Wicca and aesthetics posts. Like yes, okay, it's nice to see what's probably closer to the average coven experience in this world instead of a bunch of infighting because the girls don't know how to deal with their sudden, rapid increase in power. But instead of portraying a more realistic, balanced experience, this overcorrected all the way to the other end.
That aside, the callbacks to the original feel cheap, the climax feels weak and unearned, and the hard segregation of powers based on their place in the circle is a downgrade from the original. I kind of genuinely regret buying this when it first came out, but I think I'd regret more paying to rent it every time I find myself going "it can't have been that bad" again, so I'll live with it.
Honestly I finished watching the current season of Mayfair Witches earlier in the week and had to purge my brain with the good stuff.
If you don't think this movie is functionally flawless I suppose we can still be friends someday, but we can never be besties.
This review may contain spoilers.
You don't understand! It's going to end badly but she still got to fly! 😭
Ladies, always keep that lipstick on you.
I don't usually have strong feelings about cinematography, but that shit really made things freakier here. Everything was great, in fact--there are moments that would feel hammy or melodramatic in a less committed production, that here just feel like indulgent favorites thrown in to maximize the experience. I need to actually sleep and let my brain process the whole thing, but fuck yeah, everybody, keep being huge nerds.
Now I need to know if there was some Zorro-Dread Pirate Roberts costume loop going on officially or if it was more of a coincidental overlap.
The secrets aren't even unusual by RL political standards until the last one, but there's three I can think of off the top of my head that a lesser writer would have gone with to show that this is An Edgy Adult Drama, and the fact that none of them were used is just as refreshing as the fact of how things actually played out.
Reasons to just sell the damn place and live somewhere else.
This was goofy and fun and I approve of every addition to the inked up Santa canon.
The great universal constants of "we need to cut all this stuff from the original story if we want a reasonable runtime", "fuck it, change all the names to something more local", and fake paper graphics. Anyway, I'm finally watching this for probably the same reason as everybody else right now, and I feel like my brain is ready!
Praying that Kevin Bacon of the Sacred Timeline never meets a Magneto from any universe in the neighborhood of the X-Men movies, for his own safety.
This was on TV when I arrived for family obligations and my main feelings at the moment are just thank god it wasn't Harry Potter or any of the laundry list of popular Christmas movies I don't care about. Genuinely still love that final showdown though.
I'm sure there have been plenty of discussions and dissections over the years about the differences between the musical and the book, probably even some (or at least one) that hit on my precise combination of what I would've liked to see included and what I'm happy to live without, but that's not what's important right now! What's important right now is that I cried at least twice watching it and I'll probably do it again.
This review may contain spoilers.
I feel like if someone had told me this is just magical viking Hamlet I would've watched it sooner, but I also know my own brain well enough to recognize that this is a lie. The point remains that it is magical viking Hamlet, however, with the kind of magical realism where everything could be written off as hallucination and coincidence but can't be conclusively established as such.
Also the soundtrack is kinda sick.
this was a good and faithful companion through the end of my week-long cleaning binge, but also you can tell I'm getting old because I loaded the extended edition up, saw anew that it's four and a half hours long, and had a brief moment of "goddamn, that's too long".
the memes have tainted me irrevocably and I would like to congratulate latecomer "you have four bears?" for being as firmly fixed in my head as "they're taking the hobbits to Isengard-gard-gard-gard" and "this forest is old. very old. old as balls."
I'm so fuckin tired, you guys.
comfort watches r us
Despite my not anticipating it, the main twist was utterly unsurprising in a really satisfying way. Just like "yes, yes, exactly". Thank you for the food.
This review may contain spoilers.
This movie is extremely rough, but in the end it didn't matter because they built up some decent tension and I'm a huge sucker for "magic must defeat magic". Not sure past me's decision to buy it outright and get to it eventually was the wisest, but I think I'll live.
Wolfmen who act suspiciously doggy in their human forms is one of my favorite things, I'm afraid.
This is the kind of movie you watch because League of Extraordinary Gentleman didn't have enough monsters in it.
There was not an ounce of mystery in this movie. The visuals were mostly okay, but there was at least one point where even I thought they should've just used practical effects, and Barlow just straight up looked like bald Marilyn Manson.
They really whipped out the Three Stooges vibes here.
I appreciate a movie that knows who the real problems are in this world! I appreciate even more a movie that makes sure those problems die.
Pamela was actually a top-tier movie mom, and I suspect Ginger might've had some gender identity issues beyond "ugh, other female animals don't have to deal with this shit". Also just a good werewolf movie, with good tension for most of it and solid spins on the usual lore, although I'll always be partial to my werewolves being a little hairier...
This review may contain spoilers.
Johnny knew exactly what he was doing with that fake-ass red glove.
Danny and Nicholas are married now and I will not be told otherwise.
It's actually really fun to watch Ash develop from the relatively sweet baby of the first movie to the old scumbag of the TV series, and this one more than Evil Dead showcases the other reason we all (okay, I) love Sam Raimi: he's not afraid to get goofy as shit in the middle of all the monsters and dismemberment.
A non-conclusive ranking of the movies I've watched since shortly before joining Letterboxd, based on overall rating, approximately how many times I've rewatched them overall, and vibes. When I'm caught up this will include even the lowest-ranked movies I've logged and will ideally also account for movies I liked versus movies I acknowledge were really good but will probably never watch again.
To do:
[x] add all logged movies
[x] sort by rating
[-] sort within rating
...plus 85 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.
These are movies (and only movies) I watched for the first time in 2025, regardless of when they actually came out. For the most part, ties will be sorted in the order I watched them, but some may be settled based on my likelihood of watching them again.
I'm a slow movie watcher, okay!!
Movies set in Cincinnati and the surrounding area, according to Wikipedia, my own viewing, and any other info I come across. Hopefully at some point I'll watch more than a couple of these myself!
...plus 27 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.
Like the title says, this contains the movies and shows that fall under the original MCU umbrella, primarily for personal reference as I periodically watch or rewatch various entries.
...plus 56 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.
Many horror fans are already nerds, but this list is for the super nerds.
Nerdy shit: language, the preservation of folklore and culture
Nerdy shit: core concepts from alchemy and The Divine Comedy
Nerdy shit: traditional fairy lore, majority Irish dialogue
I didn't get to see all the movies released in 2024 that I actually wanted to see, so this list will be for those catch-ups. For the movies I did get to, see Best of 2024 - Released This Year.
I think this is just gonna be my list of Movies That Have Unicorns In Them with notes about the unicorns.
The unicorn/Amalthea alternates between deeply relatable and beautifully distant, and she remains hashtag goals. Her line about never running from anything immortal is incidentally some of the most practical advice pop culture's ever given me. (Still waiting to try it on actual immortals, though.)
Unicorn type: Innocent
I need to rewatch this one to address it properly, but I do remember a unicorn!
Unicorn Type: Innocent
The unicorn is merely a cameo, but oh what a cameo it is!
Unicorn Type: Homicidal
These unicorns are like if a moose and a Jurassic Park velociraptor had super smart babies. One of them has a face like a cat. They're phenomenal.
Unicorn Type: Homicidal/innocent hybrid
I'm using US theater release dates, and ties are sorted by the order I watched them.
Like it says in the title, these are movies (and only movies) I watched for the first time in 2024, regardless of when they actually came out. For now, ties will be sorted in the order I watched them, but later in the year I may rearrange them as my feelings settle.