Favorite Viewing of The Month?

Only ten movies were seen in January (+ two seasons of Reacher).

When Evil Lurks - I think I accidentally listed this in my favorite first viewings of the last year, but I watched it on January 1st. It's a brutal and dark horror film from Argentina that's been gathering a lot of praise and deservedly so. 4/5

Honorable mention goes to There's Something Wrong with the Children (3/5). It's an OK addition to the evil children genre and is better than the reviews imply.

My favorite rewatch must have been Fulci's City of the Living Dead (4/5) — such a solid atmosphere-driven and dreamlike horror.

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Only watched 1 movie so far.


So for January, I'd say


-ENTER THE DRAGON

Shattered 1991 Wolfgang Petersen
Presumed Innocent 1990 Alan J. Pakula
Chinatown 1974 Roman Polanski
Red Rock West 1993 John Dahl
Tightrope 1984 Richard Tuggle


No Way Out 1987 Roger Donaldson
Jagged Edge 1985 Richard Marquand
To Die For 1995 Gus Van Sant
In the Line of Fire 1993 Wolfgang Petersen
Narc 2002 Joe Carnahan



Someone to Watch Over Me 1987 Ridley Scott
I Saw the Devil 2010 Kim Jee-woon
Mother 2009 Bong Joon-ho
STILL: A Michael J. Fox Movie 2023 Davis Guggenheim
Ferrari 2023 Michael Mann
A Dirty Carnival 2006 Yoo Ha
The Holdovers 2023 Alexander Payne
Thriller 40 2023 Nelson George
Grosse Pointe Blank 1997 George Armitage
Owning Mahowny 2003 Richard Kwietniowski

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Entertainment Log
Letterboxd profile

1) Night and the City
2) Seduced and Abandoned
3) Matewan

January '24:

Nightcrawler - Louis Bloom may be the 2010's best movie antihero.

La Haine - Still seems fresh and innovative despite being nearly 20 years old.

The Holdovers - One of the best of last year. Funny and heartbreaking in equal measure. Has Giamatti ever been better? Maybe not.

Nemesis - Albert Pyun's cyborg action masterpiece.

1. Strike
Probably my favorite Eisenstein
2. American Fiction
3. Spring Fever
4 Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky
5. Kagero-Za
6. Women Talking
7. Wings
8. Lux Aeterna

February '24:

Fallen Leaves - A short and sweet romantic comedy that shows how the little things kill.

Daimajin - A spiritual kaiju movie that is a joy to watch simply because it looks so good.

Stuck - a.k.a. "Stephen Rea's Adventure Through the Windshield Glass." Stuart Gordon (R.I.P.) went out on a high note.

1) Aftersun
2) Heart of a Dog
3) Rotting in the Sun
4) Good Time
5) Burst City

January


All of Us Strangers
Indochine
Godzilla Minus One


February


The Zone of Interest
Rye Lane
Anatomy of a Fall

I watched 118 feature films plus 9 short films in February. My favourite viewings:

Woodstock (1970)
Poor Things (2023)
American Fiction (2023)
I Like Movies (2022)
Baraka (1992)

Unfaithfully Yours
We Need to Talk About Kevin

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IMDb
Letterboxd

Finally, someone else appreciates this one.

I'm curious why some people are mixed on it/dislike it. I suppose the flashback structure might take some getting used to, though I was never confused by it. Regardless, I was impressed with how Kevin's character arc was handled. His shift from a quiet toddler to an unpredictable teenager who did a great job at hiding his creepy behavior from his Dad and focusing it onto his Mom, all while the film intricately maps out how his mother in part led to his behavior every step of the way (to the point we see each change in Kevin to the very second and facial expression it occurs), blew me away. And, of course, the various subjective sequences which capture Eva's grief and turmoil and the shots which highlight the emptiness and scope of her surroundings, are similarly excellent. Ramsay's You Were Never Really Here is excellent, but having had some time to sit on this one, this is now my favorite of her films.

Right into it - I again saw my fair share of cinematic wonders in February. The Spirit of the Beehive, Frances Ha, Le Cercle Rouge, The Holy Mountain, Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, The Fifth Seal, Riceboy Sleeps, Closely Watched Trains, Senso, Nightcrawler and The Night of the Hunter were the absolute best. Every single one of them an amazing movie.


Adding to that list of very enjoyable first-rate watches is a lengthy list of honorable mentions which were all excellent and super enjoyable : The Hand of God, The Holdovers, A Tale of Two Sisters, The Happiness of the Katakuris, It Follows, Conspiracy, Anatomy of a Fall, Body Heat, Torn Curtain, Sin City, Riders of Justice, La Haine, The Little Foxes, Shallow Grave, A Summer's Tale, Polytechnique, A Shot in the Dark, Il Sorpasso, Murder by Death, Billy Elliot, Revanche, The Zone of Interest and Persepolis.

Happy squeezing that amount of quality into a single month!

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Only saw five new (to me) films this month:

1. Mad God (2021) - not great, but picked up a lot of momentum the further into the film.
2. Jungle Cruise (2021) - very underrated movie, very weird.
3. Dune (2021) - overrated, but okay.
4. Candyman (2021) - hated the ending of this one, could have been a modern horror classic but didn't stick the landing







5. Black Widow (2021)

Yes - We Need To Talk About Kevin is quite excellent. Right up there in my top bracket.

Very good, and unsettling, film.

1. The Exit of Trains
2. Pale Flower
3. Arrebato
4. Le Cercle Rouge
5. Night Crawler
6. Body Heat
7. Little Murders
8. Past Lives

It was a great month.

Watched quite a few good movies in Feb. which is a little unusual for me. The best of the best would be:


Oppenheimer
Killers of the Flower Moon
Cargo 200
Ford vs Ferrari
In Order of Disappearance

but the movie I liked the most was one of the last movies I watched for the noir countdown: