Mastodawn

mtsw May 25, 2025

My ★ review of Kraven the Hunter (2024) on @letterboxd: https://boxd.it/9NTbQZ

A ★ review of Kraven the Hunter (2024)

There was a real jump scare for me at the end of this one when the final shot fades down to reveal "DIRECTED BY JC CHANDOR." I had no idea. How the same director who made the confident and successful MARGIN CALL and ALL IS LOST somehow wound up helming this ugly, unlovable mess of a feature is baffling to me. Aaron Taylor-Johnson stars as the titular Kraven, a sorta-kinda superhero/villain, who acquires super strength, vision and agility as the result of being attacked by a magical lion or something on a hunting trip with his brother and abusive Russian

mtsw May 23, 2025

My ★★★★ review of Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024) on Letterboxd: https://boxd.it/9MiMtP

A ★★★★ review of Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024)

Usually I write these after one viewing, but I really wanted to see FURIOSA again before I wrote about it. It's hard to think of a film I had more mixed feelings about, but after a second watch, I feel a little more confident in saying "it's actually really good." The problem with FURIOSA is that it's not as good as the all-time classic FURY ROAD, and that it also sort of devalues FURY ROAD's storytelling excellence by explaining a bunch of backstory from it that did not need to be explained. But I think once you get past that

mtsw May 18, 2025

My ★★★½ review of The Long Good Friday (1980) on @letterboxd: https://boxd.it/9JGqRr

A ★★★½ review of The Long Good Friday (1980)

Legendary star turns by Bob Hoskins and Helen Mirren carry this stylish but occasionally-sloppy British crime thriller. Hoskins plays a 1980 London crime kingpin Harold Shand, on the cusp of completing a blockbuster real estate deal around Canary Wharf that will legitimize his business, when it all starts to mysteriously unravel. His associates start dropping dead, cars blow up, pubs blow up and Hoskins starts tearing London apart trying to figure out the culprits. The film's plot works so well because the arc is clasically Shakespearean, Shand is a "great man" undone the same characteristic that made him great. Unlike

mtsw Aug 16, 2024

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Alfred Twu Aug 16, 2024

As small-lot highrises make a return to the Bay Area, we’ve got plenty of examples from around the world to learn from… as well as some right across the Bay, where a few dozen were built in San Francisco’s fanciest neighborhoods, such as Pacific Heights, from the 1920s-1970s.

mtsw Aug 15, 2024

My ★★½ review of The Hudsucker Proxy (1994) on @letterboxd: https://boxd.it/76MJZf

A ★★½ review of The Hudsucker Proxy (1994)

It's a bad movie, but one that's still worth watching and it contains a lot of cool and interesting stuff. And I think really interesting to consider why the movie basically fails compared to other Coen Brothers movies. There's a lack of specificity in the setting. It's New York, but more of an over-the-top pastiche of Golden Age of Hollywood 1920s-1940s New York than the film's actual setting of the late 1950s or one of the real world locales later Coen films fill with such observational regional detail. The overall effect is closer to the similarly pastiche-y Never-Named-City in MILLERS

mtsw Apr 17, 2024

mtsw Apr 4, 2024

My ★★★½ review of Dune: Part Two (2024) on @letterboxd: https://boxd.it/6dbPE9

A ★★★½ review of Dune: Part Two (2024)

DUNE PART TWO is technically breathtaking but fails to achieve its potential for greatness. Its ultimate impact is limited by fidelity to the famously convoluted, dense, and occasionally silly source material, a few crucial missteps in casting and plotting, and some PG-13-preserving pulled punches. Even moreso than the stunning first part, DUNE PART TWO looks and sounds incredible, a best-in-breed milestone for cinematography, production design, color, sound and visual effects. The crisis besetting Visual Effects across Hollywood is nowhere to be seen in DUNE PART TWO, where even batshit or silly plot points like Paul learning to Ride The Worms

mtsw Apr 17, 2024

My ★★★ review of Scoop (2024) on @letterboxd: https://boxd.it/6iqMzb

A ★★★ review of Scoop (2024)

This brisk and well-cast journalistic procedural about the BBC's infamous Jeffrey Epstein-associations interview of Prince Andrew that lead to his withdrawal from public life delivers the genre's goods and not much more. Billie Piper stars as news producer Sam McAlister, and the first half of the film tracks her delicate negotiations with the royals to secure the interview. Being a British film, much is made out of McAlister's lower class background and the fish-out-of-water tension this supposedly creates in the BBC newsroom, but Philip Martin's keen, workman-like direction keeps everything moving fast enough that the film never drags. More interesting

mtsw Apr 4, 2024

My ★★★½ review of Dune: Part Two (2024) on @letterboxd: https://boxd.it/6dbPE9

A ★★★½ review of Dune: Part Two (2024)

DUNE PART TWO is technically breathtaking but fails to achieve its potential for greatness. Its ultimate impact is limited by fidelity to the famously convoluted, dense, and occasionally silly source material, a few crucial missteps in casting and plotting, and some PG-13-preserving pulled punches. Even moreso than the stunning first part, DUNE PART TWO looks and sounds incredible, a best-in-breed milestone for cinematography, production design, color, sound and visual effects. The crisis besetting Visual Effects across Hollywood is nowhere to be seen in DUNE PART TWO, where even batshit or silly plot points like Paul learning to Ride The Worms

mtsw Mar 9, 2024

My ★★★ review of Blue Beetle (2023) on @letterboxd: https://boxd.it/60OisF

A ★★★ review of Blue Beetle (2023)

A satisfying and charming superhero origin feature, but a paint-by-numbers story and cheap-looking VFX make it feel like a B-level entry in the superhero canon. Xolo Mairduena stars as Jaime Reyes, a college student growing up in the heavily Latino DC universe equivalent of San Diego or Miami. When he returns to his family's crowded house in the barrio after graduating, he discovers his dad unemployed and their house slated for gentrification and redevelopment by the Extremely Evil Defense Contractor Corporation that dominates the local economy. Promising to pitch in to help save the house, Jaime gets a job as

mtsw Feb 16, 2024

I don't know if the spoiler alert for a 51 year old movie is strictly necessary but I discuss the ending in the review so:

My ★★★½ review of The Last Detail (1973) on @letterboxd: boxd.it/5QBqAL