March 22, 2010

Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (Martin Scorsese, 1974)

It was a pleasant surprise to see Alice doesn’t live here anymore. Is it a feminist film? Can a male filmmaker look at a woman through a female perspective?
March 22, 2010

The Journey (Fernando E. Solanas, 1992)

Argentina has one of the most impressive cinematography in the world. Within that cinema, Fernando E. Solanas is a director of seminal importance. In his essay, Towards a Third cinema, Solanas and his co-writer, Octavio Getino, galvanize the overall revolutionary ideas of the time into the concept of a decolonization cinema, denouncing the weak, liberal arts that have, up until […]
March 4, 2011

The Clone Returns Home (Kanji Nakajima, 2008)

Although the premise seems ripe for the movie becoming a welcome addition to the minimalist cerebral sci-fi genre, The Clone Returns Home disappoints.
March 26, 2010

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (Tom Tykwer, 2006)

WHAT IT IS: Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, born destitute, has the most gifted olfactory sense ever bestowed on a human being. He yearns to learn how to distill all smells, including a woman’s. HOW IT IS: Twyker’s Perfume is strange but mesmerizing, like a song you can’t forget. It slowly creeps in, half serial killer movie, half meditation on life, talent and […]
November 28, 2010

Love in a Puff (Ho-cheung Pang, 2010)

Love in a Puff (Pang Ho-cheung, 2010), from one of Hong Kong most promising directors, stands out as a great example of how to do romantic comedies right.