Favorite films

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Pinned reviews

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  The Mighty Angel 2014

  ★★★★½ Watched by shookone 28 Sep 2014

  a truly vibrant, pictorial, pulsating ride into alcoholism. it's nearly unbelievable how much material, characters, scenes, stories, images, ideas, dialogues, monologues Wojtek Smarzowski squeezes into this little filmic wonder - and most importantly: doesn't fail by doing so.

  a brave and couragious approach, the tone being as paradoxical and borderline as it should, perfectly fitting to the theme. watching this tour de force, there is no way Smarzowski is not heavily influenced by Darren Aronofskys work. making it as uncompromising and unforgiving as epic and wicked is a bold move, which deserves highest praise.

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  Hope 2014

  ★★★½ Watched by shookone 27 Sep 2014

  a successful approach to show the misery and struggle of african refugees on their way to europe in a harsh, realistic way. fortunately avoids all the clichés this genre usually brings along, and even the love story created within the story makes a whole lot of sense here, to form the bond between characters and spectator.

  at times it's a bit too much road movie without geographical identification points (plot point #1 = community #1...), but that is just complaining about first world problems. somehow reminded me of yesterdays "the tribe" in its idea of getting a glimpse into a barbarized world beyond our western horizon.

Recent reviews

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  Eastern Promises 2007

  ★★★★½ Watched by shookone 27 Sep 2007

  David Cronenberg is singing "Nastrovje!" and dares to have a quick look into the russian soul: welcome to violence. Eastern Promises is an unblemished straight told gangster yarn, with the sweet essence of neo noir and playful excursions into identity topics. no detour and swerves though, all rectilinearly executed by a true master of ceremony.

  Viggo Mortensen having the time of his (screen-)life here. a flawless lonesome cowboy right out of every males wet dreams. Naomi Watts is the pretty…

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  Blue Eyelids 2007

  ★★★ Watched by shookone 28 Sep 2007

  a pure anti love movie, a radical refusenik of romanticism. insecure unwanted humans looking for affection and finding it in their tristesse and loneliness, virtually forced upon.

  here the longing for love isn't flounced positively. the media portrayal is the focus of the attacks - key scene: the cinema visit of a romantic movie, that let the protagonists laugh out freely for the first time.

  this is more of constructional than emotional interest - rigorous, distanced, artificial - and by that a very diametral counterpart of the romantic comedy genre that Blue Eyelids is caricaturing.

Popular reviews

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  The Worst Person in the World 2021

  ★★★★ Watched by shookone 22 May 2022

  I can see how people might dislike it for the constellation of the characters, painting both male protagonists as pretty sympathetic - good-hearted is their prime feature - but the female lead as flunky, erratic and egocentric. there's also a nice punch vs cancel culture in here. and a questionable one putting climate change awareness into a looney bin with esoterism (incl. throwing another female under the bus).

  people ideologically attacking this have to overcome the heavy amount of authenticity…

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  The Northman 2022

  ★★★★★ Watched by shookone 08 May 2022 4

  Robert Eggers proper remake of Conan the Barbarian by the means of Shakespeare and Freud. exactly as freakish and wonderful as I have imagined it. a brutalist, muddy, unforgiving tour de force, raging with ultra-angry violence and sinister menace.

  after Eggers let us bath in illustre viking, goth and occultism chic we slowly delve into the unstoppable spiral of anger and wrath - a very visceral depiction of fascism that is. hate bears fury bears barbarity - the burning of…