Mon Oncle Antoine (1971)

Filmspotting has a Movie Dictator Club. My Canadian friend Matt the Movie Watcher assigned me Mon Oncle Antoine (1971) a while back . The Criterion version that I watched is immaculate. Set in the 1940s, this naturalistic (till the director starts riffing) film of country life in Quebec is fresh enough to have been made [...]

Akahige (Red Beard) (1965)

This post includes descriptions of various plot points, which descriptions could be construed as spoilers. My piano teacher in high school was also the school’s music-department chairman and conductor of the orchestra and dance band. He later went on chair the BYU music department. His wife had an operatic career of some sort. He had [...]

Yi Yi: A One and a Two… (2000)

Yi Yi: A One and a Two… (2000) *** Spoilers *** Disclaimer: I know even less about Asian filmmaking than I do about filmmaking in general, which isn’t that much in the first place, apart from the fact that I’ve watched a lot of movies. I am a sino-cine-naïf, whereas, on the Filmspotting boards, for [...]

13 Tzameti (2006)

Géla Babluani, Director. ***SPOILERS*** The title in Georgian: “13 Thirteen” Genre: Violence porn. The director’s excuse: “I was raised in the 90s in Georgia when there were three civil wars. I was exposed to chaos. To violence. And that’s not even counting the TV shows I watched.” The pitch: “Blood Sport” meets Texas Holdem meets [...]

Äideistä parhain (Mother of Mine) (2005)

In my capacity as a Spout Maven, I’ve reviewed a number of films distributed by Film Movement, including Mother of Mine, the movie under discussion here, A Peck on the Cheek, Be With Me, and Drifters. The promotional material included with the DVDs of these movies and the introductions on the disks themselves describe Film [...]

A Peck on the Cheek (2002)

Spoilers: This review contains spoilers. I like movies that immerse me in a foreign culture. I’m a stay-at home vicarious traveler and I depend upon cinema to transport me from my couch to unfamiliar lands and introduce me to new cultures. “A Peck On the Cheek” fills the screen with 136 minutes of scenery, music, [...]

Clean (2004)

Dedicated to reviewers who recognize and appreciate a real star when they see one. Now back off! At the outset, Maggie Cheung is clean but she’s not “clean.” A friend of mine saw the movie and all he could talk about was Maggie. This is a guy who’ll watch a flick with Michelle Yeoh in [...]

Be With Me (2005)

Directed by Eric Khoo. Starring Theresa Chan, Ng Sway Ah, Seet King Yew, Exann Lee 93 minutes. Unrated. In English, Cantonese, Hakkim, and Mandarin, with English subtitles. “Be With Me” weaves three fictional romances around the true story of Theresa Chan, a deaf and blind woman living in Singapore. Sometime during the first half of [...]

Summer Palace (2008)

Spoiler Alert: If you want the ending of Summer Palace to be a surprise, read no further. After watching two hours and twenty minutes of cigarette smoking in yet another Asian movie (see also my comments on the subject in my review of Drifters), I finally bestirred myself long enough to fish up the following [...]

Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (1964)

I’m a film gourmand, not a film gourmet. If it’s not The Matrix or Smokin’ Aces, somebody needs to take me by the hand and lead me through the movie. Otherwise I’m lighting up and watching something that I can understand. I watched a movie last month, Mon Oncle Antoine, about a boy in a [...]