Author Archives: philipbrasor

Review: Hit the Road

Posted on August 25, 2023 by philipbrasor

When I think about Iranian cinema, certain adjectives immediately come to mind—allegorical, stark, allusive—but “breezy” isn’t one of them. In that regard, the offhanded narrative style of Pahan Panahi’s debut feature resembles that of no other Iranian director I can … Continue reading →

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Review: Next Sohee

Posted on August 24, 2023 by philipbrasor

The second film by Korean director July Jung, a former assistant to Lee Chang-dong, is conventional in all but structure, but to discuss that structure in detail would give away too much. Nevertheless, Next Sohee continually surprised me, and several … Continue reading →

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Review: Meg 2: The Trench

Posted on August 23, 2023 by philipbrasor

The enduring commercial viability of shark movies, almost fifty years after Jaws, mirrors the enduring commercial viability of zombie flicks, though no one, as far as I know, has ever compared the two. As terrifying adversaries go, both sharks and … Continue reading →

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Review: The Wolf House

Posted on August 19, 2023 by philipbrasor

Presented as an old film restored by the Chilean directors/animators Joaquin Cociña and Cristóbal León about a German colony with a very bad reputation, The Wolf House is a disarming excavation of proto-fascist tropes served up as surreal art. Based … Continue reading →

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Review: Crimes of the Future

Posted on August 17, 2023 by philipbrasor

David Cronenberg’s return to “body horror,” a genre he invented, after two decades of comparatively conventional, though by no means less disturbing, dramas has the same title as one of his earliest movies, so at first I wondered if he … Continue reading →

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Review: QT8-The First Eight

Posted on August 12, 2023 by philipbrasor

Though not strictly a hagiography, this thorough explication of the films that Quentin Tarantino made under the auspices of Harvey Weinstein presents America’s most celebrated auteur of the last three decades as a complete success on his own terms and … Continue reading →

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Review: Barbie

Posted on August 11, 2023 by philipbrasor

Greta Gerwig’s very popular movie, written with her life partner and fellow filmmaker Noah Baumbach, isn’t the first one to center on a toy or, for that matter, a very recognizable toy. Usually, however, the toy is a brand name … Continue reading →

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Review: Return to Seoul

Posted on August 10, 2023 by philipbrasor

What makes Cambodian-French director Davy Chou’s movie about a young French woman recklessly discovering her Korean heritage compelling is how attuned it is to not only to the character’s foibles, but how those foibles determine the purpose of her quest, … Continue reading →

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Review: The Survivor

Posted on August 9, 2023 by philipbrasor

Barry Levinson’s retelling of the story of Harry Haft (Ben Foster), a Polish Jew who survived Auschwitz by allowing himself to be used for entertainment purposes as a boxer, is a fairly conventional movie in that it plays on the … Continue reading →

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Review: Myanmar Diaries

Posted on August 5, 2023 by philipbrasor

There are no credits at the beginning or at the end of this collection of short videos made by amateur and professional filmmakers in the aftermath of the coup in Myanmar that took place February 1, 2021. Obviously, they would … Continue reading →

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