CON AIR (Simon West, 1997)

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(*** / *****; ***** / ***** for the bunny scenes) :: First time seeing it since it came out and, between Cage sounding like the lovechild of Foghorn Leghorn and Kilmer's Doc Holiday and slowrunning/jumping from any number of explosions or infernos, Steve Buscemi having a tea party in an empty swimming pool, Malkovich holding a gun to a stuffed bunny, and the titular AIRplane crash-landing into the Las Vegas strip before culminating in a chase involving a fire truck, a skywalk, and heavy machinery, CON AIR remains one of the most gloriously insane blockbusters ever. Also: Colm Meaney and John Cusack should do / should've done more projects together.

CRIMES OF THE FUTURE (David Cronenberg, 2023)

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First Cronenberg I've watched since A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE (or EASTERN PROMISES, whichever one came last) and I'm both underwhelmed and bowled over: CRIMES is a film that's as much of a work of conceptual performance art as Saul's and Caprice's in the (generally lacking) narrative. Pieces - no pun intended - work, sometimes as moments of deep, dark beauty (note: Howard Shore's score is incredible), sometimes as apex bits of Cronenbergian body horror, but it never quite felt like it became, as each new organ in the film, a system of its own. Nonetheless, one that's going to stick with me – for reasons that I've yet to fully comprehend.