Favorite films

Pinned reviews

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  Footprints 1975

  ★★★★★ Watched 06 Dec 2022 3

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

  Allow me, if you will, a personal digression. A couple years ago, around Christmas, an intoxicated family member brought up an incident from when I was in high school when I ran out of the house into the Michigan winter without shoes or coat, only returning an hour later after walking a couple miles. I remember the incident well, and had always been slightly embarrassed about it: to me, the drama exceeded what really made sense with everything I remembered…

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  Hercules in the Haunted World 1961

  ★★★★½ Watched 10 Sep 2022 3

  A friend of mine claims that I give movies a lot of leeway when I like the art direction and cinematography; this would be a prime example of that. The story is kind of stupid, filled with the sort of stuff that makes the 8 year old inside me, clutching a library copy of D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths, shout, “THAT’S NOT WHAT HAPPENED!” The acting is not great, nor is it improved by a dub that sounds like the…

Recent reviews

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  A Place in the Sun 1951

  ★★★ Watched 01 Jun 2023

  Watching this rather perversely made me appreciate Von Sternberg's An American Tragedy a lot more. Where the earlier film paints Clyde as churlish from the get-go by having him flee Kansas City because of a hit-and-run, here George is just, I don't know, motivated to succeed? There's an indictment of capitalism and class baked into the entire thing thanks to Dreiser's original text, but even more that the 1931 version, this movie has zero interest in exploring that. Without the…

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  Scream of the Demon Lover 1970

  ★★½ Watched 29 May 2023 2

  This doesn’t really live up to its title. It’s definitely gothic, what with the gestures towards Bluebeard and Jane Eyre — it’s just not very interesting. It’s twists aren’t surprising, the visuals aren’t moody enough. Honestly, each of the subsequent films in the Danza Macabra box have just made me like The Monster of the Opera more, just because it’s weird.

Popular reviews

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  The Wounded Man 1983

  ★★★★½ Watched 04 May 2023 1

  I’ve been describing shit as dreamlike more often recently, which maybe means I need to sleep more, but I also feel this deserves it. Characters act in ways that don’t seem to make sense, and their motivation seems to shift and flow in ways that strict realism wouldn’t allow. At some point early on, I thought to myself that this was like the myth of Orpheus, and I never quite got that idea out of my head.

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  Chocolate Babies 1996

  ★★★★★ Watched 22 May 2023

  After bemoaning the lack of queer community in Monica yesterday, I got plenty of it tonight. This is honestly my favorite type of film, where you’re not quite sure how it exists at all. There’s definitely a bit of John Waters in the ramshackle nature of this, but motivated by profound and justified rage which grounds it emotionally even as the absurdity ramps up or the characters trade barbs. The characters live in a world where whiteness and straightness aren’t…