Todd Gleason

Todd Gleason Patron

Favorite films

  • The Graduate
  • Ghost World
  • Green Room
  • GoodFellas

Recent activity

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  • The Town

    ★★★½

  • Weekend

    ★★★

  • Rise of the Nazis

    ★★★★

  • Nightmare Alley

    ★★★

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  • Aftersun

    Aftersun

    ★★★★½

    This movie works on you slowly, like the sun and lapping waves and hazy drifting days of a fading summer, until you suddenly feel that autumnal Sunday evening shadow creeping in through your ribs and realize that something precious is ending the way everything ends and you have no mortal power to stop it or get back any of those lost days. Time never stops. If only we could find a way to live inside our memories... Oh but wait,…

  • Memories of Underdevelopment

    Memories of Underdevelopment

    ★★★★★

    First saw in a class at UCSC in 2001, taught by documentary filmmaker Saul Landau. It was nothing short of a revelation, and seemed to knock something loose inside me in terms of what a film could be. Its mix of personal and political storytelling, employing jarringly different styles, creates a jagged, open-ended piece of art that is infinitely expansive beyond its meager runtime. It is foremost a political film, but at its heart is a pulsing, deeply alive existential…

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  • Weekend

    Weekend

    ★★★

    This line from Mike D'Angelo's review pretty much sums it up: "Admirable in principle but tedious to endure."

    Godard wants you to hate this movie -- though if you do hate it you are part of the problem and a gang of forest-dwelling French hippies with cap guns are going to eat you.

  • Rise of the Nazis

    Rise of the Nazis

    ★★★★

    The actual parallels between then and today are endless. This has never been hyperbole and it certainly isn't now. This is literally who runs our country, they just wear stupid red hats instead of red armbands. They have been breaking institutions and dehumanizing immigrants, LGBTQ folks, poor people, which is only the first step that ends in camps. We will have a "Reichstag Fire" in the next 2 years that will allow them to suspend elections and consolidate power. Then…

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  • Nightmare Alley

    Nightmare Alley

    ★★★

    No earthly reason for this to be as long as it is. Lots to enjoy here, but any film that asks this much of your time shouldn't be utterly humorless. Y'all are a gang of carnies surrounded by pickled babies. Have a few laughs for chrissake!

  • Michael Clayton

    Michael Clayton

    ★★★★½

    Ah, 2007. Not just a banner year for movies, but we had no idea how good we had it. That this was some kind of peak before the long slide into formulaic, cartoonish, mega-budget mediocrity. That Marvel and COVID and streaming and now AI would destroy the movie-going landscape forever.

    This diamond. This ancient relic. A legal thriller made for adults, featuring a brilliant script and top-tier talent, in a year that had legions of other intelliegent, beautifully-made adult movies…