One feels that thinking on a film by the Coen brothers, especially a comedy, is a fruitless exercise. Those guys design their work in such a way that it’s not merely immune to navel-gazing, it actually mocks the navel-gazers. And bless their hearts for it. As David Bazan has sung: You’re so creative With your…
What’s an out of work clown to do? Louison (played by Dominique Pinon) didn’t lose his job due to a lack of charm, he has that in abundance. Unfortunately his life took an unexpected turn with the death of his performing partner. The truth to be told, his partner didn’t simply die, he was…
Right from the first scene in Bergman Island, it is apparent that this is a movie made with a very particular audience in mind. You can tell that it will never crossover into pop culture or even into the conversations of casual movie fans, like a lot of indies playing in the festival circuit, do.…
MUHAMMED NOUSHAD reviews Fatih Akin’s documentary Crossing the Bridge: The Sound of Istanbul. Turkish music is irresistibly intoxicating. The more you listen to it, the more it binds you inside. Once you begin to indulge in its soothing pleasure, it engages you to endless entrapment. Here, modernity cohabits with tradition as in the historic city…
This is the first post in The Cinematic Mr. Ripley, a series for the MovieThoughts category of my blog that considers moral themes in Patricia Highsmith’s Tom Ripley novels and the film adaptations of those books. This post looks at Purple Noon, the 1960 French adaptation of The Talented Mr. Ripley, starring Alain Delon. It…
Gliding almost without speech down the dawn streets of a wet Paris winter, these men in trench coats and fedoras perform a ballet of crime, hoping to win and fearing to die. Some are cops and some are robbers. To smoke for them is as natural as breathing. They use guns, lies, clout, greed and nerve with the skill of a magician who no longer even thinks about the cards. They share a code of honor which is not about what side of the law they are on, but about how a man must behave to win the respect of those few others who understand the code.
No monsters seem more ghastly or disturbing in the films of David Cronenberg than his depiction of the rich.
Leyla, a woman in her late 40s, decides to move to Istanbul after working for several years in the German adult film industry. Her opportunist producer ex-boyfriend Yılmaz takes advantage of her drug addiction to persuade her to take part in one last film.
“A genuine revelation. We may finally have an heir to Kubrick.” – LA Weekly “A grand statement on what it means to be a human being.” – Blankprojecter “It’s simply one of the most unique, original and mind-blowing movies you’ll see in a theatre all year.” – Playlist It’s rare to find a movie that has been…
Image Credit: Wild Bunch (spoiler free) Like any Gaspar Noé film, Vortex opens with its end credits. At the tail end of it, a text appears on the screen and says: “À tous ceux dont le cerveau se décomposera avant le coeur.” Translating to “To all those whose brains will decompose before their hearts.” There’s…
At four reels, THE PILGRIM isn’t quite a short and doesn’t seem quite a feature, but the IMDb classes it as one. Excitingly, I don’t think I’ve ever seen it, not all the way through. Chaplin is recycling the escaped convict routine from THE ADVENTURER and having another go at the mistaken identity gag from […]
The Sunday Intertitle: Pilgrim Versus the World
The notion that a first-time filmmaker could blend the rugged, depressive existence of scrappy children struggling to get by in one of Glasgow’s most oppressive neighborhoods with a bizarre dream sequence that includes a mouse tied to a balloon flying to the moon and becoming part of a mouse colony is just as staggering today […]
‘Ratcatcher’: Trauma Never Fades
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Rating: 9 out of 10. Oh – hello there. The following tale of celebrity fetishisation and psychotic delusions is true. And by true, I mean false. Welcome, to The King of Comedy. I’d just like to make this clear: I love this film. And by love, I do not mean hate. In every sense […]
Is The King of Comedy Scorsese’s Best Film? No – It’s Simply The Best Film
Avast, landlubbers, today’s movie selection deals with the rarely-seen topic of sea monsters! But before you lay out your harpoons and start double-tracking the vocals on your sea-shanties, this is a Spanish art-film about sea-monsters on the Mubi channel, so don’t expect 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea shenanigans. Lois Patiño’s film feels like what would […]
Two siblings and three of their friends en route to visit their grandfather’s grave in Texas end up falling victim to a family of cannibalistic psychopaths and must survive the terrors of Leatherface (Gunnar Hansen) and his family. This is one of those cornerstones of horror that you’re always aware of even if you’ve never […]
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
I am not going to lie, yesterday I had no idea this movie existed or what was it about. But, as soon as I saw the name Denis Villeneuve, I knew I needed to watch this (without even knowing this is his feature movie debut!) just to see how the director behind movies like Prisoners […]
August 32nd on Earth (1998) Review – Car Crash, Model and Desert
Welcome to The Best Movies I’ve Never Seen! This is the part of the blog where I work my way through 100 films I’ve never seen that are generally considered to be great. You’re invited to watch along with me if you can find a copy or find it streaming. So grab some popcorn and let’s […]
Sinema izleyicisine karşı takınılması gerektiği tavır sinema tarihi boyunca tartışma konusu olmuştur. Film, izleyicisine ne tür bir deneyim sunmalıdır? Onu mutlu mu, yoksa mutsuz mu etmelidir? Filmlerin amacı duyguyu yansıtmak mıdır, yoksa izleyicinin kendi içindekine dokunmak mıdır? Sinema, estetiği itibariyle iyi ve güzel masalsı bir dille mi anlatmalıdır, yoksa bizi suratımıza yumruğu mu patlatmalıdır? Gaspar […]
Rahatsız Ediciliğin Doruk Noktası: Climax
Wes Anderson tam adıyla Wesley Wales Anderson1 Mayıs 1969 doğumlu Amerikalı yönetmen, senarist; kısa film, film ve reklam yapımcısı. Reklamcı bir baba ile aslen arkeolog olan ama emlak danışmanlığı yapan bir annenin üç çocuğunun ortancası olarak Houston, Teksas’ta dünyaya geldi. Westchester Lisesi’ni bitirdikten sonra Houston’da özel bir okul olan St. John’s School’a devam etti. Teksas’ta […]
Michael Önder’in 2017 yılındaki ilk uzun metraj filmi olan Taksim Hold’em gezi parkı eylemlerine karşı toplumun hemen her kesiminin duruşunu yansıtmış. Tek bir mekanda bir poker masası etrafında otuzlu yaşlarında olan bireylerin politik söylemlerin yanı sıra hayat içinde yürüttükleri oyunu izliyoruz. Bu filmi izleyince aklıma ilk gelen içerik olarak çok daha sert bir eleştiri olan Suat […]
