Favorite films

Recent reviews

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  Oppenheimer 2023

  ★★★½ Watched 12 Mar 2024

  Comfortably Nolan's best effort since Memento, finding a factual scientific subject matter that is ready made for his preoccupation with the passage of time and the mindset of tortured genius. The backdrop allows him to bypass many of his limitations to predominantly focus on crafting a palpable sense of escalation through the excellent editing and score constantly building into these pulsating montages that always keep the surge of information absorbing. Yet, I couldn't agree more with the people saying that…

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  Hulk 2003

  ★★★★½ Rewatched 06 Jan 2024 4

  Ang Lee's ambitious tendencies allow him to smartly eschew the routine Hulk smash spectacle as he opts to dig deep into the psychology of Bruce Banner to explore the devastating stranglehold trauma has on a person's existence: the anguish at the sins passed down by your parent, the burning desire to be loved unconditionally and the paralysing rage at feeling like a prisoner to your own mind. It's such an empathetic and reflective approach, especially in a genre frequently lost…

Popular reviews

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  The Empty Man 2020

  ★½ Watched 25 Mar 2021 5

  Aptly named because it certainly left me feeling empty.

  I don't get the underground buzz that this has received at all; the scatter-brained merging of occult mystery, cosmic horror and police procedural is so half-baked on every front that it falls to pieces as soon as its ideas start to solidify. The root of the narrative has potential as some sort of paranormal puzzle, but it just descends into stupidity the longer it goes on before reaching a third act…

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  Beau Travail 1999

  ★★★ Watched 04 May 2021 2

  Quite captivating as a pure mood piece, but constrained by the vague narrative and character choices that leave it nearly impenetrable on an emotional level. Beau Travail seems to be in dispute with itself over what it is trying to be, so it's little surprise that my thoughts about it are similarly conflicted.

  The story of a commanding officer's distorted jealousy towards one of his troop explores despotism, repression and foreignness through the lenses of colonialism, military power structures and…

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