The Bride Wore Black (1968)

A bride – named Julie Kohler and played by Jeanne Moreau as a focused, unwavering huntress – swears revenge against the five men responsible for the murder of her beloved, shot on the steps of a church during their wedding day. Adapted from a novel by Cornell Woolrich and directed by Francois Truffaut, The Bride […]

Drug War (2012)

Of the Johnnie To movies I’ve seen, they often work in a macho register like Michael Mann movies, focusing on professionals and process. As an action thriller, the main driver for Drug War (2012) is surveillance, as drug enforcement police in China get wind of a deal happening. One member of a drug syndicate, Timmy […]

Glass Chin (2014)

A friend, Adriane, first made me aware of director Noah Buschel by recommending his sports melodrama, The Phenom. Catching up with Buschel’s earlier films, I’ve been really taken by his application of neo-noir conventions and tropes within a low budget indie vision. From mannered dialogue to clearly intentionally framing and lighting, to the use of […]

Red Rooms (2023)

We love an inscrutable protagonist, don’t we, folks? Red Rooms (2023) offers up a compelling protagonist in Kelly-Anne played excellently by Juliette Gariép with eerie stillness. We learn that Kelly-Anne is a model, is addicted to playing online poker, and is first witnessed sleeping in the street to attend the trial of Ludovic Chevalier, charged […]

The Prowler (1951)

When I was in my adolescent phase of loving James Ellroy novels (not so much a fan anymore), I remember the crime author mentioning The Prowler (1951) as one of his favourite classic film noirs. Considering Ellroy’s past as a degenerate substance-addicted peeper before he became a writer (which he talks about in the documentary […]