Taste Of Cherry (1997)

One night, I could not get to sleep and was feeling unwell. Best advice usually is to get out of bed and do something else in another room until you feel tired. I felt like starting to watch something and as soon as I felt sleepy, I’d finish it the next day. I don’t mind […]

Sonatine (1993)

When violence occurs in Sonatine (1993), directed, written and starring Takeshi Kitano, it is sudden and shocking. Yet there’s also a blankness to it – gangsters fire their guns without emotion and react impassively to the blood. For a crime movie about the Yakuza, the lifestyle is not presented with any excitement or flashiness. Kitano […]

New Rose Hotel (1998)

New Rose Hotel (1998) is based on a William Gibson short story but is pretty low-tech in terms of being anything cyberpunk. For director Abel Ferrara (of Bad Lieutenant and King Of New York), it’s more about the raw emotions surrounding what is basically a classic noir plot – a honey trap designed to secure […]

Hard Boiled (1992)

Considering how much I loved The Killer as a teenager, I can’t believe it took me this long to see Hard Boiled (1992), which was the action classic every one said it was, maybe the height of director John Woo’s craft. Well, I still can’t get over Woo thinking “How can I raise the stakes […]

The Exorcist III (1990)

I remember when I was younger seeing a video ad for The Exorcist III (1990) where the eyes of a Jesus statue slowly opened, which spooked me to no end as an image – now, that moment seemed weird and a bit silly. William Peter Blatty (author of the original Exorcist novel) wrote and directed […]