Bad Education
January 18, 2003
The film within a film scenario is given the colourful Almodovar treatment in this stylish, autobiographical noir masterwork. Moving and laced with delicious black humor this has given the great Spanish director his biggest every domestic box office opening...
Stray Dog
January 6, 2003
Akira Kurosawa made Stay Dog (1949) only a few years after World War II while Japan was still occupied by Allied forces. He used the genre trappings of a crime thriller to comment on the post-war conditions of his country. The Criterion Collection has...
Blackmail Is My Life
December 24, 2002
In the 1960s, Kinji Fukasaku was the Japanese equivalent of Sam Fuller. He cut a violent swath of gangster films that were garish mini-masterpieces of the B-movie variety. Among them was Blackmail Is My Life (1968), a scathing, two-fisted attack on corruption...
Out for a Kill
December 14, 2002
Now I enjoy bad movies, I’m a veritable connoisseur of them. Which is why I have all of Steven Seagal’s films either on video, DVD or Laserdisc – many of them all three formats! Even I though, have to admit that lately Seagal’s...
Salvatore Giuliano
December 9, 2002
Famous outlaw Salvatore Giuliano was found dead in a courtyard in Montelepre, Italy in July 1950. He was mysteriously shot and killed, the details of which are embroiled in controversy. Francesco Rosi’s film flashes back to the early 1940s to show Italy’s...
Kill Bill volume 1
October 21, 2002
If Jackie Brown (1997) was Quentin Tarantino’s affectionate homage to ’70s Blaxploitation films, then Kill Bill, Volume 1 (2003) is his unabashed love letter to martial arts and Yakuza films from the same decade. The opening credits that feature...
To Live and Die in L.A.
September 30, 2002
To Live and Die in L.A. was a film ahead of its time. When it was released in 1985, it failed to connect with a mainstream audience that was put off by its amoral, unlikable characters and downbeat, nihilistic ending. What did people expect from the same...
Monster
September 27, 2002
A topic like the sordid life of America’s most notorious (and only) female serial killer who was also a highway prostitute with a lesbian lover is not the cheeriest, or some might suggest wisest, choice for your directorial debut. Writed/director...
Matchstick Men
September 1, 2002
Con-artists Nic Cage and Sam Rockwell find their biggest scam in danger when Cage’s 14-year-old daughter arrives on the scene. Director Ridley Scott usually favours big flamboyant blockbusters, so it was an odd choice for him to take the reigns...
Underworld Beauty
April 1, 2002
In North America, Japanese filmmaker Seijun Suzuki is virtually unknown to mainstream audiences. However, to fans of Japanese cinema, he is regarded as one of the masters of the gangster genre. In the 1950s, he was a journeyman director making crime thrillers...
