I discovered the Quay Brothers when I caught a short film of theirs on the imported Blu-ray of Jan Svankmajer’s Alice. I’ve always been intrigued by stop-motion animation, however, I’d never seen anything quite like this before. It was totally unique. I knew that I had to seek out the rest of their work. Just […]
The first time that I experienced Harmony Korine’s Gummo, I was shocked, horrified, and repulsed by it. I was almost positive that it was the vilest piece of trash ever committed to celluloid – but I kept going back to it. During each subsequent viewing, I became aware of Harmony Korine’s intentions. Yes, he wants […]
“Now, thinking back on the course of my passion, I was like one blind, unafraid of the dark…” Jane Campion’s erotic thriller, entitled In the Cut, was largely ignored by audiences and ripped apart by critics when it was released on October 31, 2003. Most of the reviews focused on the adult content, rather than […]
Agusti Villaronga’s 1987 debut feature, In a Glass Cage, is perhaps the coldest film that I have ever seen. From its icy blue color palette to the way in which it unflinchingly depicts the depravity of its tortured characters, this is a film that makes any selection from Michael Haneke’s filmography look like a leisurely […]
“We don’t like the twins. You’ll learn about them soon enough.” The seventies and the eighties were incredibly fruitful for director Robert Altman. After the success of MASH, he was given carte blanche by Twentieth Century Fox. As a result of this wealth of freedom, he wrote, produced, and directed 3 Women, which, according to […]
Shout Factory has finally released director Can Evrenol’s film, Baskin, on a Blu-ray combo collector’s edition. The Turkish horror film, Baskin, is shrouded in dream logic from the very opening scenes, in which a young boy named Arda experiences a terrifying nightmare. When we skip forward years later, Arda is a grown man, and one […]
Stanley Kubrick is my idol. He is one of, if not the greatest, filmmaker of all time. My first Kubrick experience occurred when I was in high school. The film was The Shining. I had never seen anything like it in my life. Not only was it scary as hell – it was – but […]
Bernard Rose’s Paperhouse will always be one of my favorite films from the eighties. I find it appalling that the film hasn’t developed the following that it so deserves after all of these years. It is an intelligent fantasy with two incredible lead performances from young actors Charlotte Burke and Elliot Spiers. The film centers […]
David Lynch has always been a challenging director, with films such as Eraserhead, Blue Velvet, and Mulholland Drive rounding out his filmography. An abstract artist, his films register on many levels, namely the subconscious. He places images in front of our faces that we find repulsive, and yet because of his prowess as a visionary […]
David Cronenberg’s Crash is a study of incredibly sick people who share a mutual fetish involving sex and car crashes, which means that it’s also one of the most disturbing films ever made. Even after seventeen years, the film has lost none of its potency. I’ve been writing on the subject of film for a […]
ReelRenkovish 