Favorite films

More

1966

★★★ Watched 22 Jan 2025

A couple strong scenes, especially the main house burning, but something about this adaptation doesn't work. I think part of it's the clash between the French culture onscreen and the deeply American culture of the novel, partly that I just don't really like any of the production design (though I love The Prisoner, which is in many ways similar). Mainly I think it's the fact we don't really get a sense of what this culture has lost without books. The…

2024

★★★½ Watched 28 Feb 2025

Wasn't expecting an essay on AI!

Quite lovable, no flaws to speak of, but breaks no new ground for the series, and slips the mind rather easily. I very much appreciate the continued commitment to the old fashioned sense of Britishness, affirming the value of the English village even in the face of economic and technological change.

More

1999

★★★★★ 1

3rd or 4th viewing. A masterpiece of criticism that illuminates Tarkovsky's oeuvre without explaining it. It allows us to see and feel more deeply, pointing out things we might have missed with great poetic insight, but never claims to have found the key or falls into the trap of definition. "Some deliver sermons. The greats leave us with our freedom."

And I could listen to Alexandra Stewart's voice all day.

1963

★★★½ Added

A formative film in Japanese animation. The sixth color feature completed by Toei Animation (a company which had modeled itself on Disney), this is perhaps the first time the Japanese industry made a convincing case for what made it different from American animation. Along with the premiere of Osamu Tezuka’s Astro Boy TV series that January, 1963 was the year anime as we know it was born.

That isn’t to say this film looks like a masterpiece to Western eyes.…

177

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
•