I've met Park Chan-wook three times in my life: At a signing for Oldboy at Tower Records in Soho, then at the NYFF premiere of Sympathy for Lady Vengeance and once again at a Q&A for Thirst at the same festival. Only at the last event did I get to ask him whom his favorite inspirations were: He said Kim Ki-young and Yasuzo Masumura—which led me to binge on the latter’s works.

But now, having watched The Last Witness, it's…

LIFE AS FICTION — Punch is not a blockbuster. It's about a poor high school kid growing up with a disabled father hellbent on dancing at a cabaret. It's about mothers and being an outsider in a closed off world. It's about fathers and sons and teachers and students. Most importantly, it's about knowing that one cannot separate all these, that in the evermore complicated world we live in, everything converges at once, and we must learn to find solace…

LIFE AS FICTION — Michael Fassbender is the best android ever: This, sadly, is the one true takeaway from Ridley Scott’s return to the Alien universe. If forced to admit another, it would be that the elder Scott brother has now further cemented himself as arguably the single most overrated director working today. For him, style over substance has become par for course, and while that isn’t a bad thing, it’s consistently kept him from being great since 1982. His…