In the last couple of months, I have watched:

The Hudsucker Proxy (1994)

This was a strong recommendation from a friend. I hated this movie. I really wanted to like it. Coen Brothers directing, excellent cast, good premise for a comedy. But the setting had an overly saccharine quality to it, trying to emulate the feel of an older movie from the 40s or 50s, something the Coen Bros would attempt again with their film Hail, Caesar! with more success. There was just something off about the relentless dialogue and the style-over-substance camera work. An insincerity that didn't feel like a Coen Bros movie. About thirty minutes into Hudsucker Proxy I had the same epiphany as I did about thirty minutes into Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness: it felt like I was watching a Sam Raimi movie. It turns out Sam Raimi helped write and direct the movie. I had to shut it off after another fifteen minutes or so. I hated it.

The Surfer (2024)

One of the more boring Nic Cage movies. Very little happens over the course of the story, and what does happen is mind-numbingly predictable.

Super Troopers 3 (2026)

This was a rare occasion I actually saw a movie while it was still at the box office. Despite this being a comedy, and loving the first movie, I was afraid I would be lost, not having seen the second. This turned out not to be necessary, but the way the story begins it felt like it was picking up on plot threads or character arcs from a previous film. The humor started off a little tame, as if easing the viewer into Broken Lizard's brand of comedy, but it never really rose far above that. There were a couple of raunchy scenes later into the movie, but there was nothing which required more than a sharp exhale. After the movie, I thought back to the first movie, and to Beerfest, and decided the problem was the direction and editing. The jokes were there, but nothing really landed because the actors are restrained to the stage presence of the cast of a typical sitcom, and there was too much excess footage around the punchlines. You could see what they were aiming for, but for the jokes to really land, a better director would have gotten stronger performances out of the actors, and a better editor would have tightened up the pacing for that frame-perfect impact.

The Place Beyond the Pines (2012)

I liked the aesthetic and tone of the movie. I was not a fan of it having not one, but two protagonist switches. It's a three chapter story, with a different protagonist in each chapter. Not exactly an anthology, because there is a clear progression in the story across the three chapters. But this format resulted in plot threads being abruptly dropped, killing the momentum twice, requiring the story to find its footing again and again.

Seven (1995)

What a pointlessly nihilistic movie. I enjoy detective procedurals, so that element had me hooked. I like the aesthetic. At one point, I compared the set pieces to diorama miniatures, where the artists pack in as much detail as they can while being careful not to cross into outright cluttered.

Bronson (2008)

This was funny, sad, gross, and mesmerizing.

Astro Boy (2009)

This felt too predictable, even for a movie aimed at kids. Nic Cage was clearly the wrong choice for that scientist's voice actor.

Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die (2025)

Overall this felt like it had a lot of potential, but ended up a bit thin. It wasn't bad. The general framework takes place over one night, but tries to break up the monotony such a premise often results in by cutting to flashbacks exploring the cast. Unfortunately, these flashbacks tend to last a bit too long. The main narrative needed to be a bit longer, but with more dimension to it. While I can see myself watching it again, unlike most of the above, I do wish it had a bit more to it than the overly simplistic 'technology bad' that we got.

The Mitchells vs. The Machines (2021)

Like this, perhaps.

Joy (2024)

I found this fascinating, but similar to Good Luck the main narrative felt a bit thin. We only really explore one of our three protagonists beyond the immediate premise of their scientific work, and even then we are limited to occasional asides. Generally speaking, there is very little in the way of plot progression for about seventy percent of the film, effectively giving the viewer the same handful of scenes over and over for most of the runtime.

Super (2010)

In the late 90s we got a series of movies which fixated on the banality of consumerism being embraced as a lifestyle, which ultimately leaves people dissatisfied with their lives (e.g. American Beauty, Fight Club). These stories were not made in imitation of one another, but the general cultural ethos of the time led to tonally comparable movies being produced contemporaneously. A similar coincidence was the 2010 releases of Kick-Ass and Super, two purportedly darkly 'realistic' satires on the superhero genre. I hated Kick-Ass when I saw it years ago. It was a mean-spirited comedy that never escaped the laziness of edgelord humor. Super is superficially the same movie, but it is at least fully aware that its characters are not remotely heroic. It doesn't fall back on raw shock value, but it's still not for me.

Nimrods (2025)

I knew very little about this going in. It at first seemed like it would dip too far into 'coming of age' cliches, the same pool which Snack Shack eagerly dove into headfirst. Instead, I was happily surprised by the general restraint on that point. The story does follow a typical three-act structure a bit too rigidly, but I cannot say this was excessively detrimental to the overall film. I had fun watching this, and will probably watch it again in the near future.