Favorite films

Recent reviews

• 

  This World Can't Tear Me Down 2023

  ★★★★ Watched 09 Jun 2023

  Zero is no more an authority on the future than he is on the present. In admitting some insecurities and uncertainties, there’s the idea that progress does not come about through complacency. And if that progress is going to happen — like convincing government officials that selling out constituents for some vague twelve-dimensional chess strategy is a betrayal — who gets put at the center of those stories becomes a key choice. By the end of “This World Can’t Tear…

• 

  Drops of God 2023

  ★★★★ Watched 01 Jun 2023

  There’s a fine line between building out a believable expertise and overindulging in jargon. “Drops of God” has its own knack for making the esoteric feel more accessible. For those who have a hard time imagining how a red wine can give off hints of leather (much like an appreciation of investor days didn’t rely on intimate understanding of stock valuation), you can see the looks on Geffrier and Yamashita’s faces as the characters give themselves over to describing the…

Popular reviews

• 

  Chloe 2022

  ★★★★ Watched 23 Jun 2022

  “Person ingratiates themselves in a group by pretending to be someone else” has a long tradition in fiction, but “Chloe” writer/director Alice Seabright understands that the most important element in a story like this is clarity. There’s a simplicity and efficiency in the way she sets all the disparate pieces in motion here. Becky’s slow construction of Sasha is as diligent and meticulous as the show itself, done through small-scale manipulations of front-desk workers and assistants. Though the gap between…

• 

  The Lying Life of Adults 2023

  ★★★★ Watched 04 Jan 2023

  “The Lying Life of Adults” isn’t merely outlining a list of grievances or solving a mystery. Like “My Brilliant Friend,” this is another Ferrante adaptation that understands the immense (and possibly outsized) weight that a family heirloom can have. Like “The Lost Daughter,” this shows how a purely academic approach to mending a fraught personal relationship can doom it for good. The show is able to extract the most compelling parts of those ideas without being consumed by them.

  All…