House of Hummingbird (2018, Kim Bora)
Eun-hee (Park Ji-hu) is an average Seoul eighth grader circa 1994, which would be fine if being average weren’t a one-way ticket to nowhere. Park’s the youngest of three children; while presumably...
View ArticleThe Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart (2020, Frank Marshall)
The Bee Gees deserve a more comprehensive documentary thanHow Can You Mend a Broken Heart. The film skips over a lot of specifics in the early years, then ends its main narrative in the late 1970s with...
View ArticleThe Famous Sword Bijomaru (1945, Mizoguchi Kenji)
The Famous Sword Bijomaru is a tragedy. Well, at its best, it’s a tragedy. The film—which runs sixty-five minutes and has zero subplots, very few close-ups, and no establishing shots or sequences—opens...
View ArticleHard Boiled (1992, John Woo)
The first act of Hard Boiled is fantastic. Between Woo’s glossy, smooth jazz but with bite tone and Chow Yun-Fat’s glorious lead performance; it’s all like butter. There’s a big, intricate shootout...
View ArticleDeliver Us from Evil (2020, Hong Won-Chan)
The evil in Deliver Us from Evil is specifically Lee Jung-jae’s sadistic villain but generally the entire world of the film, which features drug kingpins, child kidnapping, government assassins turned...
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Avalon (1990, Barry Levinson)
Avalon is not a success. It very frustratingly waits until the very end of the picture to clearly not succeed. After trying real hard, there’s just nothing to it. Writer and director Levinson makes a...
View ArticleGunpowder Milkshake (2021, Navot Papushado)
Gunpowder Milkshake is a moody, neon, sometimes minimalist mix of neo-noir and spaghetti Western. Director Papushado approaches the film’s budgetary constraints with creativity and ingenuity, focusing...
View ArticleMuch Ado About Nothing (2011, Josie Rourke and Robert Delamere)
The best thing about Much Ado About Nothing, except the dialogue, is Delamere’s direction. Not the stage direction, Rourke did that job, but Delamere’s direction of this recording. There’s some ho-hum...
View ArticleThe Phantom Carriage (1921, Victor Sjöström)
Victor Sjöström directs, stars, and adapts The Phantom Carriage. He gives himself a great showcase. Most of the film is a breathtaking character study of an abject bastard. The film throws reason after...
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Young Man with a Horn (1950, Michael Curtiz)
Young Man with a Horn has a third act problem. It’s got too many of them as it tries to find a way not to end on a down note. As a result, each third act gets more depressing, more dire, and...
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