A personal journal of film and documentary reviews, and reviews of anything else that intrigues me.
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…
Temujin Doran, “Obey” (2012) Initially this documentary promised to be an inquiry into the rise of corporatism as the dominant ideology in the West during the…
Alex Gibney, “Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God” (2012) No matter what narrative or other devices are used to tell or illustrate an…
Bob Fosse, “Cabaret” (1972) Loosely based on a Broadway play and a 1950s film which in turn were based on two novellas by British writer Christopher…
French and French-language Films
Alice Winocour, “Augustine” (2012) In the early years of the twentieth century in France, the ambitious Professor Charcot (Vincent Lindon) runs a hospital for female patients…
Bill Maloney, “Sun, Sea & Satan” (2008) A highly impassioned film on child abuse in a care home in Jersey, one of the Channel Islands in…
Park Chan-kyong, Park Chan-wook, “Night Fishing / Paranmanjang” (2011) Filmed using an Apple iPhone4, this fantasy-horror film delves into the little understood world of Korean shamanism…
Will Yearsley, “Masters of Money (Episode 3:Marx)” (2012) The third and final episode of this rather so-so series on significant economist / philosophers who influenced 20th…
George Packard, “Beyond Curb Appeal: Jay Shafer and the Politics of Tiny Houses” (2011) While cruising the Internet (as you do), I found this little film…