Directors · Festivals & Awards · Interviews
From a Line of Ancestors: Talking with Doris Dörrie and Natasha Arthy
“We in the West trample on them.”
Category: Artists
Festivals & Awards · Writers & Critics
Twenty-One Years in the Midday Sun: Revisiting Roger Ebert’s Cannes
Here’s lookin’ at you, Roger
Dream Documents of Civil War: Three Films by Miklós Jancsó
“Jancsó’s controlled aesthetic acts as a dissonance that vibrates expressively with scenes of violence, torture, and shame.”
Actors & Personalities · Directors · Interviews
Birds Do It, Bees Do It: Isabella Rossellini Talks About Bug Sex, Human Sex, and Green Porno
“A laugh and information!”
Crime · Reviews · Writers & Critics
Critics Cornered: On Reviewers’ Reactions to David Ayres’ Street Kings
“Anyone who speaks unsanitized thought is going to lose.”
Happy 100th Birthday Bette
Bette Davis would have been a hundred this past Saturday, and over on her indispensible Sunset Gun, Kim Morgan celebrates via a round-up of some of diva Davis’s most bad-ass[…]
The Epic Actor – Charlton Heston (1923-2008)
To see Charlton Heston in person was to realize that some people are born to be movie stars. He had a larger-than-life presence on-screen. And off-screen as well. In 1980,[…]
Actors & Personalities · Pre-Code
Miriam Hopkins & the Pre-Code Menage-a-trois
Imagine Angelina Jolie and Jennifer Aniston deciding to live together and share Brad Pitt! How hot would that be? But no, now we live in a much more (as in[…]
Favorite Screenwriting Device No. 42 – The Sympathetic Listener
Much has been written about the scene in There Will Be Blood in which Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) confesses his innermost feelings to his purported half-brother, Henry Brands (Kevin J.[…]
Directors · Experimental & Underground
Peter Watkins and the Politics of Expression: On Edvard Munch (1974) and The Freethinker (1994)
“Watkins’ filmmaking bravely seeks an insistence on personal truth his own and the viewer’s.”
Only the Pictures: We’re All Editing, Ed
But about this audit
Composers · Essays · Music & Musicals · Sound & Language · Writers & Critics
False Consonance and False Consciousness: Contrarian Notes on the Ideology of Film Music
“Defenseless against music, I must submit to its despotism and, depending on its whim, be god or garbage.”
Wes’s World: Riding Wes Anderson’s Vision Limited
Paging crackle, energy, and wit. Come in, please.
Actors & Personalities · Essays
Presence and Absence: Toward a Working Conception of Screen Characters
“A basic consistency on the actor’s part remains uniquely convincing as character, no matter how simplistic that character’s definition.”
Rebel, Rebel: Gregg Araki Reflects on The Living End and His Totally F***ed Up Career at Sundance 2008
“My whole thing, all my life, was march to your own drummer.”
Nuts to the Squirrels and Roués Redeemed: The Discreet Charm of Charles Boyer
“In Boyer, self-belief and theatrical technique are seamlessly fused together.”
Actors & Personalities · Essays · SF & Fantasy
A Boy and His Dog: On Will Smith, Apocalypse, and I Am Legend
“Neville remains wholly oblivious, falling into each trap the ferals set … “
Actors & Personalities · Music & Musicals
Ode to Lili: And Leslie Caron
“This MGM movie is studio-system filmmaking at its most protective, and it’s designed entirely to showcase Leslie Caron …”
Remembering Maila Nurmi (1921-2008)
Maila Nurmi, aka Vampira – actress, comedienne, artist, and horror hostess – was one of the most interesting and extraordinary persons I have ever met. MAILA KNEW EVERYBODY The first[…]
Daniel Day Lewis… the New Dark God of Actors
If you’re as hung up on the mythic greatness of THERE WILL BE BLOOD as I am (if you haven’t seen it, may I advise you do so?) then you’re[…]
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