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. I know Cornelia isn’t necessarily the “younger” sister in Gregory La Cava’s classic screwball comedy, MY MAN GODFREY (1936), but she was born three years earlier (than Lombard) and damn[…]
Speaking of THE VALLEY OF ELAH, what about the Uncanny Valley, hat “misrecognition” which makes us creeped out by CGI animated humans? The proliferation of CGI has always fascinated me[…]
Preparing to go see Revolutionary Road tomorrow, I’m scoping out the RT and noticing the words “craftsmanship,” “Oscar-bait,” “meticulously crafted but emotionally empty,” and so forth… Oscar bait becomes oscarbate,[…]
Actors & Personalities · Reviews
The recent Criterion release of MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION (1954) makes a good–not great, but still worthy–addition to our cooler younger sister collection. This 1954 Douglas Sirk soap was a big,[…]
“Like Tim Burton and Terry Gilliam, or the Scott brothers Ridley and Tony, Fincher is an auteur-facile, an auteur of illusory depth.”
Masculine Singular: French New Wave Cinema, by Geneviève Sellier. Translated by Kristin Ross. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2008. Paperback, $22.95, 280pp. ISBN: 0822341921. When it comes to feminist film[…]
“The air is saturated with their feelings for each other as they listen to ‘the distant music of the falls,’ the same falls, of course, that will threaten to kill her.”
That’s precisely what a number of folks are attempting to ascertain in light of the accolades this British/US film (shot in the underbelly of India) is receiving. It very well[…]
What is it that makes the hotter, smarter younger sister so much more sophisticated, precocious, intelligent and adorable than the older lead in movies? Maybe it’s because she’s free of[…]
In the rush to “clean up” the images of classic cinema, to remove every speck and splice digitally, etc., are we not also losing something? What about the blurry,[…]
Remember a couple years ago when C. Jerry Kutner was singing the praises of Powell’s AGE of CONSENT right here in Bright Lights After Dark? Both the films on this[…]
I’ve survived the family Xmas, and what saved us was the power of the movies. This got me to thinking about all the best dysfunctional family holiday films–I don’t mean[…]
Here’s a catchy little number that’s not on DVD and should have/could have been included in that Tennessee Wiliams boxed set of a few years back. There’s not a lot[…]
In addition to losing Forry Ackerman (see below), we lost another icon of the classic horror genre, Beverly Garland, this weekend. Garland was a true Hollywood survivor, battling and slinking[…]
It’s a birthday today for DARYL HANNAH, beloved uber-babe whose been immoralized in at least two classic films: Bladerunner and Kill Bill. Even if these were the only two roles[…]
Actors & Personalities · Reviews
Time keeps on slippin’ and the internet expands fast as the universe itself, which means we should all link to each other, lest distance grow long. I’ve had transcendence on[…]
Finally saw RACHEL GETTING MARRIED, which is like a Demme film reunion party that everyone’s invited to, but after you leave, you never see any of them again. And there’s[…]
The Impossible David Lynch Todd McGowan. New York: Tarcher/Group, 2007. Paperback, $26.50, 280pp. ISBN: 0-231-139551 The wacky world of David Lynch has seemed to grow into a cottage industry in[…]
I’ve been revisiting the Sean Connery Bonds lately, on widescreen projection, where the immaculate detail and lush photography of airports, country roads, mosques, and Ealing Studio interiors come alive. But[…]
If you can’t remember, I’ll tell you, tonight is that greatest of all time travel movies, La Jatee (1961) at 1 AM EST on Turner Classic Movies. It’s short, it’s[…]
