The Hitch-Hiker (1953)

It’s all a matter of time. You hear about a film, you see it pop up (particularly if it’s in the public domain – so everywhere, public access TV, crappy DVDs, free on YouTube), and know that at some point you’ll eventually see it. The Hitch-Hiker (1953) was always beckoning on the side of the […]

Videodrome (1983)

VHS tape might be an antiquated medium but writer-director David Cronenberg’s sick idea to fuse it with flesh ensures Videodrome (1983) has a long shelf-life as a body-horror sci-fi cult classic. Even if the technology featured is dated, from VCRs to cathode tube TVs to cable satellite dishes, the cold eroticism and sick intrigue of […]

The Mission (1999)

Johnnie To is someone whose movies I’ve wanted to dig into more, with him and his company Milky Way having an international reputation for Hong Kong action cinema. Though To has a prolific and diverse output of genres, people tend to talk most about his crime movies, usually about cops and triads. I’ve seen a […]

The Headless Woman (2008)

I always loved that in their Criterion Closet YouTube video, Lucrecia Martel selected Carnival Of Souls and said something to the effect of, that it was enough to make one film if it was as great as that. Only after I had watched Martel’s film, The Headless Woman (2008), did I see its connection to […]

Galveston (2018)

I’m an easy mark for a neo-noir thriller and Galveston (2018) intrigued me because it was directed by Melanie Laurent. Best known as Shosanna in Inglorious Basterds, Laurent has directed several films in France and this is her only English-language American film (so far), an adaptation of a novel by Nic Pizzolatto, the creator of […]