The basu! Guide to the Movies

#Jockey Wonderful, just bl**dy wonderful! *Exactly* the kind of little gem that makes you believe in cinema amidst all of this doom and streaming gloom. Artfully directed by kid Bentley, the kid *really* has the goods; better enjoy him now before *every* CU comes calling. I have no idea what the budget was on this, but however small it was, the entire crew just made the holy h*ll outta it! *Tremendous* handheld, rhythmic DP-ing, *this* is how you do digital cinematography - with texture, light, and most importantly, soul. Wonderful, lived-in production design, beautiful, subtle sound design, and a fantastic score from TBH's favourite #TheNational, er, I mean, the Dessner Bros. They should all just form their own repertory company and make every movie together from here on out! An ensemble is key for films like this, for max verisimilitude, and the one here definitely rises to the occasion, highlighted by Cormier, the always-great Parker, and the surprise Arias, where did they find ...

#SpiderManNoWayHome Best (Non-#SamRaimi Live-Action)#Spiderman, Ever! Absolutely, *terrific*, #SpiderManIntoTheSpiderVerse live-action "remake" fun! The gang's (almost)all here: brooding Haden Church, cynical Ifans, fun Foxx, the great, tragic Molina, and, of course, the one, the only Dafoe. The movie just *crackles* to life when he's on screen… dang! Gotta bring him back for some more of these meta-multiverse adventures…wait meta multiverse, so… metave… nah, not going *there*😬! And give it up for the central troika of Holland, Zendaya, and Batalon, imagine the weight of an *entire* industry resting on their young, winning-chemistry shoulders😲! Well done kids! But, man, Standing O to Series MVP Tomei, the emotional heart at the center of it all👏! Speaking of the multiverse(s🤷‍♀️?), how many are there really: #Marvel-CU, Sony-CU, Netflix-CU, Disney+-CU… any other corporate-verses I'm leaving out🤔? Where's a Wall Street analyst when you need them? So, in Sp...

West Side Story Wait, *the* #Spielberg directed a remake of my (grand/)parents' favourite musical?! Be still my beating heart! The great director updates some of the more, uh, fraught elements of the (still pretty legendary, just so, ya know, we acknowledge the, uh, fraught elements)original.  At this point, we know all the songs, and here he switches them up cleverly, so it's not just a dutiful remake, making it his own. And, c'mon, who does kinetic cinema better than him? Peck fills the *impossible* shoes of Jerome Robbins well with the updated choreography. The leads do their best to fill the, uh, leads, but keep an eye on Alvarez, Andres Rivera, and Menas, who fill in admirably for the originals. But, manohmanohman, how about Faist and DeBose, who steal the show; pretty impossible given who the originals were, man, let's hope this is only the beginning for them🤩! But, dudes, hello?, Moreno, my g*ds, she just strolls in and takes command, and, boy, when Spielberg sw...

#TBT so how about a #Throwback Movie? 😁 #WestSideStory (1961) How do you solve a problem like the original West Side Story? How do you look at a 1961 film already fraught with its subject matter of fraught race relations, that itself falls prey to the fraught nature of race representation, through a 2021 lens when race relations and representation are still, uh, fraught? No earthly idea. All I can say is if you can acknowledge how the Sharks were represented on screen back then, and how, ya know, *ridiculous* it seems now, and still somehow acknowledge the incredible craft on display, well that's a start, no? The *legendary* songs! That opening! That whole violence-as-dance choreography. Those #Technicolor sets, those costumes, that #70mm DP-ing, that editing, the directing, the acting…I mean, it's all pretty incredible. For whatever reason Wise never gets talked about in the pantheon of American directors, but you only have to see the breadth of his career to see how great he...

HouseOfGucci Terrific, rip-roaring high-camp/comedy(campedy?) yet-somehow-heartfelt-and-earnest never-not-entertaining Shakespearean-tragicomedy fun! G*d bless the great Scott, seriously. Already a first-ballot HOF-er, and the dude keeps going at pace that would flatten most other human beings, hopping from one genre to another, and just when you think you've seem him all, he'll throw a curveball like this future cult classic at you. Brava, my man, brava(or is it bravo🤔? My movie-Italian is a bit rusty🤷‍♀️)! On one side of the ledger you have the actors playing it straight: Huston, the great Irons, the ever-reliable reluctant s*x-symbol Driver. On the other you have, Hayek, and, Pacino, just, well, ya know, Pacino-ing up a storm, Leto in a(nother?!) you-have-to-see-it-to-believe-it ultra-performance. And then you have the one, the only, sui generis(🤓) force-of-nature Gaga. There's no way this whole thing would've worked without her *complete* commitment. Hello #Oscar...