Local Hero (1983)

After rave reviews from a Year in Cinema: 1983 book I would read in the high school library and growing up with my parents owning the Mark Knopfler soundtrack on CD, I finally watched Bill Forsyth’s Local Hero (1983) on a DVD I purchased, the prototypical ‘business man charmed by small town’/’fish out of water’ […]

In Fabric (2018)

Peter Strickland is a British director I have time for, because of his second and third films, Berberian Sound Studio and The Duke Of Burgundy, playing with older genre forms (Italian horror movies, European erotica) and crafting art-house homages that almost have an academic, clinical bent. Strickland’s latest film, In Fabric (2018) is a strange […]

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 […]

The Shout (1978)

This was an odd one and I knew it was going to be. The Shout (1978) is a British horror film directed by Polish filmmaker Jerzy Skolimowski. All I knew about the film was that it was about a man – named Crossley and played by Alan Bates – who can kill by shouting. Based […]

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), […]