Author Archives: Sartaj Govind Singh

Don Siegal’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers is impressive because of its potent bleakness, which slowly engulfs the film like a distant shadow that grows in size. The stark black and white look complements this all-encompassing feeling along with the … Continue reading →

Jackie Brown is Quentin Tarantino’s most underrated and unique film because his usual thematic fixations, motifs and techniques are fascinatingly repurposed. For example, his usual exploration of the self-constructed persona is used as a subtle change in attitude for the … Continue reading →

Natural Born Killers is a brutal and uniquely potent film. Its exploration of the media perpetuating the two main killers is fascinating and gut-wrenching. Oliver Stone evokes this idea throughout the entire picture. He makes the film feel like a … Continue reading →

As much as I admire Pauline Kael’s approach of only seeing a film once, insofar as it forces the reviewer to come to firm opinion and yields an exciting immediacy. There is something to be said for the second viewing … Continue reading →

Cinema has been kind to The Scottish Play. Orson Welles’ 1948 iteration impressed with its potent expressionist imagery despite its meagre budget and behind the scenes woes. The American literary critic Harold Bloom called Akira Kurosawa’s 1957 adaptation “the most … Continue reading →

Pulp Fiction is an example of a rarely seen sophisticated and transcendent style over substance film. It would seem like a contradiction in terms to assert this, however, the influential 1994 picture warrants this claim in a few ways. Firstly, … Continue reading →

The Quiet Ones is a frustrating if at times intelligent, fascinating and ultimately sly picture. It primarily impresses as being a period found footage film. The camera moves that come in the form of academy aspect ratio have this great … Continue reading →

At his best, Quentin Tarantino provides fascinating interpretations of schlocky and often overlooked genre fare. No where is this more apparent than in his 1992 directorial debut, Reservoir Dogs. The premise of the picture suggests that it is a heist … Continue reading →

Battle Royale is a potent, violent and darkly comic cult film that delivers on being an interesting vision of dystopia and an illustration of teenage angst. It is this latter aspect that is the most engaging facet of the picture … Continue reading →

SGS On Film has reached fifty posts and to commemorate this minor landmark, I am going to pay tribute to the late great filmmaker, Wes Craven. However, in stark contrast to the usual manner in which I discuss figures in … Continue reading →