Favorite films

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Recent reviews

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  The Batman 2022

  ★★★★ Watched by HBSpade 16 May 2022 8

  *mild spoilers ahead, nothing too relevant*

  “this is what a collective, anonymous body of majority wants to see on television”

  - Werner Herzog, about Wrestlemania, in some interview.

  We have, I think, reached a point where languorously lamenting the deleterious effect that the near-ubiquity of sequels, franchises, and above all, superhero movies has on pushing cinema firmly towards the “advertising” end of the art-product spectrum is not only falling on resistantly deaf ears, but is more or less perceived as…

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  Fear X 2003

  ★★★★ Watched by HBSpade 14 Apr 2022 11

  Time seems to stretch and space seems to contract as you walk through any of the eight gigantic steel toruses that make up Richard Serra's astonishing "The Matter of Time" at the Guggenheim Bilbao. The sheer size of each juxtaposed with the narrow walkways make it almost impossible to truly appreciate the dimensions that you traverse. Disembodied voices and fragmented footsteps of fellow patrons serve to disorientate both spatially and temporally. You can never make out the end of the…

Popular reviews

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  Gintama: The Final 2021

  ★★★★★ Watched by HBSpade 29 Aug 2021 4

  Whoda thunk it. That a series which started as a gag manga based on spoofs and poop jokes, introduced random characters and contrived situations over dozens of episodes purely for the sake of an elaborate pun at the end, that based entire backstories solely to whip out an esoteric reference, would somehow against all odds tie every character and situation together in an actual, affecting narrative in an honest-to-god professional feature film - and still have a poop joke front and center (great to hear DOES again, one last time).

  
  But I guess that's what the yorozuya have always been about.

  Abayo, you useless good-for-nothings.

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  Chungking Express 1994

  ★★★★★ Rewatched by HBSpade 31 Dec 2021 16

  When did everything start having an expiration date?

  Cop 663 is 27 years old in this film released in 1994. I was born in 1994, less than a month before its release. Soon it will be 2022. That "Midnight Express" in Lan Kwai Fong has been turned into a 7-11. I'm 27 now.

  
  Casettes, videotapes, crt screens, film cameras, cd players, walkmans, payphones, stereo headphones - all the things that populate the extremities of the characters in Chung King Express…