Thomas Mozden

Primary among the pleasures of filming musicians at work is the possibility of looking in on otherwise unseen technical exercises. Watching music is as invigorating as hearing it played. Exemplary in this is footage of bands working…

This October we asked our writers about their favourite examples of underrated horror: the underdog films that never got the recognition they deserved, the much maligned movies that are actually worthwhile despite the negative press, and…

Fifty-five years on from its initial release, watching Night of the Living Dead (1968) is exhilarating. The story of a group of strangers boarding themselves into an isolated farmhouse as a defence against hoards of shuffling zombies is so…

There are signposts in the critical appreciation of South Korean filmmaker Hong Sang-Soo. In reading about his films, you are likely to stumble over his encounter with Paul Cézanne, into a much-thumbed copy of Notes sur le cinématographe,…

A lobster lies atop a skillet while kettles of boiling water are poured over it. Its limbs stop writhing and it is split in preparation. Han Jiangyu (Lee Kang-Sheng) later asks his boss, Chen Kai (Ren Ke), if he thinks lobsters have souls.…

Glorious can be classed under H.P. Lovcraft, playing out as a hangover from his fictional city R’Lyeh. Over a generally brisk 80 minutes, director Rebekah McKendry carves out an intermittently enjoyable cosmic horror comedy. Most of the…

This is GWAR is a straightforward rock doc. After an introductory section detailing the genesis of the titular art collective cum metal band, the filmmakers take us through a chronological survey of the group’s history. We meet the…

Blade Runner is the best designed and most meditative American science fiction film this side of 2001: A Space Odyssey. However, this statement is not without qualification forty years after its initial release. For my purposes here, I may…

Eraserhead remains David Lynch’s supreme cinematic achievement. Endlessly enigmatic, his debut feature exhibits the thematic and technical concerns that would come to shape each of his subsequent projects. Those looking for a puzzle to…

From the opening frames, there’s no doubt that Gosford Park is the work of Robert Altman. The camera, unchained, prowls through the trees. You’d be forgiven for thinking Vilmos was behind the lens. Despite this stylistic familiarity, the…