Fallen Angels (1995)

I hadn’t seen Wong Kar-Wai’s Fallen Angels (1995), I don’t think, since seeing it on SBS as a teenager. I loved it then, but only seemed to remember the opening section with the cool hitman (Leon Lai) wielding two hand guns, like an arty version of a Hong Kong action movie, and his handler (Michelle […]

Rebels Of The Neon God (1992)

Tsai Ming-liang was another filmmaker I’d seen discussed and wanted to learn more about. Rebels Of The Neon God (1992) is an attractive title in the English translation and the opening image of a phone booth interior, neon flashing on its surfaces, rain drops from outside, is incredibly stylish. What I think is appealing about […]

Body Snatchers (1993)

Merging my horror movie viewing in the lead up to Halloween with my on-going retrospective of director Abel Ferrara’s filmography this year, I thought I would revisit Body Snatchers (1993), his sci-fi horror film for Warner Brothers. If it wasn’t for the later box office bomb of the Nicole Kidman starring The Invasion, this was […]

Guilty As Sin (1993)

Next to the 90s erotic thriller is the sexy courtroom thriller, all of which tends to be coated in references to Hitchcock. Guilty As Sin (1993) is scripted by genre stalwart Larry Cohen (The Stuff, Phone Booth) and directed by Sidney Lumet (Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon), and I remember commercials for it at the time, […]

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 […]