One of my favorite film noir subgenres is Sunshine Noir. I’m fascinated by how it locates the shadows in the dazzling light of Southern California. These movies usually start in Los Angeles but then shift to the fringes of the area: the barren San Fernando Valley or the San Gabriel mountains, Inland Empire, or the […]
“Day of the Fight” plays out like a common underdog movie and while it is not exactly a masterpiece, it doesn’t feel out of place either. The movie chronicles the story of the Brooklyn fighter Irish Mike Flannigan (played by Michael Pitt) on the verge of a significant fight for him in almost a decade,
Directors Marisa Crespo and Moisés Romera comprise of the idea that there is no greater hell than family gatherings during the holidays and seem to have developed the film ‘You are not me’ with the idea of how family distance physical or emotional can toll the family members to indulge in hidden violence, both physical
Sujo unfolds to be an uncompromising view that tells us about the cyclical oppression emanating from violence. The story begins with a shadowy scene from the past, remembering the words of a rugged horse: He’s always getting away,” said the owner to a child. The scene cut transitions to vision from Josue’s terrifying eyes capturing
What happened to Tony Jaa? The mid sized (5’8″) Thai martial arts star was widely regarded as the next best thing in action films following his breakout films in “Ong Bak : Muay Thai Warrior” (2003). Even so, his international crossover success seemed to falter a little after the Ong Bak sequels, even as he
I cannot shake off the griping sense of hopelessness and despair I got from Magnus von Horn’s “The Girl with the Needle” and “Beanpole” combined. It’s an idée fixe that these films ruthless portray, women with nowhere to go, struggling their entire lives while being shoved deeper into the gutter. This case arises as the
The title ‘The Unstoppables’ would be more fitting, because this based on true life sportsman who faces odds and thrives, only to evolve into a motivational speaker saga, contains two protagonists. One is Anthony Robles (Jharrel Jerome), a one-legged wresting champion, and the second, is a battered domestic violence survivor and devoted mother to Anthony
Challenging as a moral experience Joshua Oppenheimer’s two documentaries “The Act of Killing” (2012) and “The Look of Silence” (2014) for Indonesia’s communist genocide perpetrators as he asks them to imagine themselves in the headspace of a person who killed during the 1960’s communist purge in Indonesia. Oppenheimer provokes them to relish and re-image the
The Odyssey comes to an end in an interesting and satisfactory manner as the violence unleashed by the family includes the tormentors of the family, but also the relationship between the husband and wife which had been tumultuously put through a test of distance and time is beautifully restored (here romantic is a very different
In director Justin Kurzel’s “The Order,” Jude Law has the scruffiest look of his career. He stars in the film as FBI agent Terry Husk, but considering his portrayal, he seems more of a husk than an agent. He looked disheveled. His big body was hunched over, his unshaven stubble looked sloppy, and his gum
