I always thought this was a kid's movie until the bottle scene. Holy shit.

Ate chips and sweet onion pretzels while watching this.

Loved it so much! Watching a family that loves each other just enjoying time with one another is beautiful.

The film was not afraid to pop with color during the scenes of the past. Color like this is sorely needed after watching so many movies with bad color grading.

Ate nothing while watching this.

Criterion Challenge 2026 - Film #19

Occupée. Occupée. Occupée. Libre. Occupée. Libre.

Godard did that just to piss us off.

I respect this for clearly inspiring Blade Runner and for the ideas it contends with, which are especially relevant at the moment, but dam was I bored.

Drank a cold brew while watching this.

Criterion Challenge 2026 - Film #18

A bunch of adults pretending to be teens who are pretending to be adults. Teens striving to act and be seen as mature is realistic to the high school experience, and Heckerling shows it well through her cast of characters without ever shaming them for it.

Ate nothing while watching this.

Criterion Challenge 2026 - Film #17

Sanjuro the person's confidence and swagger elevate the atmosphere of this film to incredible heights. Dialogue that should be silly and eye-rolling for how it literally telegraphs the events of the film becomes evidence of the control that Sanjuro the person has and his understanding of human nature. Likewise, it is evidence for the control and confidence that Sanjuro the movie has over its narrative.

Watching this felt like watching a piece of history. You can tell every modern trope that was inspired by this and Yojimbo. Most notably the final scene with its long, silent intensity preceding the infamous blood spurting scene.

Ate nothing while watching this.

Sanjuro sitting on the tower watching amateurs "battle" was hilarious. This was overall much funnier than the first time I watched. Probably because I wasn't bobbing my head left and right to read the subtitles behind someone's head. Sorry Texas Theater.

Ate nothing while watching this.

Good morning, good looking!
This is the killer speaking
Good morning, handsome!
This is the killer on the line

I couldn't write a review immediately after watching this because I was left to reckon with the last 30 minutes. After the thrill of the beginning portion of the movie, the sudden jump in time felt so unsatisfying that it pissed me off.

Anger is perhaps the wrong reaction. The expected reaction was likely that of sheriff Ed Tom's. A tired hopelessness in the face of the new violence he's witnessing.

Ate nothing while watching this.

Criterion Challenge 2026 - Film #16

Give me something I'll remember as long as I live.

Wait? More waiting. I'm always waiting. I've had enough!

Watching this, you only wish that your heart would go numb to avoid the pain, yet it can't. The film cuts straight through and continuously pierces you where it hurts the most.

Mikhail Kalatozov manages to command light and shadow perfectly to elevate Tatyana Samoylova's performance and her piercing gaze, always looking into the distance for the message she desperately awaits. The camera does not fear spinning to add to the nausea in your stomach that has built up from the aching of your heart. And somehow, the shots of the crowds are simultaneously overwhelming, swallowing Veronika up, but easy to follow.

Ate nothing while watching this.

It's an exercise figuring out whether I enjoyed this on its own merits or because I enjoy the story of the Odyssey.

Drank water while watching this.

Criterion Challenge 2026 - Film #15

A certain feeling lingers in me after finishing this movie, a feeling that I haven't fully realized its scope. Lone Star is massive. It manages to contain generations worth of the pain and political complexities of a small border town, particularly for its marginalized residents.

The mystery of the skeletal remains found in the desert outside of the town seemed so detached from the several other plot points that underlie the film, but the unfolding of the mystery is simultaneously the unfolding of the town's history. The seamless blending of the past and present showcases how fuzzy the border between different points of time is, as fuzzy as the border that separates the town from Mexico.

Ate nothing while watching this.

It's been a while since I've seen Edward Norton in something and I forgot just how much I enjoy his acting.

It's a big year for dysfunctional relationships. The Roses, The Drama, Splitsville, and now this! The resentment and self-pity in this were so realistic that they bordered on hard-to-watch, but the script balances it out well with the humor.

Ate popcorn and took one sip of a flat Sprite Chill Zero while watching this.

Criterion Challenge 2026 - Film #14

Ghosts of death, war, hatred, and love haunt this orphanage in the desert. For me, the movie itself was a haunting force in my memories of childhood. Bits and pieces remained with me: the name Santi, the tic-tac of the disarmed bomb, and the seemingly neverending desert.

These pieces and the exact feelings they evoked in me back in the day reappeared during this viewing, a perfect reflection, stuck in time.

Ate nothing while watching this.

One of the more romantic movies I've watched this year on account of the central romance being non-traditional.

Ate Doritos Dinamitas while watching this.

Steven Spielberg makes a Christopher Nolan-coded movie.

Genesis says we are God’s supreme creation—

On Earth

Stfu that was so silly. This whole movie was full of silly shit like this but presented itself as completely serious.

