Sort by
Listing Movies
Display Movies
Chungking Express (1994)
What a difference a day makes.
Filmmaker(s): Wong Kar-wai

Two melancholic Hong Kong policemen fall in love: one with a mysterious underworld figure, the other with a beautiful and ethereal server at a late-night restaurant.

Discontinuous experiments in this film, and I took some trouble in sorting them out. The first thing you'll notice is the discontinuous camerawork, accentuated by low (never high) angles and strobeflashframes. This element by itself is sophomoric filmschoolism. Then you have the plot tags and storyline. The...


Published June 17, 2025
| Categorised as IMDB Comments, New Comments, Threes |
Tagged: , , ,
A Few Good Men (1992)
In the heart of the nation's capital, in a courthouse of the U.S. government, one man will stop at nothing to keep his honor, and one will stop at nothing to find the truth.
Filmmaker(s): Rob Reiner

When cocky military lawyer Lt. Daniel Kaffee and his co-counsel, Lt. Cmdr. JoAnne Galloway, are assigned to a murder case, they uncover a hazing ritual that could implicate high-ranking officials such as shady Col. Nathan Jessep.

Rosencrantz and Guidenstern writing this in 2025 more than 30 years after seeing it, and probably 25 since writing the first IMDB comment, alas now deleted because of some complaint to IMDB. Watching it now, the whole context has changed. I know quite a few unbalanced...


Published June 17, 2025
| Categorised as New Comments, Twos |
Tagged: , ,
Ten Little Indians (1989)
Filmmaker(s): Alan Birkinshaw

An unknown judge invites a guilty governess and others to a 1930s safari, for justice one by one.

Camp think making a Christie film must be hard, because so seldom does it work. For me, the metric is very simple. We need to be allowed to speculate against multiple impossibilities. Many folks will be exposed for hidden, possibly relevant qualities. What makes Christie work...


Published September 11, 2022
| Categorised as New Comments, Ones |
Tagged: , ,
Godzilla vs. Biollante (1989)
The winner of this battle would be the most enormous enemy against human beings.
Filmmaker(s): Kazuki Ōmori

After the previous Godzilla attack, a miniature arms race ensues to collect his cells. Concerned over Godzilla's possible return, the Japanese government uses the cells to create a new bio-weapon, ANEB (Anti-Nuclear Energy Bacteria). They seeks the aid of geneticist Genshiro Shiragami, who's experiments result in a new mutation.

Sexual Spies Godzilla films — the Japanese ones — are essentially social commentary and painful self-reflection embodied in beasts. So we have films about American dominance, gangsters in corporations, pollution, national friendships… This is the most complex one. The core story is a genius scientist creating...


Published June 25, 2025
| Categorised as New Comments, Ones |
Tagged: , ,
Penn and Teller Get Killed (1989)
What more do you want?
Filmmaker(s): Arthur Penn

The "bad boys of magic" go over the edge in this mind-blowing, role-switching comedy murder mystery set in the dizzying world of Atlantic City casinos. In a TV interview, Penn mentions his idea of a fun practical joke: "I wish someone were trying to kill me. It would give focus to my life, excitement. I'd be like James Bond." Twenty million people hear him. One decides to deliver a punchline he'll never forget. Made by people who thought Psycho was a comedy, Penn & Teller Get Killed (they also wrote the piece) features Caitlin Clarke as the femme fatale and David Patrick Kelly as the Edgar Allan Poe-esque nutcase with a new mission. Arthur Penn, known for hip masterpieces like Bonnie and Clyde, Alice's Restaurant and Little Big Man, directs with roller-coaster pacing and subversive intelligence.

Genuine is an absolutely unwatchable film, featuring two by then seasoned performers and directed by one of our greatest filmmakers. The basic idea is that the two magicians play tricks on each other, and toward the end you aren’t sure when dangerous things are genuine or...


Published July 29, 2025
| Categorised as New Comments, Ones |
Tagged: , ,
Rain Man (1988)
A journey through understanding and fellowship.
Filmmaker(s): Barry Levinson

When car dealer Charlie Babbitt learns that his estranged father has died, he returns home to Cincinnati, where he discovers that he has a savant older brother named Raymond and that his father's $3 million fortune is being left to the mental institution in which Raymond lives. Motivated by his father's money, Charlie checks Raymond out of the facility in order to return with him to Los Angeles. The brothers' cross-country trip ends up changing both their lives.

Drizzle this was new, few of us knew of neurodiverse folks. So the setup as a road movie where our bad soul gets redeemed worked. If you allow the genre. We were all amazed as Hoffman’s portrayal. Neither is unusual now, which I suppose is...


Published September 11, 2022
| Categorised as New Comments, Twos |
Tagged: , ,
Appointment with Death (1988)
An invitation to murder !
Filmmaker(s): Michael Winner

Emily Boynton, the stepmother to three children, blackmails the family lawyer into destroying a second will of her late husband that would have freed the children from her dominating influence. She takes herself, the children, and her daughter-in-law on holiday to Europe and the Holy Land. At a dig, Emily is found dead and Hercule Poirot investigates.

Multiple Appointments can come to films for the bubble of the film, as it presents itself. Or you can enjoy the film as a character in your life, your personal film and the narratives that change you. In this case, I chose the larger film. That’s...


Published November 23, 2022
| Categorised as New Comments, Twos |
Tagged: , ,
The Beast of War (1988)
War brings out the beast in every man.
Filmmaker(s): Kevin Reynolds

During the war in Afghanistan a Soviet tank crew commanded by a tyrannical officer find themselves lost and in a struggle against a band of Mujahadeen guerrillas in the mountains.

Mechanised Urges is fine with me for a film to be just an anti war film, without all the embellishments of the more famous ones. Because of that I will advise you to find this and let it soak in. I write this at the...


Published February 24, 2023
| Categorised as New Comments, Threes |
Tagged: , ,
Ten Little Indians (1987)
Filmmaker(s): Stanislav Govorukhin

A disturbing psychological thriller based on the classic novel by Agatha Christie. Ten strangers are forced to come face to face with their dark pasts after receiving an anonymous invitation to an isolated island off the coast of England.

Invasive are not likely to find this easily. It is ‘Desyat negrityat’ in its original Russian (Десять негритят), being a comparatively faithful adaptation of an Agatha Christie mystery. Some context why this is interesting. The book is allegedly the largest selling fiction book in the...


Published March 3, 2024
| Categorised as New Comments, Threes |
Tagged: , ,
To Sleep So As to Dream (1986)
Filmmaker(s): Kaizo Hayashi

An aging silent film actress hires a private eye and his wacky but helpful assistant to track down her missing daughter, Bellflower. The two follow a succession of bizarre, obscure clues, until they track down the location of the kidnappers and the daughter.

Mysterious Silences my readers know, I study folding in film; when films have parallel positions for the viewer as supported by the construction of the thing. Usually, this is a fluid contract between filmmaker and viewer that requires deeper engagement. I like these in part because...


Published May 13, 2022
| Categorised as New Comments, Threes |
Tagged: , ,