The Way Back
Russian gulags were never known for their fair treatment of their prisoners, most of which were political prisoners, given unbelievably long sentences, often on chumped up charges of treason, espionage, or criticism of...
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Marty in Wonderland: The Verdict on Martin Scorsese’s 3D Adventure Hugo
The grandmaster of the gangster genre and the cinema of madness is back. He has returned with a project that can in good conscience be described as peculiar and atypical for him. Martin...
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Golden Boys: The 84th Annual Academy Awards Coverage
The 84th Annual Academy Awards have just come to a close. So what can we take away from it other than Billy Crystal being a charming, but aging host or the ladies gushing...
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Noriko’s Dinner Table: alter-egoism and constant change
“There is no suicide club,” says a nondescript man in his mid-thirties. Confused, the middle aged man accepts the answer and walks away, only to reflect later on another thing the man said...
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I Saw The Devil: revenge at any cost
Min-shik Choi is back as the psycho killer in the murder-thriller I Saw The Devil. Min-shik’s character, Kyung-chul is cold, ruthless and deceptive. In the opening scene Kyung-chul is seen assisting a young...
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A Life Less Ordinary: Roman Karimov’s Inadequate People and the ‘Russian Realities’
There are those who complain that Russian cinema has abandoned its distinctive identity in favor of Hollywood conventions in recent years, and justifiably so. Ever since Timur Bekmambetov’s Night Watch, a surprise success...
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Family Affair: Elena as a Thought-Provoking Character Study and Portrait of Life in Contemporary Russia
“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way,” Leo Tolstoy wrote at the beginning of his famous novel Anna Karenina. This was true for the aristocratic clans...
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Hollywood gearing up for this year’s Academy Awards
This year’s Academy Awards will be presented by two of American cinema’s biggestpranksters, Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis who just recently finished shooting for the film The Campaign. Ferrell and Galifianakis are just...
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The Housemaid lacks originality, reinforces stereotypes of Korean society
A shy young woman gets hired to become a wealthy Korean family’s maid. Very quickly Eun-yi (the maid played by Do-yeon Jeon) finds her way into the good graces of the head of...
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Sympathy for the Devils: The World as a Rotten Place in Petr Zelenka’s The Karamazovs
Fyodor Dostoevsky is arguably one of the greatest novelists of all time. The interest of filmmakers in his work has remained alive, and even seems to have increased in recent years. Martin Scorsese,...
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The Grey: a story about the inevitability of death, and the importance of self reliance
Liam Neeson’s performance in The Grey was unparalleled. Though the story starts out somewhat like a would-be typical Hollywood flick following the done-to-death ‘great adventure’ scenario; the film actually incorporates many elements that...
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Bridges to Babylen: Generation P as a Cyberpunk Satire of Russian Consumerism in the 1990s
“We’re waiting for changes,” Victor Tsoy, arguably the biggest rock star of the Soviet Union, exclaimed in the late 1980s. They would come only a few years later. The 1990s were a decade...
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Max Manus
Max Manus, at a seemingly modest production price of 55 million kroner[1] (ca. 9.6 million dollars), is the most expensive film ever produced in Norwegian history. Though this might not sound like much money, for a...
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Kevin Smith’s Cop Out
I love Kevin Smith. For a solid decade and a half, the man has been an essential part of American cinema. With his subliminal commentaries on society, quirky below-the-belt sense of humour, intelligent...
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Paradise Murdered. Kim Han-Min’s fruitless success.
The year is 1986. On an isolated island off the coast of the Korean mainland, lies a small secluded establishment. The island is rocky, steep, and often surrounded by a heavy fog which...
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