Movie Diary 12/15/2019

One-Eyed Jacks (Marlon Brando, 1961). Watched the blu-ray for the first time. Still an interesting, oddball, cool movie. “He didn’t give me no selection.”

Us (Jordan Peele, 2019). Wanted to give this one another chance, to see if looking at it from another perspective would hang it together and bump it up a little. It did not.

Uncut Gems (Josh and Benny Safdie, 2019). Adam Sandler is in heroic form in this frantic Safdie nightmare. It may be derivative in some basic ways, but it certainly gets the buzz going. (full review 12/25)

The Laundromat (Steven Soderbergh, 2019). Another one of those “let’s explain a complex financial issue with jokes and movie stars” film, this one with a tossed-off elan that seems like Soderbergh’s operating mode lately. If Netflix is going to exist, it may as well be to do projects like this.

Apollo 11 (Todd Douglas Miller, 2019). Unseen footage, no narration, too much music, but otherwise another absorbing angle on the great event.