- The remake of Flatliners somehow manages to be even worse than the original, which wasn’t a very movie good to begin with.
- Waterworld is surprisingly not terrible. But I guess when you cost that much, at least in 1995, not terrible isn’t nearly good enough. It’s not a great movie—it largely squanders its premise, and there’s limited evidence of that skyrocketed budget on the screen—but it’s surprisingly entertaining.
- Prom Night is surprisingly terrible, a mostly dull and confused plot with few if any scares or even tension. If it truly is “one of the most influential slasher films of the period,” that may say some pretty terrible things about the genre.
- There is some stunning use of color, as well as black and white, in Bonjour Tristesse, along with lovely performances all around.
- Léa Seydoux and Adèle Exarchopoulos are both phenomenal in Blue Is the Warmest Colour. The film is maybe best known for its very graphic (if simulated) sex scenes and its length, but it’s also a genuinely touching story about the awakening of desire and about how a love can fall apart.
- If Dune: Part Two doesn’t hold together as a narrative quite as well as the first half, that might be Frank Herbert’s fault as much as Denis Villeneuve’s. The second half of the novel is a lot more complicated—and also the part I don’t remember as well from decades ago when I last read it. But as compelling as the movie often is, even at three hours, and as stunning as a lot of its visuals undoubtedly would have been on a giant screen, it often felt oddly paced and a little padded. I enjoyed the movie a lot, and may do so even more when and if I revisit both halves as a single film, but the end felt less like a satisfying conclusion than the set-up for the sequel, which is reportedly already in the works.
I also rewatched the (still delightful) Before Sunset.
