Favorite films

Recent reviews

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  Baby Reindeer 2024

  ★★½ Watched 29 Apr 2024

  An obviously fascinating story with some quite unique exploration of sexuality, but overall the execution just doesn't have the subtlety that I think the subject deserves. The true story, with Gadd playing himself also added an uncanny element that meant I couldn't help but question his narration of events - not the facts, which i have no doubt are true, but the drama and the dialogue which often felt oddly staged. I would like to have seen this without Gadd…

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  Aftersun 2022

  ★★★★½ Watched 05 Jan 2023

  Heartbreaking. A true coming of age story that refuses to settle on the usual tropes of self-discovery and wish fulfillment. It reminded me of the bittersweet nostalgia of classic kids-on-summer-holidays films like Stand By Me, but the subtlety of the narrative and naturalism of the filmmaking make it perhaps the closest any film I can remember has come to truly capturing my own holiday experiences. Perhaps it hit me so hard for being a similar age to Charlotte Wells, but the look and feel of the resort, with all of its sad Britishness became intertwined with the central relationship. Beautiful.

Popular reviews

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  Nightmare Alley 2021

  ★★½ Watched 31 Jan 2022

  Gosh, didn't really click with this one at all after the first act. It felt long and disjointed and once Defoe uttered the relevance of the titular 'nightmare alley' I knew exactly where we were headed, which along with some pretty thin characterisation (poor Cate Blanchett) sucked the tension out of the final acts.

  For me all the style and panache that Del Toro brings did nothing to make me like the characters who were invariably archetypes, and with a…

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  Dune 2021

  ★★★½ Watched 01 Jan 2022

  Visually stunning but so cold emotionally. I know there's a lot to cram in, but Villeneuve clearly wants us to care about our protagonist and his allies otherwise we wouldn't need to watch action scene after action scene of them nearly/actually dying. If you want that to work then it is my humble opinion you need to humanise them just a little bit more than giving Duncan Idaho a bro-hug. It's Die Hard 101.

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