Favorite films

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Pinned reviews

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  Bijou 1972

  ★★★★★ Rewatched by theironcupcake 16 Sep 2021 2

  Bijou isn't really a film. It's an experience.

  Everything that director/writer/cinematographer Wakefield Poole presents onscreen in the course of 75 minutes is part of a complete thought, a fully realized idea. Certain works are especially revered by devotees of the Golden Age of Porn, and while some could arguably be better than others, Bijou remains one of the era's greatest achievements - at least in the gay adult canon - because Poole's creative sensibilities elevate this production to the realm…

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  Golden Gate Girls 2013

  ★★★★½ Watched by theironcupcake 13 May 2021 2

  "During my travels, as I explored the vestiges of Esther's time and the spaces she occupied, I often felt the boundaries of race, language, culture and gender. For Esther, these boundaries did not seem to exist, or if they did, she simply crossed them without worry or fear."

  From the early decades of American filmmaking, the four women usually placed in the spotlight as trailblazing directors are Alice Guy-Blaché, Lois Weber, Dorothy Arzner and Ida Lupino. But there were other…

Recent reviews

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  You Don't Know Jack: The Jack Soo Story 2009

  ★★★★ Watched by theironcupcake 20 May 2022 2

  "Jack was the quintessential all-American, with an Asian-American face." (George Takei)

  I'm happy to report that I have added a few films to Letterboxd in the past few days, all documentaries available through a database that I can access via my workplace, called Alexander Street Press. There, among many intriguing titles, I found a documentary about a truly wonderful character actor, You Don't Know Jack: The Jack Soo Story.

  Directed by Jeff Adachi, who also helmed The Slanted Screen, this…

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  China Sky 1945

  Watched by theironcupcake 20 May 2022 2

  [Philip Ahn’s] most memorable and complex Korean role was as Dr. Kim in RKO’s China Sky (Ray Enright, 1945), one of the last entries in Hollywood’s “China cycle” of films made during the 1930s and 1940s. Based on a Pearl S. Buck story originally published in Collier’s magazine, China Sky represents an anomaly in Ahn’s list of “China films” in that he played a Korean character for the first time not only in his career but in the history of…

Popular reviews

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  Four Journeys Into Mystic Time: Mysterium 1978

  ★★★★★ Watched by theironcupcake 17 May 2022 2

  "Everything I've done is based on the duality of fantasy and reality. Editing separate pieces of film together playing with time and space allows the viewer to travel with me." (Shirley Clarke, Afterimage magazine interview, 1983)

  Who are we if we are not our bodies and their many distinguishing features? If we are not images projected onto us? The dance and balance of selves that we share with others?

  (Noted: original music by Paul Chihara, who also composed the scores…

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  The Shot Heard 'Round the World 1997

  Watched by theironcupcake 16 May 2022 8

  "I hope that the people in Japan will view this as an isolated incident and not in any way to reflect upon the continuing good relationship that the people of America, and especially Louisiana, have with the Japanese." (Governor Edwin Edwards)

  As we sit with the awful news of the mass shootings in Buffalo, New York and Laguna Woods, California, both attacks that targeted groups of people of color, another vile example of American gun violence may linger in the…