Spotlight on Film

Makoto Shinkai: “Your Name” & “5 Centimetres per Second”

Your Name [2016] – ★★★★★ 📆 An emotionally intense, unforgettable viewing experience, filled with “coming-of-age” fun and spiritual longings. Showcasing Makoto Shinkai’s talent for presenting emotional connections, fully-fledged characters and breathtakingly beautiful, detailed animation, Your Name is a romantic story of an accidental body-swap between country girl Mitsuha and city boy Taki, who, in reality,…

“Two Days, One Night” Review

Two Days, One Night [2014] – ★★1/2 Two Days, One Night is a critically acclaimed French-language film directed by Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne (The Kid with a Bike (2011)). The plot is uncomplicated: Belgium; depressed married mother-of-two Sandra (Marion Cotillard) is having problems at work. The management of her solar-panels-making company proposed to make Sandra…

Film vs. Book: Shyamalan’s “The Village” & Haddix’s “Running Out of Time”

“The Village” is a 2004 film directed by M. Night Shyamalan (“The Sixth Sense” (1999) and starring Joaquin Phoenix, Adrien Brody, Sigourney Weaver, William Hurt and Bryce Dallas Howard. “Running Out of Time” is a popular 1996 book by Margaret Peterson Haddix for young adults about a girl (Jessie) in a 19th century village who is sent on a mission to town to look for medicine to cure a diphtheria epidemic in her village. Even though the plots of both “The Village” and “Running Out of Time” look different, there are considerable similarities between the two. The ways in which the book and the film are similar speak volumes when one considers the most important things of both: “Running Out of Time”’s narrative and “The Village”’s final plot twist.

“Déjà-vu” Review

Déjà-vu [2006] – ★★★★ “What if you had to tell someone the most important thing in the world, but you knew they’d never believe you?” (Doug Carlin) In 2006, Tony Scott directed a time-travel thriller Déjà-vu, starring Denzel Washington and Val Kilmer, presenting a story of A.T.F. agent Doug Carlin who starts to investigate the bombing…

“The Lost Weekend” Review

The Lost Weekend [1945] – ★★★★1/2 “One drink’s too many, and a hundred’s not enough.” The Lost Weekend is a 1945 film directed by Billy Wilder, and telling a story of failed writer Don Birnam (Ray Milland) who struggles to combat his chronic alcohol addiction in the course of a weekend. The winner of an…

Is Aronofsky’s Black Swan Perfectly Blue?: Kon’s “Perfect Blue” vs. “Black Swan”

In this piece, I will compare the two films closely, arguing that the two share substantial similarities in terms of their stories, characters, styles, designs, & execution, concluding that Aronofsky’s film Black Swan can easily pass for a “remake” of Kon’s anime Perfect Blue.

“The Infiltrator” Review

The Infiltrator [2016] – ★★★★ The 1980s. A federal agent Robert Mazur (Bryan Cranston) works as an undercover in a notorious drug trafficking ring established by Pablo Escobar. Robert Mazur is now influential and charismatic Bob Musella who operates alongside two other undercover agents: his “fiancée” Kathy Ertz (Diane Kruger) and best friend Emir Abreu…

“Dead Ringers” Review

Dead Ringers [1988] – ★★★★ David Cronenberg’s 1988 feature Dead Ringers is the director’s “trademark” film starring Jeremy Irons, and loosely based on a real-life story of identical twin brothers working as gynaecologists in New York. The story closely follows Elliot and Beverly Mantle (both played by Jeremy Irons), who share their lives so closely…

Girl Power: 20 Great Book-to-Film Adaptations

This list features book-to-film adaptations where either the film director or book author (or both) was female. This list excludes Jane Austen & Bronte sisters’ adaptations [1] to draw attention to other novels/stories. In no particular order: 1) To Kill a Mockingbird (1962): Harper Lee, author 2) The Virgin Suicides (1999): Sofia Coppola, director 3) The Talented Mr…

“Florence Foster Jenkins” Review

Florence Foster Jenkins [2016] – ★★★★1/2 Directed by Stephen Frears (The Queen (2006) & Dangerous Liaisons (1988)), Florence Foster Jenkins is a comedy based on a true story[1] of Florence Foster Jenkins (Meryl Streep), a New York socialite whose desire to be a well-known opera singer greatly surpassed her natural abilities.[2] Unaware that she has a poor…

10 “Must-See” Animated Films from 2010s

This list was published on 12 September 2016, so only includes those animated films that were released before September 2016. I. Inside Out [2015] – ★★★★★ The winner of the Academy Award in the category of “Best Animated Picture”, Inside Out is a film about a little girl who moves with her parents from suburban…

“Eastern Promises” Review

Eastern Promises [2007] – ★★★★ Eastern Promises is David Cronenerg’s film starring Viggo Mortensen, Vincent Cassel and Naomi Watts. The script is written by Steven Knight, better known for Amazing Grace (2006) and Locke (2013), and the film starts with a young Eastern European girl dying during childbirth, leaving her baby girl and a diary behind,…

“Love & Friendship” Review

Love & Friendship [2016] – ★★★★1/2 🏰 Like its main heroine, the film puts a special charm on the viewer, and its intriguing, witty, playful and engaging nature is hard to resist. Love & Friendship is a new film by Whit Stillman and an adaptation of a short novel by Jane Austen Lady Susan. The…

“La Corrispondenza” Review

La Corrispondenza [2016] – ★★1/2 La Corrispondenza or The Correspondence is a film by renowned director Giuseppe Tornatore, the mastermind behind cleverly-crafted La Migliore Offerta (2014), beautiful Malena (2000), and critically-acclaimed Cinema Paradiso (1988). The film, with music from Ennio Morricone, is about astrophysics student Amy Ryan (Olga Kurylenko) and her infatuation with older Professor…

“Tale of Tales” Review

Tale of Tales [2015] – ★★★1/2 Directed by Matteo Garrone, best known for his raw crime drama Gomorrah (2008), Tale of Tales or Il Racconto dei Racconti is a fantasy horror film which comprises three main stories seemingly running in parallel. The first story starts with the Queen (Salma Hayek) and King (John C. Reilly) of…

20 “Must-See” Philosophical Films

In no particular order: 1) Rashomon (1950) 2) La Gran Belleza (2013) 3) Stalker (1979) 4) Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) 5) Jacob’s Ladder (1990)

“Kalifornia” Review

Kalifornia [1993] – ★★★1/2 Directed by Dominic Sena, Kalifornia centres on two couples and takes place on the road. On the one hand, we have an intelligent pair of up-and-coming journalists: Brian Kessler and Carrie Laughlin, played by David Duchovny and Michelle Forbes, who are in the midst of an important Serial Killers book project and who…

Alan Rickman (1946 – 2016)

“If you want to know who I am, it is all in the work.” “I don’t play villains, I play very interesting people.” (Alan Rickman) British actor Alan Rickman sadly passed away on 14 January 2016. My first introduction to him was through Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991), which I watched at a young…

20 “Must-See” Dystopian Films

What life could be in future? In no particular order: 1. A Clockwork Orange (1975) 2. Edge of Tomorrow (2014) 3. Ex-Machina (2015) 4. Never Let Me Go (2010) 5. The Fifth Element (1997) 6. Children of Men (2006)