Creativity and Culture. All rights in film images are reserved by the filmmakers. Words are my own.
Josh Safdie's new film, Marty Supreme, is a choppy and kinetic ride that showcases Timothée Chalamet's acting talent across 150 minutes. Chalamet plays Marty, a wiry New York shoe salesman with dreams of conquering the world through table tennis. This is in part a sports drama, but this being a Safdie film, it is also a… Continue reading Film Review | Marty Supreme
Eddie Huang, former Vice employee, is bitter. This is evident throughout Vice Is Broke a documentary from an insider's perspective. In it, Huang recounts his experiences rising to fame on his own accord (through word-of-mouth popularity of his cooking in dotcom era New York, and subsequently getting absorbed into Vice. For the uninitiated, Vice was a grassroots… Continue reading Film Review | Vice Is Broke
Clint Eastwood directs and stars in High Plains Drifter, a no-nonsense Western about an anti-hero. The film is focused on a small town in the American Frontier with all the usual personnel; a priest, a barber, a sheriff. The protagonist, an unnamed drifter (Eastwood), rolls into town one day for a drink at the bar and… Continue reading Film Review | High Plains Drifter
Escape from New York is something of an oddity. It appears, from its title and poster, as if it's a blockbuster action movie. In actuality, it's a relatively low-budget passion project and it's about as "auteur" as it gets. It's John Carpenter doing his thing in a DIY, "indie" style, and it has his stamp all… Continue reading Film Review | Escape from New York
Malcolm McDowell offers a manic and bold performance in this otherwise messy and bloated historical drama-porno blend. Caligula follows the titular young emperor of Rome as he ascends the throne of the Republic. His Rome is one bathed in hedonism and wealth, and under his unfettered power he further degenerates it into one of debauchery. The backdrop… Continue reading Film Review | Caligula
Mike Leigh's Hard Truths is several things, but it is most obviously a family-centric drama that focuses on several related people in their middle class lives in London. At its centre is Pansy, played by Marianne Jean-Baptiste. She is a fraught, complex character that obsessed over cleanliness and acts with anger towards her quiet husband and socially… Continue reading Film Review | Hard Truths
Beauty standards are a palpable topic for exploring, particularly when they're about women in image-obsessed Hollywood. This is the setting for Coralie Fargeat's The Substance, a satirical and grotesque body horror that serves up its own version of warped feminism. The film focuses on Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore), an ageing TV fitness instructor who was revered… Continue reading Film Review | The Substance
Tokyo-Ga is at once a travel diary and an ode by one filmmaker to another. In it, Wim Wenders travels to Tokyo to see first-hand the home and film subject of one of his most beloved and revered film directors, the late Yasujirō Ozu. Wenders indulges his curiosity by visiting Pachinko parlours, a pinball-like game… Continue reading Film Review | Tokyo-Ga
Social realism by way of eighties Helsinki; Shadows in Paradise is early, yet masterful Aki Kaurismäki. The film follows Nikander, a garbage collector, as he goes about his day-to-day life, which is as dull as you might expect. He works in a two-man team (under his superior), traveling the city and taking in the trash. By night,… Continue reading Film Review | Shadows in Paradise
What a title; and yes, literally, the title, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. It's phonetically satisfying to read, and as a title of a motion picture, implies terror, gore, and revulsion. And The Texas Chain Saw Massacre has the three in droves. It's a film that suggests it's based on true events, something that was later revealed to… Continue reading Film Review | The Texas Chain Saw Massacre [1974]
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