Polarizing Polar: An Exploitation Film For the Modern Viewer
In the shadow of towering film production companies lived dozens of grindhouses, genres, and low-budget films deemed too “unclean” for the modern film audience.

Berlin Film School graduation feature by mainland-born Ma Yingli. Two very different young women attempt to cope with the cultural changes sweeping their hometown of Beijing, China in the late 1990s. Xiaoxia has just returned from prolonged study overseas. She is a musician, and is shocked to see how money-hungry everyone now seems to be. When she begins running her brother's nightclub, she almost starts having a good (and successful) time, until the still-puritanical authorities close it down after she permits an avant-garde group to give a nude performance. Linlin never left town, but her studies at art school were cut short by official disapproval of her affair with a non-Chinese foreigner. A rich German arranges for her photography to be exhibited in Munich, and she is eager to leave the country to see the show. The two women's lives briefly connect at the nightclub, but are otherwise separate.
In the shadow of towering film production companies lived dozens of grindhouses, genres, and low-budget films deemed too “unclean” for the modern film audience.
Tara Thorne’s film is equal parts emotional and comedic, illustrating the beauty and the pain of long term relationships.
As a musical fan, I enjoyed the film and encourage anyone who likes dark humour and a bit of blood to give it a watch.
Meander, released in 2021, is a French gory horror film featuring a woman trapped in small spaces as she fights for her life, paralleling real pandemic life.
While Peter’s heroics might have been a bit unrealistic at times due to his lack of experience, I will always support the civilian taking down the establishment.
I came across Urchin by chance and decided to watch it because of the title. It made me think of the spiky animal that lives at the bottom of the ocean, and the old Dickensian novels, where an urchin was an orphaned, homeless child in shaggy and dirty clothes.