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Total Recall (1990)
Even in his escapist storytelling, Paul Verhoeven still finds a way to let the philosophical questions of identity and perception uncomfortably linger in our minds, sweeping us away on Total Recall’s waves of outlandish retrofuturism and thrilling set pieces that lead us into the depths of a Martian conspiracy, though never letting us forget the…
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Punch-Drunk Love (2002)
Random chaos defines Barry Egan’s world in Punch-Drunk Love, reaching out across his work and personal life to diminish his meek existence, and yet there is a balanced coordination across every level of Paul Thomas Anderson’s incredibly formal filmmaking in this offbeat romantic comedy that finds colourful, delicate harmony among the dissonance.
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Husbands (1970)
As the title Husbands might suggest, wives are largely absent from the efforts of these emotionally inept men to deal with the repressed grief of losing a friend, thereby letting John Cassavetes’ plotless realism and intrusive camera uncomfortably linger on its exhausting portrait of middle-aged, toxic masculinity.
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The Big Sleep (1946)
Howard Hawks wields his convoluted narrative like a weapon in The Big Sleep, where fatalistic forces wind together in a treacherous labyrinth seeking to ensnare Humphrey Bogart’s cynical private detective, Phillip Marlowe, thereby immersing us into a gloriously pulpy film noir that sizzles with sexual innuendoes and coy provocations.
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Armageddon Time (2022)
In his light sepia filter and lavish retro design of 1980s New York, James Gray infuses Armageddon Time with a nostalgia that could only exist in the eyes of a child as innocent as him, thoughtfully examining a survivor’s guilt that echoes across generations of inherited privilege, prejudice, and the cultural weight of Jewish history.
