Favorite films

Recent reviews

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  A Face in the Crowd 1957

  ★★★ Watched 02 Mar 2025

  Starts out as a strong criticism of fame, influencers, and consumerism, but unfortunately starts unraveling about halfway through, lingering way too long on several scenes that drag it down (was the baton-twirling competition really that necessary?) Griffith gives a fiery performance, but IMO needed to be reined in a little more as his monologues get more and more frenetic. Excellent showing by Patricia Neal, but she seemed ill-matched for Griffith's energy and I never felt the chemistry between them.

  Almost certainly an inspiration for Harlan Ellison's 1961 novel Spider Kiss or I'll eat my hat.

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  The Grapes of Wrath 1940

  ★★★★ Watched 01 Mar 2025

  Incredible to think that this type of domestic hardship was instantly recognizable to American audiences barely a hundred years ago. So much change in such a short time. The film left me reflecting on what the US might have looked like without the economic boost of WWII, and what things might look like in the next hundred years. Excellent adaptation of a grim story celebrating those tiny moments of human kindness that can keep one going through dark times.

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Popular reviews

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  Laura 1944

  ★★★★½ Watched 05 Oct 2023

  Another outstanding noir, this time from Otto Preminger. A detective investigating a woman's brutal murder finds himself gradually falling in love with her.

  This movie was damn near perfect, from the cast, to the atmosphere, to the sparkling dialogue. I particularly loved the snarky exchanges between Dana Andrews as the hard-boiled detective and Clifton Webb as Laura's wealthy, urbane lover (Webb, as the razor-tongued Waldo Lydecker, didn't merely steal every scene he was in, he tossed it across his shoulders…

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  Murder Town 2015

  ★★★½ Watched 10 Oct 2021

  In a close-knit Alpine village in Austria, a local official's daughter is found dead and hapless small-town cop Muck finds himself out of his depth trying to unravel a mystery that threatens to unravel his community instead.

  Satisfying small-town whodunnit from the director of Das Attentat - Sarajevo 1914, with a few nice turns to keep you guessing and plenty of misty Austrian scenery. The original title translates to "If you knew how beautiful it is here..", which is suitably evocative, like something you might write on a sinister postcard. (Seriously, who retitled this "Murder Town" for distribution?)