Movie Challenge #5

Je Suis Movies

Author

Tyler Barstow
April 13, 2023 • Est. Reading Time: 2 minutes

Movies are becoming rain on the mountain for me, and if sitting on the couch watching them were a workout I’d be ripped as hell right now. Things being what they are, I’m going to have to walk my dog to the moon and back to make it up to him once this challenge is over and I’ve been giving him prime blanket pile real estate in the meantime in hopes of smoothing over the fact that he hasn’t seen the sun in a week. We’re halfway through the challenge, and my eyeballs are becoming wise beyond their years.

A ★★★★ review of Primer (2004)

This is probably the best movie you can make for $7,000, and if I had seen this when I was in my early 20s I would have annoyed some people to death about it at parties. Thankfully for all of us, I saw it when I was 35 instead so I just thought it was good. I will say though that traveling back in time to trade stocks is probably the only good reason to do it.

A ★★★½ review of The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023)

Now that we know Mario is Olive Garden Italian and Bowser is Turtle Boy Axl Rose, it makes a ton of sense that they picked Chris Pratt and Jack Black to play them. This movie rips if you like Mario or Mario Kart commercials (CHECK, CHECK) and it was sick to feel 11 for a couple of hours. I’m not sure if this movie is actually Good or not but I am sure that I don’t care.

A ★★★★ review of The French Dispatch (2021)

You already know if you like this movie or not, because Wes Anderson has putzed around in the harbor of modern cinema in his immaculate sloop since before some of you were born. For me, his films are worth the trip for the visuals alone, and I found large chunks of this one really fun. Structuring a movie like a magazine is showy and maybe a little too self-aware, but I think overall it works to great effect. The only mark against it in my book is that Timothée Chalamet out-punted his coverage in his role and this was the first time I’ve ever found him to be annoying on screen.

A ★★½ review of Next Exit (2022)

Turns out that Elizabeth Holmes sucks at building an assisted-suicide startup too, and as a whole this movie is a lot like her affectation. It sounds deeper than it actually is, and none of the storytelling devices actually deliver on their promises without you doing a lot of the work for them. Nevertheless, it has a few pretty tender moments and there’s something soothing in the way the story mirrors much of the terrain on their cross country road trip. Not a horrible pick if you’ve run out of other ideas.

A ★★★ review of Nymphomaniac: Vol. II (2013)

I’ll be honest, it took me 3 tries to make it to the end of this one and I’m not sure that I’m glad I did. A number of moments along the way curdle in your stomach almost immediately, and I found it hard a couple of different times not to throw up. I suppose that’s the point, and I still think there’s value here if you have the jawline for it. There are a couple scenes I’ll probably never forget, and none of them for good reasons, but the two volumes combined are a brutal depiction of the darker corners of masculine humanity and it’s difficult not to leave the ending credits more alert to your own behaviors and their internalities.