REVIEWS

There truly is something special about a cinema- or at least, there used to be. In times gone by, the local movie house wasn’t just a place to watch films: it was a communal space where strangers sat shoulder to shoulder, becoming a temporary family in the dark. Entire towns gathered to feel the same heartbeat for a few fleeting hours; for that brief span, everybody- no matter how different- was on the same wavelength, transfixed by the magic-lantern glow of film. Cinemas

Corporate, male-CEO culture has long been fertile ground for cinema. Filmmakers have repeatedly returned to the boardroom as a stage for cruelty, ambition and the performance of masculinity. From the venomous mentorship of ‘Swimming with Sharks’ to the calculated misogyny of ‘In the Company of Men’ and the narcissistic violence of ‘American Psycho’, these stories expose a world where “locker-room talk” becomes corporate strategy, and emotional detachment is treated as a profe

There will never be another Dennis Hopper. Nowadays, in public at least, actors are generally squeaky-clean, cardboard cut-out, PR mouthpieces. Hopper was anything but. He was a true original, who gave some terrific performances. From the freewheeling Billy in ‘Easy Rider’, to ‘Apocalypse Now’s psychedelically warped photojournalist, and the gas-huffing nightmare Frank Booth of ‘Blue Velvet,’ Hopper left his mark on cinema, in films that will never be forgotten. 1981’s ‘Reb

Confucius once stated that “music produces a kind of pleasure which human nature cannot do without”, and modern research bears that out. Scientists have shown that music can lift our mood, activating the brain’s reward pathways, lowering stress hormones, while creating a shared emotional space that feels both grounding and restorative. As Jean Paul Friedrich Richter said, it is “the moonlight in the gloomy night of life;” a salve for the soul. Few films understand this more

Action heroes dominated 1980s and 90s cinema marquees. Stallone, Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis were at the top of their games, while Jackie Chan became an international icon. Superstars like Harrison Ford, Kurt Russell and Mel Gibson balanced action roles with major dramatic work, and even Steven Seagal was taken seriously (for a little while, anyway). Jean-Claude Van Damme was one such name in lights- the flexible Belgian dynamo who combined Willis’ charm with Chan’s acrob

When making a film about Jesus, someone somewhere is going to be offended. It comes with the territory. Mel Gibson’s ‘The Passion of the Christ’ ignited controversy for its graphic brutality and interpretation of the Passion narrative, while Martin Scorsese’s ‘The Last Temptation of Christ’ provoked outrage simply for imagining Jesus’ inner doubts and desires. Even just the idea of the Marxist, atheist (not to mention openly homosexual) Pier Paolo Pasolini directing a film ab

Loneliness is one of the major crises of modern Japan. In the middle of bustling streets and packed commuter trains, an increasing number of people feel profoundly disconnected from those around them. Social pressure, economic precarity and the relentless pace of urban life have pushed many to the margins- with some retreating entirely into their rooms as ‘hikikomori’, shut off from the world for months or even years. Out of this landscape of isolation, an unusual industry ha

Film noir has always thrived on shadow- moral, psychological and literal. Born from post-war disillusionment, it evokes rain-slicked streets and smoke-filled rooms, where cynical detectives navigate worlds already rotting from within. Though closely tied to mid-20 th -century Hollywood, noir was never confined to American cities alone. In Europe, as well as in Soviet and Eastern Bloc cinema, it surfaced in fractured, disguised forms. In the Soviet Union, where film was meant

At the heart of Soviet comedies stand three towering figures: Leonid Gaidai, Eldar Ryazanov and Georgiy Daneliya. Widely considered the triumvirate of the genre, their films often blend wry humour with pointed social commentary. However, while comparable in stature, their sensibilities diverge sharply. Gaidai revelled in anarchic slapstick, Ryazanov excelled in bittersweet satire, and Daneliya- perhaps the most quietly profound of the three- infused his comedies with a gentle

Park Chan-wook is widely regarded as one of the finest filmmakers working today. A versatile multi-talent, he has dabbled in a variety of genres, while leaving his own unmistakable authorial stamp on each. From the operatic revenge of ‘Oldboy’ and the rest of the so-called Vengeance Trilogy, to the melancholic machinations of ‘Decision to Leave’, and even the off-kilter eroticism of ‘Thirst,’ his films are united by an enduring fascination with obsession, violence and moral r

Joachim Trier’s films concern themselves with the quiet crises that shape a life. His work is marked by an unusual balance of intellectual rigor and emotional generosity: formally precise yet deeply humane, ironic without cynicism and always attentive to the small, decisive moments where lives tilt almost imperceptibly. Throughout his career, he has shown a deep attunement to the ways people try to make sense of themselves amid the shifting currents of memory and expectation.

In a July 2025 article for The New York Times, Carlos Aguilar stated that director Kiyoshi Kurosawa “is to psychological fright what David Cronenberg is to body horror.” Indeed, over the last 30 years, Kurosawa has become a master at weaving sinister, slow-creeping dread into the everyday- elevating the mundane into something almost imperceptibly menacing. However, he has not been constricted to the realm of the macabre. From dramatic comedies like ‘Licence to Live,’ to sci-f

Few directors have so consistently blurred the line between agony and ecstasy as Shin'ya Tsukamoto. Ever since 1989’s ‘Tetsuo: The Iron Man’ fused flesh and metal into a shrieking, psychosexual nightmare, Tsukamoto has been both a chronicler and an architect of urban alienation- a filmmaker obsessed with the violence of existence in an indifferent world. His jagged, intimate films pulse with bodily horror and emotional extremity, but beneath the rust and blood there’s always

Although considered horror royalty, Stephen King has never been pigeonholed to the genre. From ‘Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption’...

Although he didn’t rack up as many acting credits as his friends Kris Kristofferson and Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash was no stranger to the...

In 2022, Joseph Kosinski’s ‘Top Gun Maverick’ took the world by storm. A sequel to Tony Scott’s 1986 classic, the Tom Cruise starrer took...

Few genres are as seductive or as enduringly popular as the gangster movie. Since the earliest days of cinema- with 1906’s ‘The Black...

There are few detective shows as endearing and unique as ‘Monk’. Airing from 2002 to 2009, the series followed Adrian Monk, a brilliant...

Ernst Lubitsch made films that winked at you. Sophisticated spectacles, his comedies didn’t shout their jokes, but smuggled them in like...

The partnership of Ringo Lam and Chow Yun-fat has resulted in some brilliant films. Their first collaboration, ‘City on Fire,’ helped...