Movies I Watched This Week (8/18/25 - 8/24/25)
PRE-ROLL.
- paid subscribers to this newsletter received access to two reviews of local theatre this past week; Muffed with the Factory Theater, and Quinlyn Can Paint with Black Cat Theatre. there are more theatre reviews on the books for September, so be sure to become a paid subscriber (for as little as $1 a month!) if you'd like access to those!
- i'm about three episodes into "Long Story Short," the new animated sitcom from Raphael Bob-Waksberg, designed by Lisa Hanawalt, now streaming on Netflix. i'm a huge fan of Bob-Waksberg and Hanawalt's previous landmark Netflix series "BoJack Horseman," and am thrilled that their penchant for rapid-fire humor, stylish cartoon animation, and emotionally devastating plotting has transferred over remarkably well, with an extra dose of narrative playfulness and Painfully Accurate Jewish Representation. i'm excited to see where the rest of the season goes (it's already been picked up for Season 2!) and will ideally have more words on it once I'm done with Season 1.
THE MOVIES.
- KPOP DEMON HUNTERS (2025, dir. Chris Appelhans & Maggie Kang). streamed on Netflix.
- the hype is real! the latest from Sony Pictures Animation is a ton of fun, holding steady to the hyper-active hand-drawn-inspired style of animation that became so popular with SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE to access the visual language of anime for an all-around joy of a movie. the songs are bop, the jokes are mostly successful, the blue tiger reminds me of my cat. it's nice when the thing that becomes a mainstream hit actually has some juice to it, and this truly does. absolutely hilarious that the theatrical release of the Sing-Along version of the film became the #1 movie in America, and Netflix realized "uh oh, we're not supposed to be incentivizing going to movie theaters" so they sUrPRiSe dropped the Sing-Along version on Netflix last night. what a business!
- THE DISORDERLY ORDERLY (1964, dir. Frank Tashlin). rented on Fandango at Home.
wrote about this for Cine-File. the more Jerry Lewis I watch, the more I'm on this guy's wavelength (as an artist! not as a person, just as an artist! just making that clear!!!).
- WEAPONS (2025, dir. Zach Cregger). watched at AMC Evanston.
- LOVED LOVED LOVED. as a huge fan of Cregger's previous horror effort, BARBARIAN, I was gleefully anticipating his follow-up, and - in my eyes - it's an even more impressive work of genre filmmaking, and may end up being one of my favorite films of the year. Cregger has repeatedly compared this film to Paul Thomas Anderson's MAGNOLIA, which I think is just a silly thing to say that sets yourself up for failure in the eyes of any and all detractors, but I understand where he's coming from; this is, similarly, a story of lost souls dealing with immense depression and tragedy, all gripping with the aftermath of a seemingly unexplainable mystery. Cregger's film certainly leans more towards genre thrills than PTA's classic (and is also a good hour shorter), but is no less potent in its characterizations, its stellar performance (Julia Garner and Josh Brolin are stellar leads, but my personal MVPs of the stacked ensemble were undoubtedly Austin Abrams and Amy Madigan), and its total assuredness in strong visual storytelling and murky thematic underpinnings (if this film does have a thematic spine, it is - thankfully - not one that the movie chooses to beat you over the head with repeatedly). try to watch with as little knowledge beforehand, and I think you'll have a blast. WEAPONS!
- LURKER (2025, dir. Alex Russell). watched on screener.
- more words from on this one for Cine-File later this week. it's good :) check it out at the Music Box (or, idk, AMC River East if you're more partial to that) this coming weekend!
that's all for this week! what are your thoughts on WEAPONS? what's your favorite KPOP DEMON HUNTERS song? what's the difference between love and obsession (this will make sense if you see LURKER, I promise)? until next time!
