Castle Keep (1969)

While the posters might make Castle Keep (1969) look like a World War II action movie, it’s actually a very strange, oddball experience. Right from the opening sequence where a jeep of tired soldiers travelling through a forest is cross-cut in the editing with two stately people – a Count (Jean-Pierre Aumont) and a Countess […]

La Notte (1961)

La Notte (1961; aka The Night) is the middle of Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni’s trilogy including L’Aventura and L’Eclisse, and the one I’d always wanted to see. Antonioni’s slow, dispassionate style is intentionally alienating and difficult to wrestle with; I completely understand those who get bored by his work. Yet I do find something of […]

Lux Aeterna (2019)

I really loved Gaspar Noe’s Climax, a movie I watched on NYE 2018 and clicked with me more than Noe’s previous provocations like Irreversible or Enter The Void. His most recent production is a short art film, Lux Aeterna (2019), was produced by fashion line Saint Laurent, which exists I guess as corporate synergy to […]

The Gleaners And I (1999)

Late one Sunday evening, dreading work the next day and coming off a fading headache, I browsed around for half an hour thinking about what to watch, not interested in dramatics or action, and eventually felt despondent. Then on a whim, I thought I’d watch something by Agnes Varda and picked The Gleaners And I […]

Zabriskie Point (1970)

I mainly knew that Zabriskie Point (1970) was a flop at the time of release, a disappointment for Italian art-film director Michelangelo Antonioni after the international success of Blow Up. That, and thanks to a SCTV sketch, I knew that things blew up real good at the end. Palace Cinemas Raine Square were screening Zabriskie […]