#Iwatched #SlingBlade (1996) with #BillyBobThornton. It's a good movie about a retarded man with a golden heart, but doesn't quite live up to its accolades. Thornton's performance while initially impressive stays rather one-note, hrm. It is an idealized, undemanding depiction of a man who sits like Buddha on a couch while violence erupts around him. He has no anxieties or obsessions. Actually he's more in control of himself than anyone else. A calm giant up to the foreseeable ending.

#Iwatched #BonjourTristesse (2024) which is more beautifully filmed than the 1958 film. And it has way better music. In fact I should get the soundtrack. Its actors are also more convincing as real people. And then the film completely fails to tell the story. To establish any reason or motive. It's just too much in love with languishing in that lazy summer-by-the-seaside atmosphere and enigmatic conversations that never go anywhere, to deal with storytelling. Very French but no cigar.

#Iwatched an extended 2:30 cut of #TheMartian (2015), a scifi robinsonade based on a book by Andy Weir (who is also the author of #ProjectHailMary). This film is only 11 years old, but it might as well be from another world. One in which the US still believed in itself. Its unflinching optimism only hindered by some niggling bureaucrats. Where a young guy with a can-do attitude and some sarcastic humour could macgyver any problem and he didn't even know the meaning of the word "male loneliness".

After the excellent #SafetyNotGuaranteed with #AubreyPlaza, this time #Iwatched her 2022 thriller #EmilyTheCriminal, which had me on the edge of my seat, due to how real it gets. Emily is being suffocated with student debt, low wage jobs and cynical employers. Then she gets a tip to work for a credit card fraud ring. It's not that she particularly wants to do crime. She's neither a villain nor a hero. But she wants to survive, in a system that is stacked against her.

#Iwatched The Mummy (1999) for the first time. As expected it was a fun classic adventure time. The film obviously owes a lot to the Indiana Jones series but more interestingly it is elevated by the performance of the charming and witty #RachelWeisz. I'll have to check out other projects of hers.

#Iwatched #TheApartment (1960) again. #BillyWilder had already sympathized with the role of women in #SomeLikeItHot. This classic looks at their bleak modern work situation. Like that of elevator girl #ShirleyMacLaine who falls for a company boss that cynically uses her for sex. #JackLemmon provides the apartment for such rendezvous. And he delivers his erratic brand of slapstick that barely allows to call this a comedy. In truth it is more of a grim social study that appeals for being a mensch.

#Iwatched #ACompleteUnknown (2024). As a biopic it's kind of a miss. It's not historically accurate by far, nor does it provide insights into Dylan's mind ("I'm Not There" did that). He arrives in NYC 1961 as an introverted asshole with genius song writing skills and leaves Newport Folk Festival the same way in 1965. His character development remains opaque. But you do get the chance to experience this time and the NYC folk scene and watch some phenomenal singing performances by the actors.

when I was new to the internet and hanging out on forums someone posted an image of what looked like a classifieds ad in a newspaper. you know the one about going back in time. today #Iwatched a film inspired by this famous ad. and even though I had heard it was good I didn't expect much. but it was good. like really good. that's all I'm allowed to say. I gotta go. #SafetyNotGuaranteed (2012)

#Iwatched Nobody (2021) — a brutal, fun action romp. The influence of #JohnWick creator Derek Kolstad is felt in the spectacularly choreographed action scenes. The story about a middle aged ex-CIA-killer, now sandwiched between a boring office job and a listless marriage, before rediscovering his masculinity with super violent vigilantism, one would like to discount as just silly. But the pent-up male frustration sits in the target audience and the film's veiled message is deeply conservative.