A series of essays on my personal pick of favourite films
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
Year: 1995 Director: Spike Lee Stars: Mekhi Phifer, Isaiah Washington, Harvey Keitel Last year Spike Lee's most flammable joint, Do The Right Thing, got itself a re-release and a Criterion Collection special edition. A belated victory lap for one of the most bold and distinctive American films of the 1980s. Do The Right Thing tends to be … Continue reading Why I Love… #110: Clockers
Year: 1972 Director: Stanley H Brassloff Stars: Marcia Forbes, Evelyn Kingsley, Harlan Cary Poe The first word we hear in Toys Are Not For Children is a husky, lustrously whispered "Daddy". Jamie (Marcia Forbes) is lying naked on her bed with a large toy soldier. She's in the throws of a sexual fantasy, and the … Continue reading Why I Love… #109: Toys Are Not For Children
Year: 1971 Director: Dennis Hopper Stars: Dennis Hopper, Stella Garcia, Samuel Fuller The Last Movie is a hard movie to love, and maybe a harder one to make a case for. It's a deeply broken film; as fragmented as its creator was at the time. The tales of its making are the stuff of cinematic … Continue reading Why I Love… #108: The Last Movie
Year: 2002 Director: Pedro Almodóvar Stars: Javier Cámara, Dario Grandinetti, Leonor Watling Echoes and opposites permeate all facets of Talk To Her, Pedro Almodóvar's slyly coiled melodrama, his first film following the worldwide embrace of All About My Mother. The opening shot of the film sees two dancers on stage; the one in the background an echo of … Continue reading Why I Love… #107: Talk To Her
