Pacifiction (2022)

The white suit. When commissioner De Roller (Benoît Magimel), an official of France working in Tahiti, rides on a boat towards a surfing competition as part of his duties, he waves to a couple of people on the shore. It struck me how the white suit De Roller constantly wears in Pacifiction (2022), which seems […]

The Novelist’s Film (2022)

I’m still reading Dennis Lim’s book about Hong Sang-soo’s film Tale Of Cinema, which is used to discuss the prolific auteur’s body of work. I’ve seen a lot of Sang-soo’s films this year, mainly due to the fact that many of them were added to SBS OnDemand. By seeing more than one of Sang-soo’s productions, […]

Apartment Zero (1988)

Two roommates in Buenos Aires getting to know each other over breakfast, the British owner of the apartment, Adrian DeLuc (Colin Firth) asks the new American tenant, Jack Carney (Hart Bochner), “Do you like cinema?” The film, Apartment Zero (1988), then cuts to an exterior shot of the cinema that Adrian runs, Adrian and Jack […]

Dangerous Game (1993)

With Dangerous Game (1993), Abel Ferrara makes a movie about making movies, so you’re gonna get histrionic method acting shouting, people wearing sunglasses indoors smoking cigarettes like vampires, catholic themes about indulging vices and expunging guilt, and copious scenes of drinking and drug-taking while a Schoolly D track pumps away in the background. For Dangerous […]

Special Effects (1984)

What I enjoy about Larry Cohen is how he approaches things as a writer: the story’s gotta have a hook! Released in the same year as Brian De Palma’s Body Double, Cohen’s film Special Effects (1984) is a comparable twist on a Hitchcockian thriller. The hook: What if a movie director was a murderer? (A […]