Jeff Zhang

My favorite movies of 2024

Nosferatu: Always in the bag for Eggers, but this is the first time I felt his slavish devotion to detail obstruct imagination, and ironically, blood in the veins. My wife literally turned to me afterwards and said: “We should’ve just watched Coppola’s Dracula instead.” I agree.

Happy holidays everyone

Saw Gladiator 2

Gladiator 2:

Wicked: Quite infectious and I liked this much more than I thought I would, mostly because Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo break their backs carrying it, but if you watched this back-to-back with Spielberg’s WSS you would go catatonic. John M. Chu just doesn’t have it.

Extra thoughts on Juror #2

Thank you, Tyler, for the kind words!

You didn’t specify when you mentioned this on the other place and I was so positive that you meant Nosferatu. Now I know.

Luckily, yes!

Extra thoughts on Juror #2

A Different Man: I loved The Substance, but this is the essential self-hatred text of 2024. Effortlessly smart, a movie with a million layers underneath a cruel, nasty joke of getting exactly what you want. Sebastian Stan and Adam Pearson are unbelievable.

THESIS (Amenábar, 1996)

THESIS (Amenábar, 1996)

THESIS (Amenábar, 1996)

THESIS (Amenábar, 1996)

NEW HIT FACTORY// Filmmaker Pascal Plante (Red Rooms) joins us to discuss mediated violence, spectatorship, and the visceral thrills of Spanish director Alejandro Amenábar's debut THESIS. Links below.

Thanks so much, Daniel!

Thank you, Sean!

Thank you, Aaron! I literally think about this movie every day. Loved your episode on Thesis with Pascal, and I’m so stoked to listen to your full Red Rooms take!

Film Review: Red Rooms — Strange Harbors Digging up turpitude from the deep recesses of dark web opportunism, Pascal Plante’s Red Rooms is a serial killer thriller that finds power in its restraint and shocking prescience: an evil — yet vita...

On Red Rooms and our moral stasis

Juror #2 duty

Seeing all my old friends on here again

You can actually feel the computing power sweat bullets as it tries to imitate something real for 15 measly seconds

Turning over a new leaf on Bluesky by not asking why it looks like that

Won’t jump to conclusions, but Conan seems to like movies a hell of a lot more than Jimmy.

Inaugural Bluesky 2024 faves post

Film Review: Red Rooms — Strange Harbors Digging up turpitude from the deep recesses of dark web opportunism, Pascal Plante’s Red Rooms is a serial killer thriller that finds power in its restraint and shocking prescience: an evil — yet vita...

On Red Rooms and our moral stasis

NYFF 2023 Film Review: The Killer — Strange Harbors David Fincher’s The Killer — a deceptively layered hitman yarn — closes out this year’s New York Film Festival. With a minimalist veneer that belies its toothy takedown of capitalism, hustle...

I reviewed The Killer, now on Netflix: I get why some are calling it minor, but this is a David Fincher heater. Minimalist veneer but deceptively sharp about capitalist miasma, hustle culture nonsense, and our deteriorating gig economy. Favorite of the year.

Film Review: Killers of the Flower Moon — Strange Harbors Killers of the Flower Moon is a late style masterwork. A funereal procession of malignant conspiracy and opportunistic genocide disguised as epic western, Martin Scorsese’s three-and-a-half hour t...

I wrote some words on Killers of the Flower Moon and late style Martin Scorsese: