Favorite films

Recent reviews

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  Morris from America 2016

  Watched 31 May 2016 1

  This film (about black people) was directed by a white man and you can tell.

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  Joy 2015

  Watched 01 Jan 2016

  Joy is a film about a mop. It's about as exciting as you'd expect a film about a mop to be, which is to say NOT AT ALL.

  Not a review obviously but a few quick thoughts that I couldn't squash into a pithy tweet:

  I'm no fan of David O. Russell (The Fighter: forgettable; Silver Linings Playbook: embarrassing but made watchable by Cooper and Lawrence; American Hustle: unbearable). In general, I find his camerawork chaotic and rhythmless, his plotting…

Popular reviews

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  Under the Skin 2013

  ★★★★★ Watched 14 Mar 2014 1

  Now we're cooking with gas.

  Quick thoughts: I hate to bandy about the 'M' word but this really does feel like the first masterpiece I've seen this year. It really is like nothing else I've ever seen; the cinema verite of the scenes in the white van (oh how I loved the subversion of making a succubus' mode of transportation so decidedly unsexy - and the car most associated with dodgy men) is of such stark contrast with the creepy…

• 

  Lost River 2014

  Watched 14 Apr 2015

  Ryan, babe. What a mess.

  It's beautifully lensed (duh, Benoit Debie shot it) but it's crushingly blank and crucially, without stakes.

  I'd argue that a film without a plot can succeed if the characters are interesting and fully-realised. Similarly, it doesn't always matter if characters are empty ciphers if the story is compelling. Lost River lacks a cogent narrative AND actual characters. It is barely a movie. It is a vapid fucking ghost of an idea of some shots in…