Claire’s Camera (2017)

I think it was Gene Siskel who determined a movie’s quality by the following dictum: Is this film more interesting than a documentary of the same actors having lunch? The films of Hong Sang-soo sometimes feel like you’re just watching a documentary actors sitting around and eating, though a key difference in the Sang-soo world […]

White Material (2009)

The workers have reluctantly agreed to help. Five days at a coffee plantation as violent conflict happens. An unnamed African country. Rebel soldiers and the military fighting. The French colonialists have withdrawn, only Isabelle Huppert’s character stubbornly staying behind for a business that she married into. One more yield before they pack up and leave. […]

Heaven’s Gate (1980)

I don’t have access to digital TV at home, so it was a delight to be in a hotel room in Wollongong, turn on the TV to SBS World Movies and see that Michael Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate (1980) was coming up shortly, which I’d always been meaning to see. I remember reading MAD magazines from […]