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Category Archives: Reviews
Review: Benedetta (France 2021)
Paul Verhoeven’s new nuns gone wild true story is a fascinating study in wrong-footing an audience. Just when you think you have the movie, and the titular character figured out, Verhoeven shifts the narrative and point of view. Sometimes a … Continue reading
Review: Sawdust and Tinsel (Sweden 1953)
“You smell of stables, cheap perfume and sweat. But I’ll lick you clean like a dog.” Maybe earlier Bergman is just more my style, I prefer this more wry, humanist material (and his delightful Smiles of a Summer Night) to … Continue reading
Review: Wife of a Spy (Japan 2020)
Watching Kiyoshi Kurosawa experiment with new genres over this past decade or so has been fascinating. The man knows how to make an incredibly spooky supernatural chiller – his Kairo/Pulse is probably the pinnacle of J-horror for me – but … Continue reading
Review: Yakuza Princess (Brazil 2021)
Brazil has a large Japanese population, and the social conflicts between returning Japanese ex-pats and more traditional Japanese citizens have been the subject of a lot of great Japanese cinema, like Takashi Miike’s wild City of Lost Souls and Masato … Continue reading
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Tagged 2021, Brazil, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, MASUMI, Tsuyoshi Ihara, Vicente Amorim, Yakuza
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Review: Behemoth (USA 2021)
Horror is traditionally one of those genres where you can do a lot on a wing and prayer, and where you can show off your chops despite a low budget. Here, director Peter Szewczyk (coming out of major shops like … Continue reading
Review: Wonderful Paradise (Japan 2020)
Japan Cuts 2021 Looking to scratch that “weird Japan” itch but with some more substantive meat under the oddity? This has a bit of an After Hours energy, as a small goodbye party thrown by a depressed family losing their home … Continue reading
Review: Go Seppuku Yourselves (Japan 2021)
Japan Cuts 2021 You want a master class in how to make a monologue absolutely riveting? Look no further than this intensely angry short film that maps Toyoda’s anger about government failings during the pandemic onto the story of a samurai … Continue reading
Review: Free Guy (USA 2021)
A pinch of Matrix, a healthy smatter of Lego Movie, two tablespoons of They Live, and a dusting of Truman Show, stir in some Ready Player One. Let sit for one year and serve slightly cold.
Review: What We Left Unfinished (Afghanistan/USA/Qatar 2019)
Anybody looking for a window into the utter chaos Afghanistan is facing as the US pulls out in the face of Taliban advances would do well to watch What We Left Unfinished, a documentary about the aborted film industry that … Continue reading
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Review: Cutie Honey (Japan 2004)
Now THAT’S how to do a comic book superhero movie. Total live action cartoon full of bizarro touches and cheesecake, it’s genially sleazy in an old fashioned pin-up kind of way but maybe 1/10th as perverted as the original Go … Continue reading