Shin Godzilla (2016)

Seeing this pop up on a few friends’ Best of 2010s list promoted me to finally watch Shin Godzilla (2016; Shin Gōjira), which is available to stream on SBS OnDemand. Though I haven’t seen many of the Japanese made Godzilla films, I always think that the American versions have a big flaw to overcome: how do […]

Hi, Mom! (1970)

A product of its times as well as being a statement on its times, Hi, Mom! (1970) is a free-wheeling satire of middle-class values. A young Robert De Niro plays Jon, a returned Vietnam vet in New Yorl who veers from one obsession to the next, beginning as a budding pornographer who wants to create “Peep […]

They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? (1969)

Dance marathons were competitions held in the depression-era America for couples to potentially win big money if they went the distance and remained on their feet for days and days and days. With some competitions going beyond 1,000 hours with minimal breaks for food and sleep, this utter exhaustion was spectacle for the watching crowds, […]

Blow Out (1981)

A biography of Quentin Tarantino that I owned when I was 15 informed me that Blow Out (1981) was Tarantino’s favourite performance by John Travolta, the film he cited to convince the actor to trust in his comeback with Pulp Fiction (1994). After so many years of hearing that it was great from critics (especially Pauline Kael’s loving review […]

Shock Corridor (1963)

Diving deeper into the world of director Samuel Fuller, I finally watched Shock Corridor (1963), which I remember Martin Scorsese playing clips of in his Personal Journey Through American Cinema docu-series (now on Kanopy, which this film is available to stream too). Shot over ten days in one location, this low budget thriller follows journalist […]