Favorite films

Pinned reviews

• 

  Flow 2024

  Watched 11 Jan 2025

  Purrfect. Lovingly designed and beautifully animated. The art style reminds me a lot of Firewatch (video game, not a movie – and if you haven't played it, I can't recommend it enough). It might not have any dialogue, but those little "meows" will absolutely tug at your heartstrings. My neighbor's cat couldn't come with me to the theater to see it, but maybe he can check it out once it gets to home video.

• 

  The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring 2001

  Rewatched 15 Jun 2024

  "I made a promise, Mr. Frodo. A promise! 'Don't you leave him Samwise Gamgee.' And I don't mean to. I don't mean to."

  I was a little too young to see Fellowship and The Two Towers in theaters back when they were originally released. Luckily I did get to see The Return of the King in '03 during its original run, but I've been waiting for an opportunity to see these films projected on the silver screen for well over…

Recent reviews

• 

  The Brutalist 2024

  Watched 22 Feb 2025

  Bring back intermissions!

• 

  Showgirls 1995

  Rewatched 23 Feb 2025

  Trashy and over-the-top, Showgirls is satirical fun from start to finish.

Popular reviews

• 

  Porco Rosso 1992

  Watched 21 Sep 2019

  "I'd rather be a pig than a fascist."

  For a movie about a flying pig, Porco Rosso is surprisingly one of Hayao Miyazaki's more grounded adventures. The whole movie is heartwarming and a ton of fun, but there are two sequences in particular (a sepia-tinted flashback of love and a somber bedtime story) that I found jaw-dropping in their transcendence. Only Miyazaki could make you care that much about a swine ace pilot.

  Watched with the 2004 English dub.

• 

  Detroit 2017

  Watched 20 Dec 2017

  This film revels far too much in the violence of the Algiers Motel incident and somehow manages to make the entire terrible affair look like the fault of a few trigger-happy psychopaths instead of an entire culture of institutionalized racism. I think that this film could have possibly worked if it had been a courtroom drama, but instead it feels like little more than sophisticated torture porn. If I’m being honest, I’m not sure a white director really earned the right to tell this tragic story, even one with as much clout as Kathryn Bigelow.