Set my Polack free!
An apt cinematic analogy of the Polanski brouhaha can be found in Charles Laughton’s NIGHT OF THE HUNTER, namely the hyper-reactive old salt of the general store, Mrs. Icey Spoon[…]
Author: Erich Kuersten
Erich Kuersten is the gonzo-theorist behind the Acidemic Journal of Film and Media as well as an award-skipping filmmaker and freelance film and music critic whose work can be found in Bright Lights, The Weeklings, Slant, Modern Drunkard, McSweeney's, Scarlet Street, VHJ, Daily Om, Muze, Divinorum Psychonauticus, and Midnight Marquee. Write him at erichk9@aol.com. He lives in Brooklyn. Directors · Essays · Writers & Critics
All Tomorrow’s Playground Narratives: Stanley Kubrick’s Lolita
“Kubrick’s 1961 film is really the first 1970s movie.”
A Couple of Bagheads
Saw a couple baghead movies over the weekend and am still sleeping with the lights on. What’s so scary about a bag over a head? Who knows, but it works.[…]
Directors · Exploitation & Erotica · Reviews
Ed Wood Blogathon: Screwy Details in THE NIGHT OF THE GHOULS
It’s a shame that Ed Wood’s last non-skin film, NIGHT OF THE GHOULS (1959), had to go unseen all through the prime time of Wade Williams’ TV horror package. It[…]
Chabrol is in the Air (6/21-30) 10 Days’ Wonder
In case you’re asleep at your desk (like me) I should tell you there’s a whole Chabrolian hooplah going on over at the amazing Flickhead! I’ve always liked Chabrol’s weird[…]
Actors & Personalities · Directors · Reviews
Josef Von Sternberg’s Super-Masochist Sublimation Power!
Reading Joseph Aisenberg’s excellent piece (below) I’m compelled to offer my understanding of the great Von Sternberg’s stylistic obsessiveness, especially since it’s something I understand and share. (This began as[…]
Book review: You’ll Like this Film Because You’re in It, by Michel Gondry
You’ll Like this Film Because You’re in It: The Be Kind Rewind Protocol, by Michel Gondry. New York: Picturebox, 2008. Paperback $16.95. 80pp. ISBN: 0-979-41538-1. If film is a religion,[…]
Moments of Xtreme Method
Maybe this has happened to you: you’re watching a film, dum de dum, suddenly… METHOD! Where did it come from and where does it go when it’s gone? Let’s take[…]
Speaking of Critic Soul Windows…. Whither MANDINGO?
The 1970s remains, in my experience at any rate, the pinnacle for mainstream liberal understanding of slavery and the African American experience. As a child I remember being blown completely[…]
Window to the (Critic’s) Soul
Film Criticism 101: Why You Should Recycle the Promo Packet To be sure, there are many distinct methods of film criticism that might be employed with equal, and mutually exclusive,[…]
Celebrating 40 Years of Anne Heche
All stars are subject to fits of madness, and if you date a daytime TV talkshow host for long enough, who knows what kind of depths of self-confessional martyrdom you[…]
Actors & Personalities · Exploitation & Erotica · Pre-Code
Desperation and Divinity: “Help us, Mae!”
Hazy thoughts on the transition from real sex to digital hallucinations
The Branding of THE CHEAT
Kicking off the second pre-code set to come out this year, we’ve got THE CHEAT (1931, another in the “rich ne’er do well offers to ‘help’ married woman” genre. This[…]
Shock of the New
This weekend, it being lovely and all, why not go to the movies and see OBSERVE AND REPORT? The film needs money. Writer-director Jody Hill is getting a drubbing apparently,[…]
The Code and its Perfect Specimens
There’s TWO pre-code sets out for spring: Forbidden Hollywood Vol. 3 and this week comes the Pre-Code Hollywood set from Universal. None of the films quite measure up to the[…]
The Tale of 3 Pauls: Coincidence, Confusion & Sex
1. PAUL THOMAS (dir. Bad Housewives, The Masseuse, The New Devil in Mrs. Jones) – A real actor (he played Peter in the film version of Jesus Christ Superstar), Paul[…]
Against Interpretation: Synecdoche
Having recently bid a fond adieu to the post-DVD-release critical interest resurgence for Synecdoche, New York, it seems a ripe enough time for us to forget this dauntingly nebulous film[…]
Actors & Personalities · Reviews
Bride of the Joker: Thoughts on Jolie
As we prepare for Oscar once again, we see Angelina Jolie nominated for being in Clint’s “craftsmanship” film, CHANGELING. I heartily admire Jolie but, for my money, she’s never found[…]
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