I was toying with an idea a little while back: is it fundamentally impossible to create a compelling film that delves into radical thought if the form of the film is not radical itself? I had the thought after watching the musty Netflix telemovie "The Trial of the Chicago 7", and felt the theory held water once I'd seen the smug celeb circle jerk satire that was "Don't Look Up", but it took until I saw the other side of…

Let me be blunt: Nazis are so fucking lame that they can be fooled by Jack Benny's shit acting and his director's shit plans. And you know what? I absolutely believe it. Director Ernst Lubitsch was clever enough to know that the weight of bureaucracy and internal chaos would be the downfall of the NSDAP, so he has his players take advantage of that constantly, with increasingly higher stakes. The comedy in this is sublime, and gutsy - made in…

I have never known a movie to be so absolutely ridiculous, unhinged and anarchic, yet still stick so stringently to its own cinematic language style and internal logic. How do you talk about such a psychedelic, unique experience? Eat shit, Beatles movies! The first 20 minutes of the film go at a mile a minute - pratfalls, visual trickery, green screens, vibrant colours and outlandish performances push the pace to breaking point without falling off the cliff. When we reach…

I went into this expecting something completely different, and while I wasn't disappointed, I definitely was too hungover for it. "Ramen Western" really undersells it - nothing wrong with emulating cowboys, and there's plenty of it in there, but it's more Tati than Ford I'd say. This is chock full of genuine, heartfelt moments that are loosely related in a larger web of human relations through food, which have been shot with a reverence and care that elevates cuisine to…

I have lived a significantly altered life since I saw this as a teenager. Ingmar Bergman’s moody, often astoundingly bleak musing on the nature of life and death is, in that sense, one of the few essential films in my life, and quite likely a perfect film, whatever the hell that means. Every performance cuts deep to the bone, and they are lit in the most exquisite high contrast lighting I have ever seen. As is to be expected with…

Agnes Varda is one of the most inventive, ionate and empathetic filmmakers in history. This movie, her best (and the best French New Wave film by far), is a beautiful, at times morbid film where the joy and love for the craft jumps off the screen and stays with you well after. The vast range of shots that Varda uses to depict Cleo’s wandering malaise through Paris as she kills time waiting for life-changing medical results create a playful atmosphere,…