We Are Who We Are (2021)

Man these kids are annoying as hell, but I guess that's sort of the point. The first handful of episodes get filed under the kids-behaving-badly Euphoria genre. But Luca Guadagnino's style is such that it's filmed in an interesting and loving way. He recreated his own military base set to film on; there is definitely a message in there about Donald Trump and race and the military abroad. There was way more gratuitous nudity than I was expecting. And one episode verges on child porn. But getting past those episodes, the last two are excellent. There was a lot of Bologna nostalgia in the last episode. They filmed on location, and I recognized all the places. I love that they call San Luca the most beautiful place in the world, cause it's extraordinary and picturesque. I love that Guadagnino filmed mundane everyday places that I recognize too, like Piazza 8 Agosto, Bologna Centrale, that little window with the canal, etc. Take me back!

The Dead Don't Die (2019)

Jim Jarmusch's latest is a zombie movie unlike any other. It's not a horror movie. It's a comedy, an unconventional one at that. It breaks the fourth wall. It has a huge cast of familiar Jarmusch faces in bit parts. The humor is kind of awkward, off kilter. Bill Murray and Adam Driver are perfect for the dry, slow-paced, often deadpan jokes. I'm starting to like Adam Driver more in his comedic work. There are a lot of seemingly irrelevant characters. Surely there is something Jarmusch is trying to say about the outcasts of Centerville, a small American town (village?) with a cast of lonely characters. I'm not quite sure what. The movie takes a wonky turn at the end. It wouldn't have been how I ended it, but I'm not entirely unsatisfied cause it's appropriately bonkers.