Favorite films

Recent reviews

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  The Dark Side of the Moon 1990

  ½ Rewatched 22 Mar 2025

  This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

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  Them! 1954

  ★★★★★ Rewatched 13 Mar 2025

  THE GRANDMAMA. THE QUEEN BITCH. Template for a thousand inferior imitations, and possibly the first appearance of one of my favorite tropes, the ambiguously-named scientist/professor/journalist who turns out to be (gasp) a lady! And a tough as hell lady, too.

  I admit it helps that I first saw this as a kid (thanks for overseeing my cultural education, Dad) and thus experienced it much as anyone in the 50s would have, without decades of acclimation to better effects and more…

Popular reviews

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  Waxworks 1924

  ★★★½ Watched 02 Oct 2024

  A very early crack at my beloved horror anthology genre, though unfortunately hampered by lost footage. For my money the real fun is in the last segment, where as far as I can tell they filmed the scenery into which the actors would enter, and then projected that footage onto the scenery, so everything is hazy and surreal and the actors are haunted by echoes of their surroundings. Very, very cool, and also the shortest segment with the least narrative,…

• 

  Gymkata 1985

  ★★ Rewatched 10 Mar 2025

  The thing about Kurt Thomas is, I have no doubt that in real life he was strong enough to kick my head entirely off, but in this movie he makes Mark Hamill look like Arnold Schwarzenegger.

  The fight scenes have some of the loudest Foley work I've ever heard, possibly in an attempt to make Thomas seem more powerful; it doesn't help, but I find it oddly charming. Maybe it's how familiar so many of the stock punching sounds seem.…