Favorite films

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Recent reviews

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  Inland Empire 2006

  ★★★★★ Rewatched by Kirai 14 Jul 2022 8

  Inland Empire is arguably, along with Eraserhead, David Lynch's only true surrealist film. Most of his work hovers around the border, but only his first and last features cross into full surrealism. Visually, both films stand alone in cinema history, with Eraserhead's dreamscape being the unmistakable B&W otherworldly industrial setting, and Inland Empire's the gloriously atmospheric look of endless dimly lit rooms and hallways filmed with the Sony DSR-PD150 camcorder. A look that Lynch has since dismissed, saying he could…

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  Mulholland Drive 2001

  ★★★★★ Rewatched by Kirai 12 Jun 2022 20

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

  For the first ~2 hours, Lynch strings together one loosely connected sequence after another. The result is a film with more memorable scenes than anything else in cinema.
  Because of that, the central mystery feels underdeveloped, and most scenes feel random and unrelated. One might find it hard to think that all the disconnected plot lines and events will eventually be tied and resolved. And they aren't. While they do get contextualised through Diane's mind in the second "half", it'd…

Popular reviews

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  Léon: The Professional 1994

  ★★★ Watched by Kirai 22 Nov 2021 13

  Leon presents an impossible case of separating the art from the artist. It's a good film on the surface, but what exactly is it trying to say? Luc Besson, the director & writer, impregnated a 16-year-old girl when he was 32, a few years before making this film. He first met her when she was 12, so I guess the inspiration for the film seems pretty obvious. In many ways, this seems like him trying to justify their relationship. Leon's almost…

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  Vertigo 1958

  ★★★★★ Watched by Kirai 24 Sep 2021 19

  The #1 issue in modern online criticism is the obsessive search for plot holes. Self-proclaimed critics calling films overrated after only addressing them through the narrow lens of objective surface logic. I understand why so many writers/youtubers opt for it - it is by far the easiest approach to criticism and the one that gets the most clicks. Anyone observant and pedantic can deconstruct a plot and find 'flaws' in logic. "Why would she do x when she could have…