Wins and Losses
The Apprentice Or A Portrait of the Villain as a Young Creep. As heel-turn origin stories go, it's much better than, say, Joker (while more credibly recreating the milieu of '70s New York); not as good as, say, Isaiah 14 or Paradise Lost; comparisons with the Wicked movie TBD.
The Substance Since this is about aging (in the most utterly obvious way possible), I'll note that when I was younger and watched many more movies much more often than I find time to these days, I didn't really get it Рor just thought it was a whiny clich̩ Рwhen people said stuff like, "well, there's two hours of my life I'll never get back." But now I get it. This is an atrociously bad and stupid movie. The Cronenberg comparisons are blasphemous. This is as if cinema began with Requiem for a Dream.
Sirocco and the Kingdom of Winds One of the best and most (visually as well as aurally) beautiful animated films in recent memory; a weird little world into which one can sink soothingly--like a dream, or a balm, or a song. And it's done with such lovely simplicity and lightness (with shades of melancholy), far less busy and cluttered than most Western and even some Ghibli animated features. A masterpiece in its indelibly idiosyncratic way.
