Defending Your Life (1991)

This might be a generalisation, but it felt like the late-1980s/early-1990s were all about high concept comedies, usually involving time travel, reincarnation, body swapping, and the afterlife. I remember the video cover for the Albert Brooks film, Defending Your Life (1991), but watching it had eluded me until the Albert Brooks collection on the Criterion […]

The Funeral (1996)

Continuing my journey through the filmography of director Abel Ferrara, it was time to dust off the DVD and revisit one of my favourite Christopher Walken performances in The Funeral (1996). Set in the 1930s, the film begins with one of its characters watching a Humphrey Bogart movie. From that point, The Funeral feels like […]

Snake Eyes (1998)

I saw Snake Eyes (1998) at the cinema when I was a teenager and enjoyed it then. Over time my love for it has grown alongside my appreciation for both Nicolas Cage as an actor and Brian De Palma as a filmmaker, and I truly think it’s an underrated collaboration. While in contrast to De […]

Split Second (1992)

One great thing about watching movies late night on TV when I was a kid was being able to almost watch two movies at the same time, flipping the channels during the ads from one movie to another that might be on. I feel like this is how I’ve seen the majority of Split Second […]

Pusher (1996)

I’ve had friends recommend the Pusher trilogy to me for a long time and even though I am a fan of Nicolas Winding Refn, I never got around to the Danish crime films that made his name internationally. With Pusher (1996), I was surprised by how low-fi it was in contrast to what Refn is now known for as […]