Women in Wonderland, Part 1 – Lost Girls
All three meet as adult women in Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie’s X-rated graphic novel, Lost Girls (above). Moore, the genius author of Watchmen, From Hell, and The League of[…]
When the English-Dubbed Version is Better
With regard to the whole issue of dubbing, conventional wisdom tells us that foreign films are best viewed in their original language. And I tend to agree with that. But[…]
Actors & Personalities · Reviews
Cooler Younger Sister Effect: Barbara Rush in MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION
The recent Criterion release of MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION (1954) makes a good–not great, but still worthy–addition to our cooler younger sister collection. This 1954 Douglas Sirk soap was a big,[…]
On How Things Seem: The Views of Robert Warshow
“Where Warshow distinguishes himself from Kracauer and other sociological critics is his reaction to the ‘absorbing immediacy’ of films.”
Activist & Political · Animation
The Responsible Dream: On Ari Folman’s Waltz with Bashir
“We were the Nazis.”
“A Universe Inside a Universe”: On Synecdoche, New York
synecdoche: a figure of speech in which a part is used for a whole, an individual for a class, a material for a thing, or the reverse of any of these (Ex.: bread for food, the army for a soldier, or copper for a penny) — Webster’s Online Dictionary
Little Stabs of Queer Happiness (and Horror): Random Short Reviews of the Worthy and the Worthless in Recent and Old School Cinema
“Heterosexual brides-to-be are one of the demographics that arrive by the busloads to partake of Darcelle’s mad mix of risqué zingers, over-the-top musical routines, and mother-hen reassurances.”
Spike Lee’s “Uniquely American [Di]vision”: Race and Class in 25th Hour
“Is it simply that the hero must be white for a mainstream American audience to care for him, or for the mainstream critical establishment to value Lee’s work?”
Robert Ryan: A Moon for the Misbegotten
“I have been in films pretty well everything I am dedicated to fighting against.”
Lysergic Landscapes: John Maybury’s Read Only Memory
“Story, characters, and other reassuring elements are simply obliterated by what appears to be Maybury’s elaborate private mythology.”
Sinners’ Holiday: An Ode to Pre-Code
“Code? What Code?”
Dizzy from the Altitude, Happy to Plummet: Pre-Code Cinema and the Post-Code-Shock Syndrome
“The air is saturated with their feelings for each other as they listen to ‘the distant music of the falls,’ the same falls, of course, that will threaten to kill her.”
Jean-Pierre Melville, Director: Notes on the French Auteur’s Career
“The film was shot in what would become a blueprint for the director’s production style — without authorization, studio resources, or sufficient funds.”
Activist & Political · Directors · Interviews
Maps and Movies: Talking with Deepa Mehta
“I think it’s really important for you, or anybody who wants to be a filmmaker, to really be honest with yourself.”
Hotels and Homelands: After Ken and Rosa
Neither will be the same
Griffith’s Great American Pastoral: Location and Meaning in Way Down East
“The air is saturated with their feelings for each other as they listen to ‘the distant music of the falls,’ the same falls, of course, that will threaten to kill her.”
Liverpool Lullaby: On Terence Davies’ Of Time and the City
“Through cinema the past is regained.”
Activist & Political · Documentaries
What Is Cheaper Than Nothing at All? Czech Dream, Culture Jamming, and Consumerism
“I jam because I am without ID.”
Out of His Head: Metaphysical Escape Attempts in the Screenplays of Charlie Kaufman
“Kaufman’s homunculi schema is an implicit mockery of our bottomless ignorance of the nature of consciousness.”
Actors & Personalities · Comedy · Directors
Looking at Charlie: City Lights: An Occasional Series on the Life and Work of Charlie Chaplin
“If you could only see me as I really am, not as I appear but as I really am, as I am in my heart.”
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