Favorite films

Recent reviews

• 

  Gaslight 1944

  ★½ Watched 24 Mar 2025

  This movie drove me crazy.
  Paula goes from being independent and level-headed to ludicrously credulous, helpless, and dithering after cartoonish villain does some simple sleight of hand. She's portrayed as the kind of person who would be wide-eyed and stunned into silence if a magician pulled a coin from her ear at a kid's birthday party, then spends the rest of the day tugging at her ears to see if there are more in there. It is creepy to consider…

• 

  Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte 1964

  ★★★½ Watched 21 Mar 2025

  Probably not best to watch this hot on the heels of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? because it's largely just a smudgy carbon copy and feels like little more than a templated cash grab utilizing the same basic mechanics and based on an unpublished story by the same writer titled What Ever Happened to Cousin Charlotte? with essentially the same twist. It has its charms--quotable dialogue, striking cinematography, strong performances (discounting Moorehead's scenery chewing)--but on the whole it feels…

Popular reviews

• 

  Midnight Run 1988

  ½ Watched 06 Oct 2023

  Planes, Trains and Automobiles but guns and much dumber. I've been on 17-hour bus rides that felt shorter than this--and I turned it off after only 80 minutes of its 126 minute runtime. I might have stuck it out if not for the insipid and overbearing soundtrack by Danny Elfman. Like the rest of the movie, the score can't seem to find the right tone. The leads lack chemistry and stumble over their lines, which is pretty wild for a…

• 

  Hellzapoppin' 1941

  ★★★★★ Watched 01 Nov 2022

  Utterly weird and delightful. Released in 1941, contains a sight gag that spoils Citizen Kane, which also came out that year. Cheeky! And topical--yet the joke still lands 80 years later. The first ten minutes are some of the most frenetic, intense, and funny filmmaking I've ever seen, and though it flags a little towards the end and not every musical number sustains the manic energy that propels most of the movie, I laughed a lot and the Lindy Hop…