Ate sweet and salty kettle corn while watching this.

Ate popcorn and drank sprite while watching this.

Intense all throughout with hardly a moment to breathe. I can barely pinpoint a scene that lightened the mood rather than raise the tension, except maybe the ending which was not happy, but hopeful.

I'm so happy that I got to see such a Mexican movie in theaters, even if I'm 26 years late.

Ate popcorn and drank water and icee while watching this.

This was dogshit. I had a lot of fun 😌

Drank water while watching this.

Throws shit at the wall and it STICKS. A bit messy and disjointed, but a movie that's so colorful, fun, hopeful, and unabashedly leftist is needed in today's landscape.

Drank water while watching this.

This film uses Natchez as a single, powerful example of the function of aestheticism in the construction of historical myths about the antebellum South. These myths become reality to such a degree that the townsfolk absorb and reproduce the racism underlying them.

One shouldn't be fooled into thinking that Natchez's ahistoricism is a quirk of a single place here and now. The town's particular myths are just one manifestation of a phenomenon that is present across the United States and has been for its entire existence.

Ate nothing while watching this.

It's not even a monkey's paw. This guy's just a piece of shit.

Ate nothing while watching this.

About as good a movie as you could make from source material as viscous as the backrooms. The allure of the backrooms concept is the shared experience of being lost, alone, and completely exposed in a space that is at once familiar and unfamiliar.

Evoking this feeling is where this movie shines, especially during the two found footage sequences. As soon as the focus shifts to the personal lives of the protagonists and the overarching conspiracy, it loses the simple charm of the backrooms concept.

Ate nothing while watching this.

Criterion Challenge 2026 - Film #13

As a Mexican that grew up in Texas, the Selena movie was required viewing growing up. I was never aware of this equivalent, released 10 years before Selena.

Knowing Ritchie's fate does not lighten the blow. He died a child that was supporting his family while doing what he loved.

Drank Diet Dr. Pepper while watching this in Spanish.

She should've staged a coup instead of bothering with any of the marriage stuff.

Ate raspberries, chocolate, and cornichons while watching this.

I owned this on DVD as a kid and must have watched it 20 times before, but I genuinely don't remember a second of it. Unbelievable that the princess transformation was 90% just getting rid of her curly hair wtf 😭

Ate raspberries, chocolate, and cornichons while watching this.

Easily better than the OG movie, although I do miss the Goose x Maverick camaraderie.

Ate nothing while watching this.

Kinda difficult following the dogfights in this and keeping track of who's who. Doesn't end up mattering when you get lost in the speed of it all.

Loved the vibrant colors and the relationship between Maverick and Goose.

Ate Takis pix while watching this.

Hadewijch of Antwerp thought of Hell as the eternal separation from God's Love. Precisely because that separation is eternal and assured, there's a certain comfort in knowing you can give up searching for God's Love. The pain that eclipses Hell is the infinite repetition of the plunge into Love, never quite being able to reach it, but never being able to give up trying. No catharsis.

Sasha did not have the comfort of Hell. Between Jeremy's moments of hostility were moments of a sibling tenderness that could not allow her to hate him so completely as to give up loving him. The pain of this uncertainty is what broke her parents and what fuels her current reflections.

Drank water and cherry Icee while watching this.

Conner had the realest questions. Where did they get those lil crowns?!

Ate popcorn while watching this.

Spring florals?? Miranda would never.

I don't have any nostalgia toward the first movie, so the first third of this was bad. Barely even a movie, just an excuse to point and say, "hey, remember the first movie? 😉"

Once it gets over that hurdle, it becomes a super fun movie to enjoy with your pals.

Ate homemade vegan pizza while watching this.

I can understand why this is a classic, but it's hard to stand how mean or unsupportive everyone is of Andy.

Ate nothing while watching this.

It's been over a year since watching Queer and then seeing Zendaya at a restaurant while she was filming this movie. Time flies.

boxd.it/80iq0V

Much more engaging than Dream Scenario, but retained the distinct air of uncomfort from that movie. The last third was so tense I couldn't avoid throwing my hands in the air and covering my face.

Ate popcorn while watching this.

How is Christy so funny? 😭

Ate popcorn, homemade cookies, and diet root beer while watching this.

Criterion Challenge 2026 - Film #12

It’s just torture and murder. No plot, no characters. Very, very realistic.

Well, I think we live in over stimulated times. We crave stimulation for its own sake. We gorge ourselves on it.

Older forms of media had massive potential to direct our mental faculties, but were limited to specific physical spaces. The TV set in the living room, the radio in the car, the newspaper at the shack. Newer forms of media have the luxury of constant connection outside of specific spaces. The expansion of those spaces to everywhere.

