They Lost It at the Movies: Film Culture in the Age of Positif and Cineaste
“I can’t believe that you let those people put pictures on your skin.” C. W.’s father to C. W. Moss in Bonnie and Clyde
Category: Directors
Directors · DVD & Blu-ray · Reviews
The Beauty of Uncertainty: I Know Where I’m Going on DVD
Powell/Pressburger’s fairy tale comes to life on Criterion’s DVD
Directors · DVD & Blu-ray · Reviews
“I Like His Face”: Nicholas Ray’s Noir Classic Restored on DVD
Do you like his face?
Fellini’s Society Rehearsal: Orchestra Rehearsal Reconsidered
In which “Fellini takes us beyond our frailties and chaos”
Actors & Personalities · Directors · Reviews
Little Big Man: John Garfield Triumphs in Anatole Litvak’s Out of the Fog
Garfield wraps it up in this 1941 prole drama based on a Group Theatre production
Directors · Experimental & Underground
An Appraisal of the Films of William Burroughs, Brion Gysin, and Anthony Balch in terms of Recent Avant Garde Theory
Those crazy “cut-ups” Burroughs, Gysin, and Balch restored to their rightful place in avant-garde film history Preface This is the first serious critical study to contextualize the films of Burroughs,[…]
Directors · Experimental & Underground · Interviews · Visual Artists
An Actionist Begins to Sing: An Interview with Otto Mühl
“I have been making art for 50 years and have never allowed myself to be corrupted. Quite the opposite, I was locked up.” – Otto Mühl As I tremulously reflect[…]
Two by Sturges: Sullivan’s Travels and The Lady Eve on DVD
Criterion serves up two more deep-dish DVDs from yesteryear Sullivan’s Travels (1941) Hollywood’s self-exams are usually dipped in acid: What Price Hollywood?, A Star is Born, Sunset Boulevard, The Bad[…]
Rare Docs on French Filmmakers: Bresson and Akerman on VHS
Two of the most elusive auteurs tell all, or at least some. ROBERT BRESSON: WITHOUT A TRACE A documentary about Robert Bresson (1901?-1999), with the director cooperating – indeed, appearing[…]
South of the Chocolate Mountains: Scattered Impressions of The Hitch-Hiker
Ida Lupino: Mother of Us All! “Any rocks up there to give you a problem, darlin’? Now, Walter baby, while we’re here we might as well take the posse through.[…]
Actors & Personalities · Directors · Silents
“Why Are They All Ugly Little Men?” Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd, and Langdon: The Great Silent Clowns Reformatted
“Why are they all ugly little men?” asked Cindy, after I’d dragged her to three solid weeks of Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Harry Langdon, and Harold Lloyd at a silent[…]
The King Steps Out: Goodbye to Billy Wilder (1906-2002)
“A brain full of razor blades and a heart full of chutzpah” In his screenplay for The Fortune Cookie (1966), Billy Wilder, who has died at age 95, described ‘Whiplash[…]
Anti-Heroics: The Superman Films of Richard Lester
“While the first Superman film, directed by Richard Donner (on which Lester served as an uncredited producer), is essentially reverential and respectful towards the subject, Lester’s attitude in his second[…]
Catch Me If You Can: The Tarantino Legacy
Has Tarantino gone underground or is he revving up to zap the box office with another mega hit? Another whole year has gone by and still no new film from[…]
African American · Directors · Producers & Studios
Independent Black Filmmakers Take on Hollywood: The Distribution of Black Films
For many black auteurs seeking distribution, working around the system has proven as rewarding – and necessary – as working within it Since the popularity and commercial success of films[…]
“Sure I’ll Do It”: An Interview with Robert Wise
This movie master is still busy after all these years Few artists in the history of the medium have mastered their craft so well as has filmmaker Robert Wise. The[…]
Directors · Essays · Producers & Studios · Reviews
The Dharma Blues: Or How I Brooded but Did Not Weep Over Kubrick’s Bomb
Opening the Eyes Wide Shut censorship battles for a close look A recent viewing of Eyes Wide Shut (1999) on HBO reminded me when, three summers ago, I had counted[…]
Dionysus in Georgia: Paradjanov on DVD: The Color of Pomegranates; The Legend of Suram Fortress; Ashik Kerib; Hagop Hoynatanian; Paradjanov: A Requiem
Three features, a documentary, and a rare short showcase the peculiar pleasures of the late Russian director “Surrealism,” “incitement to suicide,” and my favorite, “traffic in art objects leading to[…]
Directors · Horror · Interviews
The Wizard of Gore: Herschell Gordon Lewis Speaks
Wit and wisdom from the man who created one of cinema’s most enduring genres JOHN WISNIEWSKI: Your background in academics was quite different from that of your partner David Friedman.[…]
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