Videodrome (1983)

VHS tape might be an antiquated medium but writer-director David Cronenberg’s sick idea to fuse it with flesh ensures Videodrome (1983) has a long shelf-life as a body-horror sci-fi cult classic. Even if the technology featured is dated, from VCRs to cathode tube TVs to cable satellite dishes, the cold eroticism and sick intrigue of […]

The Headless Woman (2008)

I always loved that in their Criterion Closet YouTube video, Lucrecia Martel selected Carnival Of Souls and said something to the effect of, that it was enough to make one film if it was as great as that. Only after I had watched Martel’s film, The Headless Woman (2008), did I see its connection to […]

Paprika (2006)

Look, I can rewatch Inception anytime, but after my first viewing at the cinema, I remembered thinking, “The imagery wasn’t really that surreal for a movie about dreams.” Sure, there’s the city folding on itself, and the hallway zero gravity fight, but for the most part, it’s pretty standard stuff – the climax is a […]

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 […]

eXistenZ (1999)

Continuing the cyber-punk run I’m on by firing up a rewatch of David Cronenberg’s eXistenZ (1999), which is up there with Dark City with cult movies overshadowed by The Matrix’s box office success. Pre-millennium video-game inspired noirish narratives about the nature of reality and its confusion with fiction; the type with strong fans who will […]