Top 10 of 2025: 9. F1

★★★★--Any time Brad Pitt is in a movie, it is probably gonna end up on my list at the end of the year. Kind of a commercial for a sport no one in the United States care about, but I’m glad I saw it on the big screen. This was so bad ass. Crazy visuals and sound. There were times when I was stunned. Only happens every so often. I think the last time before this year (the hill scene in One Battle After Another also got me) was Oppenheimer. Before that, Nope. The race footage is that good. Hell, this was one of my favorite sports movies. Doesn’t hold up to the best of the Rocky/Creed movies, but I’d say it could hang with pretty much anything else. 

 

Directed by one Joseph Kosinski. I sort of hate all his other movies. They include: Tron: Legacy, Oblivion, Only the Brave, Top Gun: Maverick, Spiderhead (which I haven’t seen), and he wrote Twisters. Rounding out the solid cast were Kerry Condon (The Banshees of Inisherin, Train Dreams, Night Swim) whose character is irritatingly named Kate McKenna (not to be confused with the greatest SNL actor of all-time, Kate McKinnon), potential future-star Damson Idris whom I only know from this, and Javier Bardem. And love that Hans Zimmer score. 

Thriller, mystery, meditation on morality, buddy cop, garbage crime: Se7en is all of that and more

Se7en - David Fincher - 1995

★★★★★-I've written and thought about this movie more than any I've ever seen. It's not often that a film changes my behavior profoundly. Books have done this, but with film, it is rare. Director David Fincher has done it twice, or at least gotten me on that path. With Fight Club, the seeds of anti-consumerism were planted. With Se7en, it was anti-moralism. It's telling that Fincher made two of the best films of this century (Zodiac and The Social Network) and those flicks might not be in his top two all-time, at least for me anyway. 

Gist of it is retiring police Detective William Somerset (Morgan Freeman) teams up with the newly transferred David Mills (Brad Pitt) for his last case before retirement. As they delve into the investigation, they uncover a series of intricate and sadistic murders. It becomes apparent that they are facing a methodical serial killer, John Doe (Kevin Spacey), who selects his victims based on their seven deadly sin, killing one each day. As the suspense intensifies and they get closer to the final day, Somerset forms an unexpected bond with Mills' pregnant wife, Tracy (Gwyneth Paltrow), who is deeply concerned about raising her child in a city plagued by such chilling crime.

That's the surface, though Se7en is a hard film to describe. It's got some gallows humor, but it is dark, and deeply disturbing. Mills indeed has his moments. His wife Tracy says “he is the funniest man (she's) ever met.” His deadly sin, in my opinion, is fashion related though. His ties are truly atrocious. One has a basketball going through a hoop on it. This seems to be his favorite tie. Also, at one point I caught him wearing his watch over his shirt cuff. This is the eighth deadly sin, by the by.

More than anything, this is a dualistic film that eventually morphs into nihilism. There is good and evil, until there isn't. There is extreme good in Tracy, and extreme evil in Doe. 

It's an odd couple cop movie, as well, which highlights this further. One an old, African-American detective just shy of retirement. A cynic that has seen it all. He is methodical, experienced, learned, and patient. He's a philosophy. The other a young, idealistic Caucasian that calls himself Serpico with just a little irony. He is hotheaded, impulsive, and immature. He's new to this city, a Hell-on-earth. They do not get along. But slowly, they become friends. That friendship presumably ends, however, as both are stripped of their meaning just before the credits roll. 

The city they fight crime changes everyone in this world. One of the weird details of the movie is all the unhomed people shuffling around in nearly every scene. Pretty much dystopian. Rains constantly. We are constantly reminded that this world is not “a fine place.” It's a bizzaro version of LA with Virgil showing Dante the ropes. The other cops here, for the most part, don't care at all. If a child witnessed his father murder his mother, it “doesn't concern us,” a detective tells Somerset. He's just happy it's an open and shut case. Tells Somerset that the other “dicks” are going to be happy when he retires, asking them such things. There are more examples of this. Another cop doesn't check vitals. SWAT, the only ones who seem to enjoy what they do other than Mills, relish the violence they impose on the lost souls. It's just a part of this world, the police sort of have to move around these people they supposed to protect, mostly just treating them like they aren't there. 

John Doe, himself, is a dualistic figure as a divinely inspired serial-killer. Doe is a truly evil POS. One of the great villains of all-time. (On a personal level, he ruined marble composition notebooks for me! My first 25 or so journals looked a lot like these, usually duct taped after a while. Got tired of the comparison and now carry Moleskins. Better for reporters anyway. [Speaking of. I used to be a crime reporter. You'd be surprised how close you can get to a crime scene, and how quickly with scanners in every newsroom. And by the by, no reporter has money to pay for information, let alone to pay “well” for it. One of just a few nits I'm able to pick. But if you don't know, you don't know.]) With his death, that dualism is ended, of course, as he becomes nothing. But legacy was what he was after. 

