Movies I Watched This Week (2/3/25 - 2/9/25)

PRE-ROLL

• I’m still rewatching Season 1 of Severance which, famously, came out fifteen years ago, so I can remind myself what happened before diving into the new season. please, oh please, no spoilers until then!
• Kendrick Lamar performed at the Super Bowl Halftime Show last night. i feel pretty - oh, let’s say - iffy about the NFL as an organization, so when an artist does take that halftime slot, my hope at the very least is that they take that heap of cash and create something interesting and artistically inspired. unsurprisingly, Kendrick did just that, using this enormous canvas to put on a show that was artful and lively and kinetic and extremely entertaining. and of course, well….

THE MOVIES

• I’M STILL HERE (2024, dir. Walter Salles). watched at Alamo Drafthouse Chicago.

  • I’m doing my final Oscar Movie Catch-Up, and this was a pretty big one to check off the list, nabbing nominations for International Feature, Leading Actress, and (most surprisingly!) Best Picture. all in all, I enjoyed this film, a “based on a true story” drama about a family struggling to gain normalcy amidst the horrible strain of living under a fascistic government1. it’s not reinventing the cinematic wheel in any way, but it’s got a good story and it tells it well, and sometimes that’s More Than Enough. the hype about Fernanda Torres’ performance is real, as I found her extremely locked in to what is a pretty emotionally demanding role. more on that particular race in a future post, but I think Torres is probably the #2 in the Leading Actress lineup. exciting stuff!

    

• NO OTHER LAND (2024, dir. Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham & Rachel Szor). watched on screener.

  • I wrote about this for this week’s edition of Cine-File. pretty much all my thoughts are there on this stunning work. the film has, inexplicably, failed to get a U.S. theatrical distributor, even with an Oscar nomination for Best Documentary Feature under its belt, so the Music Box in the Chicago is literally the only place you can see it. it’s truly worth it, I promise!

    

• LOVE HURTS (2025, dir. Jonathan Eusebio). watched at AMC Newcity.

  • I reviewed this one for the Chicago Reader. as charming as I find Ke Huy Quan, this one is pretty abysmal. i’m also not the biggest fan of our current moment where, nine times out of ten, the only way for a comedy to get on the big screen these days is if it’s an action comedy. studios have convinced themselves that audiences only want to hear actors tell jokes if they’re wedged between fistfights and gun shots. the recent success of the Keke Palmer/SZA comedy ONE OF THEM DAYS2 seems to be a nice reminder that this just Isn’t True! hopefully more genuine comedies can burst into cinemas sooner rather than later.

that’s all for this week! anything you saw this week that you’d recommend? any questions about the upcoming Oscars race? reply to this email/substack and let me know! hope you have a lovely week!