Review: The Times of Harvey Milk (Rob Epstein, 1984)
Version watched: UK Criterion Collection Blu Ray The Times of Harvey Milk is a documentary about the rise, election and subsequent assassination of gay San Francisco politician Harvey Milk, comprised of news and archival footage, and interviews with those who knew him, narrated by Harvey Fierstein. The decision to open the film with footage of […]
Blu-Ray Review: Bong Joon Ho Collection
On the 19th of April 2021, Curzon Artificial Eye released the 7-disc Bong Joon Ho Collection on Blu Ray in the UK. The set contains six of the Oscar-winning South Korean director’s films: Barking Dogs Never Bite (2000), Memories of Murder (2003), The Host (2006), Mother (2009), Snowpiercer (2013), and two versions of Parasite (2019), […]
An Interesting Film Theory: Film Phenomenology
Film Phenomenology: Definition Have you ever thought about film’s power to make you ‘feel’ something? How a film has the power to allow you to share in the experience of its characters? For example, an act of violence on screen can cause a viewer physical discomfort, if rendered a certain way. Or a film might […]
Review: Kwaidan (Masaki Kobayashi, 1965)
Masaki Kobayashi’s Kwaidan (literally translated as “ghost stories”) is an anthology of Japanese folk tales, adapted from various stories collected in the writings of Lafcadio Hearn. The film consists of four of these tales, all of which of course involve ghosts, spirits, or the other-worldly. The film is a weighty three hours in length, and […]
Review: Without Memory (Hirokazu Kore-eda, 1996)
Without Memory is a made-for-TV documentary about a man in Japan named Hiroshi who, after medical mistreatment following surgery, has developed Wernicke’s Encephalopathy, a memory disorder. He still remembers himself, his family, friends and life in the time before the operation, but finds it almost impossible to retain new memories, forgetting everything mere hours after it […]
Unplugging the Empathy Machine: The Inescapability of Music in Three Colours Blue (Krzysztof Kieślowski, 1993)
I absolutely adore this film, the way it wordlessly allows intimate access to its main characters emotional state, and makes the audience feel. I wrote a little about it for a Film of the Month entry previously, but this is a much more intensive look into the film, and its use of music. I don’t […]
Review: Only Yesterday (Isao Takahata, 1991)
Only Yesterday is a Studio Ghibli film that perhaps isn’t talked about as much as it should be. Directed by Isao Takahata (whose more famous works include Grave of the Fireflies (1988) and The Tale of Princess Kaguya (2013)), Only Yesterday is one of those Ghibli films that’s less concerned with fantasy. Like Whisper of […]
Review: Iron Monkey (Yuen Woo-ping, 1993)
When I was younger, I had a great interest in the martial arts films released by a DVD distribution company called Hong Kong Legends. I didn’t really have any disposable income then, so it was rare that I could buy any of them. I always had to try and borrow from friends, or save for […]
An Interesting Film Theory: Film as Philosophical Thought Experiment
An on-going look at different theories about film and the ways to study and analyse it. Previous content can be found here. In this post, I will be looking at the idea that a film can embody the spirit of a philosophical thought experiment, and in so doing cause its audience to consider and dwell […]
Great Films To Watch on YouTube Right Now, For Free
YouTube is full of content, more than 500 hours of video is uploaded to the site every minute. There’s something for pretty much every niche you care to think of. Did you know that there are also full length studio feature films on YouTube available for you to watch right now, for free? Usually these […]