Favorite films

Pinned reviews

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  The Straight Story 1999

  ★★★★½ Rewatched 24 Apr 2021

  This is my (quick, shoddy) translation of Boris Lokshin's essay "Make America Straight Again!" from the Russian magazine "Iskusstvo Kino", 2017.

  old.kinoart.ru/archive/2017/7-8/make-america-straight-again-prostaya-istoriya-vo-vremena-donalda-trampa

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  MAKE AMERICA STRAIGHT AGAIN! "THE STRAIGHT STORY" IN THE TRUMP ERA
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  "It is a peculiarity of our times—perhaps it’s one of the few specifically modern characteristics—that we don’t take our stories straight anymore."
  -Pauline Kael, "Bonnie and Clyde", New Yorker, 1967
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  "Yes, because I love that film, and I say now that The Straight Story…

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  An Elephant Sitting Still 2018

  ★★ Watched 11 Aug 2019 2

  I'm sad to be so disappointed by this movie, given its pedigree, reception, and ultimate legacy as a last word.

  One of two things should have happened. The first option is that Hu Bo should have acquiesced to his producers' suggestions to cut the movie down to two hours. It would have been a fine first feature, not particularly brilliant but technically competent and promising of a bright career. He chose to kill himself rather than take this path.

  The…

Recent reviews

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  Black Bag 2025

  ★★★★½ Watched 20 Mar 2025

  Great score, great fun, so hot, new rug, no notes

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  Mickey 17 2025

  ★★★ Watched 18 Mar 2025

  EDIT deciding in hindsight that it’s more fun than I initially reacted with, and the dumb/amusing ratio isn’t all that bad. Still probably wouldn’t go for a second watch. 
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  The more it committed to the bit, the dumber and more intolerable it became. It’s not even “political satire” or “commentary” as some would claim, it just indulges self-congratulatory back-patting for giving the right answer to an unnuanced black-and-white question, like winning an argument against your imaginary enemy in the shower. 

  At least it’s got some fun schlock and Pattinson is pretty to look at.

Popular reviews

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  Everything Everywhere All at Once 2022

  ★★ Watched 08 Apr 2022

  For the middle third or so, Everything Everywhere manages to hit its stride in an absurd, precipitous balance between too clever and too didactic. For this section, we get dadaist boulders in conversation, puns on obscure cosmic topologies, self-aware genre satire, and perhaps an answer to the question "what if, back in the day, Sammo Hung had had a Marvel-level budget?"

  But outside of this, and especially in the movie's final act, this is a facile, bloated children's movie dressed…

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  Arrhythmia 2017

  ★★★★ Watched 18 Apr 2020 1

  Anyone arguing that this is “romanticizing abuse”  or “normalizing toxic masculinity” or is whatever has totally missed the point and is basically a child who expects art to do nothing but promote your own narrow minded orthodox-neolib doctrine. 

  It’s the reality of existing within faceless, inhumane structures and how those structures are totally incompatible with anything resembling mental stability, stupid. So angry at some of the reviewers on here.