ogradyfilm3 days ago1 minReview: ConfessionsImagine Kinji Fukasaku’s Battle Royale. Now, replace most of the physical bloodshed with psychological warfare—a tense game of mental che...
ogradyfilm4 days ago1 minReview: SakuranMika Ninagawa began her career as a photographer, and that background is clearly evident in Sakuran, her directorial debut. Every frame i...
ogradyfilmFeb 141 minReview: Air DollOn paper, the premise of Air Doll (an inflatable sex doll somehow develops sentience and proceeds to wander the streets of Tokyo) sounds ...
ogradyfilmFeb 142 minReview: Red Post on Escher StreetFor his latest mind-bending cinematic acid trip, Sion Sono couldn’t have chosen a more appropriate title than Red Post on Escher Street. ...
ogradyfilmFeb 131 minReview - Crazy Samurai: 400 vs 1I’ll give Crazy Samurai: 400 vs 1 (also known as Crazy Samurai Musashi) a little bit of credit for its ambition; after all, it takes a lo...
ogradyfilmFeb 71 minReview: Bright FutureDespite his recent efforts to distance himself from the label, Kiyoshi Kurosawa is still best known as a “J-horror” director. Unlike his ...
ogradyfilmFeb 72 minReview: The Great Yokai War and The Twilight SamuraiJapan Society is currently hosting an online retrospective celebrating the past twenty years of Japanese cinema, spotlighting a wide vari...
ogradyfilmJan 312 minWolfwalkers: The Shape of Oppression[The following essay contains MAJOR SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!] As complex and compelling as Robyn Goodefellowe, her father, and Meb...
ogradyfilmJan 242 minReview: The Masque of the Red DeathApparently, American International Pictures’ The Masque of the Red Death has been available on the Criterion Channel for quite some time,...
ogradyfilmJan 171 minReview: The LadykillersIn some movies, the setting can be as much of a protagonist as any human character. The Ladykillers, produced by Ealing Studios in 1955, ...
ogradyfilmJan 172 minReview: The Quick and the DeadThe films of director Sam Raimi epitomize cinematic mythology. From The Evil Dead (horror) to Spider-Man (superhero), he distills genres ...
ogradyfilmJan 161 minInformal Pitch: A Parody of a Hallmark Style Holiday RomcomTitle: The Christmas Conman Synopsis: Holly Day never really cared about Christmas; her career simply didn’t leave much time for joy and ...
ogradyfilmJan 102 minHades: The Labor of Sisyphus[The following essay contains MAJOR SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!] Even if you’re a complete newcomer to the wild world of Greek mythol...
ogradyfilmJan 92 minMank: Nightmares in the Dream Factory[The following essay contains SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!] Early in the first act of David Fincher’s Mank, protagonist Herman J. Mank...
ogradyfilmJan 52 minSoul: Finding the Spark[The following essay contains MAJOR SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!] Like nearly all of Pixar’s work, Soul gets pretty goddamn existentia...
ogradyfilmJan 42 minTenet: Fatalism, Free Will, and the Inflexibility of Time[The following essay contains MAJOR SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!] I’ll see you at the beginning, friend. As the dust settles following...
ogradyfilmJan 32 minThe Mandalorian: A Larger World[The following essay contains MAJOR SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!] Several critics have argued that Season 2 of The Mandalorian feature...
ogradyfilmDec 20, 20201 minReview: Goodbye, Dragon InnOne of the first images in Tsai Ming-Liang’s Goodbye, Dragon Inn is an establishing shot of the Fu-Ho, an old-school cinema in Taiwan. De...
ogradyfilmDec 13, 20201 minReview - Mansai Nomura’s Kyogen: Kagami-kaja (A Mirror Servant) + Shimizu (Spring Water)I tend to focus on Japan Society’s film program, but it’s far more than just a cinema; it’s a full-on cultural enrichment center, featuri...
ogradyfilmDec 6, 20201 minReview: Raining in the MountainI wouldn’t call Raining in the Mountain King Hu’s most spiritual work, but it is the film in which his Buddhist philosophy is most clearl...