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PhilHalZ #crackpot #wingnut letterboxd.com

The access media and thought police decree: Eli Roth must be punished for being unapologetically, un-hypocritically Jewish, for daring to work outside the industry-approved pipelines of micromanaged Hollywood studio production, and for having the designated “bad taste” to make a summer horror movie which is competently lit, brightly colored, incessantly violent from beginning to end, yet essentially upbeat, defying the cultural mandate for all horror movies to embrace the same dim pseudo-academic misery porn while skimping on actual horror(Hereditary, The Haunting Of Hill House, The Dark And The Wicked, When Evil Lurks, Talk To Me, Bring Her Back, X, Pearl, In A Violent Nature, Longlegs, Weapons, Obsession). He also embraces a cinematic pace, rebuking the static TV-rhythm of the Terrifier films.

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This film recognizes violent hysteria as the inevitable flip side of the stifling totalitarian lockdowns: George Floyd, Jan 6, October 7. And Roth correctly likens the vitriolic “activism” of today to a bunch of hyper screaming kids high on a sugar rush. Many young adults (kids) of the 2020s get their sugar rush on through the sensation of righteous scolding, cancel culture as drug habit. Film culture is, unfortunately, fertile ground for these toxic impulses, with anti-AI and anti-merger mania as merely the latest fads.

John Demetyy #wingnut letterboxd.com

[ Review of Melania (2026) ]

Melania reads as a pro-America icon: opulent, Toback-styled camerawork, couture as political architecture, and a Ratner soundtrack that flexes movie savvy over Scorsese. From “Gimme Shelter” to “Let’s All Chant,” the film puts FLOTUS in the fight to save America.

Not just a pro-MAGA prop, Melania functions as a pro-America prop. That meaning sits behind the film’s opulence: camerawork lenses grandeur—in the style of late-era Toback—alongside the freedom and responsibility the once-and-future FLOTUS finds within it. She brings her architecture and fashion background to bear on inauguration ensembles, teaming with gay sophisticates—especially in her notes on structuring the navy coat and wide-brimmed hat—in response to four years of lawfare and assassination attempts, obliquely referenced during inauguration planning.

When Melania, armored in couture and armed with stilettos, doesn’t do the talking, Ratner’s soundtrack one-ups Scorsese. He opens with the Stones’ “Gimme Shelter”—“Rape! Murder! It’s just a shot away!”—then pivots to American anthems “Beat It” and “YMCA,” song choices from a woman who inserted “unity” into Trump’s speech as they return to save America. Ratner then adds “Bolero” from Femme Fatale and “Then He Kissed Me” from Adventures in Babysitting for BTS inauguration-week footage. Only thing missing: Melania’s recrudescence of “Aquarius.” Finally, he deploys “Let’s All Chant” from Eyes of Laura Mars to score Melania’s iconic White House portrait, placing her in a lineage with Bess, Mamie, and Jackie.

We, and the big screen, are worthy.

John Demetry #crackpot letterboxd.com

As James Gunn’s alter ego explains: #Superman (the movie) “grooms” the world—a putrefaction of all human intimacy. Envy drives Lex’s self-defeating obsession. Jimmy lies to get sexy selfies from Lex’s girlfriend. Clark constantly gaslights Lois.

They flirt by outdoing each other’s #FakeNews bona fides—duping the public, as with Clark’s hypnoglasses. Hypnosis without consent = rape, yet today, manipulation = pleasure. Sentimentality cloaks Gunn’s perversity—the queasiest pity play since Powder. Salva is a better director.