This week moved between physical-media rewatches, a new Spielberg, a resourceful microbudget thriller, and a Japanese revenge classic I should have seen years ago. The scores range from respectable to great, but nothing here was a waste of time.
Fargo (1996): 8.7/10
I have probably seen Fargo thirty times, which makes finding something new to say about it feel almost beside the point. The movie has been analyzed to death because it earns that attention. In a Coen brothers filmography stacked with major work, it remains near the top. If I had to isolate one pleasure, it would be the Minnesota dialogue: that soft, careful politeness used to express panic, suspicion, cruelty, and disbelief. The Coens are not simply writing funny accents. They build the movie's entire comic and moral rhythm out of how these people talk.
Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999): 7.1/10
Another of my favorite Jim Jarmusch films. Forest Whitaker gives complete conviction to a premise that could easily have become a gimmick: a modern contract killer living by an ancient samurai code in an American city that has little use for honor or ritual. Whitaker never winks at the contradiction. Ghost Dog's stillness, discipline, and private sense of order make him seem completely at home in his environment and spiritually separated from almost everyone in it. Jarmusch finds humor and melancholy in that collision without reducing Ghost Dog to the joke.
Miller's Crossing (1990): 7.4/10
One of my least favorite Coen brothers films is still a very strong movie, which says more about the depth of their filmography than it does about Miller's Crossing. Tom Reagan moves between rival crime bosses Leo O'Bannon and Johnny Caspar, feeding each man enough truth, omission, and outright deception to keep himself alive. Watching him weaponize information is the movie's great pleasure. The Coens make organized crime unpredictable without making it arbitrary. Every reversal grows out of wounded pride, loyalty, appetite, or self-preservation, so even the strangest turns remain grounded in recognizable human behavior.
Rushmore (1998): 6.9/10
Rushmore is not one of my favorite Wes Anderson films. If I am choosing from his early work, I still prefer Bottle Rocket. What makes it fascinating is watching the style we now associate with Anderson beginning to lock into place: the carefully arranged frames, elaborate social rituals, musical precision, and characters using performance to conceal loneliness. Bill Murray is great, as usual, but he never competes with the movie's eccentricity. His quiet, defeated performance gives the film some much-needed sadness beneath all that design.
Disclosure Day (2026): 6.2/10
The Spielberg charm is still there. He remains unusually good at placing ordinary people in front of something impossible and making their fear and wonder feel sincere. Disclosure Day also begins with a terrific central idea, using the revelation of extraterrestrial life as both science-fiction spectacle and a crisis of truth. The problem is that it runs past its natural momentum. The movie goes on too long, and several passages land with less force than the premise promises. Uneven and occasionally flat, but there is enough genuine Spielberg craft here that I would still recommend watching it.
Disappearing Boy (2024): 6.1/10
I am predisposed to root for Noam Kroll, but what he pulled off at this budget level is legitimately impressive. Disappearing Boy never pretends to have resources it does not possess. Instead, it uses its limitations to keep the story contained, tense, and focused on the fractured parents searching for their missing son. Not every moment lands, but the movie remains generally compelling and demonstrates how much can be achieved through strong choices rather than scale. Worth watching, especially for anyone interested in resourceful microbudget filmmaking.
Lady Snowblood (1973): 7.6/10
How am I only now getting around to Lady Snowblood? Its influence on contemporary filmmakers is immediately visible, with Quentin Tarantino and Kill Bill being the most obvious descendants, but reducing it to an influence would undersell how alive the movie still feels. Meiko Kaji gives the revenge story a cold, unwavering center, while Toshiya Fujita surrounds her with elegant compositions, inventive violence, and gloriously excessive blood effects. It is beautiful, vicious, and emotionally direct: a near-perfect Japanese revenge machine.
Drinking Buddies (2013): 6.7/10
Joe Swanberg may be the king of mumblecore, and Drinking Buddies remains my favorite of his films. The setup resembles a conventional romantic comedy: Kate and Luke, played by Olivia Wilde and Jake Johnson, work together at a brewery while dating Chris and Jill, played by Ron Livingston and Anna Kendrick. Swanberg is less interested in simply rearranging the couples than in the low-grade pressure attraction places on friendship, work, and committed relationships. The movie lives in that uncomfortable space where chemistry can be obvious without becoming a declaration, and where no one is entirely innocent or villainous. It is loose, funny, and observant about the emotional mess people create without ever fully admitting what they want.
The Final Tally
Eight movies, five rewatches, three first-time watches. The average score landed at 7.1.
- Best of the week: Fargo, 8.7
- Best first-time watch: Lady Snowblood, 7.6
- Format of the week: VHS, with three tapes played