Favorite films

Recent reviews

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  Streetwise 1984

  ★★★★★ Watched 13 Mar 2025

  Seattle has never looked so beautiful, or so incandescent.

  The Charles repertory series
  Baltimore, MD

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  Fractured 2019

  ★½ Watched 12 Mar 2025

  Hung in there hoping for Breakdown crossed with a Cornell Woolrich "mass gaslighting" story, but was sadly rewarded with The Machinist, Part 2.

  Netflix streaming.

Popular reviews

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  A Name for Evil 1973

  ★★★ Watched 25 Jan 2017 1

  So, where do I begin?

  It's 1973. Penthouse Pictures has some money, and wants to make a "white-people-move-into-a-haunted-house-against-all-reason" picture.

  Penthouse Pictures hires Robert Culp, and ask him if he's willing to give his penis second billing in the film. He agrees.

  Samantha Eggar is asked to join the cast, and says, "why not?"

  Everyone drops acid. Shooting begins.

  Dominic Frontiere writes a brilliant score, thousands of miles away from all of this.

  Movie is edited and released. No one involved in the making of the movie can remember what happened.

  Pretty awesome.

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  Jaws 1975

  ★★★★★ Watched 04 Jul 2016 4

  Anytime, anywhere. For my money, Spielberg made 5 perfect films, and this one is at the top. Not a wasted shot, pitch perfect casting, pitch perfect dialogue. No sentimental hokum, and a Mamet ending.

  I find when talking to others that the legacy of this film (in terms of "inventing the summer blockbuster," "shark movie," etc.) tends to overshadow what a finely crafted thriller it is, so much so that it I think it might be called one of the few "creature" films of the 1970s with an auteur stamp.