Viewing Journal: 7/31/2026

313) THE DEVIL'S MOUTH

(2026 dir. Jeff Wadlow) Date Seen: July 31 2026

praise I will bestow on this is; The group of friends in it did interact fairly naturally & all their dialogue between each other early on didn't sound too stagey -- at least for a movie it didn't. The actors delivered their lines in relatively convincing ways, where it felt like it was within the realm of possibility that a posse of friends like this could exist & be in Thailand exploring flooded caves. But I wasn't even sure why a director & financiers would even bother producing something like this when there's the far better & structurally similar 47 METERS DOWN: UNCAGED.. Then i remembered there's this diabolical thing called money $ 

No one ever thinks of the shark's feelings. Maybe bull-sharks believe yuppie college dorks are "delicious delicacy."

312) ｢JUNK HEAD｣

(2021 dir. Takahide Hori) 3rd Viewing: July 31 2026

feature film version

Introduced my young designer / animator nephew to this tonight.. Hope it didn't warp his mind too much.

Viewing Journal: 7/30/2026

311) THE LOVE THAT REMAINS

    [ÁSTIN SEM EFTIR ER]

(2026 dir. Hlynur Pálmason) Date Seen: July 30 2026

Surprisingly funny and heartbreaking at the same time. There's even some inspired surrealist moments that would have felt totally jarring in another film. & I still can't quite put my finger on why they work.. but they do.

Viewing Journal: 7/29/2026

310) HER PRIVATE HELL

(2026 dir. N. Winding Refn) Date Seen: July 29 2026

one meticulously crafted surrealist behemoth (w/ top tier collaborators on NWR's production team: including Gitte Malling as production designer & M.Nordenhof Jønck as dp) that can be surprisingly emotionally rewarding & beautiful -- if you can stick with it.. I just personally feel like it lags a little in a few spots. Definitely witness HER PRIVATE HELL for yourself though, cause YMMV. A film like this lives in an intentionally dreamy, Theatre of the Absurd headspace, where even questions of pacing become highly subjective.

Viewing Journal: 7/28/2026

back home safe & tonight we're 

going to see MOTORBOAT CITY 

(,,¬﹏¬,,)

309) MOTOR CITY

(2026 dir. Potsy Ponciroli) Date Seen: July 28 2026

Potsy is a really ambitious dude & I admire the stylistic & formal swing he attempted here. Even when it whiffs, I appreciated what he was trying to do.. For most of MOTOR CITY's runtime it plays like somebody built an action movie around their favorite stack of '70s records. Then as things brood harder, the soundtrack quietly trades them in for more moody, synth-soaked cues orbiting closer to Michael Mann's worlds. (I wouldn't be surprised if scenes from this get a ton of youtube remixes later on). And I thought it was kind of a blast whenever it knew it was basically a bloody B-picture. The only times it really lost me was in these bursts where music selections accidentally turn drama into unintentional comedy. Example: A damsel-in-distress scene scored to Christmas carolers that had me muffling giggles -- a part i'm sure the filmmakers thought was tragic on-a-par with Ginger's fate in CASINO.. + I'm normally a big champion of Ben Foster & he's definitely doing something here.. & that something just might be complete off the leash overacting. Looking like Penn's "Kleinfeld" in CARLITO'S WAY while doing a crackhead take on Tosca's Baron Scarpia. Ironic considering how beautifully restrained he was in CHRISTY last year. which I thought he should've won Best Supporting for. 

(I wish they had gotten into a JACKASS style old man makeup fight at the end of this)

Viewing Journal: 7/27/2026

308) 

LABYRINTH 迷宮のしおり

(2026 dir. Shoji Kawamori) Date Seen: July 27 2026

kind of an eye-candy wire sparkler that didn't burn bright enough.. i barely cared about what was going on & Kawamori is venturing into audio/visual & narrative waters so many anime directors have already explored countless times over.. the music's pretty good though

Viewing Journal: 7/26/2026

307) BALLS UP

(2026 dir. Peter Farrelly) Date Seen: July 26 2026

At this point studio suits are just hitting shuffle on finding comedic counterparts for Wahlberg -- while he still looks relatively young & draws eyes to ads / content. But dammit, I wish this was funnier. It's just too thrown together.. still better than that movie Peter Farrelly won best picture for though.

