Needless to say my expectations for the new Christian Petzold film were through the roof. The German filmmaker’s last two movies, 2014’s “Phoenix” and 2018’s “Transit”, are both snugly among my favorites from the last decade. His latest “Undine” has finally come to the States courtesy of IFC Films. And while it might not pack […]
Director – Joe Wright (Atonement) Cast – Amy Adams, Julianne Moore, Wyatt Russell, Gary Oldman, Fred Hechinger, Anthony Mackie, Jennifer Jason Leigh Plot – Agoraphobic New Yorker Anna Fox (Adams) lives a secluded life stuck in her apartment afraid to venture out into the outside world but […]
Film Review – The Woman in the Window (2021)
Not everyone remembers that “Undine” or Ondine is a name from mythology, a water nymph of “The Little Mermaid” variety — one with a great gravitas attached to her love life. With or without that knowledge, the opening “break-up” scene in Christian Petzold’s German fantasy based on that myth is dark and intense. Johannes (Jacob […]
Movie Review: A dark romantic fantasy, in and out of the water — “Undine”
It’s great seeing Eric Bana not just getting a leading role, but getting a really meaty one in a movie that lets him show why he’s such an underrated actor. “The Dry”, an Australian thriller from director Robert Connolly, marks Bana’s first feature film appearance since 2017. Written by Connolly and Harry Cripps, it’s an […]
Catherine Clare… trades life in 1980s Manhattan for a remote home in the tiny hamlet of Chosen, New York … She soon comes to sense a sinister darkness lurking both in the walls of the ramshackle property—and in her marriage (Letterboxd) In its dialogue, editing, and overall presentation it’s a bit clunky and contrived; the […]
Time: 81 Minutes Cast: James Stewart as Rupert Cadell John Dall as Brandon Shaw Joan Chandler as Janet Walker Cedric Hardwicke as Mr. Henry Kentley Farley Granger as Phillip Morgan Constance Collier as Mrs. Anita Atwater Douglas Dick as Kenneth Lawrence Edith Evanson as Mrs. Wilson Director: Alfred Hitchcock Two young men, Brandon Shaw (John Dall) and Phillip Morgan […]
“Dark Woods” is a German police procedural that is less about tracking down a serial killer than about the ripple effects of random, senseless violence and the pain of not-knowing what’s happened to a loved one who simply vanishes. There’s mystery in this account of a 30 year-long German case that only dogged persistence by […]
Time: 92 minutes Age Rating: Torture & Sadistic Violence Cast: Tobin Bell as John Kramer Costas Mandylor as Detective Mark Hoffman Scott Patterson as Agent Peter Strahm Betsy Russell as Jill Tuck Julie Benz as Brit Meagan Good as Luba Gibbs Mark Rolston as Agent Dan Erickson Carlo Rota as Charles Director: David Hackl Although Jigsaw […]
Robert Mitchum was a high-mileage/hard-miles 57 when he took on Raymond Chandler’s iconic private eye Philip Marlowe in 1975’s “Farewell, My Lovely,” a character immortalized by Bogie in “The Big Sleep” in a story of that had been filmed twice before, in the film noir-mad 1940s. He wasn’t too old to take the part, but […]
Classic Film Review: Mitchum is Marlowe in Chandler’s “Farewell, My Lovely” (1975)
“The Nun” marks the fifth film in the Conjuring ‘universe’ and the third backstory spin-off. “The Conjuring” and its direct sequel remain two of my favorite horror films of the last several years. The first spin-off was the dull mess-of-a-movie “Annabelle”. The prequel to “Annabelle” was a good step in the right direction. That brings […]
When Sea of Love was released in 1989 Al Pacino hadn’t been in a film for four years – the longest gap in his career to date. His last film, Revolution, had also been a box-office bomb, meaning the American public hadn’t seen him in a prestigious role since Scarface in 1983. That makes Sea […]
Available on DVD and digital download from 19th April, Into the Labyrinth, starring Dustin Hoffman, is a twisted psychological thriller in Italian and American English with a great international cast about a girl’s abduction and the hunt for her kidnapper. The film starts with the strange disappearance of a young girl Samantha Andretti (Valentina Bellè) […]
When the matriarch of the Graham family passes away, her daughter and grandchildren begin to unravel cryptic and increasingly terrifying secrets about their ancestry, trying to outrun the sinister fate they have inherited. This is a film that had always been on the edge of my awareness especially as reviews came up when the film […]
What is the movie about? :: Fr Carmen Benedict (Mammootty) is a priest who is known to have helped the police in multiple cases. Diya Alex Alatt (Saniya Iyappan) approaches him with a certain amount of concern regarding a series of deaths which had occured earlier in the rich and influential family, and were dismissed […]
It took a while, but the long-delayed psychological thriller “The Woman in the Window” is finally set to see the light of day. Originally owned by 20th Century Fox, the rights then went to Disney following their acquisition of Fox. Now Netflix is set to release the film next month. It’s directed by Joe Wright […]
First Glance: “The Woman in the Window”
Beyond The Dream Hong Kong (2019) Dir. Kiwi Chow “I thought love was only true in fairy tales / Meant for someone else, but not for me” This thing called love is a fantasy for some of us, yet, a condition exists which convinces people someone – a celebrity or somebody they know – is […]
Movie Review – Beyond The Dream
Right until the end, Tobias Lindholm’s six-part search for the truth behind journalist Kim Wall’s death is TV designed to work against the genre’s usual rhythms.
‘The Investigation’: HBO’s Danish Drama Is as Unglamorous as TV True Crime Gets
In the upcoming indie chiller “The Vigil” a troubled young man encounters a malevolent spirit while watching over the body of deceased man from his Jewish community in Brooklyn. It’s a religious ritual where the person watching (called a shomer if male, a shomeret if female) both protects and comforts the deceased’s soul until time […]
Age Rating: Cast: Regina King as Angela Abar/Sister Night Don Johnson as Judd Crawford Tim Blake Nelson as Wade Tillman/Looking Glass Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as Calvin “Cal” Abar Andrew Howard as Red Scare Jacob Ming-Trent as Panda Tom Mison as Mr. Phillips Sara Vickers as Ms. Crookshanks Dylan Schombing as Christopher “Topher” Abar Louis Gossett […]
Iranian-American director Kourosh Ahari delivers a striking feature film debut with “The Night”, a cerebral slice of psychological horror that impresses as much with its style as it does with its ability to get under your skin. Set within the creepy confines of an old history-rich hotel, “The Night” does what so many other good […]