Empire Records
Some films capture the zeitgeist so perfectly that they end up forming a kind of feedback loop through which they shape and mold that zeitgeist. Empire Records (1995) is one… Read more »
Baal
In 1970 filmmaker Volker Schlöndorff adapted Bertolt Brecht’s first play Baal into a film for West German television. Helene Weigel was so appalled by Schlöndorff’s modernist adaptation that the film… Read more »
Mardock Scramble: The First Compression
Mardock Scramble: The First Compression (2010) follows the same rape/revenge formula as Yasuomi Umetsu’s Kite (1998) and Mezzo Forte (2001). Mardock Scramble: The First Compression is set in a super… Read more »
The Reckless Moment
The Reckless Moment (1949) opens with Lucia Harper (Joan Bennett) going to warn Ted Darby (Shepperd Strudwick) to stay away from her seventeen year old daughter Bea (Geraldine Brooks). Darby… Read more »
Honor Society
Honor (Angourie Rice), a high school senior, dreams of getting as far away from her hometown as she can once she graduates. When she learns that the creepy guidance counselor… Read more »
Righting Wrongs
The new home video release of Righting Wrongs (1986) from Vinegar Syndrome is an exceptional package. Between this release and the deluxe editions of Thriller: A Cruel Picture (1973) and… Read more »
The Gray Man
In the opening scene of The Gray Man (2022), Billy Bob Thornton’s CIA handler says to Ryan Gosling’s con and soon to be secret agent “I get it, you’re glib”,… Read more »
I’m Dangerous Tonight
There’s more than a little that is problematic about Tobe Hooper’s made for television classic I’m Dangerous Tonight (1990). Not only does the film appropriate Aztec culture in a highly… Read more »
Angst
Angst (1983) is a largely fictionalized dramatization of Werner Kniesek’s mass murders in St. Pölten, Austria, during the early winter of 1980. The film is a collaboration between director Gerald… Read more »
Naked Weapon
Writer and producer Wong Jing followed up his cult classic Cat. III hit Naked Killer (1992) with the Tony Ching Siu-tung directed feature Naked Weapon (2002). As the title Naked… Read more »
