Review: Fireworks, Should We See It from the Side or the Bottom?
As I watched Japan Society’s recent screening of Fireworks, Should We See It from the Side or the Bottom?, I gradually realized that I...
The ramblings of a wannabe cineaste. Join me as I dissect the art of storytelling in films, comics, TV shows, and video games.
As I watched Japan Society’s recent screening of Fireworks, Should We See It from the Side or the Bottom?, I gradually realized that I...
[The following essay contains MAJOR SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.] Early on in Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Angela...
[The following review contains MINOR SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!] How does one approach writing a sequel to Knives Out? After all,...
Plan 75 expands one of Ten Years Japan’s short segments—itself a modernized (albeit extremely loose) adaptation of The Ballad of...
[The following review contains MINOR SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!] What is a film? Is it a dream? A memory? Or is it a purely...
[The following review contains MINOR SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!] An early scene in No Longer Human—a biopic revolving around the...
Today, following an interminably long absence (thanks in large part to the cancellation of this year’s Japan Cuts, which absolutely...
Synopsis: The setting is the Lantz Institute, a clinic specializing in the study of sleep disorders. Despite the wide variety of...
The story of Toho’s Frankenstein vs. Baragon begins towards the tail end of World War II. With the fall of the Third Reich on the...
[The following essay contains SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!] Junji Ito’s Uzumaki begins unassumingly enough. The protagonist, Kirie...
[The following essay contains MAJOR SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!] The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of...
Director Martin McDonagh already proved his credentials as a bonafide auteur with In Bruges and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing,...
[The following essay contains SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!] When questioned about the underlying themes of Gyo, author Junji Ito...
[The following review contains MINOR SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!] I read the reports of viewers fainting and vomiting during...
[The following review contains MINOR SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!] In addition to being a dedicated police officer, the protagonist of...
[The following essay contains SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!] From their very inception, Marvel’s spandex-clad vigilantes have shared a...
[The following essay contains MAJOR SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!] Evil is a virus. As glimpsed in 2021’s Halloween Kills, its...
When Clive Barker decided to direct a cinematic adaptation of one of his own novellas (The Hellbound Heart) back in 1987, he was a...
[The following review contains MAJOR SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!] Smile is a resoundingly efficient exercise in building mood and...
It’s easy to see why Martin Scorsese enjoyed Ti West’s Pearl: from the lyrical opening credits sequence to the haunting iris out, the...