thejewofkansas

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The Weekly Gravy #246

This will be a light week. My father passed away on Monday, and I’ve been dealing with the logistics of his memorial service and sorting through his belongings, in particular his books and DVD collection. So I haven’t really been in the headspace for watching movies, at least not with the focus necessary to write full reviews. I’ll have more to say about my father in due time, but I’ll list what…

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The All-Time Gravy Film Awards: The 2020s (2025)

Just under two years ago I did the first version of this article; now that the decade is more than half over, I’m giving you an update. I was going to wait until the halfway point of the year, but since it’s ready now and I’m not expecting Materialists or The Life of Chuck to crash these lists, I’m putting it up today. Note that one star means an Oscar nominee, and two stars means an Oscar…

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The Weekly Gravy #245

After Last Season (2009) – Dreck After Last Season is so Dadaist in its visual and narrative style that it’s easy to see why it was assumed, when it first appeared, that it was some kind of elaborate prank. I highly doubt that was the case, but that doesn’t make it any easier to parse the film, whose script is as baffling as its notorious production design; the MRI machine made out of what seem…

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The Weekly Gravy #244

L.A. Confidential (1997) – **** It was just bad luck, really. L.A. Confidential received incredible reviews, was a solid hit, and swept the critics’ awards for Best Picture, including the NBR, NYFCC, NSFC, LAFCA, and Critics’ Choice. In a different year, it might have easily won the Oscar. But three months after it opened, Titanic opened, and that was that. L.A. Confidential managed to win two…

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The Matter of a Bridge: The Monthly Gravette #31

As ever, a shout-out to Words About Books, whom I pay to tell me not to do this. I started this series in February 2021; this being the 31st entry in 52 months means I’m nearly two years off from this being an actual monthly series. But my dismay over that is balanced, however slightly, by my pleasure at keeping up with the reading schedule instated by my book club, and both of the books I’m…

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The Weekly Gravy #243

She Hate Me (2004) – *½ Spike Lee has never hesitated to shift between the comic and dramatic, or between the heightened and the naturalistic. Nor has he been shy about being provocative and confrontational, often by laying out his messages explicitly. When he has something to say, that can work extremely well, as when the ending of BlacKkKlansman directly referenced Charlottesville. When he…

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The Weekly Gravy #242

Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl (1982) – *** This was probably the first Monty Python film I saw; I have faint memories of watching it many, many years on videotape, around the time I first watched the series but well before we had a DVD player and I was able to see Holy Grail and the like. So faint were those memories that I didn’t remember how much of the film isn’t from the series,…

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The Weekly Gravy #241

Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) – **** The last time I watched Holy Grail – at least a decade ago – I had grown somewhat weary of it. Not only had I seen it numerous times since we first got it on DVD, but it’s so ubiquitous that the Knights Who Say “Ni” have lost all possible novelty, as has the question of the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow (African or European)? I didn’t…

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The Weekly Gravy #240

Heat (1995) – **** “At three hours, there’s really no reason this couldn’t have been two hours. It’s not boring, but so much of it feels extraneous (the Val Kilmer/Ashley Judd subplot especially). And for all the time it takes, there’s not THAT much depth or complexity at play here; the heavy-handed dialogue and self-conscious seriousness don’t help. But when it’s good, it’s very good; thrilling…

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MY ENTIRE HIGH SCHOOL SINKING INTO THE SEA Review - **½

I’ve been curious about this film for years; I’ve had the poster hanging in my kitchen for so long that I don’t quite remember where I got it. (Possibly at the Tivoli’s clearance sale.) But it wasn’t until I checked it out of the library that I finally had a chance to see it – and while I appreciate how well it delivers on the promise of the title, I was ultimately quite disappointed. Dash…

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THE SHROUDS Review - ****

The Shrouds has prompted widely varied reactions, and I suspect – I say suspect – that many who’ve disliked it expected the David Cronenberg who made Videodrome and The Fly (and more recently, Crimes of the Future), only to get the Cronenberg…well, I was going to say the Cronenberg that made Cosmopolis, but I think what we’ve got here is something new, if no less brilliant than…

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The Weekly Gravy #239

Sinners (2025) – **** From the ads, you’d think Sinners was mainly a horror film about vampires besieging a juke joint in 30s Mississippi. But the truth is that Sinners is as much a musical as it is a horror film, and the horror elements come to the fore so late in the game that you might almost resent the intrusion on a night of Mississippi Delta blues and frequently released sexual tension.…

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The Weekly Gravy #238

The Lost Weekend (1945) – **** Since I first saw The Lost Weekend, a good 20 years ago, I learned what having an alcoholic in your life is like – of what it’s like to try and encourage them to temper their drinking or quit all together, of how nerve-wracking it can be to hope they’ll stay sober, especially when they feel oppressed by your attention, of how boisterously happy they can be when…

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The Weekly Gravy #237

Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985) – **** The life of a writer is not, inherently, very cinematic; the act of writing is, by and large, exciting only for the writer. But Mishima works because of two factors: first, the fact that Yukio Mishima led a rather interesting life (and the film focuses on the most interesting part of it), and second, because it decides to adapt three of his works as…

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LESS and CANE: The Monthly Gravette #30

Earlier this year, I was invited to join a book club and happily accepted; I always want to read more and figured this would help motivate me to do so. So far, I’ve read two books – one of which we’ve already discussed as a group, the other of which we may have discussed by the time this post goes up. I’ve also been reading a third book on my own; I’ll mention that one at the bottom. First,…

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The Weekly Gravy #236

One of the most famous posters of all time and it wasn’t even created for the original release. Gone with the Wind (1939) – **** I believe I’d seen the better part of Gone with the Wind some years ago – and thanks to cultural osmosis, I knew a great deal about the film even before then; after all, it’s one of the most famous and most popular films ever made, up there with Victor Fleming’s other…

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The Weekly Gravy #235

The Electric State (2025) – **½ The Electric State cost $320 million, or four times what The Creator cost; Marky Mark needle-drops don’t come cheap, I suppose. It also cost a good deal more than Blade Runner 2049, even when adjusting for inflation; having a Mr. Peanut robot as a major supporting character would also drive up the budget, I gather. It even managed to cost a lot more than Ready…