"We've all been taught. Thou shall not kill, but hear this. F***.THAT.SHIT"

Little Caesar (1931)
8/10

Classic mob vibes here. This hits a lot of the same beats as most of the Scorsese style crime movies Hollywood cranks out every year, but this a rise and fall crime film in its purist form. Its beautifully shot and gets straight to the point with its storytelling.

Edward G. Robinson is great in the lead as Rico, the gangster that quickly climbs the ranks of the Chicago underworld just by being so much smarter and quicker than everybody else. It’s fun to watch his character mentally run circles everybody he interacts with and flip poor circumstances into situations that work to his advantage.

This works as a great bare-bones mob film that still shows off the coolness of a life of crime, but does it in a way that’s more grounded. Unlike most crime movies today Little Caesar doesn’t pad itself by lingering and focusing too much on all money and lavish lifestyle that comes with a mob life. Instead this uses its short runtime to focus on the actual mobsters who make the lifestyle fun and the actual crimes that keep the operation afloat. Crime films today should be taking notes.

seen Underworld?

Nah but I need to

yeah you do. Little Caesar, Public Enemy and Scarface all patterned off it. incredible flick, one of the best directors.

Jimmy o yang stand up 2020
5.5/10

really corny played out asian jokes tbh

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night

7.5/10

Sir Wilfrid the GOAT

The Truman Show

Loved it! Jim Carrey was great in it

It was funny where it was and stressful where it was

Tigertail (2020)

I really liked this, but if it was a bit longer and really spent time with the relationships, this could've been a modern classic for the new decade

Three on a Couch (1966)
5.5/10

So, Jerry Lewis plays an artist that recently won a trip to Paris and wants to take his psychiatrist girlfriend with him. Of course, she’s is a doctor and can’t really leave her patients without therapy for an indefinite amount of time, specifically three particularly vulnerable female patients. Rather than accepting this, Jerry Lewis proceeds to solve the problem by secretly dating all three women requiring him to pretend to be three different men, because of course women in relationships no longer need to focus on mental health. They need to have children. He does all this behind his girlfriends back. Already we’re off to a pretty problematic start.

These women are basically stereotypical 60’s equivalents of an IG fitness model, a Tammy Lynn type looking for a country boy, and a VSCO girl that reads books. All three are merely vehicles to put Jerry Lewis in situations to do his slapstick humor, but the humor is pretty good for what it is. The rest of movie isn’t all that interesting and there is of course predictable consequences for trying to secretly date four women at once. Not bad. A passable comedy.

School Daze (1988)
8/10

I was very excited when I saw this pop up on Netflix. It’s finally in a place where people can actually see it. While it’s by no means Spike Lee’s best work, it’s a still a great film and an example of Spike’s style pre-Do the Right Thing. I can’t speak on it’s authenticity to HBCU Greek life, but the film gracefully manages to lean into the universal experiences of college life while still celebrating what makes HBCUs so unique. And in true Spike Lee fashion, the film tackled nuanced issues in like the black community like colorism, sexism, classism, and toxic masculinity head on. Something that wasn’t common for its time and remained uncommon for a long time in Hollywood after the film’s release, with a few exceptions of course.

My Bloody Valentine (1981): 7.5/10. One of my favorite 80’s slashers. It has one of my favorite kills ever. It’s one of the most brutal slashers of the 1980’s. Some of the non kill action scenes are really sloppy and the music doesn’t fit the scenes at certain times.

The Blob (1988): 8/10. Haven’t seen this since I was 9 so I forgot all about most the movie. What a wild movie! This is peak 80’s horror. So many great nasty deaths. Special effects are really over the top and absolutely brilliant. Some pretty whacky characters make this a big B grade fun movie. It reminded me of John Carpenter’s The Thing. This needs to be checked out if you haven’t seen it yet.

Eyes Wide Shut

9/10

Skate Kitchen
7.5/10

The Exorcist 7/10

La Haine

10/10

Just starting Ken Burns, The Civil War.

I should be starting my assignment...

Another long update, this was a great week compared to last update I think!

Baraka (1992) 10

like koyaanisqatsi, only much better, to put it simly. God, it's pretty incredible to get the feeling that a movie might be something special like 15-20 minutes in, and then see it not only maintain that momentum but actually raise it. I felt like this movie legitimately KNEW that it was kicking s*** into another stratosphere with its handling of musical-cinematic rhythm, at times I almost wanted the crew to quit showing off. Watching this was a special experience. I mean, it's not subtle at all with the atmosphere it brings in, and some people might find its combination of style and cultural voyeurism to be a bit crass, but I f*** with this all the way.

Miami Vice (2006) 8

I feel like some people talk a storm up into their own ass with the 'otherworldly' feeling this film's combination of stellar cinematography and lackluster acting/plot developments produces. I don't want to make excuses for how poor the acting is, how overlong this bloodless (metaphorically) story runs. It just looks phenomenal. I feel fine leaving it at that. Though occasionally I do think there's something more (especially with the use of technology in the film). F***. 10/10 visuals 5/10 for basically everything else. Oh, and I'm giving a good score despite the soundtrack f***ing blowing so hard, it almost ruined everything the film was doing with its atmosphere. That's how engaging the visual texture is.

Army of Shadows (1969) 7.5

I'm not a big Melville fan; I thought this film might've turned things around but then I rewatched the samurai movie, which is still pretty lacking. So this is a bit of an outlier. I think the war-time context gave me something to grasp onto alongside the set composition, which is quite nice.

Under the Shadow (2016) 6

The contextual tension had a lot of potential, but the scares suck ass. And there's zero style to the direction.

Ugetsu (1953) 10

Another incredible film. Pretty sure everything here is basically perfect. Possibly the best folkloric tale I've seen put to motion picture.

Crumb (1994) 8

Mental illness abounds

Vampyr (1932) 7.5

Really cool - obviously I'm just getting a little tired of typing at this point.

The Blackcoat's Daughter (2015) 6

I liked the storytelling method, but I hated the main actress. She just has an annoying face I think. Not good for this type of role, it was just frustrating to watch her.

The Defiant Ones (1958) 6.5

I like the chemistry between Sidney Poitier and Tony Curtis. A mostly cute, inoffensive movie. Looks very good at times. I rememeber Baldwin had some thoughts on this movie, he might've hated it (or at least the ending, which I can understand), but I'm mostly fine with how things went.

Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002) 7.5

Incredible style and mood composure across the film, but I didn't care for some of the substance. Some off-putting violence, weird interactions with children, odd handling of mental illness. But the direction is incredibly focused. Good movie.

White Material (2009) 7

The tone here fits somewhere between arthouse and genre filmmaking and I'm not sure how well it was pulled off. But I'm letting things slide because I have a soft spot for Claire Denis and Isabelle Huppert.

A Raisin in the Sun (1961) 7

Some of the melodrama is uncomfortably overdone at imperfect intervals, but it looks good and I'm giving some more brownie points- this time for almost the entire cast (specifically Poitier, Ruby Dee, and Diana Sands) and then for Lorraine Hansberry

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) 7.5

Another imperfect movie, a little too buddy-film at times for me- the sentimentality undermines the attempt to bring madness to the wilderness. But both Humphrey Bogart and Walter Huston are at times very good here.

my GOAT.

that nikka zwigoff can't do wrong , love this one

used to have the vhs