A Mannequin’s Face: Joan Crawford
Joan Crawford was born on this day in 1905. Our buddy Howard Mandelbaum wrote this incisive tribute to her in the 1970s. We reprint it here for your reading pleasure.[…]
Category: Artists
Directors · Horror · SF & Fantasy
Weird and Pissed Off: Field Notes on John Carpenter’s First Fifteen Years
“It’s better to be a human being than an imitation.”- John Carpenter, on The Thing * * * 1. Begin with sound. Begin with Assault on Precinct 13 (1976). A[…]
African · Experimental & Underground · New Media · Video Artists
Senses of Times and Times of Death: Contemporary African Video Works at the National Museum of African Art
We might presume the temporal slips at stake in an African video exhibit are squarely political or anticolonial, but the videos’ slow, reverse, and repeated motions also link politico-economic disorder[…]
Designers · Interviews · LGBT & Queer
Designing Desire: Production Designer Samuel Deshors Talks about Call Me by Your Name
Call Me by Your Name was nominated for four Academy Awards this year, including Best Picture, Best Lead Actor, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Original Song. In this interview, production designer[…]
Directors · Essays · Philosophy
Asking the Wrong Questions: Reiteration and Doubling in David Lynch’s Lost Highway, Mullholland Drive, and Inland Empire
“Mystery is good, confusion is bad. And there’s a big difference between the two.” – David Lynch * * * A survey of the critical literature pertaining to David Lynch’s[…]
Actors & Personalities · Comedy
No One Gets In Alive! Kicking Down Doors with the Marx Brothers
The Brothers don’t enter into sanctimonious class systems, organizational institutions, or drawing rooms to assimilate and enjoy the fruits of its privileges either; they gain access, enact a savage modus[…]
Animation · Designers · Fashion
Tear That Dress Off: Cinderella (1950) and Disney’s Critique of Postwar Fashion
Disney’s Cinderella was released on this day, February 15, in 1950. We celebrate her “birth” by reposting Emanuele Lugli’s witty tribute/takedown of Cinderella via her – and the period’s –[…]
Being the Story: Talking with Fabien Riggall about Secret Cinema
The secrecy part of Secret Cinema relates very much to this digital and automated world that we are living in. People increasingly want to get away from screens. They want[…]
Actors & Personalities · Franchises & Series · Interviews
A Man for All Seasons: An Interview with Dean Cain
I feel like I get to go and play at it now. I mean, I take it very seriously and I do the work. But it feels more like play[…]
Actors & Personalities · Festivals & Awards · Historical & Epic
Keeping It Royal: Oscar Loves British Monarchs Much More Than American Presidents
The moral of this particular dose of Oscar reality: You don’t have to be a royal to grab the Academy’s attention, but it sure helps if you’re pretending to be[…]
Margaret Sullavan and the Art of Dying
Note: One of our favorite actresses, Margaret Sullavan, was born on May 16, 1909, which means she’d be 111 if she’d lived. Not that she’d necessarily have wanted to, as[…]
Biopic · Directors · Drama · Experimental & Underground
James Franco’s The Disaster Artist: Hollywood Caught in the Act of Kissing Its Own Ass
“Hollywood oddballs are like everything else in Hollywood. Don’t look too close.” * * * Greg Sestero’s now reasonably famous book The Disaster Artist, co-written by Tom Bissell, is much[…]
Fatal Instincts: The Dangerous Pout of Gloria Grahame
“I’m a girl who loves to be manhandled! After all, what are a few contusions or abrasions if you get the man you love?”
On Sacred Deers and Ghost Stories: Talking with Production Designer Jade Healy
When it comes to design, I always try to get into the heads of the characters and then I try to map out the history of the location itself. Who[…]
Actors & Personalities · Drama · DVD & Blu-ray · Silents
Boxcars, Beery, and a Dutch Bob: William Wellman’s Beggars of Life (1928) on Blu-ray
What we see in Brooks and Beery on the screen is a mixup of the actors’ hardwired personalities and those contrived for their roles, but this is the sort of[…]
Directors · Documentaries · Experimental & Underground
Memories and Confessions: On the Filmography of Terence Davies
Davies – who can be described as a cultural conservative but never a simple nostalgist – wears his affection for his forgotten eras on his sleeve, generally eschewing close-ups in[…]
Book Review: Fucking Innocent: The Early Films of Wes Anderson, by John Andrew Fredrick
Fucking Innocent: The Early Films of Wes Anderson, by John Andrew Fredrick. $15.95, 288 pp. Rare Bird Books, 2017. The first thing to note about John Andrew Fredrick’s book is[…]
Actors & Personalities · Film Technology & History · Silents
Florence Lawrence and the Truth Behind “We Nail a Lie” (Famous Ads, 1910)
Ever since the ad appeared, there have been unanswered questions: who or what was behind the rumors of Florence Lawrence’s death? Did these rumors start because the fans of her[…]
Actors & Personalities · Comedy · Directors
Jerry Lewis: b. Joseph Levitch, Newark, New Jersey, 1926-2017, res. Hollywood
“The major point of convergence between Cassavetes and the Dogme movement is an oppositional realist form that blurs the boundaries between being and performing.”
Exploitation & Erotica · Franchises & Series · Producers & Studios
Surf’s Up! Beyond the Beach: AIP’s Beach Party Movies
With summer starting to fade, what better way to while away the hours than by revisiting the beach, as imagined by exploitation studio American International Pictures in the early 1960s?[…]
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