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March 5, 2023
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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:
Animation · Animators · Designers · Experimental & Underground
John Whitney himself envisioned nothing more and nothing less for the future of CGI than a union of space and time: “Time has become visual.” But all film deals in[…]
Actors & Personalities · Interviews
In which Stella tells all or at least most
Philosophy · Theory · Thrillers & Action · Uncategorized
This article argues that the paradox of James Bond’s character (that he accords with the idea he represents precisely by deviating from it) is central to a Lacanian understanding of[…]
Comedy · Drama · French Cinema
Amélie brings life to the unseen. * * * Talk with someone about a piece of art, and they’ll tell you about themselves. Let me share my thoughts on Amélie,[…]
Actors & Personalities · Comedy · Feminism · Indies · Interviews · SF & Fantasy
For me, on Supergirl, I was 100% in. It was the biggest opportunity that ever happened to me, and the process of making the film was very nourishing. I think[…]
Colonialism · Historical & Epic · Music & Musicals · Myth and Archetype · Native Americans · Westerns
The handful of “frontier operas” we’ll consider therefore propose an unusual dialectic of both aesthetics and ideology. What might occur when male Western heroes – traditionally stoic and pragmatic –[…]
Actors & Personalities · Directors · Drama · Women in Film
“[H]er favorite expression of strained intensity would be less quickly relieved by a merciful death than by Ex-Lax.”
DIY · Experimental & Underground · Exploitation & Erotica · Film Culture · Impresarios · Outsiders · Programmers
He told me about when his piano player canceled out of a silent movie performance. “I walked outside during the kiddie matinee and saw some young people loading musical instruments[…]
Body Horror · Horror · Mumblecore · Romance
Not only does May challenge the tropes of mumblecore and indie-rom com movies, but it also retells elements of Frankenstein, offering a female protagonist who is both monster and monster-maker.[…]
Biopic · Directors · Experimental & Underground · War · Writers & Critics
I’m not interested in what happened next; I’m interested in what happens emotionally next. It’s like memory. Memory isn’t linear. It’s cyclical. A tiny thing can be the thing that’s[…]
Hinting at women’s complicity in a film plotted around men’s violent treatment of women is, well, ballsy. That Cregger’s script doesn’t delve into the larger cultural conditioning and structures that[…]
Comedy · Communism and Socialism · Directors · Drama · Eastern European · Russia · War · Writers & Critics
Billy Wilder turned to these two plays because they offered the situations, structure, and characters that would allow his imagination to flower and create contemporary stories – a patriotic military[…]
Crime · Drama · Women in Film
Ramsay uses the distinct qualities of cinema, images and sound, to immerse you in the psychic space of her characters – and what an uncommonly beautiful space it is. It’s[…]
African American · Comedy · Drama · Eco · Race · Urban Conflict
The fundamental question of who will suffer the most from extreme heat, and on a broader scale climate change, is bound to systemic issues of race and class. Through Lee’s[…]
“Movies are dreams, doll, that you never forget,” says Mrs. Fabelman (Michelle Williams). She’s circling the nature of them, which the critic Andre Bazin described when he called cinema “an[…]
Actors & Personalities · Artists
Editor’s Note: Richard Pryor died on this date, December 10, 2005, ten days after his sixty-fifth birthday. We salute this comic genius and cultural game-changer by reposting Julian Upton’s powerful[…]
Dance · Drama · Exile and Displacement · Poverty · Theory
One of Frías de la Parra’s masterstrokes is to highlight the similar ways in which Monterrey and New York (otherwise such radically distinct cities) are brimming with diagonal lines: in[…]
Drama · Eco · Eco-horror · Essays
What does a scar tell us about a person? Where they’ve been, what they’ve been through, the style in which they conduct their lives. A scar is a reminder, an[…]
Brigadoon is a quasi-origin story that is closely associated with the way stories transform the reality of the recent past. Communities, societies, and nations survive by means of having sacrificial[…]
Just as Holy Motors simultaneously mourned the loss of physicality from filmmaking while embracing the creative possibilities offered by digital technology, Annette is built on a seeming paradox: it plunges[…]
Franchises & Series · Military and Paramilitary · Thrillers & Action · War
Top Gun might leave viewers with the negative impression that all naval aviators are infantilized, high-functioning, pride-stricken narcissists, and I’m going to let you in on a secret. We are. But most[…]
Actors & Personalities · Hollywood · Politics
If only Ronald Reagan had been a better actor, our world might be a brighter place today. * * * Although it’s been thirty-three years and six presidents since Ronald[…]
At last, seduction: the festival ended on a crescendo with Ennio, Giuseppe Tornatore’s expansive yet intimate tribute to the great Morricone. This is no superficial primer: Tornatore edits the film[…]
“You just can’t beat wild imagination.” – Bob Bottin * * * It took decades for John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982) to find an audience, on home video and cable.[…]
