Lang’s blueprint for the psychological procedural thriller remains significant in cinema history, as was his influential use of sound, rendering his ghastly subject—a serial killer of children—in poetic, paralegal light.
‘Exploring’ features the filmographies of filmmakers that I’ve largely completed and celebrates them on the week of their birthdays.
A great non-Bruce Lee entry point to the kung fu craze of the early ‘70s, this is fundamental viewing for fans of HK martial arts movies as Lo Lieh stars as a young man who becomes embroiled in a hostile school rivalry that turns increasingly brutal.
Cuaron’s first Hollywood project is shot like a fairy tale, adopting a child’s imaginative perspective, as she must try to find a way to adapt to worsening personal circumstances in a boarding school run by a mean-spirited headmistress.
Beers, drugs, hazing rituals, and unchecked rebelliousness mark the last day of high school circa May 1976, Texas, as Linklater expertly drops us in the middle of the chaos, with a killer rock soundtrack to boot.
Love is a complicated, nebulous thing in Bresson’s minimalist, if surprisingly sensual, adaptation of Dostoevsky’s ‘White Nights’, about two wounded, disillusioned souls that can’t seem to operate beyond their present malaise.
This skippable sequel sees Godzilla amusingly battling with a monster for the first time, laying the 1v1 blueprint for the future, but production problems and a rushed job mar the experience.
The Romanian master is back with this Berlinale Best Screenplay winner as he continues his deeply unique reflection on human folly and irony, about a bailiff who feels extreme guilt after something devastating happens in her line of work.
Borden’s radical ‘sci-fi documentary’, put together in a gritty, agitprop style, imagines an alternate universe USA, where black lesbian ‘terrorists’ fight for justice for women and the oppressed.
Boyle returns with a banger in this solid third film of the cult zombie franchise, as he finds another peak, sonically and experientially, with this tense, gory and energetic work that is also surprisingly moving as a meditation on mortality.
Eternality Tan 