Anthropomorphizing the Anthropoid: Peter Jackson’s King Kong
Even a big ape can enjoy a sunset, can’t he? 1st Blonde: “What is this thing, anyway?” 2nd Blonde: “Some kind of gorilla.” 1st Blonde: “Ain’t we got enough of[…]
Author: Alan Vanneman
Alan Vanneman is a writer living in Washington, DC. He is the author of two dead-tree novels, Sherlock Holmes and the Giant Rat of Sumatra and Sherlock Holmes and the Hapsburg Tiara, both published by Penzler Press. Sherlock Holmes and the Hapsburg Tiara is available as an audiobook from Blackstone/Downpour. He is also the author of three new Nero Wolfe novellas recreating Rex Stout’s famous fat detective, a FREE ebook, and Author! Author! Auden, Oates, and Updike, a collection of two short stories and a novella, available both as an ebook and print on demand. All of his fiction can be accessed here at his blog Literature R Us. Portions of his article "Alfred Hitchcock: A Hank of Hair and a Piece of Bone," which originally appeared online in Bright Lights, have been included in a textbook anthology by Allison Smith, Trixie Smith, and Stacia Watkins. Looking for Angst in All the Wrong Places: Sam Mendes’s Jarhead: Marines Gone Wild!
A few really cute boys take their shirts off, but that’s about it On paper, it must have sounded, well, interesting. Take the flamboyant, left-wing lyricism of Academy Award-winning director[…]
Actors & Personalities · Reviews · Silents
Step Right Up and Call Me Speedy! Harold Lloyd — Almost All Isn’t Enough
The last of the great silent clowns now on DVD “Step Right Up and Call Me Speedy!” Harold Lloyd has often — too often, really — been called the Anthony[…]
Reviews · TV & Streaming · Writers & Critics
Nine Hamlets: Olivier, Burton, Jacobi, Kline, Gibson, Branagh, Scott, Hawke, and Lester All Take a Stab at the Original Man in Black
“Where be your gibes now? Your gambols? Your songs? Your flashes of merriment that were wont to set the table on a roar?” Hamlet, it must be said, is not[…]
Grandma’s Boy: No, Not That One
Linda Cardellini dies and goes to Hell I’m no Dante, but I bet they’re busy in Hell these days. Busy putting in new and lower circles, busy putting in new[…]
Toto, I Don’t Think We’re in the Grand Tetons Anymore: Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain
Queens in jeans? Bareback Mountain? Buttfuck Mountain? Steers n’ Queers? Homos on the Range? Has there ever been a movie that invited more witticisms?1 In fact, Brokeback should be called[…]
In a Galaxy Far, Far Away — But Not Far Enough: Joss Whedon’s Serenity: Like TV, but Without All the Intelligence
Sayin’ ain’t doin’, motherfucker! It’s a damn fact that starin’ into the inky, pitchy blackness of space can make you a bit addle-pated, to the point that you might start[…]
Extra! Extra! Read All About It! Clooney Defeats McCarthy!
Rosemary’s nephew clocks dairy state demagogue in Good Night, And Good Luck Generals and Hollywood directors have at least one thing in common: they both enjoy fighting the last war.1[…]
Tony Scott’s Domino: Too Dumb to Write About? Not Entirely!
Strong violence, pervasive language, sexual content/nudity and drug use I admit it. I am a sucker for films with pervasive language. In fact, the more pervasive it is, the more[…]
Bennett Miller’s Capote: Flatter Than Kansas, and Almost as Boring
Life is earnest, sure, but why does art have to be? “No one got further in history with less intellectual baggage than Cicero,”1 as Freddie Binkard Artz2 liked to say.[…]
The Barkleys of Broadway: Fred & Ginger’s Last Dance: Ten Pounds Shy of a Gem?
“You’d be hard to replace”? Damn near impossible! How hard is it to lose those last ten pounds, eh? Well, pretty damn hard, but if Ginger Rogers had been able[…]
Mr. Monk’s Moods: Tony Shalhoub Returns as the Prince of the Obsessive-Compulsives in Season Three of Monk on DVD
Funny, yes, but where are all the queers? “Mr. Punctuality, that’s what they used to call me.” “Did they call you that at college?” “No, kindergarten.” And so it goes[…]
War of the Worlds: You Win Some, You Lose Some
Steven Spielberg meets Tom Cruise (again), and things get boring (again) Leave it to Steven Spielberg to screw up an alien invasion. El Stevo’s remake of the 1953 George Pal[…]
Batman Begins: Now with 50% Fewer Nipples!
It’s one step forward, two steps backward as our long national aureoline nightmare refuses to end Were you, like me, drawn as a moth to a flame to attend the[…]
Actors & Personalities · Comedy · Directors · Silents
Looking at Charlie – the Mutuals: An Occasional Series on the Life and Work of Charlie Chaplin
“Love backed by force, forgiveness sweet, brings hope and peace to Easy Street” “Fulfilling my contract with Mutual was, I suppose, the happiest period of my life.” Charlie Chaplin had[…]
African American · DVD & Blu-ray · Music & Musicals
The Good, the Bad, and the Disingenuous: Jazz on DVD
You get what you pay for, if you’re lucky
The Aviator: Marty and Leo Do Howard
It all started when his mother washed his balls
No Cellos, Please, I’m American: Mike Nichols’ Closer Is Haute Merde
All glitz and no guts
Sideways: Sideways to Hell, Maybe!
Alexander Payne’s new indie is headed in the wrong direction
“If I were different, maybe things could be the same, only different.” Leo McCarey’s Screwball Classic The Awful Truth on DVD
Cary Grant and Irene Dunne live our dreams
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