Doe's “work” is kind of performance art. Like the worst kind of art, in general, he simultaneously projects his self-loathing and sense of superiority with an all-out, full-court press of an attention seeking spectacle. Getting people to pay attention, though, is indeed tough. Gotta hit them over the head with a sledgehammer. I'm not sure Doe doesn't mean that literally. When serial-killers barely shock people anymore, in Doe's words, “in a world this sick,” you've really got to do something spectacularly disturbing to become part of the zeitgeist. For every Gacy, you have a Randy Kraft. Every Dahmer, a Arthur Shawcross. Every LISK, a Lonnie Franklin. So forth. Really gotta swing for the fences, I guess. 

His work is one of poetic justice. The concept has been around forever. Hence the “pound of flesh” from one of my favorite Shakespeare plays, Merchant of Venice, probably his most ironic play, which is considered a comedy (I wrote about that, too, a couple of times in college). Goes back even farther than that, though. For example, “He that smiteth a man, so that he die, shall be surely put to death,” is about as ironic as it gets, working on multiple levels even. 

It's also pretty much how we view Hell culturally in the West. While it's existed likely since the beginning of our days dabbling in concepts of an afterlife, Dante is the one that really fleshed it out. His epic masterpiece, Divine Comedy, the most important work ever written in my opinion, is all about justice and retribution. The souls he sees in Inferno and Purgatorio receive their punishments or cleansings in a manner that either mirrors or starkly contrasts their sins. Called “contrapasso”, it is a word derived from Latin “contra” and “patior”, meaning "suffer the opposite.” Its comes up in literature, theology, and popular culture constantly ever since. Some examples off the top of my head: The Faerie Queene, A Christmas Carol, Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey, so forth. 

My personal favorite depiction, beside Se7en, of course, is from The Simpsons. It happens in the “Treehouse of Horror IV” segment, “The Devil and Homer Simpson.” Therein, after Homer sells his soul for a donut, he finds himself in the depths of Hell, subjected to being force-fed “all the doughnuts in the world” in the “Hell Labs' Ironic Punishment Division”. Despite the demon's efforts to torture him, Homer revels in the gluttonous experience, even requesting more doughnuts when the ordeal is over. 

No donuts for “the fat boy” in this film though. These tortures are of the most sadistic nature. These poor people. As the attending physician says of the Sloth victim, “he's experienced about as much pain and suffering as anyone I've encountered, give or take, and he's still got Hell to look forward to.” Huge apartment for a shithole that this guy spends his last year in, though. 

Quick shoutout to Mrs. Gould, here. Her husband, Eli Gould, represents Greed. He was an attorney that supposedly got rich by lying to get his clients off. Doe's second victim, he says of Gould, “this is a man who dedicated his life to making money by lying with every breath that he could muster to keeping murderers and rapists on the streets!” Like the others, he was killed brutally with irony. John Doe broke into Gould's law firm, knocked the attorney unconscious before he could depart for the weekend, and bound his hands together. Doe forced him to cut out a pound of his own flesh on a set of scales. Gould eventually died of blood loss, which was the basis for the “comedy” in Shakespeare's play (See parenthetical below). Doe also marks a photo of Gould's wife with blood, circling her eyes. 

Somerset, in his wisdom, figures out that Doe marked her as such because she's supposed to see something. So they make their way to where she is stashed in a safe house, making this woman hysterical with grief look at her husband's crime scene photos. Mills says to her, “Mrs. Gould, I'm truly sorry. I truly am... I need you to look at each photo very carefully. Look and see if there's anything strange or out of place, um. Anything at all.” When she says no, he asks if she is sure as she sobs like someone looking at pictures her husband's horrific murder. “Please! I-I-I just, I-I can't do this right now!” But she does and find a clue! A painting is upside down, which leads them to fingerprints on the wall, taking them to Sloth. She is a real trooper, this lady. 

(If you are interested, this is whole of the reference. Shylock, a Jewish money lender (only Jews could practice “usury” at the time) has his Christian rival Antonio put a pound of his flesh as a security on the lone. When Antonio defaults, Shylock demands the pound from his heart. But Shylock had no right to any blood, and is therefore charged with attempted murder of a Christian, carrying a death penalty, and Antonio is freed without punishment. Eventually the rival Antonio, whom he obviously hates, commutes the sentence to giving him half of his ducats and converting to Christianity, thus making it illegal for him to make his living. He then leaves the play feeling ill. Hilarious!)

