Sparrow (2008)

Movies in love with the movies. Hong Kong director Johnnie To began making Sparrow (2008) over three years in between other projects, most of them crime movies about cops and/or gangsters like Election and Exiled. There’s an element where it feels like Sparrow was another lane to escape to, and even though it is still […]

Matt And Mara (2024)

Mumblecore gets a bad rap. I assume it’s the name, which most of the filmmakers lumped into that sub-genre didn’t care for. And don’t get me wrong, some of those movies are annoying and bad. Friends and I who got into those films were mainly responding to Andrew Bujalski’s first two films. Cassavetes was an […]

Boiling Point (1990)

Takeshi Kitano treats violence with the same structural impact as building a gag in comedy. Boiling Point (1990) veers between violence as a joke – a call back, or a punchline, like when a young kid refuses a helmet on his first motorcycle, and then cut to him sitting stunned with a bloody face – […]

High Heels (1991)

High Heels (1991) is like Pedro Almodóvar inviting the audience to a boutique shop to peruse and sample. Melodrama is the purpose for being there, but the pleasure lies in admiring and marvelling at all the wares: the wigs, the hairstyles, the dresses, the shoes, the gloves, the earrings. High Heels has a striking colour […]

The Old Dark House (1932)

All I knew about The Old Dark House (1932) was its director, James Whale, and star Boris Karloff, were together again after the success of Frankenstein. Based on a novel by J.B. Priestley, the story concerns two parties of debonair British people – one group is a married couple (Raymond Massey and Gloria Stuart – […]