Dudes (1987)

Memories of the Dudes (1987) VHS cover in the Comedy aisle of a video store, Jon Cryer and Daniel Roebuck with their hands up next to a cactus, promising fish-out-of-water laughs with two punkers in a western, radiating Bill and Ted comparisons, or even Wayne’s World (not knowing as a kid that they were from the same director, Penelope […]

Sholay (1975)

Sholay (1975) screened last year in cinemas as part of an anniversary 4K edition. I wish I had seen it in a cinema. Due to life and the three hour plus run time, I had to watch it broken up, almost treating it like a serial. A full blown cinematic epic whose cultural impact and […]

Pickpocket (1997)

In Jia Zhangke’s Pickpocket (1997) aka Xiao Wu, which was shot in the Chinese town of Fenyang (where Zhangke grew up), there are a few street scenes where something happens, often to the main character, and people passing by begin to stop and look; there’s a feeling that these are not extras, but actual people wondering what’s going […]

Kaithi (2019)

Hearing that the Indian Tamil-language flick Kaithi (2019) was a cross between Assault On Precinct 13 and The Wages Of Fear was enough to hook me into searching it out. What I found was something that is reminiscent of both those films, but was also pitched between a Johnnie To/Milky Way film (strong premise, tense […]

Broken Mirrors (1984)

Broken Mirrors (1984) is a bleak and powerful drama with two narrative strands, the inner workings of a brothel called Club Happy House, and a man whose face we don’t see kidnapping and murdering women off the street. Part of the viewing experience is the tension around when these two strands might intersect, but more than […]