Two Overlooked Supporting Performances of 2007
What with all the year-end lists we’ve been seeing lately, I’ve been surprised at some of the omissions. Well, not all that surprised, since lists like these almost always[…]
Category: Artists
Kim Masters, Natural-Born Killer
Kim Masters, Slate’s assassin for hire, who clearly does not know the meaning of the words “You’ll never have lunch in this town again,” pisses all over Jerry Seinfeld’s major[…]
Reflecting the Theoretical Beyond: The Quay Brothers Talk About Art, Life, and The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes
“It’s hard to be intuitive when you’ve got 42 crew behind you and they’re like, ‘Look, they don’t know what to do here. They’re panicking, look at them!’” Introduction Ever[…]
Actors & Personalities · Directors · Reviews
Looking at Charlie — The Gold Rush: An Occasional Series on the Art and Life of Charlie Chaplin
Hats off, dudes! A masterpiece! The Gold Rush is Charlie Chaplin’s masterpiece — the one film in which his desire to make the audience laugh and the desire to make[…]
“Ode to a Nectarite Harvest”: On Brand Upon the Brain!
Maddin at his most masochistic — and magical For a film as deliriously fecund and fittingly bizarre as Guy Maddin’s Brand Upon the Brain! (2006), declaring the well-deservedness of its[…]
The Birds Remake – Too Obvious Casting
Hey, I love Naomi Watts as much as anyone, but you couldn’t find an actress who looks more like Tippi Hedren (The Birds‘ original star) if you tried. Will she[…]
Actors & Personalities · Artists
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: The Elusive Pleasures of Irene Dunne
“You’d never get tired of having her around, because she’d always be someone else for you.” The reasons for Irene Dunne’s continuing, undeserved obscurity are fairly well known. Nearly all[…]
Secret Window: The Erotic Gaze of Tom Lazarus
“Lazarus doesn’t pathologize the locked-in gaze, he lets us feel it.” In a pornographic film, what’s gratuitous is not sex but complexity and involvement. An erotic film can confuse us[…]
Back to Basics: Talking to Paul Verhoeven
On Black Book and his recent Hollywood defection Known for big-budget Hollywood vehicles like RoboCop, Total Recall, and Starship Troopers, Dutch director Paul Verhoeven had his greatest success with the white-hot erotic[…]
Silent Light or Absolute Miracle: An Interview with Carlos Reygadas at Cannes 2007
“I hate the idea that film is actually telling a story!” A striking division in the Cannes film festival this year: between films that offer dark, bleak (read: despairing, nihilistic)[…]
Directors · Exploitation & Erotica
Before The Green Door: The Mitchell Brothers, the Counterculture, and Hard-core’s Beginnings
It came from San Francisco This is the first of a two-part article exploring how hard-core porn evolved through the efforts of Jim and Artie Mitchell and other pioneers, with[…]
The Valorized Artist: Incorporation into the “Perpetual Art Machine” [PAM]
Art for [PAM]’s sake The “Perpetual Art machine” [PAM] is a new media project begun in 2005 that presents the work of a large number of video artists as pieces[…]
Constructive Empathy: Speaking About Magnus, Cannes 2007
“People can die without love.” The boy is unloved. Magnus has the dead expression of depression as he walks around his Estonian town, stopping in on his selfish vulgar mother,[…]
Auspicious Beginnings: Nicholson’s Leitmotif in Five Easy Pieces
“His characters have tended to be more bewildered by life and disgusted by a world that won’t cooperate.” As Jack Nicholson turns 70 (April 2007), he embodies more than ever[…]
Notes on a Scandal: On Film Criticism and Its Teachers
Will the twain ever meet? Why isn’t film criticism taught by film critics in British universities? Or to put it another way; why have we never heard of those who[…]
Uncategorized · Visual Artists
The Gorey Factor
Some still dispute whether Edward Gorey (1925-2000) was fundamentally an artist who wrote, or a writer who drew. Gorey was, in fact, both an accomplished writer and an accomplished artist[…]
Artists · Directors · Producers & Studios · Reviews
Nearer My Corman to Thee: Roger Corman Remembers, and Roger Corman Remembered
Give us another naked nurse and some more explosions! Roger Corman, who turned 81 in April 2007, has assured his place in the history books several times over. As fast[…]
Our Time of Troubles: Ken Loach on War, Irish History, and The Wind That Shakes the Barley
“But I was accused of enjoying walking up and down the red carpet! Their rage knew no bounds.” Now 70, British director Ken Loach has for over 40 years made intimate, compelling,[…]
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