BAPFF: Right Now, Wrong Then (2015)

Have you ever struck out on a date because of a careless word or a clumsy gesture? Writer-director, Hong Sang-soo, ponders this quandary in Right Now, Wrong Then, a romantic-drama that plays out like a low-key Groundhog Day. The film benefits from strong performances in the lead roles and, despite some ponderous pacing, the central…

Space Dandy – Season 1

It’s an empirical fact that Cowboy Bebop is one of the greatest anime series ever made. It’s also an empirical fact that one of its greatest episodes has essentially nothing to do with the show’s emphasis on its protagonists’ futile attempts to escape their dark pasts, nor of its core of existential loneliness: I’m speaking,…

Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt in Edge of Tomorrow

Edge of Tomorrow (2014)

The notion of films adopting a “videogame aesthetic” is – or was – a common critical observation, wielded as pejorative or praise depending, seemingly, on the critic’s personal opinion of videogames. Since at least The Matrix – a film visually and conceptually indebted to contemporary videogames while inspiring the design of games to come – and even Tron before…