Norma Shearer: The Primrose Path to MGM Stock
“She hovered somewhere between the realest of realities and the most blatant of impersonations.”
Category: Artists
Ebert Hit Eject
Unless you’ve been living in a film industry bubble the last few days, you’re probably aware of Roger Ebert’s now (in)famous review of Tru Loved, which he wrote based upon[…]
Robin Wood Retires
Everyone who writes about film can name other writers about film who have influenced them. For me, the big three are Andrew Sarris, Raymond Durgnat, and Robin Wood. Wood, author[…]
The Commodification of Anna Faris
I first noticed Anna Faris in the Scary Movie franchise in which she parodieamong other things, Neve Campbell’s role in Scream. Following that, Faris provided expert comic relief playing supporting[…]
Jack Hill Speaks
Director Jack Hill took the time to send along his thoughts on Noah Berlatsky’s article “Men in Women-in-Prison: Masochism, Feminism, Fetish” in the most recent issue of Bright Lights. Hill,[…]
Counterculture · Directors · Interviews
The Mole Man: Going Underground with Alejandro Jodorowsky
“I think Spielberg is the son from when Walt Disney fucked Minnie Mouse.”
The Kids Are Not All Right: Larry Clark on WassupRockers and More
“For me it was like, How do Imanipulate this kid so he can do this and he’s comfortable?, which isall part of directing.”
Directors · Horror · Interviews
Object in Mirror May Be Closer Than It Appears: Stuart Gordon Talks about Horror, the Absurd, and Stuck
“These two people are stuck in life.”
A Real Director’s Cut: Cassavetes Edits Himself in The Killing of a Chinese Bookie
It is the subjective fever dreamof a psyche carving fantasy out of reality as he goes.”
Directors · Essays · Writers & Critics
Counter Clockwise: Or Lay Quiet Awhile with Ed and Id Molotov
Re-examining the Crossed Wires in Kubrick’s and Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange
Directors · Documentaries · Interviews
Paradise Betrayed: Talking with Terence Davies About Of Time and the City
“You can’t stop time. It stops you.”
George Sanders: A Mitigated Cad
“Where on the screen I aminvariably a sonofabitch, in life I am a dear, dear boy.”
The Rote High School Persecution of Ellen Page
There’s something definitely original about the scattershot editing collage techniques of THE TRACEY FRAGMENTS (2007), getting a belated US DVD release after a year in Canada and the broken film[…]
FilmCrit and the Skidoo Epiphany
Over the weekend I read an essay on J.D. Salinger which Janet Malcom published in the New York Review of Books back in that now lost and fabled time, June[…]
Directors · Experimental & Underground
Some Remarks on Bruce Conner and Report
Entering into negotiations with executives at Time, Inc. over the sale of a film he’d shot in Dallas on November 22, 1963, Abraham Zapruder was adamant that his 26.6 seconds[…]
The Pantheon of Macho-Fey
Sounds like some evil tournament Bruce Li would enter to find the man who killed his master, but no – “macho-fey” is a term coined by the celestial Kim Morgan[…]
Great Dads of the Seventies #13: Jack Nicholson in THE DEPARTED
Just because THE DEPARTED doesn’t really seem to occur in the 1970s doesn’t mean Nicholson’s amazing performance as the Irish criminal top dog villain, Frank Costello, doesn’t count. Nor doesn’t[…]
Historical & Epic · Writers & Critics
Bowling for America: Robert Warshow, There Will Be Blood, and the Topography of Desire
“The king-times are fast finishing. There will be blood shed like water, and tears like mist. But the peoples will conquer in the end. I shall not live to see it, but I foresee it.”
African American · Directors · Interviews
A Quiet Storm: Charles Burnett on Namibia and His Post-Killer of Sheep Career
“Each film requires for me its own approach.”
Directors · Interviews · LGBT & Queer · Memoir
Man with a Movie Camera: Visiting Jonathan Caouette
“I could somehow control my own story.”
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