If everything looks perfect and we want for nothing - why are we so miserable? Ahh the lament of the bored urban Bourgeois. Unfulfilled in his art and her home, living on what’s left of a family fortune and exhausted dreams.

Chekov, Mann, Zweig, Wharton, Fitzgerald, Rohmer, Bergman, and Allen have all mined similar territory for comedies and dramas of manners, lust and romance. Wilde’s The Invite is the first film that really nails the particularly modern forms of neurasthenia that plague our downwardly mobile professional class.

These types are more familiar in decadent European settings because that is their native land. But American Millennials seem particularly vexed that life’s realities significantly diverge from our youthful expectations.

The Invite succeeds precisely because it’s honest about its anxieties. It gives real bite and laughs to the humor (and it is very funny) but also to the emotional depth of the performances.

One of the best of the year. Wilde is back!

Throw in a trip to Action Park and this is a pretty accurate representation of sleep away camp in the 1970s-1980s. The world has gotten a lot more self-conscious and anxious since then, so it was nice to visit the carefree days of inter-camp games, co-Ed socials and hours by the lake.

Reitman and Murray would make better and more memorable films, but their best always managed to retain the heart and soul they poured into Meatballs.

Search your heart, search your soul and you know this Robin Hood is a stone cold 90’s classic. The score, the set pieces, Freeman’s Azeem, Christian Slater’s Will Scarlett, and of course Alan Rickman’s Nottingham give top notch character performances. 

Is Kevin Costner’s Robin of Locksley from Iowa? Yes. Is the evil witch stuff a straight rip off of Excalibur and extraneous to the plot? Of course.

But you know it’s true. Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves stands up as a people pleaser. You might say everything it does, it does it for you.

I'm clearly a mark for any film that has Josef Von Sternberg in a critical role, or one that references Chaplin, Lloyd, and Keaton and the pre-code, pre WWII era of Hollywood. The gags are funny and it's always entertaining to immerse oneself in the Minions patois.

All that said, the script is a giant mess. It's essentially "Babylon" but with Minions and also Cuthulu. It has the same final set piece as Big Hero 6.

But no one comes to a Minions movie for clever screenwriting. They come for gags, references and laughs - and this one delivers in spades. On a 100 degree July 4th weekend, there are worse ways to spend an afternoon.

Is this the most intense film ever made? Seeing this for the first time on the big screen, in “glorious 70mm” was a full body experience. Of course I have long known the fate of Hicks, Vasquez, Hudson, Bishop and Ripley, and had Burke’s betrayal revealed 100s of times.

But it all hits different when you’re sitting at Walter Reade with 100s of people sitting on the edge of their seat.

This is Sigourney Weaver’s finest performance and might be Cameron’s finest film.

Aliens is simply the best science fiction thriller of all time and an unadulterated masterpiece.

Bravo!!!

A charming melodrama and character study of Sam Elliot’s titular lifeguard. Looks as good as a film about endless summer at the CA beach should look. Can’t say I was fully on board with the main character’s decisions (ummm a lot of his decisions are highly questionable) - but they are fully his own.

It is kind of amazing that a 30+ year old lifeguard can afford the lifestyle he has in this film. By the looks of his apartment, it pays at least as well as Philip Marlowe in The Long Goodbye

Have to think this at least was in the back of the heads of the people who created Baywatch.

An understated gem.

The perfect summer hang, filmed like a memory of the most romantic summers of your life. So much life and joy in this very perfect film.

There are misguided souls who will tell you that Matt Reeves’ The Batman (2022) is the first time Batman is a detective, and first as film noir. Revisiting Tim Burton’s 1989 original makes all those claims look incredibly silly. It also confirms Reeves’ film is a hackish, boring mess. 

But Batman (1989) has it all. Excitement, romance, action, and the best and most entertaining Joker of all time (better than Ledger and Phoenix by far). It stands heads and shoulders above all other Batman films, because it’s the closest in form and content to an actual comic book.

The colors, the action, the over the top performances are straight from the best Batman adventures of my youth. Even the Nolan films - which have their own James Bond like pleasures, do not match the pure gothic pulp of Burton’s direction and Elfman’s score. 

But considering that our current screen Batman is an emo-incompetent - who can’t fight, solve crimes, or save Gotham from a villain who got his entire shtick from Seven - the 1989 original’s status as a genre masterpiece is fully secure.

Vlacil’s films tread the boundaries between the real world and something more spiritual. In exploring the depths of evil and the true purveyors of grace - he uses amazing camera work and historically poetic production design to tell a tale of petty human resentments gussied up in self-righteous pretext.

As the Chaplain states the Devil tempts us which that is most agreeable. As he finds out for himself- it can be wildly destructive.

Even sociopaths deserve true love and to walk hand and hand into the sunset with their beloved.

A truly twisted and touching love story (with enough verbal, sight and physical gags to impress Groucho), that really only could’ve come the mind of Elaine May. She and Walter Matthau are so well matched and have so much chemistry that this insane movie actually works.

Love is so much more important than money. It gives purpose. It brings joy. It can convince you not to commit a heinous murder!

What a glorious film. Elaine May forever!

The gold standard for all action-spy thrillers. Every thing comes together in this film - performances, set pieces, production, casting - to create one of the most satisfying action films of all time.

All future Bond films should see this as the Rosetta Stone. Not all Bond films must copy this slavishly, but the energy and tone? Absolutely.

