Robert Castle has been contributing to Bright Lights Film Journal since 2000, He has a monthly feature, started five years ago, "A Sardine on Vacation," appearing in Unlikely Stories. In 2006, his first and only books were published: The End of Travel, a memoir (Ravenna Books); Odd Pursuits, a collection of 16 stories (Wild Child Publishing); and A Sardine on Vacation, fiction based on the feature column (Spuyten Duyvil). Since then he has devoted himself to play writing. A couple one-act plays have been performed in NYC in 2008 and 2009. In 2007, he co-wrote a play that appeared in the Philadelphia Fringe Festival. He is a Board Member for the Philadelphia Dramatist Center. 
Activist & Political · Essays · SF & Fantasy
Suddenly, Gort doesn’t seem so powerful. We’re told of his strength and given a few meager examples. We have to take Klaatu’s word for it. The universe/world policeman is a[…]
Peckinpah’s ethics and form are evinced best in his sixth film, Straw Dogs, where we also discover the key to his aesthetic of violence. David Sumner takes a sabbatical to Yorkshire,[…]
“Are we trapped like Truman? Is this why we want him to leave his world? Then what will we do? Turn off the set? Leave our society with its endless[…]
“The beauty of Being There‘s satire lies in the strategy of depicting both television and its effects in a single man whose personality absorbs friend and foe, combines idiocy and[…]
“Where many people watch a film for a true or faithful rendition of an historical event, I needed confirmation that the thing I was viewing was . . . made up!”
“Both films suggest Europe has run aground spiritually, as they both depict the Catholic Church and its representatives to be as bloodthirsty as the conquistadors.”
“That what we now call ‘the media’ could be a threat to society was not necessarily an unknown topic before television. From the 1930s, movies had recognized the manipulative side of the press.”
Lists · Movies · Writers & Critics
“I want my favorites to get the high ratings — my judgments are being challenged by anonymous forces whom I cannot confront.”
“His plan mirrors Johnny’s, that is, pieces of the plan are known to one person: Johnny and Stanley; and not until the end do we see most of their pieces come into place.
“What is this New York-ness?”
“To be a star, or thought of as a star, was not enough.”
“He is an itinerant hero, a lone samurai whose mask is his blindness, a mask that hides his many strengths. I am always looking for new cinematic vistas. New directors,[…]
Actors & Personalities · Genres
All movies have the potential to become a non-movie, particularly when the movie showcases a cause, a disease, a celebrity, an actor’s virtuosity, a play or musical. The movie becomes[…]
“A Hollywood Satan is a persistent devil” There is a simple, plain logic to sequels. Capitalize on the prodigious success of the original movie. Sometimes the box office success of[…]
“In a single bold stroke, Ruiz films the novel according to the play of images, feelings, scents, and tastes that Marcel experiences.” 1. An attempt to film Proust’s Remembrance of[…]
“Why not sock the audiences early with the ‘fuck her in the ass’ line?” I do not look forward to any book I am reading being turned into a novel.1[…]
The show must go on Never has a movie better fitted a sociological theory than The Truman Show (1999) to the work of Erving Goffman. Best known for Presentation of[…]
More fun in the new (old) world
In which Welles deflates expectations of greatness and transcends them
