Hour Of The Wolf (1968)

Ingmar Bergman had always been a blind spot in my film knowledge. To be honest, I was compelled to finally watch more of his work due to an A24 podcast conversation between Ari Aster and Robert Eggers where they talked at length about his influence on their work in horror. That and the availability of […]

Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1983)

I remember some DJ night at The Bird when someone ended their set, or played as ‘closing up’ music, Ryuichi Sakamoto’s theme to Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1983). I mean, what an all timer piece of music, so ethereal, plaintive, calming, just plain beautiful. And it is kind of bizarre that it is the title […]

Winter Light (1963)

Continuing my education into the work of director Ingmar Bergman, I picked Winter Light (1963; Nattvardsgästerna) to watch next. Mostly on the basis that it’s one of the big inspirations for Paul Schrader’s First Reformed. In that movie, it was a struggling priest dealing with a suicidal parishoner obsessed with climate change apocalypse – here, […]

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 […]

God’s Own Country (2017)

At the film discussion event we held at Blue Room Theatre’s Winter Nights, I asked the special guests to recommend films in response to a question. One of the questions was “What film would you watch as the world ends?” For academic and writer Janice Loreck, one of her answers was God’s Own Country (2017), […]