It has been a hard year for cinema, with any movie daring to mount a theatrical release facing unexpected restrictions, venue closures, and even just a market plain spooked about risking their health in a dark theatre. Pity, then, poor Babyteeth. … Continue reading REVIEW: Babyteeth (2019)
Two young girls, Jin and Bin, are unexpectedly sent to live with their aunt while their mother leaves to find their absent father. Before leaving she gives her daughters a piggy bank: when they behave, their aunt will give them … Continue reading REVIEW: Treeless Mountain (2008)
1967 New England: high school graduate Susannah Kaysen (Winona Ryder) suffers a nervous breakdown and takes a drug overdose. Admitted into psychiatric care, she finds herself embedded in a unfamiliar environment with a group of young women – each suffering … Continue reading REVIEW: Girl, Interrupted (1999)
An unemployed, nameless horse butcher (Philippe Nahon) living in northern France violently assaults his wife, steals a gun, and makes his way home to Paris – where he plans his revenge against a society that has left him feel alone … Continue reading REVIEW: I Stand Alone (1998)
A broken family leads a young woman on a mission to repair it in Icíar Bollaín’s wonderfully heartfelt and enjoyable 2016 drama The Olive Tree. Alma (Anna Castillo) is the adult daughter of Spanish chicken farmer Luis (Miguel Angel Aladren). Her … Continue reading REVIEW: The Olive Tree (2016)
Hong Kong’s Johnnie To has been directing films since 1980, but you can really divide his career into two phases. One, a journey-level career in making relatively derivative features heavily inspired by existing genre conventions. Then, from 1999, a more … Continue reading REVIEW: Loving You (1995)
The Avenger (Zhang Fengyi) is a wandering swordsman suffering from a deep post-traumatic malaise. He arrives in a rural valley in western China to wait for someone. While waiting he struggles to retain his composure while encountering an old warrior-turned-monk … Continue reading REVIEW: Sun Valley (1996)
An aspiring filmmaker returns home to Washington DC, intending to research a screenplay about the street where he lived – only to find that the past is gone, and for some there is no going back. In a year where … Continue reading REVIEW: Residue (2020)
Kei (Simon Yam) leads a small band of Hong Kong-based pickpockets, while enjoying his off hours taking pictures of the city with a Rolleiflex camera. While taking photographs one afternoon, he captures the image of a woman (Kelly Lin) seemingly … Continue reading REVIEW: Sparrow (2008)
Los Angeles, 1992. In a cheap motel, and as the television news reports on the not-guilty verdict of the Rodney King trial, police detective Eldon Perry (Kurt Russell) loads both a pistol and a shotgun before stepping out into the … Continue reading REVIEW: Dark Blue (2002)