Only Fincher's second film. Also the second one I saw during its theatrical run. Only two Fincher movies I didn't see in the theater were Benjamin Button and Mank, which doesn't count. Pandemic and all. After Fincher's experience on Alien3, supposedly he said he'd rather have colon cancer than make another film, though I can't find an original source. Might just be part of his mythos. 

Anyway, studio wanted a different ending, you know, where a head doesn't end in a box. But as Somerset says, “this isn't going to have a happy ending.” I remember on the DVD there was storyboard of an ending where Somerset shoots Doe, which was really weird. The ending we get is pretty memorable, “what's in the box!” But I'm not sure it couldn't have used a little workshopping. 

My beef with it is that I kind of feel Doe's whole final plan that he is working to doesn't make a lot of sense. He murders a woman, Tracy, who is seemingly innocent of a deadly sin, at least from his perspective, and he makes a big deal about none of them being “innocent.” Right after that, Doe claims himself as Envy, which is nonsense as he likely doesn't feel anything except Pride. Maybe Envy in the classical sense, more wanting one's demise instead of wanting Jesse's girl. But that doesn't seem to be what Doe is talking about. I guess Mills is a victim of Wrath, to an extent. However, he is more of a victim of Doe just being psychotic than him trying to prove anything. Since he invites his work to be studied, I say it's sort of bull. 

Several of the sins are like that, kind of falling apart under scrutiny. In reference to Lust, for example, the threat of death is no defense for murder. That guys another victim. Good luck with intercourse the rest of your life. 

Lastly, there is the library card stuff. Absolutely no one would care about this sort of thing, at least now, post-Patriot Act. Also, I read almost all of the books mentioned or shown in the film in my education as an English, philosophy student. In fact, I played a drinking game my sophomore year where we had a beer every time a book was mentioned, shown, or quoted that we read in the film. My focus for lit was on epic poetry, and took a decent amount of theology in my philosophy studies. So I was completely trashed by the end of it. Since most of these are staples of the Western canon, I would think that Doe would own most of those, especially if he went to a bible college or seminary or something. 

I watch this every few years. Wrote about it in college for a Dante class and grad school for a philosophy course. One of my all-time favorites.

Originally saw it in 1995 in the theater with my junior high basketball team. It was quite the crowd-pleaser, which is insane. A Yoda with a library card that's got some things to say to a bunch of kids that have likely never read a book before in their lives. Practically got a standing ovation. Different breed. Those kids.

Depending on the day, this might be my favorite of his films. Hard to pick between this, Fight Club, Zodiac, and The Social Network. The performances alone are worth the watch. Freeman is at the top of his game, this is Pitt's first really great leading role, Spacey is dark and disturbed (just like in real life!). Mesmerizing and suspenseful with a fantastic screenplay, the film is gruesome and shocking. It also features one of the great on-foot chase scenes. An all-time classic from Fincher, who was just getting started. 

Sick - John Hyams - 2022

★★★★-You had me at home invasion slasher from Blumhouse written by Kevin Williamson of Scream, I Know What You Did Last Summer, and The Faculty fame. The whole COVID-19 backdrop is having a smart toilet in April 2020 shit. With that, I was able to make due with the rolls I embezzled from work until the supply chain stabilized. Fuck yeah. 

So how was it? Not too bad. Fun, tight slasher that made me sort of nostalgic for the start of the pandemic when I thought I was going to die and never left the house. Fun times those were. Also fun, a movie that gets some audience participation, which this film does by throwing us back into the early days of the lockdown. 

The flick follows two best buds, Parker (Gideon Adlon) and Miri (Bethlehem Million), riding it out at one of their parents' secluded lake house. To try and make quarantine “fun”, Parker’s on-again, off-again DJ (Dylan Sprayberry) shows up. He's trying to save whatever they have after a video surfaces of her making out with some other dude on spring break or whatever. Soon after they hit the hay, shit goes down. A masked killer (remember, social distancing!) slips in, steals their phones, and begins to terrorize them, first with loud music and then violence. Major plot hole here, by the by, why not just kill everyone in their sleep and not wake them up with bullshit? Sport/torture, I guess, plus we gotta get to it somehow. 

