Happy Birthday, Doris Day! (b. April 3, 1922) All Her Films, Ranked and Annotated
When I wrote my piece in praise of Doris Day for Bright Lights back in December 2015, I had seen about half of her thirty-nine movies. Now that I’ve seen[…]
Category: Artists
Superman v Objectivism: Forget Lex Luthor and Brainiac; Could Ayn Rand Be Superman’s Biggest Enemy?
Much of the reason for the continued popularity of Christopher Reeve’s portrayal was the commitment he gave to the character irrespective of whether he was saving Lois from falling to[…]
Biopic · Directors · Writers & Critics
“Narrative is dead. We’re mourning it.” Intertextuality and Authorship in Abel Ferrara’s Pasolini (2014)
Rather than trying to frame the narrative as a means of truly understanding the mind of its subject, the film emphasizes that the central figure himself controls access to his[…]
Activist & Political · Actors & Personalities · LGBT & Queer
Get Real: How Much Reality Do We Want in Acting?
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.[…]
Jerry Lewis and the Gender of Work
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
The Elephant in the Graveyard: The Testament of John Derek
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[…]
What Makes Them So Successful? A Look into the Philosophy Behind the Coens’ Filmography
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
Challenging the Censor: An Interview with Indian Political Documentarian Rakesh Sharma
“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
George Lucas’s Wildest Vision: Retrofuturist Auteurism in Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002)
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[…]
The Propagation of Empathy, the Absence of Bathos: On Alexander Payne’s Sideways (2004)
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[…]
A Legacy of Hope: Andrzej Wajda, 1926-2016
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[…]
Experimenting with the Horrific: A Reappraisal and Retrospective of the Films of Tobe Hooper
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
Two from Flicker Alley: Isn’t Life Wonderful (Griffith, 1924) and Chaplin’s Essanay Comedies, 1915-16
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[…]
On Café Society and Woody Allen – Last seen in search of lost innocence, and rich wood paneling!
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
“What Remains When You Die”: Nanni Moretti Talks About My Mother (Mia Madre) (2015)
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.[…]
M. Night Shyamalan’s Terror Trilogy: Signs (2002), The Village (2004), and The Happening (2008)
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[…]
Happy Birthday to Cinema’s Great Bad Boy: Peter O’Toole (8/2/32-12/14-13)
“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
Innocence on the Open Market: Cormac McCarthy, The Counselor, and Artistic Agency
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 Deer Hunter Debate: Artistic License and Vietnam War Remembrance
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[…]
Happy Birthday, Dark Angel: Notes on R. W. Fassbinder (born May 31, 1945)
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[…]
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