The Blackout (1997)

Continuing my deep dive into the back catalogue of Abel Ferrara, The Blackout (1997) is a film of two halves, which combine to form a portrait of addiction. The opening sets up a hedonistic LA lifestyle with movie star Matty (Matthew Modine) returning home from a film shoot, ready to reunite with his girlfriend Annie […]

Siberia (2020)

I’ve recently been following up the work of director Abel Ferrara and catching up on the films I haven’t seen (Mary, Driller Killer, Welcome To New York, Fear City). When Revelation Film Festival announced its online festival, COUCHED, which ran during July this year, and that one of its selected films was Siberia (2020), one […]

Exotica (1994)

Atom Egoyan’s early work was a regular fixture on SBS Saturday Cult Movie night and him, alongside Hal Hartley, defined a certain indie cinema aesthetic pre-Tarantino. I remember Egoyan’s break-out arthouse hit Exotica (1994) being advertised as an erotic thriller, posters and video boxes using the imagery of Mia Kirshner’s character dancing in a school […]

Duelle (1976)

Browsing through the library feature of Mubi, I stumbled across Duelle (1976; Duelle (une quarantaine), directed by Jacques Rivette, and I was drawn in by the plot summary describing a battle between the Daughter Of The Moon (Juliet Berto) and the Daughter Of The Sun (Bulle Ogier). A fantasy battle is embedded in noir styled […]

The Long Goodbye (1973)

American cinema in the 1970s had an interest in reviving older genres, and film noir was a great way of expressing society’s disillusionment and paranoia. Casting the hangdog, bemused charm of Elliott Gould as the classic detective character of Philip Marlowe in The Long Goodbye (1973) must have seemed like a joke to fans of […]