Artists · Directors · Interviews · Movies · Reviews
“I do not have the serenity of women. But I admire it.” Pedro Almodovar’s new film Volver (Return) features an unusual number of deaths. Penelope Cruz, in the best performance[…]
Scorsese gets all Irish on our asses, and it works I admit it. I thought Marty had lost it. I thought he had gone all lazy and cute and Hollywood,[…]
Artists · Interviews · Stars · Writers & Critics
“Please note that even Margo Channing, threatening a ‘bumpy night’ for her hapless guests, merely fumingly forecasts. It’s a gesture of mind, not body.” Introduction Camille Paglia, the scholar and[…]
High camp in three minutes or less The idea that bigger is better may play better in the lexicon of size queens than in le cinema contemporaire. Hollywood’s insistence on[…]
Tom Sutpen’s classy review of Sleazoid Express, by Bill Landis and Michelle Clifford, certainly brought back the memories, to wit: After I came back from Vietnam in December 1969 I[…]
Edward Copeland at The House Next Door has written a great post concerning film monologues. After considering what makes a great film monologue, he describes in detail 5 stellar examples.[…]
Painting influences film. Film influences painting. The portraits of Los Angeles painter and performance artist Stacy Lande (pronounced, “lan-dee”) appear equally influenced by 19th Century Symbolism, 20th Century Expressionism, and[…]
Exploitation & Erotica · Writers & Critics
Here in America we have something that, with the straightest of faces, we call our Film Heritage. What people usually mean when they invoke this solemn, unconscionably sentimental honorific is[…]
The incredibly beautiful Julie Adams, paramour of The Creature From the Black Lagoon (Jack Arnold, 1953), and object of many adolescent fantasies including, obviously, my own. What a pleasure it[…]
RECOMMENDED READING: In the September/October 2006 issue of Film Comment, writer/director Paul Schrader’s article on, “The Film Canon – What Constitutes a Cinematic Masterpiece.” This lengthy, absorbing essay has something[…]
Actors & Personalities · Silents
Anyone infatuated with silent film, like me, is always on the lookout for that one pre-talkie film that will win over the unconverted, and I think I’ve found a mighty[…]
SF & Fantasy · Writers & Critics
The classic ’60s sci-fi anthology series, The Outer Limits, was conceived by eccentric writer/producer Leslie Stevens. How eccentric?? It was Stevens who later wrote and directed Incubus (1965), starring William[…]
When the Gray Lady interviews someone as cute as Jude Law, she doesn’t take off the kid gloves. If anything, she puts on an extra pair. In a recent article[…]
SF & Fantasy · TV & Streaming · Writers & Critics
Playwright. Screenwriter. Producer. Known primarily for two major achievments: (1) He wrote the screenplay for Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960). (2) He was the producer and chief writer for the first[…]
You know the old gag: set a dozen chimpanzees in front of a set of typewriters, and sooner or later they would type out every sentence in the English language,[…]
“I didn’t want to live under the shadow of other films. I want to exist on my own.” Introduction Like a mashup of cinematic countrymen Georges Melies and Jacques Tati,[…]
Grand Guignol, Korean style Introduction One of Korea’s most commercially successful young directors, Park Chan-wook is a polarizing figure in the disputatious world of international film circles. Though most acknowledge[…]
Directors · Experimental & Underground
pa·limp·sest: n., Writing material (as a parchment or tablet) used one or more times after earlier writing has been erased; something having usually diverse layers or aspects apparent beneath the[…]
Actors & Personalities · Interviews
“Get Burt!” Introduction For too many people, Burt Young is simply “That Guy from Rocky,” but to a cult that’s included the likes of Actor’s Studio founder Lee Strasberg, Sergio[…]
Actors & Personalities · Reviews
“Speaking of impurity: what was Rita Hayworth’s image supposed to be in the ’40s?” What did we use to think of other countries? The question occurred to me while watching[…]
