Sean Lemme

I started blogging as a way to lazily pass my high school senior project and somehow I've kept doing it for more than half my life

Criterion Month Day 30: Sentimental Value

Sentimental Value (2025)

I don’t know how adults do it. Every single day, you gotta find time to work, exercise, clean, make food, have hobbies, maintain relationships… so much, and it’s every day. I’m already someone who watches maybe one or two movies a week, the disruption of having to watch 10 extra films and write 10 blog posts in a month should be pretty minimal. And yet I maintain such a delicate balance that by the end of July, I’m all out of whack. And I just have myself and an adorable cat to take care of! Imagine having a spouse and kids and more! Ugh. No wonder there are so many stories about deadbeat dads.

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Criterion Month Day 29: The Secret Agent

The Secret Agent (2025)

Brazilian filmmaker Kleber Mendonça Filho’s The Secret Agent may have been smuggled into American cinemas late last year but it really had its cover blown this winter when it triggered considerable awards attention. At the Golden Globes it won Best Actor — Drama and Best Foreign Language Film and became the first Brazilian film to be nominated for Best Picture — Drama. At the 98th Academy Awards (which, by the way, have you started to think about how insufferable the 100th Oscars are going to be?) it earned four nominations, although it didn’t win any. While it may seem like a coup, once you see it, you can’t notice it has many of the hallmarks of the kinds of movies the Academy adores in the 21st Century – especially, and unfortunately, fellow 2025 critical darling One Battle After Another (with a tasteful splash of No Country For Old Men).

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Criterion Month Day 25: Boyz n the Hood

Boyz n the Hood (1991)

Film critics, especially the kind that make Important Lists, typically overcorrect for recency bias, which I respect. You can never be too sure something that seems groundbreaking now will still feel that way in a generation, and it’s just as easily to dismiss something that ends up being iconic. This Criterion Month I’ve been thinking about François Truffaut a lot and the importance of his debut, The 400 Blows. A towering achievement, especially as a directorial debut, Truffaut’s coming-of-age story is often discussed as one of the greatest films of all time.

Boyz n the Hood is older now than The 400 Blows was when Boyz n the Hood came out in 1991. I think that’s why Criterion recently released his Hood Trilogy box set, enough time has passed that you can talk about both these movies in the same breath. But what do I know? I just saw it. Maybe it’s too soon for me to be making declarations.

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Criterion Month Day 22: Hairspray

Hairspray (1988)

When it comes to civil rights cinema, most of the attention has historically gone down south, where the fight for equality was its most dangerous. John Waters’ Hairspray is a sobering reminder that while things maybe not have been as violent in the north, there has always been just as much struggle to end segregation and work towards a more just future.

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Criterion Month Day 18: Lenny

Lenny (1974)

Aw man, I was so excited to finally check out Bob Fosse’s next biggest movie (as a director) nearly a decade after doing All That Jazz until today, when I finally had to sit down and watch it. That’s because I realized I didn’t account for two things: 1) writing about biopics is incredibly boring and 2) The Odyssey came out this weekend and it rules and kinda all I wanna do now is read about The Sea Peoples. But worry not friend, Lenny was more than interesting enough to have really woken me up and grabbed my attention against those perilous odds. I mean, what did I expect? It’s Bob Fosse.

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Criterion Month Day 16: Five Easy Pieces

Five Easy Pieces (1970)

As I watched the Mariners absolutely shit the bed to begin the second half of the MLB season tonight, I couldn’t help but think of the main takeaway I had from rewatching Five Easy Pieces last night: expectations are a bitch. Now I didn’t remember this movie that well – it has been a decade since the first and only other time I saw it – I’m pretty sure my reaction to it was: boy, this Jack Nicholson guy is a dick. He’s surrounded by people who want to love him and he’s horrible to all of them. But now, I see it more as everyone wants him to live on their (honestly eminently reasonable) terms and he’s just not built that way. I still bristle at this character, but I see the internal tragedy better now.

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Criterion Month Day 14: Stolen Kisses

Stolen Kisses (1968)

While they seem like an invention of the 2010s, all these Criterion Months have taught me that the idea of shared cinematic universes actually goes way back. So it comes as no surprise to report that legacy sequels – a related and seemingly modern phenomenon – were actually invented by François Truffaut in the 1960s (eat your heart out, Richard Linklater). In between making some of the best movies ever made, Truffaut spent his career returning to his first film and its leading man, Jean-Pierre Léaud as Antoine Doinel, giving audiences a chance to check in on the troubled boy as he grew up.

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