Review: The Chrysanthemum and the Guillotine
Watched The Chrysanthemum and the Guillotine, my second online screening in Japan Society’s “Aim for the Best: Sports in Japanese Cinema”...
The ramblings of a wannabe cineaste. Join me as I dissect the art of storytelling in films, comics, TV shows, and video games.
Watched The Chrysanthemum and the Guillotine, my second online screening in Japan Society’s “Aim for the Best: Sports in Japanese Cinema”...
From Wayne Campbell to Austin Powers to Shrek, Mike Myers has a talent for creating cultural icons. As undeniably influential as those...
While I understood the necessity of the decision (considering the whole “ongoing global pandemic” thing), I was absolutely crushed when...
About Endlessness opens with an image of a pair of embracing lovers floating above a sea of gray clouds. In comparison with this moment...
My busy work schedule prevented me from catching At Eternity’s Gate during its initial theatrical run back in 2018. Fortunately, the film...
Watched Minari via A24’s online “screening room”—certainly not my preferred viewing method, but it’s still safer than venturing out to...
With the (allegedly) COVID-safe telecast of the 2021 Oscars ceremony looming, I decided to finally make an effort to catch up on this...
[The following essay contains MAJOR SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!] On Saint Patrick’s Day, I watched Fatal Deviation—which proudly...
Once you’ve seen enough documentaries, it becomes nearly impossible to ignore the genre’s inherent artificiality; its entire purpose,...
[The following review contains MAJOR SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!] It’s remarkable how changing a single ingredient can significantly...
[The following essay contains MAJOR SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!] Things change, Harold. Don't get nostalgic. Look to the future....
The Long Good Friday is the perfect anti-mystery story. The plot revolves around Harold Shand (played by Bob Hoskins at his brutish...
Mars Attacks! absolutely terrified me when it was first released. Actually, that’s a bit of an understatement. It would be more accurate...
[The following review contains MINOR SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!] It took me way too long to discover Grosse Pointe Blank. Which...
Imagine Kinji Fukasaku’s Battle Royale. Now, replace most of the physical bloodshed with psychological warfare—a tense game of mental...
Mika Ninagawa began her career as a photographer, and that background is clearly evident in Sakuran, her directorial debut. Every frame...
On paper, the premise of Air Doll (an inflatable sex doll somehow develops sentience and proceeds to wander the streets of Tokyo) sounds...
For his latest mind-bending cinematic acid trip, Sion Sono couldn’t have chosen a more appropriate title than Red Post on Escher Street....
I’ll give Crazy Samurai: 400 vs 1 (also known as Crazy Samurai Musashi) a little bit of credit for its ambition; after all, it takes a...
Despite his recent efforts to distance himself from the label, Kiyoshi Kurosawa is still best known as a “J-horror” director. Unlike his...