Monthly Archives: April 2023

Review: I, Olga Hepnarova

Posted on April 29, 2023 by philipbrasor

Tomas Weinreb’s and Petr Kazda’s fictionalized reimagining of the last woman to be executed in Czechoslovakia, in 1975, maintains a brutal fascination for its subject, played with unstinting sad-sack bravura by Michalina Olszanka, with an almost comical attention to detail. … Continue reading →

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Review: In Our Prime

Posted on April 28, 2023 by philipbrasor

Ever since his lead performance in Oldboy, Choi Min-sik has come to represent, at least to international movie fans whose diet of Korean films tend to center on well-known fare, the Korean idea of the antihero: a deeply flawed individual … Continue reading →

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Review: The Highway Family

Posted on April 21, 2023 by philipbrasor

Character actors, especially those who specialize in villains, are by definition cast within a fairly narrow range, while marquee stars prefer to work in their wheelhouses because that’s what makes them and their movies money. Jung Il-woo is one of … Continue reading →

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Review: Red Rocket

Posted on April 20, 2023 by philipbrasor

It was obviously going to be a tall order for director Sean Baker to top or even equal his last film, The Florida Project, an epic exploration of 21st century survivalist poverty in the capitalist milieu represented by the titular … Continue reading →

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Review: Mariupolis 2

Posted on April 15, 2023 by philipbrasor

Because of their nature as recordings of real events, documentaries often come with their own dramatic context, and in the case of Lithuanian filmmaker Mantas Kvedaravicius’s sequel to his 2016 film about the titular Ukrainian port city, much has been … Continue reading →

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Review: Lost Illusions

Posted on April 14, 2023 by philipbrasor

That Balzac guy sure was prescient. His 1843 novel Illusions perdues depicted a media world centered on fake news, in which the profits to be had by printing what the highest bidder had to offer for specific journalistic favors was … Continue reading →

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Review: Moneyboys

Posted on April 13, 2023 by philipbrasor

The title of Chinese filmmaker C.B. Yi’s debut feature refers to male hustlers in the industrial south of China who cater to male customers. From the first scene when we’re introduced to the protagonist, Fei (Kai Ko), going to his … Continue reading →

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Review: Holy Spider

Posted on April 12, 2023 by philipbrasor

More serendipitous timing: This film about a man who murders female prostitutes in Iran’s holy city of Mashhad is being released internationally as Iranian women ramp up their resistance to the fundamentalist regime that has long kept them down. Not … Continue reading →

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Media watch: Adoptive parents still worry how society views their children, and them

Posted on April 10, 2023 by philipbrasor

Last week, Asahi Shimbun reported on a survey conducted by Jikei Hospital in Kumamoto of parents who had adopted children deposited in the hospital’s famous “stork cradle,” the euphemistically named box where parents can anonymously leave newborn babies they won’t … Continue reading →

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Brendan Fraser saves The Whale

Posted on April 8, 2023 by philipbrasor

During his Tokyo press conference on April 6 at the Ritz-Carlton to promote his Oscar-winning performance in Darren Aronofsky’s film, The Whale, Brendan Fraser, making his first trip to Japan in 15 years, used the words “courage” and “empathy” multiple … Continue reading →

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