Favorite films

Recent reviews

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  Island of Lost Souls 1932

  ★★★ Watched 30 Mar 2025

  Based on H.G. Wells' 1896 novel The Island of Doctor Moreau, Island of Lost Souls (1932) stars Charles Laughton, Richard Arlen, and Kathleen Burke. The film features some impressive makeup effects in creating the hybrid creatures, though it leans more into action-thriller territory than pure horror. For its time, Island of Lost Souls was highly controversial—not just for its themes of man playing God and creating life, but also for its unsettling suggestion of animals mating with a human. The…

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  J'accuse 1919

  ★★★★ Watched 30 Mar 2025

  This film should be remembered for more than just its famous final scene, where the dead soldiers rise to see if their sacrifice meant something. Or for being filmed during the 1918 Battle of Saint-Mihiel alongside the United States Army, introducing some early techniques of rapid editing. (Or for showing a tit.) J'accuse (1919) captures the complex horrors of war—not just death on the battlefield, but also the rape of women, the trauma of shell shock, and, amid all this,…

Popular reviews

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  Family Therapy 2024

  ★ Watched 30 Jul 2024 1

  This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

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  Small Things Like These 2024

  ★★★½ Watched 28 Mar 2025

  I didn't like the book as much, so I was going into this with low expectations. But it's a really well made adaptation, using the language of film to tone down Keegan's sentimentality. I don't remember the story of the novella so detailed anymore, but I think the connection to the broader community and therefore society was missing there, and they tweaked the plot (some additional characters and scenes) just enough to give us that here. Most of all, the…