Favorite films

Pinned reviews

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  The Abyss 1989

  ★★★★ Rewatched 24 Jun 2021 1

  I’ve been overdue to rewatch The Abyss because of its infamous unavailability on Blu-ray: James Cameron has pleaded for years that he just doesn’t have enough free hours to approve the new transfers of this and of True Lies— instead he spends his free time recording podcasts with Marianne Williamson and courses for MasterClass. Not that I am complaining.

  Thankfully the Internet is full of amateur film preservationists who spend their free time cobbling together HD restorations of movies like The…

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  Skinamarink 2022

  ★★★ Watched 03 Feb 2023 1

  Here’s the thing about "experimental film." The experiments have been done already! Kuleshov didn't kill that little girl so that you or I could sit around with a vape pen in 2023 and reinvent montage. Sure, there’s new innovations happening in film every day thanks to James Cameron, but the fundamental grammar of cinema has been fairly well-established for 100 years and the fundamentals of narrative haven’t improved much since Aristotle. Would you light your house with experimental light bulbs?…

Recent reviews

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  Shiva Baby 2020

  ★★★½ Watched 30 Mar 2024

  Watched this a year ago and never logged it. I went into this hoping for a brisk, cute, lighthearted 78-minute escape that maybe would distract me from my anxiety about going to my girlfriend’s conservative family’s Easter brunch the next day…. nope!

  The vibes of this one are deliberately terrible but in sustaining that mood it’s pretty much everything you could want out of an indie film set mostly in one location.

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  Vertigo 1958

  ★★★½ Watched 18 Feb 2025

  I saw this when I was a teenager and I think I fell asleep. I watched it this time and almost fell asleep! Drink some coffee before you watch Vertigo because it’s one of the best movies of all time and by “best” I mean “most sluggish.”

  Oh, but I kid, I kid Vertigo. I can understand the appeal of this movie: it has a really interesting concept and central mystery, a great performance by Jimmy Stewart, and some sly…

Popular reviews

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  Alien: Romulus 2024

  ★★½ Watched 15 Aug 2024

  I watched most of Alien: Romulus bored, wondering if there was something wrong with me for not enjoying this decently presented and mostly “fine” movie. Am I too critical? Isn’t this supposed to be fun for fans of the Alien series? Do I even like movies???

  Then, mercifully, there was a late moment of such cinematic malpractice that the veil lifted and I realized no, I’m actually normal: this is just a hack job.

  I will always adore the aesthetics…

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  Barbie 2023

  ★★★½ Watched 22 Jul 2023

  Okay: you can't do a shot-for-shot homage to 2001 for the first five minutes of your movie and then act like it's a bro thing to be into The Godfather.

  Barbie is a delight, soured only a bit once it abandons some of its very current, apt, and subtle political commentary for blatant girl-power monologues that might have been cutting-edge twenty years ago. Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling are the perfect actors for this job and the production design is…