Chilly Scenes Of Winter (1979)

I really liked director Joan Micklin Silver’s Between The Lines, how much of a hang out movie it was, about a staff at a street press soon to be acquired by a corporate publisher. Silver’s next film, Chilly Scenes Of Winter (1979), is also a hang out film, except you are stuck with Charles (John […]

Boom! (1968)

“What’s human or inhuman is not for human decision!” I love Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, and have always been curious about the other movies they made together, particularly when their tabloid exploits as a movie star couple overshadowed them. Most of them I’ve heard are not so hot […]

Round About Midnight (1999)

Hiroyuki Sanada is a recognisable Japanese actor from Hollywood productions like The Last Samurai and John Wick 4, always giving a sense of dignity and substance to even mainstream action cinema clearly beneath his talents (Bullet Train, Mortal Kombat remake). In previous decades, there were leading roles in Japanese cinemas throughout the 1980s onwards. Round […]

Petrol (2023)

Petrol (2023) is a new Australian film from director Alena Lodkina. I had only caught up recently with her first, Strange Colours, which screened at Revelation Film Festival and is a father-daughter drama set in the Lightning Ridge opal mining bushlands of New South Wales, which I found to be authentic and artful, patiently compelling. […]

Both Sides Of The Blade (2022)

Both Sides Of The Blade (2022) is a love triangle that unfolds like a floating inevitability, like something on rippling water, bobbing towards you slowly. Directed by Claire Denis and written by Christine Angot (based on her novel), the film focuses on Sara (Juliette Binoche), a radio journalist, who is married to Jean (Vincent Lindon), […]