Category Archives: Movies

Review: Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry

Posted on January 3, 2025 by philipbrasor

The character of Etero (Eka Chavleishvili) is familiar in a literary way. A single woman in her late 40s whose life has been in service to the males in her family, specifically an older brother and a widowed father who … Continue reading →

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Review: The Beekeeper

Posted on January 2, 2025 by philipbrasor

Director David Ayer should have checked out some Korean revenge flicks before taking on this Jason Statham vehicle. The Koreans have produced hundreds if not thousands and in the process had to think up new and more interesting reasons for … Continue reading →

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Best Movies 2024

Posted on December 29, 2024 by philipbrasor

The three people who follow my movie reviewing exploits will notice an odd difference in this year’s best-of list: two-count-’em-two Japanese films. As I’ve written before, though I live in Japan I don’t see as many Japanese films as I … Continue reading →

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Review: Vision of Makhmalbaf

Posted on December 28, 2024 by philipbrasor

Mohsen Makhmalbaf left his native Iran in 2005 and has since established the Makhmalbaf Film House in London, where he produces his own movies and those of his wife, Marziyeh Meshkini, his daughters, Samira and Hana, and his son, Maysam. … Continue reading →

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Review: Occupied City

Posted on December 27, 2024 by philipbrasor

Award-winning filmmaker and visual artist Steve McQueen interweaves a variety of cinematic approaches into his documentary tapestry of Amsterdam during the Nazi occupation of 1940-45. Based on the book Atlas of an Occupied City by Bianca Stigter, who is married … Continue reading →

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Review: Between the Temples

Posted on December 20, 2024 by philipbrasor

As a comedy, Nathan Silver’s chamber piece about two grieving people finding each other when they weren’t particularly looking for anyone gets off on misplaced expectations. In the opening scene, sullen Ben Gottlieb (Jason Schwartzman), a cantor who is taking … Continue reading →

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Review: My Imaginary Country

Posted on December 19, 2024 by philipbrasor

Patricio Guzmán’s three-part The Battle of Chile is not only the definitive visual history of the coup that overthrew Chile’s elected president, Salvador Allende, in 1973 and installed the dictator Augusto Pinochet (though, as Pauline Kael once pointed out, the … Continue reading →

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Review: The Making of a Japanese

Posted on December 15, 2024 by philipbrasor

Those of us who were educated in a Western school system may balk at the title of Ema Ryan Yamazaki’s documentary about what goes on at a Japanese public elementary school. It suggests that public education’s goal is indoctrination rather … Continue reading →

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Review: Alcarràs

Posted on December 14, 2024 by philipbrasor

Winner of the Golden Bear at the 2022 Berlin Film Festival, Carla Simón’s second feature is, like her first, set in the Spanish countryside, this time in the agricultural region of Catalonia, which is undergoing huge changes due to real … Continue reading →

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Review: Kraven the Hunter

Posted on December 13, 2024 by philipbrasor

The Sony wing of the MCU—the Spider-verse, to be more precise—continues its trudge toward the next blockbuster Spidey installment with the origin story of one of Peter Parker’s nemeses, who is positioned here as a hero in his own right; … Continue reading →

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