Haredevil Hare

my bby marvin

8 Ball Bunny

Knock at the Cabin

I don’t know, surprisingly conflicted by this one. The filmmaking on show is incredible, both visually and emotionally, but the subtext is SO obvious—it’s literally text—that I feel like I’m missing something. It’s not horrifically bad like the other famous example of Biblical allegory (mother!) but I don’t know what to rate this. Maybe later on I’ll add stars.

10 to Midnight

trashy as FUCKKKK but really great performance from Gene Davis. “guy who gets off to rejection” and “killer who uses his weapon as a dick” are mediocre but combine em…movie magic.

The Abyss

I said for a long time that the only way you’d get me to watch this is by paying me. Well, someone did.  The one thing I’ll say is that the special edition is pretty clearly the intended cut. Everything flows as intended, even if I disagree with pretty much everything that happens. There are about eight different movies here and none of them have particularly deep ideas—derogatorily, I’d say it’s Spielbergian, but at least his films are coherent. The beginning is full of truly horrifying misogyny that never really stops—Ed Harris just starts calling her “baby” instead of “bitch”. The ending is, again, Spielbergian, in that it’s so hopelessly optimistic and dumb that only an eight year old could have come up with it. In a different movie that I enjoyed more, I’d be more likely to enjoy it, but this is so confused about what it wants to be I couldn’t help but laugh a little. The server members chose to make this a watch party (complete with a pre-show courtesy of Jack) and that was almost enough to bump the rating up a little—it was fun, as almost all shared film experiences are.

Guided Muscle

this was ten times funnier than the bugs ones sorry!

Hair-Raising Hare

Wake in Fright

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Walkabout

has its moments, but the lack of subtlety and odd objectification of his subjects means i’m not entirely sold on this

Seconds

Smiley Face

funny, but felt like it was too long. i fully expected tim robinson to show up in the last 30 minutes? extremely 2007.

Cliffhanger

really fucking stupid and rips off a thousand other better films but it looks incredible so who’s gonna say it sucks? not me

Hellzapoppin'

genuinely momentous. I hope in a few years this cycles around and becomes what it deserves to be—talked about every single day. “live action looney tunes” is wildly overused but there’s no way this didn’t influence the next 30 odd years of cartoons! the gags are incredible, worthy of a 4 or 5 star rating on its own (there’s a citizen kane joke for god’s sake! in 1941!) and then they combine it with incredible dancing and music. the whitey’s lindy hoppers scene feels allegorical for the film, and it’s insanely fun at the same time. ahead of its time and we still haven’t caught up.

Vampyros Lesbos

if i’d seen this at 15 it would have reshaped my life. unfortunately i’ve seen countless others do what this does on better levels. the complete and utter lack of subtext is fascinating, though, and soledad miranda…..im single. hey

Mädchen in Uniform

chose not to rate this one because I wouldn’t say I ‘enjoyed’ it, but its influence on lesbian and female cinema is absolutely undeniable—I think “it feels so modern” is semi-hackish as praise but at the same time it truly does boggle the mind how we got an OPENLY lesbian film directed by a woman….in 1931! It’s a foundational piece of cinema and should be treated and seen as such and if absolutely nothing else I’m happy my patron picked this, because I’ll be thinking about it for a while.

Signs

apparently i forgot to log this so lmao! considered a 4.5 here, but kind of feels like The Ideal Four Star

Forbidden Planet

really, really terrible dialogue, complete with multiple scenes that seem entirely intended to show off the fancy effects. when the film is a groundbreaker like this, it’s forgivable. robby is so well written! the first act is a little laughable, but slowly gains its footing as the cast shrinks. by the final 20 minutes it’s pure freudian horror and shakespearean madness.

Greenland 2: Migration

the genuinely CONSTANT setups made me laugh by the end. there’s just no characterization. the opening 15 minutes were nice, probably because it was ripped off from death stranding (which isn’t that great but has nice visuals)

Johnny Guitar

It’s ironic this was chosen by a patron. Typically I write something afterwards, whether it’s a full scale capsule or just some notes I pieced together and send to them—but Johnny Guitar seems like it was made solely to spite that, like it knows it’s an experience and not something meant to be written about. If anything, this reminds me of Huston’s REFLECTIONS IN A GOLDEN EYE—an odd psychosexual melodrama in its own right, but this wears the skin of a Western. There’s no revisionism here, no reversal of the classic tropes. It simply uses them, heightens them to almost-absurdity before it pulls away, moves in a direction you weren’t expecting. Everything is so gorgeously framed and textured. The Trucolor process is beautiful, and it doesn’t make me think of the dozens of westerns I’ve seen—it reminds me of SINGIN IN THE RAIN the way everyone moves, calculates their moves, choreographs each bullet. This one will stick with me for a while.

Arlington Road

really bleak and depressing look into the current state of the world, where mass shooters and nazis get groomed by the fanatical right into becoming their errand boys. Even before that, you’re seeing a Lynchian picture of fractured masculinity, Blue Velvet by way of MTV and CNN. If the world was like this in 1999, why didn’t we stop it?