Favorite films

Recent reviews

• 

  Die Nibelungen: Siegfried 1924

  ★★★½ Watched 08 Dec 2015

  It's a slight shame that the real star of this picture - the dragon - is put to the sword in the first twenty minutes. Verfluche dich, Drachentöter!

• 

  Destry Rides Again 1939

  ★★★★ Watched 10 Nov 2015

  Among this film's many delights, a small-town saloon the size of an aircraft hangar.

Popular reviews

• 

  Hangover Square 1945

  ★★★★ Watched 13 Sep 2015 3

  I can see why this would have disappointed fans of Patrick Hamilton's novel: gone are the sardonic realism, the specific references to the political malaise of pre-WW2 London, the texture of alcoholic Earl's Court. Instead, the basic plot is transposed to a more conventionally stagey gothic Edwardian setting (partly so Fox could re-use its existing sets), the besotted deadbeat Bone become a doomed composer struggling with his demons.

  However, it's also, if one can say so at the risk of…

• 

  Prince of Darkness 1987

  ★★★½ Rewatched 21 Sep 2014 1

  The atmosphere is great of course, but this time I struggled a bit with the sheer ludicrousness of the scenario, since this is simultaneously Carpenter's most straight-faced and most preposterous horror film. The image of the Dark Lord's plasticky paw emerging from the mirror in the finale is daring but bathetic - the attempt to reconcile Christian mythology with materialist science, even in a fictional context, must inevitably fail.

  I think the most promisingly sinister thing here is the apocalyptic dream TV broadcast from the future, anticipating the 'haunted technology' theme of certain 90s/00s titles (notably from Japan).

Following