Favorite films

Pinned reviews

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  Snow White 2025

  ★★½ Watched 21 Mar 2025

  A safety tip: if your evil stepmother has an Israeli accent, and a strange witch who also has an Israeli accent offers you something to eat, refrain from doing so. 

  Not the Crime Against Humanity that the internet would have me believe*, but not particularly good either. I suppose there is a market for this sort of thing, but I also suppose that there are some people who wish that Bruce Lee would have simply had a heart-to-heart conversation and used reason with the villain in Enter the Dragon and would like to remake that too.

  *I still enjoy the snarky takedowns of it, however.

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  Winter Kills 1979

  ★★★ Watched 20 Mar 2025

  This fictional reimagining of the Kennedy assassination and it's aftermath is a very frustrating film. It's too absurd to be taken seriously, yet too serious to be a parody. After watching the accompanying documentary on the DVD entitled Who Killed Winter Kills it's clear that calling the production "troubled" is a tremendous understatement. One of the producers was killed by a creditor with a shotgun. Production was shut down multiple times, once for two years. It was the writer/director's first film (and…

Recent reviews

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  Independence 1976

  ★★★★ Watched 20 Mar 2025

  The sort of thing that gets shown on a loop at National Park Service visitor centers, but this one was made with a legendary director and a stacked cast.  One of the best of its breed. 

  Watch here, if you like. I recommend you do. Of course as a child of the Bicentennial my tolerance for this sort of thing is probably higher than most.

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  Opus 2025

  ★★★½ Watched 19 Mar 2025

  Yeah; I've seen it before, and I've seen it better, but I still like seeing it.

Popular reviews

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  West Side Story 2021

  ★★★½ Watched 08 Jan 2022 9

  In June of 2021 I wrote “I’m almost certain to wish Scorsese did this instead of Spielberg. Can you imagine?”* When I saw the trailer it looked as though it was going to be an earnest respectful remake, but very similar to the original. I wondered why Spielberg would do such a thing, and now that I’ve seen it I’m still wondering. Sure; he is such a great craftsman he made a good movie out of it. I’m sure he could…

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  The Jewel Thief 2023

  ★★★½ Watched 28 Jul 2023

  I learned that if you like to commit burglary, Canada is an excellent place to practice your craft.