xav

xav Patron

Favorite films

  • Portrait of a Lady on Fire
  • Trainspotting
  • Burning
  • In the Mood for Love

Recent activity

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  • The Monkey

    ★★★

  • TÁR

    ★★★★½

  • Mickey 17

    ★★★½

  • The Hudsucker Proxy

    ★★★★½

Recent reviews

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  • The Monkey

    The Monkey

    ★★★

    For a film about death, it doesn't make you contemplate your own death. Or contemplate anything much for that matter. But it is very fun and stupid and the monkey character design is perfect.

  • TÁR

    TÁR

    ★★★★½

    Totally brilliant. Cate Blanchett is the best she's ever been in surely a career-defining role. I love the style of bare, wide open scenes, they feel so absorbing. At times the interiors reminded me of Zone of Interest when the camera wasn't moving and we could hear peculiar sounds. I didn't expect it to be so creepy and about two thirds of the way through, I wondered if it was going to veer towards horror.

    Has Todd Field been watching…

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  • The Brutalist

    The Brutalist

    ★★★★

    Frequently brilliant, especially in the first half, and extraspecially in the opening five minutes. The music is fantastic, and the composer is Daniel Blumberg! That guy who was in Cajun Dance Party as a 16-year-old!

    I was a bit distracted in the second half due to spotting Andy Zaltzman in the audience during the intermission, and then watching him eat a yoghurt out of a glass jar with a metal spoon.

  • The Substance

    The Substance

    ★★★★

    Seriously bloody fun shenanigans that had me thinking about Jekyll and Hyde, and the painfully real parts of the transformations from the Fly. The world they inhabit is reminiscent of Brazil (the film not the country); full of plastic, tasteless people, overindulgence, and a satisfaction with the inane. An assault from start of finish that doesn't leave much room for nuance, apart from the fact that you can't spell 'substance' without 'Sue'. I guess it's a better stage name than Bstanc.

    My sympathy levels for either character fluctuated a lot over the 2h20, but Ms Sparkle, why on earth do you have the bathroom from Saw?!