Recent reviews

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  Anora 2024

  ★★★ Watched 21 Jan 2025

  Long, typical genre build-up to one hell of a tender surprise final act. Baker cites Jess Franco and Soledad Miranda as inspiration for the film. A bit cutesy at times, but overall a small marvel.

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  It's Not Me 2024

  ★★★★ Watched 11 Jan 2025

  Wonderful collagic, essayistic self-portrait. Scraps of film and sound from a wide array of sources including Jonas Mekas and an answering machine message from JLG. It features a very interesting interrogation of Polanski too. Like a lot of Carax’s stuff, it’s feels both touching and exploitative at the same time.

Popular reviews

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  Cold Water 1994

  ★★★★★ Watched 13 Sep 2022

  Striking realist depiction of social repression and teen angst, punctuated by glorious bursts of wordless adolescent revolt via Roxy Music, youthful romantic infatuation, and hashish. A realist Zero de Conduit set to CCR and Nico. Bachanalia mixed with painfully drab, claustrophobic scenes of rural dereliction. Bourgeois trappings vs spirit of bohemian freedom. Runaways from broken families and Scientology and bad ideas. But is it the spirit of liberation that catalyzes their journey or is it mental illness? It’s romance, but…

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  Leave Her to Heaven 1945

  ★★★ Watched 26 Aug 2024

  So much cruelty and hubris and obsessive, controlling energy on Gene Tierney’s breathtaking monster of a woman. Sadism and selfishness abound. Sets and cinematography akin to Sirk. Full bore, murderous melodrama.

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