Favorite films

Recent reviews

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  Boys Go to Jupiter 2024

  ★★½ Watched 28 Feb 2025

  Certainly glad I saw this as part of an event (Glasgow Film Festival Youth Takeover at my church and home of @APFilmClub) because it made a bit more sense with a crowd of people younger than me. Although there was some through-line, the connection wasn't strong enough to latch onto. Instead, it felt like a highly-skilled teenager's movie, jumping from one ridiculous set piece to the next, shoehorning in too many short songs and trying to be funny as much…

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  Hill 2025

  ★★★ Watched 27 Feb 2025

  Solid documentary, well crafted with plenty of nostalgic names, cars and colours for someone who started watching F1 in the 1990s, and some special footage that I'm surprised existed (Graham Hill helping to collect pieces of debris after Jim Clark's fatal crash, Frank Williams discussing with Alain Prost whether he would make Damon Hill or Mika Häkkinen his teammate for next season).
  The whole thing made me like Damon Hill more, both as a racer and a man, probably helped…

Popular reviews

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  West Beirut 1998

  ★★ Watched 07 Jan 2021

  I feel really bad to diss West Beirut, because it's clearly a movie that was made with a lot of heart, and that strikes a chord with plenty of people.
  It was surprisingly watchable even though there were no likeable characters and no particularly enthralling storylines. I know the essence of this movie was to display the way in which the Lebanese civil war changed from a great chance to miss school into a dreadful, daily-life-affecting event for these teenagers,…

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  The Brutalist 2024

  ★★★½ Watched 15 Feb 2025 1

  Impeccably made. The wide landscapes, the sunlit roads, the perfectly formed concrete, the carpentry close-ups and the assembled faces all drew me in and held me there, helped by the fact that this was my first ever 70mm experience. I was never bored, the editing kept things ticking in that most victorious of subtle ways and the performances were always interesting enough to be watchable. The score was never overbearing and punctuated some moments perfectly and the editing.
  But even…