A personal journal of film and documentary reviews, and reviews of anything else that intrigues me.
“Nationalized Finance: Russian Direct Investment Fund Focuses on Helping Country Expand and Grow” (Vesti News, 6 August 2018) An interesting and informative news documentary from Vesti…
Dan Gilroy, “Roman J. Israel, Esq.” (2017) Once in a while an intelligent and worthy film comes out of Hollywood that demonstrates someone there still knows…
Graham Phillips, “Salisbury! A Day in Skripal City” (July 2018) In late July, British journalist / film-maker Graham Phillips spent time in Salisbury in southern England…
Korean Films, North American Films
Andre Vltchek, “The Faces of North Korea” (2018) Visually poetic, even soulful to watch, this documentary is a travelogue of the sights and experiences, along with…
Takashi Miike, “Over Your Dead Body” (2014) From the incredibly prolific director Takashi Miike, who never met a film genre he couldn’t make an insanely extreme…
Fred Haines, “Steppenwolf” (1974) There was a period in the 1960s when this 1927 novel was the darling of the psychedelic counter-culture in the United States,…
Pongsa Kornsri, Gun Phansuwon, Nat Yoswatananont, “The Legend of Muay Thai: 9 Satra” (2018) Not known for its animation industry, Thailand nevertheless seems to be pinning…
Makoto Shinkai, “5 Centimetres per Second” (2007) As with his “Your Name”, Makoto Shinkai’s earlier “5 Centimetres per Second” is a teenage romance based around desire,…
Chinese and Chinese-language Films
Jia Zhangke, “The World” (2004) In future years, this film, long and meandering though it is, may well be regarded as an early masterpiece in Jia…
Vahid Jalilvand, “No Date, No Signature” (2017) A chance encounter between two characters who would never have met otherwise becomes an examination of class conflict in…