Favorite films

Pinned reviews

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  Not Quite Dead Yet 2020

  ★★★½ Watched 17 Nov 2021

  A Japanese teen fronting a rock band reluctantly deals with her scientist father's apparent sudden demise, then his reappearance as a spirit in need of assistance.

  This burst of comic fantasy has a distinctly carnivalesque tone. That is, no one ultimately has to take anything really seriously, which can offer a kind of psychic holiday for viewers. Some examples here include:
  Death and alienation are casually sampled and overcome.
  The afterlife ferryman is pleasantly flexible and agreeable.
  Authorities figures are…

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  Lost in Paris 2016

  ★★★½ Watched 13 Dec 2022

  A woman travels to Paris to find her aging aunt, but gets sidetracked by bad luck and by escapades with a hobo.

  Featuring a tango that is a rare combination of funny, romantic and sexy, this joyous confection is a delightful throwback to silent-film-style storytelling, packed with laugh-out-loud physical gags by a troupe of skilled clowning performers.

  LOST IN PARIS immediately establishes a cartoonish exaggerated visual tone with gags like one about about wintry winds blowing characters sideways. It maintains…

Recent reviews

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  A Page of Madness 1926

  ★★★★ Watched 18 Aug 2024

  A man takes a job in an insane asylum to be closer to his wife who is imprisoned there.

  
  
  

  
  This is a marvel of silent film, telling its story affectingly without the use of text such as intertitle cards. This viewing was probably the closest I have had yet to experiencing 'pure cinema', as I have seen others describe.

  
  
  

  
  [Viewed as a 35mm restored film on loan from National Film Archive of Japan to GOMA CInematheque. Accompanied by live music performance from the band called

  hazards of swimming naked.]

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  The Brutalist 2024

  ★★★★ Watched 12 Mar 2025

  As a filmgoer I often can't fully surrender to the experience of a movie, in part because I am thinking like a reviewer. One exception is when I recognise that I am in the safe hands of a virtuoso director, deploying any and all of the tools of their craft to make me see and hear and feel whatever is needed from moment to moment.

  James Cameron is one such virtuoso director, and now THE BRUTALIST's Brady Corbet.

  Maybe the…

Popular reviews

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  The Substance 2024

  ★★★★ Added 1

  A sex-symbol turning 50 gets canned from her fitness-class broadcast in favour of younger talent, which pushes her into adopting a black-market cosmetic treatment of sorts.

  This was my first really satisfying dive into exploitation film extremity, as visceral and vulgar as a punch in the nards. THE SUBSTANCE is composed with unrestrained sprays of cinematic style and grotesque humour which raise it into a sort of satirical fairy-tale. The gasp-inducing episodes of horrific spectacle are definitely the main show, however.

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  The Crowd 1928

  ★★★½ Watched 29 Sep 2024

  A solidly entertaining and remarkably contemporary-feeling urban comedy-drama, balancing pathos, sentiment and humour. It features nuanced lead performances tuned to closeup framing, unlike the broad theatrical acting I was expecting from a silent film. It seems that classic Hollywood filmmaking formulas had quite early roots in the 1920s.

  I was less surprised to see some dynamic visuals on display - somewhat of a piece with the playful and inventive cinematography and editing in the contemporaraneous milestone film Man With a Movie Camera (1929).

  [ Viewed at GOMA Cinematheque with live musical accompaniment from Wurlitzer organist David Bailey. ]