Favorite films

Recent reviews

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  In the Name of the Father 1993

  ★★★★½ Watched 25 Feb 2025

  The more I learn about Irish history, the harder it is to hold a British passport.

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  Small Things Like These 2024

  ★★★★½ Watched 28 Jan 2025

  Small things that film can portray better than the written word: The tremble and gait of a painfully cold person. The awkwardness of manipulative social interactions. The grey-scale of Northern weather, old buildings, and coal-caked hands.

  I appreciate these things. And yet, two things that Claire Keegan’s novel of the same name achieves that do not appear in the film and are, I would argue, large things in the telling of this story: 

  1) The novel uses the repetition of…

Popular reviews

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  Alabama Snake 2020

  ★★★ Watched 23 Jan 2021 2

  Ever since reading Dennis Covington’s fantastic Salvation on Sand Mountain several years ago, I’ve been enthralled by glimpses into the lives of Appalachian folks who practice literal interpretation of Mark 16:17-18. This documentary focuses on one specific murder case — in Clue terms, it was (allegedly) the pastor in the shed with a 5ft diamondback rattlesnake — but beneath the eerie dramatics of the incident itself is a more general spiritual questioning: How much weight do we give rebirth through baptism and…

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  Ordinary People 1980

  ★★★★½ Watched 25 Jun 2019 3

  I’ve been slowly working my way through a long list of Taika Waititi’s favourite movies that I once read in an interview and gradually trying to watch more (all?) films that Robert Redford has had a hand in, either as actor or director. This ticked both boxes and did not disappoint. 

  It’s raw and sad and tense and focuses on emotional development rather than a lot of plot-point action, and all the other things that make most folks disappointed if they heed…

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