Favorite films

Recent reviews

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  Casino 1995

  ★ Rewatched 19 Feb 2025 2

  Scorsese seems to think that the voiceover is the modern version of the intertitle. At any rate, the meat of Casino is 90% wholly unimpressive montage/voiceover, and if you were to ask ol’ Marty ‘why make a film, why not just write a book?’, he might respond with geriatric gibberish about ‘loving the pictures’ and probably something about the Rolling Stones. Of course the dueling narrations are entirely inappropriate in tone, even nonsensical given the narrative trajectory and, especially considering the…

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  Ramrod 1947

  ★★★★ Watched 29 Dec 2024

  The femme fatale as Western lead. Veronica Lake says ‘I want you to stampede my herd’, and the aptly titled Ramrod is as much a film about Veronica Lake’s sex and how it drives men to kill each other, at times even under her command, as it is a film about her daddy issues. Director André de Toth’s breezy debut into the Western genre is the work of a master, gorgeously shot by Russell Harlan; Lake was de Toth’s wife at the time (and up until 1952).

Popular reviews

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  Pulse 2001

  ★★★★★ Watched 16 Oct 2016

  The defining cinematic statement on incurable loneliness, technological escapism and urban malaise at the dawn of social media. You're never alone with a dial-up connection, right? Pulse will make you believe in ghosts.

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  New Rose Hotel 1998

  ★★★★★ Rewatched 25 Oct 2016 2

  Like floating on the moon if it were a corporate technopolis. Zero-gravity. Alive in the sea of information.