Doppelganger (2003)

Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s The Nutty Professor (Jerry Lewis version). Collaborating with his favourite leading man, Koji Yakusho, writer-director Kurosawa opens Doppelganger (2003) in the existential dread familiar from something like Cure. A scientist, who is working on robotic wheelchair that would help disabled people through concentration and muscular impulses, sees himself in public, a person who […]

Before We Vanish (2017)

Yusuke Hayashi’s score for Before We Vanish (2017) – directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa – brings to mind memories of Amblin Entertainment productions. There’s something about the orchestral sweep, its eerie tension and yet a little twinkle-in-the-eye feeling. The sound of an alien invasion movie, and with Kurosawa’s genius for creating tension and unease through blocking, framing and […]

Redline (2009)

I was aware of Redline (2009) by reputation and programmed its trailer before the Trash Classics screening of Speed Racer; they would make an excellent double feature of late-2000s hyperkinetic racing energy. If the Wachowskis used CGI and digital effects to produce an overstimulating racing experience, Redline can leave behind the human avatars for the […]

The 10th Victim (1965)

When a film depicts the future, it’s not just a vision of the future but a document of the time. Case in point, The 10th Victim (1965) which is set in the year 2079 and based on the short story by Robert Sheckley, and yet, it is completely a time capsule of 1960s pop-art, comic-book […]

Trenque Lauquen (2022)

I only heard about the film Trenque Lauquen (2022) through Simon Miraudo reviewing it on Letterboxd. A four hour shaggy-dog mystery from Argentina might have passed me by, but it completely sounded like something that I’d like to seek out. Directed and co-written by Laura Citarella, this is a mystery that ventures off into different […]