Scream For Help (1984)

Somewhere between a live action Disney movie from the 1970s (Candleshoe? I’ve never seen it) and Last House On The Left. Douglas Sirkian suburban New England with big houses and fall leaves, tainted with a strain of scuzziness. Disreputable pig Michael Winner has always been to my knowledge a god amongst hacks who employed his […]

Please Baby Please (2022)

Director-writer Amanda Kramer’s Please Baby Please (2022) reminded me of discovering Johnny Suede on SBS when I was young. The discovery of an arthouse American indie cinema morphing together the past and the present, a receptacle for a filmmaker’s fetishes. Empty alleys or street facades. Apartment interiors on a studio set. Creating a whole situation to let make-up, hair, […]

High Heels (1991)

High Heels (1991) is like Pedro Almodóvar inviting the audience to a boutique shop to peruse and sample. Melodrama is the purpose for being there, but the pleasure lies in admiring and marvelling at all the wares: the wigs, the hairstyles, the dresses, the shoes, the gloves, the earrings. High Heels has a striking colour […]

The Bride Wore Black (1968)

A bride – named Julie Kohler and played by Jeanne Moreau as a focused, unwavering huntress – swears revenge against the five men responsible for the murder of her beloved, shot on the steps of a church during their wedding day. Adapted from a novel by Cornell Woolrich and directed by Francois Truffaut, The Bride […]

Apartment Zero (1988)

Two roommates in Buenos Aires getting to know each other over breakfast, the British owner of the apartment, Adrian DeLuc (Colin Firth) asks the new American tenant, Jack Carney (Hart Bochner), “Do you like cinema?” The film, Apartment Zero (1988), then cuts to an exterior shot of the cinema that Adrian runs, Adrian and Jack […]