Pop Culture Happy Hour: "Joker: Folie à Deux"

Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga need to talk. (Warner Bros.)

I saw The Silence of the Lambs again at the Alamo Drafthouse two nights before I saw Joker: Folie à Deux, which reminded me of author Thomas Harris’s Silence sequel novel (and Ridley Scott’s film adaptation, after Silence director Jonathan Demme declined to return) Hannibal in the way it wants to punish those who loved 2019’s Joker.

I didn’t. But I liked Folie à Deux even less. And I’m still higher on it than my conversation-mates Joelle Monique and Glen Weldon!

"Napoleon:" Not Dynamite!

Once more into the breach. (Apple)

Sir Ridley Scott, the tireless 85-year-old director of two sci-fi landmarks, a classic feminist road movie, one Best Picture-winning epic and a lot of other stuff, has notched another middling megaproduction with Napoleon. My Washington City Paper review is here.

Momma's Boy: "Beau Is Afraid," reviewed.

Repast is Prologue: Nathan Lane, Joaquin Phoenix, and Amy Ryan in Ari Aster’s new mindbender. (A24)

I haven’t seen a movie this wild since Darren Aronofksy’s mother! (sic), a film that came with its own exclamation point. My Washington City Paper review of Ari Aster’s Beau Is Afraid is here.

The Best Movies of the Half-Decade, 2010-2014: Inherent Vice

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The Dissolve invited a bunch of its contributors to join its staff in selected the 50 best films made so far this decade. I ran out of time to submit my ballot, but I still did writeups for a couple of the winning films that I agreed belonged in the half-decade's top 50. The first half of the list – or the bottom half – was posted today. The one I wrote up for this part, Paul Thomas Anderson's Inherent Vice, came in at No. 48.