Year: 1969 Director: Paul Mazursky Stars: Natalie Wood, Elliott Gould, Robert Culp I've recently been listening to a lot of Talking Heads, which has nothing to do with Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice. The art-pop band came into being some years after Mazursky's semi-obscure film, the two do not intersect. And yet, it has been through … Continue reading Why I Love… #116: Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice
Director: Ena Sendijarević Stars: Sara Luna Zoric, Lazar Dragojevic, Ernad Prnjavorac Another week, another COVID-19-tainted home viewing experience. In this case the film's very name. Take Me Somewhere Nice. That sounds pretty good right now. The simple things we took for granted. Travelling. Company. A casual life. For me the title also echoes fondly with … Continue reading Review: Take Me Somewhere Nice
Director: Pedro Costa Stars: Vitalina Varela, Ventura, Manuel Tavares Almeida A new Pedro Costa film invites excitement and intimidation in those fond of world cinema and the art-house. His work can appear impenetrable, linked as it so often is with a very particular and specific cultural identity; that of Portugal's black community and its storied … Continue reading Review: Vitalina Varela
Year: 1968 Director: Kaneto Shindô Stars: Kichiemon Nakamura, Nobuko Otowa, Kiwako Taichi For the better part of the last century, cats have had a bad run of things when it comes to horror cinema. Whether you look back to the Val Lewton produced Cat People of 1942 or the various iterations of Poe's The Black Cat that … Continue reading Why I Love… #115: Kuroneko
Year: 1955 Director: Nicholas Ray Stars: James Dean, Natalie Wood, Sal Mineo Uff, what more is there to say about Rebel Without A Cause? Somewhere in the recesses of my laptop is a list of prospective titles for this occasional series, and there are titles on that list that absolutely terrify me. They're the most talked … Continue reading Why I Love… #114: Rebel Without A Cause
Director: Alice Wu Stars: Leah Lewis, Alexxis Lemire, Daniel Diemer Alice Wu understands the rules of both the romantic comedy and the youth movie. Combining both in The Half Of It, she has researched and employed the most enduring trope and source of dramatic tension that these genres lean on; The Lie. Ellie Chu (Leah … Continue reading Review: The Half of It
Director: Pablo Larraín Stars: Mariana Di Girolamo, Gael García Bernal, Santiago Cabrera Pablo Larraín's most well-known features of the last decade have all delved into the past and into politics, be that through the lens of activism (2012's No) or personal trauma (2016's Jackie). Now, the Chilean returns to the present for this fierce portrait of … Continue reading Review: Ema
Director: Kitty Green Stars: Julia Garner, Matthew Macfayden, Makenzie Leigh Part of my lockdown pattern so far has involved rewatching AMC's prestige TV show Mad Men. Set in the '60s, the series revels in the regressive attitudes to women prevalent at the time in Manhattan office spaces, asking us to be shocked at the behaviour … Continue reading Review: The Assistant
Director: Greg Barker Stars: Ana de Armas, Wagner Moura, Garret Dillahunt Another week in lockdown, another Netflix Original. Credit to the global streaming giant; for the moment they're still able to dutifully trickle out content for the bored and terrifyied masses. Among this week's new crumbs for the pecking at is Greg Barker's political biopic … Continue reading Review: Sergio (2020)
Director: Nora Fingscheidt Stars: Helena Zengel, Albrecht Schuch, Gabriela Maria Schmeide With her ubiquitous bright pink puffer jacket, nine-year-old tearaway Benni (Helena Zengel) certainly stands out from whatever landscape she happens to be terrorising. Thanks to some extreme behavioural disorders, she lives a chaotic existence of constantly shifting parameters. Her mother, Bianca (Lisa Hagmeister), seems … Continue reading Review: System Crasher
Year: 1962 Director: Michelangelo Antonioni Stars: Monica Vitti, Alain Delon, Francisco Rabal At the time of writing the UK is in lockdown because of the COVID-19 pandemic. We can leave the house to work (if we're essential workers), to buy groceries or visit pharmacies, or to take a daily regiment of exercise. Go for a … Continue reading Why I Love… #113: L’Eclisse
It was doomed, in a way. Having weathered the Grand Guignol misfire of 1997's Alien Resurrection, and ran the gauntlet of the insipid (non-canon) Alien vs Predator movies of the mid-2000s, xenomorph fans needed something to believe in. Word that the Godfather of Alien himself - Ridley Scott - was returning to the series set … Continue reading What About… Prometheus
Horror cinema's least forgiving subgenre is the found footage movie. Shoestring budgets that often produce huge returns on minimal investments, though the products themselves are often far from satisfying. Often employing non-actors or unknowns in order to sell their fragile realities, a rookie performance can shatter the whole illusion. These flicks live or die on … Continue reading Stay-At-Home Film Festival: Found Footage
Year: 1992 Director: Bernard Rose Stars: Virginia Madsen, Tony Todd, Kasi Lemmons Growing up as a sheltered white kid on the Southern coast of England in the early '90s, there was a wealth of then-recent horror to sate my appetite for excitement. The '80s had been a boom-time for the genre as video exploded with … Continue reading Why I Love… #112: Candyman
Director: Eliza Hittman Stars: Sidney Flanigan, Talia Ryder, Théodore Pellerin Eliza Hittman's second feature Beach Rats was one of my favourite films of the last decade, though I never wrote about it here on The Lost Highway Hotel. Nevertheless, her sympathetic focus on American youth and her keen observational eye meant that whatever came next would … Continue reading Review: Never Rarely Sometimes Always
