Vanya On 42nd Street (1994)

My main knowledge of the Anton Chekov play Uncle Vanya is through its rehearsal and performance in the Japanese film, Drive My Car, directed by Ryusuke Hamaguchi. I have always been aware of Vanya On 42nd Street (1994), a film adaptation of Vanya that reunited actors and playwrights Andre Gregory and Wallace Shawn, with the […]

Strange Colours (2017)

I watched director Alena Lodkina’s Strange Colours (2017) on SBS On Demand, a few days after I saw Ivan Sen’s Limbo in cinemas. While Limbo works in another recurring genre in Australian film – the crime genre – and there are clear differences in where they are shot, what they are looking at, particularly indigenous […]

Lone Wolf And Cub: Baby Cart In Peril (1972)

With the Criterion Collection boxset of Lone Wolf And Cub beckoning me back on the demon path to hell, it was time to continue with the fourth entry, Baby Cart In Peril (1972). Being in the back half of the series, there were definitely sequences where I was like, this feels familiar, have they done […]

Freaky Farley (2007)

I was finally motivated to watch Freaky Farley (2007), my first Motern Media movie thanks to an interview in The Important Cinema Club Journal with actor/writer/producer Matt Farley (he and director Charles Roxburgh are the people behind the production company, Motern Media). Farley mentions Silent Night Deadly Night Part 2 in this interview as one […]

Late Spring (1949)

Ozu – Japanese filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu – is a weighty name in arthouse auteur circles, often referenced by Paul Schrader, Mike Leigh, Jim Jarmusch, Claire Denis, Koganda, amongst others. A weighty name even though the reputation of his films is that they are quiet, patient, and delicate. I was intending to begin 2023 on a […]