Favorite films

Recent reviews

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  The Electric State 2025

  ★★★★ Watched 14 Mar 2025

  There are a lot of similarities between The Electric State and Ready Player One. Both are based on highly respected and popular written source material – The Electric State is adapted from a graphic novel by Simon Stålenhag, Ready Player One was adapted from a novel by Ernest Cline. Both stories feature a great deal of period pop culture nostalgia seen from a point in a dystopian future. Both movies are directed by filmmakers with tremendously successful records at the…

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  Dolores Claiborne 1995

  ★★★½ Watched 14 Sep 1995

  Dolores Claiborne is a psychological drama-thriller directed by Taylor Hackford, adapted by Tony Gilroy from the 1992 novel by Stephen King. The story centers on the titular character, played by Kathy Bates, who is accused of murdering Vera Donovan, her wealthy, elderly employer on a remote Maine island. The investigation brings Dolores’s estranged daughter, Selena St. George (Jennifer Jason Leigh), back to the island. Selena is a troubled New York journalist with a complicated history with her mother, marked by…

Popular reviews

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  Alien³ 1992

  ★★★★ Added

  When I first started writing about film music, in the summer of 1997, I tried to write a review of Alien 3. I had seen the film previously, and liked it a great deal, and I remember being especially impressed with the music in the finale, so I went out and bought Elliot Goldenthal’s soundtrack CD. This was my first experience of his music outside of film context, and my film music knowledge at that point barely extended beyond the…

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  The Last Duel 2021

  ★★★★ Watched 19 Oct 2021

  The Last Duel is a historical epic drama for the Me Too generation, a truly harrowing look at the powerlessness, lack of agency, and mis-treatment of women throughout time, and how comparatively little has changed over the course of the past several centuries in terms of how sexual assault is viewed differently by men and women. The film is directed by Ridley Scott and is based on the 2004 book of the same name by Eric Jager; ostensibly it looks…

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