Activist & Political · Actors & Personalities · LGBT & Queer
Isn’t it the job of an actor to play what he or she is not? * * * It was Jeffrey Tambor who got me thinking about authenticity in acting.[…]
The gender of work in the work films is a spectrum that includes both the neutered worker of The Bellboy and The Errand Boy and the feminized worker of Cinderfella,[…]
Actors & Personalities · Essays
Everywhere she was, there was Eden. – Mark Twain * * * So this is what it’s like on the other side. Not exactly how I pictured it. Nothing like[…]
The truth is that they tend toward philosophical absurdism, rather than nihilism, and this perspective is what either makes or breaks their film in terms of commercial appeal. The draw,[…]
Activist & Political · Asian · Directors · Interviews
“India has always assigned a special sort of power to film . . . an extraordinary power to corrupt gullible masses has been given to cinema.” – Rakesh Sharma *[…]
Directors · Film Technology & History · SF & Fantasy
The very foundation of Lucas’s cinematic philosophy is newness – this comes through in his obsession with technological possibilities, and through his genuinely childlike pursuit of spectacle and wonder. His[…]
Regret is perhaps Payne’s greatest theme. The continual human dramedy, the elegiac comedy, a country full of people with limited potential raised to think everyone is special, confined souls struggling[…]
He studied and documented his country’s history, politics, and national myths in both film and theater, and was a beloved mentor to countless young filmmakers. * * * Andrzej Wajda[…]
Hooper’s interest in horror articulates itself primarily in formal invention: how can the frame be used to incapacitate viewer expectations? * * * Tobe Hooper’s most recent feature film, Djinn[…]
Comedy · Directors · Drama · DVD & Blu-ray · Silents
From his very beginnings as a filmmaker, Griffith understood the efficacy of location shooting. Putting actors into real landscapes and streets not only went to authenticating the narrative but had[…]
Art doesn’t have to be autobiographical, does it? Woody can write about the kid he wasn’t as well as the kid he was, can’t he? * * * I haven’t[…]
Directors · Drama · Interviews
Editor’s note: This is the second director interview by our correspondent Amir Ganjavie, this one conducted at the 2015 Toronto Film Festival. The film discussed, My Mother, is being released in the U.S.[…]
Shyamalan’s three films portray an imbalanced and endangered world; they engage to varying degrees with the imagery and anxiety surrounding terrorist attacks in the wake of September 11, 2001, while[…]
“Arriving in Los Angeles for the film’s premiere there, he quickly blotted his copybook by hurling a drink at the producer Sam Spiegel, the most powerful man in Hollywood at the time. Spiegel had ‘massacred’ Lawrence, O’Toole remarked, by cutting twenty minutes of it in order ‘to sell more fucking ice cream to the punters.'”
Drama · Essays · Writers & Critics
Today (July 20) is Cormac McCarthy’s birthday. He’s 83. We send birthday wishes his way by reposting Sophia Nguyen’s persuasive discussion of McCarthy and the book/film of The Counselor, which[…]
Activist & Political · Drama · Essays · War · Writers & Critics
The response to The Deer Hunter amounted to a serious public debate over the Vietnam War that extended beyond film critics to engage a wide range of viewers. It wasn’t[…]
The homely, jowly face, dictatorial blatherings, and ragged leather chaps masked one of the great makers of modern cinema Few filmmakers lived their private lives more publicly than Rainer Werner[…]
Designers · Historical & Epic · Horror
The Witch thrives on its damning details. It seems authentically claustrophobic and austere. Threats to faith take their toll. The untouched surroundings and natural lighting allow each period detail revelrous[…]
Actors & Personalities · Exploitation & Erotica · Interviews
It’s time again to tip our hat to Pam Grier, who’s 67 today (born May 26, 1949), by reposting Steve Ryfle’s interview. Here the incomparable star of Foxy Brown and[…]
The subtle beauty of John M. Stahl’s early ’30s work is revealed by the exquisite 35mm prints screening at New York’s Museum of Modern Art in the series Universal Pictures: Restorations and[…]
