Favorite films

Pinned reviews

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  The Northman 2022

  ★★★ Watched 06 May 2022 6

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

  Without wanting to keep him in a box he has no obligation to occupy, Eggers’ weakest period detail to date. Can probably (EDIT: can definitely) assign some of that to studio meddling since the cut so clearly prefers action to place and tone, desperate to find someone doing or saying something, but he also seems to have thrived on the limitations of his first two features, both in budget and premise. Cannot abide assertions that this is “beautifully” shot, strictly at its…

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  Django Unchained 2012

  ★★★★★ Rewatched 31 Jan 2021 1

  It’d be easy to say I know what y’all are talking about when you call this technically mediocre and politically disgusting and leave it at that.

  Fact is, I don’t. The transmutability of story, both forward in the Brunhilde tale’s resonance in a new time and place and backward through the revisionism that positions Django to receive it, not simply as romantic fairytale but as necessary liberation. “I know how he feel.” And not as the self-conscious leader of a…

Recent reviews

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  Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse 2023

  ★★★½ Watched 01 Jun 2023

  Prologue just about knocked me flat and wrung me out, thought I might be lined up for something that would somehow top the first on sheer formal bravado. Too bad it turns out it’s the start of an over-plotted half-movie* that rarely thereafter reaches such expressive, if still truly esteemable, heights.

  Leave me alone with all these goddamn tie-ins!

  
  *At least it’s better than Dune

  [Here we are in June and this is the first 2023 release I’ve seen lmao]

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  Dogfight 1991

  ★★★★ Watched 30 Mar 2023

  Meant more as a statement on how much I miss Phoenix, but it's absolutely incredible to see how thoroughly DiCaprio took Nicholson’s ticks straight into the huge hole left by Phoenix’ death.

Popular reviews

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  Three Little Wolves 1936

  ★★★ Rewatched 06 May 2019 1

  I liked the part where the pigs thought they were being propositioned for a threesome.

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  Prey 2022

  ★★★ Watched 05 Aug 2022 5

  A fine time for what it is, even if what it is is also a resolutely theme-forward quest toward generic self-actualization. The vistas are appreciated but otherwise the wild setting rarely registers as much more than a series of enclosed, CG-packed arenas, making for a sense of schematic inevitability that tends to undermine any visceral desperation. Suitably gnarly where it counts but missing a real edge.

  Would’ve liked to have watched the full Comanche dub but subtitles have become a bit of a challenge with the babe.