A Scanner Darkly (2006)

Sad Keanu before the meme. Robert Downey Jnr in prime bursque rant mode pre-MCU. Woody Harrelson as hippy-dippy paranoid (naturally). Winona Ryder as subtle and caring from afar. Rory Cochrane taking his Slater character from Dazed And Confused to another deeper, darker, depressing level of Too Far Gone. A Scanner Darkly (2006), an adaptation of […]

Alphaville (1965)

My enduring memory of Alphaville (1965) was the shot near the end of a Parisian freeway at night, the collection of lights in the darkness, a simple and low budget way of implying a future space. To travel to another galaxy as mundane as driving down a highway, yet still otherworldly in the grainy black […]

The Thirteenth Floor (1999)

Movies about virtual reality and the internet envision worlds within worlds – levels, Jerry, levels. So it is with movies about VR: The Matrix is at the top level, being a critical and commercial success that still stands the test of time. Then you have the next level, films like Dark City, which weren’t box […]

About Endlessness (2019)

Swedish director Roy Andersson’s films have a distinctive style and tone, which you’ll either be on board for or have no patience with. About Endlessness (2019; Om det oändliga) follows in the tradition of his previous trilogy of movies – Songs From The Second Floor; You, The Living; and A Pigeon Sat On A Branch […]

Point Blank (1967)

Lee Marvin in a series of dapper suits with a revolver in hand is enough for a 1960s neo-noir like Point Blank (1967) but the actor’s collaboration with young British director John Boorman offered them both a chance to push the crime genre into pop art experimentation. Revisiting Point Blank, it feels like Steven Soderbergh […]