Favorite films

Recent reviews

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  The Intruder 1981

  ★½ Watched 03 May 2022

  In a small Canadian town everyone is crabby and corrupt until a mystic comes to town and zaps everyone with a purple aura and for some reason disintegrates trees. The works of 70s self-actualization psychiatrist (now discredited) Abraham Maslow are referenced and sure enough disembodied voices intone "you must self-actualize..." I kept wondering if there was a brief cult built around his philosophy and if this were a recruitment movie, like the Billy Graham films, but made in the late…

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  Cheaters 1984

  ★★★½ Watched 28 Apr 2022

  A tough movie to watch, which is part of it's construct. Gambling addicts band together as casino cheats and watching their miserable lives feels like you're scratching at an infected sore. In moments of victory things usually turn sour which is why the happy (urp) ending is such a downer...you know it will never last and they'll end up wrecking their lives anyway. 1984 logic is a problem as well as even then their grand scheme would've been noticed by…

Popular reviews

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  Wolfpack 1987

  ★★★ Added

  Way too obvious football/fascism orbit....the goose-stepping, the team's anthem mirrors "Tomorrow Belings to Me" from Cabaret, the lead player is nicknamed "Jack Boots" a sound-alike of his name, and all of it's done without a lick of humor but it's watchable 80s blandness and plays like a YA novel (think "The Chocolate War".) I hated the flash- forward montage at the beginning and the ending scene. From the director of A Scent of Heather, Blonde in Black Silk and many…

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  Easter Someday 2021

  ★★ Watched 13 Apr 2022

  Totally bizarre regional production from Texas, a child's storybook where none of the storybook elements make any sense or follow traditional narratives.....as if they knew better....and creativity has boundaries. Flubbed line readings are left in, the child lead is wooden, there's a bunny suit from Joe's-Rent-a-costume down the street, special effects are filtered lights. The director plays the father. Amazing and awful and dumb all at the same time, but mostly dumb.

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