Favorite films

Recent reviews

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  The Killing of a Chinese Bookie 1976

  ★★★ Watched 10 Dec 2017

  The shorter, '78 cut. I suspect I'd prefer the longer cut.

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  Rogue One: A Star Wars Story 2016

  ★★★ Watched 15 Dec 2016 1

  The posters for Rogue One append “A Star Wars Story” to its title. But that subtitle is absent from the film itself, which bears only the title of Rogue One. It’s a fitting ambiguity for a film suffering from an identity crisis, a film that resists the mythic fairytale storytelling of its forebears while needing that same myth to justify its existence.

  What makes “a Star Wars story” is more than X-Wings and lightsabers, but the epic showdown of capital-G…

Popular reviews

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  Nasty Baby 2015

  ★★★½ Watched 30 May 2015 2

  At first glance, Sebastián Silva’s Nasty Baby appears to slot neatly into the Noah Baumbach/Lena Dunham school of New York indie. You know the type. Loose, naturalistic dramas about trendy people in a trendy city, leavened with a hint of comedy before drifting towards Serious Issues that aren’t taken all that seriously. For most of its first half, it holds pretty closely to the formula – if that’s the word – before a dramatic third act twist derails it from…

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  Ukraine Is Not a Brothel 2013

  ★★★½ Watched 30 Nov 2014 1

  The story told by Kitty Green’s documentary Ukraine is Not a Brothel is a fascinating one. But the appeal of this film is not the mystery it unravels as it examines the inner workings of Ukrainian feminist movement FEMEN, but the thoughtful and thought-provoking perspective provided by its Australian director. This is a sterling example of the potential of the documentary, beholden to the constraints of the medium – talking heads, investigative journalism, etcetera – and yet elevating the form…