A series of essays on my personal pick of favourite films
Year: 1967 Director: Jean-Luc Godard Stars: Anne Wiazemsky, Juliet Berto, Jean-Pierre Léaud By 1967 Jean-Luc Godard was operating at his most creative and prolific. The decade saw him repeatedly (and justly) celebrated as a powerhouse of the French New Wave. In '67 he would release three new features. 2 or 3 Things I Knew About … Continue reading Why I Love…. #125: La Chinoise
Year: 2012 Director: Paul WS Anderson Stars: Milla Jovovich, Li Bingbing, Sienna Guillory Okay, stick with me on this. Paul WS Anderson - a largely derided or simply dismissed director - is a man preoccupied. His career can be looked at like someone obsessively playing a video game over and over. His first feature, Mortal Kombat, … Continue reading Why I Love… #124: Resident Evil: Retribution
Year: 1970 Director: King Hu Stars: Shi Jun, Xu Feng, Bai Ying Journeying back and forth along the timeline of cinema you can end up with some surprising contrasts. The last film to feature in this series was Tsai Ming-liang's Goodbye, Dragon Inn; as perfect an example of modern 'slow cinema' as one could identify. … Continue reading Why I Love… #123: A Touch of Zen
Year: 2003 Director: Tsai Ming-Liang Stars: Chen Hsiang-Chyi, Kiyonobu Mitamura, Lee Kang-Sheng Cinema as a medium - and, more pointedly for this piece, as an industry - will return and thrive again. Of this I am particularly optimistic. We love the movies too much. We love the ceremony of going, and all the associated tactile … Continue reading Why I Love… #122: Goodbye, Dragon Inn
Year: 2000 Director: John Fawcett Stars: Katherine Isabelle, Emily Perkins, Jesse Moss When it comes to teen horrors that writhe exquisitely in the perverse joys of the macabre, few come close to touching John Fawcett's turn-of-the-millennium offering Ginger Snaps. Conceived in partnership with Karen Walton and brought to life from her acidic script (gleefully prefiguring the … Continue reading Why I Love… #121: Ginger Snaps
Year: 1999 Director: Claire Denis Stars: Denis Lavant, Grégoire Colin, Michel Subor My first exposure to Claire Denis was Bastards early in 2014 and I reacted very strongly. I was confused and repelled by what I perceived as cryptic ugliness and misery porn; a position I have since revised. In fact, Bastards now ranks among my favourite … Continue reading Why I Love… #120: Beau Travail
Year: 2010 Director: Alexandre Aja Stars: Jerry O'Connell, Elisabeth Shue, Kelly Brook The so-called 'B-movie' (the original concept itself long abandoned by cinemas) spins in and out of the modern mainstream with some regularity, usually dependent on some aberration or other hitting it big or creating meme-worthy content. From killer sharks to killer crocs to … Continue reading Why I Love… #119: Piranha 3D
Year: 2009 Director: Jim Jarmusch Stars: Isaach de Bankolé, Alex Descas, Paz de la Huerta Earlier this year during our (first) lockdown - and suddenly unemployed - I used my free time, somewhat unsurprisingly, to catch up on some movies from my ever-growing watchlist. Part of this included checking off the Jim Jarmusch titles that … Continue reading Why I Love… #118: The Limits of Control
Year: 1997 Director: Jim Gillespie Stars: Jennifer Love Hewitt, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Ryan Phillippe There are movies that I've included in this series based on their artistic prowess, on their merit, on their phenomenal influence on the medium of film and my experience of it. And then there are other movies. I'm not a fan … Continue reading Why I Love… #117: I Know What You Did Last Summer
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
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
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
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
Year: 1930 Director: Josef von Sternberg Stars: Marlene Dietrich, Gary Cooper, Adolphe Menjou For whatever reason, in spite of the tremendous acclaim for the pictures produced, I never quite got the fuss over the 1930s pairing of Josef von Sternberg and Marlene Dietrich. The Blue Angel was fine, it seemed to me, while the likes of Shanghai … Continue reading Why I Love… #111: Morocco
