Favorite films

Recent reviews

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  Screamers 1995

  ★★★½ Rewatched 29 Apr 2024

  An impressive little sci-fi thriller let down by a silly third act, IMO. It's well shot, directed, and scripted for the most part, Weller is very good, and the world-building is carefully wrought within the confines of a moderate budget. The mystery builds nicely, but once the true nature of the threat is revealed, cliches start to fly thick and fast, culminating in a clunky action finale. That's a shame, because the first two thirds work hard to create a…

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  Fall 2022

  ★★★½ Watched 22 Mar 2023

  This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

Popular reviews

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  September Storm 1960

  ★★★½ Added

  This exceeded my expectations and then some. The 3-D in September Storm is phenomenal. I defy anyone to watch the flat version and the stereoscopic version and not be a 3-D convert afterwards. It's just pure magic. Almost every shot is either striking or has something interesting going on, dimensionally. A top-notch effort by the original filmmakers and, of course, the restoration team, without whose wizardly work we'd never have had this 3-D treat.

  I like the film itself for…

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  The White Tower 1950

  ★★★★ Rewatched 17 May 2017

  Old-fashioned in the best sense, this mountaineering adventure boasts a stellar cast--Glenn Ford, Alida Valli, Cedric Hardwicke, Claude Rains, Lloyd Bridges, and Oskar Homolka--and a simple premise: a young woman (Valli) returns to the Swiss Alps to conquer the eponymous mountain that claimed her father's life years before. But she has to persuade several other climbers to brave the perilous ascent with her. Each has his own reason for accepting, while the lone American member (Ford), at first tagging along…