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  • Essays (54)
  • Films Made Before 2000 (20)
  • Art House (14)
  • Films Made After 2000 (14)
  • Horror (9)
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January 9, 2022

The Pathological Ravings of Masumura’s Blind Beast

    I don’t know what I can say or what anyone can say about Yasuzô Masumura’s movie Blind Beast except that it is pathological. I don’t know […]
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December 26, 2021

Hilal Baydarov’s 2020 film In Between Dying is Wonderful

​    In Between Dying was written and directed by Hilal Baydarov in 2020. It was filmed primarily in Baydarov ’s home country of Azerbaijan which sits […]
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December 12, 2021

Masumura’s Dark And Bloody Irezumi

​    Despite its appearance Irezumi is not a chanbara (swordplay) film. It shares many of the trappings of the genre, but it is far more brutal than […]
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December 12, 2021

Tanna: A Reenactment Of Culture Change

Tanna is the name of a tiny island east of Australia. It is populated by several small tribes of people. The film, Tanna, is a true […]
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November 21, 2021

Favorite Scene №26: Aguirre The Wrath of God

    In 1972 Werner Herzog dragged his pet mad man Klaus Kinski and a small group of actors to Peru to shoot Aguirre The Wrath of […]
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November 10, 2021

Baxter, A Dog and His Boy

Baxter is an unusual film. It is named after the protagonist who is a white bull terrier. Through about half the film we see the […]
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November 10, 2021

Entertainment And The Films Of Akira Kurosawa And Ingmar Bergman

There is a long held principle in film criticism that the entertainment value of a movie is in some way set in opposition to its […]
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November 9, 2021

Yorgos Lanthimos' The Killing of a Sacred Deer

In 2017 Yorgos Lanthimos released his remarkable film, The Killing of a Sacred Deer. Everything about its look and feel is unusual. The pacing, the compositions, […]
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November 8, 2021

The Role of the Environment in Onibaba and Woman In The Dunes.

Between the films Onibaba, directed by Kaneto Shindo in 1964, and Woman In the Dunes, directed by Hiroshi Teshigahara also in 1964 there are only five characters and two locations. […]
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November 8, 2021

Deadpan as a Filming Technique in Roy Anderson’s Films

Deadpan is not ordinarily ascribed to a style of filmmaking. It is more often associated with the lack of emotion on an actor’s face during […]
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November 8, 2021

Self Awareness in Rear Window vs. The Tenant

Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window and Roman Polanski's The Tenant are both films about observing and being observed. Rear Window was released in 1954 and The Tenant was released two decades later in 1976. […]
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November 7, 2021

Favorite Scenes №22: Delicatessen

Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro made Delicatessen in 1991. It’s an odd film composed of comical interlocking vignettes each contained in a different little corner […]
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November 7, 2021

Mohammad Rasoulof's The White Meadows

In 2009 director Mohammad Rasoulof was imprisoned for making The White Meadows. He was accused of  “acting against national security” and “propaganda against the regime” […]
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November 6, 2021

Alan Arkin's Little Murders

In 1971 with a budget just under $100,000 Alan Arkin and Jules Feiffer crafted an absurd masterwork of vicious intensity. Little Murders is less a narrative film […]
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November 5, 2021

Jean Luc-Godard and Charlie Parker, No Spoon Full of Sugar For You

George Bernard Shaw said of Richard Wagner “He’s better than he sounds.” This could be said about both Jean Luc-Godard and Charlie Parker. Both men […]
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November 4, 2021

The Subjective Depiction of The Subjective In Robert Altman’s Film Images

Robert Altman’s 1972 film Images enhances the idea of the subjective camera by compounding it. He creates an unstable space where not only the character’s perceptions are […]
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November 3, 2021

The Dark Trance of Horse Money

In writing about Pedro Costa’s film Horse Money there is no place to start. The film defies description or analysis. You have to just open yourself to […]
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November 3, 2021

The Body Remembers When The World Broke Open: Storytelling In Real Time

The Body Remembers When The World Broke Open blends form and function to create a compelling narrative whole. Its proof positive that the rules of filmmaking […]
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November 3, 2021

Galder Gaztelu-Urruti’s Platform

The Platform is a metaphor in the tradition of Animal Farm or Lord of The Flies. It very clearly focuses on capitalist ideology and has a secondary biblical theme […]
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November 2, 2021

Lukas Feigefeld's Hagazussa

Hagazussa, directed by Lukas Feigefeld in 2017, immediately distinguishes itself through its formal choices. There is minimal dialogue. The music is mostly just stretches of […]
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November 2, 2021

The Implied Narrator in We The Animals

We The Animals has no literal narrator. There is no disembodied voice leading the audience through the film, but there is a palpable sense of narration. […]
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November 2, 2021

Repentance: A Great Film in Danger of Disappearing.

Beginning a film with the funeral of the main character has been done before but in Repentance the morning after the funeral the deceased is found propped […]
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November 1, 2021

Peeling Through The Layers of The Alps

When a film depicts actors playing the role of actors it inherently becomes existential. Peeking behind the curtain calls everything into question. Shakespeare makes many […]
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October 31, 2021

Favorite Scenes №17: Mulholland Drive

David Lynch made Mulholland Drive in 2001. It was the middle film in a Los Angeles trilogy that also included Lost Highway and Inland Empire. The espresso scene […]
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