Recent reviews

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  The Fabelmans 2022

  ★★★½ Watched 25 Nov 2022 2

  This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

  [3rd viewing. Written very quickly.]
   
  I’m not sure even the people who like this film appreciate its bleakness. A messy work overflowing with incident inevitably means that people will latch onto one, maybe two threads either as a cudgel or a shield, but I honestly believe the patented Spielbergian gloss constantly throws people for a loop, if it doesn’t make them immediately want to vomit. The Fabelmans is a loaded text because Spielberg is a loaded figure. The man’s…

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  Bull Durham 1988

  ★★★★ Rewatched 24 Apr 2022

  I can forgive the “I believe” speech, which always makes my eyes roll (you believe in softcore pornography?) and sticks out like a sore thumb as the most writerly moment in an extremely written movie, and I can forgive the two very brief scenes of Costner and Sarandon dancing like the dorkiest suburban parents at the block party, mostly because every other frame is near-perfect. Definitely the greatest baseball movie, but even awarding it that title feels equivalent to a…

Popular reviews

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  Superbad 2007

  ★★★★ Added 7

  This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

  I think it’s easy to forget that much of this movie’s climax hinges on the independent decisions made by female characters, i.e. Jules’ sobriety and Becca getting shitfaced on her own, both of which spotlight the boys’ insecurity and the shortsightedness of “their plan.” Though Superbad’s premise—a Homeric odyssey for booze in part to loosen up objects of affection so they’d consider hooking up with dorks—is probably no longer kosher for good reasons, the way that it eventually wraps up…

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  Rushmore 1998

  ★★★★ Watched 05 Apr 2021 13

  This movie used to only be funny, with maybe enough melancholy to give it some teeth. I watch it now and every moment that doesn’t make me laugh breaks my heart. I’m loath to praise a film for its niceness because Our Current Cultural Landscape exalts the most boring form of it imaginable, i.e. people being gooey to each other because any other mode of expression (sarcasm, cynicism, apathy, contempt) is ostensibly too much for such dull, sensitive souls to…

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