Favorite films

Recent reviews

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  Empire of the Sun 1987

  ★★★ Watched 26 Mar 2025

  This movie looks like a million dollars. It’s a huge production, very obviously, and Christian bale is remarkably effective at just 13 years old. That being said, the script just doesn’t really hold together for me. It feels way too long, and only really reaches the epic feeling it’s striving for a handful of times (the march to nantao. Through the end being one of them). There’s some really good work here, but it’s so far from Stoppard or spielbergs best.

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  Star Trek: Insurrection 1998

  ★★★ Watched 20 Mar 2025

  It’s a lot less boring than i remember when i was 12 but it’s still not…. Great. It looks really good but the script is just sort of… nothing. Feels like a blown up episode pitch. Oh well

Popular reviews

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  Lust, Caution 2007

  ★★★★½ Watched 25 Jun 2024

  Screened on 35mm with a talk with Ang Lee! 
  Really complex, emotionally taxing story telling- the mark of mature filmmaking. Central performances by Tang Wei and Tony Leung Chiu-Wai are extraordinarily compelling- they’re both able to sell the deep and twisted connection they share. Really lavish filmmaking too! Lee mentioned he alllowed the DP infinite time between takes to adjust things- and it really shows. Great film, one I plan to revisit.

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  Emilia Pérez 2024

  Watched 15 Nov 2024

  What an extremely baffling movie. There’s good stuff here… there’s also a lot of absolute fucking nonsense?
  I liked some of the music but it more felt like the songs were dropped in than actually part of the fabric of the storytelling. Not really sure what we were going for here.