Adlon was the only young person I really recognized, though they all are pretty stellar. You may remember her from Blockers. I sort of get her confused with Mikey Madison who was Manson gal Sadie Atkins in Once Upon a Time In Hollywood, one of the kids in the fifth Scream movie, one of the daughters in Better Things, so forth. What is weird is that Better Things is a show where Pamela Adlon raises her girls, one who looks just like this woman. Then I find out the star of this movie is Pamela Adlon's real daughter. Some others that show up are one of the Langmores from Ozark, Marc Menchaca, who's lane is apparently creepy lake person, and the actress Jane Adams whom I recognize from The Anniversary Party and Happiness which I've been trying to forget since watching in 1999, fucking IFC. One Joel Courtney makes an appearance and is murdered at the beginning. I couldn't place him but looked him up. He was the main kid in Super 8, which was great. Only other things I've seen from director John Hyams was the exorcism episode from the second season of Chucky, a show I'm kind of obsessed with, and an alright movie from 2020 called Alone. Someone else in the movie that is sort of interesting is one Chris Reid. He is Brad Pitt's stunt double. Pretty good likeness. 

Besides the irritating plot hole, there were a couple other things that maybe should've been work shopped. Not trying to give anything away here, but the whole vengeance/motivation was a little weak. However, it isn't obvious. Also, I guess everyone's motivation for becoming a slasher in these types of movies is pretty bullshitty. So whatever. 

The other thing is that the killer thinks they're going to get away with it. When a victim points out that there is DNA everywhere, the solution is to burn down the house and the cops will blame it on selfish kids who couldn't social distance nor even keep a cabin from going up in flames. Well, that won't work since there are murders at multiple locations and people that aren't even part of the group. Whatever, best not to overthink. But these things were sort of dumb. 

However, all in all, this is a film that pays off. It snapshots a collective shitty time for everyone, and offers some surprises. Not a lot more I could ask for. Good shit.

Babylon - Damien Chazelle - 2022

★★-Babylon. Yet another film set in the late 1920s and early 1930s in Hollywood, during the transition from silent films to “talkies.” As such it is a movie I feel I've seen multiple times before. Also, not great, though interesting. 

Directed by Damien Chazelle whose claim to fame was La La Land. Overrated. It features an ensemble cast including Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Tobey Maguire, Diego Calva, Jean Smart, Rory Scovel (probably the best comedian I've seen live), Jovan Adepo, and Li Jun Li. 

Has multiple Singing in the Rain references. This film also tells that story from much grimier perspective. When the lone character who survives into the 1950s sees the film when visiting Hollywood with his family, he cries. Well, I sort of wanted to cry watching Babylon for being such a waste of talent and potential. 

As someone who loves Pitt and Robbie as well as this time period, the movie was a mixed bag of enjoyable scenes that lacked a cohesive narrative. Overall, it felt like a movie with a bunch of great scenes (the opening dance/orgy bit on the outskirts of Hollywood and the closing credits bit both come to mind) that doesn't do a good job of coming together. Any one scene I probably found enjoyable, but the sum of them felt shallow. One of those flicks that seems entertaining, but at the end it doesn't quite come together to form a complete or even halfway decent story and you leave it feeling shitty. 

“The asshole of Los Angles” scene is incredible. Tobey Maguire was great and disgusting here. Dudes in over their heads have to go into a horribly dangerous situation because of their idiocy that practically screams “get the fuck out.” Also, having to deal with an unhinged rich maniac drinking booze and ether. This is McGuire's character, who is unsettling. Reminded me of Boogey Nights with the “Wonderland” scene based on John Holmes's bullshit that got a bunch of people killed. 

It's said to be a love letter to Hollywood's golden age, which is quite a claim. It also tries to be a commentary on the industry's historical and ongoing issues with diversity and representation. Okay. Glad I didn't set through its over three hour runtime in an actual theater. Underwhelmed is all I'm saying. 

The Lost City

The Lost City - Three Stars

Aaron and Adam Nee 

2022 

Fun, dumb, formulaic romantic-action-comedy. This is what movies have become it seems. I feel like most of the movies this summer were slick, glossy trash just like this.

Overall, I liked it, but it wasn't memorable or super great. I'll go see anything with Brad Pitt. Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum are pretty close to being there, but not quite. All three of them were a real treat in this flick. 

Once Upon A Time In Hollywood is seriously the greatest movie of all time

Once Upon A Time In... Hollywood. Oh my fucking gawd ya'll. Two lines from the movie sum up my reactions to the movie, "That was the best acting I've ever seen in my whole life" and "You're real, right?" Or something like that. Sort of Tarantino's way of telling you what he thinks about the film. Like when Aldo at the end of Inglourious Bastards says, "I think this just might be my masterpiece." At least the first one, any way. Lot of chicken mole, amigos. Rotten Tomato score is 85% Fresh. This is a travesty. In no frame of mind to definitively say this, but after one viewing, it is my favorite Taratino movie. At least on this night.

