Favorite films

Recent reviews

• 

  Mulholland Drive 2001

  ★★★★★ Watched 04 Mar 2025

  Our Neil Breen of Hitchcock horror giving us our Jacques Rivette of Bergman romance. Perhaps the most poetic movie I’ve ever seen, in free verse, of course. What this man does with a diner and a dumpster most can’t do with 100 million dollars

• 

  Arthur 1981

  ★★★★ Watched 22 Feb 2025

  How did a predictable rom-com featuring Burt Bacharach’s worst song make me cry over an old man refusing being read Hamlet on his deathbed

Popular reviews

• 

  Toni Erdmann 2016

  ★★★★½ Watched 13 Feb 2025

  Sweet little three hour film about an aging father showing up at his daughter’s door unannounced and deploying a tireless campaign of whoopee cushions and Austin Powers-grade false teeth to attempt to surprise her (and her colleagues) into actually living her life when all she wants to do is make Powerpoint presentations about the fiscal benefits of corporate changeovers. The scene where the two finally succeed in some modicum of understanding involves the juxtaposition of elaborate Bulgarian kukeri dress and perhaps the most uncomfortable nude scene in comedic cinema. A lasting mediation on the parasitic nature of capitalism. And dads.

• 

  Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy 2021

  ★★★½ Watched 24 Jan 2025

  Though the caprices and delights of fate are highlighted well by these three wending ditties, each had a structural element that failed for me: the first one’s “alternate ending” (though the one-shot camera take is beautiful), the second one’s single-letter doomsday event, and the last one’s suspension of societal norms. This seems to be the thesis of the film: the whims of fortune are as flimsy as a whisper; yet, something rang, well, fantastic about them, if you will. Still, the beautiful Rohmerian dialogue and expansive view of human nature left me with plenty to write here about.

Following