Recent reviews

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  Punch-Drunk Love 2002

  ★★★★★ Rewatched 04 Jul 2024

  Simply amazing example of how Paul Thomas Anderson (writer and director of this film) is a national treasure.

  I had no love for Adam Sandler. None. His stupid movies (never bothered to go beyond the trailers), his characters on SNL, his very predictable persona and weak tropes. He always seemed to be in the way of better people by pandering to the lowest citizens of American idiocracy.

  Then Punch Drunk Love came out in 2002. This was back when Netflix…

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  Shot Caller 2017

  ★★★ Rewatched 01 Jul 2024

  So I have watched Shot Caller twice...because like "Brawl in Cell Block 99" it is a predictable yet satisfying guilty pleasure. The pace is excellent, the transition well directed, and the arcs logical.

  Predictable does not mean 'bad'. For instance I have seen every version of Jane Eyre in addition to having read the book several times....yet I still re-watch the films because the story is that good. I have the musical/opera version memorized, and that CD is loaded in…

Popular reviews

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  Calvaire 2004

  ★★★½ Rewatched 07 Feb 2023

  Calvaire is a French language film, but don't hold that against it. It is by turns awesome and gruesome.

  The tale is simple: A guy has car trouble in the middle of nowhere. The story is horrifying: it happens to be the nowhere of France.

  This is a grueling and gruesome film of innocence lost and insanity found. Our traveler finds himself in a backwater town in the French countryside with a broken van. He is taken by a lunatic…

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  The Horseman 2008

  ★★★★ Rewatched 17 Mar 2023

  This Australian film from 2008 and set in 2008 is available on HBOMax.

  This is easily confused with a dozen other films, but the writer/director is Steven Kastrissios and the main character is played by Peter Marshall.

  Let me say here that Australian film has a very....VERY distinct flavor. Think MadMax, WalkAbout, CaneToads, TheInterview, BreakerMorant, Mr. InBetween, TheQuietEarth by proxy, et al.

  I have never seen a bad Australian film. Never. These are not British films. There is a very…

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