A personal journal of film and documentary reviews, and reviews of anything else that intrigues me.
Akira Kurosawa, “The Hidden Fortress” (1958) Inspiration for George Lucas’ “Star Wars: A New Hope”, the 1978 space-fantasy flick that spawned an industry, this unusual historical…
Bob Rafelson, “Five Easy Pieces” (1970) One of the saddest films I have seen, “Five Easy Pieces” was conceived as a character study vehicle by the…
French and French-language Films
Claude Miller, “Thérèse Desqueyroux” (2012) Claude Miller’s swansong film is a historical drama piece starring Audrey Tautou in the eponymous role occupied by Emmanuelle Riva in…
Paul Grignon, “Money As Debt 3 (Evolution Beyond Money)” In the final episode of the series, Grignon looks at how the world can rid itself of…
Paul Grignon, “Money As Debt 2 (Promises Unleashed)” (2009) Where the first episode in Paul Grignon’s “Money As Debt” series is a general overview of the…
Paul Grignon, “What the Heck is a Bail-Out?” Part of a body of work investigating the role of money in modern society and how banks came…
Paul Grignon, “Money as Debt” (2006) While looking for something else on Youtube.com, I found this very informative video on how the modern US banking system…
Trey Parker, “Team America: World Police” (2004) A silly and puerile satire on American society, culture, the nature of power and the celebration of style over…
Takashi Miike, “Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai” (2011) As this is a Takashi Miike film, this flick has the requisite blood-letting shock factor to satisfy Miike’s…
Chinese and Chinese-language Films
Andrew Lau and Alan Mak, “Confession of Pain” (2006) Ain’t no bad time like Chinese New Year for a police officer to come home one night…