Favorite films

Recent reviews

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  Killer Nun 1979

  ★★★★ Rewatched 25 Nov 2023

  I started watching this again with the commentary track but I really wasn’t enjoying it. Not terribly insightful and I disagree that it’s easier to get your head around the campiness of the performances if you imagine Divine as Sister Gertrude. As much as I love Divine, I find this take disrespectful to an amazing performance by Anita Ekberg. 
  I don’t read this tale of ignored suffering as camp at all. It’s more giallo dressed as a nun-sploitation with a…

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  The Case of the Bloody Iris 1972

  ★★★½ Watched 25 Nov 2023

  “I only said it so everyone would laugh.”

  An absolute textbook definition giallo, no? 
  I like the touch of the yellow gloves of our killer and yellow-gold trim around the elevator doors of the apartment where much of the action takes place. 
  I also love Edwige Fenech running around Genoa, Italy in her long, black cape. Style to spare, that one! 
  This is chock full of red-herrings, crazy lenses and angles and interesting characters, specifically the stamp collecting commissioner who…

Popular reviews

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  Thirteen Women 1932

  ★★★ Watched 01 Oct 2023 5

  Myrna Loy unconvincingly plays a woman of mixed race who’s spent years trying to “pass” as white but was outed by her sorority sisters. Years later she’s back for revenge.  
  It’s a pretty great idea and had it been fleshed out could have been a much more complex tale of white racial bonding, passing and…hypnosis. 
  Anyway, Myrna looks pretty badass and this has a few wicked kills, including a crazy trapeze fall, a cool car chase and a ‘splosion! 
  It’s a well paced hour and it’s just fun seeing Myrna Loy and Irene Dunne facing off.

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  The Great Waldo Pepper 1975

  ★★★★½ Watched 30 Mar 2023

  I’ve probably read William Goldman’s Adventures in the Screen Trade four time’s. To me, it’s the best book on not only writing for the screen but also writing for directors and actors. He talks about giving your stars reasons to do the film. Give them the scenes and dialogue they’re itching to do. Redford gets his early on recalling a momentous WW1 battle with which he was *ehem* involved and unexpectedly we later get the German version retold with equal…