Watching
My last 10 watched from Letterboxd.
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Badlands
Some stunning shots you only get with a Malick movie. You can see the DNA of True Romance here, from the music to the narration and the couple on the run. I found the couple to be pretty vapid. Mercifully short, at least.
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Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die
Started strong but quickly gets sidetracked with Black Mirror-like side stories before continuing the very unsubtle main(?) story. Loved Sam Rockwell’s deranged performance but the rest of the cast felt wasted. 20 years from now this movie will either feel incredibly prescient or terribly dated.
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Redux Redux
Great setup. Went in blind and wasn’t sure exactly what was going on. Once it becomes clear, if you can buy into the mechanics, it’s a decent low-budget revenge pic with some interesting little twists. Needed more Jim Cummings though.
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Operation Avalanche
Great premise and a convincing aesthetic. Feels a lot more thought out than The Dirties. Aside from a pretty great chase sequence, it struggles to stretch its premise out to a feature length film. You gotta love the ambition though and Johnson has upped his game since then. Excited to see what he does with bigger budgets.
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The Dirties
You can see the DNA here of Nivanna the Band the Show the Movie but the material is way darker. Like uncomfortably dark. We're so inundated with school shootings that watching something depicting even the idea of one is deeply unsettling. If you're used to laughing at Matt Johnson you're in for an awkward ride. Fantastic closing credits though.
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Hoppers
This was surprisingly delightful! A step up from recent kids fare, it didn't feel condescending or packed with quips. A lot of fun and a lot of heart and, best of all, my kids loved it. 🦫🦫🦫🪵🪵🥔
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THX 1138
Visually interesting but otherwise tedious to sit through, even with its short run time. Fully expected a tie fighter to appear in the last shot.
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War Machine
Elements of several great sci-fi movies mashed up into a fairly bland, CG-heavy mess. Ritchson has great 80s action hero energy but even his broad shoulders can't carry this thing.
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Stand Up Solutions
Exactly the kind of unhinged performance art/stand up you'd expect from Conner O'Malley if you've seen him in literally anything else. Some great material spoofing the AI craze ahead of its time.
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BlackBerry
Revisiting this after Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie and enjoyed it even more this time around. I feel like people slept on this, largely because who gives a shit about BlackBerry? Glenn Howerton’s unhinged performance is the highlight but there’s a lot of great work here from the ensemble, including Matt Johnson. I remember being like “who is this guy?” the first time I watched this and was surprised to learn he also directed it. After NTBTSTM, Johnson has become someone who I need to see everything he’s ever done and will do. “I’m from Waterloo, where the vampires hang out!”