Favorite films

Pinned reviews

• 

  I Saw the TV Glow 2024

  ★★★★ Watched 04 Jul 2024 1

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

  Fred Durst ripping a kid's head out of an exploding tv screen wasn't on my 2024 bingo card. But I must say, it might be the best thing I've seen all year.

  The neon pinks and swampy greens remind me not only of a kind of cosmic static, but also of a healing bruise. That's the image I just couldn't shake. A bruise --- a blooming subcutaneous wound struggling to filter out life's trauma with the same desperate gargle as…

• 

  Phantom Thread 2017

  ★★★★½ Watched 31 Jan 2024 5

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

  PTA's best. Hands down. There's just so much to admire here.

  Firstly, I'm completely taken by Kriep's performance, her naturalism, the way that she captures delight, how quickly she's capable of returning to it... it's so clear that this character wants to be joyous, so much so that she is almost eager to contort herself in unnatural ways to find happiness.

  And I love all the moments where Alma finds agency, where she inserts herself into the record, corrects it,…

Recent reviews

• 

  Speak No Evil 2022

  ★★★½ Watched 14 Sep 2024

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

  Initially, this film's ending made me want to jump through the screen.

  Come on. Fight back. Grab the car keys. Wrestle the scissors out of her hands. Wrench the steering wheel from his, and aim for the nearest tree. What are you doing? For fuck's sake, put your clothes back on. Grab a stone and start cracking skulls. They just took your daughter---go down swinging.

  I was in such disbelief that I damn near turned the movie off.

  But then…

• 

  Longlegs 2024

  ★★★ Watched 12 Sep 2024

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

  Big fan of the first half---its tone, its tension.

  Out the gate, the craft is the standout. The shot composition alone does so much to activate our spidey-sense. The framing feels purposeful and restrained, casting unassuming doors and doorways as devilish danger-filled portals. Honestly, I don't think I've ever spent this much time looking over someone else's shoulder before. Plus, there's some really top notch cinematography on the screen. The pre-headshot steeples, the payphone-adjacent split-level staircase, the beaming hayloft windows---someone…

Popular reviews

• 

  Punch-Drunk Love 2002

  ★★★★ Watched 13 Jan 2024 1

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

  Sandler should stray into the indie-arthouse arena more often. This and Uncut Gems may be what I actually end up remembering him for. Toss in Reign Over Me and you've got yourself a trifecta. Little does he know it, but (in an Eternal Sunshine kind a way) these dramas may be his real legacy.  

  To me, Sandler's character embodies the film itself. He's soft but volatile. He mumbles/meanders until he explodes. He's passive, then he's not. And he connects…

• 

  Challengers 2024

  ★★★ Watched 09 Jul 2024

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

  "We're always talking about tennis." Yes, movie. That is correct. You are, indeed. Always. Talking. About. Tennis. And that's kind of the problem.

  I get it. Sports are like relationships.

  Except, I don't actually get it. How is this relationship like tennis, exactly? Uniquely? Beyond the general idea of competition (which applies to every sport), I'm not sure the parallels are as clean cut as the film wants me to believe. There were plenty of opportunities to play more with…