1. DARK CITY (1998). Dark City centres around a man struggling with the memories of his past, some of which include a wife he cannot remember, in a hellish world with no sun and run by unknown beings with telekinetic powers. Their mission is to seek the souls of humans. This is a film I …
1. BATTLE ROYALE (2000). In the future, the Japanese government have captured a class of ninth-grade students, forcing them to kill each other under the revolutionary “Battle Royale” act, a piece of legislation aimed at cleaning up the country by alleviating misbehaving, uncontrollable children. With the tagline of the film being Could You Kill Your Best …
1. MEMENTO (2000). A man that suffers from short-term memory loss uses tattoos, Polaroids and notes to hunt for the man he believes murdered his wife. Techniques used: Memento is presented as two different sequences of scenes: a series of colour sequences displayed in reverse order, and a series in B/W that are shown chronologically. The …
Being my all-time favourite film, I find it difficult to describe without an overwhelming use of superlatives. It is, quite simply, nothing short of magnificent. Despite being a rather lesser known brainchild of Quentin Tarantino, there is no doubt, in my mind, that True Romance offers and maintains the same quick-witted dialogue, array of streetwise, …
1. GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS (1992). A look into the inner workings of a downright desperate and gloomy real-estate office. There isn’t much more to say about this male-oriented film other than it being a true performance piece containing true legends of the industry. Based on the award-winning David Mamet play of the same name, this …
1. THE LIVES OF OTHERS (2006). In 1984, East Berlin, an agent of the Stasi (secret police), whilst conducting surveillance on a writer and his lover, finds himself becoming increasingly absorbed by their lives. Before seeing this film, I had little knowledge of everyday life in East Germany during this period. This was a real …
1. LADY VENGEANCE (2005). After 13 years of false imprisonment for the kidnap and murder of a 6-year-old boy, the beautiful yet ruthless Geum-ja Lee wreaks havoc on the man who was actually responsible for the boy’s death. This is the third installment in Chan-Wook Park’s vengeance trilogy and is my personal favourite. What’s not …
1. BACK TO THE FUTURE (1985). Imagine you could travel back in time — and you prevent your parents from meeting and falling for one another, thus jeopardising your entire existence. Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd star in this film, where a plutonium-powered car transports Marty (Fox) back to the 1950s. Anything he does … Continue reading »
“Gratuitous excess” Written by Marina Caitlin Watts — The Review Monster Baz Luhrmann is the latest director to take on the challenge of bringing the American classic to the silver screen. His interpretation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel “The Great Gatsby” turns a few swanky parties in the midst of wealthy Long Island towns into a scene of chaos. Continue reading »
1. SEVEN SAMURAI (1954). A poor, helpless village under attack by bandits asks for the services of seven unemployed yet brutal samurai to help them defend themselves. Being rather unfamiliar with Akira Kurosawa, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Oh how I was foolish. Arguably the most famous Asian film of all time, this is … Continue reading »
1. ZODIAC (2007). A cartoonist (Robert Graysmith) working for the San Francisco Chronicle becomes an amateur detective obsessed with tracking down the Zodiac killer. Following Graysmith’s book very carefully and not holding back on any of the gruesome details, David Fincher, yet again, proves why he is the current master of the suspense-thriller genre. 2. … Continue reading »
1. BLACK BOOK (2006; THE NETHERLANDS). In the Nazi-occupied Netherlands during World War II, a Jewish singer, working for the Dutch resistance as a spy, infiltrates the regional Gestapo HQ, seducing a commander of the SD along the way. Being only familiar with Paul Verhoeven’s sci-fi work of the 80s and 90s (as well as … Continue reading »
Jean-Pierre Jeunet Jeunet is a self-taught French film director whose propensity towards a world of whimsy and fantasy makes him one of the most playfully original directors working today. Starting a career as a director of TV commercials and music videos, Jeunet soon delved into cinema after striking up a widely successful partnership with a … Continue reading »
1. THE LEAGUE OF GENTLEMEN (1999-2002). Based in a fictional village called Royston Vasey, we follow a rather surreal, interweaving story that chronicles the mundane lives of such diverse, bizarre characters as: a transsexual taxi driver, a high-maintenance restart officer, a couple that never stop arguing, a frightening carnival owner who kidnaps women into marriage, … Continue reading »
