Favorite films

Recent reviews

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  The Taste of Things 2023

  ★★ Watched 10 Mar 2024

  The French tourism board must have paid for this....what we get here is nothing more than French food supremacy propaganda. When they introduced the Eurasian prince I immediately knew what time it was.
  Unfortunately the acting is strangely stilted in this and even though it looks pretty the directing felt aimless.

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  Ophelia 2018

  ★★½ Watched 09 Mar 2023

  This was very much giving made-for-TV feminist retelling from the early 2000s but in the best way. The structure was a mess and this actually slaughtered Hamlet the play. I laughed out loud several times over some of the decisions to completely disregard the source material.
  But it's enjoyable for what it is. It's also gorgeous to look at. A pre-raphaelite painting come to life.

Popular reviews

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  Manon of the Spring 1986

  ★★½ Watched 30 Oct 2021

  Ultimately a disappointing second "half".
  Jean de Florette worked so well because of Depardieu's characterization of Jean. He's a living, breathing, fully rounded person who we can not help but root for.
  Manon is a non-entity in her own story. Around the mid-point of the film I was wondering if we would ever stop following her around the hills doing mundane things while being beautiful......the downfall of many a French film is the inability to see their pretty leading lady…

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  Beau Travail 1999

  ★★½ Rewatched 30 Nov 2021

  The narration killed this film for me.
  Expository and unnecessary, it really took me out of the mood for the majority of its runtime and served as a crutch for the missing interiority of its characters. Not a single action was motivated by someones inner life....The only thing this film has in spades is beauty. Beautiful shots, beautiful bodies, beautiful vibes. Emptiness everywhere else.
  The white gaze is everywhere. It somehow made me angry. At the end I realized I had seen this film as a child and it had left me feeling the same way.