Rotten Tomato Consensus: Thrillingly unrestrained yet solidly crafted, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood tempers Tarantino's provocative impulses with the clarity of a mature filmmaker's vision.

Gist of the movie is that a "has been" actor (who lives next door to Sharon Tate), one Rick Dalton played by Leonardo DiCaprio, and his stunt double, Cliff Booth played by Brad Pitt, who is more than a brother and not quite a wife go about and hang around, doing their things in L.A. in 1969, building up to the violence that you know is coming at the hands of the Manson Family. The trailer makes it look like a Manson flick mostly dealing with the murder of Sharon Tate, played wonderfully by Margot Robbie, but it is really a buddy hangout movie. Great one at that. Minimal violence for a Tarantino movie and then we get what we were waiting for.

The Tate family, notably sister Debra, was originally pissed that Tarantino and company were making this movie that they planned on being released on the 50th anniversary of Sharon and company's murder. Then the director met with her and she gave the film her blessing. Now she come down firmly in Tarantino's defense, saying that the movie made her cry and how touched she was by Robbie's performance. She has even gone as far to say that she wished he would make a movie completely dedicated to her and what not. So really came around on that one. After seeing, you can totally see why.

Some of the bullet points. Leo and Pitt. These two together are the perfect duo and their performances are amazing. They should both be nominated for Best Actor.

First, Pitt. Cliff is one of the great Tarantino characters. Little bit of Aldo in him from GB. Also some shades of Rusty Ryan and Tyler Durden. He and Tarantino both independently saw the character as a Billy Jack type which he totes is. If you haven't seen that, it is basically about an extremely masculine but cool dude who can kick some fucking ass. We find out maybe halfway through the movie that he has done some shit that makes him a bastard. But he is such a great dude otherwise and is so fucking cool, you don't care. A personal fave scene with him is the one where he ends up at the Spahn Ranch, taking one Pussycat back to her people. It is tense as fuck as Manson Family members come out of the woodwork and ominously stare him down. You feel that he is in real danger and there are red flags popping up everywhere but he is a coffin nail, this guy. When he kicks the shit out of Steve "Clem" Grogan for slashing his tire, this is the guy who in real life was recommended to die after the Manson Family trial but then sentenced to life (he would get out on parole in 1985, incredibly) because as Judge James Kolts said during the sentencing, "Grogan was too stupid and too hopped on drugs to decide anything on his own," for slashing his tires when one of the hippy chicks runs off to get Tex Watson (the kid that plays Tex is one Austin Butler who was also in The Dead Don't Die whom I had never seen before a month ago and is now everywhere) who hauls ass back to the scene. The way he moves and the crazed look he has about him, you know shit was really about to go down. Plus, all this echos what happened to the real life stuntman Donald Shea at the hands of the MF. Shea was checking on George Spahn just as Cliff does in the film and calls the police on them. After the cops raided the ranch, Manson and company murdered the guy, burying his body near the property. Anyway, yeah, if you know about this shit it is even more ominous and you are even more freaked out. Also, him being a guy who never was in shit sort of follows an alternative path for the actor. Like if he was just a guy who played little roles like the one he had in True Romance.

Now Leo. Dude wins the film. Pitt was fucking sick. It is almost unbelievable, these two together, acting the shit out of this movie. A cool ass actor doing good ass work. That's Leo and his character, Rick fucking Dalton, in the film. Best when is sort of losing his shit. His is career is basically over with the arrival of New Hollywood (also called the "American New Wave") ushered in in 1967 with Bonnie and Clyde. No more Rick Dalton as a leading man, he is now relegated to television, playing a big that gets his ass kicked by the next big thing that comes along. The show that his character is acting in with the movie, Lancer, was a real show that ran from 1968-70. In the movie Lancer looks amazing.  I tried to watch an episode, "Blue Skies for Willie Sharpe," and it was fucking terrible. Production wise it was like watching someones home movie or something. I was expecting Howard Hawks. I think it was Tarantino joke. Having Dalton telling himself in the mirror that if he doesn't get his lines right, he was going to go home and blow his brains out, taking this shit so goddamned seriously for a show that was meh. That's his best scene in the movie. Might be saying it is a job and this guy fucking takes it seriously. In any case, love all the acting stuff with character. This is where he really shines, Leo that is. So many layers there. Pretending to be a good actor doing a shitty job and then freaking out. Then acting as this guy acting and fucking killing it. It was mind blowing how good that stuff was. So much so that they address it in the film.

