Actors & Personalities · Interviews
“Strong, Righteous, and Rustic”: An Interview with Joel McCrea
“I told Hitchcock, ‘I do miss my horse.'”
Category: Artists
The Complete A of Altruism: In Which the Selfish Gene Explains Everything
Except whether to laugh or cry
The Tale of 3 Pauls: Coincidence, Confusion & Sex
1. PAUL THOMAS (dir. Bad Housewives, The Masseuse, The New Devil in Mrs. Jones) – A real actor (he played Peter in the film version of Jesus Christ Superstar), Paul[…]
Actors & Personalities · Reviews
Bride of the Joker: Thoughts on Jolie
As we prepare for Oscar once again, we see Angelina Jolie nominated for being in Clint’s “craftsmanship” film, CHANGELING. I heartily admire Jolie but, for my money, she’s never found[…]
OMF Godard There’s a Hitch in my stitch
Over time it becomes more and more obvious that as a species humans really aren’t much more than a bunch of monkeys. And our monkey brains, motivated with banana dreams[…]
Is Cheeta an Imposter?
As reported in the Los Angeles Times – In Hollywood, “even the animals lie about their age.” Cheeta may not be 75 years old. He may not even be[…]
Hotter Younger Sister Thing #7: Gail Patrick as Cornelia Bullock in MY MAN GODFREY
I know Cornelia isn’t necessarily the “younger” sister in Gregory La Cava’s classic screwball comedy, MY MAN GODFREY (1936), but she was born three years earlier (than Lombard) and damn[…]
Actors & Personalities · Reviews
Cooler Younger Sister Effect: Barbara Rush in MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION
The recent Criterion release of MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION (1954) makes a good–not great, but still worthy–addition to our cooler younger sister collection. This 1954 Douglas Sirk soap was a big,[…]
Out of His Head: Metaphysical Escape Attempts in the Screenplays of Charlie Kaufman
“Kaufman’s homunculi schema is an implicit mockery of our bottomless ignorance of the nature of consciousness.”
Griffith’s Great American Pastoral: Location and Meaning in Way Down East
“The air is saturated with their feelings for each other as they listen to ‘the distant music of the falls,’ the same falls, of course, that will threaten to kill her.”
Hotels and Homelands: After Ken and Rosa
Neither will be the same
Activist & Political · Directors · Interviews
Maps and Movies: Talking with Deepa Mehta
“I think it’s really important for you, or anybody who wants to be a filmmaker, to really be honest with yourself.”
Jean-Pierre Melville, Director: Notes on the French Auteur’s Career
“The film was shot in what would become a blueprint for the director’s production style — without authorization, studio resources, or sufficient funds.”
Robert Ryan: A Moon for the Misbegotten
“I have been in films pretty well everything I am dedicated to fighting against.”
Spike Lee’s “Uniquely American [Di]vision”: Race and Class in 25th Hour
“Is it simply that the hero must be white for a mainstream American audience to care for him, or for the mainstream critical establishment to value Lee’s work?”
On How Things Seem: The Views of Robert Warshow
“Where Warshow distinguishes himself from Kracauer and other sociological critics is his reaction to the ‘absorbing immediacy’ of films.”
Of Bullies and Blood Drinkers: Talking to Tomas Alfredson about Let the Right One In
“I think the most horrifying images are the ones you make yourself. Is there someone standing behind the door, or is it just two shoes standing there?”
John Cassavetes: The First Dogme Director?
“The major point of convergence between Cassavetes and the Dogme movement is an oppositional realist form that blurs the boundaries between being and performing.”
Actors & Personalities · Comedy · Directors
Looking at Charlie: City Lights: An Occasional Series on the Life and Work of Charlie Chaplin
“If you could only see me as I really am, not as I appear but as I really am, as I am in my heart.”
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