Frank Capra’s American Dream (Kenneth Bowser, 1997)
This beloved film artist was driven as much by self-doubt as by his belief in the power of the “little man” The rise of Frank Capra from sickly, abused, impoverished[…]
Category: Artists
Thanhouser Classics: Long-Lost Pleasures from the Dawn of Cinema
Thanhouser produced 1,000+ titles between 1909 and 1917, but less than 200 survive. Silent cinema is often written off, even by cinephiles who pride themselves on their intimate knowledge of[…]
LGBT & Queer · Reviews · Visual Artists
Devoutly Elusive: Love Is the Devil (John Maybury, 1998)
Timid top George Dyer meets pushy bottom Francis Bacon, with art and death the inevitable result In a typical moment in this artful biopic of Francis Bacon, the ultra-queer painter[…]
Actors & Personalities · LGBT & Queer
The Sissy Gaze in American Cinema
Shed a tear for that shimmering, noble, lost creature of the cinema — the sissy! What’s wrong with Hollywood? Nowadays you hear everyone asking that. This very morning, I heard[…]
Goosing Mother Goose: The Fairy Tales of Tex Avery
“Fairy tales, unlike any other form of literature, direct the child to discover his identity and calling, and they also suggest what experiences are needed to develop his character further.” –[…]
The Spirit Moves: The World of Kenji Mizoguchi
The roots of artistry are often sought in autobiography, and for filmmaker Kenji Mizoguchi, this seems an especially appropriate place to start. Mizoguchi, with Ozu and Kurosawa one of the three undisputed masters from[…]
A Quickie Look at the Life & Career of Tex Avery
As if radically rethinking the Hollywood cartoon weren’t enough, our boy Tex can also be thanked for inventing or perfecting Porky Pig, Daffy Duck, and perhaps the greatest character in[…]
Oscar Fischinger’s Visual Music: Ten Short Films by the Master Animator on DVD
Film historians have made much, and rightly so, of the enormous influence of 1930s German and Austrian émigrés on the American film scene and by extension on American culture in[…]
Kurosawa on Video: Stray Dog, The Bad Sleep Well, The Lower Depths
Three of Kurosawa’s scathing critiques of Japanese society past and present – in beautiful new video transfers. Akira Kurosawa has been seen as one of the three components of a[…]
Directors · Exploitation & Erotica · LGBT & Queer
Seduction Is Universal: Thoughts on Radley Metzger
The master of Euro-erotica is starting to get his due in recent revivals The “golden age” of porn during the ’60s and ’70s was more fool’s gold than real for[…]
Exploitation & Erotica · Producers & Studios · Reviews
Albert Zugsmith’s Opium Dreams: Confessions of an Opium Eater
Can one man’s brain contain Written on the Wind, The Incredible Shrinking Man, LSD, I Hate You!, and Confessions of an Opium Eater? If the man is Albert Zugsmith it could.[…]
Last Laugh: Was Hitchcock’s Masterpiece Vertigo a Private Joke?
“On one level, Vertigo bewitches us with eerie fascination; on another, it leads us on a wild goose chase in search of Scottie’s character. But could the latter really have been Hitchcock’s[…]
Directors · Interviews · Silents
Angel in Exile, Part II: Talking with Pioneering Director Allan Dwan
Outtakes from an Interview with Dwan, December 1980 * * * Fairbanks, Shirley Temple, Ronald Reagan, all the “pansies and poseurs of Hollywood” – no one was safe from the[…]
Directors · Experimental & Underground · LGBT & Queer
Slapstick Realist: The Cinema of Paul Morrissey
Junkies, queens, washed-up B-movie hags – these are the scintillating “family values” advocates that campmeister and right-wing Republican Morrissey serves up. * * * Much of the myth, if we[…]
Actors & Personalities · Silents
Ollie’s Somersault: Thoughts on Oliver Hardy (and Stan Laurel)
(from Triste, Solitario y final (Sad, Alone, Final), a novel by Osvaldo Soriano, Einaudi Editore “Roll it!” Makeup had changed the fat man’s face into a clownish mask. He’s in an enormous[…]
Actors & Personalities · Silents
Eternal Child: The Many Meanings of a Mask (on Stan Laurel)
Laurel’s mask – the goofy, sweet-natured grown-up child – had its roots in the classic commedia dell’arte. The reasons why Stan Laurel is always entered in film annals as an[…]
Actors & Personalities · Silents
Stealing the Clown’s Clothes: Stan Laurel’s Relationship with Chaplin
Chaplin’s most famous “creation” was his little tramp – but Stan Laurel did it first, as Chaplin knew all too well. One of the most troubling aspects of Stan Laurel’s[…]
Actors & Personalities · Asian · Historical & Epic · Reviews
“Richer Films . . .” Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai (1954)
This epic set in the 16th century deals with war, honor, courage, and yes, that homo subtext ever present in male bonding movies – punctuated by Toshiro Mifune’s bold butt-baring[…]
Directors · Documentaries · Experimental & Underground · Reviews
Tender Fictions: Barbara Hammer’s Truth Club
Barbara Hammer continues the groundbreaking investigations into gender that started with Nitrate Kisses – this time using autobiography to tell her truths. Barbara Hammer is best known for her groundbreaking[…]
Actors & Personalities · Pre-Code · Producers & Studios · Reviews
Public Enemy: Warner Bros. in the Pre-Code Era
Nobody “did” the Depression, or sexual excess, or populist uprisings, better than the Brothers Warner. Conventional wisdom says that before the taboo-busting ’60s, all deviance in American filmmaking was suppressed.[…]
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