When I first heard about Minus One, I was completely disinterested.  "Another Godzilla?"  I don't even think I paid attention to whether it was Japanese or not, I just tossed it to the side of my consciousness.  But then I started hearing the slow drip of other people's enthusiasm.  In a way, it was similar to Shin Godzilla (which I liked, btw), and started to think that this might be a similar outlier.

On a related note, I was very happy to see that two Japanese films, Boy and the Heron and Godzilla, rounded out the top three films at this weekend's box office, especially proud since both of these films each played on 1000 fewer screens that their American Hollywood rivals and still kicked their asses.
 

crumbsroom wrote:

An insidiously wonderful kind of terrible. David Hess is, surprisingly, not a great director. Nearly everything in this film is completely wrong. Sometimes loudly, othertimes quietly. But always wrong.

And I love it for that, even though I think most people would be incredible bored by this.

I was entertained by nearly every minute.
 

I don't know what the hell Judith Bridges was doing in this but I kind of loved her performance.

This starts so bad. It can't even make the story of a man who finds a hidden tunnel that leads to a bunch of magician's secrets interesting. He just performs a lot of magic. And is in a band.

It ends so good though. It's almost like the Ran of zero budget movies.

The director of Godmonster of Indian Flats strikes semi-gold again!
 

My favourite thing about Fredric Dobbs is that he used to drive around some kind of sculpture car in an effort to bring art to the masses. (I'd need to dig up my copy of Nightmare USA to remember the name he had for it.) I respected the ambition of Godmonster of Indian Flats but found it a chore to actually watch.
 

I did like this scene. 

A very quickly compiled list of the 20 best first time viewings of that stupid year that just ended

Skinamarink
Banshees of Inisherin
Coherence
The Velvet Underground
Deadbeat at Dawn
World's Greatest Sinner
Sweet Thing
Moonage Daydream
What Happened Was....
We Need to Talk About Kevin
Terrorizers
Hyenas
Bullet Ballet
A Wonderful Cloud
Yakuza Apocalypse
Johnny Corncob
May/December
Teenage Emotions
Gaby on the Roof in July
Death Spa

I need to rewatch Touki Bouki at some point.  I watched it once on TCM about a decade or so ago.  I remember it as a rough and edgy indie, something like an African Breathless. 

I also happen to agree with Popcorn about that AI ending.

I think Aftersun might be my favorite film since... Skinamarink?

It's almost like it was tailor made to shapeshift into my own memories.

Any movie that can make me cry just thinking about some tangential detail in it, is my kind of witchy magic movie making.
 

Jinnistan wrote:

So you've seen Killers of the Flower Moon?  Where are your words?

I did. I wouldn't even know to begin how to talk about it. It almost feels mandatory to first dismantle all of the dumb things people have written about it, but is there even any need to do that? It's not too long. It's not 'woke'. Gladstone isn't getting a native merit badge by the Academy with her nomination.

Is it my favorite Scorsese? No. And I don't think I ended up watching it in the best frame of mind, mostly watching it suddenly when I realized it was on Apple plus when I went there to cancel my subscription. But it's still near top shelf Scorsese regardless. There aren't any flaws. Marty is still operating at the top of his game. It's one of DiCaprio's best performances. DeNiro is in rare good form again here. The film isn't maudlin in how it handles its handling of Native American issues and gives them voice, respectfully, without being remotely pedantic about it. And I didn't even have a problem with Brendan Fraser.