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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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October 14, 2021

Raj Kapoor’s Landmark Opus Awaara

Raj Kapoor’s 1951 Bollywood epic Awaara is 2 hours and 45 minutes long. More than enough time to deliver two plots, ten musical numbers, a Busby Berkley […]
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October 13, 2021

The Zoological Existentialism of Domestic

If you look up the credits for Adrian Sitaru’s film Domestic in The Internet Movie Data Base the seven leading actors and actresses are listed first, followed by the […]
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October 12, 2021

Tuvalu, A Playful Homage To The History Of Film

German director, Veit Helmer, made Tuvalu in 1999. It’s a fast-paced, comical, collage that runs the gamut from experimental film to melodrama. There is a little bit […]
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October 11, 2021

The Personal And The Symbolic In Óscar Catacora’s Powerful Film Eternity

It is difficult to move after watching Óscar Catacora’s 2017 film Eternity. It takes a moment or two to find your way out of its pall. […]
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October 11, 2021

Noir Meets Horror In Jacques Tourneur’s Curse Of The Demon

With a name like Curse Of The Demon, I thought I was in for another typical dose of campy costumes and screaming ingénues. I didn’t even […]
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October 10, 2021

Andrey Zvyagintsev’s The Return

There is more than one return in The Return, and each return orients the narrative in a different direction. Depending on who is returning and from […]
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October 10, 2021

Heritage And Identity In The Night of Counting the Years

As an American, I live in a place where almost nothing predates the 1600 hundreds. American history is above all short. Chicago, the city where […]
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October 9, 2021

Giuseppe De Santis’s Bitter Rice

There is a tension between the everyday and the cinematic that runs through Giuseppe De Santis’s 1949 film Bitter Rice. The movie is set in a […]
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October 9, 2021

Álex de la Iglesia’s The Last Circus

The Last Circus is a rough ride. The pacing is fast, but what makes it truly disorienting is the sudden sharp turns. The plot and mood […]
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October 7, 2021

The Unfulfilled Potential of The Wall

Julian Roman Polser’s 2013 film The Wall is frustrating. It has an interesting premise, a beautiful location and some very nice cinematography but it is all but […]
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October 7, 2021

A Comparison of The Turin Horse and The Naked Island

Kaneto Shindo released The Naked Island in 1960. A half century later later Bela Tarr released The Turin Horse. Both films have minimal dialogue. Both feature two people […]
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October 6, 2021

Tomu Uchida’s Beautiful Film Love, Thy Name Be Sorrow

Love, Thy Name Be Sorrow is based on a Japanese folktale. It is not a hero’s journey but Joseph Campbell would recognize the narrative elements involving […]
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October 5, 2021

Ildikó Enyedi’s On Body And Soul

White is not a color. White is generated by the presence of the full spectrum of visible light. Figuratively, white can be seen as a […]
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October 4, 2021

Long Before Come And See Klimov Made Welcome, Or No Trespassing

In 1964 the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the USSR, Nikita Khrushchev, was “dismissed” and replaced by Leonid Brezhnev. Meanwhile, director Elem Klimov […]
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October 4, 2021

Sean Baker’s Tangerine

Sean Baker’s film Tangerine (2015) is a wonderful shot in the arm for the world of low budget, independent film. Personally I much preferred this film with […]
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October 4, 2021

War of The Wizards

In 1978 Japanese director Sadamasa Arikawa and Hong Kong director Mei Chun Chang met up in Taiwan to create the international extravaganza War of the Wizards. […]
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October 4, 2021

The Red Phallus: A Harrowing Film From Bhutan

The Red Phallus is a brutal film. It treats its characters in a blunt matter of fact manner, where there is little room for rationalizations, […]
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October 3, 2021

Two Film Adaptions of Botan Dōrō, Japan’s Favorite Ghost Story

The Botan Dōrō story originally came to Japan in a Chinese collection of ghost stories by Qu You. It is a classic tale of doomed lovers who […]
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October 2, 2021

John Waters’ Mondo Trasho

This is a profoundly unappealing film, and I’m guessing that is what John Waters was after. The whole film has a certain “fuck you” quality. […]
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October 2, 2021

Male Dynamics In Mean Streets And Mikey And Nicky

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, a whole group of films was released that brought two contrasting male characters together to examine their dynamics. Midnight […]
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October 1, 2021

The Highs And Lows Of Tanaka’s The Demon of Mount Oe

The Demon of Mount Oe (Oe-Yama Shuten Doji) is many things. It’s gorgeous but some of the staging and effects look like low-budget pulp. It […]
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September 30, 2021

Nordic Humor In The Northerners

I’m sure that the title The Northerners has some kind of special resonance in Dutch, but for me, a foreigner, the title might as well apply to […]
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September 28, 2021

Lee Isaac Chung’s Powerful Film  Munyurangabo

Munyurangabo is a powerful and intense film. The film has nothing but the bare essentials necessary. Its minimalism throws everything into stark relief. The ingredients are […]
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September 28, 2021

Before Parasite There Was Borgman

Seven years before Bong Joon-ho made Parasite, Dutch director Alex van Warmerdam released his film Borgman. The two films have superficial as well as substantive similarities in both […]
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