Torn Curtain (1966)

It’s interesting exploring the titles in a director’s career that don’t get as much celebration, particularly the later period films by a marketed auteur like Alfred Hitchcock. I remember mainly reading about Torn Curtain (1966) from a book about Paul Newman my Mum owned and in Scorsese On Scorsese where the farmhouse sequence is cited […]

Snake Eyes (1998)

I saw Snake Eyes (1998) at the cinema when I was a teenager and enjoyed it then. Over time my love for it has grown alongside my appreciation for both Nicolas Cage as an actor and Brian De Palma as a filmmaker, and I truly think it’s an underrated collaboration. While in contrast to De […]

China Girl (1987)

I knew going in that this was director Abel Ferrara’s version of Romeo and Juliet. But China Girl (1987) feels more like an updated West Side Story. There’s a MTV energy in this night-time, neon-lit, wet-sidewalked vision of New York with young gangs clattering down darkened alleyways, climbing up chain-linked fences. At one point, a […]

Pusher III (2005)

By the third entry in the Pusher series, there’s an assumed narrative trajectory and familar story pattern: the camera follows the protagonist as they slowly start to get in over their heads with deals and debts. Yet it’s interesting across the three movies how the tone is still uniquely set by the lead character and […]

Harlequin (1980)

I remember either my parents or a member of the family had the video of Harlequin (1980), and it always fascinated me, that painted harlequin face on the cover. Shot in Western Australia but the film’s producers keep it vague for the international markets: all the cops and security guards talk with American accents. The […]