Favorite films

Recent reviews

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  Falling Stars 2023

  ★★½ Watched 15 Oct 2023

  Much to admire here, from the original premise to the low-key world building to the intimate scale. Even still, the seams of the low budget show and for a film so focused on dialogue, too many performances are uneven and too many scenes feel like filler. One or two legitimately scary set pieces would have done wonders here…

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  Late Night with the Devil 2023

  ★★★½ Watched 15 Oct 2023

  It stumbles a bit with its dismount, but otherwise, this is an extremely enjoyable recreation of 70s live talk shows with a demented horror twist. While the film is not exactly scary it does manage to achieve some of the unpredictability of live television. A rare horror film that builds beautifully throughout its entire runtime rather than killing time as you wait for the “good stuff”.

Popular reviews

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  Vertigo 1958

  ★★★★★ Watched 14 Aug 2012 1

  Hitchcock’s masterwork, better than any other, reminds us of two truisms of cinema: to look is to remember and to remember is to impose. The hypnotic spirals that haunt every facet of the visual design and even the trademark dolly zoom effect take us deeper into the image, to the point that it threatens to swallow us, much as the past threatens to engulf Scottie. Of course these geometrical chasms are metaphorically vaginal, making Vertigo the great masterpiece about sexual…

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  Infinite Football 2018

  ★★★★ Watched 08 Mar 2018

  A gentle reminder that Romanian New Wave filmmakers have given us several of the best comedies of recent years, Porumboiu’s sly documentary Infinite Foodball is a subtly profound and deeply ironic look at one sad sack’s attempts to funnel his life’s disappointments (a shin injury, a dull job, repeated failures to secure a work visa, etc…) into changes in the rules of soccer. An existential meditation in the guise of an episode of Nathan for You, this unique film sees…

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