Recent reviews

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  Mulholland Drive 2001

  ★★★½ Watched 27 Feb 2025

  Mulholland Dr. is one of those films where I have to separate my evaluation of this film's competence/skillfulness, and how much I actually like it. In the former case, Mulholland Dr. excels. Much of it is suspenseful and uneasy, to a large extent because of the mysterious plot, the claustrophobic camerawork, and the evocative sound design. But just as important are the characters, which are just off in one unsettling way or other (some are ineffectual, some are naive, some…

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  I'm Still Here 2024

  ★★½ Watched 08 Feb 2025

  A film that prioritizes realism over pacing of any kind. The only factual inclusion/omission that seems to have any artistic intent is the omission of any scene of grief for the losses the characters face, which does create a unique emotional impact that you wouldn't get just from reading a Wikipedia page about the Paivas. Other than that, I see little reason to watch this film rather than read the Wikipedia articles.

  Here you go:
  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubens_Paiva
  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eunice_Paiva

Popular reviews

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  About a Boy 2002

  ★★★½ Watched 28 Jul 2024

  A fun little movie about a well-defined character: the shallow, isolated, but seemingly cool early 2000s English urbanite. Obviously the character is going to learn to care about others over the course of the film, but it does a good job extracting drama from the process as the characters he's left to interact with are a misguided depressive mother and, consequently, her somewhat misguided son.

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  Mirror 1975

  ★ Watched 28 Jul 2023

  Film critics seem completely unaware of the idiom "style over substance."
  This film is a directionless mishmash of various memories in Tarkovsky's life. In fact, many scenes are included seemingly because they represent memories dear to Tarkovsky, such as shots of the Spanish Civil War and the Cultural Revolution. We're certainly at the pinnacle of megalomania when scenes are included solely because they also feature in the thoughts of the auteur.

  Besides this, Mirror fails to achieve any emotion because…

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