IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT: I chuckled at the WAITING FOR GODOT name-drop. A darkly comic morality play that balances on the razor's edge, while earnestly exploring cycles of violence done to us, and done to each other. So glad I got to see this with Panahi in attendance

MARTY SUPREME: yeah Josh took all that wild Safdie energy with him. To call this a sports movie isn’t enough, this is a manic, madcap odyssey that is as exhilarating as it’s exhausting. Timothee’s star power is so bright & undeniable that it’s basically a supernova. LOVED it

SENTIMENTAL VALUE: floored by this one. Joachim Trier condenses generations of family pain into a lovely and bitterly funny ode to film and how art can connect us or drive us away. Renata and Stellan are sublime. I liked this even more than WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD!

DELIVER ME FROM NOWHERE: saw this with a hardcore Springsteen fan and beforehand he worried this wouldn’t provide any new insights. Sadly, that’s very much the case. Jeremy Allen White and Jeremy Strong are terrific but the film is a frustratingly literal kind of biopic

HOUSE OF DYNAMITE: Kathryn Bigelow crafts an exercise in relentless tension that’s more immersive than insightful. But goddamn does it set you on the edge. Rebecca Ferguson was the standout performance for me, really sells the stoic despair in the face of certain doom

BLUE MOON: Oh yeah, this is the kind of talky showmanship that I love from Linklater. A chamber piece with never an empty moment thanks to a tremendous Ethan Hawke, who walks the delicate line between buffoonish and tragic