Favorite films

Recent reviews

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  Wildfire 2020

  ★★★ Watched 03 Oct 2023

  This first feature by Northern Ireland director Cathy Brady has a worthy central concept - the reunion of two sisters after many years apart reopens a trauma history that the family'd hidden and avoided for many years. But the execution and the somewhat forced analogy between Northern Ireland's history of division and conflict are faulty which renders it unsatisfactory.

  Kelly (Nora-Jane Noone) and Lauren's (Nika McGuigan) mother died iin a violent car accident, leading to Kelly going missing for a…

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  Teenage Wolfpack 1956

  ★★★ Watched 02 Oct 2023 1

  Sometimes billed as the first West German juvenile delinquency film, this also was a breakout role for 19 year old Horst Buchholz who, as a result of this film, was marketed as the German James Dean. Modeled a bit on American films about teenage rebellion, it's not bad although the lost youth here is prone to violence and has a sociopathic bent.

  Buchholz plays Freddy, a teenager living on his own, having been thrown out of the house by his…

Popular reviews

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  The Power of the Dog 2021

  ★★★½ Watched 01 Dec 2021 20

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

  I know I'm going to be an outlier here. In many ways I was awed by Jane Campion's masterful unpacking of masculinity, gender, homosexuality, repressed desire and psychosexual conflicts - both within and between her characters - in 1920s Montana that still evokes the Old West. This didn't surprise me because she's such an accomplished filmmaker. The cinematography blew me away, as well as the score. But something about her portrayal of a man tortured and in many ways damaged…

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  The Killing 1956

  ★★★★ Watched 01 Oct 2023 4

  March 2023: Actor of the Month - Sterling Hayden

  This month, I'll review films with Sterling Hayden. There's a lot to choose from: over 65 from 1940 through 1982. He's probably best known for his roles in Westerns and film noirs although he also was in a number of New Hollywood roles in the 70s. His hard-edged masculine characters mimicked his real life pesona: he was a sailor and seafarer, a Marine Corps officer and an OSS agent in WWII.…