Favorite films

Recent reviews

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  Reptile 2023

  ★★★★½ Watched 30 Sep 2023

  A slowburn crime thriller with movie stars made for adults. They do still make them, they just turn up on Netflix instead.

  This kind of well-shot procedural mystery is just catnip for me. Literally minute two I knew I was going to love this. Wonderful ominous slow burn vibe with a great mystery and fascinating characters holding onto a lot of secrets. Reminded me a lot of Prisoners. Shot and edited superbly. The directorial debut of Grant Singer, who previously…

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  Entrance 2012

  Watched 29 Sep 2023 2

  Low budget slow burner revolving around a woman living in Los Angeles who believes she senses an eerie presence in her life. Is that car following her, or is she just imagining it? Were those sounds anything to be concerned about, or just regular apartment noises? Shot digitally gives it an extra tactility and more verisimilitude, and the central apartment feels ramshackle and real, the kind of place a twentysomething woman trying to survive in LA would actually own. Considering…

Popular reviews

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  The Piano Teacher 2001

  ★★★★½ Watched 27 Apr 2015 19

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

  The manifestation of sexual repression up close. Real close. This is probably my favourite Haneke film as of right now. Just a scary, brutal, unflinching look inside the mind when it's hunting for pleasure above all else.

  Piano teacher Erika, in her forties, still lives with her overbearing mother who we see tear up any of Erika's clothes that she considers too revealing or "gaudy" as she puts it. Erika is constantly focused on her teaching, pushing her students to…

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  Melancholia 2011

  ★★★★ Watched 20 Apr 2015 15

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

  Von Trier apparently got the idea for this film while battling depression and he definitely nails that feeling with the character of Justine. During the first half of the film, the wedding, her own wedding, the happiest day of their lives for most people, she forces out toothy grins and fakes happiness ("I smile, and I smile, and I smile") but in the end can't fake it any longer. She leaves her wedding to put her nephew to bed, to…