Finally, there is Robbie as Tate. Her portrayal is so bubbly and likable, you feel protective of her. She is almost larger than life at first. Hanging out with Mama Cass and Michelle Phillips at the Playboy Mansion. Driving around LA with Roman Polanski. She is New Hollywood and very cool. But then were see her out and about. Stopping at a theater to watch a movie that she is in. No one knows her. It is sort of humbling but she is just excited to be there and hear people's reactions to her work. She isn't famous at this point, but this isn't something she seems to really care about. More just happy to be a part of it. She doesn't say a lot but she does such a good job and it is all done so delicately, you really get a sense of who she is and what she was like. You want her to live and you think of what she could have become. It feels like this is a woman picked for stardom for a new era, she just hasn't gotten there yet. Plus, Robbie is so pretty and that 1969 look is good for her. I don't mean to objectify her because she is so talented. But she is like painfully beautiful in this movie. Some critics have made a big deal of her character's lack of lines and shit. This is bullshit and sort of demeans her performance. She doesn't need to say a lot to knock it out of the park, which she does.

Some other things that really stand out include the cool as shit 1960s world that Tarantino builds, (getting into spoilerish territory here) the crazy ass ending, and the fucking insane cast. Not sure there has ever been a cast like this. There are three above. Fucking sick, right? Then there are the other people that kill in the couple of minutes where they are on screen. Folks that play historical figures like Bruce Dern as George Spahn, Emile Hirsch as Jay Sebring, and Damian Lewis as Steve McQueen. Random industry people some of which are real and others not like Zoë Bell and Kurt Russell play a stunt coordinating couple, Nicholas Hammond as Sam Wanamaker, Timothy Olyphant of the TV western Lancer James Stacy, and Al Pacino as a film producer. Various recognizable faces in the Manson clan, like Butler as Tex, Lena Dunham, Dakota Fanning as the notorious Squeaky Fromme, Danielle Harris from Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers and Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers, and Margaret Qualley was sort of the biggest standout from the Family as Pussycat. A few kids of famous people like Kevin Smith's daughter Harley Quinn Smith (still sour on him after he was an asshole at a comedy club appearance in town) who was a random Manson Girl--whom I found out is a vegan, so totally in my cool book--and Rumer Willis, the spawn of Demi Moore and Bruce Willis, who played Joanna Pettet. A couple of 1990s people that were tapped for stardom that never came, in this camp were Rebecca Gayheart (Urban Legends star/Noxzema Girl from the 1990s) as the wife Cliff kills and Luke Perry as Wayne Maunder who shows up as an actor on Lancer. Then there are a lot of people that would maybe get second billing in a lesser movie, guys like Clifton Collins Jr. and Michael Madsen and James Remar, for example, that are basically just extras in this flick. Hell, even Clu Gulager makes a cameo as the bookstore owner.

Also, Tarantino doesn't seem to like Bruce Lee (portrayed in the film by one  Mike Moh). The character is sort of a prick and overall looks ridiculous. Plus, Pitt's character makes him look like a loudmouth who can't really even fight. That is a fantastic scene by the way. Everyone in the theater I watched it with was losing their minds when Lee challenges Cliff to a fight and has a random guy hold his jacket and the guy tells him that Cliff has a rep for being crazy. "What did he do?" "Killed his wife and got away with it." Lee looks at him like WTF. Fucking great. Apparently, Lee's surviving family is pissed.

A personal aside I think is relevant on how good I felt the movie was. So I am definitively an ex smoker. However, I allow myself one a year which I've not partaken in for some time. So, yeah, great Tarantino movie, second to last, supposedly. So I had my first cigarette since 2013 to commemorate it. I smoked about half of it and tried to really enjoy it which I sort of did. Could go for one of those acid dipped ones though. That I'll tell you.

True Romance is the greatest movie of all time

True Romance. Must have thought it was white boy day. My introduction to Quentin Tarantino. With Once Upon a Time In Hollywood coming out tomorrow I'm revisiting this magnificent flick that totally blew my little mind as a child. Tarantino through the eyes of Tony Scott, this movie is perfect. I've watched it 20 times since 1993 and pick up new details every single time. This, not one of Tarantino's 10, is for me, depending on the day, top three movies he's written. I really, really love this flick.

Rotten Tomato Consensus: Fueled by Quentin Tarantino's savvy screenplay and a gallery of oddball performances, Tony Scott's True Romance is a funny and violent action jaunt in the best sense.

On days when Tarantino comes out with a new movie, that should be a national holiday. I've got too much shit over the next week and am going to have to sandwich seeing With Once Upon a Time In Hollywood (which sort of feels like a companion movie for TR, another industry movie that takes place in L.A.) in on a day I've got shit going down, work on Thursday/Friday, trivia on Thursday, 2001: A Space Odyssey on the big screen on Friday, my female companion is out doing shit all day on Saturday, volunteering on Sunday. If I had spaced out my time off better, I'd have taken the day off on Friday. As it stands now... Sorry, babe, Saturday is the day I'm seeing this. Don't worry though, I'll probably see it again.

