By M. Keith Booker. Many aspects of Zaillian’s series, both thematic and visual, make it an almost perfect example of neo-noir. Yet, in other ways, Ripley goes beyond the original noir cycle in ways that are reminiscent of the best revisionary noir films.” In my new book American Noir Film: […]
The American Friend: Claude Schmitz’s The Other Laurens (2023)
By Thomas M. Puhr, You’re best off surrendering to its mad logic.” Like some of the neo-noirs that inspired it, Claude Schmitz’s The Other Laurens (L’autre Laurens, 2023) boasts a dizzyingly convoluted plot. I look at my frantically scribbled notes on the film, and despair washes over me. I take […]
A Captivating World of Indigenous Culture: Filmmaker Ivan Sen on Limbo
By Jenny Paola Ortega Castillo. There’s a lot of secrets to all the land in Australia, especially since colonization…. And sometimes the land gives those secrets up if you listen to it. And so this incredible landscape was the inspiration for the characters who are very similar to this damaged […]
Tangled Up In Blue: Patrick Tam’s My Heart Is That Eternal Rose (1989)
By Thomas M. Puhr. Violent, sensual, and at times poetic….” Kani Releasing continues to expose Western audiences to unsung masterpieces of Asian cinema, and their latest – a restoration of Patrick Tam’s violent, sensual, and at times poetic My Heart Is That Eternal Rose (Sat sau woo dip mung, 1989) […]
Drive Away Dolls: On a Goofy Coen Road Comedy
By Elias Savada. Gags and pratfalls ensue, many funny and more than a few blush-worthy as the film speeds through its brief 84-minute running time.” Sure, we’ve been conditioned over the last 40 years that you can’t have one Coen (brother) without the other. Two peas in a pod. Ethan […]
Got His Mojo Workin’: Ethan Coen’s Drive-Away Dolls
By Thomas M. Puhr. Ethan Coen’s solo debut is not great, and it doesn’t want to be. Like its protagonists, it’s fast, loose, and fun….” The Coen Brothers’ seemingly brief split – they just announced plans to reunite for a horror film; be still my heart – has yielded some […]
The Surveillance Economy of David Fincher’s The Killer (2023)
By David Ryan. The Killer argues that no matter how much security wealth buys or the number of datalocks that conglomerates build, these defenses can be poked and usurped by determined criminals. Conversely, no matter how clandestine criminal cells are organized, they can be destroyed, particularly from within.” Spoiler Alert […]
The Amazing Elasticity of Neo-Noir: Silent as the Grave (2023)
By William Blick. Shows the glory of the ever-independent neo-noir film that will be around for a long time.” For me, neo-noir reemerged effectively with Blue Ruin, an underrated Coen brother-esque film that was buzzing around in 2010’s era at the Hampton Film Festival, where I happened to see it. […]
A Magnetic Mystery: David Lynch’s Lost Highway
By Jeremy Carr. Lynch at his storytelling best.” David Lynch can tell a pretty standard story when he wants to. While films like The Elephant Man (1980), Blue Velvet (1986), and The Straight Story (1999) surely have their moments of classically “Lynchian” eccentricity, their fundamental plots unfold along relatively orthodox […]
Ambiance over Narrative: Are You Lonesome Tonight? (Cannes 2021)
By Yun-hua Chen. With its fair share of problems, Are You Lonesome Tonight attempts to be unpredictable…like a film which indulges itself in ambiance at the expense of narrative.” Rarely do we see a Chinese noir thriller that is so invested in style and ambiance. Wen Shipei’s debut feature Are […]