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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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September 4, 2022

Tekkonkinkreet Is One Of The Best Anime I Have Seen

Tekkonkinkreet, made in 2006, is visually extraordinary. The imagery is some of the best I have ever seen in an anime. It ranges from intricately […]
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August 10, 2022

Ken Russell’s The Devils

Before he made Tommy (1975), Altered States (1980), Gothic (1986), or The Lair of the White Worm (1988), Ken Russell made The Devils (1971). It predates Greenaway but the lush and baroque nature of The Devils feels very […]
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August 3, 2022

Christopher St. John’s Strange Odyssey Top of The Heap 

Top of The Heap is hard to digest. It’s ragged and unpredictable and it switches back and forth between fantasy, dreams, and reality. Plots are built […]
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July 17, 2022

Brunello Rondi’s Il demonio

The further south you travel in Italy the more Italian Italians get. People from Milan might as well be French, but go south to Naples, […]
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June 5, 2022

Ryan Kruger’s 2020 Film Fried Barry

This one left me a bit speechless. You can take that as positive or negative, I don’t know what to say. It was intense. It […]
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May 29, 2022

Be Patient And You Will Be Well Rewarded In Eduardo Nunes’ Unicórnio 

Unicórnio was filmed in a very wide aspect ratio, 2.39:1. With such a long, thin image the viewing experience is considerably different. With a more conventional […]
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May 15, 2022

The Treachery of Hope in O-Bi, O-Ba: The End Of Civilization

There is far too much for me to unpack in O-Bi O-Ba The End Of Civilization and if it is to be unpacked I am not the […]
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May 1, 2022

Nimród Antal's Kontroll: A Mythological, Comedy, Thriller

Nimród Antal’s film Kontroll is many things. The first half will have you thinking it's a comedy about rough and tumble misfits trying to make their way […]
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April 3, 2022

Mikhail Kalatozov’s The Cranes Are Flying: Film Craft At Its Finest

The Cranes Are Flying was directed by Mikhail Kalatozov in collaboration with his cinematographer Sergei Urusevsky in 1957. The two men worked on several films together […]
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March 27, 2022

Jan Švankmajer’s Conspirators Of Pleasure

The adjective surreal gets thrown around quite a bit but Jan Švankmajer truly fits the bill. I’m sure Breton and Buñuel would give him their stamp of […]
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March 20, 2022

Peter Greenaway’s Drowning By Numbers

    If you’re going to watch a Greenaway film you are can’t go in expecting to understand everything. You need to loosen your grasp and […]
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March 6, 2022

Albert Camus Drives Hiroshi Shimizu’s Suicide Bus

    Live each day as if it were your last is terrible advice. I'm not sure how I would behave if I only had one […]
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February 27, 2022

Favorite Scenes No.28: Paris Texas

    German director Wim Wenders made Paris Texas in 1984. He co-wrote the script with Sam Shepard. Paris Texas was Wender’s first “American” film and in preparation, he […]
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January 16, 2022

Jane Campion’s The Power Of The Dog

    This article does not contain any outright spoilers but I do not recommend reading it unless you have seen the movie.​    In Jane Campion’s […]
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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

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 10, 2021

Bodied: Word Play About Word Play About Hip Hop

Alex Larson wrote the film Bodied and Joseph Kahn directed it, but it is Eminem’s influence as the producer that is immediately apparent. There are obvious similarities […]
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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 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 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 7, 2021

The Hanzo The Razor Trilogy

​With my eyes fixed to the screen I could scarcely believe what was happening. I can’t imagine what I must have looked like as I […]
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November 5, 2021

Jane Mansfield In Dog Eat Dog

No opening credits, no atmospheric music to lead us in, just a sudden blare of wild jazz and the screen goes from black to Jane Mansfield […]
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November 4, 2021

The Unacceptable Truth of Compliance

Craig Zobel’s 2012 movie Compliance is a great film but I hate it. Watching it was a strain. When it was shown in theaters there were numerous […]
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