Review: ZVP
[The following review contains SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.] I somehow missed Junya Okabe’s ZVP when it was originally released on...
The ramblings of a wannabe cineaste. Join me as I dissect the art of storytelling in films, comics, TV shows, and video games.
[The following review contains SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.] I somehow missed Junya Okabe’s ZVP when it was originally released on...
Star vehicles for musicians are hardly a rarity in Hollywood—after all, creatively bankrupt studio executives are perfectly willing to...
[The following review contains MINOR SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!] The first time I watched The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, I felt...
[The following review contains MINOR SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!] The opening scenes of Children of the Great Buddha don’t really...
[The following review contains SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!] The Sentimental Idiot is a major departure from the other Hiroshi Shimizu...
[The following review contains MINOR SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!] Hiroshi Shimizu’s Tomorrow There Will Be Fine Weather is a...
[The following review contains MINOR SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WANRED!] Unlike Angel’s Egg and Tokyo: The Last Megalopolis, Toei’s Bounty...
[The following review contains MINOR SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!] It’s tempting to reduce I Saw the TV Glow to its obvious stylistic...
[The following review contains MINOR SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!] What I admire most about director Ryusuke Hamaguchi is the clarity...
[The following review contains MINOR SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!] Although the Criterion Channel’s description neglects to advertise...
When I previously wrote about benshi—the live narrators that would contextualize (and, on occasion, totally reinterpret) the silent...
[The following review contains MAJOR SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!] Kenji Misumi’s Ken (or The Sword, if you prefer translated titles)...
[The following review contains MAJOR SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!] Yotsuya Kaidan is Japan’s most popular and frequently adapted ghost...
[The following review contains MINOR SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!] At times, Masahiro Shinoda’s Demon Pond feels like two different...
Perfect Days is a film about cherishing small pleasures. It’s about ordinary people living ordinary lives. It’s about the soothing...
Having just belatedly watched Allen Baron’s Blast of Silence, I need to reevaluate my perception of an entire subgenre. Although the...
Every cinephile has at least one Holy Grail. It's a common story: interest in said rare movie is piqued by a fleeting allusion in the...
Above all else, Tokyo: The Last Megalopolis is a triumph of production design. From the intricately detailed miniature models and matte...
[The following review contains MINOR SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!] It would be reductive to describe Dogra Magra as a film about...
In Water—the most recent exercise in minimalism from South Korean indie auteur Hong Sang-soo—is intentionally shot entirely out-of-focus....