Exiled (2006)

Exiled (2006) is Hong Kong director Johnnie To’s tribute to the spaghetti western embedded within a contemporary gangster film. The opening sequence sets the tone. An apartment where a woman, Jin (Josie Ho) feeds a baby, waiting for her partner, Wo (Nick Cheung). She is visited by two sets of men. One duo – Blaze […]

Still Life (2006)

I was watching Still Life (2006) in several sittings due to timing and being away on holiday. Not an ideal way to experience the film, and one I would have loved to have seen in a cinema, but its approach and tone suited the intermittent immersion. Dipping in and out of the movie like I […]

Winter Kills (1979)

Winter Kills (1979) is the absurdist extension of the conspiracy thriller in vogue during the 1970s. Imagine The Parallax View, a riff on imagined counter narratives to the official record of the JFK assassination, but exaggerated with a strange comedy, not quite spoof or parody. Each scene in Winter Kills is eventually marked by a […]

The Decline Of Western Civilisation III (1998)

Scene report: crust-punks in the 1990s. I dragged my feet watching the third entry into Penelope Spheeris’ Decline of Western Civilisation trilogy. The second has the blockbuster marquee appeal with its Metal Years bone-head hilarity, and the first is a witness to the LA punk scene as it happens. In the back half of the […]

Flesh + Blood (1985)

Flesh + Blood (1985) as a title has always felt like the best summary of Paul Verhoeven as a director. This is what marks his greatness, a keen study of “flesh and blood,” all the ways it can be shown and conceptualised. How moments can stick in your mind through the filmmaker’s capacity to make […]