Favorite films

Pinned reviews

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  The Court-Martial of Jackie Robinson 1990

  ★★★★½ Rewatched 13 Dec 2023

  A real underseen gem. I don't know how many made-for-TNT movies are floating around out there, but it's hard to imagine any of them being better than this one. Andre Braugher is so commanding in this -- abrasive, majestic, fiercely intelligent, sarcastic, all of which the real JR was. It's the best onscreen performance anyone has ever given as Jackie Robinson, and that includes Jackie Robinson himself.

  The script is much better than you'd expect for a made-for-basic-cable movie; it's…

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  Father of the Bride 1950

  ★★½ Watched 18 Feb 2022

  This is the kind of movie where people say "they don't make 'em like that anymore" and my reply is "thank fucking christ."

  The script is vapid and boring and talks down to its audience. The gender dynamics are neanderthal even by the standards of 1950s American cinema; all the women are portrayed as flighty and brainless and incapable of tying their own shoes. The Spencer Tracy character is supposed to be a lovable curmudgeon but really he's just a…

Recent reviews

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  Room 666 1982

  ★★★ Watched 17 Mar 2025

  This film will make you want to beat Steven Spielberg over the head with an E.T. action figure, but on the other hand, at least you get a barefoot Werner Herzog looking like William Hurt.

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  The Substance 2024

  ★½ Watched 28 Feb 2025

  This drivel is actually the odds-on favorite to win a screenplay Oscar? It's a brilliant concept for a film, but that's where it ends. As the old cliché goes, there's 45 minutes of decent content here packed into a 150-minute runtime.

  Perhaps the most repetitive and boring film I've ever seen. The movie that just would Not. Fucking. End.

Popular reviews

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  Special Section 1975

  ★★★★ Watched 04 Aug 2021

  Although the two are very different experiences viscerally, this is of a piece with Paths of Glory. Both are razor-sharp in their evisceration of leaders who, while sipping their cognac out of fine crystal, cheerfully send common folk to their deaths — with no greater aim than preserving their own ephemeral political power.

  Unfortunately, this still has a ton of resonance today, as all societies have those individuals who are willing to get in bed with pure evil if it…

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  Cow-Cow Boogie 1942

  ★★★★½ Watched 10 Aug 2021

  Dorothy Dandridge shaking her pelvis at the camera a full decade and a half before Elvis? While singing a song about a biracial cowboy who smokes weed all day? More of this please.