Hi, it's Ben. I like films (among many other things), and here are some places you can find me talking about them. I'm a podcaster, film critic/writer, and general swiss army man. Currently based in Singapore but you might find me lost in other countries. Open for writing collaborations/commissions, sidequest projects, and, honestly, almost anything you could think of.
Deep Cut is a director-focused film podcast featuring deep-dive discussions about international, art-house, and independent cinema. I co-host with my friends Wilson and Eli.
Sex, violence, and metanarrative critiques of the audience! Our series on the films of Dutch auteur Paul Verhoeven begins with several bangs in 1992's Basic Instinct . After getting to know the thrilling perv, Wilson gets grossed out by Michael Douglas, Ben gets enthralled by…
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The Kinetoscope is a newsletter following my personal journey discovering and thinking about cinema.
The first time I saw Singapore Minstrel was in 2016, when it premiered at the Asian American International Film Festival. I was interning at the festival in New York City, unpaid but especially optimistic as I continued to undertake my Film Studies like it would be my life. In many ways it has been and continues to…
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I built and currently run filmbulletin.sg which aggregates film listings. Easily find showtimes and film screenings outside your regular cinema all in one place.
No published screenings in Filmbulletin for Singapore today (Monday, 14 September 2026).
★★★
Definitely would've been more "authentic" to not have all the Singaporean characters not speak just in English but do sorta see the difficulty of exporting our hodgepodge.. don't really know what the…
★★
Not really sure what people are seeing in this. The thing that's supposed to be good, the action, is fairly rudimentary, and after the first act, becomes very repetitive, never finding any new…
★★★
While the characters surely feel and sound like their Looney selves, it feels like in trying to be the type of family friendly we expect today, they feel less absolutely insane as they used to be.…
★★★★
Pretty iconic in many ways, Michelle Chong sends me with every line read, and unfortunately a marker of a bygone Singapore and a bygone sense of filmmaking. Did we let this die?
Chiikawa the Movie: The Secret of the Mermaid Island
★★★★
Damn Chiikawa really said "let god sort them out" Kindness, complicity, or condemnation? Who even knows
★★★★
Really cool ethnographic record of this place in time in which home, work, and family is smashed together, boundaries blurred, and when you start crossing narratives, realising that there's no normal
★★★★ (contains spoilers)
This review may contain spoilers. Actually very very cute movie that also happens to have scenes of cattle slaughter, self-harm, and hardcore anal; Enyedi is so iconic for that
★★★
Fairly slight in its aims, but interesting nonetheless with regard to how we remember, how we self identify, and what we choose to forget. Had me reflecting on actually how damn hard it is to act in…
★★
I very desperately wanna give Chen a chance because I think he has an ear for Singaporeanness and he captures Singapore well and has some sense of the kinds of themes people want to dance around but…
★★
Needed to make that narrative and tonal shift pronto and not drag its heels so much. Kinda all over the place as to what kind of film it wants to be in terms of mood. Y'all crazy if you think this is…
★★★★★
The first time I saw Singapore Minstrel was in 2016, when it premiered at the Asian American International Film Festival. I was interning at the festival in New York City, unpaid but especially…
★★★
finding love is hard enough. try doing it on the one night everyone forgets you're spiderman, i hate this night
★★★★
Yearning is loops and spirals, loops and spirals, endlessly involving, but when it does invariably end, does love begin?
★★★★★
"In a time of apparent magic..." This is the title card that opens The Odyssey and as much as it is the best Nolan-esque movie ever made, and it is very well made, that word "apparent" says so much…
★★★★★
It's Nolan's best movie. It's the Nolanest: sad dads, survivor's guilt, competence porn, etc etc. It's also his most emotional movie and it only took him adapting one of our oldest stories to find…
★★★★
Very peculiar movie from Kurosawa, which means I liked it. I love a character like Nimura whose main trait seems to be that... he's dumb? It's so odd, with strange plot developments, but still feels…
★★★★★
Takes a story with immense grief and pairs it with a really relaxed rhythm, great characterisation, mature storytelling, and for some reason, 2 Mad Max Fury Road references, peak knows peak?
★★★★
Might be able to find world peace if everyone had to wear a badge for fucking enquiries Good! Ofc we should all listen to you Penelope Cruz. I'd also dial it back with some of the score, the talking…
★★★★
can't believe no one told me this was doppelganger cinema Iwai has a way of smashing the past and the present into each other in sublime ways
★★★★
thinking of how i can smoothly incorporate "vex" into my daily vernacular an ending that is possibly narratively surprising, but emotionally not, you already knew
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