Favorite films

Recent reviews

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  Ballet 1995

  ★★★★ Watched 23 Feb 2025

  prior to this I had a moment where I realized the only ballets I know (in a musical sense: obviously I'm conceptually familiar with many more but would not be able to recognize excerpts out of context) are the two Tchaikovskys everyone knows so when they suddenly cut to a Rite of Spring performance I was like "oh, just kidding, I guess I actually know three."

  weirdly I found the rehearsal footage more compelling than the actual performances (someone in…

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  Cry-Baby 1990

  ★★★ Rewatched 22 Feb 2025

  much slighter than I'd remembered but still fun, even though I've obviously soured on D*pp over the years. strangely a LOT of similarities to Wild at Heart, even down to the fact that they came out in the same year??? love that Willem Dafoe earns the AND credit just by showing up for like 30 seconds to say GOD BLESS ROY COHN

Popular reviews

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  Past Lives 2023

  ★★★ Watched 13 Jul 2023 1

  hmmmm okay I felt like I just watched a longer version of the trailer instead of the Rich Emotional Experience everyone else seems to have had??? kept waiting for the characters to develop actual depth and expand beyond their established roles that make the plot unfold but everyone just felt so thinly sketched throughout! a lot of telling me how the characters behave and think instead of showing me what they're like. on the other hand playing "what if/in another…

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  The Brutalist 2024

  ★★½ Watched 20 Dec 2024

  came into this with a semi-adversarial, yet open attitude: if there is ONE topic I am more qualified to weigh in on than post-war modernist architecture in Philadelphia and its suburbs, specifically DOYLESTOWN!!! in any case as a Vox Lux hater I obviously had to wear my YOU'VE GOT AN ENEMY IN PENNSYLVANIA sweatshirt to this.

  had a semi-surprise intro by Brady Corbet and Mona Fastvold: it took all my self-control not to stand up and shout WHY SPECIFICALLY OF…