Promising Young Woman (2020) Review
Carey Mulligan plays a medical school dropout who fakes being drunk to catch predatory men. The first act is a 7, the middle sags to a 4, and the third act took me by surprise. It's a 6.5, worth it…
Genre: Drama
Stories driven by people rather than plot machinery. Drama is where characters face choices with real weight, and the tension comes from what a decision costs rather than what explodes.
CrimeThe Day of the Jackal (2024) Review
Eddie Redmayne plays a charming assassin and Lashana Lynch the MI6 officer hunting him in this ten-episode reimagining of Forsyth's novel. A great first episode and good action, a saggy middle. It's a 7.
DramaHotel (1967) Review
Rod Taylor runs a grand old New Orleans hotel through one week of takeover threats, a jewel thief and a hidden hit-and-run in this glossy adaptation of Arthur Hailey's novel. It's an 8.5.
CrimeStreet Girls (1975) Review
Street Girls (1975) rates 3 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. A father searches Eugene, Oregon for a daughter who has disappeared into the local trade, in a film co-written by Barry Levinson seven years before he directed anything,…
DramaLooking for Mr. Goodbar (1977) Review
Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977) rates 7 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Diane Keaton plays a teacher of deaf children who spends her nights in bars, in a film that is genuinely good for ninety minutes and then…
CrimeDark Blue (2002) Review
Dark Blue (2002) rates 8 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Kurt Russell plays a third-generation LAPD officer who plants evidence as a matter of routine, set in the week before the Rodney King verdict. James Ellroy wrote the…
Coming of AgeTimes Square (1980) Review
Times Square (1980) rates 6 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Two teenage girls live rough in pre-cleanup Times Square and form a band, in a film that was recut against its director's wishes, had a relationship removed from…
DramaBrokeback Mountain (2005) Review
Brokeback Mountain (2005) rates 9 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Two men herd sheep on a Wyoming mountain in 1963 and spend the next twenty years failing to have a life. Ang Lee won Best Director and the…
ComedyDo the Right Thing (1989) Review
Do the Right Thing (1989) rates 10 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. One block in Bedford-Stuyvesant on the hottest day of the year, a pizzeria, a wall of photographs, and a film that refuses to tell the audience…
DramaGiant (1956) Review
Giant (1956) rates 8 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Three hours and twenty-one minutes of Texas across roughly twenty-five years, James Dean's last completed performance, and a film that starts as a marriage drama and ends as an…
DramaLeaving Las Vegas (1995) Review
Leaving Las Vegas (1995) rates 9 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. A man goes to Las Vegas to drink himself to death and states the plan in the first twenty minutes. Mike Figgis shot it for around four…
DramaPrecious (2009) Review
Precious (2009) rates 8 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. A sixteen-year-old in Harlem in 1987 is transferred to an alternative school and learns to read. Gabourey Sidibe had never acted and Mo'Nique won Supporting Actress for a performance…