Movies I Watched This Week (5/5/25 - 5/11/25)

PRE-ROLL

• I appreciate everyone putting up with these coming out a few days later than usual. having a day job/raising a baby/trying to do more culture writing is a lot, but I’m doing my darndest to meet my self-imposed deadlines. appreciate y’all being here!
• i got nothing aside from…what the hell is Nathan Fielder up to in Season 2 of “The Rehearsal?” let’s circle back once the season is done and discuss!

THE MOVIES

• WHO BY FIRE (2025, dir. Philippe Lesage). watched on screener

  • wrote about this for Cine-File. wasn’t really sure what to expect from this two-and-a-half-hour French-Canadian drama and was thrilled with the deeply felt, playful, inventive, intelligent work on display. folks who enjoy cinema at a slow burn might get a kick out of this!

    

• KING LEAR (1987, dir. Jean-Luc Godard). watched on blu-ray.

  • Godard’s middle finger to Menahem Golan and the Cannon Group (the studio who hired Godard to make this Shakespeare adaptation) is as trollish and absurd as anything in the famed director’s late career, and yet there’s some earnest kernel of truth in here about the inherent challenges and pitfalls of attempting to bring the Bard’s language into a new medium altogether. anyone looking for a 1:1 King Lear adaptation here will be chasing their own tail for ninety minutes, but the beauty of Shakespeare’s language has been transliterated into the beauty of Godard’s images, his sounds, his provocations. also, Godard appears as a professor who literally farts on the character of Shakespeare so, y’know, do with that what you will.

    

• THE MASTER (2012, dir. Paul Thomas Anderson). streamed on Peacock.

  • gotta say, would not recommend watching this through Peacock, as it is littered with commercials that are dispersed at the most inappropriate places. not a fun viewing experience. but anyway; THE MASTER! somehow actually went down in my estimation since my last viewing, though I still find it to be an overall stellar work about male anxiety and aggression, featuring the greatest performance of Philip Seymour Hoffman’s career. after watching this and PHANTOM THREAD recently, it’s interesting how, with both of these works, PTA rejects the notion of building towards grand, epic climaxes, and seems more interested in larger emotional shifts taking the place of more dramatic cinematic set pieces. there’s a reason he’s one of our best.

what’s your favorite PTA? who should direct an actual film adaptation of King Lear? should “The Studio” be viewed as a satire, or a farce? have a great week!