All-American Murder (1991)

“Any more surprises? Before I open the oven and find my Aunt Harriet?” I distinctly remember hearing that line from Christopher Walken’s character, detective Decker, in the video ads for All-American Murder (1991), a direct-to-video thriller that soon became a cult favourite to me for only one scene. That scene is when Walken’s character is […]

Lost River (2014)

Ryan Gosling’s directorial debut, Lost River (2014), has always sat there beckoning me. When it came out, it received mixed to poor reviews and sort of disappeared. Yet it also looks like a Nicolas Winding Refn movie, who I am a fan of. After years of putting it off, I finally dove in. For the […]

The Rapture (1991)

Being a teenage fan of The X Files, I was aware of The Rapture (1991) as a movie David Duchovny was in before becoming Fox Mulder. Yet the central performance is by Mimi Rogers and she is great in delivering a character who shifts gradually throughout this movie’s ongoing thematic conversation with God and religion. […]

Remember My Name (1978)

I am a fan of director Alan Rudolph, the Robert Altman protege who carved out his own singular style with several noir-ish romances, my all time favourite being Choose Me. I always love how Rudolph will pick a singer as the ‘voice’ of his movie – such as Teddy Pendergrass for Choose Me, or Tom […]

Rituals (1977)

Pure Cinema Podcast talked about Rituals (1977) aka The Creeper so many times across different episodes that I just had to finally watch it. It’s basically a Deliverance knock-off shot in Ontario, Canada with the late, great Hal Holbrook in the lead; apparently he was paid one sixth of the movie’s budget and he’s worth […]