Favorite films

Recent reviews

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  Leave the World Behind 2023

  ★★★½ Watched 04 Jan 2024

  Sam Esmail sure does love his camera rotations. While its messaging is about as subtle as a bullhorn blasting through a nursery (or, to pick on a worse film, as subtle as the class politics in Triangle of Sadness), the tension is solid, and some of the shots and sequences are rather memorable. Great performances, too, from the two leads especially, even if the dialogue sounds flat and massaged to an unrealistic point, to be as profound as it can…

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  Triangle of Sadness 2022

  ★★½ Watched 09 Feb 2023

  It’s a pretty great film if you’ve never cracked a history book or discussed politics ever. Overall well made/acted, and hilariously deadpan and gross in spots, but the cringe-heavy first hour and the painfully blunt, lacking all subtlety first-year political and class discourse makes this a more laborious experience than expected.

Popular reviews

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  May 2002

  ½ Watched 29 Mar 2021

  Sincerely baffled to know that this received such high ratings, especially from people like Ebert. This film is discordant start to finish, but in a “this is a bad film school piece filled with cringe” and not a “this is actually horrific and deep to any degree” sort-of way. The lead actor is about the only not-shit thing about this film. Everything else—message to acting to base aesthetics—just repels. Could not wait for this to be over with. It’s just... brain dead and empty.

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  Eraserhead 1977

  ½ Added 1

  The very definition of "I get it, I just don't care." Which, honestly, sums up my relationship to David Lynch. Every time I deep dive into the themes or subtext behind his work, it makes sense and is clear throughout, but... I just cannot bring myself to give a damn. Chiefly, this is because his work is fundamentally unbalanced in that instead of being some surface-level dreck that's all plot and zero theme, it's all theme and zero character. And…

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