This is a pure genre masterpiece.

We live in a world run by Mikey and Nicky’s - cheap small time hoods who fascinate us with proclamations of love, loyalty and sympathy - while wallowing in their own petty decadence.

One of the all time great explorations of male friendship - Mikey and Nicky shows how the trappings of genuine and honest friendship can be twisted by resentment and grievance. Casavettes and Falk completely immerse themselves into these characters. 

It’s visceral, seedy and hysterical. If only the studios let Elaine May make dozens of these masterpieces.

*Post-screening Q&A with Elaine May at Film at Lincoln Center

Well Jr, did I ever tell you about the time I crawled through the basement of an ancient building and escaped through a rat infested corridor? And then was chased by a bunch of zealots on boats, all while being seduced by a beautiful blonde double agent? Sounds like one of our adventures?

Must've been a dream!

Seriously - this second film is a major step up for 007, which benefits from all the Hitchcock (The Lady Vanishes / North by Northwest) needle drops. It also looks great - with the European settings, far more lux and interesting than the Jamaican beaches of Dr. No.

As the template for so many great films - from The Last Crusade to Austin Powers, From Russia With Love lives up to its brilliant reputation.

A stone cold classic.

Someday soon the Backrooms and Obsession kids are going to discover Bertrand Bonello and lose their ever-loving minds.

The blocking alone in this film is a tour de force. The film’s deep respect of horror movie tropes and the actual practice of voodoo give it a deep cinematic authenticity.

From the synth score, to “The Craft” like coven that forms - you never forget you’re in a genre movie. But it elevates so far beyond a mere fright fest. 

Along with Hamaguchi, Bonello is one of our greatest living filmmakers.

A rural crime noir with operatic overtones - At Close Range is driven by Christopher Walken’s seductive and casually cruel performance of a small town gang leader.

The aimless youth of this rural Pennsylvania town don’t have much to do and not much hope for the any future. But even the meager material advantages convey so much status and confidence that you can feel the power of even this two-bit thief.

Sean Penn’s performance turns on the conflict between good and evil within himself. And yet his sacrifices feel more necessary than heroic. Is it worth it in this life or the next? 

Loved that “Live to Tell” (a top 5 Madonna song IMHO) is basically the score. 

A true lost classic.

The best Pixar movie in years, Toy Story 5 is so good - it almost (almost) wipes out the abominations of Lightyear, and the whole Covid-era decline that set in at the studio. It's fitting that this film goes back to basics - focusing on childhood development in an age of ever-present technology.

I kind of loved that this film took what could've been a simple moral tale of play good / tech bad, turned into something much deeper about human connection. Having the primary avatar of technology actually be Conan O'Brien's toilet training device "Smarty Pants" is a stroke of genius. The Towelie like design, and smart/stupid poop humor brings Pixar back to its "Brave Little Toaster" roots.

Best of all this film confirms that Zootopia 2 is no fluke. Disney and Pixar animation seems to be on a bit of a run here - with commercial success to match.

Not sure these Toy Story films will always continue to hit - but when they have something to say, Woody, Jessie and Buzz are always a good hang.

So many of the core elements are here in this first, relatively low stakes film. So much more enjoyable and entertaining than the more recent “realistic” Bond films. 

Colorful and bright - Dr. No never lets you forget it’s a comic book or cheap novel cover. And the charm works magically

My high school experience was nothing like this, but somehow this film has always felt extraordinarily familiar. While I fell in love with this movie in high school, it wasn't until college that I truly understood and had met all of the personalities.

And I've never encountered a philosophy more profound than you have to keep L-I-V-I-N, no matter what.

One can certainly read this film, and its sequels as a project that charts the power, reality and possible decline of GenX bourgeois romanticism. Jessie and Celine are ideal lovers because they exist perfectly in time and in memory.

Revisiting their first encounter, I'm struck by how the writing smartly allows them to time travel to their future-selves - possibly metaphorically, possibly actually - to recognize the perfection and importance of this night.

But in June 1995, Nina Simone and Greece lay far in the future, as did so many other things - for them and for us.

It's fitting that this journey begins in Vienna - where so many bourgeois dreams were born in romance, only to crash on the shoals of reality. But the dreams are what make life worth living anyways.

One of Linklater's masterpieces. Glad to finally see it on the big screen.

The spiritual (and maybe actual?) sequel to Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T. the Extra Terrestrial. Disclosure Day shares both films sense of chase and obsession - both with alien visitors, and our own human weaknesses.

But as the capstone of that trilogy he's chosen "The Day the Earth Stood Still" as its touchstone inspiration.

Spielberg has always been a believer who wears his faith and his heart right on his sleeve. This film is urgent in its message that radical empathy is humanity's saving grace. Is it obvious to have that message delivered both by a nun and an alien being?

Maybe?

But in an era where cruelty, atomization and loneliness plague so many - obviousness might be our greatest weapon against the cynics.

Tremendously humane performances from Josh O'Connor, Colin Firth, Eve Hewson and especially Emily Blunt - who plays her character like Annie Hall imbued with Rogue-like superpowers. She's delivers a massive tour-de-force.

Did I fully buy that revelations on TV would capture the world's attention? In our current age? No. But it's the movies! I prefer the fantasy anyways.

Spielberg remains the greatest of all time.