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The obsessives' guide to contemporary cinema via film discussion, news, reviews, features, nostalgia, movie music, soundtracks, DVDs and more.

Interviews

Jessica Kiang’s Favorite Films Of 2012

By Jessica Kiang
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January 4, 2013 1:56 PM
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11 Comments

Features

Step into my limousine and let’s drive around in the dead of night trying to find the corpses of 2012’s best films, shall we? Our journey will take us to the cornfields of Kansas, to tiny New England islands and to an explosion in a restaurant in Tel Aviv. We will talk to murderers and movie directors, we will celebrate friendship in Barcelona and suffer despair in the Phillippine jungle; we will get punched in the supermarket and mourn Phil Coulson. And then, just as we are sipping Fernet Branca in an Italian café, mercifully the apocalypse will arrive from below and that will be that.

By Jessica Kiang
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December 3, 2012 12:05 PM
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7 Comments

Festivals

Frequently namechecked by critics, fellow actors and directors as one of the greatest screen actors alive, French actress Isabelle Huppert is the subject of the first of a series of impressive tributes to be made at this year’s Marrakech International Film Festival. She is also being honoured here by an eclectic, 11-movie sampling of her back catalogue, including 1980 Gerard Depardieu-starrer “Loulou”; Michael Haneke’s “The Piano Teacher,” for which she won the second of her two Best Actress awards in Cannes; and her more recent work with Brillante Mendoza and Hong Sang-soo, “Captive” and “In Another Country.”

By Jessica Kiang
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February 17, 2012 1:34 PM
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1 Comment

Features

Brillante Mendoza has a killer work ethic: the Filipino director made nine films between 2005's "Masahista" and 2009's "Lola," the latter of which, along with Cannes in-competition entry "Kinatay" the same year, really launched him into the major leagues of international helmers. He's taken an uncharacteristic two-and-a-half year break, but returned this week at the Berlin Film Festival with "Captive," a gripping, Herzogian drama that should see him reach his widest audience yet, thanks to the presence of international star Isabelle Huppert.

By Jessica Kiang
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February 16, 2012 2:06 PM
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1 Comment

Features

Few actresses are quite as fearless as Isabelle Huppert. She's been a near-legend for going on forty years, but has never taken a paycheck job, preferring to seek out challenging work with some of international cinema's most uncompromising auteurs. And that's embodied neatly in "Captive," her collaboration with Filipino filmmaker Brillante Mendoza, which just premiered at the Berlin Film Festival.

By Jessica Kiang
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February 15, 2012 11:04 AM
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2 Comments

Festivals

Recipient of one of the more controversial Cannes Best Director awards of recent memory (for "Kinatay," a film we found problematic, to say the least) Filipino director Brillante Mendoza returns to screens and to the festival circuit with "Captive," which marks, if not a departure from his previous style, then a welcome evolution of it. Based on real events, it is an account, by turns thrilling, moving, and harrowing, of the kidnapping ordeal of a group of holidaymakers from a resort in the Philippines; an ordeal which lasts over a year for some.