I don’t see much of a big difference between The Counselor and No Country For Old Men, except the former is campy, sad, and weirder which appeals to me more. People always rag on the Cameron Diaz car scene, but it’s clearly not trying to be sexy - the whole point is how grotesque and inhuman her behavior is. That said, I’ve never been a big McCarthy fan to begin with (I guess I like Proust and Henry James too much) so this just seemed like a more entertaining version of his regular thing.

I loved Computer Chess at the time, not sure how I’d feel about it now. But I did recently watch his first two films - Funny Ha Ha and Mutual Appreciation - and liked them a lot. I’m glad I waited though, because 15 years ago I would have just reflexively sneered at anything called “mumblecore”.

I don’t have strong opinions about 2013 in film, but I like The Strange Little Cat and We Are the Best from that year.

Since we’re talking about movies, I am surprised that I actually saw seven of the best picture nominees this year. I really liked Poor Things, passionately hated The Holdovers_and _Zone of Interest, and thought Oppenheimer, KotFM, Anatomy of a Fall, and American Fiction were various levels of okay. I have no interest in seeing the other three.