Report To The Commissioner (1975)

There’s so much location footage of old Times Square New York in Report To The Commissioner (1975), that it IS its own character, a document of a New York from long ago, crowded streets witnessing a spectacular filmed foot chase or extras interacting with method actors playing cops. This movie is like a lost Sidney […]

The Ninth Configuration (1980)

A castle surrounded by a forrest that is swamped by a slowly creeping fog. A dream of an astronaut on the moon looking away from the American flag to see Jesus on the cross. Stacy Keach’s face, serious and seething, eyes bulging red with rage. A few of the key images from William Peter Blatty’s […]

Images (1972)

There’s something very eerie about a misty, green countryside and being alone in an old house. This is one aspect to the atmosphere of Images (1972), which Robert Altman directed after McCabe and Mrs Miller, an underrated psychological thriller that has gotten more attention in recent years. Susannah York plays Cathryn, an author of children’s […]

The Psychic (1977)

Italian horror maestro Lucio Fulci’s giallo thriller, The Psychic (1977; aka Seven Notes In Black, Sette Note In Nero, Murder To The Tune Of Seven Black Notes), received attention awhile back due to its great soundtrack by Franco Bixo, Fabio Frizzi, and Vince Tempera (listed as Bixo-Frizzi-Tempera); it was another score cannibalised by Quentin Tarantino […]

The Kid Detective (2020)

Tone is such a tricky thing to get it right, particularly when you are juggling tones while blurring genres. The Kid Detective (2020) begins with a goofy premise – a kid detective (like Encyclopaedia Brown) who solved neighbourhood crimes, now a washed up adult still solving “cases” – and eventually becomes one of my favourite […]