It took me long enough but it wasn't until recently that I fell in love with film soundtracks. Obviously, they have a profound influence on navigation of the tones and moods of the story's narrative and it seems like 2015 was yet another exceptional year for soundtracks especially to someone like me who wasn't aware of their significant roles previously. So here we go, I picked five film soundtracks that not only influenced...
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This may be the most obvious statement of this year but Jeremy Saulnier is one of the most promising and visionary upcoming American filmmakers today. There's no denying his masterful and innovative storytelling chops especially after seeing his gritty and slow-burning thriller, Blue Ruin (See review). Now he's back with his third feature film, Green Room which is about a young punk rock band who find themselves...
Year: 2015
Director: Hou Hsiao-Hsien
Writer: Ah Cheng, Chu T'ien-wen, Hou Hsiao-Hsien, Hsieh Hai-Meng, Pei Xing (short story)
Cinematographer: Lee Ping Bin
Cast: Shu Qi, Chang Chen, Tsumabuki Satoshi
Country of Origin: China/France
Time: 105 min.
Sal from Crome Yellow and I got to witness one of the most beautiful films of this year at Beyond Fest which is Hou Hsiao-Hsien's The Assassin. In...
Year: 2015
Director: Takashi Miike
Writer: Yoshitaka Yamaguchi
Cinematographer: Hajime Kanda
Cast: Hayato Ichihara, Lily Franky, Yayan Ruhian, Reiko Takashima
Country of Origin: Japan
Rating: R
Time: 125 min.
Sal from Crome Yellow and I went to Beyond Fest, the biggest and baddest genre film festival in Los Angeles! We had the privilege of witnessing Takashi Miike's latest genre-bending and...
Year: 2015
Director: Guillermo del Toro
Writer: Guillermo del Toro & Matthew Robbins
Cinematographer: Dan Laustsen
Cast: Mia Wasikowska, Jessica Chastain, Tom Hiddleston, Charlie Hunnam
Country of Origin: USA
Rating: R
Time: 119 min.
Sal from Crome Yellow and I are really excited about Guillermo del Toro's Crimson Peak. Like REEAALLLLYYY excited! Forget what the trailer shows you, this...
Badass Femmes is a bi-weekly column that I write on Crome Yellow about all the Badass Females in pop culture that has shaped my life.
Like most girls growing up in the 90s, I was fed a steady diet of witchery thanks to Sabrina the Teenage Witch,Charmed and of course everyone’s favorite gothic guilty pleasure, The Craft. My interests eventually changed and a fascination with having powers...
Elizabeth Lo's remarkable short film, Hotel 22 documents one night on the 24-hour bus in the California Bay Area which serves as a shelter to the area's homeless. Lo is a Stanford University MFA student who spent countless nights on the bus to get to know the environment and people. With 6 days of shooting and over 30 hours of footage, Lo condensed the film to make the story seamlessly feel like only one night. Enter into...
Year: 2015
Director: Denis Villeneuve
Writer: Taylor Sheridan
Cinematographer: Roger Deakins
Cast: Emily Blunt, Benicio Del Toro, Josh Brolin, Daniel Kaluuya, Jon Bernthal, Victor Garber
Country of Origin: USA
Rating: R
Time: 121 min.
As you all know, my love for Denis Villeneuve is boundless! I always have total faith with every one of his films that my mind will be totally obliterated after...
Year: 2015
Director: Wes Ball
Writer: T.S. Nowlin (Screenplay) & James Dashner (Novel)
Cinematographer: Gyula Pados
Cast: Dylan O'Brien, Ki Hong Lee, Kaya Scodelario, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Dexter Darden, Jacob Lofland, Rosa Salazar, Giancarlo Esposito, Patricia Clarkson
Country of Origin: USA
Rating: PG-13
Time: 132 min.
Arshad and I are back and this time we review the sequel to The...
Reed Morano's directorial debut feature Meadowland starring Olivia Wilde and Luke Wilson is about to make some major waves! Sarah (Wilde) and Phil's (Wilson) lives become unhinged after the hazy aftermath of an unspeakable loss. He starts lose sight of his moral as she is on the brink of an emotional and psychological breakdown. Needless to say, they are not handling it well. Wilde showcases her full talent in a fearlessly...
Holy crap! The Japanese godfather of extreme violence, absurdity, and all things badass, Takashi Miike (see: Audition, Ichi the Killer) is back with Yakuza Apolcalypse. If you didn't think he could bend genres and take his films to the next level, think again! There's flying vampires, ass-kicking frogs, and most importantly, yakuzas! The story follows Kageyama, a young yakuza who is ridiculed by his peers for not being able...
After I had watched Thom Andersen's Los Angeles Plays Itself last year, I hit up Tony Zhou of Every Frame a Painting on twitter saying how the film reminded me a lot of his work and that he should try to make a film (see here). He responded stating that although making a feature length film would probably drive him mad, he considered making a short video called Vancouver Never Plays Itself. Fast forward to present day and...
Year: 2015
Director: Asif Kapadia
Country of Origin: UK // USA
Rating: R
Time: 128 min.
Naturally, one of the best documentary of the year called Amy, comes from the team that brought us the acclaimed documentary, Senna. This time, they tackle the rise and fall of the singer-songwriter Amy Winehouse from the sweet beginnings of her career to her toxic affair with Blake Fielder and then onto her...
You may remember Leah Shore's work from when I shared her engrossingly hilarious & eye-popping short film, I Love You So Much last year. She returns yet again with a provocative short film called Hallway, which premiered at this year's SXSW Film Festival! As Shore describes it, Hallway is "queer, about mental disability and existential breakdowns and is set in a real Brooklyn sex dungeon." (If that doesn't grab your...
The pioneer of the Greek Weird Wave, Yorgos Lanthimos is no stranger to peculiar and bizarre stories as seen in his films like Dogtooth and Alps (See video). His new film The Lobster, is set in a dystopian near future where according to the laws of The City, single people are taken to The Hotel where they are obliged to find a romantic partner in forty-five days or are transformed into beasts and outcasted into the...
Badass Femmes is a bi-weekly column that I write on Crome Yellow about all the Badass Females in pop culture that has shaped my life.
Cheerleaders and football jocks have always been at the top of high school hierarchy, so it’s no wonder why us outcasts always had a love and hate relationship with them. But truth be told, my spunky and spirited 15-year-old self almost became a cheerleader before the inevitable...
My fervent love and passion for females is a public known fact. I have already said many times that my love for women is so fiery at times that people question if I am queer and I'm totally ok with that! #PussyPower. There are so many films that I absolutely adore directed by women but here I am going to list the films that have inspired and fueled my own work particularly because the 15-day celebration of Directed by...
It's been a while since a good werewolf film came out so you can understand my excitement after seeing the trailer for the upcoming Danish film, When Animals Dream. The film premiered at last year's Cannes Film Festival and made it's numerous festival rounds including the iconic genre festival, Fantastic Fest, so you already know the film's going to hit some nerves! A teenage girl's sexual awakening unleashes something primal...
Yorgos Lanthimos is leading the Greek Weird Wave Cinema movement with his genre-bending and provocative films like Dogtooth and Alps. The subject of identity is nothing new as seen in this video essay prepared as part of the Melbourne International Film Festival Critics Campus program. Conor Bateman looks at the way Lanthimos' narratives present the transformation of identity in three of his films-- Kinetta, Dogtooth, and...
