Ryan McSwain

Ryan McSwain Pro

Favorite films

  • Blade Runner
  • Streets of Fire
  • Brazil
  • Jacob's Ladder

Recent activity

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  • Balloonfest

    ★★★★★

  • Totally Killer

    ★★★★

  • Meshes of the Afternoon

    ★★★★★

  • The Passing

    ★★★★

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  • Rubber Band Pistol

    Rubber Band Pistol

    ★★★★½

    If you're lucky, there's this magical time in your life, and you don't recognize when you're in it. Your friends are always around and that feels normal. Even if there's somewhere else you need to be, it won't be the end of the world if you don't show up.

    Crashing on couches. Inside jokes. Making something silly, like a rubber band gun, the most important thing in the world.

    That's how this movie feels, like I'm twenty years old again,…

  • Three Giant Men

    Three Giant Men

    ★★★★

    Had no idea how much I'd enjoy watching Spider-Man murder people. His favorite place to murder people is in the shower, but he'll murder people on the beach or in a cave. The location is secondary to the actual murdering, you understand. He gets creative with it too, like a giallo villain. You can tell he's really passionate about his murdering.

    Jane, you can leave me on it, because I love this crazy thing. The clothes and sets and nightclubs…

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  • Balloonfest

    Balloonfest

    ★★★★★

    I'm impressed by how well the footage and editing give this colorful monstrosity a sinister, even apocalyptic tone. The filmmaker lets the surreal images and story speak for themselves. It's enough to send you on an online deep dive.

    Succinct and thought-provoking with exceptional use of found footage, this short film just hits the spot. If you wanted to teach a class on limited but strategic intrusion of intertitles, show this.

  • Totally Killer

    Totally Killer

    ★★★★

    Retro Hooptober Origins: The New Blood

    It "totally" rocks!

    One last addition to my Hooptober list that I forgot to review last night.

    Time travel and its implications make it a perfect carnival ride for horror. Even with this tongue-in-cheek approach, it's scary and surreal. The basic fears of "What if no one believes me?" and "What if it all goes wrong?" collide with "What if I erase myself from existence?"

    They didn't have to make the cast this good.…

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  • Six-String Samurai

    Six-String Samurai

    ★★★★

    “I don’t do polka, baby.”

    My last college roommate was pretty cool. He introduced me to Ingmar Bergman, and I shared the glory that is The Adventures of Pete & Pete. I’d argue that’s a petty fair trade. He also loved this crazy post-apocalyptic action musical comedy, and we had a great time once we finally found a copy.

    Six-String Samurai should’ve been the beginning of something great for the director Lance Mungia and its star Jeffrey Falcon. It created a…

  • Dawn of the Dead

    Dawn of the Dead

    ★★★★★

    Hoop-tober is Grinch Night (Hoop-tober 4.0).

    I watched a mall die; not all at once, but over the course of decades. When I was young, it had everything: department stores, a pet store, a food court, an arcade, even a comic book shop. After the newer mall opened, everything left, until it had only a discount arcade (“Every game’s a nickel!”), and they really only opened the front doors so senior citizens could walk there. I saw my favorite performance…