Doppelganger (2003)

Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s The Nutty Professor (Jerry Lewis version). Collaborating with his favourite leading man, Koji Yakusho, writer-director Kurosawa opens Doppelganger (2003) in the existential dread familiar from something like Cure. A scientist, who is working on robotic wheelchair that would help disabled people through concentration and muscular impulses, sees himself in public, a person who […]

Before We Vanish (2017)

Yusuke Hayashi’s score for Before We Vanish (2017) – directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa – brings to mind memories of Amblin Entertainment productions. There’s something about the orchestral sweep, its eerie tension and yet a little twinkle-in-the-eye feeling. The sound of an alien invasion movie, and with Kurosawa’s genius for creating tension and unease through blocking, framing and […]

Kamikaze Hearts (1986)

One of the first scenes in Kamikaze Hearts (1986) I couldn’t get enough of. Sharon Mitchell sitting in the back of an open top convertible, driving through San Francisco, as she plays to the camera in her leather jacket and sunglasses. If you didn’t know Sharon Mitchell as an adult film star, in this moment, […]

Redline (2009)

I was aware of Redline (2009) by reputation and programmed its trailer before the Trash Classics screening of Speed Racer; they would make an excellent double feature of late-2000s hyperkinetic racing energy. If the Wachowskis used CGI and digital effects to produce an overstimulating racing experience, Redline can leave behind the human avatars for the […]

The 10th Victim (1965)

When a film depicts the future, it’s not just a vision of the future but a document of the time. Case in point, The 10th Victim (1965) which is set in the year 2079 and based on the short story by Robert Sheckley, and yet, it is completely a time capsule of 1960s pop-art, comic-book […]