Favorite films

Recent activity

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Recent reviews

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  The Green Ray 1986

  ★★★½ Watched by David Choate 28 Aug 2020

  Good movie! Protagonist is exactly like a girl I used to see, which made it a bit terrifying.

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  Bad Education 2019

  ★★★ Watched by David Choate 25 Aug 2020

  One the one hand, this employs a very effective trick, subsuming the viewers in Tassone’s perspective while never once showing his direct involvement in the embezzlement scheme. Very canny way to demonstrate the sheer amount of compartmentalization this man has to do to live with himself.

  On the other hand- pretty sure I’m going to forget about this one in tops a week, it’s prosaic as hell. One of those films where you spend a little too much time noticing mild errors in the characters’ accents.

Popular reviews

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  Moonlight 2016

  ★★½ Watched by David Choate 24 Nov 2016

  49/100 (C+)
  Intones in Batman growl: "The film we NEED, but not the film we DESERVE." Not really bad, or overtly despicable, but a quiet story relayed with too much timidity. Characters never betray initial impressions- Chiron is one-note repressed (to the point of autism spectrum), and he's surrounded by such types as The Drug Dealer with a Heart of Gold, the Pained Junkie Mother, and the Experienced Lover. Jenkins usually directs in long takes, occasionally throwing in some misguided…

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  The Emperor Jones 1933

  ★★★ Watched by David Choate 16 Apr 2017 4

  60/100
  Excerpted from my second post on the history of race films. Quick way to say all is that Robeson is allowed to be magnificently terrifying here in a way that one never sees in the 30s; everything good about him papers over the more problematic elements of O'Neill's play, and the inevitable issues of adaptation. Dudley Murphey's barreling direction and the 72-minute runtime ensure the thing moves, at least. But read on:

  In 1933, [Paul] Robeson headlined his first…