A personal journal of film and documentary reviews, and reviews of anything else that intrigues me.
French and French-language Films
Louis Feuillade, “Les Vampires (Part 10: Les Noces Sanglantes)” (1916) Some time after the events of Part 9, star reporter Phillipe Guérande and Jane Bertonnier have…
French and French-language Films
Louis Feuillade, “Les Vampires (Part 9: L’homme des Poisons)” (1916) With the death of Satanas, a new Grand Vampire, Venomous, a chemist with expertise in concocting…
French and French-language Films
Louis Feuillade, “Les Vampires (Part 8: Le Maître de la Foudre)” (1916) Skipping a couple of episodes of this crime-thriller serial, I arrive at Episode 8…
French and French-language Films
Louis Feuillade, “Les Vampires (Part 5: L’évasion du Mort)” (1916) This time in the serial, the crooked businessman Juan José Moreno (Fernand Herrmann) plays the leading role…
French and French-language Films
Louis Feuillade, “Les Vampires (Part 2: La Bague qui tue)” (1915), “Les Vampires (Part 4: Le Spectre)” (1916) Here be two further episodes in which investigative…
French and French-language Films
Louis Feuillade, “Les Vampires (Part 1: La tête coupée)” (1915) First episode in a ten-part serial about a gang of criminals called Les Vampires and the…
French and French-language Films, German and German-language Films
Orson Welles, “The Trial” / “Le Procès” (1962) This film is a visually striking adaptation of the famous Franz Kafka novel. Welles’s directorial approach tries to…
Larry and Andy Wachowski, “The Matrix” (1999) Strip “The Matrix” of its sci-fi trimmings, its computer FX and choreographed martial arts and gunfight scenes and what…
Carol Reed, “The Third Man” (1949) Here’s an excellent movie character study about the testing of loyalties and trust in a world that’s just come out…
Alan J Pakula, “Klute” (1971) Ostensibly a crime thriller about a prostitute who assists a small-town private investigator in a missing-person case, this film is better…