Favorite films

Pinned reviews

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  Winter Boy 2022

  ★★★★★ Watched 26 Sep 2023

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

  A brilliantly acted (especially by the lead, Paul Kircher, the new 'It' boy of French acting) and deeply moving French film from writer/director Christophe Honoré. Kircher won the San Sebastian Film Festival Leading Actor award for his performance here.
  Winter Boy so impressed me I have watched it three times in the 72 hours allowed by Amazon Prime after paying for the rental.
  So far, the film has collected a further seven nominations across multiple European film festivals.
  Kircher plays…

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  Sharksploitation 2023

  ★★★★ Watched 16 Sep 2023

  Excellent documentary from writer/director Stephen Scarlata which looks into the history of shark films, especially the sillier side of sharksploitation films that emerged in the wake of Jaws.
  The film does look at the Sharknado series and all the terrible shark films with woeful effects (Cruel Jaws, Shark Attack 3: Megalodon, Sand Sharks, Avalanche Sharks, 3 Headed Shark Attack, Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus and many, many more of which there are a generous selection of clips) but then surprisingly…

Recent reviews

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  Blind Waters 2023

  ★★ Watched 24 Sep 2023

  This was a little better than it had a right to be.
  The acting was halfway decent but the plot was incredibly repetitive...the set up happens then we just wait for the events to catch up with the characters.
  The two main characters are likeable enough, a couple on vacation where he is planning to propose...but he decides to hand her the ring during a dive in the ocean! You can pretty much join the dots from there
  Once more,…

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  Meg 2: The Trench 2023

  ★★ Watched 12 Sep 2023

  I quite enjoyed The Meg. Yes, it had some silliness to it but enough exciting sequences involving the huge, prehistoric predators and just the right amount of horror and humour.
  This second instalment has none of that and is simply an excuse to show a non-stop series of deaths and violence, both shark and mega octopus related as well as bad guys with machine guns scenes.
  The whole thing was very muddled and extremely badly edited.
  An awful follow-up to a semi-decent original.

Popular reviews

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  A Hidden Life 2019

  ★★★★★ Watched 26 Dec 2019 6

  As others are stating, this has Malick's most cohesive narrative since Badlands and even parts of The Thin Red Line.
  However, it still exhibits at least some of the dream-like voice-over, jump cuts, gorgeous cinematography and music cues of much of his post The New World work.
  The plot itself is a real heartbreaker, intense, anger-inducing and beautifully acted by a superb and mostly unknown cast.
  Call me a convert all over again because this is pure gold cinema at its finest and most lyrical.

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  The Batman 2022

  ★★★★★ Watched 10 Mar 2022

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

  Believe the hype, this is the hero Batman for our times, just as Todd Phillips' Joker was the villain.
  Matt Reeves' Batman is a complex, intellectual, emotional, dark and naturally solitary character who even pushes Alfred to the sidelines for much of the run-time, instead working closely only with (a terrific) Jeffrey Wright as Lieutenant Gordon and Zoe Kravitz's deeply hurt Selena Kyle/Catwoman.
  The villains in this take are feeding off Gotham and much of its corrupt leadership. Colin Farrell's…