Movies I Watched This Week (6/16/25 - 6/30/25)

PRE-ROLL

• hello! we moved to a new house this past week so getting this together sadly fell to the bottom of my priorities. apologies to everyone, but we should be back on track for future entires, I promise!

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THE MOVIES

• MATERIALISTS (2025, dir. Celine Song). watched at AMC Newcity.

  • lmao what? as a passionate fan of Song’s debut film PAST LIVES, I left her sophomore feature completely flummoxed. tonally, structurally, emotionally, this thing is off the rails in the most bizarre way. there are undeniable flashes of intrigue and enjoyment throughout (the central trio of Johnson, Evans, and Pascal1 all work well enough, with Dakota Johnson walking away the least scathed), but Song’s material just cannot decide what balance of earnestness and cynicism it wants to play with. Song, a playwright of more stylized aspirations, is aiming for some kind of realism here that I think betrays her theatrically experimental roots, and you almost wish this had a bit more style, ore more grit, or more something. of all of the oddball choices this film makes, I’m stuck on the fact that Chris Evans’ character - an actor - is starring in an *actual Celine Song play*?! the movies, man. at least they give you something to talk about.

    

• GOING DOWN (1983, dir. Haydn Keenan). watched on screener.

  • wrote about this for Cine-File. fun enough! thrilled to have a company like Muscle Distribution unearthing this cinematic gems. like if the girls from “Girls” got stuck in Martin Scorsese’s AFTER HOURS and they were all Australian. mostly a hoot!

  

• STEP BROTHERS (2008, dir. Adam McKay). rented on Fandango at Home.

  • we own this on blu-ray but it was packed away already so rental it was! the last movie we watched in our old home, and rather fitting, as it’s one of our go-to comfort films. i’d love the chance to go long on this one someday, earnestly getting into how it’s easily McKay’s best film and far more politically salient than his Actual Political Dramas. don’t lose your dinosaur, folks.

how has your week been? seen anything good? what’s your favorite Will Ferrell movie? would you sign up for Dakota Johnson’s dating service? until next time!