Friday Night (2002)

I remember SBS programming Friday Night (2002; Vendredi soir) when I was younger and I was intrigued to see it even though, at the time, I didn’t have much awareness of who director Claire Denis was (or had to see Beau Travail at the very least). The sound of the plot – two people meeting […]

Lost River (2014)

Ryan Gosling’s directorial debut, Lost River (2014), has always sat there beckoning me. When it came out, it received mixed to poor reviews and sort of disappeared. Yet it also looks like a Nicolas Winding Refn movie, who I am a fan of. After years of putting it off, I finally dove in. For the […]

The Coward (1965)

The Coward (1965) – also known as Kapurush – is a film by Indian filmmaker Satyajit Ray. Having only seen Pather Panchali, I am still pretty clueless about Ray’s filmography and only heard about The Coward with the recent Criterion Channel’s spotlight on the director’s work. The story itself – a screenwriter encounters a past […]

Army Of Shadows (1969)

Programming the VCR recorder to tape Le Samourai off daytime SBS was my introduction to director Jean-Pierre Meville, mainly because I’d read about him in old classic cinema books as well as knowing that film was an influence on John Woo’s The Killer (as well as Ronin, Ghost Dog, etc). I’ve only slowly caught up […]

Spring Night, Summer Night (1967)

Restored by Nicolas Winding Refn’s brand, byNWR.com, and available on that website as well as Mubi, Spring Night, Summer Night (1967) is a rediscovered film, the only feature length directorial work by Joseph L. Anderson, a film professor from the University Of Ohio. Aiming for neo-realism while focused on country people in Ohio, the black-and-white […]