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April 20, 2025
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Blogging Pound’s The Cantos: Canto LXII – gordsellar.com on:
The Esteemed Black Actresses Who Finally Have the Spotlight – The New York Times – Celebrity News on:
“Death is the mother of beauty.” – Wallace Stevens “I choose the ugly as well as the beautiful, knowing it will all be beautiful soon enough.” – Marvin Bell *[…]
Directors · Drama · Religion & Spirituality
“That’s the secret of creativity. You have to steal around. If you keep going back to that same 7-Eleven, they’re going to catch you. So you go over to the[…]
Instead of a shape-shifting alien that overtakes its human hosts, capitalism is represented in Romero’s film by the military and to a lesser extent, the zombies. Zombies have long been[…]
The death of the animal allows for an altering of the visual dynamic that is often inaccessible through traditional mechanisms of film, and, through harnessing and disrupting the tenuous balance[…]
We watch, and it feels like anything could happen at a session that doubled as once-in-a-zeitgeist party, with Beatles, a host of rock luminaries – Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Donovan,[…]
Directors · Essays · Experimental & Underground · French Cinema
Carax suggests that the constant availability of images as immaterial streams – reduced to binary code and accessible through handheld devices – has diminished their impact. One of the film’s[…]
Actors & Personalities · Drama · Westerns · Women in Film
An excerpt from Vera Miles: The Hitchcock Blonde Who Got Away, to be released March 25 by University Press of Kentucky, exploring Miles’s impressive career and her relationships with the[…]
“I don’t know if I started drinking ‘cause my wife left me or my wife left me ‘cause I started drinking but fuck it anyway.” – Ben Sanderson, Leaving Las[…]
Actors & Personalities · Drama · Essays
Cruise’s performance as Mackey offers a unique opportunity to make sense of a Tate, and to see what all really lies right under the surface of this ongoing phenomenon. *[…]
The untold story of how the screen comedy queen of the 1930s and ‘40s nearly become one of very few women to direct feature films in postwar Hollywood. * *[…]
David Lynch died on January 15, 2025 at age 78. We celebrate this important auteur with the following analysis of some of the less remarked Lynchian themes and his work[…]
Aging · Class System · Drama · Hollywood
We are grateful that Bark and Lucy and what they represent are able to exist. That such people have gone before, even if it meant going before in a work[…]
Historical & Epic · Politics · Religion & Spirituality · Satire · Sex & Relationships
Russell’s principal avatar in this film is Louis XIII, the Carnival King and Lord of Misrule. Devoted to ersatz relics and to his “tacky stage farce,” he quietly uncovers not[…]
AI · Asian · Philosophy · Revolution · SF & Fantasy
ABSTRACT Marx’s idea of species being is the recognition by humans that their work is carried out for the sake of other humans (rather than for any god or ruler).[…]
Drama · LGBT & Queer · Romance
Elias does not label his sexuality, simply telling his mother: “I’m in love with Alexander.” That neither Elias nor Alexander labels his sexuality serves the film well. It is an[…]
Activist & Political · Counterculture · Drama · Exploitation & Erotica · Indies · LGBT & Queer · Neo-Noir · New Genres · Noir · Road Movies · Sex & Relationships
Though several deliciously sordid queer noirs have made their way into the cultural fabric of the past decades (Mulholland Dr. [2001], Stranger By The Lake [2013], The Handmaiden [2016]), 2024[…]
Actors & Personalities · Comedy · Directors · Drama
“A true artist” Cukor called Judy Holliday. “She could interpret a text with the subtlest detail.” Their creative relationship brought out the qualities that made her a new kind of[…]
Crime · LGBT & Queer · Men & Masculinity · Sex & Relationships
“I don’t make a film because I’m against something. For that matter, I don’t make a film because I’m for something — don’t make propaganda. If anything, all the films[…]
Essays · Movies · Philosophy
Before any immediate plot, the viewer is invited to experience time, allowing images to speak before words, establishing a dialogue between the contemplative time on the screen and the subjective[…]
Found Footage · Horror · Indies · Uncategorized
If all horror is a revelation of subterranean fears and anxieties, the found-footage subgenre uses techniques of amateur documentary filmmaking to place you in a lateral reality and then dig[…]
SHEMP! The Biography of the Three Stooges’ Shemp Howard, the Face of Film Comedy, by Burt Kearns. Applause Books, 2024, 280pp. $32.95 On March 11, 1895, a masterclass in American[…]
Drama · DVD & Blu-ray · Melodrama · Silents
When what you write about is what you see/What do you write about when it’s dark? ~ Charles Wright “You’ll have to kill me to get rid of me.” Criterion’s[…]
Actors & Personalities · Drama · Horror · Memorial · Mystery · Thrillers & Action
In Don’t Look Now, so much of this atmosphere hinges on the film’s unique style, one that often gets in the way of smooth narrative communication and clearly defined characters.[…]
Body Horror · Cults · Feminism · Horror · Satire
The lead actress of the 1975 film, Katherine Ross, later stated that she herself would rewrite this ending to have Joanna “fight harder”– a sentiment that the 2004 adaptation seems[…]
