Favorite films

Recent reviews

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  Kaleidoscope 2023

  ★★ Watched 29 Jan 2023

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

  A well executed heist of our attention, but far too reliant on a gimmick to deliver depth for any of the characters and stories, and way too little love for the characters we spend time with. The conclusion offers far too much deference to corrupt billionaires and their defenders

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  Glass Onion 2022

  ★★★½ Watched 01 Jan 2023

  I love how much Rian Johnson loves to put a hard twist on Agatha Christie while clearly understanding the sheer pleasure of these mysteries, the element that brings us back to the stories again and again even when we know whodunnit: the characters, especially, the detective. Benoit Blanc is a fabulous creation and I am delighted to spend time with him again.

Popular reviews

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  Denial 2016

  ★★★½ Watched 05 Oct 2016

  Denial opens with an infuriating exchange between Deborah Lipstadt, an academic who is on a speaking tour to support her book, Denying the Holocaust, and one of the most prominent Holocaust deniers, David Irving. Irving crashes Lipstadt’s event and we are outraged along with Lipstadt by both Irving’s grandstanding and his horrific addiction to falsehood. Irving is not content with stunt ambushes in his attempt to force Lipstadt into a debate. His last ditch effort to accomplish that is to…

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  Whiplash 2014

  ★★★★½ Watched 25 Oct 2014 1

  This is an outstanding examination of the concept of greatness and how someone is meant to achieve it. J.K. Simmons is intensely brilliant as the jazz conductor and impresario, bent on forging a particular kind of greatness out of his players. His performance has been compared to R. Lee Ermey's equally ferocious turn as a drill sergeant in Full Metal Jacket and rightly so. By end of this film, Simmons has browbeaten, assaulted, and downright abused Miles Teller's young drummer…