Favorite films

Recent reviews

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  Midnight Mass 2021

  ★★½ Watched 28 Oct 2023

  Having generally enjoyed Flanagan’s Fall of the House of Usher, I felt disappointed by this highly personal yet fittingly preachy installment. In Usher, the gothic horror angle (the Sacklers meet Poe) helped me accept the refreshing non-realism and even (un-Poe-like) moralism. Here, the message felt at best muddled, at times clichéd, though the performance of the priest alone made the work compelling. Showcasing the best and worst of Catholicism, and Christianity more broadly, is surely timely, but the pacing truly…

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  The Pope's Exorcist 2023

  ★★★ Watched 17 Sep 2023

  Better than the MCU. Crowe had fun, and I did too.

Popular reviews

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  Women Talking 2022

  ★★½ Watched 08 Aug 2023

  Timely topics and a star-studded cast really can’t save this film from what feels like inauthentic, wooden dialogue, only occasionally brought to life by a smile that catches you unawares. To me, the screenplay fails to capture the cadences and idioms appropriate to these Mennonite-esque women, to get inside their inner worlds and the limited means they have to express them, even as they must. We’re told of silences rather than confronted by them, informed of ineloquence rather than witnesses…