William Shakespeare asked “what’s in a name?” in one of his most famous works. Takashi Ishii asked “what’s in a Nami?” in four of his. Between 1992 and 1994, one of Japanese cinema’s greatest lovers of neon wove this name through a streak of subversive and sleazy films, making his […]
Movies & Documentaries
The Pee Pee Poo Poo Man (2024) – Bonafide outsider cinema with intent to provoke
Some titles just sell themselves. My local cinema recently held a double-bill night of decadent steaming trash with the original and updated Toxic Avenger films, attended by good-hearted cult film fanatics with laughter loaded in their bellies. Ready for an evening of yucks and yacks, they were not prepared for the trailer […]
Saving Face (2004): a happy ending for Alice Wu’s cult romance
The late Patricia Highsmith was not widely known as a ray of sunshine, yet for much of her life she was the recipient of fan mail from women saying she’d saved them from despair, suicide or simply a lonely, unfulfilling life. The reason for this was her novel Carol, initially […]
Harvest (2024): A Nightmarish Look at the Past, or a Prescient Look at the Future?
Based on a novel by Jim Crace, Harvest marks the English-language debut of Athina Rachel Tsangari. It was released to UK cinemas in July of this year and is currently available to stream on Mubi. The film is a curious, absorbing tale, set over seven hallucinatory days, in a village with no name, in an […]
Take From Me (2025) Solemn Indie Horror Full of Promise & Heart
At one point during Take From Me, the enigmatic Elizabeth asks our dishevelled lead John “Are you addicted to death?” Horror and addiction have been bedfellows since the genre turned reflexive in the 60s and 70s. Perhaps the greatest of these is Ferrara’s The Addiction, a uniquely personal take on […]
Who Wants to Kill Jessie (1966): Barbarella vs Superman in Communist Czechoslovakia!
A new Second Run disc is always an education, and this time it’s taught me what the genre term is for those strange, high-concept Czechoslovak comedies like Tomorrow I’ll Wake Up and Scald Myself With Tea, or Happy End. In their native country, they’re called “crazy comedies”. That name might […]
Savages (2024) – An Engaging And Exuberant Stop-Motion Sophomore Film
As we know, stop-motion masters often take a while to work on their masterpieces. Both Henry Selick and Adam Elliot released acclaimed stop-motion films in 2009 yet it took them until recently to deliver another project. Claude Barras is no different – his debut My Life As A Courgette (replaced […]
Shoeshine (1946) Innocence Lost in the Remnants of World War II Rome
Released with a brand new 4K digital restoration by Criterion to Blu-ray and UHD this week, Shoeshine is a 1946 neorealist drama from Vittorio De Sica that has often been hailed as the Italian filmmaker’s first masterpiece and became the first film to win the Academy Award for Best International […]
Trouble Every Day (2001) Laying the foundations for New French Extremity
A pair of lovers are seen making out in the front seat of their car as an accompanying song slowly intensifies, “there’s trouble every day, trouble every day, trouble every day…”. The snogging sesh becomes increasingly passionate, bodies writhing around uncontrollably. Yet things start to creep beyond a so-called love, […]
Finis Terrae (1929) An Early Example of Realism in Film
I admit that I’m not as well versed in silent cinema as I should be. I’ve seen the odd classics like Metropolis and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, but it’s mostly the out-there genre films and comedies are mostly what I’m aware of from the silent era. Out now on […]