Favorite films

Pinned reviews

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  Cromwell 1970

  ★★★ Watched 11 Oct 2020

  There's something immediately perverse about casting the Irish Richard Harris as Oliver Cromwell, who infamously described a massacre during his conquest of Ireland as "the righteous judgement of God on these barbarous wretches." Why put an IRA supporter in the role of an English dictator? Harris isn't hiding his accent here, either, which casts absurdity upon Cromwell's not-infrequent rages against Catholicism.

  Yet the casting made much more sense to me after Cromwell got past the opening. Who better than an…

Recent reviews

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  Brain Damage 1988

  ★★★½ Watched 30 May 2023

  An anti-drug PSA fused with a grotesque horror comedy sensibility, something like if Evil Dead 2 was a parable trying to rap with you about stranger danger. The perils and pleasures of hard drugs are embodied here allegorically in a brain-eating slug named Elmer, who offers his hosts mind-blowing highs if they're willing to look past him sucking some people's brains out. Elmer completely fucking rules, a practical construction that looks simultaneously evocative and dirt cheap, with stupid li'l cartoon…

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  The Last Man on Earth 1964

  ★★ Watched 29 May 2023

  A lifeless adaptation of Richard Matheson's novel "I Am Legend," which had Matheson himself on the screenplay, but he disassociated himself from the final product under the pseudonym Logan Swanson because he was disappointed by it. Vincent Price does his best and really sells a man in the depths of post-apocalyptic depression, all the way through to the uncaring slouch in his gait. The direction just doesn't have any magic to it, and The Last Man on Earth needed some…

Popular reviews

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  Whiplash 2014

  ★★★★★ Watched 16 Aug 2022

  Not about music, not even about greatness, but a great film. J.K. Simmons is an electric thrill to watch as an abusive music teacher who plays his student's emotions with a venom so studied and deliberate that cruelty is his dogma. Between costume, writing, and performance, you cannot find a better representation of the sadism that masquerades as excellence. The costume tickles me in particular, there's shades of Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos in the character's look, but Simmons is…

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  Uncut Gems 2019

  ★★★★ Watched 18 Dec 2020

  What a soundscape. Daniel Lopatin's score is wondrous. It's mystical while also crassly new agey with synths and smooth jazz, and it floats at a serene height above the plot's sordid goings-on. The tumult of the dialogue track is mixed perfectly. It's a cacophony where you can still follow every angry yelling thread as they all endlessly interlace.

  Adam Sandler delivers with a gusto. He completely nails it as a gambling addict whose veneer of normalcy is falling away behind…