Nathan S
Cinema Addict
Member Since: 08 Nov 2006
Location: Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA
Age: 34
Bio: Since my early teenage years, cinema has been my primary form of education. A travelogue which has afforded me experiences I otherwise haven't had the opportunity of enjoying: different eras, locations, languages, cultures, methods of thought. It's a fulfillment damn near spiritual.
My ratings are divided into five points for a more generalized representation of quality. The less reliance on nitpicky numerology, the better. I have awarded a sixth point to films which have had the largest and longest lasting influence on my own cinephilia. They are my all-time favorites, hence a movie is never given a six on first viewing.
The filmmakers who are most important to me include Chantal Akerman, Woody Allen, Robert Altman, Paul Thomas Anderson, Olivier Assayas, Ingmar Bergman, John Cassavetes, Joel & Ethan Coen, Jules Dassin, Terence Davies, Robert Eggers, Werner Herzog, Alfred Hitchcock, Buster Keaton, Masaki Kobayashi, Hirokazu Kore-eda, Stanley Kubrick, Akira Kurosawa, Fritz Lang, Spike Lee, Sergio Leone, Sidney Lumet, David Lynch, Terrence Malick, Jean-Pierre Melville, Hayao Miyazaki, F.W. Murnau, Yasujiro Ozu, Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger, Satyajit Ray, Nicolas Winding Refn, Kelly Reichardt, Jean Renoir, Eric Rohmer, Roberto Rossellini, Martin Scorsese, Isao Takahata, Hiroshi Teshigahara, Francois Truffaut, Ming-liang Tsai, Denis Villeneuve, Orson Welles, Billy Wilder, and Kar-Wai Wong.
My ratings are divided into five points for a more generalized representation of quality. The less reliance on nitpicky numerology, the better. I have awarded a sixth point to films which have had the largest and longest lasting influence on my own cinephilia. They are my all-time favorites, hence a movie is never given a six on first viewing.
The filmmakers who are most important to me include Chantal Akerman, Woody Allen, Robert Altman, Paul Thomas Anderson, Olivier Assayas, Ingmar Bergman, John Cassavetes, Joel & Ethan Coen, Jules Dassin, Terence Davies, Robert Eggers, Werner Herzog, Alfred Hitchcock, Buster Keaton, Masaki Kobayashi, Hirokazu Kore-eda, Stanley Kubrick, Akira Kurosawa, Fritz Lang, Spike Lee, Sergio Leone, Sidney Lumet, David Lynch, Terrence Malick, Jean-Pierre Melville, Hayao Miyazaki, F.W. Murnau, Yasujiro Ozu, Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger, Satyajit Ray, Nicolas Winding Refn, Kelly Reichardt, Jean Renoir, Eric Rohmer, Roberto Rossellini, Martin Scorsese, Isao Takahata, Hiroshi Teshigahara, Francois Truffaut, Ming-liang Tsai, Denis Villeneuve, Orson Welles, Billy Wilder, and Kar-Wai Wong.
Recent Ratings
Check out Nathan S's...
Scarface (1932) - Rated 12 Jun 2025
"The periodic moralizing is somewhat forgivable if only because it is so obviously shoehorned into an otherwise very hard-nosed gangster film. Genuinely thrilling, and quite a bit better than its most cited contemporaries like Little Caesar and The Public Enemy."
After Life (1998) - Rated 13 May 2025
"This early Kore-eda is higher concept than much of his later work, but still relayed with soft-spoken humility. A provocative idea, on perceiving oneself, the formative wellspring of memory, and the reflecting glass of cinema itself. Slow and solemn, but with a healthy sense of humor and generally warm outlook."
The Long Good Friday (1980) - Rated 22 Apr 2025
"Harold Shand fancies himself an important leader. Proud Londoner, something of a mild nationalist, paving the way for a new European order. Charming, high spirited, ruthless. His diplomatic skills aren't quite up to the task though, either unable to comprehend or unwilling to reckon with the true nature of the sociopolitical upheaval rocking his kingdom. Turns out he's just a gangster, but then again aren't they all. Incredible performance. Mirren too. Cool movie, barely hampered by dated music."
Safe in Hell (1931) - Rated 09 Apr 2025
"Straight and to the point, an amusing if ultimately slight pre-code exotic erotic melodrama. A lot of creative visual composition, and a large supporting cast of fun scoundrels."
Nosferatu (2024) - Rated 08 Apr 2025
"It's good. The performances and visual design are good. Still I can't help but feel that, despite the material being squarely in his wheelhouse, some of this director's more audacious tendencies seem to have been rounded off."
Inland Empire (2006) - Rated 08 Apr 2025
"My reservations about the low digital resolution were eventually lulled away, as if seeing through a smudged looking glass. A stream of mysticism on the uncanny, associative, and observational natures shared by dreams and cinema. Companion piece to Mulholland Drive, only more manic, down a rabbit hole and never quite back up. This movie itself feels like some sort of occult otherworldly artifact, a similar evocation I've always gathered from The Shining (similarities end there)."
Alien: Romulus (2024) - Rated 20 Aug 2024
"Mostly hits the right buttons for what one would expect or want from an Alien film, at the risk of not having much of its own identity. Standard, but pretty good. Occasionally falls off the razor thin edge of acceptable fan service, and features an ethically questionable digital revival of a dead actor, but in general this is a fun and well-played horror action, and I do think Andy is a worthy extension in the lineage of ambiguous androids."
Longlegs (2024) - Rated 29 Jul 2024
"Unnerving largely because it is willing to be a little weird, perhaps in form more than function. We've seen occult thrillers before, and this one's lineage is clear, but it demonstrates a tendency for "off" framing (empty space hangs over these characters like a burden), unexpected and associative cuts, and a generally slow build often without predictable punctuation. A late exposition dump feels like a small compromise, but the final and resonant note is one of ambiguity."
Godzilla Minus One (2023) - Rated 03 Jun 2024
"Man atones for sinful cowardice and resolves his PTSD with war heroics. The music swells. Maudlin. Full of honeyed platitudes. The final scene in the hospital is just unbelievable cornball shit. Not surprised to learn Spielberg loves it, because it displays the worst Spielbergian tendencies (don't come at me, I do generally like Spielberg)."
Spaceman (2024) - Rated 15 May 2024
"Undeniably intriguing, with an admirably slow, serious, and cerebral tone, as well as demonstrating some considerable visual acuity. But in grasping for Tarkovsky, its meager insights fall well short of the mark. It's just not written very well, full of sophomoric aphorisms about the meaning of it all, never as highly literary or convincingly spiritual, and reluctant to be as abstract as cinema's truly great cosmic explorations."
