Absurdism · Cityscapes · Drama · Literature and Film · Writers & Critics
Cosmopolis reflects the experience of a cancer patient, housed within a corporatized institution, dependent on the biases and whims of authorities, machines, and data. The book and film, poorly reviewed[…]
Absurdism · Activist & Political · Counterculture · Crime · Experimental & Underground · Fairy Tale · Politics · Writers & Critics
Abstract Interposing characters, dialogue, and symbols from Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland into a contemporary political scenario – the Chicago 7 trial – Kerry Feltham’s experimental film Chicago 70 provides[…]
Absurdism · Experimental & Underground · Indies
The Forbidden Zone was made simultaneously to David Lynch’s Eraserhead, and they indicate, even from the fringes of California filmmaking, a coming zeitgeist, soundings of something that wed the violence[…]
Absurdism · DIY · Experimental & Underground · Horror
“I felt there was a dead end to the kind of films I was making. . . . I was losing sight of reason in favor of result and so[…]
Absurdism · Comedy · Drama · Mystery
Whereas the Dude is a wholly passive protagonist, thrown begrudgingly into the chaos of conspiracy by the force of pure coincidence and designs of other, more motivated actors, Under the[…]
Absurdism · Drama · Essays · Media · Philosophy · SF & Fantasy
“Where’s the TV Guide?” – last line of the film * * * Introduction Truman Burbank exits the only world he knows. We – the television audience in the film,[…]
Absurdism · African American · Horror · Surrealism · Westerns
The theme of exploitation is evident in Nope’s multiple references to a classic film. Not Jaws, The Goonies, or Close Encounters, or any of the Western films nodded at in[…]
Absurdism · Comedy · Drama · French Cinema · Mystery · Psychology
The question becomes: is it worth trying to be free? Is the struggle fruitless? Why can’t we escape our servitude to the past, to society, to others? * * *[…]
Absurdism · Comedy · Directors
Ethan and Joel Coen have shared writing, directing, and producing credits on their collaborations until their recent hiatus from working together. Here they are on location for their 2004 comedy[…]
Each Abel-Gordon-Romy scenario is like a test, or challenge – in heroic terms, a trial – the filmmakers put to themselves, culminating in the couple going it alone for Lost[…]
I’m Thinking of Ending Things is, like so many stories, a story about a man masquerading as a story about a woman. Which ultimately makes me wonder why we need[…]
Absurdism · Comedy · Drama · Eastern European · Horror
The Cremator, only Juraj Herz’s second film, was adapted from a novel by Ladislav Fuks. It was well received, won a few awards, and was promptly banned for two decades[…]
“They had no song. Their calls were harsh and ugly. But their soaring was like an endless silent singing. What else had they to do? They were sea falcons now;[…]
The Prince: “I haven’t yet had a report from your office. What’s your work like?” The Warden: “Every night the same. Every night till the heart beats as if it[…]
Absurdism · Activist & Political · Philosophy
The film’s most problematic allegorical turn, however, is its subsequent and wholesale appropriation of Palestinian trauma. Despite the slaughter of four innocent Palestinians – by accident or not – Maoz[…]
