Favorite films

Recent reviews

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  Deadpool & Wolverine 2024

  ★ Watched 22 Feb 2025 1

  The most homophobic movie I've ever seen, and I'm not even joking. Ironic affection between men is one of only two jokes it has. The other is obnoxiously playing Madonna and the like over scenes of violence (which I can't even describe as slapstick, because good slapstick is funny), or a slow-mo ugly dog. See, it's funny because there's a tonal mismatch! It Chapter Two (2019) does the same thing and it's equally miserable there.

  Deadpool and Wolverine huffs its…

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  The Iron Claw 2023

  ★★★★ Watched 07 Mar 2025

  Made me cry on a plane (mea culpa maxima).

  Done with so much sincerity and heart that it didn't come across as melodramatic for a moment, even though it really, really should. If Zac Efron's casting in Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile (still on my list) was shocking, in The Iron Claw he lives completely in the role of Kevin Von Erich.

  Holt McCallany's Fritz (Jack) Von Erich is the family curse. His performance is subdued but show-stealing. The…

Popular reviews

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  Late Night with the Devil 2023

  ★★★ Watched 27 May 2024 6

  I have a lot of love for any movie that plays like one of those Twilight Zone episodes that sort of has a lesson to it, but that lesson is mostly "would that be fucked up or what". Late Night with the Devil is just that type of movie.

  If I were doing this, I would ditch the opening TV-broadcast-within-a-broadcast format, and break from the found footage gimmick when the show goes to commercial. As it is, the ending feels…

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  Dragon Inn 1967

  ★★★★ Watched 03 Jan 2025

  Few films are able to get as much mileage, and breathe as much life, into their settings as Dragon Inn does with the inn and its bleak surroundings. The music (Zhou Lan-Ping) and sun-drenched cinematography (Hua Hui-Ying) really bring it to life. It’s hardly the only moment, but the scene at sunrise at the film’s midpoint feels like a reverie.

  While the film has some legendary fights and absurd feats (while still relatively grounded for a wuxia), it really breathes…

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