Favorite films

Recent reviews

• 

  The Gorge 2025

  ★★½ Rewatched 15 Feb 2025

  Was somewhat into it while it remained a goofy romance in a surreal setting but the more it gives up its underwhelming mysteries, the lamer it gets. Why you’d turn ‘sentinels at the gates of hell’ into something this bloodless, generic and resolutely earthbound I’ll never understand. Derrickson continuing his tradition of taking juicy high concepts and sucking the weird out of them. Though this was at least partly the screenwriter’s fault. Oof, so you read one poem one time.

• 

  Conclave 2024

  ★★★½ Watched 09 Nov 2024

  The single loudest audience reaction I’ve heard this year in response to that ending. My theater (full) of senior citizens ate this up with a spoon. As did I, brutal though it was, watching days after the US election. Pure escapist fantasy of the silly-smart  kind. Respect for including a deus ex machina. Fiennes a king.

Popular reviews

• 

  The Shrouds 2024

  ★★★★½ Rewatched 11 Oct 2024

  THE SHROUDS: Had a friend who named her tumor and assigned it backstory and motivation as a mordant joke. Later, these got ever more conspiratorial and I couldn't tell whether she was still joking. Wish she were around to see this haunted (and hilarious) masterpiece. The most classically Cronenbergian since EXISTENZ and his funniest since THE FLY. 

  Half star only deducted for the annoying and out of place AI avatar gag.

• 

  All That Jazz 1979

  ★★★★½ Added

  Can't believe I avoided this movie for years just because it's a musical. More fool me. But then again, I just got to see it for the first time so I win either way. So formally audacious it made my head spin, Roy Scheider is (as always) an acting god, and (oddly enough) the whole thing reminded me a bit of Louie.

Following