Category Archives: Reviews
Review: Downrange (USA 2018)
Downrange is the latest step in Japanese director Ryuhei Kitamura’s gradual move into the US market. Kitamura follows in the footsteps of luminaries of Asian cinema like Tsui Hark and John Woo, who were also set out to toil in … Continue reading
Review: Mom and Dad (USA 2017)
Mom and Dad, the latest film from Brian Taylor, one-half of the pair of madmen behind the miraculous Crank films, is similarly … well, apeshit bananas for lack of a better term. Taylor, working from his own screenplay, posits a … Continue reading
Review: The Avenging Eagle AKA: Long xie shi san ying; Cold Blooded Eagles (Hong Kong 1978)
Avenging Eagle is solid old school kung fu from the Shaw Brothers. It’s no pinnacle of the genre – there really isn’t that much to distinguish it from most Shaw martial arts films – but a good cast, baroque weaponry, … Continue reading
Review: Justice League (USA 2017)
Why did I even watch this? Masochism? Completism? I truly loathed Man of Steel, Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice (a movie as turgid as its name), and the execrable Suicide Squad, and had very low expectations for this Frankenstein’s … Continue reading
Review: Cold Hell aka Die Hölle (Austria/Germany 2017)
Cold Hell is a nasty little treat. I was expecting a thriller, but not a full-blown modern giallo. Cold Hell revels in the lurid sexualized violence and the neon washes and shadows of the best of Dario Argento and Sergio … Continue reading
Review: Face Behind the Mask (Hong Kong 1974)
Chen Chi-hwa’s Face Behind the Mask is a solid piece of wu xia entertainment. It’s not revolutionary, and it really doesn’t do anything that hasn’t been done before. However, all the elements come together nicely to create a quick-paced piece … Continue reading
Review: Before We Vanish (Japan 2017)
Before We Vanish is a return to a rarely-seen side of Kiyoshi Kurosawa – a puckish, tongue-in-cheek take on the atmospheric horror that is the master’s stock-in-trade. Though he’s much better known for his deadly serious supernatural horror like Kairo … Continue reading
Review: Ten Violent Women (USA 1982)
I happened to watch a while back, and then was surprised to see that notorious grindhouse director Ted V. Mikels had just recently passed away. I wish this could be a better epigraph, but it’s a pretty terrible movie – … Continue reading
Let Sleeping Corpses Lie (Spain/Italy 1974)
This Spanish/Italian co-production is surprisingly smart for its era, mingling straight-up Romero-esque zombie action with the anti-authoritarian paranoia and ecological concerns of The Crazies or Grapes of Death.
Review: Daguerreotype (Japan/France 2017)
Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s latest horror film represents a major change in at least one respect. Filming in French, with a non-Japanese cast, takes Kurosawa out of his comfort zone, but he demonstrates that his touch with mood and actors remains constant … Continue reading