Parasite is a flawless piece of entertainment - beautiful, funny, edifying, and relentlessly gripping.

Many people, including me, became interested in Midsommar based on the strength of Aster's breakout debut, Hereditary. Midsommar is not Hereditary II. Hereditary is mostly an unflinching family drama with horror elements imbued. Midsommar feels more like a mystery or thriller, only using the drama elements mostly as a setup. However, there are a a lot of similarities - both films contain extreme grief, the occult, a genetically deficit child, and fractured skulls. The most important similarity of all is they are both great films. Although labeled a horror film, Midsommar is intentionally funny. Mark, played by Will Poulter, adds a dose of refreshing levity I didn't know I needed in an Aster film. Midsommar is also immensely tense - more so than Hereditary. Throughout the entire film you are constantly wary of the unsettling scenario, and anxiously on watch for the next shocking incident. I didn't feel its longer runtime at all. Apparent from the trailers and other promotional material, the film is gorgeous. It's unapologetically bright and colorful. It has subtle but mesmerizing visual effects that make it obvious the filmmaker has had some experience with hallucinogens. Another surprising element I liked was the subplots between the main characters - especially the thesis conflict. It added another layer of complexity and realism to make viewers invested in the story. Ari Aster made another special film. I can't wait to see what he does next.

Beautiful, disturbing, and at times, hilarious. Ari Aster delivers again with a great and unique horror film.

SPOILERS The concept is really quirky and lokiesh, and hte main underlying theme of self love really hits hard with a character that was unfortunate enough to be born as the god of misfortune. One thing I really hated about the recent episodes was the awful/akward writing. Loki and Sylvie relationship dynamic is poorly planned out. The TPA has this 40s bureaucratic vibe, which looks cool and all, but their methods of pruning are just too...primitive. Like these guys are the most powerful intergalatic entity and they don't even have guns, or other advanced weapons. I thought getting pruned meant dying but apparently it meant tossing-out-the-trash-into-another-dimension-which-is-infested-with-a-purple-fart.

A culmination of dozens of strong personalities and deep histories is difficult to contain coherently in a movie, even in a 3+ hour one, but Endgame manages to be a satisfying conclusion to the Avengers saga that feels flawless. Of course Endgame has the advantage of 923859 preceding films to shape its characters, but connecting them all is still a challenging endeavor. One critical way they succeeded in this is the pitch-perfect casting throughout the series. Can you see Tony Stark as anyone else other than RDJ? And who isn't happy that Mark Ruffalo replaced Edward Norton and made The Hulk so much more charming and likable? What surprised me the most was the first portion of the film, which is largely a rumination on loss. It depicts the somber struggles that superheros and common people alike are facing since the snap. Some attend therapy sessions, some drink the pain away, and some move to lakeside cottages to forget it all and focus on their families. This segment of the film felt more like an Oscar-contending drama than a blockbuster superhero film. Endgame manages to be a good comedy film too. Peppered with one-liners that make you exhale through your nose and gags that make you self-conscious because you're laughing a little too loudly, it's obvious the filmmakers took notes from the fiercely entertaining Thor: Ragnarok. The action sequences, the major crowd-drawing power of superhero films, are all delightfully unique. The setup, style, and scale of each fight is different from the last. You will see impeccably choreographed one vs. one hand-to-hand combat and also planet-scale war, all finely orchestrated as you'd expect if you paid attention to any of the discourse on this marvelous film.