306) LADY AND THE TRAMP

(2019 dir. Charlie Bean) Date Seen: July 26 2026

[just some production comparison notes]

It's sorta nuts to me how much more lifelike on average the animated dogs look in this compared to that CALL OF THE WILD adaptation from a year after. "Buck" in the latter movie is far more emotive & anthropomorphic; Not to mention going through much crazier shit (more cinematically adventurous shit), but say a nitpicker were grading on the sole metric of photo-realism & going over every frame of DOGGY & THE WHORE with a magnifying glass. You'd think the hurried post-production 90 mil straight-to-streaming movie would have much more noticeable artifice. So I think having the good fortune of real dogs being on set to constantly reference for lighting & movement is key. Even with a longer post time & 50 million extra dollars to spend on CALL OF THE WILD -- just knowing I had that post-production headache of having to create 100% of the wilderness scenery & elements in addition to the main character would feel daunting..

Viewing Journal: 7/25/2026

temporary pit stop at a specialized care facility for a quick sec, but they at least thankfully allow ipad use. so I can VOD @ witching hour.

305) WITCHBOARD

(2025 dir. Chuck Russell) Date Seen: July 25 2026

R.I.P. to the great Chuck Russell

Ended up liking this just as much as the original, even if for completely different reasons. The acting and writing are stronger here and i appreciated that Chuck Russell & the original screenwriter tried to do so much more than the standard "evil Ouija board kills people" thing. But that original film had better practical kills, way more visual personality (steadicam galore), and somehow nicer lighting despite costing like 4 pesos compared to this. I wish i was kidding but almost all the interior shots in this new one were lit like a ugly-arse Hallmark channel movie.. I need to be on record saying that I dig Jamie Campbell Bower (Stranger Things' "Vecna") continuing his slow transformation into our generation's Jeremy Irons + Madison Iseman is always magnetic.. She and a witchy Maine Coon kitten are always worth the price of a movie rental.

Viewing Journal: 7/24/2026

304) THE ODYSSEY

(2026 dir. Christopher Nolan) Date Seen: July 24 2026

Went in expecting something tonally like a sequel to TROY (2004) filtered through Nolan’s usual nonlinear structure.. What I got instead was a film spiritually much closer to The Thin Red Line (1962).

I have so many thoughts on this movie that my executive dysfunction symptoms are currently not letting me type out.. But I can talk at length about it if anyone wants to reach out on letterboxd or message me across my socials

Viewing Journal: 7/23/2026

303) THE CURRENTS 

(2026 dir. Milagros Mumenthaler) Date Seen: July 23 2026

A very strange & restless movie about a gal who just can’t get on the same wavelength as the rest of the world. There've been times in my own life where I felt intensely dislocated like this; Like everyone and everything around you seems to move to some rhythm you can’t quite catch.. But maybe sometimes you just gotta quit fighting the current and maybe drift for a while, to give yourself a psychic break.

Viewing Journal: 7/22/2026

302) ANOTHER WORLD 世外

(2026 dir. Tommy Ng Kai-Chung) Date Seen: July 22 2026

Just admiring the pure visual ambition..

Viewing Journal: 7/21/2026

301) UNDERTONE 

(2026 dir. Ian Tuason) Date Seen: July 21 2026

wants to be something like THE HAUNTING '63 for the podcast generation -- where what the audience heard was even more frightening than what was shown. The trouble is that while there’s decent stuff in frame worth looking at, there isn’t much worth being afraid of at the sonic level.. Shame too 'cause this was a great opportunity for the sound mix & design teams to go nuts.

