Favorite films

Recent reviews

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  The Hole 1998

  Watched 14 Mar 2025

  what a beautiful, tender, funny, heartbreaking film! grace chang's songs are great, and i was surprised by how well the addition of musical numbers complements tsai ming-liang's slow and observational style. so many astonishing shots ("calypso" in the elevator...the glass of water...lee kang-sheng putting his leg through the hole...). tsai ming-liang really just puts out one perfect movie after another about being lonely in a flooded apartment!

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  Rats! 2024

  Watched 08 Mar 2025

  my partner and i were going to see this at a midnight festival screening last spring but then stayed in because i was too sleepy. since then it has been seemingly impossible to watch and we were worried we missed our shot...until now! a year later, with very little fanfare, it popped back up on the siff calendar. how exciting is that!! obviously we had to go, and this is probably the most eagerly i've anticipated a movie screening as…

Popular reviews

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  The Vourdalak 2023

  Watched 29 Jul 2024

  i really liked this a lot! the puppetry is impressive, the 16mm film quality works well to enhance the fairy tale/gothic horror mood, and comedic elements are woven in seamlessly without undermining the seriousness of the tragedy. some great singing as well. i'm fascinated by the use of vampirism as a metaphor for family abuse and incest--i feel like vampire stories more frequently focus on sort of an external threat, relying on xenophobic fears of contagion, so it was interesting to see that subverted a bit here.

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  AGGRO DR1FT 2023

  Watched 17 May 2024 1

  feels more like a video installation than a Movie but i had a better time than i was expecting. people clapped every time he says "i am the world's greatest assassin" and someone behind us fell asleep and started snoring