Favorite films

Recent reviews

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  There's Always Tomorrow 1956

  ★★★★ Watched 05 Dec 2023

  …and this is why you shouldn't have kids, folks!

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  Silvia Prieto 1999

  ★★★½ Watched 23 Oct 2023

  In film you’re told to show that which is important to you. You must discriminate reality and choose what stands out and what tells the story, throw out the rest. Compress lived experience and extract the very essence because, after all, there is a very limited running time, and you don’t want to bore audiences. But what if that which you choose has no meaning? What if you choose those inconsequential gestures? Those meaningless conversations? The acts that we pointlessly…

Popular reviews

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  Swing Girls 2004

  ★★½ Watched 13 May 2018

  A passable and at times even endearing comedy—it’s a shame it doesn’t believe in any of its characters as being more than just a collection of unconvincing and quite honestly lazy tropes. The film does characterise them in its own ways, through little quirks and running-gags, which is all well and good if the performances were actually able to sell most of those quirks and gags as pertaining to that of a person that mildly resembles real people? As it…

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  The Magic Hour 2008

  ★★★½ Rewatched 22 Sep 2017

  Marvellous; magical. I can say that director Kōki Mitani’s dream of emulating Billy Wilder’s comedy is achieved; at least partially. After all, the movie is not without its flaws, clearly visible too—a daunting running time which the film’s comedy, rough on certain edges as it is, does not fully support (something that becomes more apparent when we realise that the film’s magic hour</i/> proves to be less funny, and overly botchy, than the earlier and forever hilarious knife gag). Unfortunately,…

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