This is a really sad true crime documentary series about such an emblematic American story: a seemingly normal and successful family man living a repressed double life, abusing and killing gay men. I got pretty swept up in the story, so all the usual true crime documentary tropes didn’t bother me too much. I felt like Jake Gyllenhaal in Zodiac, poring over every minute detail of the investigation, which makes it all the more devastating that so many questions are…
The ‘90s/aughts-era Disney was really groundbreaking for many reasons, one of the biggest being that it invented AI-generated content mill sequels before those were even a thing. The Hunchback of Notre Dame II is no exception: a fake movie among fake movies, somehow managing to feel grueling despite being only 70 minutes long. This movie does not matter, nor is it interested in mattering.
Why did I watch this?
It’s hard to grade something like this because it’s a miracle it even exists. We have an anti-colonial film, made by a Palestinian filmmaker, shot in Palestine with multiple postponements due to the genocide, that feels more ambitious and impressive than most modern Hollywood blockbusters. Like, how is this even real?
I have my nitpicks with the storytelling and some of the creative choices, but this is the kind of flawed, determined act of resistance that is the real deal,…
I guess I just miss John Carpenter and early Ridley Scott that the big Let’s Play YouTuber’s 2+ hour Lovecraftian horror slow burn worked for me. This is a film that is in no rush to get to its highly telegraphed destination, and that ends up being its strength. This is all atmosphere, all claustrophobia, and all dread. There’s a lot of creative motifs and environmental storytelling that’s so video-gamey in a way that’s oddly cinematic. There are virtually no…
