Alibi Shop

Movies:
Ouija: Origin of Evil (2016, ***½)
The Monkey (2025, ***½)
The Conformist (1970, *****)
Wicked (2024, ***)
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007, ****½)

Books:
The First Bad Man - Miranda July (2015, ****)
Provenance - Ann Leckie (2017, ***)
Monday - Andy Hartzell (2024, ****)
The Bright Sword - Lev Grossman (2024, ****)
Arachne Rising - James Vogh [John Sladek] (1977, ***)
The Message - Ta-Nehisi Coates (2024, *****)
If On a Winter's Night a Traveler - Italo Calvino (1979, ****)
Naked City - Eric Drooker (2024, ***)
World Within the World - Julia Gfrörer (2024, *****)

Practical Magic (1998, **½)
Evil Dead (2013, ***)
Cloverfield (2008, ****)
The Substance (2024, ****)
The True Story of Tamara de Lempicka and the Art of Survival (2024, **)
Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009, ****)
V/H/S/Beyond (2024, ***)
The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014, *****)

Challengers (2024, ****)
Beau Travail (1999, *****)
Stepfather 2 (1999, ***)
Naked Ambition: Bunny Yeager (2023, ***)
Film Is Dead. Long Live Film! (2024, ***½)
Kinds of Kindness (2024, ****)

San Francisco International LGBTQ+ Film Festival (Frameline):
Any Other Way: The Jackie Shane Story (2024, ****½), Crossing (2024, ****½), Scarecrow in a Garden of Cucumbers (1972, ***½), Paradise Europe (2023, ****), 100 Boyfriends Mixtape (2015, ***½), Loads (1980, ****), Birthday (2018, ***), The Judgment (2023, ***), Mad About the Boy: The Noel Coward Story (2023, ***)

Victor/Victoria (1982, ****½)
Poor Things (2023, ****)
One False Move (1992, ****½)
Devil in a Blue Dress (1995, ****)
Dune: Part Two (2024, ****½)
Jurassic Park (1993, ****½)
Pearl (2022, ***½)
Baby Driver (2017, ****)
Mulan (1998, ***½)
Alligator (1980, ****)
Kong: Skull Island (2017, ***)
Late Night with the Devil (2023, ***½)
Alfie (1966, ****)
The Cat (1992, ***½)
Deep Space (1998, ***)

Books:
House of Leaves - Mark Z. Danielewski (2000, ***)
Monica - Daniel Clowes (2023, ****)

Movies:
Godzilla Minus One (2023, ****)
The Double Life of Véronique (1991, ****)
9 to 5 (1980, ***½)
The Return of the Great God Pan (2024, **)
Heaven Can Wait (1943, **½)
Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962, *****)
Watchmen (2019, ****)
Jacqueline Novak: Get On Your Knees (2024, ****)
The Midnight Club (2022, ****)

Books:
The Great God Pan - Arthur Machen (1894, ****)
The Annotated Peter Pan - J.M. Barrie/Maria Tatar (2011, *****)
Impossible People - Julia Wertz (2023, ****)

I've been slowly recovering from a major crash in my reading momentum, to the point where I could easily believe I'm reading fewer than a dozen books a year. Actually when I looked back and figured out what I had read in 2022 and 2023, it wasn't that bad... but it was skimpy enough, with a relatively small amount of denser stuff, that it didn't take me long to bash out a bunch of retrospective capsule reviews for a year at a time. Here's what I can remember from the year before last, plus a handful of related ones from 2021. I'm sure there are some I missed but whatever.

Piranesi - Susannah Clarke (2020, *****)
Titan - François Vigneault (2020, ****)
Feast Your Eyes - Myla Goldberg (2019, *****)
Qualification - David Heatley (2019, ****)
Your Black Friend and Other Strangers - Ben Passmore (2018, ****)
All Systems Red - Martha Wells (2017, ***)
Gender Queer - Maia Kobabe (2019, ****)
Bringing Out the Dead - Joe Connelly (1998, ***)
Joseph Smith and the Mormons - Noah van Sciver (2022, *****)
The Searching Dead - Ramsey Campbell (2016, *****)
Born to the Dark - Ramsey Campbell (2017, ***)
The Way of the Worm - Ramsey Campbell (2018, ****)
A Touch of Chill - Joan Aiken (1979, ****)
Fellstones - Ramsey Campbell (2022, ***)
From a Buick 8 - Stephen King (2002, **)

The Outsider (2020, ***½), The Nun (2018, **), The Nun II (2023, **½), Oppenheimer (2023, ****½), Wild Wild Country (2018, ****), Kill List (2011, ****), V/H/S/94 (2021, ***), No One Will Save You (2023, ***½)

Sanctuary (2023, ***), Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023, ***), The Meg (2018, ***½), Theater Camp (2023, ****), Talk to Me (2022, ****), The Invitation (2015, ****), The Apartment (1960, *****), Passages (2023, ****)

Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. (2023, ****), Brightburn (2019, **), How to Tell a Secret (2022, ****), All the Colours of the World Are Between Black and White (2023, ***½), Casa Susanna (2022, ****), Labor (2023, ****½), Taylor Mac's 24-Decade History of Popular Music (2023, ****½), Smile (2022, ***), The Guest (2014, ***½)

White Christmas (1954, **½), Babylon (2022, ****), "Battleground" (Nightmares & Dreamscapes) (2006, ****), The Stepfather (1987, ***½), Spring (2014, ***), Resolution (2012, ****), M3GAN (2023, ***½), The Black Phone (2021, ***), A View to a Kill (1985, ***), West Side Story (1961, ****), PlayTime (1967, *****), The Greatest Show on Earth (1952, **½), A Mighty Wind (2003, ****)