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[…]
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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. 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[…]
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
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
“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[…]
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[…]
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[…]
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[…]
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[…]
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[…]
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.[…]
“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[…]
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[…]
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[…]
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
“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
You get what you pay for, if you’re lucky
It all started when his mother washed his balls
All glitz and no guts
Alexander Payne’s new indie is headed in the wrong direction
Cary Grant and Irene Dunne live our dreams