Anyway, True Romance. Detroit comic book store guy Clarence Worley, played by Christian Slater, meets and marries a bubbly and adorable prostitute, Alabama Whitman played by Patricia Arquette. This leads to him murdering her pimp and stealing a shitload of cocaine which they try to sell to a filmmaker in Hollywood. However, the Mob and the police find out and shit goes down in what is more or less a Tarantino autobiographical wish fulfillment movie. The cast for this movie is incredible. Like holy shit. Appearances include James Gandolfini who is brilliant as this monster of Mob hit man in the first thing anyone had really ever seen him in, Dennis Hopper as Clarence's dad, Samuel L. Jackson as a random drug dealer killed by Alabama's pimp, Val Kilmer as Elvis (don't ask), Gary Oldman as drug dealer/pimp Drexl, Chris Penn and Tom Sizemore as cops, Bronson Pinchot (most known for his as Balki from the sitcom Perfect Strangers) plays a pivotal idiot who sets up the deal between Clarence and filmmaker Lee Donowitz played by Saul Rubinek, Brad Pitt as Floyd (easily my favorite character), Michael Rapaport as the friend in Hollywood, and Christopher Walken as the Mob boss.

Here's some interesting shit about Oldman's Drexl character who has the best lines in the movie. He gets to say that Clarence "must of thought it was white boy day" and "Y'know what we got here? Motherfuckin' Charlie Bronson." Dude based it on his personal drug dealer. Apparently Tony Scott told him he is a white dude who thinks he is black. Oldman was like, I've got it and rolled with it. This was according to interviews Scott did. Oldman, however, walked that back, saying he didn't have a drug dealer. This was a different time when smoking pot wasn't as socially acceptable. He said he based it off of kids in his neighborhood or some such shit. He really rolls with it when he sizes up Clarence, making a bunch of assumptions that Clarence then shoots to shit in one of the many unforgettable back and forths in the film. Shit is perfect. Most of this I learned from The Ringer who did a Rewatchable on the movie last year. If you like Bill Simmons, love that guy, and this movie, you have to check this out.

While Oldman is truly unforgettable, Brad Pitt's character Floyd, the stoner on the couch, has long been my favorite. Don't condescend him, man, he'll fucking kill you. He is the ultimate lazy stoner, my people. Dude is my spirit animal. For real.

Really hard to say who the MVP of the movie was. Maybe Arquette who was conceived as Tarantino's dream girl (and it shows as she is really cute and really cool) for her unbelievable performance, Scott for his vision in directing this slick sort of light film that we never get with Tarantino, or Tarantino for this masterful script that definitely is part of his interconnected universe. Ultimately, went with Tarantino, who planned on financing Reservoir Dogs with what he made off this script. See Tarantino gave Tony Scott both RD and True Romance to read to try to get made. Scott wanted to make RD but by the time Scott was ready to make one of the films, Tarantino had already set his mind on directing RD. Was using the $50,000 he got for the script to pay for RD but when Harvey Keitel read the script and agreed to star, Tarantino and producer Lawrence Bender were able to raise $1.5 million for the film. You can read more about it at Film School Rejects. Something else that is pretty cool is that Keitel's character, Mr. White, in RD which came out a year before TR, is asked by Joe Cabot, the older bald leader guy that looks like The Thing, about "Alabama." Mr. White tells him him that they haven't worked together for a year and a half. This was part of the Tarantino shared universe but Scott changed the ending of the script as Clarence was supposed to die with Bama apparently working on steeling jewels with Mr. White.

Deadpool 2 is the greatest movie of all time.

Oringal Deadpool was definitely my favorite super hero movie of all time. After one viewing, I like Deadpool 2 probably just as much. Just a heads up, I'm probably going to spoil the shit out of this bitch so read no further if you want to go in cold. Oh, by the by, Deadpool 2 is the greatest movie of all time.

Rotten Tomato Consensus: Though it threatens to buckle under the weight of its meta gags, Deadpool 2 is a gory, gleeful lampoon of the superhero genre buoyed by Ryan Reynolds' undeniable charm.

Pros: Funny and fun. Great pacing. Casting is dope. Reynolds is the fucking man. That Zazie Beetz and Morena Baccarin are both pretty ladies. Get the best Deadpool rival/X-Men villain which I will spoil later.

Cons: The constant jokes get somewhat exhausting, I imagine it is more so on the second viewing. Deadpool is too fucking nice.

