Favorite films

Recent reviews

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  Babylon 2022

  ★★ Watched 26 Jan 2023

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

  On the one hand, the 'magic of cinema' montage at the end was cringe as hell and reverse engineering a bunch of references to Singin' in the Rain seems like weak historical fiction writing... but on the other hand Chazelle does capture the way watching Gene Kelly perform singin' in the rain feels like seeing the face of god, the stargate from 2001, the infinity of cinema.

  Edit: watch Inserts (1975) instead

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  August in the Water 1995

  ★★★★ Added

  Hazuki Izumi (Reno Komine) stands on the edge of a rooftop looking out at the city beneath her. A clutter of competing architecture styles and buildings at various points of development: scaffolding, newly-built, maturing, declining, abandoned, condemned. Traffic lights glow, cars drone, and roads curve. A web of powerlines connects every part of the city. Hazuki is deep in thought, contemplating something or other, almost as if she’s listening to something we can’t quite hear. Her friend Mao (Shinsuke Aoki)…

Popular reviews

• 

  The Mudge Boy 2003

  ★★★★ Added

  A thoughtful film about masculinity. Honestly told, which made it an uncomfortable watch. After finishing it, I was depressed and thought it was only ok. I found myself thinking about it a lot and came to appreciate its resonance.

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  Mission: Improbable 2001

  Watched 04 Aug 2018

  Best Supporting Actor: John Woo

  Also seems like the seed that would become Tropic Thunder.