Directed by Paul Schrader Mishima is centered around the suicide of a famous writer, Yukio Mishima.  Each of the four chapters is preceded by the 'present,' the day leading up to his death through seppuku, a ritualistic suicide through disembowelment.  The rest of the film tells stories from Mishima's life, narrated by Mishima himself.  There is … Continue reading Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985)

Directed by Jim Jarmusch   Jim Jarmusch likes to find small theaters in everyday life in which we all perform to some degree.  In Down By Law that theater is a prison cell in which three strangers become friends, and in his later films that theater would be a taxi cab (Night on Earth), a public … Continue reading Mystery Train (1989)

Directed by E.L. Katz Small Crimes holds its characters accountable in a way many similar crime films don't, except for in a Coen Brothers film.  The question raised at some point is whether crime pays, and by the end it obviously doesn't. Joe (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) is pretty great as a narcissistic, newly released from prison … Continue reading Small Crimes (2017)

Directed by Brian De Palma, Wilford Leach The Wedding Party is one of Brian De Palma's first films, and it feels at once redundant and deeply original.  The originality, though, is almost enough to take you out of the movie while the redundancy is enough to pull you back in. A young man, Charlie, is … Continue reading The Wedding Party (1969)

Directed by Jim Jarmusch Night on Earth is a collection of five short films set almost entirely inside five different cabs across the world.  Cab drivers and their passengers are the only thing these shorts have in common, well, that and the fact there is a nice lesson learned at the end for one of … Continue reading Night on Earth (1991)

Directed by Ben Wheatley A Field in England would make a great music video.  Ben Wheatley does a great job with the juxtaposition of sound and image, particularly in his fast edits.  The technical components of this film outweigh the narrative, though I may only think that because the story was a little hard to … Continue reading A Field in England (2013)

Directed by Brian De Palma Sisters feels like a combination of old and new.  The story itself, with themes of female suppression by male forces and a sense of grounded supernaturalism, feels very of the times in the 70s.  The cinematography and music, on the other hand, feel steeped in old school techniques, including the … Continue reading Sisters (1972)

Directed by Jim Jarmusch Willie (John Lurie) is the personification of America.  He lives in New York City, dresses like a prohibition era gangster, drinks Budweiser, aggressively defends the flexibility of his frozen tv dinners, and he has the freedom to roam across the country without the frame of mind to enjoy it.  He gambles … Continue reading Stranger Than Paradise (1984)

Directed by Jim Jarmusch Paterson (Adam Driver) is a bus driver in the small-town of Paterson, New Jersey.  He was born and raised there, but he just as easily could have chosen it on his own, as if drawn there.  In some ways it feels like Paterson couldn't or simply doesn't exist outside outside of … Continue reading Paterson (2016)

Directed by Jim Jarmusch Down By Law might just be about consequence.  In the first act of the film, when Jack (John Lurie) and Zack (Tom Waits) are arrested somewhat unjustly, there is a feeling that their arrest was inevitable, possibly just because their lives were heading in such a direction that made this possible. … Continue reading Down By Law (1986)