James Bell

James Bell

Favorite films

  • The Dark Knight
  • Apocalypse Now
  • Jaws
  • Django Unchained

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  • Django Unchained

    ★★★★★

  • Inglourious Basterds

    ★★★★★

  • Mississippi Burning

    ★★★★½

  • Mickey 17

    ★★★★

Recent reviews

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  • Django Unchained

    Django Unchained

    ★★★★★

    Quite possibly my favourite of Tarantino’s films that I’ve seen so far. As anticipated, the soundtrack is phenomenal from the get-go. The sound design is wickedly good, from the innumerable gunshots & clip-clopping of horse hooves to the sound of a pint being poured.

    With a story premise that’s relatively straightforward, Django Unchained excels in showing a wonderful amount of depth and complexity within each of its characters. Christoph Waltz shows off his versatile, Oscar-winning range in the role of Dr.…

  • Inglourious Basterds

    Inglourious Basterds

    ★★★★★

    Violent, thrilling, and just the right amount of tongue-in-cheek humour.

    It’s hard to pick my favourite moments from a film that’s absolutely full of them. The opening scene is a masterclass in suspense, musically underscored to chilling effect with Ennio Morricone’s The Verdict (La condanna). His acting throughout is masterful, but nowhere else does Christoph Waltz absolutely dominate the screen as Hans Landa. He terrifies you, not through outright intimidation, but with his sophistication, charm and intellect, and you can’t…

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  • Mississippi Burning

    Mississippi Burning

    ★★★★½

    Loosely based on the 1964 murders of 3 civil rights activists, the story follows the late Gene Hackman and a young Willem Dafoe as FBI agents tasked with investigating the crime, bringing them into conflict with the racist underbelly of the Mississippi county, influenced by the sheriff’s connections to the KKK.

    This film is an emotional punch to the gut.
    The ugliness of racial segregation is palpable and ever-present from the very opening shot, which frames the narrative in a…

  • Nosferatu

    Nosferatu

    ★★★★★

    Excellent. Robert Eggers knocks it out of the park once again with a seductive masterpiece of gothic horror - you can’t look away, but you’re horrified by what you see.

    The musical score by Robin Carolan is phenomenal, but the film’s use of silence amps up the dread and fills you with ever more terror. The camera work also keeps you on edge, often drifting slowly from one spot to another with unnatural precision, and making you afraid that something…

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