Viewing Journal: 7/20/2026

300) LUCKY STRIKE

(2026 dir. Rod Lurie) Date Seen: July 20 2026

Eastwood Jr’s basically out there freezing his ass off and carrying most of the project by himself. & just when you think the film is really starting to get exciting, something will deflate its tension in the most annoying ways. It frequently trips over clunky dialogue and dead stretches.. Production values are A+ at least.

299) ABBOTT & COSTELLO 

MEET DR. JEKYLL & MR. HYDE 

(1953 dir. Charles Lamont) Date Seen: July 20 2026

Kinda funny that "Mr. Hyde" in this looks more like an ape man from The Island of Doctor Moreau.. Reminds me I still need to see MEET THE KILLER, BORIS KARLOFF (1949)!

Viewing Journal: 7/19/2026

298) EVIL DEAD BURN

(2026 dir. Sébastien Vaniček) Date Seen: July 19 2026

Of the three recent DEAD films to reimagine the "Deaxdites" via a grittier more corporeal mode of possession horror, this one's easily the most wickedly gnarly. As in the violence level got turned up higher. & Sébastien Vaniček continues to demonstrate a remarkable visual command over stories set within confined spaces, even if I did think this was something of a step down from 2024's VERMINES (One of my favorite creature features that year). But here's my thing with these last two EVIL DEAD movies in particular; Splatter has always depended on rhythm and inspired escalation -- when visceral excess becomes a film’s main register of suspense, the gore magic stops gaining steam. Relentless brutality can be desensitizing.

Viewing Journal: 7/18/2026

297) BOUCHRA

(2026 dir. Barki / Bennani) Date Seen: July 18 2026

Completely unique & tragic.. 2026 is shaping up to be one of the best years ever for international animation.

Viewing Journal: 7/17/2026

296) APEX

(2026 dir. Baltasar Kormákur) Date Seen: July 17 2026

This was exciting for whole stretches and technically dazzling (+ Charlize is always badass). But Man Alive, idk if Taron Egerton thought he was going to create the most unhinged screen killer since WOLF CREEK's Mick or what -- but whatever he was doing here was.. foolhardy

Viewing Journal: 7/16/2026

295) RENOIR

(2026 dir. Chie Hayakawa) Date Seen: July 16 2026

A perceptive look at childhood grief + that uniquely awful and strange feeling of waiting for someone you love to die. 💔 and this main kid Yui Suzuki’s naturalistic performance making everything all the more heartbreaking.. [Currently on Fandango vod. formerly VUDU]

294) THE DEEP [DJÚPIÐ]

(2012 dir. Baltasar Kormákur) Date Seen: July 16 2026

Watched in preparation for Netflix's APEX.. Kormákur positing himself early on as a master of incredible survival stories. Also Ólafur Ólafsson is brilliant as always in this.

Viewing Journal: 7/15/2026

293) THE INVITE

(2026 dir. Olivia Wilde) Date Seen: July 15 2026

I will say this cast is traditionally yummier looking than the original's & Wilde is a slightly better director in terms of not merely xeroxing the play to screen.

Viewing Journal: 7/14/2026

292) SENTIMENTAL

[THE PEOPLE UPSTAIRS]

(2020 dir. Cesc Gay) Date Seen: July 14 2026

Pretty funny stuff. & These four are so dynamic together, I personally wish the film was an extra 30 minutes longer just to spend a little more time with them. I do wish the direction was able to break the material out of its theatrical origins. The apartment still feels more like a set to perform on < than a space to shoot.

dream crossover event:

THE PEOPLE UPSTAIRS vs

THE PEOPLE UNDER THE STAIRS

& yes, the director's actual last name is "Gay" lol..

291) THE FURIOUS

(2026 dir. Kenji Tanigaki) 2nd Viewing: July 14 2026

After the John Wick / Rama-type heroes of these specific types of action movies survive hours of merciless beatings, I'm always surprised they don't just collapse & cry out "morphine" at the end.. Even wild chimps don't have pain thresholds this high.