Assault On Precinct 13 (1976)

Over time, Assault On Precinct 13 (1976) has become one of my favourite John Carpenter films. Much like George A. Romero’s Night Of The Living Dead, which it was influenced by, it is a triumph of low budget genre filmmaking that cracked the market and inspired countless rip offs. It is the first action picture […]

Escape From The Bronx (1983)

Escape From The Bronx (1983; aka Bronx Warriors 2 aka Escape 2000) is the sequel to 1990: The Bronx Warriors, which was an entertaining Italian B-movie and (shameless) rip off of Escape From New York and The Warrriors. Here, the punk criminal hero of the first movie returns – Trash (Mark Gregory) who is as […]

Laura (1944)

Laura (1944) has always been held up as a classic and a key title when it comes to the genre of film noir. What I was surprised by was, in comparison to say Raymond Chandler adaptations, there is something sophisticated about this film, a drawing room mystery rather than a plunge into the dark, gritty […]

Dheepan (2015)

I was compelled to watch Dheepan (2015) after hearing M.I.A. discuss it in the Criterion Closet. Opening with its title character (played by Antonythasan Jesuthasan in an excellent performance) burning his uniform as a Tamil Tiger in a bonfire where the bodies of his fallen comrades have been collected. He needs a make-shift family to […]

Cutter’s Way (1981)

My high school library had a copy of Dan Peary’s book Cult Movies 2 and I’ve been trying to track down and watch the 50 films covered in there ever since. One that always intrigued me was Cutter’s Way (1981) if only to reconcile the hapless dad from Home Alone looking like a young pirate […]