REVIEW: The Village Detective: a song cycle [2021]

My soul finds comfort here. Documentarian Bill Morrison looks to tell a story through damaged celluloid once more courtesy of four Russian film reels found by a trawler twenty miles off the coast of Iceland at the convergence of two tectonic plates. He didn’t know what he was getting into when emailed by the late Jóhann Jóhannsson (his friend) in 2016—only that a new discovery awaited. That it was more or less a bust considering the footage was from a well-known, middling comedy from 1969 still airing on Russian television…

Read More

REVIEW: Mandy [2018]

It’s all but a beautiful dream. At some point during Panos Cosmatos‘ acid trip of a phantasmagoric horror Mandy you will start to wonder if you’re the one tripping on LSD. It could be when oily ghouls on motorcycles arrive with the call of a stone horn’s whistle or perhaps when a severed jugular sprays blood all over our hero’s face as he screams in deranged delight. You’ll watch as the characters onscreen drink hallucinogens, prick others with the stinger of a giant insect, and snort cocaine—each new experience opening…

Read More