Projects #027 - "I had a certain amount of goodwill to burn."
New releases and a new project!
Project Updates 7/17-7/21/25
Eh, it’s summer, I’m going on vacation, I’m punting Pixar once again. I need a break before obliterating Onward and Lightyear. Here’s another easy breezy issue.
Last week, I officially became a ‘Tomatometer-approved critic’, meaning any review I write will be featured on Rotten Tomatoes! Though the critical percentage has become… shall we say, less than meaningful, it’s still a nice bit of recognition for my work.
However, it’s not automatic: I’ve learned that I need to manually add my reviews to the website, movie by movie. As you can imagine, this is going to take a while. Thus, it is going on the Projects Projects list! I’ll check in periodically as I upload my entire Boston Hassle backlog. There must be so many movies I’ve fully forgotten I reviews. What the hell is Orion and the Dark?
Watching
2025 Films
Eddington dir. Ari Aster
Ari Aster’s post-Midsommar work is really appealing to the shitkicker in me. It makes a LOT of sense for the man to have picked Fat Girl in his Criterion Closet visit. Eddington is quite deservedly divisive, since it’s playing ‘both sides’ and mostly trying to piss everyone off. Aster does love to set $50 million on fire.
There are plenty, PLENTY of critiques to be made about the sheer dumbassery of the COVID-era satire, but living through that was deeply fucking stupid. If the film is about anything, it’s the hollowness of modern activism and people with no real beliefs co-opting very real struggles for their own ends (getting pussy, murder, etc). Joaquin plays this corrupt sheriff as an evil Tim Robinson character, bumbling through a powder keg of discontent in this town about to be engulfed by big tech. It’s too long. It’s nasty with no real point beyond pointing at the imbecilic goons of our country. I laughed a lot. Katy Perry’s year of sin-eating continues with the funniest use of ‘Firework’ in film.
Designing a film to ‘make people mad’ is maybe not the best way to approach art, but when they get so mad it’s funny… it might just be worth it.
Today’s issue quote comes from this long, rambling Vulture interview with Aster. Would love to get him on the horn for his next demented upsetting farce.
Finishing Franchises
The Naked Gun/Police Squad!
The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (1988) (Rewatch)
The Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell of Fear (1991)
The Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult (1994)
Mostly stupid, great gags, each one 85 minutes. Wanted to catch up before the new one, which I am unfortunately placing a lot of chips on. Can you believe the third one came out three months before the OJ murders? Sooooo crazy.
52 Films by 52 Women
I Know What You Did Last Summer (2025) dir. Jennifer Kaityn Robinson
A somewhat entertaining, interminable piece of fucking crap. We perhaps expected too much from sterling silver screen presences such as Jennifer Love Hewitt and Freddie Prinze Jr. The kids don’t even run over the guy! They just watch him go off the cliff after trying to save him! Everyone is bad. They put Chase Sui Wonders in a wig that makes her look like when Tiffany got thrown in the trash in Bride of Chucky. The mystery is nothing, and the kills are boring. Why did this even happen. At the town meeting, there’s a very noticeable gay guy who says “how do I explain this to my kids?” - who was that? Was that Pop Crave?
Reading
Books
David Cronenberg: Clinical Trials by Violet Lucca
An absolutely gorgeous tome, filled with behind the scenes photography and genuinely novel analysis. Clinical is right! A fitting tribute to one of my favorite filmmakers of all time. Should do an M. Butterfly rewatch soon…
Videos Game
The amount of fanart Kojima tweets is wild - isn’t he making a new game? I have not played anything this week, as I’m still sitting in the afterglow of Death Stranding and waiting for my repaired Switch 2 to come back so I can start Donkey Kong Bananza. Everyone seems to love it!
Hank Happenings
Hank enjoys the back hall window, but sometimes he likes to go downstairs and explore… he returned with a face full of cobwebs and I could hardly stop laughing hard enough to take the picture. I had to peel the stuff off his face before he ate it.
Links and Recommendations
They shut down Pocket! How am I supposed to save articles now???? This is a genuine shock to the system.
