Recently, I’ve noticed that some amateur critics online (particularly on Twitter, but elsewhere, as well) tend to evaluate films as...

Czech filmmaker Jiří Barta’s stop motion adaptation of The Pied Piper is a triumph of style as substance. Every frame is both...

[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...