Skip to main content

Posts

Latest Review

Blu-Ray Review | 35 Shots of Rum | 2008

Perhaps it's because it was my first encounter with Claire Denis as a budding young cinephile, but 35 Shots of Rum has always held a special place in my heart. Perhaps too it's due to my general affinity for the work of Yasujiro Ozu, because this film is Denis' loving riff on Ozu-ian themes; a widowed father facing loneliness as his adult daughter falls in love and contemplates getting married and moving out.  It's a classic Ozu storyline, most indelibly captured in his 1949 masterpiece, Late Spring . But Denis is not one to simply retread what has been done before, and she puts her own spin on  35 Shots of Rum 's bittersweet father/daughter tale. She sets the mood immediately - Lionel (Alex Descas) is a train conductor, we follow him riding the rails in cinematographer Agnes Godard's dusky hues, accompanied by the melancholic noodlings of Tinderstick's dreamy score.  If any filmmaker can be said to be a master of creative vibes, it's Denis, and  35 Sho

Latest Posts

Review | American Fiction | 2023

Review | Society of the Snow | 2023

Throwback Review | Torn Curtain | 1966

The Top Ten Films of 2023

Review | Maestro | 2023

Review | Leave the World Behind | 2023

In Defense of Home Alone

Review | Poor Things | 2023

Review | The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes | 2023

Review | The Zone of Interest | 2023