This expansion was true by the time of my teenage years. By then, I had grown up on social media with one form or another of an algorithmic feed. I had also grown up watching torture and murder on television (Alarma TV on Canal Estrella), or being shown gore videos without my consent by my fellow classmates.

Hedonism via media feeds and desensitization to violence were made the defaults. Cronenberg understood this in the 80s, and had enough of an eye to understand how this would evolve into the 2000s.

Ate peanut butter cookies, matcha cookies, and soy milk while watching this.

Criterion Challenge 2026 - Film #11

A couple deals with their grief by engaging in what are likely the most unhealthy therapy sessions. The beginning sections were slow, reserved, and boring even, but you get a good sense into both of the characters' responses to grief. The editing had some jarring cuts during basic dialogue scenes that took me out of the film even if they made sense because of She's skewed sense of time.

> Chaos reigns

This scene in the middle of the film and the quote "nature is Satan's church" were so heavy-handed that I couldn't take them seriously. There was no real sense of connection between nature and grief that the film kept implying.

Drank water while watching this.

I expected this to be worse than what I remembered, but I liked it just as much as I did as a kid. The monster (JC?) was scary as hell. The kiss scene...blegh what a reveal for your villain's true nature.

Ate Chex Mix while watching this.

Spare me your feelings Alex you piece of trash.

Is the movie supposed to be so dark and yellow?

Ate nothing while watching this.

Making Mary an organist was a great decision because every organ track becomes diegetic, whether or not she's physically playing the organ. The organ is an invitation into her psyche.

Linden was such a creep. Mary was in a lose-lose situation when it came to dealing with him vs. dealing with the ghost dude.

Watched this while donating platelets. Did not eat anything. I was lowkey out of it so I may rewatch this.

Edgar Wright's movies are marked with a lively style, a vivid use of color, and a sense of rhythm. All of those things were present in this, but for me the movie was marred by the British-ness of it all.

Ate Pringles and drank water while watching this.

The coffee cup bit got me so bad. Whoever wrote the snowman scene must've been on something because what the hell was that?

Ate banana bread and cashews while watching this.

Still wondering how Sukuna managed to climb this...

The mention of Meister Eckhart was surprising because I just happened to have a conversation about Bernard McGinn's Meister Eckhart and the Beguine Mystics with my partner earlier today.

Jacob's descent into paranoia and madness was portrayed best through the lens of the industrial decay of NYC. Lonely, dilapidated alleyways and train stations are eerie in a way many of us could easily understand. It was like seeing a proto-backrooms.

Ate Limon Lays while watching this.

Criterion Challenge 2026 - Film #9

The first 12 minutes are the most lesbian movie I've ever watched. Then it becomes a heist?! Hell yeah.

Ate nothing while watching this.

Dam wish he could've ran away. Poor kid needs to get away from these adults.

Ate nothing while watching this.

Such long takes that you never grow tired of because of the stellar lighting and stellar performances.

Each of the characters brings a different perspective to what they should do in the situation they've found themselves. Given the trauma they have faced (or haven't, in the case of the groom), none of their answers are wrong or unjustified.

The two final scenes were captivating and tense. You couldn't help but join in on Shiva's and Vahid's emotional breakdown. After you're broken down, you hear the squeaking and end the film holding your breath.

Ate chips and drank water while watching this.

Not super sure whether I've watched this before, or if I'm just remembering the tens of times I've watched the Family Guy spoof of it.

This fucking slaps. The gold standard for what a haunted house movie should be. Out with subtle ghosts hauntings. I want the hauntings to be overwhelming!!!

Ate olives while watching this.

Criterion Challenge 2026 - Film #8

Wow, I'm a bit blown away by how good this 90-year-old film is and how much it retains, or rather, establishes, the themes present in Brian De Palma's modern version.

The opening scene hooked me straight away, but I'll admit that it quickly became just goofy enough that I began to question how much I'd enjoy this. The goofiness helps expose just how serious this ends up transitioning into, though.

Angelo was able to get the name in the end (':

Ate nothing while watching this.

Criterion Challenge 2026 - Film #7

Stellar musical performances. Especially that first performance of Origin of Love. Loved it!!! The energy of the performances were perfect for the dreamlike nature of the film.

Not a fan of the anti-communism sprinkled into the beginning portions. Nor of all the grooming, whether by the side characters or by Hedwig herself. The ending got me thinking that Tommy Gnosis is a stand-in for Hedwig pre-transition, but that's probably just me trying to look past the grooming.

As much as I liked the music and the elecric energy, theater production-like movies are not my jam.

Ate peanut butter oatmeal chocolate chip cookies while watching this.

Dam Jinu pulled a Piccolo.

Ate peanut butter oatmeal chocolate chip cookies while watching this.