Spoilers... Deadpool 2 was fucking sick. Reynolds as Wade Wilson and his alter ego Deadpool goes berserk after his wife (Morena Baccarin) is killed, again, spoiler, eventually teams up with the X-Men... but straight up murders a guy while helping out a powerful and violent mutant child. Both Deadpool and the kid, Firefist played by Julian Dennison from Hunt for the Wilderpeople, get sent to mutant jail where time traveling mutant cyborg Cable (Josh Brolin who is also Thanos right now) comes to settle an old score... with the kid, going back in time to end him when it is easy, Terminator style. Turns out the kid grows up to be a shit. Firefist, however, turns out to be a lot harder to kill than expected and Deadpool goes from protecting him to trying to stop him, forming a team rival to X-Men, the X-Force. The 11th X-Men movie that may actually fit into that universe as we see a bunch of them behind a random door at the Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. The film also stars Beetz (ger) from the show Atlanta as Domino, Brianna Hildebrand as that Negasonic Teenage Warhead, Jack Kesy whom I've never seen before as Black Tom, Shioli Kutsuna is Yukio who is the NTW's girlfriend, T. J. Miller reprises his role as Weasel, and Karan Soni is back as even more irritating Dopinder. We also get cameos from Terry Crews, Brad Pitt (who is in the movie for all of three seconds max), and Bill Skarsgård who was Pennywise in the most recent It movie.

When I was checking the movie's IMDB page when I came across the plot summary provided by the studio that made the film, Twentieth Century Fox. It is a bit different and totally unrelated to the movie, which is fitting. It reads: "After surviving a near fatal bovine attack, a disfigured cafeteria chef (Wade Wilson) struggles to fulfill his dream of becoming Miami's hottest bartender, while also learning to cope with his lost sense of taste. Searching to regain his spice for life, as well as a flux capacitor, Wade must battle ninjas, the yakuza, and a pack of sexually aggressive canines, as he journeys around the world to discover the importance of family, friendship, and flavor - finding a new taste for adventure and earning the coveted coffee mug title of World's Best Lover."

Okay, time to talk about the Juggernaut. Wow. That is tits. Only the second time he has been in the X-Men movies. First time he was remotely done right. The first he showed up was in X-Men: The Last Stand which was more or less universally hated (I thought it was okay but was disappointed while the girl I saw it with wanted to leave the movie--my tolerance for garbage is insane though). In that version of Juggernaut Vinnie Jones was more or less a normal sized dude with slight powers (he couldn't be stopped when he got going) who was irritating AF. Around that time there was that "I'm the Juggernaut, bitch" video that came out. It was considered pretty funny, though I didn't really get it, and it became sort of sort of hilarious to scream, "I'm the Juggernaut, bitch" at inappropriate times. What was super insane about ,X-Men: The Last Stand was that Vinnie Jones's character fucking said "I'm the Juggernaut, bitch!" which was fucking bananas. I thought for fucking sure he was going to say it in this flick as well but it didn't happen.

Anyway, now we have the truly massive Juggernaut (my favorite scene from any of the Deadpool comics was Juggernaut this size on a commercial flight) with his super strength, regeneration, unstoppable momentum, and metal helmet that keeps Charles Xavier, his brother (in the comics as least) from fucking with his mind (Magneto style). When he first showed up in this movie it was shocking. Deadpool, like the audience, breaks the fourth-wall to show what a super he is of one of his biggest enemies. Juggernaut, for his part, rips Wade in half which leads to him walking around with little baby legs, which was genuinely hilarious. But yeah, Juggernaut showing up was the best little surprise of the movie. It was sort of disappointing when they seemingly killed him off, "you can't kill him off already!", but then at the end you seem him pulling himself out of the pool he was being electrocuted in. Need that guy for the franchise, main!

Speaking of the future of the series, it's impossible to tell where the franchise is going as the timeline is completely shot to shit during the closing credits so make sure you stay put for that. What happens is the Negasonic Teenage Warhead fucks up bad. She "fixes" Cable's time machine and just gives it over to Wade who is like "I'm gonna abuse the shit out of this!" at which point she is like, "uh, I just really fucked up." Uh, yeah, dude goes back in time and basically made the whole movie sort of unnecessary with his time travelling. Immediately he stops the big twist that happens at the beginning of the movie and sets up everything that goes down. He is shown saving Peter who's the normal dude who joined them because it sounded fun, Deadpool was all "fuck yeah!" when he wanted to join X-Force though he was obviously going to die. Also, dude gets weird with it. He kills off the Deadpool from X-Men Origins: Wolverine, for example, and in a super meta-moment he kills a Ryan Reynolds just after he's finished reading the script for Green Lantern. So yeah, dope from start to the post credits.