Posts Tagged ‘Vertigo’
Film Review – Cracked
The Thai horror film Cracked (2022) creates effective creepiness with limited resources. Utilizing a small cast and a few locations, director Surapong Ploensang (who co-writes with Orunusa Donsawai and Pun Homchuen) evokes mood with relative ease. While the overall narrative is thin in terms of story and character, the craftsmanship on display…
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Top 15 Films of 2022 – Allen’s Picks
2022 proved to be a transition year for the movies. As Covid restrictions lifted and audiences returned to theaters, studios faced the challenge of deciding what films get wide releases while reserving others for streaming platforms. The result was confusion – should a person make…
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Film Review – Decision to Leave
If there is one thing to expect from South Korean director Park Chan-wook, it’s the unexpected. From The Vengeance Trilogy, Thirst (2009), Stoker (2013), and The Handmaiden (2016), Park is a master of keeping us on our toes. Even when we have a familiarity with his set up, he has a knack for…
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Film Review – Shepherd
Writer/director Russell Owen’s Shepherd (2021) is a moody, atmospheric psychological horror film that has a lot of ideas on its mind. While this is a stripped-down production in terms of location and cast, there is enough style and skill to make this worth a watch. It contains a…
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Film Review – The Woman in the Window
Here is a movie that is so blatantly artificial that it’s almost admirable. The Woman in the Window (2021) has such a synthetic feel to its execution that its style becomes the main draw. If we delve too deeply into story and character, it falls apart. The…
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Top 15 Films of 2015 – Allen’s Picks
I know what people say: “Lists of anything are dumb. How can you take something as subjective as movies and rank them in order?” Well, that’s kind of the beauty of it: no one list is definitive. If anything, putting out one’s favorite films only reveals…
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Film Review – Phoenix
After seeing Phoenix, I always think of the film as being in black and white (it is not), with only little details in color: the red dress, a shade of lipstick, the husband’s eyes. Comparisons to Vertigo aside, the film is more of a companion…
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Film Review – Fifty Shades of Grey
In Fifty Shades of Grey (2015), virginal literature student Anastasia Steele (Dakota Johnson) enters into a BDSM relationship with billionaire Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan). The main point of tension is the negotiation of a contract. This contract outlines the dominant/submissive sexual arrangement that Christian will…
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